How to get clients when there are more consultants in your space

Leah Neaderthal 0:02

So if you're worried about standing out when there are so many more consultants in your space doing these four things consistently puts you in the top 1% not the top 10% the top 1% because most consultants don't actually do the things they know they need to do to get clients, and that's your advantage. 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. Hey there, Leah here, and thanks for tuning in. I hope wherever you are right now, wherever you're listening to this, I hope you're having a great week, making some good progress in your business and taking some time for you. So back in say, 2007

Leah Neaderthal 1:32

I was 27 I was living in Chicago, and a friend of mine, who always finds the best new music, played me a new album, and I remember we were sitting around her living room. It was my friends and me, just a bunch of like, little baby lesbians in our 20s. And she put on this CD. She was like, You guys have got to hear this. And from the first time I heard it, I was hooked. I mean, this singer's voice, her lyrics, the raw emotion in every note. But it wasn't just that the music was amazing, which it was, it was that the singer, this woman, was also gay. She was like one of us, which, I mean, just to paint the picture, this was like mid 2000s this was like peak early, you know, lesbian hood for all of us, all my friends, at that time. And so we were really into these singers who we were kind of discovering, who were also lesbians, like these little singers and groups. And so knowing that someone like us making music that sounded like that, I mean, we felt seen. It felt like she was one of ours. And I listened to that album on repeat, and we went to her shows, which were in these little, teeny venues back then. And we told everybody knew about this woman who we had discovered since then. I mean, she's absolutely taken off. She's released seven more albums, and she's won multiple Grammys. She sells out arenas like everybody knows who she is. She's massive. And even now still, whenever I listen to her, I think about those years, those friends, all of us, at that time in our lives, singing along to Brandi Carlile and feeling seen. And I'm thrilled for her. I am so proud of what she's accomplished. And you know, I'll be honest sometimes when I go to her concerts. Now, there's a little tiny part of me that wants to lean over to the person next to me and tell them, you know, I've been listening to her since 2007 when she was just getting started, even though, I mean, nobody cares. But here's the thing, the fact that millions of people now love brandy Carlisle doesn't diminish my memories of listening to her in that living room in the 2000s it doesn't take away from what her music meant to us back then and still means to us, and we still get to feel that connection to her, even though there are so many more people who listen to her now. And I'm telling you this story, and I've sort of been thinking about this, because I've been hearing something for about a year or two from the women consultants I've been talking to. And it takes a few forms, but it generally sounds like this. They'll say there are so many more people in my space now, or there are so many more consultants doing what I do. And just like I felt a little twinge of Wait, everybody knows brandy now, these women are feeling that same thing about their businesses, sort of like, Wait, everyone's a consultant now, and I get it, because when you look around and you see all these new people doing what you do, it can make you feel a certain way, and it can make you feel like it does take something away from you and take something away from your business. So in this episode, we're going to talk about it. You're going to hear how to continue to get consulting clients and run and grow your consulting business when there are so many more consultants in your space. And just as a heads up, there are two pieces of good news. Number one, getting consulting clients even when there are so many more people in your space doesn't take a ton of work. It just takes making some small but meaningful changes. And number two, I'm going to tell. You why it's not as big of a problem as you might think. So we're going to talk about it right after this. So the first thing I want to say is you're not wrong. If you're feeling like there are a lot more consultants in your space than there ever were before, then you're definitely not wrong. There are a lot more people doing some type of independent work, whether it's consulting or advisory, they're doing direct service work or project work or fractional work, which, by the way, I put all of that under the umbrella of consulting, but yes, I mean, there are a lot more people running their own businesses now, I've been seeing this for the past two or three years, and I mean, it's certainly accelerated over the past year, just because of layoffs or return to Office mandates, or people doing consulting while they're looking for a job, like interim consulting, or people just opting out of the workforce to raise kids or take care of aging parents or what have you. There's been a huge talent drain from corporate and all these really capable people have done what a lot of us have done, which is take their talent and their skills and their experience and have started working with clients. So if you get the sense that there's a lot more people doing what you do, then you're right there are, and that's why we need to talk about what you can do in this new reality. And so when women say that they look around and they see so many more consultants doing what they do, it's not just a simple observation underneath it, I hear this sort of sense that the ground is sort of shifting underneath them right, or has shifted underneath them, and they're not quite sure how to compete with all these new people. And it's a sense of confusion that's really unfamiliar to the women I'm talking to, because what I'm really hearing is worry, because there are some real effects that they're seeing in their business. You know, many women have told me that