What clients actually need from consultants right now, with April Uchitel

April Uchitel 0:02

I mean, that to me is it. You need to be the most amazing listener. Try to put your personal agenda aside in that moment, and just listen and say you don't need me yet. You got to get all this stuff together before I can come in and be impactful. Like, the amount of goodwill that brings the trust is now like locked. Now you are like a forever resource for that client.

Leah Neaderthal 0:26

Welcome to Smart Gets Paid with me, Leah Neaderthal. I help women run more profitable consulting businesses, getting more of the clients you want and getting paid way more for your work without sacrificing your time. But I've never been a salesperson. My background is in corporate marketing, and when I started my own consulting business, I learned pretty quickly that it's about 1000 times harder to sell your own stuff than it is to sell someone else's, so I taught myself how to do it. I turned it into a methodology, and now I teach that proven methodology to my clients. So, whether your consulting contracts are $10,000 $100,000 or more, if you want more clients you love, more work you love, and they get paid more than you ever thought possible, then you're in the right place. Let's do it together. Thanks for tuning in, and don't forget to rate, review, and share. Hey there, Leah here, and thanks for tuning in. I hope you're having a great week, making some good progress in your business and taking some time for you, so back in the 90s there was a TV show that I loved, and I think about it now and then, and I actually really miss it. I'm sort of in this like 90s, I don't know, nostalgia moment of my life, but anyway, the show was on VH One, and it was called Pop up video, and if you remember that show, you can probably like hear the theme song in your head right now. Just take a second and bet you can sing it. Yeah, okay. So, in pop up video, it would be these music videos that they played on VH One, but it wouldn't just be the music video, there would be these little bubbles that popped up while the video played with behind the scenes facts about the artist or the song or just sort of random things like sprinkled throughout, and it made it really fun to watch. I actually went down a little rabbit hole recently as I was putting this together, and I rewatched the Lisa Loeb video for her song Stay. You can still find the pop-up video version on YouTube, and by the way, that song still really holds up, and watching the video with the bubbles is fun because it feels like you have this inside look, like you know secrets that other people don't, and it's like I already loved that song, especially at the time when it came out, and of course it's still one of my favorite songs, but once you have that insider's look, it's almost like you sort of love it differently, because now you have the inside story, and that feeling, I mean, not even the information in the video, but the feeling has really stayed with me. I mean, clearly, because here I am, you know, however many years later, still talking about it, because having an inside look is everything, and that's what today's episode is. My guest today is April Uchatel, founder of the board, and April sits in a pretty rare seat. She works with both the organizations, the brands, the clients that need outside expert help, and she works with the consultants and fractionals who provide it, which means that she gets to see something that most people don't get to see. She can tell you what's happening on the client side of the table, she can tell you what they're thinking, maybe what they're afraid to say, what they actually need versus what they think they need, and what's driving their decisions right now in this economic moment when budgets are tight and scrutiny is high and every outside hire has to prove its worth faster than ever and so I invited April here to share that with you because if you're like the women I work with you're selling into companies or organizations and their decision process can feel pretty opaque so in this conversation you're going to get an inside look you're going to hear why clients often come to you with the wrong diagnosis, and why that's actually your advantage. You're going to hear what's driving how organizations are making decisions right now. You're going to hear the one behavior that turns a first conversation into a forever client relationship.

Leah Neaderthal 4:15

And at the end, I'll share a lesson about what's actually happening inside an organization after a promising conversation, and the questions that will keep you from breaking your own heart. So, take a listen to my conversation with April Uchatel, and at the end, I'll come back and share a lesson that you can apply in your business. Enjoy, April. Thanks so much for being here. Pleasure. Why don't we just dive right in? Tell the good people who you are and what you do. I am April Uchatel. I live in Laurel Canyon at the moment, but spend many years in New York, spanning a career of fashion, beauty, technology, and now I have a company called The Board, and we're a community model, primarily. We also have an agency component, and it really just stemmed from.

