Ecommerce Consultants: What Ways Do You Need to Adopt to be Successful?

You have decided to start a digital marketing and ecommerce consulting practice. After considering all the pros and cons, you have made up your mind to be your own boss and start your consultancy firm. But a consultant job is not an easy one. Leaving aside the regular drawbacks like as no steady income, no employer-provided benefits, slow-paying clients, and working long hours, there are other some other issues related to consultancy that makes it not so easy job for many. Many experienced digital marketers have given up their permanent jobs and moved over to ecommerce consultancy in the last few years. There are three categories of such people: some give themselves 6 months’ time to prove themselves and if nothing works out, they get back to permanent jobs; some defy the odds and succeed as ecommerce consultants in the long run. And lastly, there are very select few who will go on to achieve more success and income then they could have dreamed about as a regular salaried employee.

What is it that makes some ecommerce consultants succeed and others fail?

To succeed and create a brand image for setting up a successful enterprise ecommerce for your clients, you need to take many actions which are usually ignored by would-be consultants. Here are the ways:

1. You give everything that you have got. The most successful ones are those who dream big and they have a great passion and zeal to succeed. For this, they always keep themselves updated with the knowledge on latest technology, software, latest developments and so on. For instance, hybris implementation is the latest entrant in the ecommerce domain. As an ecommerce specialist, as and when a new development takes place, you should always be upright in learning and acquiring the knowledge of it so that you can advise on these issues to your clients. Setting up a consultancy firm is a 24/7 effort. If you simply feel that you will work as a part-time or a freelancer for a limited period of time, then it is of no use. Rather, your single focus should be on setting up a full-fledged consultancy firm.

1. Do not ever stop marketing: As a consultant, you need to play the role of a chief marketing officer. Like any business, you need to create a brand image of yourself, displaying your specific strengths, what you can offer, how you can build a value proposition and so on. When you meet your prospective clients, you need to do your marketing in a proper way. Even while working on a project, you should never stop marketing because when one project goes, you should get the second one so that there is no gap in your work. Make yourself visible through your works, articles, personal website, social media platforms, community forums etc. Set yourself "few hours" to market yourself leaving aside the business hours from 8 to 5 for your clients. This is what experts suggest as per a latest ecommerce news report.
2. Improve your communications and your relationship development skills: An effective communication is one of the best ways to get business. You should have the ability to effectively influence your prospective clients through speaking and writing. This is all the more important in the ecommerce domain where the competition is high with so many consultants available. Your loss is another’s gain. As such, when you approach a client, you should be very confident in speaking out what makes you different and best from the rest of the digital consultants. Generally speaking, when it comes to ecommerce marketing, the more specialized you are, the easier it becomes for you to propose a successful enterprise ecommerce implementation policy and process.
3. Try to work alone as much as possible and strengthen your time management skill: You need to develop the ability to work alone. Make a daily plan and stay focus on that. To be a successful ecommerce consultant, you need to consider yourself as a business owner. Stay disciplined, stay focussed and work diligently.
4. Know your strengths and weaknesses: Get rid of your bad qualities or weaknesses and strengthen your good ones. Do not let your ego get in the way. Keep on learning as there is no end to knowledge.

Sonal is an a href=http://www.eperiumindia.com/ecommerce specialist, helps ecommerce websites in software development, content management and shoring services.