Not everyone can afford you, and other truths that make us squirm

Leah Neaderthal0:00

So it's the middle of the summer in New York, and it's blazing hot outside. And my wife and I are getting ready to leave the house, and we're sort of like corralling the kids. And right before we walk out the door, I turn to her and I say, "Do I need a jacket?"

And she sort of just looks at me and smiles and like rolls her eyes because it's this running joke in our house that I bring a jacket everywhere, like almost all the time, because I just never want to be cold, like even the least bit cold. I just don't want to be uncomfortable.

All right, that's it. I don't want to be uncomfortable, like at all. And the jacket thing is kind of funny. I mean, it's like a small version of this, but this really does go way back. Like when I was growing up, if it didn't have to do with school or grades, then I wasn't really pushed to stick with things that were hard.

So I was kind of allowed to quit things. Like I quit soccer and I quit basketball. I mean, listen, I'm five two, so after like middle school, basketball was never going to happen. But you know, piano, softball, card games. Like I quit all of them. Basically, if I wasn't good at it right away, I'd probably quit.

It's the classic, you know, type A thing. And so that thing where you're like bad at something and it's really uncomfortable, and you just sort of keep doing it anyway until you're good at it, like I basically opted out of that, like my whole life, and I didn't actually even try to overcome it until about 2014, because that year I signed up for an Olympic distance triathlon, and one of the reasons I signed up for it was because I wanted to put myself in situations where I knew I'd be uncomfortable, like on purpose.

Like I knew I'd have to push myself through discomfort more than I ever had, and so I trained for it. You know, for months. Like I ran more and ran longer than I ever thought I could. I had to relearn like the crawl stroke so I could actually like swim somewhere on purpose, and I did it, and I finished, and it worked in the sense that it did put me in situations where I was uncomfortable, and it made me face and sort of sit with that discomfort.

And what I learned is you can't flip a switch on discomfort, but you can build a tolerance for it. And so at that point, I'd already been running my business for about three years, and so a lot of what I was learning in triathlon training, I was also learning and applying in my business too.

Because growing a business at the very beginning, you know, it can be fun and exciting, and then over time, it can become a little uncomfortable as you face different situations. And I see it with almost every woman consultant I work with, and there are five discomforts, like five truths that come up once you start really growing your business, and they're they're uncomfortable.

But if you don't build a tolerance for that discomfort, it'll really start to keep you from getting where you want to go in your business. Like maybe you'll lower your price on a proposal when you didn't really need to, or you'll say yes to one more round of revisions and then another round after that, or you just won't make an ask, and most of the time you won't even know it's happening.

So that's what we're going to talk about today: those five truths you need to face that cause the most discomfort, because once you can actually see them, they'll have a lot less power over you. Welcome to Smart Gets Paid with me, Leah Neaderthal. I help women run more profitable consulting businesses, getting more of the clients you want and getting paid way more for your work without sacrificing your time.

But I've never been a salesperson. My background is in corporate marketing, and when I started my own consulting business, I learned pretty quickly that it's about 1000 times harder to sell your own stuff than it is to sell someone else's. So I taught myself how to do it.

Leah Neaderthal3:52

I turned it into a methodology, and now I teach that proven methodology to my clients. So whether your consulting contracts are $10,000, $100,000, or more, if you want more clients you love, more work you love, and they get paid more than you ever thought possible, then you're in the right place.

Let's do it together. Thanks for tuning in, and don't forget to rate, review, and share. Hey there, Leah here, and thanks for tuning in. I hope wherever you're listening to this, wherever you are right now, I hope you're having a great week, making some good progress in your business, and taking some time for you.

So, in the work that we do, there are skills that you can learn to get clients. There are strategies, there are tactics, there's a right way to do things and a right order to do them in, and that stuff works. But you don't just apply any of it onto a clean slate, right?

