The Self-Made Expert: Recent Episodes
Philip Morgan
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
This was a delightful conversation, and one that made me laugh more than any in recent memory. Rob Fitzpatrick shares the journey from showering under a 5-gallon bucket in a warehouse scheduled for demolition to running a satisficing lifestyle business with $20k/mo in book revenue and a growing community.
This was a delightful conversation with emerging expert Denis Oakley. I especially loved how Denis "got his reps in" by selling business models on Upwork.
Jonathan suggested a followup conversation; I enjoyed hearing from him about his transition from surfing a once-in-a-generation tech wave to a very different kind of advisory business, his inventory of every nasty email he's ever received from his list, how he runs inexpensive experiments, and the relationship between death and mission.
Kyle and I discuss entering a new market, inventing new terminology, and pursuing a transformative agenda.
Did you know Jim Thornton built something like a private version of Google.com's search engine using a combination of serverless code, Screaming Frog, and Neo4j? In this conversation that touches on, among other things, the marketing caste system, Jim explains why he did this and how this played into his self-made expertise journey.
A wide-ranging conversation where Guillaume explains how he remains positive while building a novel framework for strategic narrative.
John Jantsch talks about his new book on marketing, The Ultimate Marketing Engine: 5 Steps to Ridiculously Consistent Growth.
I had a delightful conversation with Jonathan about his cultivation of self-made expertise.
Some time after we recorded this interview, Mike merged his business endeavors with those of his colleage Cory Quinn to form Duckbill Group, but any chance to share Mike's insight -- whether it reflects his current focus or not -- is worth doing, so I am publishing this interview despite it not reflecting Mike's latest trajectory.
David C. Baker and I had a wide-ranging conversation about how his expertise-powered business grew to over $1MM in annual revenue.
I speak with David C. Baker about his upcoming book on selling advisory services. The COVID pandemic totally borked his release schedule, so as of the pub date of this podcast this book isn't available yet; consider this a teaser of an upcoming release.
Chris Ferdinandi helps people learn vanilla JavaScript. He believes there’s a simpler, more resilient way to make things for the web. His developer tips newsletter is read by thousands of developers each weekday. Learn more at GoMakeThings.com.
Seth and I discuss becoming a storyteller, neuroscience, and how to tell a good story. https://www.storifyagency.com/selfmade
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
Blair and I had a fascinating, wide-ranging conversation about how he became a self-made expert on selling creative services.
Gini Dietrich created a piece of intellectual property -- her PESO framework -- that has become very popular and trusted (and imitated). In this conversation, she describes the process of developing this IP.
This letter might be for you. I can’t know, because the response to an email sent to a list is always a probability distribution, never a certainty. I reckon this email lands in a meaningful way for 4% of you. It is audacious that I should want anything specific for you, other than a nice, warm, up-and-to-the-right curve for your happiness and achievement; a general and sincere well-wishing for your life. You should plot your own course. And yet I persist in wanting specific things for you. Unreasonable things.
It's rare to encounter someone in the advice-to-freelancers game with such a refreshingly simple approach to cultivating new opportunity. Listen for more details.
It really is harder for us to sell advisory services. But we can learn and adapt and grow. There are 4 reasons why it's harder to sell advisory services.
With my clients, marketing is this extra burden. It's this other business function that requires work, learning, investment, and discipline.
I believe a useful form of order can emerge from chaos. You can purposefully use focused chaos to create order.
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
A brief, fascinating conversation with Graham Binks about whether he's specialized or not, and if he is, how to think about his specialization approach.
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
Does anything change for the better if you view your clients as an investment portfolio?
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
An interesting example of combining previous experience in order to create a compelling focus in your business
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
Karl works with creative agencies, dev shops, and digital agencies as an executive coach
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
Mike emailed me out of the blue and told me about some things that were going on in his business
Liston Witherill teaches you how to cultivate marketing partnerships that get your work, ideas, book, etc. exposed to a much larger audience than you have access to on your own.
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
Sprinkled throughout the world of indie consulting are people who have found 'orphan problems', adopted them, and cultivated the expertise necessary to solve those problems. The Self-Made Expert podcast is conversations with these people about their journey of cultivating expertise outside the world of academia and the licensed professions. With your host, Philip Morgan.
How devs are diversifying their income and increasing profitability by offering training services in addition to development work
Jake Jorgovan teaches you how to generate leads on LinkedIn. Only works for specialized companies!
Diving a bit deeper into a casual, wordy review of "The Business of Expertise" by David C. Baker: https://www.expertise.is/
You may ask yourself... where has Philip been? You may ask yourself... how do I work this?
How different his life would have been! How many great opportunities would have come his way if he'd pushed through the discomfort!
Garrett talks about that first part of making the transition from coding to providing technical leadership/advisory services.
I talk to Josh Doody, salary negotiation expert for software developers, about a recent change to his positioning.
How can you be getting on the phone with research sources when you're chained to your desk at a full time job?
That's my guest Matt Krause talking about the relationship between narrowing your focus and word of mouth, which has driven huge profitability gains for his small consulting business.
A spoke with Ben Krueger of Cashflowpodcasting about how podcasting can be a great way for a consultancy to get leads and new business. Also... a few notes about the end of Season 1 of this show and what you can look forward to in Season 2!
I spoke with Samuel Hulick about his journey from general UX designer to being well known as the "user onboarding guy".
Kai Davis and I discuss active listening and how it relates to consulting. If you're curious about active listening and how you can better at it yourself, you'll enjoy this episode.
In this episode Liston Witherill talks about the role that specificity plays in getting your message across to prospects and clients. Liston is a professional copywriter who helps technology companies get more leads and conversions.
There's one thing I've never heard anyone else say about doing a great interview. This episode digs into that one powerful technique, and covers a few others too.
Gale Stafford has recently answered some tough questions in his own business. Questions like how to validate a market focus, and how to deal with the fear and doubt that accompany a low-information high-stakes decision.
Kenna Cote is absolutely killing it in a tiny, weird niche. Kenna teaches people who make handmade soap how to do a better job of running their business. To become a leader in her niche, Kenna had to overcome external resistance, fear, and other obstacles. She tells her story here.
The term "positioning" was coined in 1972 by Al Ries and Jack Trout, and big product brands have used positioning to gain competitive advantage ever since then. I interviewed Al Ries about how the concept of positioning applies to professional services businesses.
Who decides who is really an expert? Is expertise about knowing everything, or is it about something else? This episode is a sort of meditation on expertise.
I spoke with interaction designer Nick Disabato about one of the most common fears around specialization: the fear of boredom. In this episode, Nick shares his journey towards specialization. This conversation brought out several fascinating points about choosing a specialization, changing a specialization, and using specialization as a tool to create a sustainable profitable business.
We tend to fear that if we specialize in solving an expensive problem, we will get bored very quickly with our work. Then what? Will we be stuck in a boring job that we created for ourselves and crying ourselves to sleep on $500 bedsheets? Will we be doing the exact same set of activities day in and day out for our clients?
Kurt Elster saw explosive growth when he moved his agency from building brochure websites to a focus on a single service for a single platform.
Sometimes positioning is not about going from generalist all the way to fully focused expert. It can be a more gradual process.
Interior designer Cheryl Janis shares how she overcame the many fears she faced during her journey towards positioning her business.
Kai Davis talks about how focusing on your audience is a key part of positioning your business.