they aren't getting as many referrals. Many referrals, that their inbound inquiries have slowed down. You know, they're used to getting a certain number of inquiries every month or so, and they're just they're just not anymore. There's this sense that all these new people are getting the clients that they otherwise would be getting, and there's just so much more competition. They're saying that it's hard to stand out and get noticed because there are a lot more people. More people talking about their industry on LinkedIn. It's just too noisy. And a lot of these women who are sort of voicing this and feeling this way come to me because of these two things, and their business can either start to slow down or plateau or even backslide, like if you started your business during covid or before covid, then in the prime covid years, if you're like a lot of women, you probably did great in your business. Like, remember at the beginning of covid, when everyone was like, companies aren't going to spend money. And then they didn't spend money for like, a few months, and then they very quickly, like, did start spending money. So most of the women who started their business during covid probably saw success really quickly, and oftentimes double digit growth every year. And if your business was already established before covid, then you probably had a bit of a dip at the beginning of covid, but you likely recovered and kept growing. So if that's the growth that you've been seeing, you know, since you got started, three to five years ago, or, you know, before that, then it would make sense that if your business is stagnating or has hit a plateau, then you know something's wrong, or something's changing. But I hear something else in these comments, and sort of the effects that people are seeing, because I see it through the lens of what I've observed in running my business working with consultants for the past 10 years, and it's something that I think needs to be part of this conversation. So when women consultants tell me that there are so many more consultants in their space and they're not getting as many referrals, it's harder to stand out, et cetera, on and on, right? Here's the honest truth. From what I've seen for the past 10 years, most women consultants aren't doing that much to actually get their business out there. They're not doing that much marketing, they're not that visible. They have very little actual marketing plan or sales process. And in fact, one of the things that people realize when they work with us on their marketing is what a baseline level of marketing actually looks like for a B to B consulting business like if you're posting on LinkedIn a few times a year, sharing some things you know, liking somebody else's post like that is that's just not enough. Whatever you're doing might feel like a lot to you, but it's probably not a lot in the grand scheme of what's actually required to build a thriving consulting business. And Stephanie Lowe actually just talked about that in episode 132, of this podcast. So if you haven't listened to that episode, check it out. And so when I hear you know the referrals aren't coming the way they used to, et cetera, on and on, what I'm really hearing is the little that I was doing before isn't working anymore, because, like when you're one of only a few people doing what you do, you don't have to do that much marketing, but when there are so many more people in your space, or when things aren't that great in the economy, clients aren't just going to swim into your net, and that can be jarring to people. So it's like I wasn't doing much before, and the little that I was doing isn't working anymore. Now, when this happens, people usually. React in one of a few ways. They might sit there, wringing their hands, worrying and complaining, but not doing much of anything strategic. You know, they might post on LinkedIn a few more times or a little more than before, and do more random acts of marketing, but generally, you know, more hand wringing and just sort of watching it happen. This is the reaction that, not surprisingly, has the least amount of success, because when you don't do anything to change the situation, your business will either become a zombie, business, you know, not growing, not dead, just sort of existing, or it'll fizzle out, which is sort of a nice way of saying that the business isn't making enough money for it to be worth it, for you to continue running it. So that's the first thing that happens the second reaction is grasping for quick fix solutions. And you've probably seen ads that say, you know, fill your calendar with right fit clients, or the email sequence that got me 10 clients in a week, or the ultimate sales script, never lose a sale again. These are actual like headlines that I've seen on ads recently, and when you're worried and you want to do something, it's really easy to be drawn in by these promises. The problem is that these are B to C solutions, not B to B. And I talk about this in depth in Episode 72 but generally, one rule of thumb is, if it promises speed, it's probably B to C, because the typical B to B sales process can take anywhere from three to 18 months. You know, it's not like selling a low dollar amount thing or even a coaching package. And you can't solve a long lead time problem with short lead time solutions. But when you want to do something, it feels like this is a something, but you can also waste a lot of money and a lot of time on things that aren't going to work in this environment. And the third reaction that we see is what we call fluffing the pillows. Fluffing a pillow sounds like this. Imagine you want to throw a party, but instead of sending invitations, you fluff the pillows on your couch. If you do that, you're not really going to get anyone at your party, right? And I see this same thing with consultants, especially when consultants get nervous. So fluffing the pillows can look like redesigning your website, getting another certification, rebranding, redoing your offers. And I mean, this one really cracks me up, because who cares what your offers are, if you have no one to offer them to