There's really good advice on here. One of the ones that sticks out is soft skills & sales, which is just as important in consulting as the technical prowess. I would say it's somewhere between 50-80% technical chops, and 20-50% soft/selling skills depending on the client.
I think that's a big distinction that hasn't been made. If your client is another developer or CTO that deeply understands the subject matter, then the technical skills are definitely more important. If you're dealing with a CEO or CMO or business owner that's not technical, be prepared to really explain the whole story and present value from start to finish. There's benefits to both, as the CTO may be able to negotiate down your rate if they know where to cut out segments of the project or give that work to cheaper labor. The CEO/CMO side will take more work to help them understand the project, but will defer to you on scope. Again, this is generalizing, but less so than some other comments that treat ever client as the same persona.
One thing to definitely consider is to have one or more people on your team that is or has good experience being client facing. Whether as an account manager at an agency, a client-facing designer/developer, someone who has been there and helped guide and manage expectations for 5-10+ clients at once. That's a skill that's required, or else you're starting from square one and will have a lot of learning to do on the job.
My thoughts on your questions:
- Willing to find projects for a small team (2-4 members) of developers/designers should I look for larger projects in a different way?
A: I think the answer here is that some companies want to find a solo consultant, some want a small nimble team like yours, and some want a full-featured agency. I've realized this myself that there are different clients that want different things, so you should just understand what you are and what your value prop is and know that you'll be the perfect size/fit for some clients, but too small or too big for others.
- How do I identify that a company might be in need of a team like ours? I don’t want to spam everybody trying to catch a project.
A: You can go the data route and find companies that just raised a round of funding if you're going the startup route, or get a list of 50-100 dream companies you want to work with and monitor their job listings, not necessarily to apply yourself (you can sometimes) but to gauge how fast they're growing and what gaps in talent they're missing at their company.
- Should I prioritize our online sales channels over local ones?
A: Like others mentioned, referrals and networking is helpful but it's not all or nothing. If you're not that type, many others have received great leads by publishing really good content (blog posts, webinars, slide decks, guides, etc) and getting leads in the funnel that way. Paid ads (display, PPC, FB) can work for top of funnel leads but not often for bottom of funnel (closing the sale) so adjust appropriately.
- Should I partner up with firms like ours? Contact them and show our offer so that they could be interested in subcontracting with us?
A: That's definitely a good way to start. One universal note is that it's likely that a firm will pay you 50% of the rate they bill the end client for. So keep in mind that if you find the client yourself you get 100% of your rate, if you subcontract you most often get 50% of it. Not a hard and fast rule, but fairly common.
- Should we have mentors/coaches?
A: Can't comment on this as I haven't gone too deep into this, but many, many people highly recommend it.
- Should I hire a salesperson to look for projects?
A: Can't comment much on this but it depends on your own teams capabilities/stage/style, etc.