April Uchitel 5:00

My career of watching brands build in silo, and you know, organically starting to make connections, and ultimately when I saw this real significant shift of kind of the workforce in terms of post-pandemic, really people, you know, kind of hit that what am I doing moment over the pandemic, and you know, quality of life. I think we all did a bit of soul searching, and I saw the shift happen in real time across hundreds of peers who would reach out to me and just say, like, you know, dude, I'm out, I'm moving upstate, I left my company, I got laid off, I'm consulting, consulting, consulting, and so to me it was a moment to really create a destination and join forces in a world that you know corporate wise doesn't really celebrate collaboration in the way it celebrates competition, and I think that's something that people really burnt out of, you know, having run big companies, most of our members have been, you know, 15 plus years in industry, many in the C suite, and there was just a bit of a reckoning, and now you add that with what's happening today, and just massive shifts in technology impact to companies layoffs, overall career stress, I would say, but really evolution, and so we really built a community around supporting each other through ever-changing times, but also supporting companies by attaching key talent leaders, strategists, advisors, but really executors to help them build their businesses.

Leah Neaderthal 6:25

Yeah, and I think it's really interesting. So, as I've gotten to know the board and seeing how what you've built, it's very interesting how you're solving this problem, not a problem problem, but sort of addressing this moment, you know, because you're not only addressing it with community, you're, you, it's almost like a two-sided marketplace that you facilitate, you know, in that brands come to you, they have a need, you assemble a team of these seasoned professionals of consultants, fractionals, what have you, and so you're seeing sort of both sides.

April Uchitel 6:54

Absolutely,

Leah Neaderthal 6:55

I'm very interested in what you were saying about the future is fractional. I've heard you say this. Tell us about this moment, because you sit in the middle of these two groups, right? The sort of independent worker, fractional consultant, and the agency. This is what I really want to get into. Let's first talk about the fractional side. I have heard from you that it's exploded in the past couple of years, and I think many of my clients have also seen that in that they used to be like the only one or one of two or three that did what they did, and now there are so many, but from where you sit, talk to us about what's really

April Uchitel 7:30

happening, and maybe what's driving that. The way I've always looked at it was, you know, this level of seniority and talent and experience and networks and knowledge - it doesn't really get captured in the word freelance, and so this idea of bridging that gap between just high-level advisory, really action-oriented execution, you know, which is really what you need when you're sitting in a CEO seat, and you look around the room and you see some clear talent gaps, but you're not quite ready to build a whole new team, maybe you can't afford that fully loaded senior executive, and so the beauty of fractional is, you know, you get a fraction of their time for a fraction of their cost, but you get the whole person, you know, and everything they know, and everyone they know, and their entire career perspective, and that's how I try to describe it. This is very much about, you know, stepping in, taking a piece, whether it could be leading teams, whether it can literally be, you know, supporting a project from end to end, launching on Amazon, you know, doing a pop-up, things that have stops and starts, or we're about to, you know, go into wholesale for the first time. We were born on Amazon, we've never done brand marketing, we've never done retail, we don't have those skills in house, and so the perfect way to jump in is with someone who's done it before, who can give you the lay of the land, the know before you go, before you go down the wrong path, and then you're winding back, and you lost six or eight months, you know, or you didn't know that if you go into business with Sephora, these are the ultimate expectations, right? So being able to tap into someone who has that expertise is so exponentially powerful to business, and it's what I lean in all the time, so if I've never done now AEO, GEO, how are we all getting discovered in chat tools? And none of us have done that before, because chat tools didn't exist, right? And so, how do you lean into people that that is their expertise? And so that's how I differentiate fractional. And five years ago, you know, kind of handful of people even called themselves fractional. I remember the first time I saw, like, a small F CMO, I thought it was like a typo. I'm like, does that mean what is that little F doing? I literally had never seen anything, and some people were starting to kind of position themselves that way. I recently saw stats that a couple years ago on LinkedIn, there was like 2000 people who called themselves fractional. Now there's 220,000 people on LinkedIn that use that title, and so that's a significant increase, and ultimately it just differentiates to me, like how they're showing up, and so interim is another word, you know, people say like interim leadership, it feels just like a temporary stop gap where I really think fractional comes in to solve a problem, and again many can go one full time, so it's not. Really, the end all be all, but I think it's a big differentiator, because for me, as I'm also a founder of the board, and I can only afford so much when I'm building my company, leaning into fractional, who I do like a six week pilot with someone, or bring them in for two months to work with me on X, is exactly how we help companies.

