How to Sell Advice

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The other week, I chatted with former software consultant turned CRM SaaS owner, Reuben Swartz about how to do sales in a way that doesn't feel like selling and instead sets up your relationships for success.

In this episode, we chat about things like:

Why traditional sales processes don't work
How he helps people win clients without being sales-y
How having a clear target market helps your sales success
Reframing "sales" as "educating" and "networking" as "connecting"
Why having a strong marketing engine allows you to be better at sales
A mental model for generating more referrals
Should you give gifts and thank-you notes to people who refer business to you?
Easy ways to maintain contact with people in your network

And a lot more!

If selling isn't your jam—or even if it is—you'll get a ton of value out of this episode.

The mindsets and mental models he shares make it easy to navigate sales conversations without getting mired in tactical "steps" which can often confuse you and put a barrier between you and your prospects.

Resources mentioned:

The Go-Giver by Bob Berg
Alchemy by Rory Sutherland
Mimiran: The fun, antiCRM
Reuben on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening, and if you enjoy the show, please share it with a friend!

—kw

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I recently interviewed Kevan Lee, the former VP of Marketing at Buffer and currently Senior VP of Marketing at Oyster.

Kevan is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to leading tech startups to significant growth. To give you an example, he helped Buffer go from $5m to $20m in annual revenue and 100,000 new customers acquisitions per month.

In his first year at Oyster, he helped the company 20x its revenue and build a marketing team comprising over 50 people. He's also involved as an educator and advisor with Reforge, On Deck, as well as a past contributor to ProductLed, and more.

In this interview, Kevan and I explore the realm of advisory work.

We cover topics like:

How he approaches advisory work while having a full-time gig
How he views mentorship and why it's important to him
How he prices his advice—and what he's learning in the process
His experience on the buyer side of equity for advice compensation discussions
How he packages his ideas into a playbook that he shares with paying Substack subscribers
And a lot more...

This conversation was a fun exploration of the world of advisory work. And like all of us, Kevan is still figuring out what works best for him.

You can follow Kevan on Twitter at @kevanlee and subscribe to his Substack at kevanlee.substack.com.

Give this a listen and subscribe to get more interviews like this in the future.

—k

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You may be a rock star when it comes to marketing your clients' business.

But when it comes to your own, it might be an entirely different story. And you know what? That doesn't make you a bad marketer.

It's incredibly hard to market yourself—especially if you don't have a system to follow.

In this episode, I break down the three core pillars to attracting more clients:

Looking good "on paper" to your ideal clients
Having somewhere to invite people back to
Opening conversations and fostering relationships

This might seem simple, and it is. But it's not easy. It takes time, energy, and commitment to build it out and for it to start working for you.

But with any luck, this framework (and the details I talk about in the episode) will make attracting clients a lot easier. When you have clarity, you can really lean into your efforts and start seeing traction faster than simply winging it.

Listen to this episode for all the nuances and details.

—k

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What if the way to get your emails read and subscribers to stay subscribed was to lower the bar a little?

Not in terms of quality, necessarily. But in terms of format or type.

Instead of trying to write a grand theory of mathematics every time you publish, what if we treated email more like social media?

What if we aimed for a simple, concise, interesting, and/or fun piece of content?

Something light and consumable. Not overthought. Not pre-judged. Just something you found interesting or valuable.

Would you be able to be consistent with your publishing habits? Would your readers prefer it? Would it keep you interested?

I think yes. But there's nuance, as with all things.

So give this a listen. See if it resonates with your headspace.

See if it helps you overcome that mental block stopping you from sharing your ideas with your subscribers.

And while you're at it, subscribe to Mindshare Radio via your podcast player to get more ideas like this (and interviews coming soon).

—k

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The most successful businesses have a high degree of customer-centricity. Think Amazon or Google—they're absolutely relentless about the customer experience.

And in the consulting world, the most successful advisors are the ones who have a high customer-centricity and low self-orientation.

Not sure what this all means? In this episode, I break down how to put your client at the epicentre of your business, how to reduce your self-orientation, and the trade-offs needed to do all of this well.

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The only way to grow your business is through iteration. I wish there were an easier way.

The odds of you succeeding with new ideas out of the gate is low. Very low.

Even if your idea is good, it might be adjacent to the one the market wants. A small set of tweaks and iterations to the model, offer, or audience might just be what it needs to take off.

And that's empowering! It means you're not alone. Nobody figures everything out right away.

Yes, it's easy to get frustrated when things aren't clicking for you—especially when you're trying something new that you feel really passionate about.

It can feel like two steps forward and one step back. We look around for answers but the only good ones come from trying new things.

We have to simultaneously hold our vision strong while also being loose about it—not getting to wed to our best ideas.

If you are willing to continually iterate and innovate, it's only a matter of time before your vision and what your audience wants are in alignment.

Listen in for more on this topic if you're in this mode.

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Do you ever stop to wonder what it is we are really selling as consultants?

Are we selling a website, strategy, or brand identity? Yes... and no. Those are features of our work. And people don't really buy features.

Maybe we are selling new customer growth? Better retention? Ease of use? Those are all great benefits of our work. But let's dig a little deeper.
What is the emotion behind those benefits? What feeling are we really creating with our work?

People buy based on how they feel about the purchase. It aligns with logic, yes. But it's driven by emotion. So it makes sense to explore that emotion people are really seeking inside of what we sell.

I believe most consultants are selling confidence. Give this a listen to see what I mean.
Get this right and it will be a lot easier to create and sell the true benefits of your work.

—k

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It's incredibly easy to get sucked into being an employee-like figure when you do fractional leadership work.

When I first got started as a fractional CMO, I basically had two part-time jobs. The money was good but I worked HARD. I knew I needed to create better parameters.

In this episode of Mindshare Radio, I'll break down the five main ways to avoid turning into a set of employee-like hands when you sell fractional CXO services.

We'll talk about things like:

Setting expectations during sales
Defining what you will or won't do
Building your Rolodex
Setting a limit on your time if needed
Down-selling yourself to pure advisory work

And a ton of nuance in between.

Listen in and let me know what you think—did I miss anything important?

Hit reply and let me know.

—k

P.S. Need help transitioning into advisory/fractional CXO work? Check out my Paid to Think program or join Mindtrust, the no-brainer group coaching and training program for as little as $63/mo. when you pay annually.

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This post originally appeared at https://kevin.me/ways

You can think about niching in a lot of ways.

In many cases, the tighter you go, the easier it can be to sell what you offer. People are swimming in options, they want specific when they can get it.

So there are two angles to consider when deciding on how specific you should go with your business.

1. You can get specific about who you serve

The more specific your target market, the broader your focus can be in terms of what you help people with—while still being credible.

If I help multi-location coworking spaces do better marketing, that's a specific target market and a fairly broad way of helping them. It can be reasoned that you can have rare knowledge about marketing in a way that is uniquely applied to multi-location coworking spaces.

If I said I help anyone do better marketing at scale, you can begin to see where the skepticism may come in.

2. You can get specific about the problem you solve

When you're highly specific about the problem you solve, it makes sense that you could solve it credibly for a wide range of industries.

For example, I could say I help people sell their expertise through membership programs. And that could be a reasonably credible positioning given the specificity of the problem being solved.

I don't need to say "I help faith-based dog groomers sell membership programs." The market would be too small. And the same skills or lessons could be applied to far greater contexts.

And this is what strategy is all about.

There's no perfect way to position your consulting business. Specificity helps—but how you apply specificity is where the hard choices are made.

So what trade-offs are you making? How are you being specific about either what you do or who you do it for?

As they say, hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.

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I don't position myself as a fractional CMO.

I might have a fractional CMO service. Or in a sales conversation, I may say that I'm like having a part-time CMO on your team. But I don't call myself a fractional CMO as my top-level positioning.

I'm a consultant. I'm an advisor. I help companies with their marketing strategy.

But I'm not a part-time employee. I don't want to be seen as one. Nor do I want their actual marketing team to be threatened by what may seem like a new boss breathing down their neck.

In this episode, I go into:

Why I believe it's best to position yourself as a consultant—not an employee-like person
When to use terms like "fractional CMO" in your sales conversations and marketing copy
How to avoid threatening the in-house marketing managers when you're hired to help their organization.

The topic is nuanced, but I think it's important if you are selling strategic advisory services.

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What is your quiet inner voice telling you?

The one that whispers. You barely notice it at first. But when you do hear it, you're inspired.

Should you explore it?

Maybe you don't take it seriously at first. Maybe it feels like a pipe dream. It's not always rational. Sometimes it's idealistic. Regardless, when you pay attention to it, it feels directionally interesting.

Where does it come from?

I've noticed that it shows up when I take time away from my business. It shows up on vacations, bike rides, long walks, or while reading a good book. I'm not sure if it's the truth or just a passing random idea, but it feels worth exploring.

So what do you do when that voice says something? Do you jump to action or think about it until it no longer inspires you? Is it valuable or random? That's what I cover today.

It may just be the very thing that helps you create unique, valuable, and lasting work.

Or maybe not. Who knows.

—k

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In this episode, I break down where my advisory clients came from.

I also compare my niche (Everspaces) vs. general consulting clients came from to see if there was a difference.

And let me tell you, it was enlightening.

Do you analyze where your clients come from?

Give this a listen and let me know what you find about your own business.

—k

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Are you having trouble selling your productized service?

In this new episode of Mindshare Radio, I break down the four main things to consider when trying to fix the problem.

Give it a listen.

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Companies are hiring in-house and outsourced marketers differently than they did before.

I'm seeing less reliance on using a single in-house marketer or even one full-service agency to "do everything" for them.

Marketing has gotten too broad with too many specialties to work like that. But there's still a long way to go.

In this episode, I share a prediction on how marketing teams will continue to evolve toward a hybrid in-house/outsourced way.

I'll get into how I see things evolving and why this presents an opportunity for you.

Agree? Got another view? Hit reply and let me know.

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When a client requests your services, it can really help to have multiple options at different prices.

You can do this with a product or service ladder at different prices and scope, or you can create multiple options in your custom proposals.

In this episode, I break down the reasons why you may want to have multiple options and how to price them based on the value you're delivering.

This seemingly simple idea can have a major impact on your average deal value—often increasing your revenue by 30%+.

Listen in to learn more.

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What do you do when clients give you advice but then do their own thing anyway?

In this episode, I talk about why this happens, how to prevent it from happening, and how to both give and get the best possible advice.

—kw

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I interviewed Dagobert Renouf of Logology last week on how he's been so successful on Twitter.

Dagobert is extremely active and publishes a meme every day of the week, which is a big hit for his 30k+ audience.

But like any successful story, there's an underlying mindset and strategy that makes the tactics more successful.

So I wanted to dig into those. And he delivered.

We’ll get into the specifics of:

His overarching Twitter strategy
Why he believes memes as a marketing tactic works so well
How he comes up with his meme ideas each day
How he actually creates and publishes his memes
His approach to engaging with accounts—small and big—at scale
The tools he uses to manage Twitter as a power user
How he’s grown his logo design business with this strategy
And a range of other topics!

Listen in to hear this episode, it already changed my thinking and approach to Twitter.

Mentioned links

Logology
Dagobert on Twitter (@dagorenouf)
Black Magic (Twitter CRM/Analytics)
Rocket (emojis for Mac)
Imgflip (meme inspiration)

—k

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It can be nerve-wracking to propose a project that is more expensive or takes longer than a client is asking for.

Our first instinct might be to charge the bare minimum to get the job done. Or to promise the most ideal timelines—assuming nothing will go wrong—to win the deal and avoid pushback and rejection.

But we know that's not realistic. Something always comes up.

The problem is, while you think you're giving the client what they want, you're actually undercutting both you and them.

You're reducing the likelihood of achieving the very thing they're hiring you to do, which is to get a business result.

In this episode, I talk about one magical phrase that gives you and your clients more confidence to do work that may be more expensive or take longer than they hoped for.

And why it's the best thing for them—and you—to take this approach more often than not.

—k

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I recently decided to switch from daily publishing to a more flexible format.

In this episode of Mindshare Radio, I break down the reasons why I started publishing daily in the first place (549 days ago) as well as the reasons for giving myself permission to publish whenever I want.

I'm still bullish on daily content. It's an extremely powerful tactic if it aligns with your strategy.

But for now, I'm choosing flexibility. Listen to find out more.

—k

P.S. I'd love your thoughts. Hit reply and tell me what you're doing/thinking related to publishing.

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When you price your services, there's something called customer surplus to consider.

Customer surplus, in this case, means the amount of profit your customers gain after deducting your costs.

Not all profit is financial, but it's easier to think about it in financial terms.

On the one hand, you want to price your services high enough to attract people who need and value the outcome of your services.

People with the highest needs want to buy expensive solutions because they need them to work. Higher prices are both a signal of quality and they allow you to invest the resources to do great work.

On the other, you don't want to price too high or you risk capturing too much of the customer surplus, making your products and services less compelling.

It also makes you less likely to be referred because the price to value ratio after an engagement wasn't high enough to have people rave about you.

You also can't drop your prices too low or your ideal customers also won't buy it because, profit aside, they want and need something of quality that will actually solve their problems.

So should you price your work? Give this a listen.

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Mindshare member, Sean, had an interesting objection while selling his advisory services.

This is a common question when selling advisory work, so it's worth unpacking this and other follow-up questions Sean had.

"What if my marketing budget doesn't allow me to implement your advice?"In this episode, I talk about:

How to answer this question succinctly in your FAQs or sales conversations
The difference between cash flow/budget adherence and long-term ROI
Breaking out a spreadsheet to show potential cash flow scenarios
Comparing their other options, like agency, in-house employee, and DIY
Business model and pricing questions around advisory vs. managed advisory services

At the end of the day, your job is to get an ROI for your clients in a cash-sustainable manner.

If budgets are strict, your job is to work within their constraints.

But it's also worth noting that sometimes, the ROI pays dividends over a longer time horizon.

The better you can prove a business case, the easier it will be to sell.

Listen to this episode for a more in-depth response.

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Mindshare community member, Jack, had a great question about how narrow to go with your niche when just starting out as a new consultant.

Here's the gist of his question:

I'm currently in-house at what would probably be classed as a B2B manufacturer. The plan is to step into strategy/advisory within the next 6 months.

So with my current experience, I see it as an easy step to niche further into B2B - helping B2B manufacturers grow by transforming their marketing.

However, the company I work for is actually a manufacturer/service provider in the fire safety space. As a result a lot of my experience is how to target, position, market etc to a pretty specific ICP.

So my options would/could be:

1) General B2B
2) Manufacturers
3) Fire Safety & Security companies (B2B focussed but not all will be manufacturers)

Some of my thoughts on 3 come of the back of going to a big fire safety expo recently—there are a lot of companies with bad websites/branding spending a lot of money on their marketing!

I'm just concerned I could narrow myself too much.

As always, any thoughts are greatly received.

This is a great question that I answered in the community but wanted to give greater nuance to with a long-form audio recording.

The question really is: how niche do you go when leaving a job and starting a consulting practice?

In this episode, I talk about factors like:

The amount of runway you have
The size of the market
Access to the target market in your network
What things you're credible at
The benefits of staying broader at first
Alignment of your niche with your genuine interests
And general strategies for transitioning out of a job and into consulting with less risk

If you're thinking of making the leap from employment to consulting and aren't sure how niche to go, this episode is for you.

—k

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Mindshare Pro used to be a premium upgrade to the free Mindshare Community membership.

But in my opinion, that was a mistake. It should have been positioned as Group Coaching.

And the templates/resources should be categorized separately as knowledge products.

In this episode, I talk about categorizing your own products and services, how to break them down, why it matters, and also how to apply it to an industry like web design.

Give this a listen and let me know if your products and services have had similar categorization issues.

—k

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On a long drive today, I re-listened to some of the book, The Passion Economy, by Adam Davidson.

It spoke to me the first time I read it. It's about craftsmanship in your business and working on something you're passionate about.

It's about the power of building small-scale, high-quality work instead of mass-produced commodity work that can be scaled infinitely.