Like your brain isn't just this unformed, you know, ball of clay. It's been molded by the way you grew up and the experiences you've had, the way we were, you know, conditioned as women, and all of that is like just to mix the metaphors here. All of that is like the soup that you're dropping these strategies into, and so we talk a lot about head trash on this show.

It's a voice that sort of like pops up and says, you know, what would you even say on LinkedIn? Or you can't charge that much. Head trash is a thought or like set of thoughts, and you can look at them and you can argue with them. But discomfort is a little different.

It's more of a feeling, like your head can totally be on board. You can know exactly what you should say or do in a situation, and it's still uncomfortable. And so today, I want to share the five truths that bring up discomfort for almost every woman consultant at one point or another.

You're going to hear a real moment from one of our coaching calls where one of our Academy members is pricing a new offer, and you're going to hear what comes up for her. You're going to hear what I told one member when her client got frustrated with her.

You're going to learn what it means to grab the quote expert stick. You're going to hear about the moment that I realized I was nowhere as close to my revenue goal as I thought I was. And at the end, I'll tell you what I'm still doing today to get comfortable with discomfort, and I'll give you my very unscientific method for keeping discomfort from making decisions for you.

So, who is this episode for? And if you've been in business for a couple years, you're in what I call the Messy Middle. You know the referrals that carried you in the beginning have probably started to slow down, and that's when smart consultants realize that they actually need to have a strategy to get clients on purpose instead of waiting for them.

And so, hopefully, in that phase, you start to be proactive instead of reactive, and that's usually when these discomforts or these sort of truths show up. And so, if you're in the Messy Middle, then you're going to hear yourself in a lot of this. But if you're earlier in your business, this is for you too, because the sooner you can spot these, the faster you can move through them, and maybe you know without quite so much discomfort.

All right. So let's get into the five truths that make women consultants uncomfortable. The first truth is this: not everyone can afford you, and that's okay. I mean, even more than that's okay, it's like you kind of have to be okay with that. Even the people, or the organizations, or the companies that you really want to help, even the ones that truly need your help, even sometimes the clients that you used to work with earlier in your business, they just may not be able to afford you, and you have to be okay with that. This came up not too long ago on one of our coaching calls in the Academy.

Leah Neaderthal7:31

One of our Academy members is a published author and speaker, and she's in this moment in her business where she's shifting from thinking of herself as just an author, and I'm using air quotes here, just an author, because I think being just an author is amazing. But anyway, this is her journey.

So she's going from being an author to thinking of herself as a business owner. And when she speaks at events, she gets a lot of people coming up to her afterwards who just want to talk to her. And she's given away so much of her time this way, you know, just talking to people and just helping.

So she created an offer around that. It's what we call an ETSY offer, and ETSY stands for Easy To Say Yes. And it's a way for her to offer something to these people so she can help them, but she can also get paid. And so what you're going to hear is that even in creating this new thing, you know, something that will definitely help people.

There's a discomfort that comes up, one that you know I shared with her. She's gonna have to get comfortable with. So you're gonna listen into the actual conversation in our coaching call, and as you listen, you know this might not be your specific situation, but take the overall message and think about how it might apply in your business.

I want to send a huge thanks to this Academy member for allowing me to share this clip with you. All right, take a listen.

Academy member8:48

One area is that when I do author presentations and school visits and conference sessions, many people ask how they can like learn more about writing, and I have given countless hours away over beers, coffees, all the things like quick phone call here and there. I just want an ETSY that is going to be easy, painless for me.

Like I just want it smooth. So I took a stab at this last fall, and I'll share what I created. Like I have so much information in my brain, and I genuinely enjoy giving this to people. But I need to stop doing it for free. So I just made it very simple.

This is not fancy, right? So a focus, energizing hour for writers who want expert insight, direction, and a clear next step fast. This is for people who want a high impact, low commitment guidance from someone who's an expert. Walk away with clarity, easy to say yes. One hour, and I'm just going to give them a bunch of stuff I already have: suggestions, personalized books, craft books, resources, bundles, conference.