Leah Neaderthal 10:20

Yeah, I think there is so much sort of expertise in the water now, right? But a couple things I just want to pull out. I mean, that from 2000 do you say 2000 to 220,000

April Uchitel 10:32

Yeah, yeah,

Leah Neaderthal 10:33

that's insane. And I think just to take a little side note, it's so interesting because I've spent so much time and my team and I have thought about how do we call the people who we serve, right? And you know, fractional is sort of this newer word we use. We use consulting as like an umbrella term that means advisory, direct service, fractional, you know, consultant, whatever, right. And then you have just hearing that, like in the UK, like it wasn't fractional, now it is fractional. I mean, it's a funny thing, and, oh, by the way, it used to be that when I first started my business 11 years ago, I would say independent consultant, and I would get a lot of MLM people, because they also call themselves independent consultants, I don't get those people anymore, but anyway,

April Uchitel 11:13

yeah, just sort of interesting, sort of the terminology, but the growth that we're seeing, if we can take that growth of just fractional as a sort of analog for the growth of the entire sort of independent consultant, independent thought worker space, I mean, I certainly have ideas about what's that about, right? Like, what is driving that? Like, what do you see that's driving that? You know, like I said, COVID was a lot of people just hit a threshold of, like, I can't do this anymore, you know, and I, I probably talked to easily 4000 maybe more consultants at this point, meeting people that are in this space, moving to the space, exploring the space, and 600 brands, and the story is very much the same, like it's a little bit of like, and I did this, and I built this, and I did all this stuff, and then there's there's a fuck it moment that comes, which is very much like, you know, either something happened in their personal life, you know, they couldn't take the corporate politics anymore, they changed the last, it was the seventh time management has changed, and then a whole new direction, I can't do it again, you know, it's like there's always a thing that kind of sends you into this, like there's got to be something else, right, and then you look around the industry and you think about, okay, these are the two other companies I could go to based on my career, you know, or I can completely pivot in some direction, which is when I left fashion, I, you know, was just like I cannot be a 50 year old girl mentor. How do I get on the technology bus? I'm going to grab the tailpipe, you know, and I went to a startup where I was 20 years older than the founder. Was a crazy thing, but it was a complete, like, er, you know, like I got to get off that train. I feel like that's kind of where people are at, and then they're looking at the landscape, and you know, you get used to a salary, you know, you get used to some things, and you end up kind of maybe staying longer than you actually mentally, and you know, in your heart and soul, want to, and there's a moment you're just like, you were just done, right, and so, whether it's, you know, by design, you leave, or somehow the teams are just shifting, and you're part of the restructure somehow. You're put in this space of thinking the what's next, and I think in those moments is where you really look back on, you know, whether I call them superpowers or what lights you up, what is the thing you know you can bring uniquely to the industry on how can be applied, and in that moment is where I see a lot of people living right now, you know, and then you combine that with technology, AI, you know, really kind of just ripping through every industry in a way that is unprecedented, and people trying to understand how to quickly pick up that skill, understand where that skill can utilize in their current business practices, and everyone's in the same boat, and everybody I talked to is in this position of like, where do we start? Right, you're not just buying a solution and plugging it in, and we're getting inundated with tech companies selling us AI solutions, but these leaders are really focused on what is the human piece, what is the tech piece, you know, how do I get the efficiencies in? If my team is spending 30 hours a week doing x that AI can do, 1,000% we should change that, and so again, it goes back to someone with the knowledge, bringing them in in a short period of time to really help move the needle forward, and so it kind of reinforced, I think, why tapping into project-based or fractional talent in any time of growth stage is so powerful, but it also showed me where most leaders are stuck right now, and that's something that we're, I'm watching across every industry, you know, completely.