The book has a lot of great rules, quotes, and stories. I'll share one quote that came up because it fits so well into how we price our work.

Here's the quote:

“I recently hired a lawyer who told me that he would not charge me by the hour but would, instead, agree to a fixed fee for the work we were going to do together. He explained that charging by the hour contradicted his core values of serving his clients; it would create an incentive for him to spend more time even if it wasn’t strictly necessary. Or, on the other hand, he might choose to rush some work to save me some money. He preferred not to think about time at all but, instead, to focus on providing me with the greatest service. I found this comforting.”— The Passion Economy: Nine Rules for Thriving in the Twenty-First Century by Adam DavidsonSelling by the hour often doesn't feel good for either party, nor is it always aligned with the best interests of your clients.

The incentive structure is broken.

I've noticed hourly is most often the best option when you're doing commodity work, like website support or odd design tasks, for example.

I'm not bashing hourly work or these kinds of support roles. They may be necessary to grow and/or sustain your business. They can be profitable.

But I am pointing to the fact that hourly work—when it is required—is closest to commodity work and therefore should come with an orange flag.

The longer you do commodity work, the harder it will be to do great work.

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How much work should you take on?

When does the quality of your work suffer?

What are the ethical implications?

I talk about this and more in today's episode.

—kw

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A while back, I had my car detailed at a new shop around the corner.

When I called to book, the new business owner asked how dirty it was.

I said it was decent but it had some dog fur in parts of the back seat.

He grumbled and told me (reluctantly) to come in.

They were closed a few months later.

In this episode, I get into a few lessons we can all learn, including the importance of:

Doing work that you're intrinsically motivated by
For people you enjoy working with
At prices that excite you to bring your best
So you can build a sustainable business
Which allows you to become great at what you do
Which becomes a continued flywheel for your business

Give this a listen if it feels timely for you.

—k

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There are a lot of problems with having purely generalist positioning.

The main one, though, is that potential clients don't know what you're actually good at.

So they're left to figure that out for themselves—and there's no way to tell what you're actually good at until they work with you.

And by then it's too late.

The best clients will go to someone who looks the most qualified on paper. They will spend top dollar with them to do things right.

And that means you'll be left with the less-than-ideal clients. The ones who don't understand just how nuanced the work is to do right—which means they won't value your work enough to pay you well.

They'll be price shopping and have unrealistic expectations based on naive perceptions that things are easy.

Yes, I think you can be a generalist and specialist at the same time. You can build around your best skills and ideal niche until you don't need to take on other clients.

But having purely generalist positioning is a recipe for having a business you don't want to run.

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I cleaned my office today and I felt a lot better. More clear-thinking.

Strange how your environment can affect your mental state.

And to me, this is analogous to all areas of your business.

For example, cleaning out expenses you no longer use.

Or services that are not profitable enough.

Or clients who are not the right fit for you.

Or emails that are left unanswered for too long.

Or tasks that you have neglected and need to be either dealt with or deleted.

Or decisions you have been putting off until today.

I’m a big believer in creating space to think. I took today off calls to give myself time to clean things up and work on the things that mattered.

Without space, there’s no time to clean up. And if you don’t clean things up, your mind and your business will eventually be overrun.

This is your reminder to reserve time, clean up, and work on the things that excite you most in your business.

Or, just take a nap. Either way.

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I had a window installer come by recently to quote new windows on my house.

When I asked how the process works, he told me he'd educate me on the products, size the windows, give me a quote, then I'd "beat him up" on price, and then we'd make a deal when we figured out the details.

The throwaway line about haggling over price had me feeling uneasy. I don't know anything about windows let alone how to haggle over their prices.

There are lots of lessons here to unpack. Should you negotiate? If so, when and how? What do you do when price is a factor?

We'll get into that and more.

—kevin

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One of the things I've noticed about myself is that when I don't have a fixed publishing schedule, it's easy to push it off for long periods without publishing anything.

Just like exercising, the longer you don't publish content, the harder it is to get going again.

I noticed this recently with Mindshare Radio, too. I used to publish episodes 3 times per week—every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Then, I decided to record something once per week. But, I didn't set a strict publishing date or really commit to anything publicly.

And that resulted in inconsistent publishing—and worse, some over-thinking and even occasional anxiety about what to create.

In this episode, I talk about why committing publicly to your publishing schedule can not only make you more consistent, it can reduce the anxiety you face each time you stare at a blank page.

Give this a listen and let me know if you can relate.

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Could you take one day off client work per week to work on your business (and yourself)?

I've been doing that for the past five weeks and it's been incredible.

In this Mindshare Radio episode, I talk about how and why it might just be the best thing for you, too.

Listen on the web or subscribe on your favourite podcast player.

Have a great weekend!

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Super-consumers are the 10% of your customers who account for upwards of 50% of your profit.

All industries have them. All of us are super-consumers of at least something. It's true. And for very logical reasons.

In this episode, I break down the concept as coined by Eddie Yoon in his book, Superconsumers—and why it matters to your both business and the clients you serve at a strategic level.

Give it a listen and let me know what you think.

—kevin

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There's a common misconception that marketing advisors don't execute.

The reality is, we do execute. We just don't use our hands nor manage the minutia.

In this episode, I talk about how to think like an agency (even if you're doing advisory work).

At the end of the day, you're responsible for execution. You just do it differently than a typical agency.

Listen in and use this way of thinking in your own business—and during sales conversations when delivering this idea matters most.

—kevin

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What do you do when a client comes along looking for your help, but until now, they haven't been doing much (or any) of their own marketing?

Do you take on the work, turn it away, or do you use this as a chance to educate them on what to expect?

Personally, I prefer the latter. And if it seems like they are bought-in to reality, I'll consider working with them.

In this episode, I talk about how to be fully conscious when clients like this come along, how to educate them about how long things should take, and ultimately to manage expectations.

Slow results are the cost of marketing from a standstill. Like an engine, it takes time to rev up.

They either get it or they don't. Better to know up front before you start working together.

—kw

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Your thinking will get updated.

You will try things that don't work.

You will pivot your advice based on what works.

In this episode, I give you permission to change your mind and update your thinking—regardless of any sunk costs.

Listen in to hear more.

—k

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One of the biggest challenges I hear from marketing consultants is getting stuck doing execution work.

Managed advisory services/fractional CMO is a great way to ease into advisory work. In the short-term, it can be an exciting and profitable line of work.

But if you don't manage to shift into pure advisory work, it will create a lot of unnecessary stress and it will hold you back from growing your business.

In this episode, I break down the five biggest problems (and the sub-variations thereof) with doing execution work as a marketing consultant.

These include:

Lack of time to work on your business
Becoming an order-taker vs. being seen as an advisor
Being non-aligned with your clients' interests
Feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and scatter-brained
No ability to scale your offerings and grow your business

This was a longer episode, so I'll talk about how to break free from execution in a future episode—plus the significant upside that creates for both you and your clients.

Execution is by far the most time and energy intensive thing you do, but is much lower value than you may think.

I'll get into all that and more in future episodes.

—k

P.S. Are you experiencing any or all of these pains? Hit reply and let me know!

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Are you a freelancer or agency owner looking to sell advisory services in addition to or instead of execution services?

If so, are you willing to stop earning money on execution so you can become a "trusted advisor" to a fiduciary standard? Do you need to?

Should you create a new website/business or add advisory services to your list of existing execution services?

While there's no right answer, I have some thoughts on all this and more.

—k

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If you've done any fractional CMO/freelance head of growth/managed advisory work (as I like to call it), you'll quickly notice how much it limits your time to work with multiple clients and do your own marketing.

In this episode, I unpack a few topics, questions, and constraints brought up by member

Rob Denton-Ross

in a private discussion (with his permission to respond via podcast).

Rob currently does some execution work and is getting opportunities to do more involved fractional CMO work. As a result, it's difficult to find time (and justify spending it) to market himself.

I talk about things like:

My thoughts on selling days per week/month
Hiring marketing managers instead of being the one to manage
Focusing on selling advisory level as soon as you can
What to do to market yourself when your time is limited
And a lot of other limits, constraints, and ways of dealing with fractional CMO work in your business

Give this a listen and let me know what you think!

—k

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In order to be successful as an advisor, you need to be able to:

Prove you're worth hiring for your knowledge in the first place
Reinforce why you're worth listening to after they hire you

If you have difficulty selling advisory services, or if clients stop listening to your advice during your engagements, it might be due to one of the three things I talk about in this episode.

Give it a listen and share with a friend who might benefit!

—k

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It can be tempting to ignore all or parts of your core process with a new client.

You might find yourself jumping into an engagement head first, reacting to demands and/or responding to tactical projects already in motion.

Things may be under tight timelines and the client feels like they know what they need to do, they just need a little guidance.

But the problem is, when you skip some or all of your core process, things quickly begin to fall apart.

Instead of deciding what to do, you're reacting to things the client wants you to do.

Instead of diagnosing the real problems and developing a strategic plan, you're working within the parameters of their thinking, not yours.

But you're hired to be the expert and you've been doing this a long time. Which means you need to be true to the process that has gotten results time and time again.

In this episode, I talk about the three big reasons why you should have a formal process and stick to it during all of your client engagements.

Every time I skip some or all of it, I always regret it. At very least, I prefer to check the boxes so I know no stone is unturned.

Listen in for more.

—k

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As I wrote about the other day, one of the most critical aspects of scaling a consulting business without hiring a team is to generate assets from your ideas and expertise.

In this episode, I break down how and why you should aim to document all your ideas and processes in your business to help you create leverage and grow without working harder.

—k

P.S. Know someone who would like to join this group? Have them visit https://mindshare.fm and click the button to join the free (or Pro) tier. Your referrals are all I ask if you enjoy the community and content.

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A while back, I wrote a post arguing how specialization is simplification.

The article spawned a series of questions around how to find a niche, so I thought I'd do an episode covering just this topic.

In this episode, I talk about:

Why you should niche (or not)
Things to look for when picking a niche
How limiting your focus increases your opportunities
How and whether you should specialize in multiple niches
Examples of horizontal and vertical specialization
Why excluding industries is actually good for business
Why the target is not always the market
And a lot more!

If you're considering niching, I go deep on the topic in this episode so give it a listen.

—k

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In this episode, I break down the how and how long it took me to build an advisory practice out of my former marketing agency, including:]

Revenue growth and timelines from 2017 to today
Transitions from freelancer to employee to agency owner to consultant
Bring a specialist and a generalist consultant
Managed advisory services vs. pure advisory services
And other topics related to growing over the past 5 years

Give this a listen if you're wondering what my path looked like and how yours could, too.

It takes time to build, but advisory work is a great business model.

—k

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Sometimes, people will not be able to afford the sticker price for your consulting services.

Instead of folding and offering an immediate discount, there are lots of ways to work with them collaboratively to create a win-win (read: mutually profitable) situation for both of you.

The first way is by removing scope.

What can you take off the table while still helping them accomplish their business objectives?

Examples might include:

Who has access to you (owner, staff, suppliers?)
Frequency of calls
Medium of contact (i.e. Slack vs. email vs phone)
Deliverables (or not)
Additional content or bonuses
What will you advise on or not
Access to your network/Rolodex

You can listen to episode 65 for examples of the levers of value I employ with my advisory clients.

Another form of scope change is to elongate timelines while reducing interaction.
I did this recently by turning a $27k/6 month project into an 8-month project for the same total amount.

We also agreed to do twice-monthly instead of weekly strategy calls instead, giving a longer lead time to their launch date (this was a new coworking business).

This actually resulted in being more profitable on a per-hour basis (not that I charge hourly), given I'd be having 50% less calls for 25% longer period of time for the same money.

It also reduced the stress that comes from needing to do everything quickly and intensely leading up to a launch. We have more time to get things done, which causes less stress for me.

You can also reduce prices for something beneficial to you in return.

Ideas include getting permission to do detailed case studies or testimonials (which will help win business later on), or getting constructive feedback on your process, referrals, services in kind, access to an audience, or any number of other factors that may create benefit to you commensurate with the reduction in price.

Whatever you do, don’t just discount your services for nothing in return.

There are a lot of ways to play with scope, time, access, and benefits to create a customized proposal that is a win-win for you and your clients.

The worst thing you can do is straight discount your time unless you feel there's a good reason to do so.

If people can't afford your services, and none of the above ideas work, it's not your place to subsidize their businesses.

—k

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In this episode, I talk about:

Why you want to develop systems in your clients' business—not just implement projects
Why you want to start slowly before adding on more layers
Why you want to watch for signs of overwhelm closely
And why you want to create momentum and confidence instead

…all of this so that you can create more consistent and sustainable results for your clients.

—k

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Working with bad clients:

Distracts you from doing your best work for your best clients
Ties you up from working with new and better-fit clients
Creates stress which you bring home to your loved ones
Eliminates the chances of you getting a referral in the end
Reduces the chance of you being able to do a case study
Drains you of your energy (physically and emotionally)
Hurts your confidence in other areas of your life and business
Burns you out more quickly—which is bad for business
Creates risk like reputation damage, lawsuits, and other negative byproducts

As a consultant, you're the asset.

Working with bad clients is like allowing corrosives on your core machinery. If you don't fix it, you'll have no business.

Don't mistake revenue for a profitable situation.

Remove the acid in the vessel.

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Do you get clear on business outcomes during your initial sales discussions?

Do they make it into your proposal?

Do they get referenced during and after the engagement?

If not, chances are you're not winning as many deals as you could, and you may run into challenges down the road even if you do.

In this episode, I talk about why capturing your client's business goals during the sales process and including it in your proposal is immensely valuable to the success of your projects.

Doing this upfront and including it in your working Trello board (or whatever you use to store information) is key to actually achieving the things your clients want you to, making for better relationships and results for everybody.

Give this a listen and let me know what you think!

—k

P.S. I did a training on this for members of Mindshare Pro today, including where and how I incorporate this information into proposals.

And yes, I do proposals and agreements even for my productized consulting services. Sign up to get access to these trainings, resources, and monthly group coaching calls here: https://mindshare.fm.

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Last week, I had a sales conversation for a $4,500/mo. advisory engagement that I almost lost because I didn't explain what I do well enough.

Luckily, I was able to save the conversation and left the call feeling good about future next steps.

What saved it was being able to show my documented methodology, including my KPI spreadsheet, Methodology Trello Board, and Client Operating System.

All of these and more are included in the Pro membership, by the way.

Give this a listen to hear how I almost dropped the ball and learn how to better sell your advisory services.

—k

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I saw a tweet the other day by Andrew Warner, host of the Mixergy podcast.

He reaches out to potential guests asking if they would like to appear on his shows. Only 25% of the people he reached out to replied... which is wild because he has a huge platform.

But when he started doing follow-ups, he doubled his response rate to 50%.

Which got me thinking, should you do follow-ups to your prospects who don't reply?

In this episode, I explore whether you should, and if so, how you could do it without seeming desperate.

Give it a listen and let me know what you do when following up with potential opportunities.

—k

P.S. If you're interested in jumping on a beta version of a mastermind group coaching program, hit me up in the DMs or email me at kevin@kevin.me.

I have three spots remaining in a group of five and I'm aiming to fill it this month. Learn more here: https://society.mindshare.fm/c/announcements/are-you-interested

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There's a common concern that working with multiple companies in a niche might create competition among your clients—especially when they operate in similar geographic areas.

Usually, it's not an issue—especially if you don't work with companies who are going after the same market in the same locations at the same time and who are completely undifferentiated.

But what happens when you do SEO/PPC services for companies with global reach who have similar audiences?

If search engines are zero-sum, wouldn't you just be competing against your other clients by doing that?

It's a great question by Alex Nech so I want to explore the nuances with you all to help navigate the uncertainty.

In this episode, I talk about picking a broad enough niche, helping your clients with differentiation, the ethics of working with similar companies later on, and creating custom solutions that work for your individual clients, even if you apply the same general methodology in doing so, and much more.

Give this a listen and let me know if you agree or disagree!