right, fluffing the pillows feels like you're doing something, but because it doesn't actually do anything to change the situation or make it visible, it won't solve the problem. So these are the three reactions we see that won't work. What will work taking focused strategic action. And when I say strategic action, I mean looking at both the marketing system and the sales systems in your business, so that you can get the right client opportunities, and you actually know how to help them say yes. And of course, it goes without saying, What Works is also not waiting too long to take this action. Solving this problem is definitely a fix the roof when the sun is shining situation, because if you wait too long, you could get to a point where it's too late to be able to fix things, but when you work on the right things in the right order, then you can get more of the right clients reaching out to you. You can make the money that you were making, and you can continue to grow your revenue regardless of how many new people are in your space. And so there are a number of things we look at and how to do this in the academy, but I want to focus on four here that you can start to do today. All right, so let's get into it. How to get consulting clients when there are more people in your space. All right, so here's what I want to tell you, and I'm just going to be really straight with you about this. What I'm about to share here is not sexy. It's not new. It's not some secret strategy that nobody's ever heard of before. And in fact, you might even be able to guess at some of these things. But even though you might know you need to do them, you might not know why they're important, specifically in this moment, in helping you stand out when there are so many more people in your space. Because I promise you, if you do these four things, you will stand out among all the other competitors. I mean, air quotes competitors, right? But you will stand out, and I have the data to prove it, all right. So let's dive in number one, position your work for value. This is what I talk about a lot on this podcast, as your painkiller, positioning your work as solving the number one pain your client is facing, not as a vitamin, which is a nice to have. So a vitamin might mean that you're talking about your work in terms of what you do, like, I'm an HR consultant or a digital marketing specialist, or I run leadership workshops, or even that holy grail of like fractional, like, I'm a fractional CMO or fractional HR director. That word fractional is still a tactical way of describing what you do, as opposed to illustrating the value of what you do really talking about how your work will impact your clients. Now, a painkiller alone is not a marketing strategy, so working on your painkiller or. Messaging alone won't get you clients, but it's a critical part of any marketing strategy. It sort of reminds me of, like, remember that phrase? Like it's part of a complete breakfast. A painkiller is part of a complete marketing strategy. It's so important to everything else that in the academy, members work on their painkiller statement and get their painkiller dialed in in the first like three lessons, you know the first section of strategies before you post on LinkedIn, before you put together a proposal, before you do anything related to marketing or sales. So again, a painkiller alone isn't a strategy, but when you can articulate the value of your work. So when you have a great painkiller statement, it has so many downstream effects. It helps clients understand the value to them, like even before they reach out to you. You differentiate yourself from others in the space. You arm people with a way to describe you to others. So you know, to help you get referred, and it helps to remain contact, talk about you inside the company, to the other people who are part of the buying decision and on and on so many downstream effects. So the thing is, you probably already knew that being able to describe your work as a painkiller is important. But why is it important for our purposes, for standing out when there are so many more people in your space? Well, first because, as I mentioned, having a strong painkiller statement differentiates you. But more importantly, according to brighter marketing, only about 64% of businesses have a defined value proposition. That means that 36% of businesses can't really articulate the value that they provide. So if you can sort of broaden that to all businesses, that means that 36% of consultants out there can't clearly articulate the value they provide. So more than a third of your so called, you know, air quotes, competition can't even explain why someone should hire them. So if you can speak clearly about the problem you solve and the value you create, not what you do, but really the outcome that clients get, then statistically speaking, you're already ahead of 36% of people in your space. And you know, I see this all the time in the academy, but it just happened recently, and it was so cool to watch one of our members had been working on her painkiller statement, like really, really dialing in how she talks about the value of her work. And after she did that, she started posting on LinkedIn with this new messaging. And after a couple weeks of that, someone she'd known for a long time but had never worked with reached out about a project, and the woman said, this is a quote. I've been following you on LinkedIn. I noticed your messaging shift, and I knew you'd be the perfect person for this. That's the power of a strong painkiller statement. It helps people see exactly how you can help them, even all those people who've known you for years, but may not know exactly what you're doing right now. All right, so that's the first thing to help you stand out. Position your work around the value, also known as you know. Position your work as a painkiller. Number two, know who you're for. Another way of saying this is have an actual ideal client and align your marketing to speak to them. So a lot of consultants, when they're feeling like there's more competition, you know, there's less out there for them, they get into this