April Uchitel 14:25

And so, when we realize, like, okay, we're not alone in this, this particular moment in time, but how are we not racing to the end in a way that I think there's a sense of AI that does feel doom and gloomy, and how are we supporting each other in the way of personal application, business application, but also the humanity of it all, where having like real one on one conversations at the end of the day is where you see these exchanges, you know, take place, and so I go back to, you know, kind of the human piece of coming together and helping people solve challenges, and as well.

Leah Neaderthal 15:00

For ourselves, yeah, yeah, so you mentioned something that I want to bring into this conversation, which is you love to see that when you blow the doors open, conversations that happen behind the scenes, and that's where I want to go next with you, because you know you're not just running a community and you're not just working with brands, you are liaising between both, right, and so I kind of think of you as, like, you know, like the Lorax speaks for the trees, like you speak for the brand, like you speak for the brands, right, in this sort of context, in this conversation, and so I would love to know if you could put a microphone in the room when you know a CMO or founder is deciding, like, do I hire full time, do I hire some sort of outside talent, whether it's fractional consulting, project-based, whatever, like, what is she actually weighing? Like, let's sort of speak for the brands here, because I think this is a perspective that a lot of us totally only have when they talk to their clients or their prospects, but like, I want to give sort of a read, so that everybody's smarter going into these conversations. So, like, what is this person? What is she really thinking? Okay,

April Uchitel 16:09

one that just happened yesterday. One of my favorite beauty brands is looking for, you know, fractional creative director, and she's got 500 deep resumes. I mean, you know, she's like, this is a very coveted opportunity, and we put a few board members, you know, up to her, and she's kind of landing on a few, but she is also just in that position of, like, as CEO and founder, about, I can't hand off my baby, but at the same time, I kind of need to hand off my baby, so that I can do this other stuff, but Who's going to come and take it with vision and not rip apart my 14 years of building this right, and she's really conflicted, because it is the sense of, like, I know for me to grow, I've gotta give this to somebody else, and at the same time, like, how do I know, and I can trust that they're not gonna just put their own stamp on it in a way that negates what I've done today, take the brand to the next level, not lose the soul and the heart and the spirit, and I mean those are really hard decisions, and so you know she's like, I know I should move faster on this, but I'm going to kind of take my time because it's a big decision, and so to me I'm like, I might call me anytime, like what can we, what can I workshop with you, and that's where I go back to the human piece of this, where you know it's not just not staffing, it's not recruiting in this way, it's really connecting who I think is the culture fit, a soul fit, a like-minded thinker, but I know based on all sides where they've been. Right, I've sat in her seat, I'm, you know, even in the board thinking, like, what can I hand off and focus on other things and make sure that it also, you know, stays the course, which I think every founder hits that moment where you just have to take, you can't wear all the hats, and even if you're $100 million brand, we'd had a fashion brand who the CEO was like still checking the emails, and I'm like, what are you doing, you know, but he's just, and he's like, I need a CMO, but I just don't want them to change it too much, but I want them to take us to the next level. These are those, you know, at each stage of growth, the heartbreaking part of scaling, where you know, like, you can't be in every room, and you know you can't touch everything. So, if you have a trusted resource, which is where I go back to these executives who are coming in with, like, no ego, right? No one is trying to get that year-end bonus, you know, they're not incentivized to, you know, drive fast in a certain way, they're really incentivized to help that leader, that team, you know, execute against that, whatever core KPI is. If it is a campaign, a campaign launch, or a new, you know, vertical of growth channel to a completely new territory, right? There's certain things that are coming in for the other side of when you join the, you know, the company is now you're on the other side of the PNL, you know, you end up be in the politics, you're in the HR side of it, you kind of become part of the problem pretty quickly, in the sense that when you're objective on the other side, you're really focused and you have a different lens, it's so psychologically strange the minute, and I've lived it in many companies that I've worked at, where the consultant gets brought in full time, and all of a sudden, like they're their shine is gone, you know. Now they're just part of it.

