Unleashed - How to Thrive as an Independent Professional

Our guest today is Robin Albin, a brand strategist and brand sherpa based in the New York area. Robin has invented – or reinvented – over fifty brands for startups and major corporations across many categories, with particular expertise in cosmetics, health and wellness, and fashion. In our discussion Robin shares some case studies of how she works with clients to help them express the promise that the brand wants to make to its customers. To learn more about Robin, visit her website, www.insurgents.io Submit your question to be answered in a future episode. Record and submit at: askumbrex.com The weekly Unleashed email includes the transcript of each episode, book recommendations, and consulting tips. Sign up at: https://www.umbrex.com/unleashed-podcast/

Our guest today is Jay Martin, who’s got over 25 years of management consulting experience, including time at Arthur D. Little and IBM Global Services and nearly 18 years as an independent consultant. Jay has done a better job than anyone I’ve met at maintaining an exhaustive list of all his projects – the document is 18 pages long and includes the details on well over a hundred projects. In this episode, Jay discusses how he started building this list and the benefits of keeping such a document. To receive a copy of Jay's project list, sign up for the weekly Unleashed email at: https://www.umbrex.com/unleashed-podcast/ To learn more about Jay, visit his LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-martin-99a69812/

Our guest today is Brad Clark, who is a former management consultant – he was a Principal at Oliver Wyman. Later, he was the Chief Marketing Officer at The Motley Fool, and he has now built a holistic financial planning and investment management service, where many of his clients are consultants. In our discussion, Brad describes the five financial planning tips he believes are essential for independent professionals: entity conversion, retirement planning, insurance, paying for college, and tax planning. You can learn more about Brad's services on his website:  www.bradleyclark.com The weekly Unleashed email includes a transcript of each episode, book recommendations, and consulting tips. Sign up at: https://www.umbrex.com/unleashed-podcast/  

There are two types of products: Ones where we already know the story. Example: water. And ones where the customers needs to hear the story. Example: chicha. Are you selling water or chicha? The weekly Unleashed email includes a transcript of each episode, book recommendations, and consulting tips. Sign up at: https://www.umbrex.com/unleashed-podcast/  

Our guest today is Michael Frankel who has an amazing background – he’s been a corporate attorney at Skadden Arps, an investment banker, a private equity advisor, VP level business development roles at GE, LexisNexis, CFO of two companies, and held board positions. Michael is currently the Head of the Deloitte New-venture Accelerator. Michael shares his perspective on a range of topics including how large consulting firms are setting up talent pools of independent consultants interim CFO roles how consulting firms are investing in Artificial intelligence to enable experts with technology Here is Michael's profile on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankelmichael/ Sign up to receive the weekly Unleashed email that includes a transcript of each episode, book recommendations, and consulting tips, at: https://www.umbrex.com/unleashed-podcast/    

Our guest today is Fredrik Thomassen, CEO and Co-Founder of Konsus.com, an on-demand creative outsourcing service. Fredrik shared his ideas on the future of work (hint: he says that it’s remote work), as well as the way that he runs his own company using a hybrid structure where half his team is located in Oslo and the other half are based in San Francisco. We chatted about the tools he uses to coordinate his company’s activities, how remote work is going to change the employee evaluation process, the challenges of being able to work 24/7, and how his team’s ambition is for every company in the world to eventually have a Konsus subscription. Fredrik says he is always open to chatting, and he values the many interesting conversations that have started with a simple email. You can reach him at his website: www.konsus.com or email him directly at fredrik@konsus.com.

Our guest today is Alisa Cohn, an executive coach, a writer, and a member of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches.  Marshall Goldsmith is considered by many to be the leading executive coach in the world, and Alisa shares the story of how she got to know him and get selected to join this exclusive group. You can learn more about Alisa through her website, www.alisacohn.com, and while you’re there you can sign up for her newsletter, which she calls a “barrel of goodness.”  You can also reach out to her on Twitter, @alisacohn. The weekly Unleashed email includes transcripts of each episode, book recommendations, and consulting tips. Sign up here: https://www.umbrex.com/unleashed-podcast/

Today’s guest is Lindsay McGregor, McKinsey alum and co-author of the book Primed to Perform. She and her co-author and former McKinsey Partner Neel Doshi created the concept of Total Motivation – or ToMo for short. Lindsay and Neel founded a consulting firm, Vega Factor, that works with clients to help implement the ToMo principles they describe in their book. In this episode, Lindsay talks about her path to understanding what drives motivation, and the impact that it has had on her own life. Lindsay views each day as an opportunity to play, and helps organizations see how that same mindset can drive productivity and profitability.   Total Motivation is a measure of the degree to which individuals feel a sense of play, purpose and potential minus the degree to which they feel inertia and emotional and economic pressures.   Lindsay talks about how we all can use Total Motivation techniques to manage our personal productivity and aspirations, shifting our focus from numerical, outcome-based goals to performance-oriented ones, including learning new skills to help us get where we want to go. Lindsay sand her co-author Neel Doshi are on a mission to introduce ToMo to the world, and hope that by 2050 everybody on Earth works in a high ToMo organization.   To learn more about Total Motivation and Lindsay, visit the website: www.PrimedtoPerform.com. It has a short survey you can take to gauge your own ToMo, and a contact form that you can fill out to learn more about their company and their mission. To receive the weekly Unleashed email, that includes a transcript of each episode, book recommendations, and consulting tips, sign up at: https://www.umbrex.com/unleashed-podcast/

This episode concludes our six-part podcast miniseries on how to improve the client experience. In this episode, I share tips on how to provide a great client experience during the post-project Episodes 129-133 cover the five phases of a project lifecycle: The proposal phase Onboarding / kickoff phase Project execution Wrap-up Post-project I learned this five-part framework from David A. Fields, and encourage everyone to visit his website: https://www.davidafields.com/ If you subscribe to the weekly Unleashed email, you’ll receive a summary checklist that includes the points from the whole miniseries https://www.umbrex.com/unleashed-podcast/

This is part five in a six-part podcast miniseries on how to improve the client experience. In this episode, I share tips on how to provide a great client experience during the wrap-up phase. Episodes 129-133 cover the five phases of a project lifecycle: The proposal phase Onboarding / kickoff phase Project execution Wrap-up Post-project I learned this five-part framework from David A. Fields, and encourage everyone to visit his website: https://www.davidafields.com/ If you subscribe to the weekly Unleashed email, you’ll receive a summary checklist that includes the points from the whole miniseries https://www.umbrex.com/unleashed-podcast/