To attend list of writing residencies. This is truly a tailored thing that just comes from my brain. This is truly for like the people I meet on the street. You know what I mean. This is for the people who are like, I don't know anything about this. I just know I have a book of me. Let's go for it.

Leah Neaderthal10:16

Okay. So first of all, I think this is a lot clearer. I would say I would raise the price. So she didn't mention it in this edit because we were looking at it on screen. But for the service that she just described, she was charging $250. And the feedback, not only from me but from the other members on the coaching call, I think there were like five of us, was that the value was so high that she needed to charge more than $250, and I could see, you know, as we were talking about it, that was starting to make her a little uncomfortable.

I mean, listen, even this feels like I can't believe I'm charging for this. It's probably because your anchor right now is $0, and so $250 sounds like a lot more than $0. I think that you could easily extend this also if you're like, okay, well, if you want a series of three sessions or like a series of two sessions, and in between, I'll read something that you send me, like I'll read your proposal or whatever your book proposal.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Now it's not 250 times two. Now it's like more. It's not just double because it's two hours. If they get access to you in between, it's even more, right? So it's like if you charge, let's say it's 500. Yeah. Right. Then the two sessions is not 1000.

It's like 1250. I'm making this up, right? Just because you are available for stuff in between. If you have a guide that's like how to write a book proposal, yeah, you know, costs you nothing to like throw that in.

Academy member11:50

Yeah, this is a different part of my overall offerings. Like, I feel like I can have this top end coffee shop that sells, you know, big lattes and does catering and all these things. But then there's something where somebody off the street can come in and buy an iced coffee for 199.

Like I feel like that's what this is. I am going to put energy to making more money in like other areas of my business. But this feels like I'm not leaving people behind who just want to learn more about writing and who aren't going to pay like over $1,000 for something.

Like these are like it might be like a student who graduated last year from college and they're like, "I want to write a book," and I'm like, "Okay, I think they could afford that." I don't know. Maybe I'm just not a good businesswoman.

Leah Neaderthal12:39

Okay, that's that is incorrect. You are. This is a different exercise, and you're trying to break a habit, right? Of saying yes to people who you want to help, and you can still want to help them, right? You could always engineer any adjustment to this. You could have a version for students, you know, student rate, which I wouldn't include here.

This is a different document, right? Yeah. Student rate. You know, not everybody will say yes to this, and everybody will say yes to free because they want it. You have to get comfortable with the fact that you will offer this to somebody, and they will say no. I cannot afford that, and that is okay.

Academy member13:20

Yeah.

Leah Neaderthal13:21

You know. Yeah. They can watch a YouTube video for free.

Academy member13:24

Yeah,

Leah Neaderthal13:25

right. But you are not going to spend your time

Academy member13:28

right

Leah Neaderthal13:29

like in this way for free. That's just a little bit of discomfort that you're going to have to get used to.

Academy member

That's what I need to hear.

Leah Neaderthal

So here's why this one matters so much. If you keep saying yes to people who can't afford you, you'll always be dragged down in your profitability. You might be, you know, trying to make more money, but you'll always be reaching down to pull up people who can't actually afford you, and you'll sacrifice your own revenue and profitability.

So a perfect example is: I know a consultant who had started lowering the price on some of her offerings to try to, you know, accommodate some people she wanted to work with, and at the end of the year, when she did the math, she realized that if she had charged her full rate for every client, she would have made $70,000 more over the past year.

So she worked with people who needed her but couldn't afford her, and she sacrificed, you know, to the tune of $70,000, and then also what can happen, you know, even beyond money, is that you end up resenting the clients who can't actually afford you, but it's because you tried to make it work.

So what can you do instead? Well, one thing you can do is what the Academy member that you heard did: create an ETSY offer, which we'll talk about in a minute, so that the people you want to help can still get help from you, and you can get paid for it.

