Leah Neaderthal

Do you remember when the book The 4-Hour Workweek came out?

Everyone was all over it, because what’s not to love? Do just four hours of work a week, outsource the rest to an army of low-paid workers who are grateful for the opportunity to help you, and make millions of dollars. 

There’s just one small problem. 

It doesn’t work. 

Of course, we want it to work. 

We’ve been steeped in marketing that promises instant results: undereye creams that work in just one day, diets where you shed weight in 30 days, business programs that solve all your problems with one script or template.

Minimal effort, instant results.

Is it any wonder that we think there’s a silver bullet out there that will solve all our problems, without requiring us to do the work?

—

A student in Pack Your Pipeline recently shared a huge win with the group. She was on fire — she was being seen as an expert and featured all across LinkedIn in her area of expertise. 

But, she said, in the few weeks she had been doing the program, that hadn’t turned into any checks from new clients, which are mid-sized and large businesses. 

It takes “too much work,” she said, so she wanted to try something else. 

I feel sad when women say things like this, because there isn’t an approach out there that won’t take work.

Sure, you can find plenty of coaches online who will promise you a silver bullet. Quick fixes. Super fast results. They’re out there, posing in front of mansions and private jets. 

But when you unwrap the shiny paper, you’ll be disappointed, because building a business actually requires effort. 

Getting new clients and building a pipeline is not a one-time event. 

It’s an ongoing process that has to be part of your regular routine. 

And by the way – “regular” does not mean “once every few months, when you realize you’re about to wrap up a big project and you have nothing in the pipeline.”

It’s even more important when you sell B2B. It can take anywhere from 3 to 18  months to land a business client. You don’t land those clients by doing a few sales things and expecting the checks to roll in a few days later.

Here’s some hard truth.

If you’re not interested in doing the work that’s necessary to build your business, then you should think long and hard about whether being a business owner is a good fit for you. 

If that sentence makes you mad, that’s kind of the point.

I’m here to make sure you build the business you say you want — and that means telling you the truth. 

You don’t have to use my systems and processes to build your pipeline and sign clients. 

No matter who you work with, business development isn’t something you can do once in a while, when the mood strikes you.

It’s something you do as part of running your business.

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My dad always told me that there are two basic instructions for everything in life:

1. Read the instructions.
2. Do the instructions. 

You need to do both parts — preferably in that order. 

First, you have to read the instructions so that you know what’s happening. But reading alone isn’t enough. 

If you want to spend your time reading all the personal development books and devouring blog posts on strategies and tactics, that’s great. 

But it won’t do anything for your business. 

You have to take action. You have to DO what the instructions say to do if you want to get the results. 

So, what are you going to DO this week to ensure that you have clients when you need them?

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If you want both parts: the instructions, and the support and guidance on how to turn those instructions into the higher-paying clients you want in your consulting business, I’d invite you to apply for SIGNED, my 10-week program where I’m showing you how, step by step.

SIGNED is starting in just a few days, and you can be a part of it. 

If you’re ready to build a solid sales process so that you know what to say to potential clients — and when and how to say it — then you should apply for a spot. 

After you apply, you’ll be invited to a call with our team, and we’ll help you figure out if SIGNED is right for you and your business. If it’s not a fit, we’ll let you know right on that call.

January is over. Done-zo.

One-twelfth of the year is behind us. Which begs the question: are you one-twelfth of the way to where you want to be?

A few weeks ago, you set some big goals. And now that we’re wrapping up the first month of the year, you might be feeling defeated or worried that you haven’t landed the projects you want, or you don’t have much on the horizon. 

Stop. 

Think for a moment about your own process for buying something. When you go out to make a large purchase — a car, a house, a coaching program — do you just whip out your card and pay for it, five minutes after you hear about it? Or do you take the time to carefully consider the value of what you’re getting?

Your clients are the same way. They’re not going to say yes to a $15,000 project after a single email or phone call. 

