Wrote this blog post in 2013 (yes, when I was 10% younger). New comments in red color. Recently, I was reminded that there are three types of power in the workplace. While you might not have all 3 – you better have some. Positional, Relational, Expertise. I first heard this on a manager-tools.com podcast, but please let… Read More »
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Transcript
Today I want to talk with you about a mindset that is incredibly important for established consultants.
The mindset is what I call Foot on the Pedal.
It becomes very important when your consulting business is taking off, when things are going well, when you have plenty of clients and plenty of opportunities surrounding you.
The foot on the pedal mindset is essential. Here’s what it’s all about…
Let’s write it down, so foot on the pedal. Now, foot on the pedal. This is what it refers to. As your business is moving along, you’re seeing growth.
The reality is it’s probably a lot more up and down to get to this point but as it’s going … you find yourself in a good place, the typical reaction for most consultants when they get to this place is they doing opposite of foot on the pedal.
They take their foot off the pedal.
They start to coast. They say, “You know what, I don’t need to do as much marketing. I don’t need to follow up with as many people or work on my outreach or doing sales activities and things of that nature because I’ve made it.
Things are going well. I’m just going to serve my existing clients. I don’t really need to worry about getting in front of new clients and finding new opportunities,” because it’s not top priority for them anymore. Their top priority is serving their existing clients.
That makes sense. As a consultant, you always want to be serving your existing clients. That’s your number one focus.
That’s who you have responsibility to, to deliver for. That being said, you never want to take your foot off the pedal completely because if you do, then … Well, I shouldn’t say never.
You might do it for periods of time a little bit but if you do it too much, if you let your foot off the pedal for too long and you’re just coasting, then, essentially, what’s happening is you’re becoming complacent.
You’re just allowing your current success to dictate your future but that success alone that you’re having right now isn’t going to necessarily create the same level of success or greater for you in the future.
With that in mind, what you want to do is have this mindset of foot on the pedal so that before, maybe if this was the pedal, before, maybe you were pushing it down all the way to the ground.
We’ll make that pedal stand a little bit more there.
Maybe you’re pushing it all the way to the ground. You had a lot of energy that was being done on your marketing and on your sales and on your [inaudible 00:03:01] and activities but if you take your foot completely off the pedal, you come up to here, just completely off, then the car, which is your business, just kind of coasts along.
Now, you might think and you might even feel and even see for a period of time that you’re coasting kind of nicely but what can happen is all of a sudden, it can go down.
It can drop. It can drop because maybe one or more of your distinct clients decides to pause or they end the project earlier, right, there’s some change going on in their organization, or a really great prospect or multiple prospects that you had that you’re just certain would become clients decided not to move forward right now or decided to go with someone else in the marketplace.
Also, now, this momentum that you had just drops off very quickly.
The problem is that when that happens, if your foot is off the pedal for too long, your pipeline of business, you have people in the pipeline that you’re working through these different stages from initial lead to a conversation to a proposal to winning and so forth, if there are enough people in this pipeline all at given times and your foot’s off the pedal, then, this early area here, this is what we call the lead category or lead column, is very low.
There’s not much here.
There’s not much here, then, it’s going to take you longer to get your business back up to the level that it was before.
Whereas, if your foot is on the pedal, maybe not all the way to the ground as was before but if it’s even just a little bit, even if you’re applying a bit of pressure meaning that you’re still building up new leads and new opportunities in this category, then, if something drops off, you can stop it by moving more leads through and you can pick up another opportunity, and pick up another opportunity.
Essentially, what you’re doing is you’re not allowing your business to become complacent. You’re not just letting it coast along organically. You’re being intentional.
You’re always spending some effort, less … You’ll be spending less effort on your business development and less on your marketing than you were before when you are more established because you have more clients to serve and so, you have less time to work on your marketing, which is okay.
That’s normal for an independent or very small consulting firm but you never, never want to stop completely. You don’t want to take your foot off the pedal altogether because if you do, then you’re really becoming susceptible to this drop. Then, it can take you a lot longer to get things back up.