scarcity mindset, and they start to broaden who their clients are. And they'll really start to work with like anyone. And the thinking is that if they're getting fewer opportunities, then, if they widen the net, then they'll get more opportunities. They'll get any opportunity that comes their way. And so you'll see consultants saying things like, I work with businesses and startups and nonprofits, or, you know, I work with six, seven and eight figure entrepreneurs, which those are completely different universes of problems and challenges and solutions. Or they'll say something like, you know, I work with leaders or founders, but like leaders, founders, startups, nonprofits, midsize companies, these are not ideal clients. They're not specific enough. And you can tell, I mean, or at least I can tell that they're going too broad, and when you go bigger, you might think you're making it easier for clients to want to work with you, but you're actually making it harder because clients want to work with people who are specifically for them. And if you're for a lot of people, then you're kind of for no one. No client is going to think that you're an expert for them. And what I hear is that consultants think that clients must think, well, if she can work with businesses and startups and nonprofits, then she must be really good. But what you're really kind of saying is that you're not an expert in any of those because, again, clients want to know that you're an expert that's right for them. So what you need to do is first decide who your best clients are, your ideal clients. Get really clear on that, and then you need to align your messaging and your marketing around them so that they know, even upon first glance at your LinkedIn profile or a piece of content that comes into their feed, they need to know that you are the best person to help them, not to help everyone. On, but to help them. And of course, we had to sort of talk about how a lot of consultants think that if you put a stake in the ground on your ideal client, then you'll be cutting off all those other opportunities, right, which is going to hit your revenue. But in reality, when you're really clear on your ideal client, and when your ideal client knows that you're the best fit for them, then you get more of those best fit opportunities, and you can actually charge more, and they say yes more often. Now here's why this is important for our purposes. The thing is that most businesses don't have their ideal client clearly defined or clearly defined enough. The itsma ran a study and found that only 44% of companies use ideal client personas, meaning 56% don't. They're not clear on their ideal client. So if you are super clear on your ideal client and you're using that to actually get in front of them, then you're ahead of 56% of other consultants. Another woman I work with saw the benefit of getting super clear on her ideal clients in like, a very clear way recently. So she went through the exercise, got clear on her ideal client, started posting consistently on LinkedIn, and somebody who she was connected to, who was kind of like lurking on LinkedIn, someone she didn't even know, was paying attention. DMed her, asking for a quick call, and they chatted for about 20 minutes, and he offered to share her work with hundreds of people in his network who were her exact ideal clients. But, you know, he never would have known to do that if she was like for everyone. She came back into the community and told this story, and she's like, I am speechless at how this worked. And that's what happens when you're really clear on who you're for, and you show up consistently where they are. So the second thing to do, to stand out from other people in your space, to be ahead of 56% of other people, is be super clear on your ideal client and align your messaging around them. And of course, you know you have to get in front of them. So that leads me to number three, actually get visible in front of your ideal clients. So to stand out and get seen by your ideal clients, you actually have to get visible where they are. And in our world, that means getting visible on LinkedIn and doing it consistently, not every now and then, not a few times, and then stopping because you get busy with client work. I mean, like consistently with thoughtful content that helps your ideal client see how you think about the problem. Now, in our methodology, we also pair that with a strategic connection strategy to make sure that for whatever you post, the right people you know, your ideal clients are the ones that see it. Now, I hear a lot about, you know, it's so noisy I'm not getting views, and the algorithm is killing views anyway. Blah, blah, blah, but here's the thing, if you're not doing much marketing to begin with, like, if you're not showing up that consistently, you don't need to be worried about the algorithm. Just start showing up, not posting because of the algorithm is saying, you know, I'm not going to go to the gym because I don't have, you know, my sets optimized like girl, you have not even been showing up. Just lift the weights. Just start, right? The algorithm is a down the road problem, not a Getting Started problem. So a lot of us know we should probably start getting visible, right? But I think this stat will help bring it into, you know, stark relief on why it's even more important when there are more consultants in your space, because only about one to 3% of LinkedIn users actually post content. The rest are what we call lurkers. They're people who only read but don't post. So you know, within that one to 3% let's be generous, okay, and let's say that 3% of LinkedIn users post content. That means that 97% of people on LinkedIn, which that number naturally includes lots of other consultants, 97% of people are just scrolling. They're clicking around. And you know, by the way, if you're just clicking around on LinkedIn, your clients can't see you click right? But back to showing up. So if you post on LinkedIn consistently, then you're in the top 3% of users, which includes other consultants and includes consultants in your space. And even with more people out there posting, right, even with maybe more people in your space posting, you can still absolutely stand out. You can differentiate yourself. You can share a compelling point of view, and you can get on the

