In Consulting, Specialization Pays

Setting yourself apart from competitors in an overcrowded profession often means the difference between success and failure for a consultant.

Being the best in town is not enough. Potential clients like to think they are hiring a recognized specialist in one particular area.

Jain Malkin, founder of the small San Diego interior design firm bearing her name, said she did not want to be one of thousands of interior designers competing for work in the corporate office world.

Interested in health care, she tried to read everything available on designing clinics and hospitals and found a dearth of information. Sensing a business opportunity, Malkin spent weeks visiting health-care facilities.

She interviewed patients as they sat in waiting rooms. She asked doctors and technicians what they liked and didn’t like about where they worked. She shot thousands of color slides of buildings to document what they looked like inside and out.

“Nobody seemed to be doing very much in health care,” said Malkin, who, at 21, opened her own design firm to decorate dorms at the University of Wisconsin. “Everyone was kind of amused at what I was doing.”

For Malkin, building a successful small business around a personal expertise set her apart from her peers. You can be the best, friendliest or most aggressive consultant around, experts say, but unless you stand out in some other way, you will still be one of the crowd.

“If the individual can be perceived as the authority in a niche market, people will beat a path to their door,” said Howard Shenson, a consultant to consultants and publisher of the “Professional Consultant & Information Marketing Report.”

Shenson suggests finding a market that is not being adequately served and asking potential clients how you can best serve it.

“Don’t just imagine what people want,” advises Shenson. “Interview them and ask what they need.”

After narrowing the field, Shenson suggests figuring out how you can affordably reach potential clients with your message. Can you rent a mailing list? Do you want to serve readers of a particular publication or members of a specific trade organization?

In addition to direct-marketing techniques, Shenson urges consultants to raise their public profile through speaking, teaching or becoming active in the leadership of a professional group.

“What’s really important for a professional today is not to be seen as someone who is just selling their service but someone who is advancing the state-of-the-art in their field,” said Shenson, whose office is in Woodland Hills.

Malkin, with her staff of 20, has become the recognized leader in her field. She has written two definitive textbooks and recently won one of many first place awards in her profession. Her projects have a distinctive, open quality that welcomes patients.

Buoyed by her success in the health-care field, Malkin was tempted to branch out about 10 years ago. She set up a corporate design division, which was financially successful, but strained her staff and diluted her efforts in the field she dominated.

“It was definitely a mistake to do it,” said Malkin, who closed it within two years. “We were competing for every job with 60 people, compared to three on the health-care side.”

Based on her personal experience, she advises small-business owners to stay focused on what they do best. “It’s OK to do one thing and do it better than anyone else,” said Malkin, whose firm has annual revenue of about $1.5 million.

Up the coast in Culver City, Ann Mohr also took an unusual tack to carve out a consulting business in her crowded profession. As a young designer working for a large Los Angeles firm, she realized that unless she owned her own firm, she would always be overworked and underpaid. But opening another interior design firm in Los Angeles’ jammed market, seemed fruitless.

Mohr came up with the idea for Phase Six after clients called her back to help repair or maintain the furniture, floor and wall coverings she designed and installed. Mohr said she felt bad charging them high design fees for doing what should be considered professional maintenance.

Named after the five phases of interior design, Phase Six has attracted a prestigious client list by maintaining expensive office interiors.

Mohr launched Phase Six 2 1/2 years ago by borrowing $3,000 from her mother. She created a brochure describing what the firm does and sent it to law firms and large corporate offices around Los Angeles.

Her brochure and follow-up letter offer potential clients a complimentary walk-through of their offices during which she or her associates point out problems and affordable solutions. Once hired, Mohr sends out professional interior designers to detail what needs repair. Then, Phase Six hires a small army of skilled subcontractors to perform the work.

Office managers who work with Mohr’s firm said she makes their jobs easier by billing them once a month for solving the problems and then hiring, scheduling and paying the subcontractors directly.

“We represent ourselves as professionals,” said Mohr, who now employs seven people and is looking for a bigger office. “We don’t want anyone to think we are the cleaning people.”

STANDING OUT IN A CROWD * Find a corner of the market that isn’t adequately served.

* Ask potential clients what kinds of services they need.

* Target your marketing to particular kinds of clients.

* Position yourself as an expert by teaching, speaking or writing articles.

* Keep up your reputation by doing consistently good work.