I'm a former SSgt in the USAF, serving 6 years as an Airborne Linguist and 2 deployments to OEF. After leaving the military I invested in/scaled a skateboard company, ran Corporate Partnerships for a large vets org raising $15m+ and am now 7 months into my new consulting company, Cause Solutions.
I'd like tips on securing more consultation work; opening conversations, proposal templates/structure for best success, best practices in presentations, leads generation tactics, etc.
I've built and managed cause marketing campaigns with MillerCoors (largest cause campaign in company history), eBay (1st ever cause campaign), Uber (seeded idea for UberMILITARY hiring initiative), Craftsman Tools (approx $1.3M campaign), and others. Now in my own business, I strive to open dialogue surrounding veterans issues, understand a company's business/marketing objectives, then find overlaps to authentically insert cause in their marketing efforts with the goal of meeting/exceeding ROI. In turn, this drives awareness and funding to deserving veterans groups while aiding a company's consumer appeal.
Thank you in advance for participating in this impact day and for helping us to better ourselves, our futures.
Cheers, Matt
Answers
Matt,
Congratulations and good luck on your new venture, Cause Solutions. As you seek to build off your recent success you should consider developing a web site, as well as Facebook and other platforms for your business and including some summaries of the work you have performed for specific clients (with permission of course). Past performance and recommendations will be an important factor for capturing new work. You should also consider teaming with bigger companies on projects they are leading to help build your brand. Also, look for opportunities to be a speaker at conferences, signup to LinkedIn groups and publish articles and posts that demonstrate your eminence in a specific area. Hope this was helpful and again best of luck to you.
Kevin
Matt,
You're asking a lot in the above, but I'll try to help you out. Since you're starting out new, you have to prove out your business idea. In parallel, you have to develop your value proposition (the why is someone hiring you and what impact will it have) as well as define your target market (who is going to work with you). Many companies are undertaking Veteran relate initiatives to a degree and that would be a good start. The key for you is getting the meeting (I suggest leveraging you network as well as going to conferences, fairs, and potentially even getting presenter roles or on Q&A panels at them). Then is it continuing to follow-up, staying connected, and building that relationship to hopefully begin generating pilots that lead to prof of concept and revenue generation.
Kevin - thank you for your commentary here. A well-maintained rolodex and word of mouth have created my current roster of clients so I passed on a site and FB to this point. BUT, it is something I'm working toward in the coming weeks.
re: Teaming up - Great insight. This is where I hope to truly expand my business, but again, getting in the door proves daunting. Honing my approach in this area is a big focus.
More LinkedIn posts, speaking, outward facing affairs - check.
Appreciated Matt. Yes, I am asking a lot, but figured I would keep it broad to allow for different people to chime in.
Thank you for your valuable input here. If you feel strongly about "best practices" within one of my topics - presentation, proposals, etc - I'd love to hear more.
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