And for the people who can't even do that, you have to get comfortable saying, you know, I'm not the best fit for you right now, and maybe you point them to someone who is. But if you're spending your time on people who can't afford you, I mean, listen, unless you're doing it like on purpose with boundaries, like a pro bono thing or whatever.

At some point, it just doesn't make sense for your business. And you know, again, as your business grows, you might also outgrow some of your clients. You might not be the best fit for somebody who doesn't have the budget, and that's okay. That's a natural evolution. But as we talk about in the Academy, one of our principles that we think about when we look at our ideal clients is this idea that needing your help actually does not meet the criteria of being your ideal client, and wanting to help someone doesn't mean you have to bend over backwards to help them.

You just won't be for everyone. And when we do our ideal client work in the Academy, I actually have people write this down, and you can do this too. And if you're on a walk right now or whatever, just say it to yourself. My ideal clients are the ones who can afford me.

Now, listen, I'm not telling you to say no to everybody, but you know, do give it some real boundaries, right? And make sure you're charging for it. So let's talk about an ETSY. An ETSY is different than taking on a bunch of small projects. An ETSY has a clearly defined scope, a clearly defined value, and a clearly defined price.

It says, you know, here's what you get, here's what it will do for you, and here's what it costs. And by the way, you know, an ETSY isn't easy to say yes to because it's inexpensive. I mean, some of my clients have ETSYs in the tens of thousands of dollars.

It's easy to say yes to because the value is so clear, but when you don't have something like an ETSY, what can wear you down is all these custom little projects where you bend the scope to fit somebody else's budget, you know. And 2, 3, 4, 5 of those will always be more work than one client who pays you well.

And for what it's worth, I still help people who can't afford me too, you know. But it's within boundaries, so like when I get introduced to somebody who's not ready for the Academy yet, you know maybe they're too early or something. On that 15 or 20 minute intro call, I'll still give them advice. I mean, it costs me just a couple minutes, and I'm happy to do it.

Leah Neaderthal16:53

But that's a choice I'm making on purpose, and it's not the discomfort making it for me. So that's the first truth: not everyone can afford you, and that has to be okay. The second truth is you have to take up space. I was talking to one of the members of the Academy, and she'd been in business for a while, and she'd been sending out a newsletter for years.

I mean, really, really smart stuff, really generous with her value, but she never felt like she could actually say in her newsletter, like, "Hey, do you want to work with me?" And I said to her, "You know, it sounds like your strategy has been give away so much value and then hope they like you enough to work with you."

And she started laughing because, like, she sort of knew it was true, right? Give and hope. It's a strategy I see all the time, and I also see it in other places. You know, maybe you're giving a presentation and it's brilliant, but it never occurs to you to like in that presentation actually talk about how you work with people.

Like, you know, include a slide or two about it. Or maybe you're talking to someone just in the world, and the conversation goes towards something you can help with, and you just sort of like freeze up because you don't feel like you can take up the space and take the conversation in a direction where it's more about business.

And when you don't take up space, you end up just sort of giving, right? You give, give, give, and you never ask, and then you know you never receive. And people might think that you're smart and you know what you're talking about, but they may not know how to work with you or who you even work with, and they may not think of you when they come across someone who needs your help.

And we can't assume that just because someone thinks you're smart that they're going to take it upon themselves to reach out, because giving and hoping is not a business development strategy. So what do you have to do instead? You have to take up space. You know, we say this in the Academy with love.

Don't be so smart that you're actually a little dumb. Again, with love. You know, don't get so focused on being smart and generous and giving so much value that you forget that you're running a business, and what you put out there should tie back to your business in some explicit way.

Like it's okay to take up that space. So if you're giving a presentation, have a slide about how you work with people. It's okay to take up that space when you're talking about things in the industry or what works. Like use examples from your own clients. It's almost like product placement for what you do.

I see this one a lot. If you have a lead magnet, like a downloadable something or other, don't just have the content of the problem you're solving. Have a page about you. You know what you do and how clients can work with you. Take up that space too, and show up in your marketing and actually talk about what you know.