Leah Neaderthal 19:02

Yeah, it is so

April Uchitel 19:04

weird. It is so weird. And so there's something about staying on the other side, where you're a little more Switzerland, you know, you're less involved in like the he said, she said world of like people vying for recognition or whatever that may be, because their bonus is tied to it, or you know, their tenure, or whatever it may be,

Leah Neaderthal 19:22

and

April Uchitel 19:23

so there's a dynamic here that is really, you know, we kind of call this brand therapy to a certain degree, because when you meet with the founder and they start to say, like, hey, I'm really looking for someone to help me with, you know, PR, marketing, whatever, in 15 minutes, 20 other things come up in conversation that are also not quite firing, not quite right, you know. And so they jumped. They just don't have a sounding board. And so when I was the CEO of I The Gray, a challenge would come up. It's really hard to bring it to your board of investors, right, because you're supposed to be the one kind of with all the answers leading the charge, and then also down to your team who is looking to you to like get it together and you know drive us. The right direction, and having this layer of support in a way that I wish I had, and kind of why I built the board is who can I go to who objectively can look at this with me, help me think it through, take their years of experience where with what I'm trying to go, and that's again where fractional just plays a very unique role that a typical kind of a brand new employee can't play as well as even you know someone who's just going to top line it for you, and so this is where my heart and soul, I know the future lies in companies being built, and if you look at leaner and leaner teams, tighter and tighter budgets, that also plays a big part in who you can afford to bring in, and so when I say to company, like, okay, for the price of a junior person, you're going to hire full-time, you get two fractional senior executives that are going to execute what she's going to try and figure out for a year in three months, but it does take a lot of, you know, examples, like, oh my god, you're totally right, you know, like, that makes so much sense, but your gut is to kind of build a team, and you know that's just how we've been raised through these industries, but younger companies just don't think like that, you know. And then I've had other people are like, I've just been burned by consultants, I worked with all consultants to get my brand up and running, and so you know there's there's always that as well. Like, do they really care? Like, do they.. am I just a retainer client for them? And I work really hard to dispel that as well, because I know these people at the board, like their whole reputation is built on, you know, testimonials and recommendations, right? So they're not going to go in, phone it in, burn a bridge, and then try and get another gig. This is a long-term play now for most people who are realizing, like, this is where I can bring significant value to companies, and so they usually over deliver. In my perspective,

Leah Neaderthal 21:45

I see the same. I mean, I've never worked with a woman who I think it's like the sort of role, but also sort of a lot of people's nature, like nobody under delivers. You know what I'm saying? I've never talked to a woman who said, like, yeah, like I really phoned it in on this one. It's actually the opposite, you know. It's like I over delivered. I probably wasn't charging enough. Do you know what I'm saying? There's that other problem. So, if you think about, I'm just, just to sort of paraphrase, you know, coming in and it's no longer about here's all the things that are wrong or should be, should be doing differently. You really have to respect the vision what they've built so far, what they have to work with, and just, you know, remembering that it can be lonely at the top. Oh my god, no. And so having a trusted person is this paramount. More from my conversation with April Uchatel after this. So I want to know, like, from your perspective, what do you think has changed about how brands are bringing on outside help right now? Let's talk about sort of what's changed, but also like what stayed the same. Let's start with what's changed. What do you see?