—k

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I was asked recently by community member

Alex Nech

why I chose to run an advisory business instead going the agency route.

In this episode, I break down most of the reasons I chose to go this route instead of growing my agency.

The main reasons include:

Higher take-home profit at the end of the year (at my size)
Less day-to-day stress
Less business overhead and complexity
A better overall experience working with clients
More free time in my day
And generally a better fit with my skills/personality

There are more reasons, and I break it all down in this episode including how I transitioned from running an agency to advisory work.

If you're not sure what route to go, give this a listen and see if any parts of it resonate with your situation.

—k

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I talk a lot about having a methodology for your consulting work. It's core to the way you organize, package, and deliver your expertise.

But the thing is, prospects don't really care about your methodology. At least, not at first.

What they care most about are solving their pains and achieving their desired outcomes. Your marketing should focus on those things first and foremost.

And yet, having a methodology is critical to not only instilling confidence into your clients, but also to deliver results consistently and ultimately scale your expertise.

In this episode, I go into how/when to use your methodology in your marketing, why credibility is the thing you want to focus on most, and the methodology becomes valuable to you business later on.

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I've heard a few people lately talking about using day rates as a marketing advisor or fractional CMO. Things like one, two, or three days a week for X price per month.

I've even heard of people charging around $10k+/month on a couple days per week with the client. Seems decent, right?

There's no hard and fast rules with this, so I won't say never do it. But I prefer not to unless it's for single projects where I visit clients for a day or two to get things done. But even then, I usually lump it into my advisory retainers unless significant travel is required.

When you charge by the day, what ends up happening is people see you as a part-time employee. They begin to ask what you "got done" in the time allotted, or other such questions usually reserved for employees or "suppliers".

They begin to delegate tasks instead of receiving your expertise and guidance on what to do. You become the catch-all of ideas.

It's also not scalable unless you oversell your time, but even then—now you're not allocating the promised amount of time to them.

I'd rather offer unlimited access to me for a select number of people or in a limited capacities to keep scope down rather than selling hours, days, or other such time-based metrics.

I'd also avoid the execution/project management work unless you're transitioning into advisory services using a "managed advisory services" model or if you charge a lot and limit it to a few months to sort out emergencies. It quickly becomes a full time job and it's just not worth it.

There are exceptions to this, but that's what I've found.

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Have you ever considered sponsoring a conference?

It never dawned on me to do it before, but I recently did.

In this episode, I talk about why I recently sponsored a conference for $1k in exchange for a logo on the conference website and a 30-second podcast ad.

Sound crazy? Maybe.

While this isn't something I normally do, I explain why this was on-strategy for me this time and why I wouldn't stand at a booth, for example.

—k

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The Travelling Roadshow is an approach I’ve picked up over the years that has gotten me several new clients while building my audience at the same time.

In this episode, I break down my core approach to using webinars in a way that leaves people with tremendous value they can implement themselves while also subtly selling your products and services.

Give it a listen and let me know what you think!

—k

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A client recently asked me to downgrade or potentially pause our engagement.

They were nervous about the future of their business as we continue experiencing COVID impacts and wanted to conserve cash/play defence.

I suggested we have a call to discuss the financials and make a decision about what's best.

When we dug into the numbers in our KPI spreadsheet, it showed that not only were they excellent, they should be spending even more and getting MORE clients for as long as the acquisition costs stayed steady, which is safer than trying to conserve capital.

We explored the business case together of either downgrading or pausing our engagement, and it became obvious based on their current financial situation and future goals that we should keep working together.

After all, they were acquiring customers and paying back their acquisition costs in their first month, meaning every month after was profitable—including my fees.

The client wasn't close to these numbers (something they know they need to fix), so it was an eye-opening experience for them. They decided to keep at my full rate and scope for the indefinite future.

Give this episode a listen for a longer conversation on proving value and knowing your clients' numbers. Your own business depends on it.

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There's a lot of power in consolidating your focus on one goal.

In this episode, I tell a story about how a client I'm working with lacked a cohesive focus among the team. We were doing a lot of things very well, but the team of about 8-10 people were all thinking in silos.

We were marching in different directions.

What we lacked was alignment around our goals. We lacked a core marketing strategy outside of the overall brand strategy.

In this episode, I break down what we did to get in alignment and how our decisions have led to a new lens from which to look at our marketing.

—k

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As consultants, we worry about two things to various degrees at different times:

Are we delivering enough value?
Where will my next client come from/will it all dry it up one day?

In this episode, I address both of these head-on.

—k

P.S. I announced the new membership tier, Mindshare Pro, today. Be sure to check it out and sign up if you're interested! Check out the announcement here.

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Are you hesitating to hit publish?

It might be time to re-think your approach. Chances are, you're talking yourself out of publishing your good ideas because you think they're not unique, or interesting, or that nobody would pay attention anyway.

In this episode, I talk about how to think about your content publishing habit and ways to talk yourself into just hitting publish.

Hint: just try to be useful to one person.

I promise that once you do, you'll feel a lot better.

Listen in.

—k

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Is being a marketing consultant a risky business model?

Would you be better off being an employee?

In this episode, I talk all about risk, including:

1. How companies flee to expertise during hard times
2. How COVID was riskier to many employees than to consultants
3. How the marketing industry is going more flexible
4. The greater need for fractional executives

And other ideas that I think show how consulting is less risky if you are a good fit for the business.

Consulting isn't for everyone. But if you're in the game or have clients already, it might not only be less risky, it might be far more lucrative.

—k

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If you're selling advisory services and feel stressed, burned out, or exhausted in the process, this episode is for you.

Your job as an advisor is to sell access to your brain.

Sure, you may also bring a Rolodex of people, some systems and templates, training, and other supplementary resources, but that's not the same as tactical execution or project management.

If you're doing execution and/or project management but want to be selling your brain instead, there's room for improvement which will free you from the stresses I described above.

The critical piece to selling access to your brain is ensuring expectations are set up-front and then "installing the engine" before you begin your engagement.

Listen in for what this means and why it's so important if you plan to scale your expertise and not get mired in the execution details.

-kw

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One of the ways I get clients in the coworking industry is with a travelling roadshow.

It ultimately comprises of:

Your big idea/way of achieving a desired result
A lesson with free resources on how to DIY
An offer to those who need (paid) support

It's usually a webinar but it could also be a podcast appearance, conference talk/workshop, or any other kind of free training you do.

The key is to let people know upfront that you'll be sharing ways they can hire or buy your ideas at the end of the talk, but that you'll also be giving them all the tools and basics needed to take an honest shot at the DIY approach.

This has worked for me to acquire several clients who have gone on to be long-term clients with me.

It's also worked to drive people to my free resources (and therefore email list) which has resulted in untold sales and audience growth.

Give this a listen and let me know if it gets the wheels turning for you, too!

—k

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When you approach your client work, do you follow a Methodology or standard process? Or do you make it up as you go along?

I have a Methodology, and it makes every engagement streamlined and less stressful.

It's like a checklist. Something to capture and document your ideas. But also to use as a reference in your client engagements to ensure nothing gets missed. This creates predictable outcomes when applied consistently.

I call this the Methodology. Your prospects may not care much that you have a Methodology, only that you can get results.

But once they become your clients, they do start to care if it feels like you're winging it every day or there's no method to your madness (results) to speak of.

They also notice and appreciate it when you do show them how it works. When you create a Trello or Asana board just for them with the entire picture mapped out. It gives them a lot of confidence to see they're part of your tried-and-true process.

In this episode, I talk about my own Methodology and the general approach I use in my marketing advisory practice.

I store it in Trello, and every new idea or learning I get goes into the core template that becomes the basis for every new (and current) engagement I run.

If this topic is interesting, let me know. I'll give you a bigger peek behind the curtain at how it looks.

> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community.

I have been building and designing websites for nearly two decades.

Wild, right? Doesn't feel that long.

I started out in the early 2000's as a hobby as a teenager. Eventually, I did it as a freelancer, turned the work into an agency, branched out into other areas of marketing along the way, and some time later became a marketing advisor.

If I had to go back to my roots and sell web design services, I'd consider doing it as an advisor with some back end digital products.

In fact, I thought about offering an advisory package to my coworking website around web design for coworking spaces. I also have a small info product on web design for coworking spaces, which would be another way I'd consider doing things.

So how would I do web design as an advisor?
Loosely speaking, it would go like this.

I'd specialize in a vertical/industry who need and value excellent web design and have a budget for great work.
I'd offer an initial strategy portion to help get clarity on scope, goals, and strategic requirements. Price determined by expected scope and value.
I'd then sell a fixed-fee project based on the scope to oversee the implementation of the website design project. Basically, I'd be insurance they'd get a great result.
I'd bring in strong developers, designers, and content people and introduce them to the client—not marking up their time. Ideally a mix of prices to offset some of the strategy costs.
I'd either manage the project (not ideal) or make myself available to review and answer questions along the way.
I'd then potentially sell an ongoing retainer (or include some time post-launch in my project scope) to ensure the goals are met and make tweaks to help it get there if not.

It's not a perfectly clear vision in my head, but I think I could do it and it would be a net benefit for similar costs to the client in the end. But only if I specialized.

The only way you can sell your expertise instead of your hands (without a massive audience) is to be the best at what you do. Which means specializing.

Otherwise, people will roll the dice on a generalist and figure it out themselves.

This relates back to the last episode with a question from Ant Pugh. The approach is slightly different but still along the same lines, just applied to web design instead of elearning.

I'd also begin to package my expertise into a course and/or themes for a vertical industry, allowing my expertise to be leveraged at scale for an even wider audience.

—k

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Here's a great follow-up question in the thread, Selling transformation vs. selling your time, by Ant Pugh:

Just going back to your comment about a phased approach to transitioning from tactical work to selling advice. In this excellent blog post you talk about the conflict of interest between the same person doing the tactical and strategy work.

Do you believe that it's just unfortunately what needs to happen in the interim until you're at a place when you can exclusively offer strategy work?

Ant is in the process of phasing out of implementation work and into advisory work and is wondering how I reconcile it with my idea that there's a conflict of incentives with selling full-service strategy and implementation at the same time.

In this episode, I talk about the middle ground between advisory and implementation work, and how it mostly circumvents this conflict while still being hands on in getting the work done.

The conversation here is nuanced, so I go into some examples, but generally it answers the question of incentives and most importantly, keeps you as a trusted advisor on the side of your clients.

If you want to phase out of implementation and into advisory, consider the managed advisory services approach.

—k

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Most of my clients these days are turning into long-term clients, ranging from 1 to 4+ years working together so far. Which is great!

But with that, I get a slight background concern that they could all "ripen" (like a fruit) at the same time and fall off the tree leaving my business cut in half.

I also know that a business needs turnover in order to remain fresh, just like anything else in life.

One of the things I've done to create such long-term clients while still making room to work with new ones is to create a continuity program that costs less but is also much less time-intensive.

It ends up being about 30-40% of the original workload for about 60% of the original price. Which means the client saves considerably on my monthly retainer fee and I get to actually increase my effective hourly rate, freeing up more bandwidth to take on new clients while retaining a solid base of high effort:value work.

It acts a bit like insurance for both of us - they get the value of my mind applied to their business (to a lesser degree than before), which protects their downside and keeps new innovations and ideas flowing in.

For me, it lets me build a stable roster of revenue that keeps me feeling financially secure over time. A win-win.

There are limitations to this, of course. And it's not the only way to do things.

But for me, half my job is to protect the downside for me and my clients while also incrementally building in more leverage to increase the upside for everyone.

Give this a listen and let me know what you think!

—k

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Here's a great question from Michelle that came in earlier in the week:

Hi - I'm curious where or what resources do you go to for ongoing education or certifications for marketing? There are lots of ways to keep learning as you go along in your business.

The big ones, of course are:

Books
Independent courses
Certifications
Traditional Education
Coaching

As a marketing consultant, there are at least two areas you can focus on, too: marketing and business.

Sure, there is personal development and other areas to explore, but for now I'll cover these two.

Why continue learning? Usually, it's to keep growing your skills to do better work and earn more money. But you might also use certifications and certificates to demonstrate that you know what you're doing on a subject. It's a form of proof.

I personally believe the best way to demonstrate credibility is to focus on demonstrating how you solve a particular problem for a particular group of people. In other words, specializing or niching.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of courses, books, and ideas I've explored recently in the past couple years that have helped continue growing.

None of these are affiliate links. I have not bought some of the courses mentioned below. But I tell you when that's the case so you know. The rest are quality recommendations in my book.
1. Business

Pricing
- Value-Based Fees by Alan Weiss - Book
- Jane Portman's Productized Consulting Guide - eBook
- Jonathan Stark - Hourly Billing is Nuts
Positioning and Strategy
- Blue Ocean Strategy by Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim - Book
- Obviously Awesome by April Dunford - Book
Sales
- The Secret of Selling Anything by Harry Browne - Book
Research
- 30x500 course - teaches audience research and product development (services, too)

2. Marketing

Copywriting and content marketing
- Psychotactics has lots of great small and big courses on content, copy, and marketing strategy in general
- HubSpot has a lot of courses to learn at a high level about a lot of things
Social media
- Dave Talas Instagram Course - I haven't taken it but it seems credible
- Daniel Vassallo's Everyone Can Build a Twitter Audience course
- LinkedIn Learning
SEO
- Moz's training
Google Ads
- Google's Certifications
Facebook Ads
- Facebook Ads Certification
Analytics
- Analytics Course by Jeffalytics
- Annielytics Dashboard course (have not taken this)
Email marketing
- If you want to learn MailChimp - Chimp Essentials
- Email automation - Mastering ConvertKit (applies to CK but has a lot of great practices to learn for more advanced uses).
- Autoresponder Madness - I bought this bc some people I trust recommended it, but have not consumed it yet
CRMs
- Hubspot Certifications
- Salesforce Certifications
- ActiveCampaign Certifications

I'll share more sources for continued education as I think about them or buy them in the future.

Got any good recommendations? Leave a comment below!
—k

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When it comes to value, there are two ways to look at things:

The value of the expertise you have/bring to the table
The lifetime business value of the outcomes you create

In this episode, I break both of these down in an effort to help you understand the value at the table and also to keep it in mind when pricing your services.

The value of your work is not just the outcomes you deliver today, but the trajectory and foundation you build which lasts many years.

The value also comes from being able to hire you on demand instead of your clients needing to learn things themselves from scratch (a form of leverage).

There are many ways to think about the value you create for your clients, but these are two of the big ones.

Give this a listen and let me know how you think about value around these topics.

—k

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Have you ever considered writing a daily blog?

In this episode, I break down some of the main reasons why I do it (and have done for 120 days in a row so far on kevin.me) and why you might consider doing so, too.

Some of the main reasons include:

Clarifying your ideas to make them better
Creating a body of work that becomes interconnected on your blog
Building credibility by sharing your expertise
Increasing surface area and marketing gravity
Creates the building blocks for your Methodology
It makes you more "remarkable" and rare

There are many more reasons to write daily. If you're going to do it, be sure to keep things short and sweet. Otherwise it will burn you and your readers out.

If you're up for a daily writing channel, let me know and I'll open a private section in this group for daily motivation and feedback.

Cheers!

—k

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What do you do when your client needs results ASAP?

Or when you have a prospect who has no momentum with their marketing program but expects big things in year one?

In this episode, I talk about setting expectations around the speed marketing should work at.

I talk about what clients to say no to and when to educate them on the big picture.

I also touch on how your job is to build a marketing system for your clients using your methodology. And that takes time.

Give this a listen and let me know what you think!

—k

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If you're in a marketing strategy/advisory role, you'll inevitably be called to ask to help hire someone in-house, whether it be a marketing manager, content person, or something else.

Here's my general approach for helping clients find the right candidate.

