How to Sell Advice

> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community.If you are trying to break into a niche, you might be surprised to hear that the quality of your marketing efforts is not the only growth tool you have. One of the most important ways to break into a niche is through relationships. In this episode, I talked about how I created relationships to break into the coworking niche and why I don't think I'd be here today if I relied solely on my marketing efforts to attract interest.Relationships come in all shapes and sizes. But building them is a skill in itself. Listen in for some good ideas around that.—k

> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community.How you design your business will have a big impact on your profitability, enjoyment, and frankly, your level of stress.In this episode I combine my entire approach to building a scalable consulting business model.Topics include:Managed advisory servicesFractional CMOCoaching & mentorshipDowngrade engagementsGroup coaching (small group and one to many)MembershipProductsStrategy/auditsCustom engagements Workshops and trainingIf you're just starting out or want to build a ladder for your own business, I highly recommend you give this one a listen.—kP.S. Know someone who would value this group! Invite them in and let me know! I'm still trying to figure out a referral program but until then, your word of mouth is greatly appreciated. 😃

> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community.There are pros and cons to specialization. In this episode, I break down some of the main benefits of niche specialization, which include:Easier sales process via differentiationLower time involvement requiredLess downward price pressureBetter leverage and systemizationAbility to package and resell expertise as productsEasier to find and reach your target marketMore efficient marketingAnd many more..When you specialize, you build a competitive moat that grows over time. Once you get your marketing engine going, it becomes a real asset to your business. Sure, there are advantages to being a generalist, which I talk about, but as a consultant they are far outweighed by specialization. Give this a listen and let me know your thoughts below!—k

> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community.This episode comes from a blog post I wrote in December and I'm sharing my highlights here because it's worth revisiting.Below is the original post shared below (I don't talk about all of it in this episode, though):When I work with clients, there are an infinite number of data points and layers we could look at to shape our work.But at the end of the day, only a few high-level KPIs matter most as it relates to measuring the effectiveness of your marketing.The KPIs that matter most at the end of the day are the following:1. Number of leadsIt could be subscribers, chat inquiries, telephone calls, contact form completions, appointments booked, it doesn’t matter.All that matters is the total number of people who gave you their contact information and expressed interest in your business.Subscribers are the grey area, but nobody subscribes to your list without some interest in what you offer, so I call that a lead if it makes sense for your business and is part of your sales funnel.The main thing is that you captured their contact information.2. Number of qualified leadsNow that we know the total number of inquiries (whose contact information you collected), we want to figure out how many of those leads are in the buying mode and qualified.It could mean that they have the money, means, and interest in buying what you have to sell.The definition is yours to create, but I wouldn’t consider subscribers “qualified” until they express actual buying interest.3. Number of new clients/customersNeedless to say, this is a critical number.If you sell products or services at various price points, break down the number of new clients by product/service so you have a better picture of where your sales are coming from.This will matter more in the next few points, too.4. Total marketing spendSo how much are we spending on marketing, all-in?You’ll want to track that closely so you can figure out the next few KPIs.Break it out by channel/type so you know where you’re spending your money, too.I track all this in one single spreadsheet, by the way.4. Cost per lead/qualified leadDivide the total marketing spend by number of qualified leads in that period and you have your cost per lead.You can do the same for total leads in general, or just qualified leads depending on what/how you’re measuring.I mostly care about qualified leads.5. Cost per new client acquisitionDivide the total marketing spend in that period by the number of new clientsyou signed up.This is your cost per acquisition. This is the golden number and tells you whether your marketing is profitable or not.But the only way you’ll know that is if you have a good idea of the next number.6. Customer lifetime valueIt’s crucial to have an idea of your lifetime value (LTV). Even if it’s a rough estimate.There are too many ways to calculate it in this quick post, but a quick Google search will give you some formulas.Break it out by service so you have a distinct LTV by service.7. Weighted average expensesLet’s say you sell consulting. It’s 80% of your revenue. You also sell a membership, which is 10%, and an eBook, which accounts for another 10% of total revenue.I like to weight marketing expenses based on the total expected revenue in a business.In this case, I’d allocate 80% of all marketing spend towards my consulting, 10% towards memberships, and 10% towards eBooks.Now, I’m able to figure out my approximate cost per lead and cost per acquisition based on the weighted average.It’s not perfect, but it works really well to give you a glimpse into whether you’re profitably acquiring leads and customers/clients for each service.More on this some other time.8. Profitability and payback periodsThe last thing we look for is cost per lead, cost per acquisition, and payback period.Are we acquiring leads and clients at a price we can sustain? When is our payback period (i.e. how fast do we get our money back)?This should be obvious with some quick math based on revenue projections for the new business/opportunities.9. Other secondary numbersThere are a ton of other things we could look at, such as marketing spend as a percent of revenue, total revenue, net new revenue growth, churn, capacityetc. but those don’t tell us quite as directly how well our marketing is performing.You should still track those and many more things in one single spreadsheet.And that’s it!It all boils down to:How many opportunities did we get?How many new clients/customers did we sign up?How much did we spend to acquire them?Is all of this working out profitably for us?That’s all that matters at the high level.From there, we investigate where those leads came from so we can determine what’s working and what’s not.We then go down the rabbit hole to find out how to get more opportunities and clients at a price we can afford.Having these numbers gives us a high-level view of the health of our marketing.There are many more KPIs you can look at in your marketing, and I share a spreadsheet template that I use in all my engagements inside of Mindshare.—k

> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community.One of the ways I've been able to grow an audience within the coworking niche is by partnering and sharing value with other companies and consultants who have the same target audience but do different things.I've been able to do webinars, podcasts, panel discussions, conference talks, paid seminars, workshops, and even advise others in the industry who serve the same audience. Examples of those I've partnered with include consultants, software providers, associations, podcast hosts, and other community builders. Why were they so receptive in letting me get access to their audience? It's because I'm different and have a niche within a niche, which means I don't compete with them directly. If you want to grow your business in a niche, listen to this episode for more insights.—k

> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community.Do you have a clear idea on who your ideal target market is?Or, do you help your clients get clear on who theirs is?There's a lot of info on this subject and only some of it is really useful in a strategic marketing engagement.In this episode, I talk about ways to create an ideal target market profile for your business and your clients'. I also talk about using ideal client profiles vs. "customer personas" and why the difference matters.There are lots of tactical ways to achieve this, so I'd love to hear if you have examples of ways you've done this and how it resulted in measurable outcomes. Leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts.Have a great weekend!—kH/T to Mark Evans who inspired this episode with his insightful post on LinkedIn.

> 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

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

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

> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community.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:BooksIndependent coursesCertificationsTraditional EducationCoachingAs 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. BusinessPricingValue-Based Fees by Alan Weiss - BookJane Portman's Productized Consulting Guide - eBookJonathan Stark - Hourly Billing is NutsPositioning and StrategyBlue Ocean Strategy by Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim - BookObviously Awesome by April Dunford - BookSalesThe Secret of Selling Anything by Harry Browne - BookResearch30x500 course - teaches audience research and product development (services, too)2. MarketingCopywriting and content marketingPsychotactics has lots of great small and big courses on content, copy, and marketing strategy in generalHubSpot has a lot of courses to learn at a high level about a lot of thingsSocial mediaDave Talas Instagram Course - I haven't taken it but it seems credibleDaniel Vassallo's Everyone Can Build a Twitter Audience course LinkedIn Learning SEOMoz's training Google AdsGoogle's CertificationsFacebook AdsFacebook Ads CertificationAnalyticsAnalytics Course by JeffalyticsAnnielytics Dashboard course (have not taken this)Email marketingIf you want to learn MailChimp - Chimp EssentialsEmail 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 yetCRMsHubspot CertificationsSalesforce CertificationsActiveCampaign CertificationsI'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