How to bring big company experience to smaller clients

Academy member0:02

A part of me has been feeling with some of our smaller clients, or our less sophisticated clients, I've just had this instinct that we're almost like getting them a racehorse when they need like a mule.

Leah Neaderthal0:17

Welcome to the smart gets paid podcast with me. Leah Neaderthal, I help women land higher paying clients in their independent consulting businesses, but I've never been a salesperson. My background is in corporate marketing, and when I started my first 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, and I created the sales approach that I now share with my clients so they can feel more comfortable in the sales process. Get more of the right clients and get paid way more for every client contract. So whether your client contracts are $5,000 $100,000 or more, if you want to work with more of the clients you love, do more of the work you love, and get paid more than you ever thought you could, 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.

Leah Neaderthal1:10

Hey there. Thanks for joining me in this episode. I hope that wherever you are, wherever you are listening to this, I hope you're having a good week, making some good progress in your business, and also taking some time for yourself. So I gotta tell you guys, I am tired. It is the end of January, or, as my friend Megan says, it's the 437th day of January. This year has gotten off to, I mean, it just started with a bang, with activity in my business, and also we are sleep training. And if you've never done sleep training or never been around it, it's kind of a slog. Our six month old Sophie, is just starting to sleep through the night, but then she's had a little regression. She started teething. And I have to say, I actually wrote a whole other intro for this episode, because we had started the sleep training, and it was going really, really well. And like one night, I went to sleep at nine. I'm not even kidding you, I was in bed at 850 I woke up the next morning at six. I got more sleep that night than, I mean, God, in however many months. And I was like a new woman. It was like I had a new lease on life. That's the intro that I wrote. And then she started teething, which, you know, all the sleep training sort of went out the window. She's in pain. Those little razor teeth are like poking out of her gums. It's just not pleasant. And as a result, it's also not pleasant for us, because now we're, you know, back to being awake a couple times a night. So I had this whole thing written about how, like, oh my gosh, sleep training is over. You know, we've come through it, and now it's sort of a little bit of a regression. And so I know that there's a business lesson in there somewhere, right? Because we all, or if you're anything like me, we just want things to go in one direction all the time, right up and to the right all the time. Things should go in a linear fashion. They should constantly be improving. But every now and then there's, you know, there's a regression, there's some either setback, or you maybe feel like you're solving the same problems again, but I guess it's kind of like teething and baby development. Even the parts that are the slow down parts or the regression parts, they are the regression parts, because there's tremendous development happening during that time. You know, there's brain development and physical development, and so even the parts that we think are going backwards are actually going forwards in a meaningful way. And I know there's a parallel in your business too, in my business as well. Even the parts that we feel like we're not driving forward as much as we want, there's still really important growth, so I'm just going to resign myself to that and try to get a little bit more sleep tonight. So let's do this. Shall we? Let's dive in. The conversation that you're going to listen in on today is one that I think echoes the experiences of a lot of the women I talk to, because I work with a lot of women who come out of careers in big companies and big agencies. I actually work with a lot of women who come out of big agency life, and they've brought those years of experience and those big companies into their consulting businesses. And so the conversation in this episode with my client answers this question that a lot of us face as we go from working in a big company to running a consulting business, how do we take what we've done for our whole careers, right, for those big companies, for big names, and I just want to say, even if you aren't coming from a big company, right, like fortune 1000 there are a lot. Lot of companies that are considered mid market, that are really big, and honestly, even the lessons that we're talking about here can apply if you've worked at a company that has 50 people or 100 people, or 500 people, or 5000 or many more people, because how do we take what we've done in our previous roles, and how do we bring that into the companies that we're working with now in our consulting business, which are usually smaller than that company, smaller companies, smaller maybe nonprofits, who now that we have our own company and can do what we want, how do we bring that experience to the clients that we feel so passionately about, right, which, again, are probably these smaller companies. I love this conversation because, as you might know, I got my start in large advertising agencies. I worked for an agency called DDB in Chicago, where we did Budweiser and Bud Light and all the big Super Bowl ads and McDonald's. I'm loving it, and State Farm and all these big names. And actually, okay, so this is gonna totally date me, but the years, right before I started there, we had done what's up for Budweiser. And then do you guys remember, dude, you're getting Adele. That was us too. And then after that, I went to another big agency called Leo Burnett, where we did also McDonald's and Miller and Kellogg's and blackberry and Philip Morris and many more clients. And actually, funny story, when I was at Leo Burnett, working in business development, we also won Raytheon as a new client. So in one agency during my time there, we were working on Miller McDonald's, Raytheon and Philip Morris. In case you missed that, that's beer, fast food, missiles and cigarettes, which I always just found really amusing and also kind of depressing. But anyway, what we're talking about here is big company stuff, and you get this experience working on big teams with big clients and big projects and big budgets and big processes. And when you leave that world, either to go work at a much smaller company or to run your own thing, you find that things are a little different. The clients are different, the process is different. And there are some growing pains, right? Not necessarily growing up pains, but scaling down pains, and that's a situation that my client found herself in. She and her co founder are big agency veterans, decades of experience developing creative brand campaigns for big companies, and three years into running their brand strategy company, they get to work with the clients that they have just real passion for, which are these smaller clients and nonprofits. And now, after three years of this and after working with several of these companies, they're realizing that maybe they need to figure out how to really scale their big agency experience for these smaller clients. So if you've ever worked in a big company or a large, mid market company, and now you're on your own or working with a small team, I think you'll really see some familiarities in this conversation. And while on the surface, this is about, how do you apply your big company experience to your smaller clients, it's actually more universal than that, because the question here is, when you really know how to do something and how something should be done and how to really solve a problem. How do you bring that to companies that may or may not be able to accept all the benefit of your experience? So one quick note, early in our conversation, my client mentions the executive debrief. What she's talking about here is a technique that my clients learn called the executive debrief, which is a strategy to identify opportunities for additional work and upsells with current clients. So I want to send a huge thank you to this client for allowing me to share this conversation with you. Take a listen, and at the end, I'll come back and share a lesson that you can apply to your business.