Provide a sample job description
- Ideally, you have a template you can use. Otherwise, you can find a few similar job descriptions in the wild and send it to them to prepare a draft.
Explain the few things that matter most for the position
- Written communication skills
- Attention to detail
- Similar experience
Publish jobs on Indeed and LinkedIn
Ask them to create a short list of resumes to review together and reduce down to a small handful to interview
Once they've interviewed people, see who they feel is the best fit
Suggest doing a paid trial project or period
- Project manager - two week paid trial
- Markeitng manager - audit the marketing and suggest ways you'd seek to improve things
- Writer - give them a brief, get them to audit the current content marketing and propose ideas, create a draft article + social media posts for them

The key part of all of this is the trial. I've seen a lot of people who look good on paper and end up being terrible hires.

The thing is, you never know who's going to be good until you work with them. Get them to do either a trial project or work for two weeks and see if it's a mutual fit.

Hire right, not twice!

Have you hired before and done things differently? Any insight to share? Let me know in the comments below!

—k

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Last episode, I talked about how I changed the price and scope up and down for a few different clients recently.

One thing I didn't get into is when to drop your price and when not to drop your price.

There's a few situation when I might drop the price:

When the scope changes significnatly
When the value changes significantly (at which time I try to change scope, too)
When you have a great client who has given you lots of profitable work in the past, they're easy to work with, and it feels like the right thing to do

I never drop my clients to new prospects who simply ask for a straight discount (red flag), nor do I drop my prices for clients who are not living up to their end of the bargain on the implementation side of things (which impacts value).

At the end of the day, like I wrote about yesterday, you don't want to be the cheap consultant. You want to be the best consultant for people who need and value your work the most.

Otherwise you'll be spread too thin and won't be able to do the necessary groundwork needed to get them actual results.

Do you drop your prices in any other situations? Hit reply and let me know!

—k

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> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community.
There comes a time when you need to change prices with your current clients.

For me, it happens a lot when I work with them for a long time. The value changes over time.

And that's the key part here: value.

In most cases, I find new ways to create value instead of reducing my rates. I ask questions about goals and needs.

But in many cases still, the value decreases once I get all the hard parts of the systems and strategies in place. And with that, it makes sense to have the talk.

I try to check in with my clients often, but especially when I intuit that either I'm doing way too much or not providing a clear enough value equation for them.

If you're not sure, the best thing to do is ask what the goals are and the impact of those goals will be so you can continue making a business case for the work you'e doing.

I like to pre-empt these conversations as much as possible and suggest new rates or new scopes proactively whenever possible.

The last thing you want to do is be stuck doing too much work or not feeling like you're adding enough value for your clients. When that happens, it's better to air your thoughts and make proactive adjustments to keep your work aligned with their needs and goals.

Ultimately, doing this means taking a long-term view. It's about them, not you. And when you put your clients first, you always get the most mutual value out of the relationship.

Listen in for some more context and a few specific examples of changes I've made this month.

—k

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Are you fully booked? When it happens, what do you do?

Do you refer work away or put clients on a waiting list?

Mark had a great question last week:

Any advice on managing prospects when you're at full capacity? What's a good strategy to keep a customer in your pipeline. Ideally, they're willing to wait until you can take them on.
The answer is bigger than simply having a waiting list or not.

In this episode, I talk about things like:

How limited availability helps create scarcity and therefore higher rates
How serving a niche market can help you create group programs and training products that serve as temporary solutions while they wait
Why it might be time to raise your rates if you're in high demand (you can always change them back later)
Why it might be time too say goodbye to old, non-ideal, lower-fee clients might not be
When to use one-off or recurring strategy calls to get the client started while they wait for your full attention
When to consider doing a one-time project (higher fees) as time permits to kick things off while they wait for your ongoing support
How to start trying to create more leverage to help more people down the road

At the end of the day, how well you're positioned will determine whether you're interchangeable or whether you can command a waiting list when you get busy. By having a niche focus and rare specializations, you can create that waiting list demand as well as develop training, education, and group programs to continue creating more leverage around your knowledge.

Good positioning is the lever that makes the rest of your business more profitable and impactful. Keep going!

Hope this helps!

-k

P.S. Got a question you'd like an audio response to? Leave it in the Ask a Question channel and I'll add you to the queue!

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> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community.
Do you find yourself selling the way you work instead of what the client gets at the end of it?

As marketers, we have a tendency to describe and sell our approach to solving client challenges, not necessarily the systems they'll use to run things later on.

And as important as that I, most people care less about how you approach your work and more about how their marketing program will be different after you're gone.

That's the transformation you're selling as a marketing consultant: it's a new way of doing things that helps get predictable results.

That's the asset they're buying.

In this episode, I'll explore the nuances and explain in more detail what that means.

-kw

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> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community.
Here's a great topic for today's podcast episode from Mark Evans in the Submit a Question channel:

I just signed a new client and have an interesting problem. It only has one customer, which has been been a customer for 13 years. Any thoughts on how to get insight into the software's value, etc. with such a small sample size?
In this episode, I cover ideas for figuring out the value proposition of the business based on why the customer buys, and ways to find more people who share a similar need or problem.

Tune in and let me know what you think below!

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I was speaking with a coaching client today about creating a list of offerings that make it easy for all opportunities to fall into one predefined offer.

It's basically a reverse-product ladder. Instead of people ascending the ladder, they can jump in the middle and even descend over time.

In this episode, I break down the "coinsorter" list I recommend for marketing consultants, including:

Fractional CMO
Advisory
Coaching
Group Programs
Fixed-Scope Engagements (audits, strategy, roadmaps, workshops)
Strategy Calls
Custom Projects (only as needed)
Products (info products, resources, etc.)

Ideally, someone comes to you and you can easily guiide them to one or two options and still get an end result.

Custom engagements are always there, but you save a ton of time by having service offerings that balance specificity with a degree of looseness to allow wiggle room to get all kinds of results.

Give it a listen and tell me what you think!

—k

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Welcome to the 100th episode of the Mindshare Mentorship podcast.

In very meta fashion, I want to share an idea originally coined by Josh Spector, a friend who helps creators create, promote, and profit from their creations.

He wrote an article back in 2018 called Only Do It If You're Willing To Do It 100 Times.

In this episode, I break down his idea and encourage you to take his advice when venturing into a new niche or project.

The simple act of committing to doing whatever you're trying to do 100 times enables you to avoid projects that aren't a fit, think long term, adapt what you're doing, gain control over what you can actually control, and push through the resistance (The Dip) you'll inevitably experience.

Give this one a listen and tell me if it resonates with you!

—kw

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This episode is in response to the story shared by

Michel Fortin

in the #general channel about how to handle difficult client situations, scope, and spotting red flags before they happen.

If you're in business long enough, you'll eventually run into people who aren't happy about something. Sometimes it's about you, often it has very little to do with you in the first place.

But regardless of the situation, it's your job as a professional to own the problem, look for ways to make it right, and prevent it from happening again in the future.

The gist of the questions are below, but read the full post for the full picture:

So my two questions/suggestions are these: 1) How do you sell expertise (i.e., head, not hands) after a client has purchased from you? Particularly a roadmapping service where you are not tied to the implementation but the results of which are?

I'm sure proposals/contracts can clearly delineate the deliverables vs expectations. But I don't want to be so specific that I need to create long contracts to prevent every situational nuance.

2) How do you define "red flags" before a roadmapping phase? What do you do to find them (and how do you weigh them against your decision)?

My guess is something like the "why conversation" that Stark talks about would help. The problem is, people who hire marketing experts like us may be desperate and broke, or become nitpicky micromanagers.

But sometimes, these things don't show up in initial conversations.

I wonder if an application process might be good? Do you use one? I know you (Kevin) said you go in blind like in Getting Naked. I charge for the exploration, too, which is roadmapping. But do you do some prequalification?

I'm open to suggestions.

Give this a listen and tell me what works for you in similar situations, we'd all like to know!

—k

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> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community.
Here's a good question from Mark about taking a one month vacation when you have a full roster of monthly retainer clients:

For most of us, it's been all work, all the time since last March. My wife suggested that I take a month off (July) in the summer. It would be great to unplug.Any thoughts on how to do that when you have a roster of clients that you work with on a regular basis?

The high level summary includes:

Splitting the month (i.e. going 15th to 15th) to avoid one complete missing invoicing/service period and therefore charging full rates. Or go 3 weeks to make it easier to do that.
Prepare in advance and have things lined up so the client is able to run with things without you—or with minimal input from you while away.
Manage expectations early and often with your clients. Tell them early and often that you plan to be away, how you'll handle it, and what it means.
Be prepared to do extra work leading up to and returning from your break (i.e. more calls with your clients/their suppliers, etc.)
See if you can do some check-in calls mid-break (contained to a day or two) and/or be available to answer emergency or time-sensitive emails with some expected delay
If you can't do many of these, you might need to offer a partial refund. Remember, the value you charge for is not based on hours or individual weeks. It's based on creating a transition into a better situation for your clients. How you do that is up to you. So don't nickel and dime it into hours or weeks.

I've gone on multi-week breaks before and it hasn't been an issue. A month is a long time so do what feels right at the end of the day.

Hope this helps!

Bye for now.

Kevin

P.S. Remember to submit your questions if you'd like an audio response in the Submit a Question channel. :)

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> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community.
Productized consulting is a great way to design your business in a way that is profitable and aligned with the effort you want to put into each engagement.

It's also easier for your prospects to buy, which means it's easier for you to sell.

What's not to love?

In this episode, I break down the ways you can price your productized services in alignment with the value you create for your clients.

We focus on four points:

1. Business outcomes

Value is determined by the business outcomes you create, not the work you put in. That's why it's so critical to understand and articulate the outcomes your clients want to accomplish, then build your services around achieving those.

Outcomes might include growth, retention, risk reduction, expansion of offerings, better visibility into numbers, systemization, hiring, or a whole host of other things individually or in combination.

2. The context behind the goals

In order to get a better picture of value based on business outcomes, you need to understand the context behind it. In other words, why it matters.

For example, your clients may want to grow, but maybe it's so they can raise more money or sell shares in the business at a better valuation.

Or maybe investors are getting angry because there is no visibility into the work marketing is doing. Maybe they want better reporting, systems, and processes.

The work you do may not even increase revenue, but it may reduce risk or ease tensions, which is worth much more than a few grand per month.

The context is a force multiplier for the value your work does. Understand why their goals matter to the bigger picture.

3. Determining value

Once you know the objectives, outcomes, and context behind them, you can begin to understand the value of the work you're doing.

Ideally you work with similar kinds of clients in a niche. That way, the value will be similar across the different companies you work with (of similar sizes/stages), which makes it easier to package productized consulting services.

Value can be determined by:

Opportunity cost - what happens if they don't hire you/take action? What is the value of the cost of inaction?
Upside potential - how much do they stand to gain from your work in financial terms? Might include new revenue growth, increased retention, increased average order value, increases in margins or lifetime value, to name a few. Multiply this by the years in which the value you create is reaped by the client.
Price anchoring - how much are your proposed fees in relation to hiring someone in house or even mundane expenses like cleaning costs? You can demonstrate the value by comparing it to other things they spend money on (which bring lesser value).
Subjective value - how much pain do they remove by hiring you? How much more confident are they in the rest of their business as a result? What's the value of reducing risk so they sleep better at night? Don't underestimate subjective value - especially for people with more money than peace of mind.

There are many more ways to determine value, but these are what I cover in this episode.

4. Determine your price

Alan Weiss' Value Based Feesbook (also available on Amazon) really opened my eyes to pricing based on value when I first got into consulting. I highly recommend buying it.

Even though you're selling productized consulting, doesn't mean you can't capture some of the value you create.

Your price should be a no-brainer relative to the factors above.

"If you keep even one client from cancelling, you more than pay for my work every month."

"If you can prove a systemized approach to customer acquisition, it opens the doors to millions in investment opportunity."

"If you can increase margins by 10%, it increases business value by 30%".

"For the price of what you pay on printer paper, you can sleep better knowing we're watching out for your blind spots."

Create a price for a service that accomplishes a business outcome, make it fair and compelling to everyone, and you'll have no problem selling your services.
The key is being able to articulate some or all of this in your sales page and conversations.

If you can't articulate the value of what you do, prospects may compare you to other things (like saving the money or hiring in-house) and not even realize the costs of doing those things.

Give this a listen and let me know what you think below!

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> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the community

I had a great question come in via DM last night, so I'll keep it anonymous but I wanted to go deeper via audio to explain the nuances.

Here's the question:

I have Strategy (Audit + Roadmap) as a front offer, and then advisory later. Based on your experience, are you trying to close everyone for recurring advisory service right away? Just wondering how are you closing the deal for 6 months right away. In this episode, I talk about why I generally jump into advisory retainers right away, why clients tend to ask for that anyway, and why it's in their best interest to do so for 99% of cases.

I also talk about how to remove risk so clients can "try before they buy" (using guarantees) and generally how I sell it in a sales conversation.

Listen in and let me know if you do anything differently!

—kw

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One of the things I like to promote in my consulting services is creating consistent and predictable results for my clients.

In order to do that, you need to create effective systems and processes based on good strategy.

At the end of the day, people don't want to hire consultants on their team forever.

Some will work with you for years—and those are great clients! But the majority want to hire you, get your knowledge, and run with a better marketing program after you're gone.

In this episide, I talk about the differences between systems and processes, and why you need both so you can effectively create lasting change for your clients.

The benefit of systemization is that if something stops working (or works great), you're able to isolate the parts of your system that were responsible so you can do more of it or fix the things that aren't working.

So if you're still selling tactics, strategies, and oversight, consider also focusing on developing systems and processes that will become assets to your clients' business.

—kw

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> Join this episode's conversation here.
According to the Pareto Principal:

The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes (the “vital few”).
I recently noticed this pattern in my business.

My coworking membership program was taking up more energy than it was producing in results. I decided to pivot on that to win back my time and energy.

I also noticed that a marketing plan PDF template generated around 30% of subscribers, which is insane because I worked a LOT harder for the rest.

So, I made a decision to double down on lead magnet strategy in other areas of my business, including this group, and pivot on the coworking membership that wasn't creating my highest returns.

Tune in and have a great weekend!

—k

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This episode is related to the Daily Idea I posted today about designing your business.

We're still in January of 2021, which means you might be still in business planning mode. A good time for this topic.

This episode is all about the topic of designing your business in a way that adds the most value without taking up all of your personal time.

All it takes is a little business design and belief you can do more than you think.

Give it a listen.

—kevin

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> Join the conversation on this episode here.

I was helping someone in the group win a proposal recently using the proposal template in the Templates section.

I asked why it worked better than their old way of selling their services and got some interesting feedback.

Here are a few lessons that stood out from the experience.

People don't buy deliverables, they buy outcomes.
People will only buy outcomes they want for the reasons they have.
They only buy those outcomes when you re-articulate them in your proposal and clearly state the problem and context.
You need to actually talk to people to get clear on what end results they actually want, why it matters, what the value is, and then create a proposal that maps precisely (or closely) to those expressed needs.
Later you can turn it into a productized service after going through this exercise successfully a few times.

Our tendency as consultants is to sell what we think people want: time, deliverables, plans, strategies, hours, etc.

What people actually want is solutions to their unique business challenges and aspirations.

Talk to people, understand what they want, then put that right in your proposal with 1-3 options for getting there.

Sell the destination, not the journey.

Listen in for more!

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>> Join the conversation for this episode in the Mindshare community

We live on Zoom calls and webinars now—mostly from our home office.

That's the reality of most marketing professionals today.

And it looks like 2021 won't be much different.

And with that, I want to share an idea with you to keep it front of mind: people will judge you based on your "Zoom" appearance.

That includes your lighting, background, sound quality, video resolution, internet speed, and a whole lot more.

Ultimately, you're putting out an experience. It's either a high-quality one or it's hurting your identity.

So, if you want to be taken seriously, charge premium rates, and demonstrate credibility in 2021, you have to create a premium online experience for your clients.

Or at least, a professional looking and sounding experience—even if it just has the basics.

More ideas in this episode.

—kw

P.S. I mention some of the technical setup I use, you can check that out here if you're curious: https://kevin.me/audio-setup/

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When creating a productized services offering, you have two choices:

Sell just one signature offering
Create a service ladder with ascending options

I prefer the latter because I serve a range of clients who need different things. But whatever you choose, this topic will be for you.

