Certification

The American Consultants League CPC certificate is given when new ACL members pass the American Consultants League certification exam. The American Consultants League APC certification stands for Accredited Professional Consultant. This separate certification is given to more tenured Consultants League members.

ACL Certification helps build your business by establishing your credentials, keeping you current with industry trends and practices and offering you networking opportunities with other consultants.

With ACL’s "How to Guarantee Your Consulting Success" e-book and volumes 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the Consulting Success Library, you can quickly establish yourself as an expert in your field. ACL is one of the best ways to grow your professional consulting practice.

The excerpt below will give you a hint of the resources available to you as an ACL member.

If you have any questions about ACL certification, or anything related to American Consultants League, please contact us at: support@earlytorise.com. Be sure to put ACL in the subject heading so your email can be forwarded to the proper contact person.


STARTING YOUR CONSULTING BUSINESS

1. Define your Consulting niche (based on your own experience and education)

  • Skills
  • Interests
  • Credentials
  • Market – who are your potential clients?
  • Where/How can you reach them?

2. Create a “Mini Business Plan” (One Page)

  • Vision (why you do what you do)
  • Mission (how you can assist your clients)
  • Stated in terms of Objectives: (based on ETR’s Goal Setting strategies)

1. Specific Tasks

2. Time Frames

3. Your 5-year Plan

4. Outline your plan for this year

3. Create Monthly/Weekly/Daily Planning Sheets

Example: Monthly – Commit at least 20 hours per month to marketing my consulting business

  • Define weekly marketing goal: in relation to the monthly goal
  • Outline networking events you will attend
  • Contact X number of prospects
  • Use Daily Planning Worksheets – with goals for your marketing projects, follow-up plans, client work preparation, networking, etc.

4. Create Self-promotion Opportunities for your Consulting Business

1. Write an article

2. Create a free “Information product”

3. Set up free Weekly E-zine

4. Attend community speaking engagements or offer free seminar on specialty topic


SAMPLE TIME TABLE:

Month 1

Step 1: Put together a Consulting Workbook that you can use for your potential clients.

Include interview and analysis tools that will help you get the most out of your initial interview with the client. For example:

1. Identify the “biggest problems” of your client

2. Ask your client to help you prioritize this list

3. Choose one issue that they would like to tackle immediately, and ask:

  • Is it endemic to the operation?
  • Is it a problem that actually crops up from time to time?
  • How costly? How does this affect the bottom line?
  • What is the best possible outcome for this problem?

Step 2: Create a promotion kit/flier for your consulting business that includes the unique benefits (USP) of using your services. (Be sure to gather testimonials from all sources)

Step 3: Write booklet/premium that contains useful information (about something in which you are an expert) that will be of interest to your potential market.

  • Print 500 copies of this premium; be sure the back page or back cover includes all the relevant contact information so people can easily find you.
  • Identify the best trade publication or magazine that would attract your potential clients
  • Place an ad offering this free booklet, asking customer to call or send contact information to your business address (get a PO box if necessary)
  • Mail out this premium within 7 days of receiving request, with brief cover letter.
  • Follow-up with phone or mail within 2 weeks after your mailing date.

     

Month 2

Follow-up with prospects from your ad (letter and flier about upcoming seminar)

Then write a press release, announcing your seminar and offering some exclusive benefit to the first X number of attendees


Month 3

Follow-up with prospects from this seminar; ask for feedback or solicit input

Offer free promotional opportunity for new clients in your E-zine


Month 4

Write an article for major publication; build your credibility one step at a time


Month 5

Create your Direct Mail Sales letter targeting your potential clients, with a prepaid reply card and a new premium/booklet


Month 6

Send a follow-up postcard to this same mailing list

Evaluate most successful of above marketing approaches, and then repeat that effort to new mailing lists