You know how you solve a problem, how you think about a problem, the results you've helped your clients get. It doesn't mean you have to be braggy, but nobody's going to advocate for you in your marketing, right? Nobody's going to take up space for you. That's your job, because if the only people who know you're an expert are the clients you're working with right now or the colleagues you used to work with, then you don't have a business development strategy.

And finally, if you've been sending out a newsletter or something for a while, or even if you've been posting on LinkedIn and you've been giving value, you've earned the right to make an ask. There's a guideline in the industry that says give, give, give, ask. You have three gives of value until you make an ask.

And really, the more times you give, the more you earn the right to ask, but you can't never ask, right?

Leah Neaderthal20:23

So if you send a newsletter every week or every other week, you know, after five or six thought-provoking newsletters, you've earned the right to invite people to work with you, right? So just remember that being in the background or being quiet might have been okay when you worked for somebody else, but when you work for yourself, you have to get comfortable taking up space.

All right, that's the second truth. You have to take up space. The third truth is sometimes people are going to be disappointed in you, and by people, I mean clients and prospects. So not too long ago, one of my clients was getting ready to facilitate a retreat for a client across the country from where she lived.

They had agreed on the scope. They had signed the contract, and my client had given them all these possible dates. Many weeks later, the client comes back and says, "Okay, here's the date we want." But the problem was my client was just not available on that date anymore, and she even had language in her contract that like covered her for this, right?

It said the terms and the dates were only valid until a certain date. Fine, check that box. And the client had missed that deadline and gone over that time frame by about a week or so, and even though my client was covered with the terms, right, she was still swirling and didn't know what to do, and she came to our community and shared the situation.

And she's like, "I don't want to cause any problems. I don't want to go back to the drawing board. Should I change my plans?" Like, you know, basically, should she change her schedule to accommodate their request? And I know that, like, listening to this, you know, you're probably like, "Well, just tell them you're not available."

You know, obviously, but imagine that you're in that situation and it's your client, and this is a lucrative contract that you're happy to get, and you don't want to piss them off. Like, of course you'd be swirling, and I know that swirl, right? I mean, we're always like afraid they're gonna be mad, like they're gonna say forget it and just cancel the whole contract.

And I said to her, I was like, you're not going back to the drawing board. They've already said yes. You're just picking a date, and the truth is that like you're just not available. That's not an opinion, and it's not making somebody feel bad. That's just how it is right now.

So she told the client, and the client was disappointed, pretty frustrated, and this is what I wrote back to her. And I'm reading my actual response. I said, "It sucks to have someone disappointed in you, but I think that's a discomfort you have to learn to accept as a business owner.

Otherwise, you'll end up bending over backwards against your integrity and your business to make someone else feel better just because you yourself are uncomfortable." And I also said, you know, they're probably actually mad at themselves, but you know, clients are going to client, so they're directing it at you.

I mean, listen, we've all been there, right? Like a client asks for one more revision, and it's one too many, or one more this, or whatever it is they're asking for, right? They want you to take something out of the proposal that you know is important, or they want to add more people to your workshop, or drop the price.

I mean, there's infinite possibilities of things that the client might want that you'll feel weird saying no to, and again, it's hard to say no because we don't want the client to be mad or cancel. But if you can't be okay with that discomfort, you'll always bend yourself.

And I think you know, as women especially, like society tells us that if someone is uncomfortable because of something we've done. Then that thing we did was wrong, right? That we were being mean, and we need to fix it or make them feel better. And you know, we might have learned that when we were like six on the playground, but as grown women running a business, it's not mean to say no, even if it makes someone else uncomfortable. And I mean, listen, this one is hard for me too.

Leah Neaderthal24:05

Like, I'm from the south. We do not love conflict. It's almost like it's your job to make everybody feel comfortable. But I saved something a while back that I think about a lot. Like, save something from the internet, and it says, as an adult, you cannot be in trouble with another adult.

