Whether you are already a freelance consultant or are interested in how you can get paid handsomely for your advice, keep reading to discover more about business consulting. Including:

• What Is a Business Consultant?

• Role of a Business Consultant

• Why Companies Hire Consultants

• Why Consultants Are Profitable

• Breaking down Consultant Myths

• How Consultants Can Work Remotely
  

What is a Business Consultant?

What is a business consultant?

A business consultant is someone who helps provide expert and professional advice. This is based on your past experiences, knowledge, and what value you have to offer. As a freelance consultant, you can:

• Solve problems in specific areas within companies

• Expand your thinking skills

• Sharpen your decision-making

• Combine your expertise and value into helpful suggestions
  

Role of a Business Consultant

As a consultant, your role is researching a specific company and the industry. You're also analyzing the data and you look at what the company is doing and the specific issue at hand. Then you present all of your findings into suggestions. Once you do that, you can share your suggestions to the business on how they can implement those changes to help solve their problem.

Why Companies Hire Consultants

The reason companies hire business consultants is because they need advice and help tackling specific problems. Consulting is increasing in demand due to companies seeing the value of bringing someone on-board that already has the expertise that is needed. A lot of times they need a consultant's help to figure out where the company can make more money or where the business is spending too much money.

Companies can also hire consultants to train their staff on how to do certain skills or services. You can train them in person or online. Your earning potential as a consultant who trains people is very large because you're teaching their employees how to solve issues. When you can tie yourself to the business that you are working with and help them make more money with your solutions, you will become immensely valuable to have on their team. 

It all comes down to understanding why and how companies are hiring freelance consultants and then positioning yourself to take advantage of this opportunity.

How Much Do Consultants Get Paid?

Providing advice can make you a high-paid consultant. Being a business consultant is one of the most lucrative roles you can find yourself in as a freelancer. This is because business consultants can earn $100+ an hour for their time and their expert advice. (If you are a new consultant, this is not guaranteed that you can start making hundreds of dollars right away.)

Consultants also have the ability to work on multiple clients simultaneously, which increases the consultant's revenue streams and income. If you are new to consulting, focus on building up your portfolio and earning good reviews. Through consistent effort and work is when you will see how lucrative this position can be, even on a part-time basis.

If you want some inspiration, go on Upwork.com and look at different freelance consultants and see how much they're making. Here are some successful examples of business consultants:

The online shift to hiring freelancers has allowed freelance consultant's to create extremely profitable businesses, all by providing their knowledge, advice, and expertise on a subject matter. Now companies can access high-end consultants from different areas of the world at the click of a button.

That leads us to the future. In order to have success in any industry it's important to recognize the direction each niche is heading. As for business consulting, the demand is increasing for specialized consultants who can help companies solve problems, develop strategies, and implement more efficient systems. This has made freelance business consulting one of the top in-demand services to provide.

Breaking Down Consultant Myths

The Top Myths Of Business Consulting

One of the biggest myths in consulting is that you need to have a certain college degree or a form of a certification to be a consultant. But, in reality, all you need is your advice and expertise. Having a certification does help, but that shouldn't hold you back from starting if you don't have one. If you can provide results, build your portfolio up, and build case studies that show that you've helped companies in the area of consulting that you're providing, that's how you're going to be able to start to get ahead of the competition and grow as a consultant. 

Also, don’t let the fear of not having a certification hold you back from thinking you won’t get hired. Companies are not only looking at if you have a college degree or what it says on paper to qualify you. They want to know what you can do for them and how you have helped companies in the past drive results.

For example, if you're an online ad consultant for businesses and you go to a company and you say "I helped another company that's just like yours get a 500% return on investment."

That will stick out a lot more to a potential client than if your resume says "I graduated with a marketing degree."

They want to see that you can produce results, that’s what they care about. So until you get out there and you make a difference in companies and gather case studies, that is really what can help you stand out to get hired even if you don't have a degree or certification.

How Consultants Can Work Remotely

In Conclusion - A business consultant provides their knowledge and their expertise to help companies solve problems. You can only do so much for your hourly work as a traditional freelancer. Once you start to go towards that consultant level where you're providing your expertise and value for money, instead of trading your time for money, that's when you will start to see a big shift in your freelancing career and earnings.

If you want to hear more about this, I made a video outlining how you can get paid for your advice, knowledge, and expertise as a freelance business consultant. 

>>> Click here to watch my new YouTube video now!

- Paul Mendes

 Founder of Profitable Freelancer