After years working in the corporate industry, Veronica Sagastume has used her wealth of experience to build up her own consulting business through which she passionately educates and helps others to also monetize their experience and grow a business. One of the most important tasks in this process is to build up a client base, which she accomplishes through her One Big Tip of making valuable connections and relationships with your network.
It’s All about the Connections
Like many others, Veronica went to college and later got a job in corporate America which she loved. She spent time working in Silicon Valley gaining experience, developing relationships, and enjoying her success, until she came to a point of stress while feeling burnt out. During this change, she found herself asking the question why she couldn’t do all of the things that had brought success for her businesses and instead do them for herself. As she came to a decision to leave her company, she started a period of preparation in which she built up her network. Veronica believed that she could use the wealth of experience she had accumulated in order to educate others in how they could also build up their own consulting business and projects. Her One Bit Tip to accomplish this is to nurture and connect with contacts in your network in order to build valuable relationships and lead them to become your consulting clients.
The 5 Step Process
To implement this tip, Veronica has created a 5 step process to effectively build the framework for meaningful relationships, even with those you have not had contact within years. Her first step is to create a list of all of the people that you have directly worked with or had contact with that you feel would be a valuable connection. Whether these contacts come from LinkedIn, email, or somewhere personal, Veronica states that you should “think about that person in terms of how they may be a good contact for you with what you’re going to be doing next.” Once you have your list, step two is to categorize it and identify the people that you want to connect with first or have as a primary professional contact. Next, you will need to start reconnecting with these people through a series of specifically designed emails. The first two are only for connecting and reestablishing a genuine relationship. The third email is to provide something of value for them, and like the other two, is about solely connecting with that person. By the fourth and fifth emails, after you establish trust and a solid connection, you will inform them of your work and invite them to participate as a client. The final actions of this 5 step process are to schedule a meeting with the person and to track your actions in order to keep up that relationship. This method of reaching out to others in an authentic way makes it easier for them to respond to you and take part in your work as a client.
To learn more about Veronica’s method to growing your business projects, you can visit her website www.veronicasagastume.com to find more information as well as downloadable resources such as email templates that will help you start accumulating clients from your network.