April Uchitel 22:51

I think I'm seeing more trust in that approach. You know, I was with a president of a big accessory brand at a dinner, and we're sitting next year, they're talking, and she's telling me if things, and I said, like, you know, you should just get a fractional CFO, and she's like, hmm, I don't know, like, I just like want someone who's really I can really rely on, and there's this misconception that because they're fractional, they're not reliable, or they don't really care because they're temporary, and I think that's changing, I think people are realizing, like, oh my god, like I can get that guy for 10 hours a week, and you know, get that level of expertise, or I can afford to buy, you know, I'll get a comptroller in full time, is not going to sit with me on strategy and talk to me about these other things, and so I think it's shifting a little bit around, just like the fear or the trust of, like, is this the way to go at another friend, a beauty brand, and he's just like, yeah, but they have no skin in the game, and I said, dude, I hate to break it to you, but none of your employees have any skin in the game, you know what I mean, like no one, unless you've given them equity, and they're, you know, kind of a partner, like it's just this misconception of how people are going to show up. The manager I talk to, that people like quit with one week's notice, two days notice, and it's just a weird different world than I think you and I were raised to behave on all sides. I have another friend who just hired a $200,000 salary to have someone like head of AI, and all these companies are hiring like AI experts to just like head of AI at the company. He started some things, and then he got hired away for a million dollar salary to somewhere else, and he's just left this company with like, wait, you started all this stuff, we don't have anybody to kind of step in, and you know, finish this. I understand a million dollars is a lot of money. A million dollars

Leah Neaderthal 24:26

is still better than $200,000

April Uchitel 24:28

but they're just like, okay, so we went down this road, and now we're screwed, right? And so I just hear all these stories of like how we're trying to get expertise now, and then who do you need those in-house operators to be?

Leah Neaderthal 24:40

Yeah, so I'm hearing more trust in outside help, more need for outside help, and I mean, I love what you said about, you know, they don't have any skin in the game, but neither do your employees. I mean, the way that people feel about working at a company now is so different, and you know that reputation of. Like it's not a sure thing, it's well earned because of the way companies have made decisions on hiring and firing and layoffs and all of that. It's good news for outside help, right? And those are some changes. Is there anything that you've seen that hasn't changed on the brand side about how they think about, you know, hiring consultants or fractionals, just something that's foundational, that that's still true?

April Uchitel 25:20

I mean, I definitely think there's still people that are, you know, just want the whole team in house, you know, regardless of pros and cons, and even, you know, even tech companies, right, they really want people in house, and I think it's shifting a little bit more because a lot of the talent doesn't want to live in those cities, and that's why, you know, kind of remote or outsourced fractional has been such a boost because they can afford to live in other cities than New York and you know LA because they're not working these crazy hours at a big full time company anymore for those huge salaries they're much more in control of where they you know can kind of tap in and some people are very much like I'm just going to do this until I get my next full time job and I think that's kind of what's happening right now with the amount of layoffs. There's a lot of people that just hung a shingle out on LinkedIn to have a place to land, which is super fair.

Leah Neaderthal 26:11

Yeah, and I see that a lot, actually, on LinkedIn. I'm connected, as you might imagine, to a lot of women consultants, and you get the notifications like so and so has a new job, and you go and see their history, and it's like you saw, effectively, like when they hung their shingle, and when they got hired back in house, right? And people make that decision for any number of reasons, whether they had always intended to do that, or whether they just got lured back in, or whatever. I think it is this messy moment, because then what they leave behind is like a zombie business that is not really a business that looks like it's open, that doesn't take clients, and you know, a lot of people sort of hope that, like, I'll take it if it comes my way, and they're like, that doesn't exist anymore, like, there's nobody swims into your net, but yeah, this sort of messy moment, it's like a big interchange, you know, highway, you live in LA, it's like some sort of highway interchange situation,

