Who doesn’t love the Olympics? It’s a chance to see the world’s best compete in a safe environment, free from politicians’ rhetoric and jingoism. It’s inspiring to hear athletes’ stories. It’s good to refresh yourself on all those country flags that we learned in 7th grade, then summarily forgot. Oh, and the medals. Don’t we love […]
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I’m in Mexico as I write this overlooking a beautiful tropical landscape. I just got off a call with a coaching client who has seen significant growth in their business.
One of the main reasons for this has been due to the work we’ve done around Client Selection — attracting ideal consulting clients.
Most consultants know they should only work with ideal clients, but few actually put this into practice.
Why?
Because it’s much easier to say yes to every opportunity with a dollar sign attached to it that comes your way.
You can’t create a streamlined and consistent process if you’re working with many different kinds of companies that don’t have similar criteria.
3 common reasons for taking on less than ideal clients are:
The problem is revenue, schedule and experience aren’t one-sided.
There is much more to each one than what some see at face value.
In fact, more revenue isn’t always good.
There are many firms and professionals with high levels of revenue, yet their margin is so tight that they hardly make enough to enjoy life, never mind building wealth for themselves and their family.
Filling your schedule can be counterproductive.
If you’re spending all your time working on projects that you don’t enjoy, aren’t passionate about, or aren’t high-value, it doesn’t matter how busy you are – it’s the wrong kind of busy.
When your schedule is full with low-value clients or projects (those that aren’t ideal for you), it means you have less time available to accept and work on attracting ideal consulting clients.
Not all experience is helpful to build your business.
If your ideal client is a $50M manufacturing company and you’re accepting projects from $1M startups, the experience you’ll develop won’t be relevant or much desired by a larger organization.
So what are the best practices and the reasons why Client Selection and attracting ideal consulting clients is important in a consulting business?
Here are five:
The more you work with a specific type of client the better you’ll be able to develop a process that is repeatable. This creates more leverage, efficiency and creates better results for clients. You can’t create a streamlined and consistent process if you’re working with many different kinds of companies that don’t have similar criteria.
When you work with your ideal clients and apply your process consistently you’ll achieve better results. This allows you to create great case studies that resonate with the same type of ideal client and leads to attracting ideal consulting clients and winning more business.
As you continue to work with your ideal client, you get to know their type of business, industry, challenges, opportunities and everything else – better than almost anyone else. That makes you an expert. And someone that ‘gets them’. Which means you become sought after. It is much more challenging to be seen as an authority and expert if you don’t have clear criteria for your ideal clients and who you choose to work with.
When you apply Client Selection to your business you’ll say No to the wrong opportunities. Which means you’ll be able to say Yes to the right ones.
Though scary when you’re in the early stages of your business, once applied this has a compounding impact and will help you to focus on, find and attract more ideal clients – without clogging up your business with the wrong types of consulting clients.
Consultants that don’t apply Client Selection try to be all things to all people. Their messaging and value propositions are weak and undifferentiated.
As a result, their marketing suffers and they feel like they are spinning their wheels and not seeing the level of traction or progress they desire. They’re not attracting ideal consulting clients — they’re attracting any type of client that will come their way.
Once you’ve committed to Client Selection your messaging becomes laser targeted. It points out and speaks to your ideal client.
It resonates better. It gets their attention and interest so they respond. Your marketing works better, you start to build a pipeline of opportunities and your business grows.
If you aren’t applying Client Selection to your business you have a huge opportunity waiting for you.
We work exclusively with consultants in our Coaching Program and guide them through this process, step-by-step, to attracting ideal consulting clients, earn higher fees, and win more proposals and business. If you’re interested, apply for a complimentary Strategic Planning Session to explore how together we can grow your consulting business.
5 Best Practices for Attracting Ideal Consulting Clients is a post from: Consulting Success
Long-term strategies in marketing and networking offer the greatest rewards for the most successful consultants.
Today’s guest is Mindy Millward, a veteran consultant with over 20 years of experience from Navalent. You may remember my guest Ron Carucci, from episode 21, who recommended Mindy as an outstanding and insightful consultant, and he was right. I’m delighted to have her join me today. In this episode, we are discussing the importance of maintaining a long-term strategy and vision for your marketing and networking. We talk about how to find clients that are really ready to make lasting change, how to most effectively market your services, and whether it’s worth your time to compete with larger consultancy firms, particularly for the business of Fortune 500 companies. Mindy shares insights into how to correctly size your firm, the importance of getting connected with the decision makers of the company and how to spot the red flags that prove it’s time to walk away from a project. I think you’ll learn just as much from her insights and experiences as I did in this episode of The Consulting Success Podcast with Mindy Millward.
