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As a small business owner, what is your specialty? Have you been answering questions from your customers? Have you been teaching your customers tips and tricks to make their life easier? As your customers look to you, your responses will guide them toward a successful path. You have become their coach or consultant. Your passion for imparting that knowledge to others is shining through to them.

It's not hard to become a consultant as long as you have knowledge and experience in some area that your customers can use, whether for themselves or for their businesses.

Starting A Consulting Business

Here are 10 tips to starting a consulting business and a successful business from your own home.

1. Get Your Own Site

It's good to sign up with consulting third-party services such as Clarity or Zintro, but also have your own website. While third-party services can help to connect you with knowledge seekers, your consulting site is your "home on the web" and you have total control over how you design and use it.

2. Charge What You're Worth

If you look at consulting services, you'll see that they typically charge quite high fees. It's not uncommon for an hour of coaching to cost a minimum of $70 per hour or more. I’ve seen costs go as high as $500 an hour, depending upon the services provided. You need to charge appropriately. Look for the going rate in your field and charge around this amount for an hour of coaching. If you don't feel confident charging this much, sharpen your skills until you do. If no one signs up, boost your marketing efforts.

3. Consider Certification

You don't need any special certification to be a consultant but it helps a great deal. For every niche, there are certifications that can help to lend you credibility. That certification may be the deciding factor in a business choosing you over someone else.

4. Know Your Strengths

Don't try to consult in an area of your niche where you don't have solid knowledge. We all have gaps in our knowledge and experience, and there are even highly-paid consultants who don't try to cover everything. Know which areas of your niche you're proficient in and offer your services for those areas.

5. Stay Current

In order to be a consultant, you need to be an expert in your industry. This means not only your years of experience and knowledge, but also that you need to stay current in what's going on in the industry now. That's where the people you're coaching are.

6. Offer a Pre-Consultation Questionnaire

You don't want to waste valuable consultation time getting to know the basic details of your clients, so give them a pre-consultation questionnaire. This should include basic questions about their history and current situation, as well as questions regarding the challenges they're facing and problems they're having. These areas are where you can help them.

7. Get Organized

You have to be an organized, disciplined self-starter in order to consult. You need to be able to manage time, stick to a schedule and plan your day well. The entire consultation process from answering inquiries from potential clients to sending follow-up reports should be as smooth as possible.

8. Reward Loyalty

Set up a system to reward clients who stay with you over the long-term. Include discounts and extras to say thanks. You should also reward clients who refer others to you since they're bringing business to you and essentially doing your marketing for you.

9. Build a Network

Probably the greatest source of new clients is networking. Start getting to know people and staying in touch with them. Begin building a network of contacts as soon as possible and work on building strong relationships with these contacts. You never know who might refer someone to you.

1. Give Your Clients More

In addition to an hour of your knowledge or expertise, do whatever you can to make your sessions valuable to your clients. Offer to record your consultations so that they can review things you said later. Offer reports that summarize key parts of the consultation as part of the consulting fee.

Starting A Consulting Business From Home

Before starting a consulting business, do some research on the types of coaching available within your niche. Certain industries provide more consulting opportunities than others. These niches would include accounting, marketing, publishing, communications and career counseling. You might even sign up to take a coaching session yourself. That way, you will learn what it’s like and maybe pick up a few ideas for your own consulting business.