How to Start a Clinical Research Consulting Business

Starting a clinical research consulting business can be a great path to personal and financial freedom.

However, getting started can seem daunting at first. This article will run through the key points of how to start.

Let's dig in.

What is a Clinical Research Consulting Business? 💼

We'll get the obvious first question out of the way right off the bat.

A clinical research consulting business is one where you sell a service that others are willing to pay for.

For example:

• Medical writing 📝
• Monitoring 🥼
• Biostatistics 💻

Generally there is only one employee-at least at first-you!

Consulting businesses are easier to start than others because you don't need products or a storefront. Generally all you need to get going is just a computer and the software tools of your trade.

Running a business is a lot of hard work, and not without risk, but if you can persevere you will find success.

Here are the steps to start.

Step 1: Find your Sellable Service 🐕‍🦺

You can't start a clinical research consulting business without knowing what you are going to sell.

The services you offer should be something that you have skill and expertise in. But more importantly, it should solve a problem that others are willing to pay for.

For example, as a freelance medical writer you could be solving the problem that your clients don't have the time or the technical skills to write protocols for their studies.

Think about any time someone has commented that you are really good at something. Or think about things that you know you are really good at. Make a list of these and anything else related to your skills and expertise.

Step 2: Validate your Business Idea 🗃️

Once you have a list of services you could offer, it is time to pick one and try to validate it.

This means finding out if anyone is willing to pay you to solve their problem.

You need to pick one idea from the list above and try to sell a package for at least $1,000. Any amount less than that and the idea is not worth your time to be pursuing. If you want to build a successful and sustainable clinical research consulting business you want to be selling a few high ticket items rather than many low ticket items.

Now get out there and sell!

Contact anyone in your network who might benefit and see if they are interested. Go to local networking events or conferences. Cold call and cold email.

In other words, be active! Don't sit back and wait for clients to find you—get out there and find them.

Take any objections or feedback and refine your service package. If you get a few sales, great! You may have found a great clinical research consulting business.

If you get no sales then this could be a strong message that you are selling a service that no one wants to pay for. In this case, pick another idea and try and validate it.

Step 3: Supporting Items 🫶

Many people who start clinical research consulting businesses tend to jump right to this step without first validating their business idea.

Don't be one of those people!

Only after you have a validated business idea should you consider these other items. Otherwise, you could be setting yourself up for failure.

Setup a Website 📶

Grab a domain name, hosting, and have an expert create a simple pages for Home, About, Contact, Services, and Portfolio of your work.

When you are just starting out, no one is going to stumble across your website and contact you for work. You must actively seek clients.

However, having a website gives you legitimacy when clients do their due diligence on you and gives you a professional email address.

If you are still unsure about your business idea, even after validating it, I suggest to grab a variation on your name as your domain name. For me, this was bradjhall.com.

This allows you to easily pivot to another idea if you need to, without undoing work you have already done.

Get the Tools of your Trade 🧰

When starting a freelance business, you generally only need a computer and specific software tools that help solve problems for your clients. This could be software for writing, design, coding, etc.

In addition, you may need software for the following:

• Invoicing and Accounting
• Time Tracking
• Project Tracking
• File Storage and Sync

Get your Team of Professionals 🧑‍🏫

There is a temptation when starting a clinical research consulting business.

But you should resist this temptation and use professionals to help support you.

These include:

• 💼 Legal Professional. Legal services are not cheap, but essential and can pay for themselves many times over by keeping you out of bad contracts and drafting solid ones for you.
• 🧾 Accounting Professional. A good accountant can save you thousands of dollars by steering you in the right direction.
• 🏢 Insurance Broker. You'll likely need to purchase at least errors and omissions insurance for your business every single year.

Remember that these supporting items should not detract from your 2 main priorities:

1. Finding Clients
2. Solving their Problems

Step 4: Determine your Ideal Client 🙋

Once you have a validated clinical research consulting business idea, it is time to start thinking about your ideal client. Who are they? What problem of theirs are you trying to solve?

Here are a few questions to consider:

• Business or Consumer — Is your ideal client a businesses or consumer?
• Age — Is your ideal client a new or established business? A young adult or a senior?
• Location — Is your ideal client international? Across the country? Local?
• Problem —What problem do they have that you can solve? How urgent is the problem? Is it a seasonal problem (like personal taxes)?
• How to Contact — Where does your ideal client spend their time? Fielding phone calls or email all day? Are they at a physical location somewhere near by? Are they browsing social media?

Here is an example.

Let's say you want to offer content writing services. Your ideal client could be businesses, specifically new local research sites that are having trouble writing content for their websites and are generally in their offices from 8am to 6pm.

Step 5: Find your Clients 👀

When you start a clinical research consulting business, no one knows you exist. You can't sit around and wait for clients to find you. Instead, you need to be actively reaching out to and pitching potential clients on your services.

Let's go back to our content writer example. This method of finding clients was mentioned by Nicolas Cole, on the Deep Dive Podcast and works great for writing. Here are the key points:

• Create pieces of writing that solve a problem (copywriting, medical writing, content writing) for your ideal clients.
• Send them out in a cold email and if they do actually solve a problem, then clients will throw money at you to solve their problems.

Step 6: Do Good Work 💯

The best way to grow a clinical research consulting business is with repeat business and referrals.

Without these, you are more likely to fail.

How do you get repeat business and referrals?

By doing good work.

Really.

Solve your clients problems well and professionally, and your business will grow and be successful.

Summary

Starting and growing a clinical research consulting business is hard, but if you follow the steps above you can increase your chances of success.

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