How I landed my first consulting gig (€10.000)
A step-by-step guide, with the resources I used (emails, templates, tools).
I landed my first customer in 3 weeks, while I was working at my old job. It was a €10.000 deal + commission on sales made by the company for a period of 3 months.
Here’s how I did it, step by step.
Booking the discovery meeting
My friend Alex and I met over a coffee and he told me about the company he was working at. He also shared that the founder was trying to structure the sales organization and wouldn’t be against some external advice.
I asked Alex if he could organize a quick intro, which he did soon after our conversation.
Discovery meeting
I met the founder at a coffee in Mitte and started asking questions about his business and why we were having this conversation. Here are some examples of questions I asked:
Why are we meeting today?
Tell me more about your sales process
Walk me through a deal you closed recently
Walk me through a deal you lost recently
Tell me more about your tech stack
What are your sales targets?
Are you on the right trajectory to meet them?
What’s your plan to reach your sales targets?
By using these questions, I had the chance to learn about my prospect's business and his goals. It was a one-hour conversation and I had a better idea of the current situation.
We agreed to meet again so we could scope the effort needed to reach my prospect’s targets.
Here’s the email summary I sent after the call:
SDR interview
In the meantime, my prospect asked me if I could interview his first SDR (good sign). He wanted to understand my coaching style and get some feedback on his newly hired employee.
I booked a 30-minute call with the SDR where I asked her the following questions:
Tell me more about your prospecting routine
What channels are you using?
Do you use sequences? How are they working for you?
What’s your reply rate? What’s your meeting rate?
Where do you feel like you would need training/coaching?
This session helped me build more value for the founder and the SDR, and allowed me to reassure my prospect of my capacity to coach his team. I also sent this email to the SDR and the founder, to add even more value:
And I shared this email with the founder:
Scoping call
As I knew more about the goals of the founder and the way his SDR was working, I was ready to deliver the scoping call.
Based on the conversation we had during the first meeting I knew we had 5 challenges to work on:
Create a solid outbound prospecting process
101 training of the SDR
Definition of ICP
Support on investor presentation
Training/advisory of the founder
We then mapped how we could work together, what were the deliverables, and the desired outcomes. As this was my first consulting gig, I sold hours instead of outcomes, which allowed me to be flexible and still deliver value if the scope changed.
I’m not selling hours anymore, but it’s a good way to reassure prospects when you don’t have a track record.
In total, the V1 of the scoping was 198 hours at €80, for a total of €15.840 + VAT. I also proposed to give 10% more hours against a commission on the sales generated during my contract with the company (not by me, but by the whole sales organization).
Here’s the summary email I sent:
Offer presentation
After a few back and forth with my prospect, we agreed that challenges 3 and 4 could be removed as the company had a €10.000 budget only. I wrote an email with the plan for the kickoff and the first week of work:
Here’s the contract I sent:
Signature
2 days after sending the first draft of the contract, I received a message of my prospect with a consultancy agreement (basic terms and conditions clarifying that I wasn’t an employee) with my offer in the annex.
I then shared the contract with the prospect for electronic signature with GetAccept, and on the 30th of September, I received an email with the contract signed.
I will always remember that moment.
This was the proof that my escape plan was valid and that I was able to sell my knowledge and start working towards escaping the hamster wheel.
Key Learnings
In this process, I learned a few things:
Your experience with B2B sales is in high demand. It’s not because it’s obvious for you that it is for everyone else.
You don’t need a product or a solution to make money. You just need to find a problem, propose a solution, and charge for the implementation.
Use opt-out closes to reassure prospects of their capacity to end the contract if things don’t go as planned. You won’t need to always do it, but you may need to do it to get your first few customers.
If prospects negotiate, try to get a performance-based bonus in exchange for a discount.
Send all your invoices upfront. You will get paid faster.
Hunt for problems, sell the solutions
Want to escape the hamster wheel too?
If you’re interested in going further, here are 3 ways I can help you:
Go listen to my podcast “Escaping The Hamster Wheel“