They can be disappointed, but you can't be in trouble. And I think that's what we're all sort of like bracing for, right? Being in trouble. But one thing we talk about in the Academy in our negotiating module is your client isn't dying to kick you out. Not to get too deep into it, but there's a psychological principle called the sunk cost fallacy.

Basically, once somebody has put time or money into something, they're more likely to stick with it than to start over. So once a client has gone down the path with you, like they're invested and they want to get to a good outcome, because starting over feels like even more work, and it's especially more work if you're already working with them.

Client, like you're past the sales stage, so remember, clients aren't dying to say no to you. They are not looking for a reason to fire you. They might be disappointed, and they're allowed to be. All right, so that's the third truth. Sometimes people are going to be disappointed in you.

The fourth truth is you are the expert. One of my clients has the best way of putting this. She was sharing some wins in our community recently. She had a new client. She had just done a great discovery call. Blah blah blah. She had just had an executive debrief with her client, which is the technique we use towards the end of an engagement to you know uncover renewal or upsell or referral opportunities, and so she wrote, "I'm still struggling to grab the expert stick they're handing me, but they clearly see me that way, and more work with them is looking likely."

So that phrase, "grab the expert stick," like the stick that says you're an expert. Your clients are literally handing it to you, and so many of us just don't want to take it. And this one's a little different from taking up space. Taking up space is about whether people know what you do, right?

This is about what happens once you're actually talking to a client. Like, do you make a recommendation of what they need to do, or do you turn it back on them and say, you know, how do you want to do this? It's really embodying your expertise and showing up as an expert.

So why is this so hard? I mean, think about how most of our careers go. You know, we start at the bottom naturally. We build our skills. We get promoted. We rise up. But statistically speaking, most women consultants didn't leave the corporate world coming from the level of CEO, right, which means there were always people above you, and you know we spend our careers or most of our careers maybe thinking or even being told that the people above us they were the experts, right, and then you layer on you know all this conditioning we get as women: don't toot your own horn, don't brag, you know, etc.

So all of that combines, and we tell ourselves things like, "Well, experts are the people who've been doing this for like 30 years, and I've only been doing it for like 22, so I'm not an expert." Or you know, I was in my field for X number of years, but now I'm doing consulting, so somehow it feels like I'm starting over.

Like, what you know? Like, yes, there will always be someone who knows more. There will always be someone who's been doing it longer. But that doesn't mean that you're not an expert in what you do. And another reason we feel this way is because most of us spent our careers in behind the scenes roles, right?

Making other people or other brands or other organizations look good, and so we tend to sort of shy away from being the one in the spotlight. We just feel more comfortable behind the scenes, and one result of that again is that we feel discomfort at the idea that we're an expert. And listen, you don't have to use the exact word expert.

Leah Neaderthal27:54

What matters is that you can sit with the idea that you are one, and that's okay. In fact, it's one of our five pricing principles in the Academy. Goes pricing principle number three: you are the expert at solving your client's problems, and it's your job as the consultant or the fractional or the outside provider to make a recommendation on how to solve the problem and to lead them to solve it.

The reason why this might be different earlier in your consulting business versus later in the consulting business is that early in the business, especially if your first clients are people you used to work with, then you tend to defer to the client. You know, it's this posture of like, how do you want to solve this or how do you want to do this?

And we sort of become order takers. But if you can't acknowledge and embody that you're the expert, then you'll stay an order taker, you'll have what we call a one down relationship with your clients, where they're always in charge and they don't see you as a peer and an expert, and that's not fun.

That's not the way to run a fulfilling consulting business. That's not why you start your own business and bring your, you know, 15, 20, 25 plus years of experience to your clients, and that's also not why clients want to work with you, and that's not how you get paid a premium.

So your clients want you to take the expert stick. They actually need you to take it. So that's the fourth truth. You are the expert. So grab the expert stick. The fifth truth is things take longer than you want them to, and I've seen this in my business many years ago.