As you are shaping and building up your consulting business, a majority of your time has to be spent on marketing. It is a widely accepted best practice idea to stay narrowly focused on both the company size and industry of your ideal client. This focus tends to narrow in the playing field and help you more easily locate companies that will benefit from your expertise.
The question you may be asking yourself then is how can you effectively market to your ideal client? If the size of business or particular industry doesn’t have to matter as much as you once thought it did, marketing can become a complicated hurdle to overcome.
At Navalent, however, the consultants aren’t worried about the size of client they take on or the industry they are in. From Fortune 500 companies down to small start-ups, their main focus has always been simply to connect with the leaders of the company that are willing to make actual change within their organization.
The common denominator of every ideal client at Navalent is the presence of a decision maker. Many companies tend to not have decision makers readily available. Even though they desperately need the services consultants can offer them, they don’t have the liberty to institute the changes recommended to them.
This can create a host of problems for consultants like you that are trying to make change happen. So rather than focusing on a particular size or industry of business, Mindy and her colleagues at Navalent maintain their focus on the complexities of problems within any company and their subsequent willingness and ability to solve those problems.
The question you may be asking yourself then is how can you effectively market to your ideal client? If the size of business or particular industry doesn’t have to matter as much as you once thought it did, marketing can become a complicated hurdle to overcome. Mindy shares several insights into effective marketing, starting with correcting your focus.
From pharmaceutical companies to financial firms, government agencies to educational institutions, any company that you focus on needs to have a desire for change. Starting with the hearts of the individual and working up to the entire organization as a whole, your work will only be effective if you are connecting with people and businesses that are ready to make a change.
Developing long-term relationships with collaborators or people that are connected to the CEO — and decision maker — of a company will be very beneficial. Any time that you make the effort to expand your network is time well invested in your consultancy. Companies will begin to come to you for help as they trust the relationship that you have formed with them. They will view your expertise as a beneficial business partner relationship rather than just as a consultant for hire. and as that trust in your work increases, clients will start to recommend you by word of mouth. Soon you will find yourself being passed from satisfied client to client with the requests for work coming directly to you.
In addition to the networking side of marketing your consultancy, there is great value in writing. Providing high-quality and authority-based content that is readily available to clients and easily shared through social media is one of the best ways that you can build trust with potential clients.
Both networking and writing work to create a long-term approach to marketing. These are not simple actions, but over time these efforts will be compounded to create greater opportunities for you to work with your ideal clients. Also, by identifying specific types of people that you want to work with, regardless of the company size, you will more easily be guided to your ideal clients.
Mindy shares one experience in which these efforts worked for her, even though it took four years to complete the sale. That may seem like too long of a time to wait for your efforts to bring in revenue, but the long-term approach to marketing through networking is always going to offer you the greatest returns on your efforts. She explains the situation that Navalent is currently facing as both consultants and their networks are aging out. It is not possible to sustain solely a network-to-relationships ratio without creating major gaps for yourself that are not sustainable over the long run.
Mindy explains why it is essential that you pursue both short-term and long-term opportunities in order to cover all aspects of your marketing. One easy way to do this is to ask yourself, “How am I adding value to this relationship or conversation?” regardless of whether it is paid work or not. Oftentimes a relationship may feel like it is not a good fit at first but can turn into something bigger as you’ve continued to add value to it.
Another essential step is to market yourself in such a way that people can easily find you. Podcasts, blog posts, social media, and speaking engagements are all interactions that give people a chance to get familiar with your name and the work that you do. Look for ways to expand the value that you provide and the opportunities will more readily come to you. And once you are in a system, don’t limit yourself to being just the coaching people — position yourself as the organizational design or strategy expert as well. These steps will help secure more work for you in the future.
If you are a smaller sized firm and have ever felt unsure about whether a larger company would take you seriously when competing with larger firms, Mindy has some checkpoints and words of advice that you need to listen to.