When creating a high-end productized service, there are a few things to keep in mind, including:

Why the scope and price of your services should be based on the value you provide
Why it should be pretty obvious to your prospects which one to choose
Why you shouldn't sell anything that would weigh down your business too much or for too long
Why you should price heavily anything that involves higher effort or involvement from you
Some examples of the levers you can use to add to or remove from the scope of your projects
More access to you in terms of who cant contact you (business owner, staff, suppliers, etc.)
The channels people can contact you in (email, Slack, phone, etc.)
The frequency of your interactions (weekly, daily, unlimited, etc.)
Whether you will produce deliverables, and if so, what kind (i.e. research or marketing calendars)
The value you add or remove (i.e. finding and vetting suppliers vs. access to Rolodex)
The scope of what you will advise on (i.e. sales or sales AND marketing)
Why you should create a scope of work based on custom proposals people actually bought

Your high-end offering should be lucrative but not disabling in terms of your time or energy. Only sell things you want to sell—this is key.

If you sell things that are time or energy-depleting, charge a lot, and keep it limited to a day, week, or a couple of months at most. Otherwise, your life will become a drag, and your business will turn into a glorified job.

Hope this helps - let me know in the comments what you think or if you have any questions!

—kw

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This one might be a bit controversial. 🙂

Not really, but I do use the current political situation in the US to make a long-discussed point about where and how to build your marketing platform for longevity.
Disclaimer: I mention not liking Mr. Donald Trump in this episode, but it's not a slight at the Republican party, people, nor their values. My friends and colleagues walk down both sides of the aisle and frankly, there are things to be gained from both sides. No judgement from me.

So with that said—on with the show!

This one is a riff off a post I published on my blog back in June of this year about owning your own platform.

There are several reasons for this. Namely, you don't want to build a business on someone else's land.

In this episide, I talk about the four ingredients of an independent platform and why it's so important to focus on those key areas for longevity.

I also talk about the irony of this group being on Circle, which is a platform I don't own, and how I mitigate some of that risk.

Here's the orginal blog post this is based on.

—Kevin

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> Click here to the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community.

I'm a big fan of productized services.

They let you design your business in a way that lets you create predictable outcomes, scalable earnings, and managed effort.

But I don't create these services in a vacuum. And they're never completely "done"—I'm always updating them along the way.

These services are always born during the sales process.

Specifically, it goes something like this:

I speak with potential clients in a call and ask them about their goals, challenges, and desired outcomes.
I put together a draft list of objectives using as much of their own language as possible.
Once they confirm the list is complete and accurate, I then put together a few options to help them get to that outcome.
I'll then schedule another call to walk through the options. I don't like sending proposals without a discussion—especially for a new service. The feedback you get is essential to informing whether you hit the mark or not.
I make any necessary revisions and then once I'm able to sell the service, I know I have a first version.
From there, I usually try to sell it again to the next prospect via 1:1 calls. I go through the same process, dig deeper into things, and see if any of the differences are important.
Once I sold a couple, the productized service is officially validated. I publish it and begin promoting it.
But then when the next prospect comes around, I begin the process all over again from scratch, watching carefully what they say, need, and why it all matters. I refine the service and now it's even more polished.

By the time I've sold a few, the productized service should feel like I am reading my prospect's minds.

They usually include a list of pains or scenarios they face and describe the benefits and why they matter to counter-act those pains.

The scope is something that involves only the things I do best and only the things I can do which will deliver the most value.

Give this a listen and let me know what you do to create your productized services.

—k

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Today's content comes to you a bit late in the evening.

I'm tired and ready for bed, but I didn't get this recording done so I wanted to make sure I delivered on schedule. I committed to Monday, Wednesday, Friday recordings, so that's what I'll do come heck or high water (except holidays ;)).

In this episode, I talk about the reasons why you should aim to stick to a set publishing schedule.

Give it a listen and let me know what you do to keep on track with your own publishing.

Best,

—k

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Link to episode in the Mindshare community

Hey all,

I hope you had a great week and were able to take a few days off over the holidays.

Today's topic is about how you position your services. I talk about how my two websites work and why Everspaces is really the model to follow.

Here are my services pages as discussed in this episode:

https://kevin.me/consulting/
https://www.everspaces.com/services/

The big point is that Everspaces' services are about YOU, the potential client.

Whereas my personal website is about how much access you get from ME.

People prefer to buy things that fit them like a glove.

While my personal site does a fine job RECEIVING leads and opportunities from people in my network of all industries, it doesn't lend well to relying on it for all my marketing.

It's too broad and target clients have no idea which one will get them the results they want.

Some of you have borrowed language from my personal site for your own services pages, which is fine when you're starting out, but ideally, you want to create service pages that:

Maps directly to your target market segments
Speaks their language throughout
Makes it obvious which one they should choose based on their goals

Give this a listen and let me know what you think!

—k

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We’ve all been there. You need to fire your client.

Something is not working or feeling right, and it’s just better to part ways.

Ideally, you find a way to part ways amicably, learn from these experiences, and watch for red flags in the future so you avoid repeated scenarios.

In this episode, I talk about the 8 signs it’s time to fire a client. At a high level, they include:

They make you feel bad or stressed often or all the time
They don’t implement your advice, or they pick and choose what to do but expect the results regardless
They treat you like an employee
They expect results too quickly and/or aren’t investing adequate resources to meet their goals
They make you do a dog and pony show every month or quarter to reexplain everything you’re suggesting they do and the thought process behind it
They don’t pay you on time
They’re too needy/can’t do anything without you holding their hand
You can’t get an ROI for them in a meaningful time period

I go into a lot of details on these, so give it a listen and tell me if you think I missed any big ones!

Eventually, if you learn to sniff it out early, it will save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

Have a Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

—k

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Join the conversation for this episode: https://society.mindshare.fm/c/mentorship/85-should-you-do-project-management-for-your-advisory-clients

Last episode (I said 84 in the recording, I meant 83), I talked about the various ways some advisory clients can’t or won’t implement your advice, and what to do about it when that happens.

Mark had a follow up question about whether to do project management in cases where the client doesn’t have an in-house person to implement.

The short answer is no. I did it when I first started and I burned out/reached capacity at two clients (and some other smaller work I was doing at the same time).

Project management is stressful and energy consuming. It also puts the owness of speed on you instead of the client.

Personally, I don’t want that stress and it’s not what I do best.

You want to be able to move at the speed of your clients, not the speed of your own internal capability to keep projects moving forward (which you have little control over anyway).

Instead, I’d consider finding someone to recommend to your client who can implement the work you agree to and/or manage projects so things stay on track.

The closest thing I do to project management is keep a record of notes in Google Drive for each of our calls. I write down what we talk about, who is doing what, and when it should be do.

Then, if the client hasn’t completed their end by the next call, it’s in plain black and white who’s responsiblity it was. I don’t babysit.

This has relieved immense amounts of stress and pressure off me. Maybe you can be a good advisor and be the one chasing information and managing projects, but I doubt it.

It is highly low value and low leverage, which isn’t what you want to be doing as a solo consultant.

Lots more in this one, so give it a listen and tell me what you think.

—kw

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If you’re working in an advisory capacity, it’s critical that your advice gets implemented.

If your recommendations aren’t being executed, you aren’t creating enough value for your clients, which means you become a cost. And that’s not good.

In this eposide, I share some ideas for what to do when your clients can’t (or won’t) implement your ideas quickly enough, including:

Bringing in additional support to introduce to my clients (like a general marketing freelancer)
Doing some up-front implementation work as a foundational project
Hiring someone in my own business to help me flesh out my methodology (including training, systems and processes) to make implementation more efficient

Do you have any other ways of facilitating the implementation in an advisory relationship? Let me know in the comments below!

Join the conversation: https://society.mindshare.fm/c/mentorship/84-what-to-do-when-your-advisory-clients-can-t-or-don-t-implement-your-advice

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It can be hard to know how to position your services.

Are you the high-quality option, the "cheap and cheerful" one, or somewhere in between?

I've spoken before about being in a reasonable price range so clients can justify staying with you longer. But "reasonable" is a big vague, so I wanted to explore this topic deeper.

To me, it comes down to the pain potential. Not the pain, necessarily, but the potential for pain if they don't hire me (or someone like me).

The bigger the downside potential, the more people will pay to avoid it.

Give this a listen and tell me if you agree.

—kw

Join the conversation for this episode: https://society.mindshare.fm/c/mentorship/82-why-you-should-price-in-accordance-with-the-pain-potential

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Join the conversation for this episode here: https://society.mindshare.fm/c/general/81-why-sharing-your-backstory-matters

- - *

Have you ever noticed how dramatic movies tend to start with lots of backstory behind the characters?

Think about Apollo 13, for example. The first part of the movie is focused on their family life, children, etc.

Why do they bother going into all that backstory? What does it have to do with the main plot?

They do it so you are emotionally invested in the characters. It gives them meaning and you can empathize with them a lot more.

I’ve been thinking lately about how best to use backstory in marketing. As a professional, I think it’s important to share some of your personal life inside of your professional identity.

Otherwise, you’re kind of like an interchangeable extra in the film. Nobody cares what happens to you.

Like the thousands leading the charge in Braveheart, we only really care about the characters we know.

If you want people to care, share some of your backstory.

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Join this episode's conversation in the community: https://society.mindshare.fm/c/mentorship/80-how-to-make-your-products-or-service-more-compelling

. . . .

Lately, I've been paying attention to the factors that convince me to buy things—especially when I'm not super familiar with the product or creator who made it.

By far, the most compelling factor in my decision to puchase was the positioning.

What does it do, how is it unique, and is it for me?
And assuming the product or service is well-positioned, I really analyzed what else made me more likely to want to buy things.

And after a lot of analysis, the second most significant factor was social proof.

Things like:

Unsolicited recommendations
Reviews and testimonials
Case studies and work samples
Client and media logos
Statistics and numbers
Group affiliations

The main crux of this is selling people on two points:

Does this work in general?
Does it work for people like me?
Will it actually work for me?

The last part is the trickiest, which is why you can never have too much social proof.

So there you have it. Are your/your clients' products and services well-positioned?

And if they are, how much social proof surrounds the places where people make buying decisions? My guess is there's always room to improve and add more.

Got any good tricks up your sleeves? Let us know in the comments below!

—kw

P.S. I'd love to hear your feedback on this group. Want to leave a testimonial or review? DM me or email kevin@kevin.me and I'd be delighted to hear from you. 🙏

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Join the conversation around this episode here: https://society.mindshare.fm/c/mentorship/79-how-to-come-up-with-interesting-topics-for-your-content-marketing

. . . .

I had a great question come in about whether to interview clients for content ideas or not.

In general, I'm not against asking clients what topics they might be interested in, but like a lot of things, people don't know what they don't know.

Especially if you ask them out of the blue.

It's better to spot things "in the wild" in the course of your conversations and through research.

In this episode I will cover my top three sources for content ideas:

Imaging my best clients and intuiting what they would want
Taking notes throughout the day and noticing key questions/challenges/desires/things I teach often
Researching online, such as on Twitter, in communities, book reviews, podcast topics, conference topics and more.

There are a lot of ways to find new topics, but these work best for me. I go into a lot more depth on why in this podcast.

The main thing to remember: with everything you write, ask yourself, would my ideal client want to read this? If not, go back to the drawing board.

—kw

P.S. Know someone who would be interested in this group? Ask them to join! I might just hook you up with a free month or two if you do.

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Every client engagement comes to an end, eventually.

And when it does, I'm a big believer in having an "off-boarding" call.

In my opinion, these are critical. It can sometimes be a little uncomfortable—even when things end on a good note.

But they are extremely valuable to both you and the client. I'll explain why.
In this episode, I talk about:

Why you want to have off-boarding calls with your clients (and not let things phase out into oblivion).
What to talk about during those calls, including accomplishments, results, things still to be done, feedback for you (good and bad), as well as an offer to stick around to ensure a smooth transition.
How to use that process as the basis for case studies, testimonials, and improvements to the way you do your work, and much more.

Do you hold off-boarding calls? Will you start now if not?

I'd love to hear what else you do at the end of your client engagements.

Link to episode in community: https://society.mindshare.fm/c/mentorship/78-the-right-way-to-wrap-up-your-client-engagements

—kw

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It's late on a Friday night and I'm sharing this quick audio with you.

It's about consistency. The value of showing up even when you're tired and don't want to.

Writing and publishing content consistently has been the sole driver of most of my businesses since I started.

If I didn't create lots of content over the years, I wouldn't be in business today. It's that simple.

And while I've gone through phases of creating lots of content and letting the habit slide, the best results have always come from being consistent.

In this episode, I talk more about:

Strategies for writing content daily
Coming up with content ideas
Focusing on topics related to your methodology
Discovering your own big ideas
Infrequent vs. frequent content
Recency and frequency biases

And a few other ideas.

I hope this resonates with you.

Have a great weekend!

Link to episode in the community: https://society.mindshare.fm/c/mentorship/77-the-value-of-consistent-publishing

—k

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When you get paid to do implementation work, you're ultimately being paid to solve a problem.

Maybe it's anything website or content-related. Or maybe it's more broad, like anything marketing-related. Anything within that purview becomes your problem.

In other words, you own the entire problem of X for your clients.

The challenge when switching to advisory work is that you end up facilitating the solution instead of actually doing it for your client. That means someone still has to actually do the implementation.

But as an advisor, whatever your scope is, it's still your problem to solve. Regardless of the roadblock that comes up, you will move mountains if you have to.

That might mean finding new freelancers or agencies to implement, doing wireframes or proof-of-concepts yourself, training people do to things in-house, teaching people how things work, or anything else that needs to happen to get the problem solved.

After all, what you're selling is a solution to their problem. Nobody pays for half a solution.

Personally, I charge a fixed price for what I do. I don't want problems to get more expensive for my clients than anticipated. That just adds a problem to a problem.

If it means I need to put in overtime to get the problem solved, that's the risk I take. I own it and find solutions.

From the client's perspective, they get the assurance that for a fixed price, the problem of X is solved (marketing, design, strategy, leads, whatever).

The feeling of buying all-in services is very reassuring.

But if you throw your hands in the air and make any part of the problem your client's problem, you're providing an incomplete service.

"That's not my job" won't cut it if it's part of the problem you promised to own.

People pay a lot of money to make their problems someone else's. The more you do that, and the bigger the "problem", the more you’ll get paid.

Listen in for some more specifics.

Link to this topic in the community: https://society.mindshare.fm/c/mentorship/76-own-the-entire-problem

—kw

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Positioning yourself effectively kinda hurts.

It should feel like you're leaving a LOT on the table. And the reality is, you are. You're leaving MOST of your opportunities on the table.

And yet, counter-intuitively, by saying no to most, you say yes to more.

In the episode I talk about how and why you should tightly narrow your positioning.

It shout hurt a little bit, which is why I recommend doing things in a very particular way (i.e. having a broad AND narrow position until you get traction, phasing into it, focusing who and HOW you serve, etc.).

If you are struggling at all with your positioning, give this a listen and let me know in the comments where the pain is. I promise the pain is where the opportunity is in so many cases.

We all need a little coaching to get through it (I did), and there are a lot of considerations when making a choice, so don't be shy about where you are in the process.

Here's a link to the post in the community: https://society.mindshare.fm/c/mentorship/74-how-to-and-why-you-should-tightly-narrow-your-positioning

—kw

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We’ve been talking a lot about business models and positioning lately but not enough on how to generate leads for your consultancy.

In this episode, I break down the way I've been able to get a consistent flow of clients in my consulting work, resulting in me being booked solid for most of this year.