Leah Neaderthal9:00

Do you have an actual sales process? I'm talking about not a general sense of what you should be doing, but a real process where you know exactly what step comes next, who to follow up with, and when, and you can see at a glance where every potential client stands, if the answer is no, or if yours feels clunky, or you're reinventing the wheel, every single time I made something for you. It's called roadmap to clients. It's a free 20 minute video course, and in it, you'll map out your customized sales process step by step, from the very first contact with a potential client all the way to a signed proposal. It's the same foundational process we use with every Academy member, and it's completely free. Go to smart gets paid.com/roadmap. To get started.

Academy member9:47

Well, I just want to tell you that I've really been enjoying everything. And in full disclosure, I'm still not completely done, so I am kind of looking forward to a little more quiet right now, both in terms I think that may. Happen a little more. You know, opportunity to maybe finish some of these modules, which have really been so great. And then also, you know, think about marketing ourselves a little bit more. So my big question, I sadly didn't get through the executive debrief module until maybe late last week. And so I would love to just talk a little bit about and I've already done three of them because I found it so great, and all three of them are really positive, and I think all three of those clients have more work to do, you know, and that was really helpful. And you know, what was super helpful, too, on the beyond, even just getting to more work, was just kind of insights about our business, because part of me has been feeling with some of our smaller clients, or our less sophisticated clients, I've just had this instinct that we're almost like getting them a racehorse when they need like a mule, you know, and and then that's not good for us, because we're all you know, It's overwhelming for them, perhaps, and it's also, maybe sometimes more work than we need to do, which cuts back on our profitability. And I've been trying to talk to my partner about this, and I, you know, I think in the executive debrief, I got confirmation from that in a really positive way, when the executive director was basically, kind of said, like I did feel a little overwhelmed by everything, but it's all been great. It was, she was very complimentary, but underneath that was clearly the point that we could do less, and it might actually be easier for them to work with so I and then that's been making me a little stuck when I think about my pricing strategies, because I or maybe not stuck, but this is kind of what I want to just hear from you a little bit on, is I might really need, like, three different types of pricing strategies, you know, one for the smaller nonprofits who you know, we do want to work with, and if we do it right, We are profitable, doing those projects with them, and then another pricing strategy for bigger companies that just have bigger budgets. And I think the executive debrief, that's what's been floating in my mind. And when I did the executive debrief with her, I think it really completely got clarified so but I just, I haven't started that module. I've just watched a couple little bits so I, you know, know what I have to do. And I just would love to hear from you, like any insights or, you know, suggestions or tips as you kind of work on, you know, or as you work with other people who are working on their pricing strategies, yeah,