I was making somewhere around 15,000 to $20,000 a month in my business, and there was this business influencer I was reading a lot from who was all about getting to seven figures. And the gist of her message, I guess, if I could boil it down, is that a million dollars is right within your grasp.

Like, do these, you know, three, four, whatever set of things, and you're there. And I was like, yes, like that's my goal. This is so possible. And then many months later, I was, I don't know, listening to something else. I don't can't remember what, like a podcast or whatever.

And the woman said, almost like a throw comment. She said, "Blah blah blah. Like a million dollars is $84,000 a month," and it was like what? Like record scratch. Everything stopped. Like what? A million dollars is $84,000 a month, and I was making 15, maybe 20 on a good month.

Like I was not close to a million dollars a year, like at all, and yes, if you're doing the math, $84,000 a month is actually just a little bit over a million. And that moment really changed things for me because I realized like I had a long way to go, but it was also hard because I kind of bought into this idea that it was supposed to be fast, and I know I'm not the only one.

I mean, a lot of us are self-starters, right? We know how to get things done, and when we want something, we want it quickly. I mean, I don't want to say impatient, but like if something's going to happen, we want it to happen. And then we live in a world of instant gratification, right?

Like God forbid you wait more than two days for shipping, and then of course you layer onto that the years of business influencers, business gurus. I'm using air quotes, right? Telling you that growing your business should be fast and easy, and that the business success that you want can happen right away in like three easy steps or whatever, right?

But when you're running a B2B consulting business, things take time. The sales cycle alone can take three to 18 months, and that's counting from the very first conversation. Before that, there's a whole education process that clients have to go through before they're even ready to reach out to you, and that can take weeks or months or even years.

Right. In fact, one of the first principles in the Academy marketing system is that marketing takes longer than you think.

Leah Neaderthal31:46

Marketing for a B2B business is about planting seeds, and seeds take time to grow. And honestly, that's kind of why we have minimum requirements in the Academy. You have to have been in business for at least two years, right? So you have to have some work, and you have to be making a certain amount.

Because if somebody comes to me and says, "I'm not making any money, and if I don't solve this problem like yesterday, I'm gonna have to go and get a job," then I can't help them. Like it's too late. B2B just doesn't work like that. And just in general, I mean, the reality is that growth takes longer than you think.

I had a version of this conversation not too long ago with someone whose business was at about 250 a year, and they wanted to get to a million, and they wanted to do that next year. And I know hearing that you're like, what? And it may be just you know hearing me say it like this on this podcast, you're like, oh, well that doesn't make sense.

But I mean, think about how many of us have sort of bought into or hoped for that type of growth, right? Now, healthy, sustainable growth for a small consulting business. Let's just say it's like 20% a year. Okay, of course, like your mileage may vary, but just for the purposes of this exercise.

So if you start at 250,000 and then you grow 20% year over year. Then after one year, you're at 300,000, right? If you grow at the same rate another year, then the next year you're at 360,000. The year after that, if you grow at the same rate, you're at 430,000.

So that's three years down the line, and you're still not at half a million, right? And you've still had great, really consistent growth. You're just not at a million dollars. And listen, even if a million dollars isn't your specific goal, this is still an important exercise. And here's why this matters: so much frustration and anxiety as a business owner comes from thinking that things should happen faster than they actually do, and then feeling like you must be behind if they're not going as fast as you want, or as fast as people have told you they should go.

Right, and assuming that everyone else is getting there faster. And again, it's not your fault. We've been fed this steady diet of messages telling us that growing our business should be fast and easy, but remember, for B2B, that's not true. So, what do you do instead? First, look at all those promises with clear eyes.

Right, when somebody tells you that it's three easy steps or you can get to a million dollars and it's so easy, like follow the money. You know what are they selling you, and then honestly, the only formula that works is the most straightforward. Do one thing at a time, in the right order, and be consistent.

That's what we do in the Academy. We dial in your pricing, then your ideal client, then your messaging, then your marketing, then your sales process, one by one, in order. And remember, if you're doing the things, you're not behind. You're exactly where you need to be. So those are the five truths.

Number one, not everyone can afford you, and that's okay. Number two, you have to take up space. Number three, sometimes people will be disappointed in you. Number four, you are the expert, and number five, things take longer than you want them to. And like everything, getting comfortable with this discomfort, it takes time.

It doesn't happen overnight. Like remember the triathlon I told you about, right? After it was all said and done, was I fixed? Like, did it fix me? Of course not. I still bring a jacket everywhere because I don't want to be even the least bit cold, and my wife still laughs at me.

But what I learned is that you don't make discomfort go away. You just raise your tolerance for it, and you do that by choosing to face it on purpose. And I'm still trying to raise my tolerance for discomfort. And these days, it's through yoga of all places. So over the past couple months, I've been adding this type of yoga into my workouts called Yin Yoga.

Leah Neaderthal35:47

It's kind of like stretching, but it's more about your connective tissue. It's kind of like for mobility. And in Yin Yoga, it's these long holds. Like you get into a pose and you stay there for like two minutes, three minutes, or even longer. And at the beginning, the instructors will always say something like, "You know, you're going to feel some sensation.

You might even feel some discomfort. If it turns into pain, then you know, adjust. But otherwise, just try to sit in it." Now, I have to tell you, I am not flexible. Like I have really tight hips. You know, I'm just not flexible. So I get into these poses, and it is uncomfortable, like for minutes.

And as I'm holding these poses, what happens all the time is I'll be like trying to breathe, trying to be in touch with my body, and I will realize that my abs are like fully contracted, like my whole core is tight. It's almost like my body is trying to like fight gravity and protect myself from this discomfort.

And then when I notice it, I sort of make them let go. Right, like I release my abs. Gravity starts to work again, and I sort of sink deeper into the pose. Right, and then like 10 seconds later, my mind wanders, and then I catch myself doing it again, and I have to like let go again, right?

But when you hold a pose like that for minutes, and you really let gravity work, you do end up going further into the stretch. Like your hips actually do open up, and if I'd stopped after 30 seconds, like if I stopped at the discomfort, I wouldn't have gotten the benefit of actually sitting with it, and that's what happens in your business too.

You know, something uncomfortable comes up, and you sort of tighten up to protect yourself, and that's when you make the decision you probably shouldn't. You make the decision around the discomfort instead of around your business. So the goal is, you know just like yoga, like notice when you're tightening up and release, and then notice again and release again.

That's how you go further. So here's my very unscientific method for doing that. When you encounter some discomfort, number one, take a breath. Actually, take lots of breaths. Definitely don't respond to anything until you've taken a few minutes. Number two, notice where you're sort of contracting yourself metaphorically, right?

When you're sort of shrinking yourself, just observe. Number three, ask yourself: Am I trying to reduce some discomfort, and whose discomfort is it? Most of the time, it's your own. And number four, ask, what would I do if I didn't feel uncomfortable at all? Like if I was a robot, or you know that line, grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man.

Like what would I do with that confidence, or just that lack of discomfort? Whatever is true and necessary for your business, that's what you do. So here's what I want you to do: wherever you are right now, you know, walking the dog or driving, folding laundry, just pick one of the truths that I talked about today.

Which of these five have you had to face recently? You don't have to write it down. Just sort of say it to yourself. So the next time it shows up, you'll recognize it. Because the work of you know learning how to get clients on purpose, you know the work that we do in the Academy is about so much more than learning skills or strategies.

You're growing as a business owner, and growing is uncomfortable. But if we don't grow past our discomfort, then we'll be ruled by it. So if you know somebody who's been putting out great stuff for years without ever explicitly inviting people to work with her, or somebody who got a request from her client and spiraled out about it, send this episode to her.

And of course, if anything you heard in this episode spoke to you, post about it on LinkedIn with your thoughts, and be sure to tag me. I'd love to hear what resonated for you. All right, thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.