This place here going back up, this whole zone is painful. This is not fun, guys, because when you’re in this zone, you’re feeling, “Wow. Oh, I have to do this all over again. I don’t want to do this.” Some people don’t even like the marketing and sales process.
As you’re establishing, growing your business, make sure that you always have your foot on the pedal, more at the beginning probably, less a little bit as things go but the more that you have your foot on the pedal, the more that you can keep this down for as long as forever.
For as long as your business is alive, you want to have your foot on the pedal because that’s what’s going to give you the opportunities. That’s going to put you in that position to be in control.
If you’re not, then when this goes down, when something happens, you’re not in control and that becomes then much, much more difficult to deal with. If you are in control, you’re able to correct, to course correct and you get things back off, back on track and growing.
The other benefit is that the more you have your foot on the pedal, the more opportunities you’re going to actually create.
As you create more of those opportunities, not only can you then really pick and choose the clients that you want to work with but you’re also able to just win more clients or win higher value projects because you can say no to the ones that aren’t a good fit for you and say yes to the ones that you feel are like, “Yeah, that’s in my zone. Those are ideal clients. It’s a high value project.”
That obviously will help you to make a lot more money and have a much stronger stable of clients and prospects for the future.
Mindset Mistake of Established Consultants is a post from: Consulting Success
The BCG 2017 M&A report has a great subtitle here (3Mb pdf) called the Technology Takeover. BCG notes that 30% of 2016 M&A involved the acquisition of technology companies (no surprise), of which 70% were from outside the technology sector (surprise). In sum, every industry is rapidly acquiring, morphing, and becoming technology companies. BCG goes one step… Read More »
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Multiply and protect your income streams by expanding your skills, expertise, and presence in the consulting world.
Dorie Clark has transformed herself from a grad school reject to an expert in her field. She is a marketing strategy consultant, professional speaker, and frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review. The New York Times described her as an “expert at self-reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives.” Dorie is the author of several popular business books — Entrepreneurial You, a guidebook about how you can make money doing what you love, Reinventing You, a book on professional reinvention, and Stand Out, how to become a recognized expert in your field. She is also a part-time professor at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. Dorie is passionate about helping entrepreneurs and talented professionals get their true talents noticed, appreciated, and recognized, in today’s noisy marketplace. Dorie currently splits her time between teaching, consulting, and writing. On this episode of Consulting Success Podcast, you’ll learn how that diversification has both preserved and enhanced her career, and ways that you can use her examples to find success as you are growing your consulting business.
11 years ago, Dorie Clark was focused on one job — helping companies with their marketing strategies and social media presence. Although that was a good job, over time she realized that by not being more diversified with her work, she was exposing herself to a lot of market risk. Situations may changes, budgets can be cut, and even if, as an entrepreneur, you are doing the same thing for all of your clients, it can become somewhat perilous. Dorie currently has seven different income streams — consulting, executive coaching, teaching, writing, professional speaking, online classes, and affiliate marketing. Having these multiple income streams can both leverage the work that you do, and also de-risk the work that you do.
Dorie has never worked in the corporate world, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know her way around some of the country’s top businesses. As a philosophy major in college, she simply learned by doing. After earning a Master’s of Theology, and subsequently getting turned down by all of the doctoral programs she applied to, Dorie had no choice but to reinvented herself. That was when her first book, Reinventing Yourself, was born. Working as a political journalist led to working on political campaigns, which failed when her candidates lost their elections. From there, Dorie worked for a nonprofit in Boston for two years, where she learned how to run a business resourcefully. That opportunity gave her the training on the job that she needed to successfully go out and start her own business, where she is thriving today. As you listen to Dorie’s story, you’ll realize that even if the road to success has several detours along the way, it can still take you right to where you are supposed to be.
From getting rejected from graduate school to losing elections, Dorie has encountered plenty of detours on her road toward success. You’ll want to listen as she shares the mindset that helped her overcome these multiple setbacks — starting with her basic need to support herself. One of the critical steps that she took on this path was obtaining freelance journaling work. This work taught her how to quickly hone in on what services and skills create valuable for your customers. Dorie was able to apply this skill to her consulting work — she understands that entrepreneurs are always trying to get inside the head of their customers to figure out what it takes to get them to part with their money in a way that creates value for them. This pitstop on her road to success proved that the skills she was learning in the early years of her career would have a direct impact on her ability to win clients later on. Utilizing this mindset to turn your failures into learning opportunities can have the same impact on your career as it had on hers.