Leah Neaderthal12:39

well, when people say it's a little too much, tell me a little bit

Academy member12:45

more about what they say. Yeah, I don't. No one's actually, honestly said that. I've just suspected it because we do keep time sheets internally for ourselves, and I see, and that's we did it for a year, just trying to figure out, how much time do we spend on something, you know, how, how much time, you know? And how are we? Are we charging enough, you know? Because for sure, in early days, we were really not charging a lot, and then last year, we kind of doubled all our prices. And that went fine. And now I think I can do even more of that, but I feel like we do something which is kind of a little more from the PR world than from the advertising world, and it is this sort of tool that I think is very useful to clients, and we call it the brand narrative. And it is basically like a little bit of brand strategy and a lot of copywriting. So it's kind of like the key strategic Foundation, bits of brand meaning or a brand idea, or both, often and then different types of messaging. We also do an elevator speech, and we often do something like we'll call it a sometimes it's a founder story. Sometimes it's like a one page PDF that has their whole story on it that they can use to send out to a bunch of people, and then it's like some key messaging by audiences. So they have stuff for social media, they have stuff for their website and things like that. But I found myself on one of our smaller clients listening to the call where we were saying, Your Brand Idea got them really stuck, you know, and then we, you know, we were saying, but no one will ever see this, you know. And it was like, I just had this light bulb go off. It's like, that's one of those things that you do for a very big client when you're working with Kellogg's or something, and they really have, like, a big marketing platform, and your peer, your client, peers, understand marketing, and can use a filter like that in their daily decisions, you know. And so I've been thinking like brand purpose and meaning is a big part of what we do. I hate to cut that out of the mix, but I don't think they need a brand idea on top of that. And sometimes that takes a long time, and we are, you know, stuck at the brand. Idea stage when it's actually not something they even really need. You know what I mean? And we're telling them they'll never use it or show it in public so well.

Leah Neaderthal15:09

And can I ask, what's the difference between a brand purpose and brand meaning?

Academy member15:15

So the brand purpose is like the why of how they do something. If your vision is like your grand plan, and your mission is how what you're going to do to get there, the purpose is your why, and that is, I think, enough of a tool for some, you know, for most people. But I think the brand idea is like, it's like a Leo Burnett thing or an Ogilvy, and neither thing, you know, it's something that is nice for the team to have, but it isn't something that the clients, a lot of these clients, aren't doing big marketing, so they don't really need it, you know? So, and I don't need to solve necessarily, what goes into our packages right now, but I think that's just made me aware that having a package for smaller clients and a package for bigger clients would probably be really smart, you know, and I've never done that. I literally start from scratch with every proposal we do financially. I, you know, sometimes look at something and feel like this one was really good, this one was really profitable. And why don't I build off of this one to kind of create something for these guys, but I want to to be able to have a really good discovery call, you know? And I think this would be really helpful, because in January, so in when I was in Mexico, I did like six proposals, and four of them, nothing came of it, was because we were too expensive. And I finally went back and watched the module on Discovery calls, and I thought, boy, four of those would have been ruled out after a phone call, you know. And yet I