Here's an overview of what I talk about:

Positioning
- Choose something you have an existing advantage in
- Go two levels deep
  - Industry
  - Problem you solve
  - How you solve it
Deep research
- Communities
- Podcasts
  - Guests and hosts
- Conferences
  - Presenters and sponsors
- Books
  - Read the reviews
- Consultants
  - Who else is offering what you do?
- Other service/software providers
- Products they buy
- Pains/problems/questions
Content marketing
- Write daily or as often as you can
- Publish on LinkedIn, anywhere else you can
- Send to email list
All roads lead to email list
- Create a "super signature" to do the selling for you
Be everywhere
- Webinars
- Associations
- Conferences
- Software companies
- Groups
- Invite your subscribers to free webinars
- Community participation/eBombs
- Build relationships
- Podcasts
  - Remember: send everyone to your email list
Have a productized services ladder that maps to your ideal clients' situation
Plus many more ideas you could get into, including ads, video, podcast, and so many other tactical things that could work for you.

This is just the beginning of exploring the topic of lead gen. for your consultancy and it's by no means the only way to do things.

Do you do anything differently? What works for you?

Leave a comment in the community: https://society.mindshare.fm/c/mentorship/74-how-to-attract-more-leads-to-your-consultancy

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As a marketing advisor, I’m biased towards done-with-you services.

While I see the merits in done-for-you work (freelance/agency style) or do-it-yourself (one-off strategy sessions and/or info products), the thing thay works best for me is clearly the done-with-you offering.

In this episode, I talk about the three ingredients required to make done-with-you work into a high-profit and low labour engagement.

The three ingredients include:

Having a process for every engamenent
Having pre-made training resources to help clients learn and do some things independently
Working with a team of highly specialized partners to do the implementation for the client (and the benefits to everyone of doing so as a fiduciary advisor)

If you’re serious about selling advisory work, this is the trifecta that has worked extremely well for me and my clients, creating leverage and some degree of scale in my business.

Of course, all of this works best if you focus on a niche industry. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be a horizontal specialist, i.e. an SEO, designer, or even a copywriter.

Do you prefer one of the other forms of offerings in your business? A blend of everything? Feel strongly about an entirely different approach?

Let me know! My word isn’t gospel so let's share the nuances in the comments below.

Link to post: https://society.mindshare.fm/c/mentorship/73-how-to-use-done-with-you-offerings-to-create-efficiency-and-leverage-around-your-expertise

—k

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There are lots of ways to price your consulting engagements.

You could be the low-cost consultant, the high-price consultant, or anywhere in between.

Usually, I recommend companies focus on being either one of the lower cost, convenience providers (and do it at scale) OR create a world-class experience and charge high rates.

This idea came from a book called Trade-Off by Kevin Maney. I highly recommend you read this.

But oddly enough, I price my consulting services at what I consider to be a very reasonable cost. And yet, I am able to generate multiple six figures without breaking a sweat.

Why? Because advisory work is pretty leveraged. There aren't too many deliverables.

But following my pricing isn't a strategy.

In this episode, I walk through my mindset when it comes to picking prices for my services so you can see if any of it resonates with you.

I also talk about recurring revenue and how it helps create stable, predictable revenue and a calm business.

There are many ways to package your services, so you should do what works for you.

Here's how I think about it in case it helps.

Link to post in the community: https://society.mindshare.fm/c/mentorship/72-should-you-price-your-consulting-services-on-the-high-middle-or-low-end-of-the-spectrum

—k

P.S. Got a question? Reply to this (or any post) or DM me if you'd like to keep it anonymous/private.

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Hello friendly people!

Oren had some questions about my coworking consultancy's membership program, whether people upgrade to the 1:1 premium "inner circle coaching" option, and whether it's the same things my Propeller Program.

In this episode, I break down:

How many people are in those groups
Whether people upgrade to the premium 1:1 coaching
The surprising benefits of memberships outside of the money it generates
How the small group coaching works and why it's a good idea to try
And how being in a niche (or having a clearly defined market) is key if you plan to sell a program like any of these

I also mention a past recording of a situation where a client was considering as downgrade into the 1:1 inner circle coaching. Here's a link to that recording (episode #65).

The bottom line is this:
If you're going to do group stuff, it helps to be in a niche or serve a very specific group of people, otherwise it's just too hard to coach or teach a group of people who are in completely different situations. You end up broadening and generalizing your info to the point of it losing most of it's value.

Think small to think big!

Join the conversation here: https://society.mindshare.fm/c/mentorship/71-selling-membership-group-coaching-and-low-ticket-1-1-coaching

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I was recently asked how I am able to find clients for all my different services.

So, I thought I'd break down my business strategy, marketing strategy, and marketing plan to help you get the full picture in case it helps you get clarity.

Currently, I have:

8 x 1:1 advisory clients
1 x 4 members group coaching clients
40+ people in a memberrship program
This community which is in it's infancy
I do occasional workshops/training programs
I sell (very few) info products
Some lingering website maintenance and hosting work from past life

With total revenue around US$25k/month including the web stuff (to give you context and full transparency).

In this episode, I'll break down how I look at:

My overarching business strategy
My current marketing strategy (for my specialized business)
My current marketing plan (at a high-level)

The key to a good marketing strategy is having a good business strategy.

And the best business strategy is to be specialized if you're a consultant—even if, like me, you keep a general website for those random opportunities outside of your specialization.

Does this resonate with you? Do you have a different approach? I'd love to hear it!

Leave a comment in the community for this episode: https://society.mindshare.fm/c/mentorship/70-an-inside-look-at-my-business-strategy-marketing-strategy-and-marketing-plan

—kevin

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Yesterday, I wrote a quick post on my personal website about how your job as a marketing consultant is as much about de-risking your clients' situation as it is about growth.

It might seem counter-intuitive for a marketing consultant to be thinking about risk mitigation when your day-to-day job is to help clients win new business, but you might be surprised to hear that they are two sides of the same coin.

Give this one a listen and let me know in the comments what you think!

Yours,

—kevin

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Hey!

Today is my birthday and I felt like recording this little bit of encouragement for those who are thinking of starting a group program or mentorship of your own.

Yours,

—k

P.S. The community is being rebranded as Mindshare.fm and has been rebuilt using Circle (community platform), Memberful (payment and private podcast functionality), and Transistor (podcast host). If you want to get access today, you can head over here and save $5/mo. on monthly plans (promo code: VIP5) or sign up to the new annual plan for $99/year: https://mindshare.fm

More details soon.

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When a prospect asks to speak to one of your pasts clients as a reference, what do you say?

Do you say yes or no? Is it a red flag or normal procedure?

Let's dive in.

Yours,

—kevin

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Happy Friday, everyone.

I wrote a blog post today and thought I'd do an audio version for you to make it easy to download into your brain while you do something else.

The TLDR is:

Most consultants don’t publish their pricing. While custom quoting based on value isn’t wrong, it can lead to a poorer buying experience, less trust at the beginning of the relationship, and even fewer opportunities overall.

You can read the actual article here (https://kevin.me/prices/) or just give this a listen and enjoy the ride!

Have a great weekend.

Yours,

—kevin

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A client recently asked to downgrade services to my lowest 1:1 advisory tier.

During that conversation, I walked them through several levers of value that they would be missing from the tier they were currently on.

Since my work isn't based on hours or "deliverables", the value clients get from each feature might be nuanced but are worth talking about so they can make the right decision.

In this episode, I talk about:

The intangible but valuable features of my advisory services—especially at the low end.
How and when to create low-tier advisory services—and when you shouldn't do it.
Why it can be helpful to have downgrade options to phase out engagements—instead of a hard stop.
How to offer low-tier advisory work while still keeping leverage in your business.

That's all for now!

Yours,

—k

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Is there a difference between selling consulting vs. advisory work?

In my world, there certainly is. A big one.

Advisors sell their advice. They sell access to their knowledge and expertise.

Consultants do, too. But according to my definition, they also produce deliverables.

And of course, there's nothing wrong with producing deliverables as part of your services.

But from my experience, they're not as valued as you might think.

In this episode, I talk about:

How I transitioned from roadmaps/audit deliverables to jumping right in
How to create "deliverables" with the client instead of for them
How to create repeatable template documents instead of deliverables
How to transition from selling done-for-you work to advisory services
Small steps you can make to bridge gap between freelancing and consulting
How to create even more leverage through systemization and packaged expertise

Do you sell advisory or consulting work? Do you agree with the differences?

Let me know in the comments below.

Yours,

—k

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I recommend ActiveCampain to a lot of my coworking clients. It's easy to use and has a CRM/email marketing/automation built in.

When one of my clients signed up recently, the folks at ActiveCampaign asked where they heard of them. Of course, they mentioned me.

So, ActiveCampaign then reached out and asked if I'd like to be an affiliate partner, earning commission for all referrals for the lifetime of their relationships.

And while they did set me up with an affiliate URL in case I ever need it, I will never use it for one of my active advisory clients.

Why?

Because I believe in providing strictly a fiduciary standard of advice.

You can (and should) learn more about that here if you're interested in doing advisory work: https://www.patreon.com/posts/39604714

Clients may not seek this initially, but when I tell them the lengths I go to ensure my advice is neutral and unbiased as can be, I know they appreciate it.

There's nothing wrong with referral commissions or affiliates. But in an advisory capacity, I don't do it for the reasons described above.

At the end of the day, all you have is trust. Optimize for it at every touchpoint.

Have a great weekend!

Yours,

—k

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Unsure what to put in a case study?

The key is remembering to think like a prospect. What do they want to see?

That you've helped people like them
That you actually do things they want done
That you get results they are looking for
That you can get results for them specifically, too

The first step before you begin is knowing what kind of clients you want to attract. There's no point in doing a case study on clients you have no desire to replicate.

Like attracts like.

Once you have a clear vision of the clients you want to attract, it's time to write.

Here's what I normally recommend:

1. The client's situation before they hired you - where they started (which should resemble your prospect's situation)

2. The things you actually did - clients want to see you can do the tactical things they already want. Remember, clients self-prescribe solutions. They come looking for tactics. This list shows you can do all of what they want and much more. Include photos/screenshots/examples if you can.

3. The results you actually got (and why they matter) - Clients have a desired future state in mind. Maybe they need more revenue or maybe they been better performance tracking for their investors or key stakeholders. Combine the results you got, whether financial, analytical, subjective, or otherwise with the reason they mattered.

4. A client testimonial - this is the bow on the package that ties it all together. Their words describing the nuance and specific things they liked about working with you. Try to make it outcome focused but allow room for benefit-driven and emotional language.

On the topic of testimonials...

Sean D'Souza of Psychotactics has a list of questions you could ask (below).

But don't feel you need to copy them verbatim. The key is uncovering the before, during, and after in their own language, and then seeing how they describe you and the benefits of working with you.

Here's what Sean recommends you ask (with his explanation below each):

1) What was the obstacle in your mind/hesitation before buying this product/service?

We ask this question because the customer always has a perception, hesitation an obstacle. No matter how ready the customer is to buy your product/service, there’s always a hitch. The hitch could be money, or time, or availability, or relevance—or a whole bunch of issues.

And when you ask this question, it brings out those issues. And it does something more. It gives you an insight into issues you may not have considered, because the client is now reaching into their memory to see what could have been the deal-breaker. And there’s always an obstacle; always something you may not have considered. So when the customer brings up this obstacle, it presents an angle that’s unique, personal and dramatic.

2) What did you find as a result of buying this product/service?

This question is important, because it defuses that obstacle. When a client answers this question, they are clear about why the purchase was worth it, despite the obvious obstacles.

3) What specific feature did you like most about this product/service?

Now you’re digging deeper. If you ask the customer to focus on the entire product/service, the answer gets waffly. It’s therefore important to focus on one feature/benefit that the customer liked most about the product/service. This brings out that one feature in explicit richness and detail.

4) What would be three other benefits about this product/service?

Having already got one big feature, you can now go a little wide, and see what else the customer found useful. You can substitute the word ‘three’ with ‘two’ or simply remove the number. The number allows the customer to focus on ‘two’ or ‘three’ things, and then give you those ‘two’ or ‘three’ things that were useful.

5) Would you recommend this product/service? If so, why

You may not think this is an important question, but psychologically it’s very important. When a customer recommends something, there’s more than your product/service at stake. The customer’s integrity is at stake too. So unless the customer feels strongly about the product/service, they won’t be so keen to recommend it. And when they do recommend it, they’re saying to prospective buyers: “Hey, I recommend it, and here are the reasons!”

6) Is there anything you’d like to add?

By this point, the customer has said all he/she has to say. But there’s never any harm in asking this question. The questions before this question kinda ‘warm up’ the customer, and sometimes you get the most amazing parting statements, that you simply can’t imagine.

And this detailed construction of testimonials brings us to a very interesting observation.

I definitely recommend reading this full article for more info, and listening to his podcast for more great marketing tips: https://www.psychotactics.com/six-questions-testimonials/

That's all for now! Did this help? Let me know what you do differently if you have other ideas.

Until next time

Yours,

—k

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I interviewed Jonathan Stark today for a new podcast I'm creating.

The focus of the podcast is to help marketing freelancers, consultants, and agency owners package and sell their expertise, not their hands, in an effort to create leverage and scale.

And Jonathan is a wealth of knowledge on this subject.

Right before the interview ended, I asked him what his best advice would be to someone who wants to sell their expertise as a product or advisor (vs. implementor) for the first time.

His advice was similar to mine but a bit different.

He suggested that, instead of building a whole business around your idea, you could start by selling a specific product or service around it and see if it sticks.

It could be under your own brand or on it's own site. But it would be small and specific, which is interesting to me.

I'll post the full recording for you soon as a member of this group while we wait for the podcast to be released, but I thought it was interesting to share this approach in the meantime.

Are you thinking of starting something new? Let me know in the comments what your plan is!

Yours,

—k

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Michelle worked with a client for 9 months, did a TON of work, provided a LOT of value, but the client didn't fulfill their end of the bargain by properly tracking leads.

Now she's wondering how to salvage a case study without having all the results-based data.

In this episode, I talk about how you can create a case study based on the work you did and some of the results you got (i.e. more traffic), but obviously it won't be as strong as a financial outcome-focused case study.

I also talk about:

How to prevent this from happening again
What to do when clients don't keep their end of the bargain
How to handle the end of an engagement that doesn't feel like a home run for the client
And more ideas related to situations like these

—k

P.S. Got questions or challenges you're facing in your freelance/agency/coaching/consulting business? Feel free to DM or reply to any of these posts. If you'd rather remain anonymous, just say the words and I'll keep my recorded response general/anonymous.

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I had someone reach out to me on Clarity.fm today (I had set up an account a long time ago but never used it).

We booked a call to talk about how he can sell his India-based business outsourcing services into Canada/US.

All of his questions were tactical. Things like, "how do I get more US and Canadian traffic to his site, how many keywords this, how many backlinks that."

The main problem, however, wasn't the tactics. It was his positioning.

He sold everything to everyone.

There's no way someone so broadly positioned would ever be able to build a predictable flywheel of leads being so broadly positioned unless they built it slowly over time.

So we balanced the conversation between strategy (things like focus and specialization) and tactics (some education on how SEO works, some website tips, etc.)

New prospects almost always come to you with tactical problems and ideas. But the solutions really lie in creating a strategy around getting a result first.

The tactics become obvious once you nail the strategy.

Do you notice the same thing when prospects come to you? How do you handle it?

Yours,

—k

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I had a great question from Michelle on how to know what content to give away free vs. paid when you sell a premium content subscription.

My response includes an example I heard from Josh Spector, who believes paid content should be different than the free content, not just more of the same.

His subscription outlines his exact processes for doing what he does, and his free content includes more general advice and curated links.

The differences may seem subtle, but the content style is sufficiently different and valuable, which makes it easy for him to know what to share when.

This approach also allows him to talk about the same ideas but in a different, more valuable format for his paid subscribers.

I also talk about how Stratechery does the "more of the same content" model but also sells the audio recordings via private podcast, making the paid version that much more valuable to those who prefer to listen.

Lastly, I talk about how this group is a different format (audio) than my free stuff (text and a free interview podcast coming soon). I also explain how it's different from a typical subscription in that it has community and resources, making it more of a membership.

Anyway - hope this helps if you're thinking of starting your own subscription.