Leah Neaderthal 24:24

radar of your ideal clients and put yourself in the 3% that post instead of the 97% that don't. And listen. I've shared so many stories on this podcast of women who started posting consistently on LinkedIn and the results they've seen. So if you want to hear more of those, go back. Listen to pretty much any interview episode. You'll hear it come up over and over because it works. So that's number three, and the last one, number four is follow up. This one kills me because it's so simple, and yet almost nobody does it or does it effectively. So when most people think. Think there are so many more people in my space, and you know, they think about how that affects their business. They're usually only thinking about how it affects their ability to get opportunities right, or maybe referrals, essentially how it affects leads. But a whole other part of getting clients in a consulting business is that you have to be able to help your clients say yes, like, if you can get people reaching out to you, or get opportunities or whatever, and you have great client conversations that don't go anywhere, or you get ghosted, or they say no, then you don't have a client. You can't just get leads right? You have to actually close the sale, which is why we help clients implement the two systems that every consulting business needs to get clients right, a marketing system to bring the right clients to you, and a sales system to lead a sales process to a successful yes and get you paid more. And so what we've been talking up to this point is from the marketing side, and this one, number four, is from the sales side, and that is follow up. So according to the studies, 80% of B to B sales require at least five follow ups, five, five follow ups, but 44% of reps give up after just one attempt. All right, so it needs five follow ups, but most people only follow up once. So if you follow up with potential clients, you know, not just once, maybe not even twice, but actually stay engaged until you get a clear yes or no, then you're doing something that more than half of people won't do. And listen, I get it following up. Can feel really uncomfortable, but your ability to do it is the difference between a business that plateaus in this environment or fizzles out and keeps growing. So one of our Academy members really overcame her own discomfort on this, and it was pretty incredible to watch. She said she had a potential client who just didn't have the budget right now, right, but they were trying to get some external funding. And she said that in the past, she would have just said, you know, great, let me know. And sort of you know, left it at that right? But instead, she pushed herself to say, Great, would it be okay if I reached back out in three months? And the client responded saying that that would be perfect timing, and much appreciated, and I'll have to go back and look at the post, but I'm pretty sure they went ahead to actually schedule that follow up. And my client wrote, follow up is an act of service. And she's right, that's what happens when you actually follow up. You know, you're not being pushy, you're making it easier for clients to say yes. And most business owners, most consultants, they don't do it or they don't stick with it as much as they need to. All right, so let's do the math here. So if you do all four of these things, if you can clearly articulate your value if you know who you're for, and you align your messaging to your ideal client, if you show up consistently where your clients are, and if you actually follow up, then statistically speaking, you're in the top 1% of consultants. Because statistically, here's what most people are doing. Most people are not clear on their value proposition. Most people are trying to serve too broad an audience. They're not visible, and they're definitely not following up. So if you're worried about standing out when there are so many more consultants in your space, doing these four things consistently puts you in the top 1% not the top 10% the top 1% and you know, when most people sort of share with me or lament that there are so many more people in their space, what I think they're expecting you to tell them is some hidden or magical tactic they should be doing. But here's the truth I need you to hear. There's no hidden treasure trove of tactics. There's no secret strategy that the successful consultants know that you don't. The way you stand out in this environment with more competitors in your space, is simple, do the things you already know you need to do, because most consultants don't actually do the things they know they need to do to get clients. And that's your advantage. So to stand out from most people, you have to do what most people won't do. That's it. That's the answer. Now I know that, knowing these things and actually doing them consistently, that's where it's easy to get stuck. And of course, if you want help and support to actually do them, check out the academy. It's markets paid comm slash Academy. So we've talked about the four things to do to help you stand out from all these new competitors in your space. But I also want to offer a different way of thinking about this moment when there are more people doing what you do in your space. Because if you're listening to your head trash, it can feel like there's more competition out there, like they're snapping up all the good clients, or getting the opportunities that you should have gotten. And like, I don't want to say that's entirely wrong, because technically, you know, again, just by the numbers, there are more consultants operating right now. But I want to offer you a different way of thinking about this, so that your head trash doesn't completely take over and. You crazy? Because really, there's more than enough business out there for everyone, like, way more than enough. Because think about this way, let's think about just the US. Do you think that in every