Leah Neaderthal16:53

How would you have known? Well, because

Academy member16:55

I think you kind of say this kind of work could be, I'm making it up 50k you know, roughly 50k How does that sound? And then just be silent, you know. So toss a number out to get a sense of whether or not that could work. And I, in fact, did that on Friday with a friend of a friend, and I suspected they were going to be on the smaller side. So I kind of looked at like an identity and branding estimate that I thought was kind of potentially a ballpark that could be useful for us. And I with them, you know, had a nice discovery call, got their pain points, got their hopes and dreams, you know, got to know them a little bit. And sort of, towards the end of the call, I did say, Well, this sort of work, you know, I'm hearing that you could, you know, you're feeling this. You could use something like this, you know, blah, blah, blah. They're going, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then I said, so this type of work for us is usually in the ballpark of blank. And then there was just dead silence. And I'm sure they don't have the money, you know. They were like, oh, oh, we okay, we don't have that kind of money. We'll have to think about it, you know. And I thought, well, that was actually really useful, because now if they come up with the money, great, and if they don't, I'm not making a big proposal, you know, walking through thinking all that time that it takes to kind of think through be right for them. So I feel like, you know, that just kind of confirmed. It was like, between the executive debrief and a positive discovery call it was like my pricing strategies are maybe one of the most important things that I have to do right now, you know? And and so I'm just look before I sit down, I have to do the work. So I'm at that stage before I do the work where I'm like, Oh, I don't really want to do the work, but, you know, emotionally, I know it's going to be tough and but I know in my head that it's absolutely the right thing to do. So I guess I'm just looking for some inspiration and guidance on or insights that you might have when it comes to those pricing strategies.

Leah Neaderthal18:58

Right? Well, this is really fascinating, because it's, I think, that we started the call on pricing. But it's really about more than just pricing. It's about, I just have been making a bunch of notes. So it's really about you have this incredible, big agency, experience and process and approach, and how do you apply it, well? And to back up, you've have applied it to big companies where, you know, you have, like, three brand managers, right? We're going to implement this, and they're and so I feel like the work that you're doing now for companies that don't have that is, it's, I don't think it's a level of sophistication, necessarily. I think it's a level of, like, who's even just going to implement this work, right? You know? So it's about, you know, you have this really robust process, but your newer clients can't accept it, right? It's like, they can't. To implement it, because they don't have the, either the manpower or the other resources, right? And so, you know, I think the first thing is, you were talking about discovery. I think part of your discovery process has to sort of touch on that a little bit like so in terms of, you know, you would ask some standard questions around, like, how to get to value and for you, I think it's also like, who's going to tell me all the people who are going to touch this project, you know, and really start to suss out, because I think one thing that might be overwhelming so it's like, who's going to who's going to implement, you know, is it like, Are there volunteers who are involved? You know what I'm saying, like they're because it's not, it might not be for lack of interest or need,

Academy member20:50

for a certain need, and that could actually become like level, right? Is like full implementation, or something becomes a level if, for instance, they're coming to us for, like, a foundation, bit of work. You know, often after you kind of get the foundation done, there are, there is work you could do. It could turn into a fundraising campaign. It could turn into social media updates. It could, you know, there's a gazillion things that could kind of turn into. So it almost feels like that would be another level.

Leah Neaderthal21:18

Well, so yeah, that actually, it's a great I had written down a question here about so when you get when you do this brand narrative, is it like you guys create the brand Foundation and the purpose and the meaning all that, and then they run with it? Yeah, tell them how to run with it, or you run with it. Well, it's

Academy member21:36

sometimes, it's both. But I think a lot of the clients that I'm wrapping up now, or I'm at that executive debrief stage. I think at the time when I was putting these estimates together, I just thought the foundation was the work, you know. And I never really was thinking what could come next, you know. And so that's why I think the calls were actually the two calls that I did do last week were really helpful, because I think both of them have next level work that they want to do, and they feel very comfortable with us now. We understand their brand. We've kind of given them a brand, and they're eager to kind of keep things going and looking for guidance on what those next steps could be and possibly should be. So I found the calls really nice, and it has made me want to do these calls, like at the midpoint, you know. And actually both of those calls were at the like, three quarters point, which was really helpful. And then I did another one which was at the midpoint, and I think that one went really well, all of which is just so new to me, honestly, and so I really want to thank you for all these little tips that I've gotten. But I feel, yeah, so keep going. So it's really like how maybe it's a little bit of the discovery call, you know, hearing a little more insight about the discovery call and how that might lead to the ability to just say, okay, that sort of project is in the range of 25k How does that sound? You know, just to be able to be that effort effortless about it, you know, right?