April Uchitel 27:06

and it's, you know, and we know that our value is so tied up in our titles and our companies we work with for so long that it's really hard to, you know, I kind of equate it to like hitting the end of the treadmill, and you're like, oh, you know, and then all of a sudden you're just like, okay, where am I going with this, and so I think our human nature is to show that we, you know, we've got to figure it out, and you know, and I do think like the open to hire is now completely normalized, like there was a moment when no one wanted to put that up there because it felt like you didn't have the next thing teed up when you left the other thing, and this is just like stupid, you know, work culture in the United States that makes us feel like the only way that you're valuable is if someone hired you before you left, or it's so weird, and there's so many stories that I talked to people that you know had taken intentional time off, whether it was to take care of a parent, you know, there's a million reasons why you need that break, and yet, How do you explain it away on a resume? How do you justify that time, and it's, you know, if we can do anything around, you know, breaking that pattern. I think the next gen is not about that at all. They're like, I travel for a couple months between gigs, and I'll come back and take another gig, you know. And so I think this blending of expectations is really interesting right now.

Leah Neaderthal 28:18

Yeah, yeah. Well, so again, speaking, you're the Lorax of brands, right? If brands could say one thing to, like, the entire sort of like consulting fractional community, like, what would it be? I mean, what do you think they wish that people knew before that first comment? I think it

April Uchitel 28:37

would literally be like, how can you help me? You know, I think it's still really hard because they're they're problem solving in a specific funnel, is what I always see. So, and they're like, we like, we need to bring in a CMO, and then I talk to them, and the 10 things they want that person to do is not what a CMO does, you know. And so it's this sense of, like, I need help, I'm not quite sure what help I need. They tend to come into, you know, the biggest pain point, the biggest fire they're trying to put out, but they're realizing that it's actually stemmed here, you know. Once someone gets in, they're like, "Okay, the problem is not social, the problem is brand. You know, we got to go back and start here. And so I think there's this sense of, like, dude, what do I do? You know, and I think that there is this moment for companies. You know, it's confusing to think about how I would build companies traditionally, what my resources are in a world today. How do I even begin to think about, you know, scoping this, structuring this? Who do I bring in when? And so I think it's literally like, a like, hey, I need help, but I don't know what help I need. I just know that, you know, there's all these areas that I could be doing better. We're not, you know, as successful as we were, somehow we've lost, you know, traction or footing, or we really want to go this direction. We don't know how to get there, and so it's having that trusted partner to sit with you, like I said, that doesn't have an agenda, is not there, you know, they're not an investor, they're not going to push you a certain direction, because it's about their return, it's not employees trying to, you know, get their own agenda across, and. So I think there's not one person, whether your own restaurants, you know, you're on a beauty brand, your own supply chain, you, I just talked to guys like SaaS outsource dev, you know, developers who is not trying to like figure out like what else they can do better, you know, what else they should be working on,

Leah Neaderthal 30:18

I love what you said about their thinking function, but other people would have perspective on the tentacles of the problem, right. And so I think what that says to me is, you know, for consultants, or you know, sort of any outside help, it's take the time to do discovery, much, you know, you have a process around that. We have people in our community, who in their business, it starts with what we call an Etsy offer, which is like easy to say yes, like an assessment or an eat dive, or what have you. You have to sort of fully scope, don't sort of take it on face value, right. And I think also, you know, what I'm picking up from what you're saying is that clients want to be led a little bit, you know, clients don't have all the answers all the time, you know. I think that a lot of people coming out of corporate who start their own thing, you know, they're coming from cultures where they're not necessarily in charge the most, right, and they don't feel like they can sort of affect, like, lead or influence maybe how the process goes, or, or what have you. And what I'm hearing is that's what clients need right now, right? Like, make a recommendation. This is the order in which you should do things. Start here, and let's do this. Or actually, you don't need me at all. You need somebody else. I

April Uchitel 31:30

mean, that to me is that you need to be the most amazing listener. Try to put your personal agenda aside in that moment, and just listen and say you don't need me yet. You got to get all this stuff together before I can come in and be impactful, like the amount of goodwill that brings the trust is now like locked. Now you are like a forever resource for that client, and whether it's a bit of a pay for this audit kind of moment, and what can you do that you can price things really accessible in this beginning, because you know you're almost getting paid for the RFP for that trust, and then you're giving them enough information that they could say, "Thank you so much, we got it, or, "Great, now can you do that with us and for us? And either way, you need to be okay, right, with where it goes.