First, it’s critical that you be realistic about the capacity of work you are able to take on. You are not entirely limited by your firm’s size; you can lean on associated resources and networks to help you successfully accomplish a larger scope of work when needed. Don’t shy away from selling huge pieces of work — instead, you can rely on your network to help you get the bigger jobs done.
Second, don’t waste your time trying to compete in ways that you know you’re not going to win. Mindy shares an experience she recently had in which she turned down an RFP but was still able to position her firm in a place of authority despite competing against much larger consulting firms.
Third, find the qualities of your firm that are unique to you and play them to the client. You don’t have to waste your time — or theirs — trying to be something that you’re not. Be honest about what you have to offer. If clients are looking for something entirely different from what you have to offer them, they will just be disappointed by your efforts. Don’t waste your time or theirs!
You will always find greater success as a consultant when you focus on what you have to offer and don’t worry about the rest. If there are a good fit and the potential for adding real value to your clients, you have to help the client see that. Regardless of what other sized firms may be going after the work, your confidence will prove that you are the right choice for the job.
There is nothing more frustrating as a consultant than discovering that the work you have been hired to do will never make a lasting impact on a company. If you aren’t connected with the people in a company that actually have the power to affect change, you are wasting your time as their consultant. Mindy shares some of the best practices that have worked for her and her partners at Navalent to make sure that they are working with the people that have the decision making power necessary to effect change.
You’ll want to hear some of the strategies she uses to effectively connect with the decision makers. From asking the right questions to conducting diagnostic interviews with clients before getting paid, Mindy has several examples that prove that her methods work. She highlights some of the red flags that keep her from pitching work to a company that isn’t really ready to make changes and outlines the characteristics of the client employees that will work as a consultant’s champions to get them in touch with the decision makers of the organization.
Now that you’ve learned how to reach your ideal clients, you have to grow your firm to just the right size to get the work done. The ideal company size is different for everyone, but as a firm that serves Fortune 500 companies, Navalent has grown to seven full-time consultants. Mindy shares the reasoning behind their current size as well as steps they have had to take to get the right fit consultants on their team. Not surprisingly, when you’re looking for partners, you will find that the best consultants for your firm will come from your network. As Mindy says, “know them before you need them.” It’s essential that you know the skills and capacity of other consultants before you sell the work that you need them to do. By doing this, you’re securing for yourself the capacity to conquer any size of a project that comes your way.
Long-term thinking has the potential to pay off in so many ways in your consultancy firm, from developing your network to securing your ideal clients. As a successful consultant who has seen the benefits of long-term thinking in her work, Mindy Millward is full of great advice for anyone that is looking for the next step to securing work with a startup business or a Fortune 500 company. You’ll definitely want to hear her insights and learn from her experiences in this episode of the Consulting Success Podcast with Mindy Millward.
[:17] Introducing Navalent partner and consulting expert Mindy Millward.
[4:40] Targeting your ideal client, regardless of company size.
[10:16] How to generate revenue while embracing long-term marketing opportunities.
[14:10] Competing with larger firms means doing these three things.
[20:05] The mindset required to secure the work with Fortune 500 companies.
[24:02] Connecting with the ultimate decision maker within an organization.
[31:06] Enlarging your firm’s capacity and finding the best consultants.
[37:10] Connecting with Mindy Millward.
“We have never shied away from selling huge pieces of work.” — Mindy Millward
“Focus on your strengths and don’t try to compensate for your weaknesses.” ?— Michael Zipursky
“Coming in cold never works.” — Mindy Millward
The Mindset That Wins Work With Fortune 500 Companies with Mindy Millward: Podcast #24 is a post from: Consulting Success
Huge fan of Linkedin. It’s the primary way I stay in touch my friends and work colleagues from the last 20 years. Barely use Facebook, but use Linkedin daily. So, when I was trying to filter some of my connections – frustrated, and not working well – I decided to simply download a CSV list […]
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Hey, it’s Michael Zipursky from ConsultingSuccess.com. Let’s talk about the rollercoaster. This is an effect, something that happens that a lot of consultants find themselves in, and it looks like this.
You start off in your business. You pick up a client. Then, you end up looking for the next client. You pick up a client. You end up looking for the next client. You pick up a client. Up and down, up and down.
If you find yourself in a place where you love the ups but you’re also having too many downs, things are start-stop, start-stop, there’s no predictability, there’s not enough sustainability in your business, how do you solve that problem? The best way to solve that problem is by getting a foundation in place into your business.
Not only clients, but also income. As this roller coaster goes up and down, your income goes up and down, and that causes a lot of people to feel very uncomfortable about their business. It can cause a lot of doubt and also fear. It’s not fun when you’re in a position where you don’t know where your next client is going to be coming from, especially when you have family and loved ones that depend on you if you’re a big source of the revenue.
If you find yourself in a place where you love the ups but you’re also having too many downs, things are start-stop, start-stop, there’s no predictability, there’s not enough sustainability in your business, how do you solve that problem? The best way to solve that problem is by getting a foundation in place into your business. There’s three things that I’ll talk about specifically in this video that will help you to get out of this position, and into a position where you have a lot more stability.
There still may be some ups and downs, but they’re not going to be as dramatic as you go and you’re building your business towards greater and greater success. How do you do these?
Number One is what we call “ideal clients clarity”. This means that you know who your ideal clients really are. Where are they located? What industry are they in? Who is the decision-making? What’s the title of the decision-maker? There’s a lot of factors that you want to consider. Who are you best positioned to serve? Where do you have the most experience? What are you most passionate about?
You want to be able to identify your ideal clients. If you can’t identify them, then you’re not going to be able to effectively engage them and do marketing to them. So, having real clarity around a specific ideal client is key. Yet, most people that are riding this rollercoaster don’t have that, or at least that’s one of the factors.
The other factor is the “magnetic message.” The magnetic message, also known as a value proposition or a USP, it’s your marketing statement that gets the attention and interest of your ideal clients. It resonates with them. It has them raising their hand because they say that they want to learn more about what you just told them. You’ve got them hooked. So, they want to have a conversation.
Here’s the thing. In order to develop an effective magnetic message, you have to have real clarity around your ideal client. If you don’t, your message is going to be very diluted. It’s going to be too general, too broad, to really attract the attention interest of an ideal client. So, it’s critical that you have clarity around your ideal client to be able to develop a really effective magnetic message.
The third part of this, and this is really, really important, it is the “marketing engine”. The marketing engine is putting a system, a process, in place in your business that allows you to consistently attract your ideal clients, to consistently get in front of your ideal clients so that you’re creating more conversations with them.
When you do that, as you’re having this very consistent system and process in place, what happens is you start to build a pipeline. You have opportunities. If you look at a pipeline of business, you’re going to have different columns. As you move people through your pipeline, from initial leads to actually paying clients, you’re going to move them through. If you don’t have enough people in your pipeline, then you’re in this position where you’re riding this rollercoaster. You have to build up enough people in your pipeline, enough opportunities to get the next one [inaudible 00:04:19] find yourself here because you’re not working these three things consistently.
These two actually, once they’re in place, you’re not going to change them that often. You still will probably change them depending on maybe every couple of years. It might be a little bit more, it might be a little bit less, depending on what you’re finding in the market place and how you’re feeling, but the marketing engine is critical because you want to build up enough momentum so that you’re able to carry your business. Even when you have that momentum, you don’t want to stop. You want to always be working your marketing.
That’s what’s going to move you to get from this up and down, to really flattening it out like we this line here, where there’s just a lot more predictability in your business. If you’re not taking the steps required to, first of all, put this system and process in place, but if you’re not taking the steps to actually move this forward every day, or on a regular basis, then you’re going to find yourself in this position of the income and marketing rollercoaster.
Work through ideal client clarity, magnetic message, marketing engine. If you need some help, reach out with those. These three will be really beneficial for you in creating a much more sustainable and predictable consulting business and also your income and revenue.
How to Avoid the Marketing and Consulting Roller Coaster: Video is a post from: Consulting Success
Happy Valentine’s. For those of you who gave / received roses, bravo. Life is short, enjoy. Indulge yourself and make others happy. So do you know why roses are so popular? B2C: It’s the epitome of beautiful and elegance. It’s what people want B2B: They can survive international shipment For those impatient readers, I’ll cut […]
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Just read a 5,000 word interview with Thomas Friedman here. To say that I am a Friedman fan, would be an understatement. The Pulitzer Prize winning author is beyond wise. Lexus and the Olive Tree and The World is Flat (affiliate links) are incredibly important books. 5 Stars. The interview was conducted by Deloitte CEO, Cathy Engelbert, and John Hagel. So much […]
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