Leah Neaderthal23:12

And in order to get to that number, because I know your projects are a lot bigger, you know, maybe you have an abbreviated version of your process. Yes, it's almost like a brand narrative light. You wouldn't call it that, but brand narrative light to give them what you know to be necessary to do this work, but not in a way that overwhelms them. But I think, if I hear you correctly, the overwhelming part is not the brand narrative work. It's the what do you do with it? Work? Yeah, probably, yeah. So, because if they have all this amazingness that, and you like you say you should do this, and you should do this, and you should do this, a couple things I'm thinking about. The first is part of your work, that part of the success of your work has to be the ability for them to do it, right? If you do great work that's totally premium priced and all of that, but they can't bring it to life, then it's going to impact the testimonials you get. It's going to impact them, you know, referring you to others, it's going to impact what they believe is the efficacy of the work, right, right? It was too expensive, we didn't do anything with it, right? And even though they might say, Yeah, we didn't do anything with it, they'll never, clients will always think that it's the consultants fault, right? Clients are never going to be like, you know, if we're really honest with ourselves, you know, we're so I think that part of it is the brand light so that, so as not to overwhelm them, right? But I think it's also up to you to think about, how do you make sure they instead of saying you should be doing all these things, how do you help them get them done, right? So a couple things come to mind. The first is, this could be great, a great. Used for a junior person? Yeah? You know, if you want to bring on a junior account manager or something, I know, I know you guys don't want to build like another big agency, yeah, but you can certainly train somebody to be an account person, yes, on this, and you can train them to do it your way. They're just following your process. They don't have to come in with 20 years of agency knowledge. Yeah, another thing I was thinking about is you can still give them the tools to implement this inside their organization, yeah? So maybe you have a fairly standard, customizable, you know, how would this look? Yeah, right. Here's how we here's how we recommend.

Academy member25:41

Well. So it's interesting what you're saying, because we do do that. We actually have a couple I think, I think it's a symptom. Now, what I'm feeling is like the pricing strategy depends so much on the Discovery call. And I feel like late in the process, for some of our own thinking back now to some of our earlier clients, and a little late in the process, we really found out, well, they don't really have anyone to implement this, you know, and so, or they have a board that has to, kind of someone has to volunteer to freelance this, or they have a pretty junior person. So in a couple cases, we then were able to add in some trainings and do things like that. It has impacted, like, creating simple design templates and things like that that they can make. But I think the truth is, even that can be overwhelming for some clients, not for all of them. Some of them have, like, taken them and run with them. And, like, I see their stuff on social media, and I'm so proud of them, you know, but I think that I was always wondering, like, for the ones that really do get it, I guess that's all well and good. And I get great, you know, testimonials and referrals. But we did kind of write ourselves out of a second phase of the project, basically, you know. And maybe for a really small client, that's okay, but for some small clients, they they really want someone to kind of just do it for them, you know, they to make it go away. And I think when I look back on some of those earlier packages that I estimated at the beginning of last year, you know, I wasn't thinking through what that could be and how we could kind of stay on and maintenance capacity or something like that. And now I feel like that's something that a lot of clients really would benefit from, you know, and maybe