state there's one company or one organization that can benefit from your services? Right? Yes, of course, there's got to be one in the entirety of every state, that's 50 potential clients right there. And for most women consultants, I mean, you're maybe working with like, what, four to eight clients a year, maybe 1012, I don't know, 20 Max. Obviously. You know, your business may vary, but if there are 50 companies out there that could be a fit, that could set you up for the next five years, you know, we're not trying to get 1000s of clients here. We're trying to get like, six. And by the way, you know, consider that your ideal clients might not be the ones you can name right now. They might be, you know, the midsize, unsexy companies that you might not even know the names of yet. And actually, the Wall Street Journal published an article not too long ago, about what they call the stealthy wealthy, right? These like mid size businesses that are not sexy, but they're extremely lucrative. You know, companies that make, I think, in their example, like carpet ripping machines for elementary schools, beverage distributors, some of the Academy members, biggest clients are in this universe, a sign manufacturer, a company that makes paving supplies, small regional hospital systems. These businesses may not be household names, but they need consultants, just like the brand name companies do. I also want to remind you that you're usually not up against a competitor at all. When you're selling into a company, most deals aren't actually lost to a competitor. They're lost to no decision, meaning the client just doesn't make a decision to move forward. You know, maybe they decide it's not a priority this year, or something happens in the company, like a strategic shift, maybe all the people involved in the decision couldn't agree on something, right? That's what we call no decision. But you know, all this is to say all these people out there you might think of as your, you know, quote, competitors. They're not your actual competition. Your real competition between getting a yes and getting a no is actually your ability to get the work sold in. And that's exactly why we have to think about the sales system just as much as we think about the marketing system, so that you can actually get the Work Sold in and help your clients say yes. And here's what I also want you to remember. Have you ever heard the saying, Don't compare your beginning to somebody else's middle? Like, have you heard this? It's like, Don't compare how you're getting started to somebody else's success that they've been working out for years, right? It's one of my favorite phrases. But there's also, in this case, don't compare your middle to somebody else's beginning. These new consultants, they're just getting started. You know, of course, they might have some early success. A lot of their first clients are going to come from their personal network, just like yours did, and that's totally normal. But being in that messy middle where you are means that you survive that startup phase, like, congrats, and think about all the learning and growing pains you experienced in those first early years. You probably had some missteps, right? You tried some things, maybe they didn't work. I see this often with messaging. A lot of people look back at who they thought their ideal client was that stage or their messaging, and it's like total cringe. These new consultants, they're going to go through those same struggles. They don't get to skip them to get where you are. You're so far ahead because you have the benefit of experience. You know, however long you've been in business, you know, three, 510, years or whatever, however long you've been in your business, you have three or five or 10 years more than somebody who started today.

Leah Neaderthal 33:44

All right, so don't forget that. And there's one more thing I need to say here. I know I'm sort of giving you a lot, but like there's one more thing I need to say here, because I've been doing this for 10 years, and I've talked to hundreds, if not 1000s of women consultants. And here's what I need you to hear. Nearly every single consultant I talk to thinks that they have it harder than anyone else. The woman who works with nonprofits thinks it's harder for her because nonprofits don't have budgets. And also a woman who works with corporates thinks it's harder for her because corporate sales cycles are so long. The one who does short contracts thinks it's harder for her because she always has to find new clients. But also the consultant who does long contracts thinks it's harder for her because it takes forever to close. So you know, if you've been in business for a few years, you might think it's harder now because there are so many more people in your space. But also people who are just getting started think it's harder because they don't have a track record yet, like everybody thinks they have it harder, and nobody does. I think we all sort of look for proof that our path is rockier, right, that the strategies won't work for us specifically. And honestly, when I started out, I did the same thing. I had all the best excuses, and I looked for reasons why other people had it easier than me. But here's what actually changes. Things do the work. And stop searching for proof that it won't work for you, and start collecting proof that it can. Because I promise you, when you stop looking for why things are harder for you, and you start doing the work and looking for reasons why it will work for you, you find that doing the things actually works. So if you're looking around on LinkedIn or in your industry, and you're seeing so many more people doing what you do. Remember this, the fact that more people are in your space doesn't mean there's less for you. It just means you have to be more intentional about doing the work that most people won't do. So eyes on your own paper. Do what you know you need to do, and you'll stand out. And of course, if you want help doing that, reach out to us All right, thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.

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