Can consultants use consulting marketplaces to find new clients and opportunities?

Ever since the start of the pandemic, an increasing number of B2B buyers have shifted online to find, hire, and work with external consultants.

Many consulting marketplaces have emerged as a way to connect buyers and consultants.

Buyers are looking for expertise, and consultants are looking for projects.

Consulting marketplaces bring the two together.

In this article, we’ve curated a list of top consulting marketplaces to help you find new clients.

That being said, and this is important, don’t rely on these marketplaces to build a long-term thriving consulting business. We’ll explore why later in this article…

But let’s dive in so you can learn about several new consulting marketplaces to land consulting projects — and understand what you must do so you don’t find yourself relying solely on these marketplaces for new consulting business.

Before we dive into the list, it’s important that you understand the pros & cons of using consulting marketplaces.

Pros & Cons Of Using Consulting Marketplaces

Pros

• Consulting marketplaces can provide you with additional opportunities: leads, projects, and clients.
• Buyers using these marketplaces have a specific need and are actively seeking a consultant, which can quickly lead to an engagement.
• These marketplaces provide a variety of tools and resources that make it easy to collaborate with multiple clients.

Cons

• You often have to give up a significant percentage of your fee (20-30%+)
• You don’t own the client relationship and can be penalized for contacting the client outside of the marketplace’s system in some cases
• You risk becoming reliant on a particular platform and your business takes on their risk — if they increase fees or shut down, you pay the price

Consulting marketplaces can be a great additional source of new leads and engagements.

However, at Consulting Success®, we believe that you should have many sources of new leads and engagements. Your consulting website should be the platform for which you attract clients. 

It’s important that you know how to market your business, attract clients, and close them in order to grow your business instead of relying on an external source.

And that’s a big part of what we’ve helped over 600 consultants to do inside of our Clarity Coaching Program.

Understand that you cannot build your business around these marketplaces. They’re just one additional source of opportunities.

Use them as that, simply a source of potential opportunities, and they’ll serve you much better than if you were to rely on them completely.

NOTE: The list below is in no particular order. Consulting Success® does not endorse any of the marketplaces below.

1. Catalant

• Application Link
• Project List
• Fee: 20-30% (Learn more)

Description: Catalant is a consulting marketplace that provides elite expertise on-demand to its users. It features over 70,000 consultants and over 1100 firms. It’s trusted and used by companies like GE, Shell, Staples, Pfizer, and more. With an average of 24 hours average time to candidate intro, 30-50% savings compared to traditional consulting, and with over 12K projects completed successfully, Catalant is one of the top choices for consultants and buyers.

 

2. MeasureMatch

• Application Link
• Fee: 12.5% (Learn more)

Description: MeasureMatch is a consulting marketplace focused on SaaS and enterprise services. It’s used by companies like Google, Microsoft, Merill, and more. With over 5000 service provides across 60 countries — and an average project contract rating of 9/10 — MeasureMatch is a great option if you provide consulting in CRM, marketing automation, cloud platforms, machine learning & AI, eCommerce, product analytics, and related areas.

 

3. Zintro

• Application Link
• Project List
• Fee: 20% (Learn more)

Zintro is a consulting marketplace with transparent pricing, flexible payment options, a la carte services, and a free trial. It boasts 150,000 curated experts from all industries, around the world. Zintro also uses a matching algorithm to connect clients and experts. Using the platform, you can browse and respond to open projects in areas like healthcare, supply chain, electronics, CRO, fulfillment, and many more.

 

4. TopTal

• Application Link
• Fee: $0

Description: Toptal is an elite freelancer and consulting marketplace that claims to host the top 3% of freelance talent. It’s trusted and used by companies like Shopify, Airbnb, Duolingo, and more. Toptal focuses on areas like software development, design, finance, project management, and product management. It features $0 recruiting fees, a quality guarantee, a very low failure rate for projects, pre-screened candidates, and 0 termination costs. Their highly selective screening process only accepts 2% of those who apply.

5. GuidePoint

• Application Link
• Fee: $0

Description: Guidepoint is a global professional network and consulting marketplace for consultants, advisors, and experts. The platform aims to connect clients with vetted subject matter experts from around the world. As a client, you request the expertise you’re looking for, and then select approved advisors from a dedicated project manager. With over 900,000 advisors in 150 industries such as healthcare, energy & industrials, finance, and consumer goods, Guidepoint has many opportunities for subject matter experts.

 

6. Maven

• Application Link
• Project List
• Fees: $0

Description: Maven is a consulting marketplace and platform for consultants and experts. Once you sign up and describe your area of expertise, their system will find you a potential match for your expertise. You’ll be able to respond to written questions, talk with prospective clients, and win projects. Maven hosts a large open projects board with opportunities in consumer products and services, engineering, finance, manufacturing, marketing, product management, supply chain, and many more industries.

 

7. DeepBench

• Application Link
• Project List
• Fees: 5%

Description: DeepBench is a consulting platform that helps businesses make better decisions through their expert advisor network. They use advanced search algorithms and crowdsourcing tools in order to identify and match expertise. With over 1200 experts recruited monthly and over 3000 consultations completed, it is an up-and-coming marketplace trusted by clients like IDEO, Arizona State University, Graham Partners, and more. You can browse their open projects in industries like energy, construction, healthcare, finance, IT, tech, human resources.

Have we missed any? Is there a consulting marketplace that we haven’t mentioned that you believe deserves to be on this list? Let us know in the comments below.

What’s Next?

Explore additional marketing methods that have been proven to work for consultants.

If you’d like help on how to put a proven system in place to market and grow your consulting business, we can help.

If you’re committed and serious about growing your consulting business then this customized coaching program is for you.

We’ll work hands-on with you to develop a strategic plan — and then dive deep and work through your…

• ideal client clarity,
• strategic messaging,
• consulting offers,
• fees and pricing,
• business model optimization,

…and help you to set up your marketing engine and lead generation system to consistently attract ideal clients.

Schedule a FREE growth session today to apply for our limited capacity Clarity Coaching Program by clicking here.