Leah Neaderthal27:24

absolutely you know. And that's, I think that's a good point thinking about, I think that you sort of hit on something that I think, while I think it's good to have you know, sort of what we talked about in terms of, like, roadmap for implementation, or, here's how we recommend people do it or trainings. I do think that people want either some hand holding, or they want it to go away, or they want to make sure they're doing it right. So that's a real opportunity for you to you know, should you be having, should part of your program be 30 day check ins? Yeah, team for six months. Maybe, if it takes that long to implement, and that, of course, increases the perceived value, you can increase the price. Yes, because people just don't want to feel like they're being cut loose. But I think it also speaks to one question that you might want to think about, is, who is the who is the right client. Because, let's say that you know the right client for you might be that they have to have somebody who's dedicated to this. It can't be that it it's a board member who who implements it. So part of it is it. And this goes back to this discovery, asking asking the questions that will help you understand, can you be successful? Right? You're not asking like, Are they big enough? Can they afford me? Then, you know, all this stuff, it's, do they have the right markers for you to be successful? Because if you're successful, then yeah, you might be successful enough to write yourself out of a job. But you but you know, they're going to tell their other people about it, you know. So I think that's the question, really understanding like, what are the markers? And I don't know what those are, but you know, you guys can talk through that. So, you know, thinking through it's not just the markers of a good client, as if it's not black and white like that, but what are the markers of this sort of full program? And what are the markers for a right size program? Because the right size program might have an, you know, less brand narrative, but more hand holding, right or more implementation, right? A program for Fortune 1000 company could have a lot of brand narrative and maybe a lot of what we would, you know, what you would consider, like traditional account management, yeah, you know, inside the company. But, but maybe less implementation, I think. Maybe what you guys might want to do is go through, you know, almost like what you guys did in the pricing module is like, what, what are all the things that we have at our disposal that we could put together in a program and then making a call on, okay, well, so for this right size program, for maybe a smaller company with less of a team. We it has, you know, these, these check ins. It has this roadmap. It has this, you know, how can we help them be successful? It's less about what I want to sell to them. It's, you know, because they're really the only measure of whether you'll get more work or whatever testimonials is, can we be successful for this company, right? And then looking at that, then you can assign a price to it,

Academy member30:49

yeah, yeah, okay, that's a great way to think about it.

Leah Neaderthal30:54

Hopefully this, yeah, this gives you a little bit to work with. Yes, I think it's really just about, you know, it's the right question. You know, it's less about how much do we charge? It's more about, given what we know about the types of clients we've worked with, what is required to be successful, right? And then what's the price for that, right?

Academy member31:13

And I think now we actually do have enough, you know? I mean, it's, we're just starting our third year, and we've done enough. I think we can see what, what they really deeply need, and then what they need to implement, you know, and they're, they're two different things, and I think I love framing it is like, what do they need to succeed? Kind of, so that's the value. And thinking about it that way is a nicer mindset for me to kind of live in as a way to like, work on that stuff. So, and I think we've seen enough examples. And, you know, the ED I spoke to, even with her, what I thought we know, what maybe we don't do is like a kickoff call at the beginning that's just like, are we really clear on, like, what all the steps are, and this is our flow and how it will all work. And, you know, really talk it through with her and her team. I because she really is probably, even though she's an executive director of a big organization, she's very much not marketing savvy, and so she said, I just had to kind of let go of what I didn't know and follow your lead and trust you. And it's all making sense to me now. You know, she was happy, but I realized, wow, a kickoff call at the beginning, to clarify a lot of that would have been really helpful for her. You know, totally, you know, our day to day person was more knowledgeable than her, but ultimately, you want the ED

Academy member32:34

feeling really comfortable with everything. So I think that's a great,

Leah Neaderthal32:39

great learning. And, yeah, I mean, your goal should be, nobody should say to you at the end, okay, now I see what you guys were doing, right, right? You know, they should really, they should have that up front, because also that's going to really help with, like, the amount of pushback you might get, or the amount of client calls you have to take, or what have you, you know, setting a roadmap like that kickoff call, like you said, here's when things happen. I think pre addressing some objections, understanding the types of objections, and handling those up front really makes a better client experience.

Academy member33:15

Well, I think even knowing what the roadmap is would even help us with what are the packages for them to succeed, you know, and right? Because these are the steps that we would take for them to be able to do what they need to do. And I feel like if I can lay those roadmaps out, that would then impact my discovery questions and then impact the offerings that we build for them.

Leah Neaderthal33:37

So totally, totally, I think you're thinking about it the right way. Yeah, oh my God, all that talk about the brand narrative just brought me right back to those agency days. Any agency folks listening? I can't help but wonder if it's the same for you too. So I want to pull out a lesson that you can apply to your business. And first, before I say anything, I just have to say something to not do when you come from a big agency or a big company, and this is actually one of my big pet peeves that I see consultants doing all the time, it's this, please do not ever say in your positioning or Your painkiller statement your marketing that you have big company experience or big agency experience at a fraction of the price. Please, for the love, don't say it. This line absolutely kills me, because you are immediately right out of the gate, getting the client to think about price before they think about your value. And not only that, you're anchoring the price low. And here's the thing, I never want you to be the cheapest option. I want you to be seen as a premium provider. So instead of saying that you have big company or big agency experience at a fraction of the price, position yourself for value that will always do more to. To establish your value and give clients a reason to work with you than touting your big company credentials, and it'll get you paid more. Okay, I just had to get that off my chest. So besides that, the thing that I want you to take away from this episode is this idea of the markers of an ideal client. So we often think about who we want to work with and the clients that we really want. But even within that universe of clients, there are some clients who are going to be great for us and some clients that won't. And the measuring stick for a quote, unquote, good client in this scenario is a client where we can be successful and we can help them be successful. This came up, actually, with another client of mine who does B to B copywriting for businesses in a pretty specific industry, and she was getting a lot of inquiries from people who wanted to work with her, but she was jumping on the phone. And once she got to talking with them, they really weren't an ideal client for her at all. So she needed a way to quickly figure out whether they could be a good client for her without jumping on the phone with every single one of them. So I asked her, I was like, what are the markers of a client where you can be successful? For example, do they have to have a marketing department? And she was like, Oh, yeah. You know, if the business owner of this company is also the one that does the marketing, then I can't help them be successful, because I've just found that they don't have the time or the capability to implement what I'm writing for them. She said they need at least one person in the company who's focused on marketing. So we took that to where her potential clients were inquiring with her, which is her contact form, and we added a question about how many people are on your marketing team? And the answers were one, two to three, four or more, and then it's just me. And so for the people who answered, it's just me, she can't be successful with them, and so she can respond differently than the people who answered that they have one or two, or however, many more people on their teams. So she saved herself a ton of time, and she was also able to focus on the potential clients, where she and they could be more successful. There was another client where this came up as well. She uses design thinking to create equity programs inside companies, and they want to work with the companies that have a real desire to create a more equitable workplace, like they don't want to work with, you know, people who feel like they're checking a box with dei J work or what have you. So a good marker for them is whether management is bought in. And so they talk about that, and they ask about that, even in those early discovery conversations, and they've started asking some tough questions about the degree to which management is driving this or is just sort of going along with it. Now, if you're just getting started with your business, you may not be able to do this yet. If you're just getting started, honestly, take everything, because it's all data, so that you can learn who the right clients are for you, and you can learn the markers of a good client. But when you're in the messy middle, like this client and her co founder, you can start to do this. You know, we talk about the messy middle, that time after about 18 months to two years, when the things you do to get clients in startup mode, like right out of the gate, sort of stop working, and you have to get a little more proactive about getting clients and growing your business. So when you're in the messy middle, you can start to do this exercise. You can look back at the clients you've worked with and notice the markers of what makes a good client for you. And if you haven't checked it out yet, I talk about the messy middle in Episode 42 if you haven't caught that yet, definitely take a listen. So as you think about your business and your clients and the work that you really want to do, and actually not even that, the change that you really want to create with your clients and for your clients, think about what the markers are for your ideal clients, and the ideal client is one where you can be successful and where they can be successful.

Leah Neaderthal38:50

Hey, everything we're talking about in this episode is part of the system. Women like you, are learning in the academy. In the Academy, we help women consultants install the two systems every B to B, consultant needs a marketing system to consistently attract the right clients, and a sales system to lead a sales process to a yes and get paid more for every contract. So even if you've only gotten clients through referrals or word of mouth in the academy, you'll learn how to attract and sign clients outside your network, how to lead a sales process with confidence, and how to get paid for your value, not your time, and there's no cold calling or cold emailing involved, no changing your services or making a course, and you won't use any pushy sales tactics. That's just not our vibe. So if you like what you've heard here, the academy may be your right next step to learn how you can get these two systems in your consulting business and make progress faster and with fewer roadblocks. Head to smart gets paid.com/academy and apply and we can chat about next steps. All right. See you over there. Transcribed by https://otter.ai