Auditel Consultant:
Lee Freeman

The road to somewhere – part 7

05 Jul 2010 | Filed under: auditel, cost management, Self-employment

Well here we are back again for the next instalment into my career as a cost and purchase management consultant. I do have to say that the last month or so has been relatively quiet. I do not know whether this is down to the decent weather we have been having, the World Cup (enough said about that the better) or the start of holiday season. To be honest I expect it is a combination of all three.

So what have I been up to over the last month. I have now signed a further client, and one that is quite close to my heart, in that it is the Helen Rollason Heal Cancer Charity. This charity undertakes fantastic work in providing both support to cancer sufferers and their families but also in researching potential cures for this disease. Having lost one parent to cancer about 5 years ago, I do not just look at this client as a money-making opportunity but also an opportunity to hopefully help in a small way to defeat this disease. Anyway I spent a pleasant day last week at their offices collecting data and now the challenge begins to see if I can achieve any savings for them. So the ball is in my court so to speak.

I have also been expanding my network locally. One of the challenges I realised I would face in starting up the business was getting my name known in the local community. Although I have lived on the Herts/Essex border for nigh on 12 years now, most of my employment in that time has been in London or indeed overseas and so building up my local network was key to me. This is not just about identifying people who may become clients, although that is obviously part of it, but also making sure the people I meet understand what I do as they may know people who could use my services. Part of this process was identifying which local networking groups I would join, there are now so many of them, from the franchised operations themselves such as BNI/BRX through the national organisations such as Chambers of Commerce, to some very localised groups which effectively are lunch or dinner clubs. In the end I have plumped for the local Chamber of Commerce and have also decided to join the Institute of Directors. Whether this proves the correct choice in the future only time will tell.

It is funny however where certain contacts may come from. As an example my golf club recently held its Club Championship weekend, as defending handicap Champion I was keen to defend my trophy, but more of that later. This completion is spread over two days with 18 holes being played on Saturday and 18 on Sunday. The Saturday draw is seeded, but as I had cricket that afternoon I had requested an early tee time. I was drawn with a gentleman who I had never played with before. As it turned out said person runs his own recruitment agency and I have a meeting with him tomorrow to not only discuss the services I can provide his organisation but also those clients of his where he believes my services could be of use. All in all a very profitable morning on the golf course as I also managed to retain my title, something nobody has done before and an achievement of which I am extremely proud.

I am also in the process of recruiting a telemarketer to assist in my marketing efforts. As someone with little or no sales training , the cold calling aspect of the business is not one that comes naturally to me and so I have now reached the decision to use someone who is an expert in that field. Again the choice is endless, although narrowed down by only wanting to use those that have worked with the network before and understand the services I provide. At the end of the day, having spoken to 5 or 6 individuals and firms, the choice is I believe, comes down to personality, do I believe I can work with this person. I have not yet finalised my decision, but have narrowed it down to a choice of two and will make the final decision this week, to kick the project off over the next fortnight. I will keep you updated on developments in future instalments.

Industry Tags: clients, networking, telemarketing

2 Responses to “The road to somewhere – part 7”

Paul Wilkes says:

July 5, 2010 at 10:34 am

Hi Lee,

How did you make your decision on which networking groups to join?

Paul
leefreeman says:

July 7, 2010 at 10:39 am

Hi Paul

Basically I attended a couple of meetings as a guest and looked at their online directory’s to see who were members. I avoided BRX and BNI as decided that I did not have the time to commit to them, one meeting a week and if you miss some get kicked out, not for me!! At the end of the day it is what you feel comfortable with I guess. I was keen to raise my local profile so a local Chamber seemed the ideal solution – also relatively cheap as well I only pay £50 a year plus £12 for each monthly meet. If you want to chat through more give me a call.