And if they’re not saying yes at all, then it’s not about dropping the price. It’s that they didn’t see the value in what you provide. Then you need to rethink the way you describe yourself and your work.

Thankfully, a change like that is easier than you might think to make. You don’t need to do a rebrand, or blow up your entire website. It’s about simple, small tweaks you can make right now. 

For example, if you have a sales call lined up for today, take five minutes right now to rephrase the way you normally describe what you do to focus on the value you deliver.

Instead of “I run leadership training,” try something like, “I help your new managers become effective leaders.”

Instead of, “I can manage your PR,” what about, “I can help your company get the same coverage as the biggest brands in your industry.”

A simple switch like this on that call is the first step towards establishing you as an expert who delivers massive value. This is a critical step — which is why it’s what we focus on right in the beginning of SIGNED. We spend all of Week 2 working on your value-based messaging — and the results are immediate. 

One of my students saw that immediate change first-hand.

She manages licensing and partnership opportunities. The upside is tremendous — but the deals can take years to close. When you’re working on commission, that means you can put in an enormous amount of work long before you get paid.

Thanks to SIGNED, she started focusing on that value in her messaging, and she created value-based pricing to match — in the range of a 5 figure retainer — to start working on the deal, in addition to the commission on the backend. 

When you have a real understanding of the value you deliver, everything changes. Your posture changes. The way you feel when you sit at your desk changes. The way you talk to clients changes. And the way they respond to you changes, too. 

While you’re sitting around being quietly awesome, the women in SIGNED are stepping into their value, putting it front and center, and seeing the change in their business, their bank account, and their lives.

You deserve the same thing.

If you want to claim your place among these women, apply for SIGNED. After you answer a few questions you’ll be invited to book a call with my team to learn if SIGNED can help you.  

There’s no commitment or obligation, and if we can’t help you, we’ll let you know on that call.

You deserve this spot. You deserve to be shining in the spotlight so that everyone else can see exactly how talented you are. 

Apply and book your call with my team now so that you can stop being quietly awesome — and start living the life you were meant to have.

Have you ever had a day (or a week, or a month) where you’ll do just about anything to avoid putting in time on the work that really matters?

I’ve been there. In my avoiding-work moments, I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent cleaning up my desktop. Or clearing out my inbox. . Or making changes to my website. It’s strangely comforting, because these are tasks that are easy to cross off a list. The end point is clear, and it feels productive.

Unfortunately, the truth is that spending my time on that “work” is stupid, because it’s not doing anything to get me in front of clients.

The work you need to do can feel hard sometimes. You spend a morning on calls with referrals, only to hear, “Oh, that’s more than I can afford,” again and again.

You take on a client for a lower price because it feels like there’s no other option, and you find yourself working really hard for someone who doesn’t value the work. That money feels expensive, because you’re wasting time that could be better spent elsewhere.

Here’s a question for you. Do you believe that there are clients who will pay you as much as you want to charge? What’s your gut reaction when I ask you that?

And if you double the number you’re thinking of right now? Do you believe that there are clients who will pay you that amount?

The truth is that those clients are out there. Even if you feel like there’s no way you can find people who will pay you what you want to charge — or double that number — those clients do exist. And there are people charging that amount and more for the same work you’re doing right now.

You need to focus on the specific problem you want to solve, and you can’t be half-assed about it. You have to go all in.

If you tell yourself, “I’ll give this a try and see if it works before I commit,” you are setting yourself up for failure. You can’t make your business a thing you’ll only do “if it works.” You have to make it work, by building and growing it with your whole heart.

The grass is green where you water it — which means that you need to stop screwing around with rebrands and messaging, and go hard on the problem you solve for people.

It’s easy to get people to say yes to crappy, low-priced projects even when you don’t know how to sell. But that’s not what you’re after. The work you do matters. You need to learn how to lead your clients to an enthusiastic yes for the work you do.

That’s where I can help. You don’t have to figure everything out on your own. You can follow a roadmap that’s been carefully plotted for you.

