Consumer Consulting Services SEOS_CCS
Working with consumers in a consulting capacity can be a tricky business, because you need to have exceptional inter-personal skills to be able to reach out and help them. Unlike the Career & Employment Strategies focus that is clearly related to “HOW” specific results should be achieved we now consider a much broader focus related to “WHAT” specific results the client wants. This is not a matter of semantics – consumer consulting services can lead individual clients to make life decisions that, if ill-considered, could backfire.
With a short-term focus like getting a job the outcome is not final – you can always decide to change jobs again. Once you decide on buying a house the stakes can be much higher. Developing financial plans, and helping people structure their estate, is quite involved and gets to the core of what is important for the client long-term. Therefore, considering these services involves a high degree of responsibility and caution to be sure that decisions are made by the client – as a consultant you only provide the alternatives the client may want to consider.
Consumer Consulting Services may be studied by individuals for their own benefit – there is no requirement to actually provide these services to 3rd parties in order to make it worthwhile for you to know about these things. Each of these subjects has valuable contents that people ought to be familiar with in order to plan and manage their affairs. Most people do not particularly like to pay much attention to these topics and that creates an opportunity to prepare for delivering an on-demand consulting service that can focus on specific aspects on an “as needed” basis. The details of how to prepare for these services are provided through the following courses:
Self-Employment Opportunities – Consumer Consulting Services
- Career Coaching Business
- Financial Planning & Budgeting
- Real Estate Purchase Planning Service
- Coaching Business Service
Each of these courses is a self-contained opportunity – you may focus on one, or you may want to offer several business opportunities to diversify and/or to give your client more support in the different challenges they may face. If you operate these services commercially you will need to sign a franchised service agreement as detailed in the REVENUES tab in order to help cover the cost of on-going maintenance of the tools. Note that these opportunities are provided without any guarantees you will have the ability to market and sell these services to consumers, even as we provide detailed instructions on benefits selling.
If you work with people, you should obtain the appropriate clearance to demonstrate due diligence. This is not only when you teach individuals – this is also recommended if you just talk to people to provide information and to encourage them in any way. Times have changed, and we need to take that into account. You can determine your level of involvement with people depending on the services you offer. In particular if you decide to offer “Financial Planning & Budgeting” services (where you deal with their assets) you must make sure that what you do is above reproach.
For us, receiving this information to put on file is simply due diligence on our part. To prepare for the different services you should take the training program for Self-Employment Opportunities:
SECC_CCB
- Financial Planning & Budgeting SECC_FPB
- Real Estate Purchase Planning Service SECC_REP
- Life Coaching Business Service SECC_LCB
The courses you need depend on the services you plan to provide.
Career Coaching Business
the focus is on the short-term goal of a job, and the long-term goal of building a career through successive growth opportunities. Career coaching can be required in an emergency setting, if a client is out of work, or it can simply be to provide a sounding board for what a client might want to consider doing to achieve their dream job.
Life Coaching Business Service
the focus is on helping the client to develop life skills and self-awareness to discover what they truly want to do in life, and how to get there. It provides a sounding board for clients to help them explore ideas and needs, and a resource to help them find the answers they are looking for. People who want to do this kind of work are expected to have a high Emotional Intelligence and sensitivity to what may be unspoken concerns that stop a client from self-actualizing.
Financial Planning & Budgeting
the focus of this service is to help people get their financial house in order, to learn to live within a budget, to establish savings objectives, to protect their assets, and to make sure they establish powers of attorney in case they become incapacitated, and also the creation of a Last Will and Testament that ensures their assets will go to their designated heirs upon death, with the least exposure to taxes and trustee fees. The intent of this service is to provide on-going support to a client-base to make sure the information is regularly updated.
Real Estate Purchase Planning Service
the focus of this service is to help people to prepare for a home purchase from financing, purchase process, legal process, selection, to evaluation. This is not a realtor role, as the consultant is engaged exclusively in the interest of the home buyer and can provide support for buyers that may not be aware of the risks involved in buying real property. Realtors focus on qualified buyers to sell property and are not engaged in educating prospective buyers in how to prepare for a purchase, much less how to prevent getting carried away and buying the home of your future nightmares. Preparing buyers may involve getting into financial planning and budgeting, as well as future estate planning.
The nature of the clients you will work with ranges from people with lots of money to invest in themselves, to people that have assets to protect and transfer to the heirs they have in mind, depending on what opportunity you want to pursue. If you provide consulting services and you use our tools in the process of delivering those services you will be expected to pay a modest franchise fee of 3% to help support the on-going maintenance and enhancement of the tools.
In return you will receive the updates as we produce them (the details are explained in our agreement). The other cost associated with the opportunity is marketing – making your service known in the community and possibly providing a website to explain how you offer these services to interested consumers. Establishing a business is always a challenge but we will provide you with guidelines and suggestions for how best to establish yourself, to be prepared, and then to market the business in order to attract customers.
Each course in the “Self-Employment Opportunities – Consumer Consulting Services” catalog section is already designed as a stand-alone opportunity documented ready for use. If you are taking the courses while planning to prepare for a future business operation this segment in “Self-Employment Opportunities – Seminars & Workshops” adds the marketing materials and presentations that will help you to launch your new venture by holding the appropriate information sessions as outlined in the documentation.
- Let us know by adding a note to that effect on the course registration form. If we have an information seminar on consumer consulting services in your area we will definitely send you an invitation to attend.
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