Yours,

—k

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A lot of folks joined this group with an interest or desire in staring a membership, mentorship, or other form of subscription program.

But the biggest issue (aside from picking just one idea) is knowing where to start.

And the ideas of creating content in advance is daunting—especially if you don't even know whether people will buy it.

My advice? Create a landing page and outline of what is going to be included in the membership and just launch it. I talk more about how to create this outline in this episode.

And if you have an email list, you should be able to get some interested parties if your idea is compelling. If not, you may have a positioning or value proposition issue.

Once you get started, you can systematically create the content each week or month depending on what you promised until it's completed. You don't need to have it all created in advance.

The bigger problem is how to create that initial landing page (and the value proposition to go with it). I'll talk more about that in the next episode.

Yours,

—k

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Choosing a niche is hard. Or, it's scary, I should say.

It feels like the more you focus down, the less opportunity you'll have.

And even if you think you know where you want to specialize, knowing what steps to take first can be daunting.

Michelle reached out with this exact conundrum, so I thought it would be good to jump on a coaching call with her and share the conversation with you all (with her permission).

In this call, we talk about ways she can go about identifying her best opportunities and then what to do first.

She is considering one of several niches:

Entrepreneurial women
Home care agencies
B2B professional services
Print and promotions industry
Non-profits

By the end, we narrow it down to two options and I give her some tips on the first steps to take to see if it helps her make a decision.

Here's the thing... when you pick a niche, the best way to do it (or, this is what I did) is to do it on the side. Start a blog, do a ton of industry-landscape research, build relationships, add a services page, and see if you can get some traction while you keep your current business running.

Some people will try to add multiple specializations to their main site, which can work, but it significantly waters down the messaging and makes you look less compelling.

When you go all-in on a separate site, every word, post, service, and detail is tailored to a specific audience.

And when someone refers you or if you speak to someone, they see your site and it feels like it was made entirely for them. Because it is.

Give this a listen and see what you think.

Are you still trying to hone in on your niche? Let me know in the comments where you're stuck.

I'll be doing 30-minute coaching calls again in the future, so if you want to participate, send me a DM!

Yours,

—k

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Here's a question with a lot of moving parts.

One of our members asks:

Have client who wants advisory, 1 hour a week. I’m skeptical they’ll want to pay my £200/hr rate. Pre A round. What would you do/suggest? Some highlights of my response include:

Don't let clients prescribe solutions/scope/how you deliver your work
You want to create solutions based on their goals—which are determined by your ability to deliver on it and the value of that outcome
Whatever you do, don't sell by the hour
Bake in a few other pieces of value so they can't take your rate and divide it by a number of hours
Consider a few options: one-off strategy calls, productized services, custom, group coaching

Give it a listen, I cover lots more examples.

Yours,

—k

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How do you know what information you can share about past clients and the work you do?

Personally, I use a pretty simple philosophy: if it's public, it's fair game. But if you're in doubt—get permission.

Hiring an advisor requires utmost trust and confidentiality. You need to know all the private details of your clients' business if you have any hope of helping them.

And this is especially true when you specialize (like I do). I've often worked with clients in the same market at the same time (although they were sufficiently different and I disclosed it to all parties).

But trust and confidentiality are key components to this. And you need to be diligent about not spilling the beans. Which means you need a simple way to think about it.

Here's how I break it down:

Share only what is publicly visible information
Websites
Social media
Email newsletters
Ads
etc.
Don't share things like:
Revenue
Strategy
Learnings and experiences
Thought processes
Holistic marketing plans
Share only what your client gives you permission to share
When in doubt—ask if you can share it!
Do a case study after, if you can, and get their written approval to publish it.
Talk about what you did and the results you got using real measurable numbers—things like ROI, revenue, profit, growth in MRR, occupancy, etc. Don't just focus on projects or tasks you did. Focus on results (but do share outcomes).
Demonstrate and articulate to your clients and prospects how you handle confidentiality
Explain how you work at various stages of the engagement, including the sales process (more important if you specialize in an industry).
Actually demonstrate it when it comes up by saying what you can and can't share about a past client experience.
Use general principles when advising a client using information you are privy to due to your past engagements.

Trust is your biggest asset. Don't mess with it—especially if you specialize. When in doubt, share less.

Yours,

—k

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Here's a question from Oren:

What’s the difference between group coaching and this Patreon model? This particular Patreon model is what I consider a "subscription". It's access to content for a small monthly fee.

However, and I don't mention this in the recording until the very end, but the community and resources add-on features make this group more like a membership model.

It includes the content (subscription) plus the other things that create a multi-faceted membership.

For more on this topic, check out the earlier recording on August 3rd, "The difference between subscription, membership, and group coaching business models".

Yours,

—k

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Have you ever wanted to create a low-tier consulting service? Something your smaller clients could afford that delivers lots of value, gets results, and is profitable for you?

Oren has a great question around just this topic.

I've been evaluating doing a low tier, like $750/mo for unlimited slack messages (no phone calls). Like a light weight version pre your advisor tier. Concern is massive energy-drain potentially. Multiple businesses pinging lots of questions over all day long. A fair few businesses I talk to have circa 10k a month to spend on marketing. So eating up 2,5k is too big a chunk which is why I lose them. I've tried before to sell low-price offers which include a call per month then unlimited Slack access. Nobody bought it.

But then I introduced group coaching. It flew off the shelves and performs really well.

In this episode, I talk about all of that, as well as some tactics and strategies for making it work. It includes things like:

Why group coaching is actually better for your clients (more 1:1 live help)
How groups lead to better accountability (from you and their peers)
Why you want to have at least a 6-month commitment
Why it's not really a hassle if you do it right
Why you want to package and deliver content in addition to the coaching
And why specializing makes the whole thing more compelling and valuable to your clients
How to promote it using the 5130 method by Taki Moore

Oren also mentioned:

Everything I read points to niching down further. What's less clear to me is the process for doing this successfully. Also kinda tricky to do when I’m currently getting leads and closing more business.It's a great point and I talk about this towards the end of the recording.

I will do more content on this soon because it's not perfectly intuitive and it's really valuable if you can do it (specialize).

That's all for now, have a great weekend!

Yours,

—k

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Do you take inventory of the client's key performance indicators when you first start working with them?

Personally, I didn't do this for a long time. And it became really hard to:

a) prove your results down the line

b) write a case study

In this recording, I talk about some of the KPIs I track early and why they matter later on.

If you are clear about your client goals from the beginning, you can break them down into sub-goals that allow you show progress during and after your engagement.

For reference, you can see an example of a case study I produced here: https://everspaces.com/iq/

It's not perfect but it is highly specific about what results I was able to help my client accomplish. Prospects read it and it definitely helps during the sales process.

Got a neat tip or trick? I'd love to hear it!

DM or hit reply below to share.

Yours,

—k

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Taking notes during your client calls is one of the most valuable things you can do.

It outlines what you talk about, what you mutually decide on, and who's responsible for doing what. In other words, it creates a record and accountability, which leads to better results.

It also lets you reflect on the work you do. Clients get to see progress and you have a fully documented record of accomplishments that will make it easy to write case studies on in the future.

Listen in for the specifics in how I do this.

Yours,

—k

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Do you have a hard time getting paid in advance?

If not, it could be due to one of a few reasons:

You don't have enough leverage (i.e. unique specialization)
You don't set expectations in advance
You don't follow up for missed payments in a way that fixes the systemic issue

Or any number of other reasons, but these are the big ones.

Here's how to get paid in advance for all of your engagements.

Yours,

—k

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Happy Monday!

I had a question over the weekend from Oren, a new member of the Mentorship who positions himself as a "chief growth officer" and runs a hybrid agency/consulting model.

Oren asks:

Have you seen benefit from making your pricing transparent on your websites (everspaces & kevin.me) Excellent question! Here's an overview of some of the reasons I publish pricing transparently for my consulting services.:

1. It's all about the customer experience—transparent pricing is a better experience for my clients. They don't need to come in feeling like it's a negotiation. They have their guard down and we can talk transparently about their business, finances, goals etc. My prices don't change once I find out their problem is urgent or they have a lot of money.

2. I'm optimizing for trust and transparency—most of marketing is a black box to my ideal clients. They have been burned in the past or couldn't interpret whether their suppliers were getting results. I'm positioned as a safe haven for them. Someone they can trust. So, my prices are fixed as a way to demonstrate stability and transparency.

3. Differentiation—most consultants don't publish their prices. When everyone does one thing, I like to do another. Especially when it serves the customer. Consultants who don't publish pricing perpetuate the "black box" feeling many clients get around hiring marketing professionals, making them less likely to reach out (I think).

4. I get to design the business the way I like it—I've designed my services to be able to sustain up to 10 1:1 clients at a time generating multiple six figures in profit if I do. I also get to work 9-5 pretty regularly, don't feel stressed after work because I'm not driving/managing projects, and I can maintain a calm schedule with lots of buffer in my day.

5. Operational efficiency—because all of my engagements go roughly the same way, I can budget my time and roll out processes that are the same (or similar) for each clients. Because of this, my time intensity decreases and therefore the more profitable my engagements are.

There are many more benefits to published pricing, but for me, it just matches my style and approach to the clients I serve.

Thanks for your question, Oren! I hope I've converted you—at least in part—but if not, I'd love to hear why not!

Yours,

—k

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Hello my friends,

I hope you had an amazing week, it's been a long one for me.

In this episode, I share a few updates and then answer this question from Michelle:

Hey Kevin, I don't know if you run into this issue, but I have. My client is very cheap (and right now bc of covid and election here people are full of fear and do not want to spend money). They don't have an accurate marketing budget - which makes it very hard for me to help them. Do you have techniques that help clients that generate 3.5 million in sales that they need to spend at least 3-5k a month to really get any results? I feel like my hands are tied here and then I feel even worse because I feel like I'm not really helping them by working with them for less than that... Thoughts?I've seen clients like this before. Either they are not good clients or they simply need a reality check.

1. My advice is to guide them back to their goals. Find out what they are trying to accomplish and ask them if their tiny budget is reasonable to get them there. You can't turn $1k in to $1million. You're not a magician.

You can go a step further and roadmap a rough project using the KPI document as a way to show month-over-month cashflow. That can often help clients really visualize what's involved.
If they don't have money to spend and they expect you to pull a miracle out of your hat, it's time to move on. There are more educated clients out there.
Be sure to create trust, first. They may have been burned in the past by weak marketing suppliers and unwilling to do that again. You need to show competence to gain their trust. The KPI sheet shows them you're serious about financial ROI.

Hope this helps! And as always, if you have any questions you can DM me or reply to any of these posts in the comments below.

LOTS more soon,

Yours,

—k

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Here's another great question coming after last episode on negotiating with clients.

I mentioned that my first few months are heavy in terms of workload, involvement, and the value I deliver relative to later months, so Jordan asked:

Since a lot of work is front-loaded, do you charge more in the first few months and then decrease in the following ones? And why/why not?Great question!

The short answer is: sometimes.

If the value and workload is setting to drop off consistently, I don't like to charge full rate if I can put them into a better option for the needs.

I also don't like just saying goodbye (unless it's time to part ways). So, I use a "continuity program" which is less involved. I also set new goals to reestablish purpose and direction for the next phase of our engagement.

The key, though, is value. Not time or input. Are you producing value that far exceeds your price? Can you prove it by making a reasonable case? That's all that matters.

Here's the long answer (recorded).

Until next time!

Yours,

—k

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Do you know what to do when your clients try to negotiate with your proposal?

Sometimes it might be the scope, or the price, or the term length. Or any other form of customization.

Is it a red flag? How do you handle it?

I go deep into a few examples of how to handle those discussions in this recording.

Do you do this or something different? Let me know in the comments (you can use the Patreon app if you don't already).

Yours,

—k

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I reviewed two clients' websites today and thought I'd share the main two things I look for in case it helps you do a similar review for your clients.

I won't go into all the possible details here. It's not about fonts, colours, design, or anything like that.

This is high-level, functional things that really make or break the user experience.

They are:

The 15-second test - do I know what you offer, who it's for, and how they're unique within 15-seconds of landing on the site?
Don't make me think - everything should be obvious, including what's clickable, where it goes, where to find information, and how to navigate the site overall.

If you get these two factors right, the rest is going to be a lot easier.

Have a great weekend!

Yours,

—k

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For the first few years in business, all my clients were local to my area.

I was worried about moving to another city in case it meant I'd lose all my clients! Gaah!

In retrospect, I had little to be worried about. But it was a very real concern.

Today, none of my clients live or operate locally. The closest one is an hour away. Most are flights away.

What changed? I specialized.

On our Q&A call, only two of us had clients from around the world. We were also, coincidentally or not, specialized.

Those who had local clients all had one thing in common: they didn't specialize.

Now, there's nothing inherently good or bad about local clients. If anything, it's good to have clients locally for the face-to-face element (remember that?).

But the point I'm making is that when you specialize, your market actually opens up. You actually do marketing in a very different way. You think in terms of where your target market hangs out.

You form partnerships, seek to share audiences, and so much more.

People like doing business with the best person for the job. If they can find a specialist, they'll likely try to work with them first. If not, they will go with whoever they know.

Here's my thoughts on the whole thing and how it all worked out.

Yours,

—k

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Hey, everyone!

Thanks so much to those of you who joined us on Friday for our first Q&A call.

This is the recording from our Q&A call where we talked about things like:

How to package and sell a first phase engagement with a client who's interested in starting a membership program
How to organize your time and energies for maximum output
General discussion and ideas around things like proposals, projects vs. retainers, initial discovery and strategy phases, and a whole lot more!

Listen in, and as always, keep your questions coming!

Yours,

—k

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Here's a response to Michelle's follow-up question on which platforms to consider when building a membership program.

She asked:

Are there any other platforms you'd recommend for building a subscription-based membership besides Patron? If so, can you list them? And why did you choose this platform over others?Here are the platforms I discussed during this recording:

Circle.so
Podia.com
MightyNetworks.co,
Kajabi.com
Slack.com
Patreon.com
Memberful.com
RestrictContentPro.com

As well as payment processors like:

Thrivecart.com
Samcart.com
PayPal.com
Moonclerk.com
Stripe.com

Hope this helps!

Yours,

—k

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Here's a great question from Michelle on how to help her client get into the membership model.

Michelle asked:

I have a client that I'm working with now and he already has the industry reputation and audience as a consultant in a niche industry. I told him he should consider doing a subscription-based membership. So, I'm going to help him build it out. I'm excited for this. Any advice on how to help someone else built this out? You've already provided some great content, just curious if you helped other people do this and is there anything you'd recommend.
Here's what was covered in my reply:

Audience, credibility, niche is key
Figure out the transformation you're selling
Deliver ongoing value in the form of content, community, coaching, or hybrid of multiple
Add static resources to the membership for additional value
Think of the best way to sell out, whether as a front-end offer or back-end offer (both can work)

Tomorrow I'll discuss a few of the membership platforms that are available out there, so stay tuned for that!

Yours,

—k

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UPDATED KPI SHEET: I put a link to the wrong sheet in the original post. The new one is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NYqN_QdbU7PPQ_v1LR9KycEdGNtm7a4LTugo09IADLk/edit

Most new clients I speak to have never worked with someone who could prove an ROI.

Which is crazy, because it's not that complicated.

By tracking in a spreadsheet month over month the following metrics, you should be able to quickly see whether your marketing is performing well or not.

Revenue
Marketing expenses
New leads/subscribers
New customers/closed deals
Cost per lead (marketing expenses / number of leads)
Cost per new customer acquisition (marketing expenses / number of new customers)
Marketing costs as a percent of revenue (marketing expenses / revenue)

The result of this gives you a floating average that tells you whether your efforts are resulting in a profitable flow of new leads or customers.

Assuming you know your approximate lifetime value of each new customer, it will be immediately apparent whether you're moving the needle or becoming an expense.

Got questions? Let me know!

Yours,

—k

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When your clients decide to move forward with you, it's critical you make them feel like they made the right choice.

After all, they are dropping some meaningful $$ on you (or should be), so first steps and impressions will mean a lot.

Here's how I do my initial onboarding process, why it's so important to get right, and my template for the initial email once they decide to move forward with me (copied below).

I've also linked my onboarding questionnaire in the content below, so feel free to make a copy of it and use it in your own practice (just change the header and footer, of course!).

Here's my initial email:

Hi [Name],

Glad to hear you've decided to move forward with [Name of Program! I'm excited to get started.

Agreement (if unsigned)

Attached is an agreement for you to sign and return. I've dated it for Monday, which is the soonest I can get you in (and fits in nicely before my next project starts). Does that timeline work for you?

Invoice

I'll send an invoice which can be paid using most credit cards. I suggest setting up auto-pay on those to securely handle the payments each month. They're due by the 1st of each month, so if you need time to manually process/pay the invoice, just let me know so I can send them earlier.

Kick-off Call

Our next step is to set up an initial kick-off call to go through these items and begin exploring a roadmap for the next few weeks. Are you available any time Tuesday afternoon or Monday at 11am for a 90-minute call? If not, could you suggest a few times later in the week?

We'll set up our recurring calls during this first meeting.

Questionnaire

To save time and make sure I download any known information from you, please fill out this questionnaire to the extent you can before our kick-off call.

Access

I'll need access to any/all of the following if you have it set up. The most important right now is Google Analytics and the rest may be required later on.

Google Analytics (please send to [my email])
Google Search Console (please send to [my email])
Google Ads (please send to [my email])
Google Tag Manager (please send to [my email])
Google My Business (please send to [my email])
Website CMS Admin (please send to [my email])

That should do it for now, there's more to cover but we'll take it a step at a time.

Thanks again and I look forward to working with you!

Kevin

Have questions about this process or something to do with your work? Let me know in the comments.

Yours,

—k

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In the last episode, I answered a member question about how I created a membership program for my consultancy (Everspaces).

There were two follow-up questions:

How do you differentiate yourself from associations/organizations that also have memberships (e.g. GWA)? - How are you driving engagement on the Slack channel? For example, do you prompt questions every X days or weeks?2. How are you driving engagement on the Slack channel? For example, do you prompt questions every X days or weeks?

Listen in to the episode to hear the responses!

Yours,

—k

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Someone asked me how I started a membership for my coworking consultancy.

I had to give it some thought—it's been an evolution and there are some distinct learnings I have found along the way. I'm far from finished on this journey and have plenty of things to learn still.

Here are my notes I took from the recording for your reference:

Have a niche focus
Build a "Success Path"
Started at $100/mo, but went to $9/month and built up again from there
Book recommendation: Trade-Off by Kevin Maney
Why I do it
- Credibility for my consulting work
- Learning from target market
- Forces me to create content
- Use content in my consulting
- A place for clients to congregate
Plans to switch up how I package and sell my memberships/IP

Thinking of starting a membership program for your business? I'd love to learn more. Hit reply and let me know!

Yours,

—k

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Are you thinking about getting into an industry or niche but aren't sure if there's enough money in it to sustain your business?

This episode is based on a question that came in regarding the home care industry. Some research showed people don't spend much money on marketing relative to their revenue.

Does that mean it's a dead end?

Not so fast, I say.

Yours,

—k

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Do you ever wonder if your prices are too high or low?

Feel like you're shooting in the dark?

Is $2,000 expensive or cheap?

The question comes down to the value of your work and your ability to articulate it.

In this session, I break down a question from a writer in this group about how I would go about the process of pricing and explaining the value to a client.

You'll also hear an idea for how to increase your price by 150% if you had a few extra skills.

Give it a listen and let me know what you think in the comments!

Yours,

—k

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Testimonials are a powerful way to convey quality to your prospective clients.

There's nothing like your clients' words when it comes to articulating the value and experience of your services.

And while there are lots of ways to do this, the main job of testimonials are to:

Articulate the transformation (before/after)
Help overcome objections your prospects may have

The best testimonials are raw and unedited. Use the language your clients gave you. It's fine to tweak or edit it, but don't change words. Keep them as they are, typos and all.

I'll cover more on this at a later date, but for now, I challenge you to find any opportunities you can to gather testimonials from people you work with.

If nothing else, it will boost your confidence in those down days.

Win win right? :)

Yours,

—k

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Do your clients want quick results?

Here's the truth... it's a myth.

Marketing is the slow road. Sure, you can get some numbers quickly. But like all things, if you want lasting, sustainable growth, it takes time.

Think of it like your health. You can lose 10 lbs by starving yourself for a few days and taking extreme measures. Fighters do it all the time.

But if you want to be healthy and have and maintain a healthy bodyweight over time, you need to build habits, systems, strategies, and contingencies.

And the only way that works is by slow change.

So, the next time your clients hold you to quick results, remind them that change takes time. It's slow in the beginning but then compounds like interest.

It requires building one layer on top of the other. Many parts need to work together.

Manage expectations early and throughout. Put in the ground work to make the rest of your marketing more effective. Then buckle in for the long, boring road of consistency and iteration.

Yours,

—k

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This idea won't make sense for all situations. But it will for many.

The general idea is this: take your clients' best customer (or multiple) and analyze a typical day in their life.

Actually interview them and ask them to walk you through what happens from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep, including how and when their products or services are consumed.

What you're looking for is context around how their products and services fit into their daily lives. It tells you far more than you think at first glance.

It tells you a lot about the motivating factors surrounding the purchase and consumption of your products and services.

You see things like:

How does price play into this purchase decision?
Why do they buy from you vs. any other option?
What are the logical and emotional reasons they buy?
What are the pains or frictions associated with the experience?
What identity factors are at play (i.e. people like me do things like this)

This exercise may sound like it won't produce fruit relative to the effort, but it does.

You can then create a target market profile around the lives of real people. When you do that, you create each piece of marketing with your best customers in mind.

Real people, not averages.

The better you know your customers (or your clients' customers) the better your marketing will be.

Yours,

—k

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Your job as a marketer is to grow your clients' business so you can actually get results.

It doesn't matter how good you are at the tactics, if you don't know exactly who buys your clients' products and services and why, you won't get the best possible results.

When I work with a client, I often spend a lot of time up front doing research.

Things like researching the industry and the competitive landscape.

But most importantly, I spend as much time as I can understanding the kind of people who buy the products or services and why.

I do this by interviewing their best customers (in some cases), running very short surveys, and analyzing the emotional and logical reasons people buy.

Yours,

—k

P.S. I recorded this quick audio while walking outside. The audio isn't great, but I hope the kernel of the idea is enough to make it worthwhile to listen to.

I'm not sure if I'll always publish audio like this while I'm out and about. I realize it can bug people to listen to low-ish quality audio.

But in this case, I figured it's better to share in case you get value out of it. What do you think?

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If you're like most freelancers and consultants, you run your sales process much like a typical scoping project.

You try to figure out what the client wants you to do and you then nail down what the scope will be.

But that's a problem.

The clients aren't actually hiring you because of what you can do. They're hiring you because of where you can take them.

If you go back to the earlier post, "How to sell advisory services", you'll recall that the first part of my advisory value proposition is transformation. You're bringing a client from point A to point B.

When you focus on understanding, articulating, and scoping around the desired end state, then you have a much more consultative and effective approach to the sales, scope, and delivery of your project.

It's like magic. Suddenly you're not talking about deliverables, you're talking about outcomes. And that gets people excited.

Try it and let me know what you think. Stick a post-it note to your computer if you have to that says, "FOCUS ON THE GOALS" before your next phone call.

Everyone will get a better outcome when you do that. Especially if you keep the goal in mind throughout the engagement.

Yours,

—k

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Michelle asked a great question that I think applies to most people in this group.

She asked:

“Do I need to know the ins and outs of PPC advertising or can i get away with knowing when and how to figure out if it's the best marketing strategy for my client? I'm a big hands on learner person. I love learning all I can. Thoughts?”My answer? No. You shouldn't (and can't) learn everything about everything. Like she suggested, you do need to know when it's the right strategy for your client.

Generally, you want to go deep on one thing and be competent in the rest. A T-shaped marketer (because you go deep on one thing and have broad knowledge of a wide range of things).

But you do need to know how to pull it together and where it fits into the overall marketing strategy so you can get business results. That's what you're hired for, after all.

Yours,

—k

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The secret sauce to advising your clients is to act as if they were your own family.

Here's how I approach my work and how you can do the same, even if you're just getting started in a strategy role.

Yours,

—k

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I had a good question from Taylor, who does content marketing and copywriting.

He asks :

When I was in the PR world, I understood exactly the relationship between myself, the ad agencies, the media buyers, etc. And even though there was some (aka a ton) of overlap and grey area, I understood how to approach it as far as which aspects should really be handled by me even though the others technically had the capabilities to do it. And I understood how to craft a strategy that encompassed all of us and how we all fit together.

I feel like doing the "content" side of things, I don't have that same understanding of exactly where/how I fit into the mix of existing marketing partners, if you know what I mean. So, I gotta learn a lot of that through research etc. but any wisdom you have woujld be helpful too!
Well, Taylor, I have some answers for you.

It revolves around how you position yourself within the organization. It means trying to "own" the entire job of written communication, whether that means doing the strategy, overseeing anything being produced, or doing the actual writing yourself.

I'll cover more on how I approach the creation of a digital strategy (and how that's involved) but I also touched on it in this recording to give you a better sense of where you might fit into the big picture.

Yours,

—k

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In response to my last post on how to sell advisory retainers, Michelle asked:

How do you price the extra implementation work? I get into trouble [because I] end up doing a lot of the work and in the long run the advising and strategy are where I make my most money. I think it's harder with Brand than simply Marketing alone. I usually do a brand and marketing audit and then build in workshops for brand dev and move into the cmo role from there. It usually leaves me feeling confused about which to focus on first or together. Thoughts about that?
Here's my response.

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Here's a response to a question from a new member of the group about how to research and choose a niche.

She's got a Fractional CMO positioning and not getting enough traction. Chances are, I told her, it's because it doesn't speak to a specific enough market vertical.

So, she's asked a few questions about how to find, research, and select a niche (and some stuff about SEO work she's currently doing, which is relevant).

Yours,

—k

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Ever since I started specializing in a market vertical (coworking) I've been able to really start systemizing and productizing my work. It's had a massive impact, both for me and my clients.

Not only does it allow me to be more efficient, I also get to work with more clients and produce a consistent result for them time after time.

Everything from how I package, sell, onboard, and run my client engagements is systemized using a combination of email templates, documents, a Basecamp project, and more.

Learn more about how it all works and why you should consider specializing so you can do the same.

Yours,

—k

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Want to leave your job and get started in freelancing or consulting?

Well, I've got some advice for you.

Yours,

—k

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I've never hard to rely on outreach to get clients. But I do spend a lot of time creating content, so that could be why.

Although, sometimes it can be necessary—especially when you're just getting started. But you don't want to rely on it.

Here are some thoughts on how to use outreach to get new clients (if that's what you need to do).

Cheers!

—k

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Thinking of selling one to many offers?

Subscriptions, memberships, and group coaching are great ways to generate income on your path towards more leverage.

But if you don't plan the business model right, you could end up with a model that isn't aligned with your members/clients.

In this episode, I chat about some of the distinct elements of each and how to price them so they make sense for everyone.

Here's some rough notes I used for the episode:

1. Subscription (content, media company model)

Newspapers
Substack, Ghost, Stratechery
Q&A calls or Community (low touch)
$5-$15/mo+

2. Membership (content, community, resources)

Community (i.e. on Patreon, Slack, Circle, others)
Checklists
Templates
Video recordings
Webinars
Swipe File
Rolodex
Q&A calls
$10 to $150/mo+

3. Group Coaching (content, 1:1 advice, transformation)

Value-based goals
Higher-ticket
Less scalable
Small group coaching (Everspaces)
$250 to $1,500/mo++

Are you interested in starting one of these models (or have one already?)

Let me know what you're thinking and if you have any questions we can mull over together.

Yours,

—k

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Sukiyabashi Jiro is a 10-seat restaurant located underground next to the entrance of a train station. And yet, this is one of the most prestigious restaurants in the world.

If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend watching Jiro Dreams of Sushi, a documentary about sushi chef, Jiro Ono, and his Michelin three-star restaurant, Sukiyabashi Jiro.

Listen to this post to see how it inspired me to use scarcity to create a more premium positioning during my sales process.

And for more inspiration, you can read an article with other lessons learned here: https://kevin.me/consistency/

Happy Friday!

—k

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What if you could buy an air conditioner/furnace from someone who only made money on the service, not the actual unit.

As it stands, HVAC providers sell the furnace AND installation. And that puts you, the buyer, at odds with their interest. They want to sell you the most expensive unit.

What if, instead, they carried a wide range of options and didn't limit themselves to a few available options. In this case, they could actually advise you on what the right unit is for you.

No up-sells, no pushy sales tactics, no "renting" a unit and baking in the service.

Not only would it make them into a "category of one" in the market, you'd be more likely to trust them the entire time.

If they gained a reputation, people would be more likely to refer them to everyone they knew.

And as a buyer who had a great experience, you'd be more likely to call them when things broke down. You trust them.

While this might not be practical for this industry, it's entirely possible.

Yours,

—k

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Most people start off selling implementation work before being able to sell advice.

If that's you, I recommend one of these two options if you wish to transition into selling advice.

Offer it as a tier of service in your proposals
Offer a fractional CMO/managed marketing service

The second one will severely limit you in terms of how many clients you can take on, but at least you can begin to:

get paid a full rate for your skills (without marking up others' work)
stop doing the work yourself and start overseeing it instead
take on a more strategic role and be seen as a trusted advisor

This approach worked really well for me in the beginning. The second approach in particular.

Eventually, you phase out of the managed stuff and start doing real consulting and advisory work.

And once you start selling work this way and it works, you'll never go back.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Yours,

—k

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This is a follow up episode from two days ago. I want you to listen to this and empathize with your clients' inner world when faced with the decisions you help them make.

To summarize, I'm finally ready to buy a new AC machine. It's been an interesting experience navigating a world I have no knowledge or experience about.

Luckily, I have a friend who is an HVAC expert. He's been my trusted advisor.

And if it weren't for him, I definitely would have ended up making the wrong decision (or completely guessing about which one was right for me).

Now, remember also that this is a one-off scenario. But your clients have to make all kinds of judgement calls about their marketing every day. Often, they have no way of knowing whether they are making decisions until it's much too late.

That's why it's so valuable to be a neutral advisor to your clients. And if you're going to do that, whether you sell implementation or not, you need to act in their best interest.

Even if it means short term sacrifice to you.

Otherwise, you're just like the first sales guy spoke to who wasn't really trying to fit me with the best possible option, but instead the one that made him the most money.

(I know you're not like that, of course.)

Yours,

—k

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Clients will come to you and prescribe a solution to their problem. But that doesn't mean you need to listen to them.

In fact, you need to do your own investigation first.

You need to diagnose their situation, find out what future state they're looking for, why it matters, what the financial impact will be, and only THEN do you decide how to get there and what it should cost.

Not only does this help keep everyone focused on what matters (the end result) it helps you overcome price objections and find creative solutions to their situation using various levels of involvement.

Give this a listen and let me know what you think!

Yours,

—k

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My air conditioner broke in the middle of a heatwave.

Someone came to look at it and told me it needs to be replaced. They also recommended I replace my furnace at the same time.

How do I know if what they're saying is true? I trust them, but my guard is up.

Now, imagine I had to make decisions like this every single day. Complicated choices with financial impact on things I have no expertise in.

I'd want someone on my team I could trust. Someone with no financial incentives in the implementation. An advocate.

And if I didn't have in-house expertise, I'd want an advisor to help me make these decisions.

That's what a good advisor does. They're an advocate. Incentives aligned.

So if you want to be a full-time advisor, you have to get paid for your expertise and facilitate implementation, not necessarily offer it yourself.

How to Sell Advice: Recent Episodes

Kevin C. Whelan

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