How to form a consulting company

If you think you have enough expertise to advise companies in a particular area, go ahead and create your consulting company. Nothing could be simpler with all your 100% digitized procedures. 

Do you want to create your consultancy company? Do you not know which legal status to choose and how to go about it? In this post, you will have all the answers to your questions about setting up a consulting business. We have noticed a significant evolution of consulting companies. Indeed, today it is quick and easy to set up a business online. So don’t hesitate any longer and become your own business manager!

Consulting company- Definition.

Consulting companies aim to provide an “intellectual” service for companies wishing to develop their activities. The consulting market includes various activities such as strategy consulting, the information system board, or the marketing consulting/human resources/finance. If you think you have a leader’s soul and can offer your expertise to companies in need, do not hesitate any longer and open your consulting firm! 

The consultancy (or consulting) activity is carried out by a professional with a particular skill, experience, or expertise for a specific field. 

Therefore, it is a matter of offering a diagnostic, analysis, formulation, or recommendation service on behalf of an institutional, commercial, or individual client (a rarer case, however). It can either have a simple recommendation role or a dual recommendation mission with its implementation. 

The consultant can intervene alone or within a consulting firm made up of a varied workforce, from the junior consultant to the senior consultant, including the project manager, the head of mission, and the director.

While the business consultancy sector is doing extremely well with a constantly growing market, starting a consultancy business cannot be improvised. That’s why we are bringing you an article explaining the key steps to have a successful start-up.

How to properly prepare your start-up?

As with any business launch, creating a consulting company is no exception to the rule of market research and a solid marketing strategy to achieve.

A consulting activity can cover a wide variety of markets: there is no single market for business consulting, for example. 

Thus, you can create your company and choose to integrate the sector of strategic advice, management, information, legal advice, marketing, accounting and taxation, research and development, human resources, and training. The possibilities are very numerous.

Writing the business plan.

You will therefore have to start from quantified data and the management of your company and analyzed to demonstrate how your consulting solution will either meet a demand that does not yet find a suitable offer or provide a new solution that will appeal to customers in order to enable you to develop your market shares and your customers. 

From this market study, you will have to develop your business plan, including your calculated price elements, profitability, expected economic performance, and the logistical, financial, and workforce resources you plan to implement to achieve this. 

Finally, you will have to explain and quantify your expected development in the medium and long term, starting from the expected clientele projection, the evolution of your services, and your prices, as well as human and material resources generating fixed costs. 

Remember, more generally, a business plan is the best way to demonstrate your project’s solidity, seriousness, and reliability to give future partners and investors’ confidence and desire to join your ship.

Consulting firms thriving today.

Although you can be a consultant in almost any field these days, it helps to start a consulting business to learn about the top of the most prosperous types of consulting firms today.

1. Marketing/Advertising: Companies require more specialists to optimize their communication resources in a very competitive market. Can you help a business develop a marketing plan? Or do you have some plans that you think will help support a business? If so, why not try getting started as a marketing consultant?
2. Business Strategies: Do you know ways to help a business generate huge profit? If you have good business sense, then you will do well as a business strategy consultant.
3. Technology/digitization: Without a doubt, one of the booming sectors. The branches in which it opens are very numerous, for example, among the most innovative:  management of the digital customer experience, marketing technology, and Internet of things (IoT), etc. 
4. Audit: If your topic is numbers and organization, this is a very fertile field to start a consulting business.
5. Human Resources: As long as companies have problems with people (and there always will be), consultants in this field will enjoy an endless supply of clients, both large and small.
6. Tax: With the right business and marketing plan, your career as a tax consultant can be very lucrative. A tax advisor advises businesses on legal methods to pay the least amount of taxes possible.

What legal status to create your consulting company?

To create a consulting business, you can choose between different legal statuses: 

• Sole proprietorship: It is the legal status most often chosen by a self-employed person when he wishes to set up his consulting business. This status is rather simple in operation but also in creation. But be careful. If your activity increases, your tax rate can also increase quickly, lowering your bottom line. As an individual entrepreneur, you have a Self-Employed Worker status, which means that your social security coverage is reduced.
• The micro-enterprise: It (ex self-entrepreneur scheme) is a very simplified statute and well suited for a small or start-up activity.
• The status of entrepreneur-employee in an activity and employment cooperative: it allows you to be independent while benefiting from the status of the employee (click on the previous link to find out more). It is status well suited for a small business.
• Simplified joint-stock company-man: This legal status is well suited for a business creation project board where the contractor wishes to direct his only company.  
• One-person limited liability Company: This will allow you to set your salary yourself! 
• Limited Liability Company or simplified joint-stock company: These statutes are mandatory if you want to open your consulting firm with several other employees.

The steps to create your consulting company.

Before creating your registration file, you must be sure of your creative project. You will also have previously done a market study and set up a business plan. The formalities for setting up your consulting company are rather simple and quick. You just need to follow four steps! The process may vary depending on the choice of legal status. 

1. Drafting of the statutes.

As a first step, you will have to draft the articles of association of your consulting company. As explained previously, these statutes differ depending on the legal form you have chosen. You can call on a legal specialist to draft your association articles if this seems complicated to you. In your file, you will need to include certain essential elements, such as: 

• The name of your consulting company, its corporate form, and its corporate purpose 
• The registered office of your company, that is to say, the domiciliation address. When you do a consulting business, you don’t even have to own an office. The domiciliation company is a good way to domiciliate your business economically and to benefit from a prestigious address for your consulting company. 
• The contributions, the amount of capital but also the distribution of shares 
• Also, your company’s fiscal year limits: the start and end date of the fiscal year. 

2. The constitution of social capital.

The second step is the constitution and deposit of the share capital. This step will allow you to own the share capital for your company and contribute cash or in kind. Please note that contributions to the industry are not part of your consulting company’s capital because they correspond to the provision of your intellectual knowledge or of one of your company’s partners. Make sure to open a bank account for your consultancy firm and release some of the capital. 

3. The publication of a legal notice.

You will then be required to publish an advertisement of the creation of your consulting company. The information to be included in this advertisement is different depending on the legal form of your company. Also, the amount varies if you have more or fewer lines in your ad. 

4. The constitution of the registration file.

Finally, the last step is the constitution of the registration file. You must include certain important information for your case to be accepted with the registry

• The statutes signed and initialed followed the  MO form  completed 
• The Registry fee
• Various certificates such as the certificate of fund deposits or the certificate of publication of legal notices 

After the completion of these administrative formalities, you will have to submit your file to the Commercial Court Registry, which will validate or not your activity. If it is validated, you will be able to obtain an official document given by the Commercial Court, which will work as your ID card and verifies that your company was properly registered. Then you will be able to start exercising your consulting activity!

Using the web to promote the consulting business.

The promotion appears essential in any field, including the launch of a consulting company: the web provides the most interesting ideas to advertise your business. By doing so, it is likely to take benefit of all the advantages deriving from a powerful, fast, and performing network. Other useful tips? Open a website and start an advertising campaign on AdWords.

Many entrepreneurs wonder if it is possible to open a consulting firm without a degree. The answer is yes! Beyond specific training, it is more important to demonstrate that you have all the necessary skills.

Your clients meet with you to obtain expertise and be fully convinced of your profile’s strength. Creating your consulting firm requires following a very precise approach to optimize your project’s success.

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