As you are growing your business, the most important thing you have to focus on, is securing clients. At this time, your business may be over weighted with sales activity, but this effort is essential to later success. The early work that you put into sales will buy you more time later to focus on marketing. On the other hand, the time you spend on marketing may not buy you a dividend today, but the dividends will come in the next week, month or year. This is the position you want to put your business in. The more dividends you can obtain, the higher plateau your business can reach. Shifting your ratios toward marketing, and away from sales, will help you achieve a greater long-term benefit. You’ll want to be sure to hear how Dorie spends her time today. She is no longer required to chase after work, but has positioned herself toward marketing, which now brings clients knocking on her door.
Every consultant and entrepreneur knows that focusing on sales can be somewhat — or very — uncomfortable. You have to get yourself in the right mindset to be successful at sales, but that does not mean defaulting to high-pressure sales tactics. Any business relationship that is founded on high-pressure sales is not going to last very long. Although your clients may submit to these tactics, they are going to resent them and eventually look for a way to escape their commitment to working with you. A greater way that you will find success in your sales approaches is to give your clients several options. When you are asking for business or for referrals, keep your approach low key and give your clients choices. Dorie shares some of the phrases and approaches that she uses to keep her sales tactics low key. Listen to find out how her clients respond, and you’ll be convinced that this approach will work for you too.
As someone who has successfully started her own business, Dorie recommends that you start with a minimum six month’s cash reserve. Although she was able to secure her first client after only two months, it can take time to get contracts signed and to get the work going strong. By having up to a year’s cash supply, you can buy yourself some time to get your first clients lined up, and over time you will be able to select the clients that you are willing to do business with.
Your network will always be one of your greatest keys to success, no matter what stage your business is in. People who know you are going to be the ones that are willing to do business with you. Even if they haven’t done a particular kind of work with you before, you will find that those that are willing to take a chance on you are the ones that have a prior connection to you. Your network will always be working for you, so it is essential that you continue to reach out to those in your network. That is always going to be a crucial element to your success.
Becoming a published author can contribute immensely to your credibility and success. Prior to writing books, Dorie’s speaking arrangements were not a viable source of income. By publishing books, she found greater credibility and proved herself as more of an expert in her field. Although having a reputable publisher did increase the legitimacy of her work, the bulk of the work required to market her books was her responsibility. Publishers will never create the success of a book for you. You have to be willing to get out there and market your book for yourself. To promote her book Reinventing You, in 2015, Dorie gave 160 podcast interviews and traveled around the country to deliver 74 speeches. That kind of dedication to marketing your book is going to guarantee an increase in its success.
Don’t compromise on the things that matter most — for Dorie that means never giving up sleep. seven or eight hours a night is essential to writing well, speaking well, and simply being in a good mood. However, there will be times when you have to double down and focus on your work. There will only be a limited amount of time when people want to hear about your newly released book, and you have to capitalize on that window of time. That may mean shifting your priorities temporarily, but when that time comes to a close, you will have to again reexamine your efforts and rededicate yourself to maintaining a healthy personal life. This kind of work-life balance has been a critical component to Dorie’s success, and you will find that implementing her advice in your life will add to your success, too.
You may be feeling overwhelmed with the prospect of simply going out and getting new clients. When comparing yourself to the multi-faceted workload of someone like Dorie, who is teaching, writing, speaking, and more, you may be wondering if there might be more that you can be doing to gain success in your consulting business. Dorie shares several tips on how she stays focused, organized, and committed to her high levels of performance.
One of her secrets for success is Paul Graham’s essay entitled “Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule.” You’ll definitely want to read it, as it highlights the differences between a typical day of a manager and a maker. A manager’s main job is simply to check tasks off a to-do list in order to keep work moving forward. A maker, or creator of business, on the other hand is faced with the task of creating and accomplishing bigger, longer term projects. Makers need to utilize the time they spend as managers in order to get into the productive state. Maker tasks require more time and substance, and Dorie shares how dedicating certain days of her calendar to these “deeper dives” has increased her productivity and success. It may seem counterintuitive to take time away from the daily business of work, but you’ll be convinced to commit to these creative days once you hear how well it works for Dorie.
On dorieclark.com you can find a host of resources to help you with growing and developing your businesses. She has made available more than 400 free articles for entrepreneurs and professionals that are looking for ways to stand out and get noticed in this busy business world. There is also a free 42-page ‘Stand Out’ self assessment to help hone in on your breakthrough ideas, and to best spread that idea into a successful one. Be sure to take advantage of these resources on her website to help you find the greatest consulting success.
[:12] Introduction of Dorie and why she diversifies her work.
[3:02] Dorie’s path to entrepreneurship started with rejection.
[5:33] How to keep going when you want to give up.
[8:30] Why your marketing approach needs to change as your business develops.
[11:46] Low pressure sales won’t make you uncomfortable, but they will give you success.
[13:59] Dorie’s timeline to success was sped up by tapping into her network.
[15:45] The role that authoring books has had in Dorie’s success.
[19:10] Work life balance starts with a good night’s sleep.
[22:04] Tips for staying focused and productive.
[26:42] How you can connect with Dorie Clark.
Dorie Clark
Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future, by Dorie Clark
Stand Out: How to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It, by Dorie Clark
Entrepreneurial You: Monetize Your Expertise, Create Multiple Income Streams, and Thrive, by Dorie Clark
“Manager’s Schedule vs. Maker’s Schedule,” an essay by Paul Graham
Schedule Once
“Any business relationship that is founded on high-pressure sales tactics is not going to last very long.” — Dorie Clark
“The people that are willing to take a chance on you are those that have some prior connection.” — Dorie Clark
Diversify and Create Multiple Income Streams as a Consultant with Dorie Clark: Podcast #11 is a post from: Consulting Success
Richard Thaler, professor from University of Chicago, won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Most people know him for writing the 2008 best-seller Nudge (affiliate link) with Cass Sunstein. Super enjoyed the book and was surprised to discover how many of our so called “decisions” are actually default choices, illusions, and… Read More »
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Transcript
Let’s talk about ideal clients for a moment and the importance of honing in and being clear as to who your ideal client is.
You want to set up a very clear and specific set of criteria.
The most effective marketing is marketing that polarizes. You don’t want to and shouldn’t want to try and attract the majority of the market place.
You want to have crystal clarity around who your ideal consulting client is.
Here’s why…
If you don’t then you run the risk of being too diverse of going too wide, of trying to be all things to all people and really end up with a message that will resonate with none of them.
The most effective marketing is marketing that polarizes. You don’t want to and shouldn’t want to try and attract the majority of the market place.
Instead, you want to focus on a minority that you can really help and serve. That is the ideal client. Then develop your messaging around them. That’s going to resonate with them. It’s going to speak to them because it’s going to be much more specific as opposed to being general.
The other reason is if you go too wide, then you need to have different messaging. You need to have a different marketing. You need to have a different list of who you’re targeting.
So many different … You’re building on, you’re making your business a lot more complex than it needs to be. This can seem counter-intuitive to some consultants. They think to themselves, “Well, don’t I need to be wider? Then I can attract more people. I don’t want to lose any opportunities.”
The reality is that it’s the exact opposite.
The more that you focus on the ideal client the greater the results that you’ll see. The better that your marketing will actually be. The easier it will to manage your business and you’ll be able to keep things simple.
I know that this can be a real challenge but it’s well worth it to focus in, get real clarity on your ideal client, and then develop your messaging and your marketing for a very specific type of client. You’ll see your marketing and results significantly improve when you do.
The Key to Developing Clarity On Your Ideal Clients is a post from: Consulting Success
It’s case interview season. Seems like students just got to school. Moving in, meeting a few people, and getting into an academic groove. Then, BBAM, time for case interviews. There is one huge upside. You may have a job offer before Thanksgiving. Nothing like having a job lined up 6 months in advance. I interviewed at… Read More »
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