This is your shortcut to getting the results you want. To getting in front of the people who need to see you. To getting on the phone with decision makers who have the power to say yes — and the cash to back it up.

Why are you making things harder than they need to be, and wasting your time on rebranding?

Why are you looking at help designed for people selling ebooks and courses? That’s not you. You work with companies, and the strategies you need to learn are completely different from getting someone to click “add to cart.”

Stop struggling.

Stop resisting what you’re meant to be.

Here’s a personal question for you. How much money did you make last year?

More than the actual number, though, I’m interested in how that number makes you feel. Are you proud of it? Do you feel like you blew your goals away? Does the number excite you and make you want even more for next year? 

Or does your number make you sigh, and feel like you let yourself down? Like you wonder if running this business is really the right thing?

I get it. Maybe you spent this year working hard to establish yourself as an expert. You refined your visibility strategy and you’re getting out there. People have the chance to see you the way you want to be seen. 

But that’s not the same as actually closing new clients.

And like I said last week, you don’t just want to pile more on your plate. More work might translate to more money — but it can also lead to more exhaustion, more overwhelm, and more unhappiness. 

Who needs that?

When you’re planning ahead for 2020, here are a few questions you need to ask yourself that go beyond “How much money will I make?”

How do I improve on last year? That might not mean making more money. It might mean maintaining your income — but working less, or working differently, with clients who respect your time and boundaries, or doing projects that feel less like work. 

What clients/projects did I enjoy? Think about the days when you woke up excited to get to your office and dig in. Think about the people whose names you were delighted to see in your inbox. 

What clients/projects made me miserable? What made you dread getting out of bed in the morning? What names triggered that PTSD-style reaction in your body?

What do I want more of this year? Do you want to do the same work and charge more for it? Do you want to spend more time on site or on stage? More time at home with your family and projects you can handle on your terms? 

What did I take on for the wrong reasons? How can I step away from that? It happens to all of us. Money is tight, so we say yes despite the red flags. Or the fit isn’t perfect, but we think it’s a stepping stone to something better. Or the client is a nightmare, but the name recognition is too important. Think hard about the times you said yes even when you knew it was a bad idea. 

How much did I enjoy my business? Do I want to keep doing this? Remember, “how much money will I make?” is one number — but you have to consider where that money comes from and how hard you’ll work for it. Is it making you miserable? 

One of my SIGNED students told me that 2019 was the first year that she didn’t think to herself, “Should I just give up and go back to my job?” And that’s because she finally feels like she has enough business — and a solid plan for how to get more when she’s ready for it. 

If you find yourself constantly thinking, This is too hard, ask yourself why you think it’s too hard. 

It’s probably because you don’t know how to close the sales you really want. 

Take your 2019 projects and clients and divide them into two lists: the ones you liked, and the ones you didn’t. Do you know how to get more of the ones you liked? Or do you just look at the list and feel frustrated, because you can’t figure out how to get more of what you want and ditch the stuff that makes you crazy?

What if you could 5x your earnings and build a 6-figure pipeline? Or book a year’s worth of revenue by the end of February?

What if you had a plan to create the year — and the life — that you want, with the clients and projects you love the most?

What if you could do all of that WITHOUT having to awkwardly pitch your services, without cold-calling, and without lowering your prices?

Find out more about our programs by booking a call with our program specialist, Mandy Miller.

I’m a meticulous planner. Forget Type A, we’re talking Type A+.

From the moment I learned I was pregnant, I started planning for maternity leave. I brought on new team members, hired an assistant coach to help me run SIGNED while I’d be out, and hired a coach to take the reins in Pack Your Pipeline while I would be away. I set up new systems and detailed my processes and procedures for my team.

I also ignored everyone who looked at me with doubt and told me, “You can’t plan for what having a baby will be like.”

I chuckled and said, “Oh, I know,” but secretly thought: “Sure, other people can’t prepare for what having a baby will be like, but I’m different. I’m a planner, and I have this thing under control.”

Also, I thought I’d spend maternity leave reading books and working on business projects. 

(If you’ve ever had a baby, or been around a newborn, I know what you’re thinking. You can stop laughing now.)

Basically, it’s as if I spent 8 months getting my house hurricane-ready, thinking that that was enough to withstand the storm.

And then I walked outside and stood directly in the hurricane. 

I’ll tell you what happened next: the rain and wind battered me around and left me washed up on some distant shore. 

Those first several weeks with my son Noah were so much harder than I thought they’d be. Outside of the physical recovery from an emergency c-section, and hormones, and just figuring out how to be a mom… I had to adjust my expectations of what maternity leave would be like, and how a baby would affect my business.

Turns out, I’m not different than every other mom after all.

In the weeks since Noah was born, I’ve outsourced even more. I’ve realized that a lot of what I spent my time doing was stupid. 

And I’ve come to see that motherhood is not about maintaining what I had before, it’s about navigating my new normal, but with an old flip phone that doesn’t even have GPS on it. 

To say I feel overwhelmed is… not even close. 

This is what control looks like. Feeding my son while trying to run a team call. (At least neither of us is crying in this picture.)

Someone asked me recently what I’d tell one of my students if she came to me in this situation. And it wasn’t this perfect moment of clarity that fell over me, but it was a wake-up call. And I realized that I’ve been just a bit hard on myself. 

Maybe I’m expecting things that I just can’t fully give at this moment. 

Maybe I can’t create a new program in the next few weeks, or get through all of the books on my reading list.

But I can do what I do best: give my all to my students in SIGNED and Pack Your Pipeline, and help them land the consulting clients they truly want, and help them get paid more for every contract. 

—

So as we settle into 2020, and you realize that we’re officially in the second half of January and you haven’t figured out your first quarter goals or how you’ll  double your revenue and be present for your kids and stop climate change and make a difference —

— if you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s okay to feel what you’re feeling. 

Give yourself space to feel it instead of shoving it back down. 

Take the time to think about what you really want your whole life to look like. Not just your business, not just your family, not just any one thing, because none of it exists in a vacuum. 

I can’t think about my business without thinking about how it’s going to affect time with my wife and my son. I can’t think about childcare or Noah’s pediatrician visits without thinking about my own work schedule.

So take a look at all of it, in all its messiness, and really dig in on what you want for yourself, for the people around you, for all the parts and pieces of your life, and think about what you can focus on that will align you around that new reality. 

If you say yes to more in-person workshops, maybe you say no to the volunteer position at the Chamber of Commerce. If you say yes to directing the 10th grade play in order to spend time with your daughter, maybe you say no to attending the conference in London.

And yes, of course it’s much easier for me to give you this advice than to take it myself. I see the intricacies of my life — from the exhaustion and guilt and overwhelm… all the way to the joy of watching my son sleep and seeing my students break through barriers — so change is hard. I only see a piece of your life, so it’s easy to tell you where to focus. 

If you came to me a few weeks postpartum with a plan to read business books, I’d tell you that was a crazy idea. But when I plan to spend my time that way, it seems totally logical. Right up until I try to execute.

It’s sort of like Mel Brooks said, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”

Okay, it’s not quite like that — but you get it. 

2020 doesn’t have to be the year you cross everything off your bucket list. You can find one area that’s the most impactful and important, and put your focus there. 

What’s your one thing this year? Is it figuring out how take on less work and still make the same (or more)? Is it putting aside enough cash for a down payment? Or is it finally feeling like your business is in flow and you’ve got this?

Whatever it is, what’s the very first thing you’re doing to get there?

If you’d like help to get there, I’d like to invite you to book a call with my team to see if we can help. 

If we can’t help you, my team will tell you that it’s not a good fit. No hard feelings — and no hard sell. 

It’s a simple conversation, but it could be the one call that changes the entire direction of your year. 

To your success,

Leah