Leah Neaderthal 32:13

Yeah. So, April, where can people find you?

April Uchitel 32:17

So, Instagram, personally, April, you should tell also the board, and then our website is the easiest place. So, on there, there's a work with us button, there's a join us button, whether you're coming in as this is a community I'd love to explore, or actually I could really use some fractional support. All of those access points are on the website.

Leah Neaderthal 32:37

April, thank you so much for being here and giving us a read on what you're seeing, and I really appreciate your perspective, and I'm really glad to have you as a colleague.

April Uchitel 32:46

Same, same, same, same. I've adored getting to know you, and so grateful for the knowledge that you share back with us. Can't move forward without it. I think you set us up in such a great way, and I continue to drive people to the recording. Thanks so much. All right, good to see you. Talk soon.

Leah Neaderthal 33:04

All right, what a great conversation with April,

Leah Neaderthal 33:06

and if anything April said

Leah Neaderthal 33:08

really gave you this aha moment, post about it on LinkedIn and tag April and me. I know we'd both love to see it. So, there are so many good nuggets in this conversation, and I want to pull out a lesson that you can apply to your business. You know, April gave you something really valuable today, a window into what's happening on the client side of the table, you know, what they're thinking, what they're struggling to articulate, and what they actually need versus what they think they need, and that inside look is rare. I mean, there's so much in here. I encourage you to go back and listen to parts of this again, and what's important about this is that when you're selling into businesses and organizations, so much of the sales process happens behind the scenes, even deciding that they need outside help, that happens behind the scenes, and the sales process itself, once you've even started talking to them, that happens behind the scenes. In fact, I've heard it said that 90% of the sales process happens when you're not in the room, so a lot of what happens along the way is trying to understand what's happening in that 90% and that's the inside look that I can offer you, and it's what we spend a lot of time talking about in the academy, about what happens after that first conversation, you know, after the client tells you that they're interested, after they say this sounds so great, and after you, you know, close your Zoom window, and feeling like this one's really gonna happen. And here's what I tell the women I work with on exactly this: selling to an organization is not the same as selling to an individual. Just because somebody has a need and they like you, and they're genuinely interested doesn't mean it's a yes. There's a whole buying journey that happens inside that organization that you can't see. There are stakeholders who need to be aligned. You have to get budget approval or released. There's so many priorities or initiatives that are already sort of queued up ahead of you. That's the 90% and that's how the sales price. Assess for consulting can take anywhere from three to 18 months to get a yes, and we call this part of the process navigating the jungle, and the way that you start to navigate it actually starts in that very first conversation by asking questions that most consultants are actually afraid to ask, because they don't want to like rock the boat when it seems like things are going so well, and some of those questions I'm just going to put them here, and you can go back and listen to it, or write them down, or whatever, but you can ask questions like Where are you in the process of bringing on help, or Who else needs to be involved in this process, or What would keep this from moving forward, and these are actual questions you can ask of your main contacts, and they're some of the questions that are part of our comfortable sales conversation framework, and these questions, they're not aggressive, they're not pushy, they're the questions that any trusted advisor, anyone who's meeting you at a peer level, would ask, and they're the questions that'll save you from breaking your own heart, from thinking that just because somebody likes what you're doing, or wants to introduce you to somebody, or you've had a great call, you know, thinking that wow, this is going to happen soon, when in reality it may not happen for months. So, here's your one thing that you can do from this episode this week. At the end of your next call with what seems like a great client, ask one of these questions, just one, you know, where are you in the process, or who else needs to be involved, or what would keep this from moving forward, and see what you learn. I promise you'll get more of an inside look than you thought. All right, thanks so much for being here, and I'll see you next week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai