Episode 35 · March 6, 2022
Treated like an expert? Or an employee?
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In this episode
My client has one enormous client, and the man who hires her there is somebody she's known for twenty years, from back when he was senior to her. He now behaves as though he owns forty hours a week of her, and she wants the contract renegotiated before it renews. What the call turns into is a lot bigger than a contract: it's a whole working dynamic that walked over from the old job with her and never got put down. At the end I ask the question this episode is really about, which is whether you've got a business or a job.
What you'll take away
- "I overhelp." She sees a need, she fills it, and she ends up running a program she never wanted to run. She taught herself to administer a SharePoint site. That's how it happens, one helpful thing at a time.
- A relationship that started with one of you senior doesn't reset when you go independent. It walks over with you, and unwinding it takes re-teaching rather than one good conversation.
- Resist the automatic yes. Inside a company you just do it. Running your own thing, the first check is with yourself, and "happy to send you a proposal for that" is what stops the piling on.
- The zone of excellence isn't the zone of genius. Gay Hendricks's distinction. You can spend a career being very good at something that was never yours.
- A job is where somebody else dictates your time. A business is where you do. Same logo, same LLC, same email address, and an entirely different life.
In this conversation
The full transcript, in sections. Open any one to read it.
A listener who walked away, and my grandmother's Brooklyn
0:02
you're listening to the smart gets paid podcast with me. Leah Neaderthal, I help women land higher paying clients in their B2B consulting and coaching 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 a sales approach that feels comfortable, makes you feel confident, and that works consistently. And now I teach women how to land higher paying clients in their B2B consulting and coaching businesses. So whether your client contracts are $2,000 or $200,000 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 imagined, then you're in the right place. Let's do it together. Welcome to Smart gets paid.
Hey there. Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode. I hope that wherever you are, you're having a good week, you're making some good progress in your business and taking some time for yourself. So before we dive in, I just want to say how much it means to me when you tell me that you're taking what you're learning here on this podcast and really bringing it into your life and into your business. Every week, I get emails and LinkedIn messages from you, the listeners telling me that something that you heard here either changed the way you thought about something related to selling or changed the way you approach something. And hearing that just makes me so happy, and I just wanted to share one I got recently from a listener who reached out after she listened to Episode 33 called standing up for yourself. You might remember that this one is a conversation with a client of mine who stood her ground against a huge company in her industry who started bullying her, I guess really in the sales process. If you haven't listened to that one yet, go back and listen to episode 33 after this one. So anyway, a few days later, I got this email from a listener, and I'm sharing here with permission. She said, Leah, I just listened to your podcast episode where your client shared that she walked away from a $500,000 contract. I had a call today to let a current client I've been working with for six years. Know that I was walking away from a $200,000 contract after a painful six week contract process. I was nervous about making that call, but listening to your podcast gave me the bit of confidence that it was the right move. Please extend my thanks to your client for sharing her story too. You helped one business owner, breathe a little easier and sleep tonight. So thank you so much to that listener. You know who you are, for sharing that with me and for allowing me to share that with our community. It's just so inspiring, and that's what this is all about, really. I mean, if I can help one person feel good about a decision or make a different decision that's better for her business, then I've done my job, and hopefully I'm impacting more than just one person. So if you've learned something or gotten better in the sales process from something you learned here, please post it as a review on Apple podcasts, and if it's particularly sensitive, you can email it to team at Smart gets paid.com We'd love to hear from you. So in the last episode, I shared that we've just moved back to Brooklyn from our home where we were staying on Long Island, and we are so happy to be back like over the moon, to be back in the city. And actually, I'm recording this right now from our apartment in Brooklyn in a building that was built around 1920 so it has radiant heat, so heat through radiators, like steam through radiators. And if you've ever lived in a place with radiators, you know that they make noise, they sort of pop and creak and hiss. So you might depending on how much of the background my audio engineer can remove, you might just hear some of that. I guess it'll be, I don't know, like the soundscape of the podcast for now. And actually living here in Brooklyn makes me think about my grandmother, my mom's mom, who grew up in Brooklyn, and her father, Nathan Tobin. So my great grandfather owned a store here in Brooklyn for furs and fine women's clothing called Tobin's furs on Flatbush Avenue, which is a big thoroughfare in Brooklyn. And the family lived above the store. So my grandmother grew up above the store on Flatbush Avenue. So later on, by the time my mom was born, my grandmother and grandfather lived on Long Island, and then when my mom was 10, they had moved to the south, and then they moved to a small town outside of Nashville, Tennessee. And as my mom tells it, my grandmother talked about Brooklyn all the time like she loved it, and she would go on and. On and on about Brooklyn and about Prospect Park, the park that we live right by how amazing it was, and on and on and on about the city. But you know, my mom as a little girl, like she never lived there, and so she just kept hearing these stories that my grandmother told, but like she didn't know from Brooklyn, right? She's just a kid growing up mostly in the south, but until the day she died, my grandmother loved Brooklyn and loved growing up here. So then fast forward to a few years ago, when my wife and I, we were living in DC, but we made the decision to move up here to Brooklyn. And about a week or so after we moved in, I called my mom and I asked her where in Brooklyn my grandmother lived. But actually, one thing I didn't realize until I lived here was just how big the borough of Brooklyn is. It's like, way bigger than Manhattan. And actually, I read somewhere that if Brooklyn was its own city, you know, like not a borough of New York City, but its own city, then in square miles, it would be the fourth largest city in the US. All right, so it's huge. So you know, I'm asking my mom, like, where in this massive city, did my grandmother grow up? And my mom didn't have the address, but my uncle did, so I texted him, and he wrote back, and I just popped the address into Google Maps, and it turns out that I was living about a 15 minute walk from where my grandmother grew up, like even now, it gives me chills. And so this place that my grandmother loved so much, I've come to absolutely love, and this place where she grew up and remembered her childhood so fondly, is where my son is growing up, and the park that she loved and grew up in is the park that my son plays in, and it just feels really special. So thanks for letting me share that with you. All right, whew. Okay, let's get into the episode. I'm so excited to share this conversation with you, because the situation that you're going to hear us go into my client and me, is something that I see happening to so many women who run consulting and coaching businesses. Maybe you'll recognize yourself in it too, because the client I'm talking to today does consulting for large companies, and she works with executives in large companies to move forward these huge, transformational projects. And she's got a particular client that she's been working with for a while. And at the moment when we have our one on one call, the moment that you're going to listen in on, she's sort of bracing herself for something that's looming out there, and that's because her contract with this client is coming up for renegotiation. And the thing is, she's not actually worried that they'll keep her on like she knows that they will, but she wants to change the terms of their work together. And so what you're going to hear in the course of our conversation is that even though it starts out about renegotiating a contract, it becomes clear that it's actually about renegotiating an entire dynamic and the entire client relationship, because the woman I'm talking to her client thinks she's so valuable and gives her so much work that they end up treating her kind of like an employee, or exactly like an employee. So it's the working dynamic that needs to be renegotiated,
not just the contract. And so in our call, you're going to hear us touch on so many aspects of working with clients. You know, in the past, I've said that these calls that you listen in on, when we turn them into episodes, it's so hard to pull out just one key topic, because every time I listen to them in the editing process, a new theme presents itself. It sort of emerges. And actually, if you listen to this call more than once, I have a feeling you're going to hear a different topic emerge the second time. But I know that there's an aspect of this conversation that you will recognize in your business somehow. So if you've ever gone back and worked for an old boss or your old company as one of your early clients. Or if you're someone who just really wants to help people, and you find that sometimes it gets you into situations where you've over helped. Or if you've ever felt like your client is treating you less like an expert and a trusted advisor and more like an employee. Or if you've ever had a client that just took up so much of your time that you couldn't even work on your own business, then you'll recognize yourself in this episode. So I want to send a huge thank you to my 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. 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. Well, I'm so excited to be working with you in this program, and why don't we dive right in? Let's do it.
The whale, and the forty hours in his head
10:35
I guess the the main thing that I'm struggling with is, okay. I have one client. They're my whale, as you call them, and that's true. Yeah, my contract is likely going to be extended, and I want to position myself to renegotiate that so that it leaves me time, so that I'm not bound by this 40 hour a week thing in their heads anyway. What's happening? Which I knew this was going to happen, because I always do this. But what's happening is my relationship with the buyer is long. I mean, we've known each other for years and years, and so he's asking me to do all of these things outside of what I was really contracted to do. And so now I'm kind of a jack of all trades. Taught myself how to how to administer SharePoint site, and so I've kind of stepped in, in some ways, to fill that I don't want to be an employee, and so I need to work on, how do I reposition with that client? First of all, because then that'll give me time to do other things that I really want to do with other
and you said you've known this guy for a long time, like
20 years. Oh, wow. Well, he was, he was a colleague, but he was my superior, not my direct boss, but part of the senior leadership team that I that I was assigned to early in my career, and I just have kept in touch with him and some others on the team. And when he found out that I was going independent, he saw the need, and he, you know, gave me a call. So that's how it started.
Well, I think that's, you know, it's great. Obviously he reached out to you, because he knows that you're you can do it, right? It is when you say, you said, I always do this. Talk to me
about that. Yeah, I overhelp. Say more. Say more.
"I overhelp"
12:54
Well, I think you know where I'm going with this. Is if I see a need and and I see that the individuals I'm working with are really struggling. I will coach. I will start the process coaching, and then they usually need more help than coaching. And so I wind up kind of leading the program, or being asked to leave the program or mentoring younger folks in their professions. So I basically, I wind up being a manager without wanting to be a manager
Well, or also maybe being a doer without meaning to be a doer, right? Yeah, sounds like what you said about the SharePoint site, which SharePoint is a whole beast in itself, but, you know, it's like he needed somebody to do it. You taught yourself how to do it, and now you do it. So are you thinking, you know, right now, you're just like, how do I when this renews? How do I start this over? Or how do I put out words for me?
How do I start setting this, setting the client up for a renegotiation, so then I'm going from hourly to retainer.
Okay? And what's your hourly situation now? Is it a block of hours that you've committed to, or they have committed to paying you, like, almost like an hourly retainer? Or is it, you know, every at the beginning of the month, it sort of starts over, and you work up from there,
$175 an hour, and what it buys him
14:40
yeah, I get paid by the hour. Yeah? So it's 175 an hour. I bill however many hours I work however. Typically it's 40 or more a week, just with the amount of work that he's been throwing my way.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, when you say he keeps sort of adding to the work, is it that he's adding to it and you end up doing it and not counting it because it wasn't part of the original scope? No, just adding and you're making more money? Yes? Well, you know, and if you look at it like that, it's like, it's really hard to say no to that because more you say yes to the more you get paid.
Well, yes, but he thinks, here's the thing, he thinks he owns me for 40 hours a week, you know, like an employee, and I don't want to have that time constraint ongoing. I want to deliver something that has a real scope, you know. And if he wants to do a retainer and add projects as we go, that's fine, but we need to do it more thoughtfully.
A dynamic that came with her from the old job
15:58
Yes, yeah, well, I'm, I'm really glad you're thinking about this in advance. I will say that this is a very difficult relationship to, you know, to sort of change, because it started with like, where one person is in a serious superior position, and one person is like a subordinate. And what we're going to talk about next week is really an exploration of social dynamics. And just to sort of skip to the punch line, one person is sort of what we call the one up position, and one person is the one down position. And that has come with you from that working relationship now into running your business, you know, and I'm not saying you brought it, it just, it's, it's a fact, it just came right, right? So it's going to take a lot of re teaching. And, I mean, you know, with my like, sales coach, you can do anything hat. Part of me is like, well, you know, just cut bait, right? But you're said than done. I mean, is this possible? Is it possible to because this is what you're describing, right? It's not about like, how do I fix my pricing or whatever it's like, how do I re establish a dynamic that has been long established? And so there are things that you can start to do, or, you know, things you can start to think and do. The first is, have you ever read the book The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks?
No, write that down.
The zone of excellence isn't the zone of genius
17:36
It's a great book. I recommend it to nearly everybody I talked to. Business Owner or not. It's a short read. You could do it in a weekend. And what he talks about is there are four zones of work, and there's one zone of work called the zone of excellence, which you would think is like the best, right? Excellence, but it's actually not. Zone of excellence is like people make their whole careers in the zone of excellence. It's like stuff they're good at. They can keep doing it, but it's not what, what he calls the zone of genius. The zone of genius is like, you know, it brings you joy, it sort of fulfills a need, you know, all these things. And so I want you to read that, because I just want you to start to recognize where you're in your zone of excellence and where you're in your zone of genius. Okay. Oh, I am Yes. There's, I've seen the vehement nodding, yeah, that yes.
Well, one of the reasons why I love consulting so much is because I can always experience something new and do something new. So right now, I have one project on the list I'm looking at my whiteboard that is really interesting and stretching and I can be innovative, and that that one project is getting subsumed and always put on the back burner by all the rest of this stuff. So we had a serious conversation about it and and I said, Look, I said the most valuable thing on this list is this customer engagement project that is the one that you talked to me about last fall. But you know, because of all of these other ones that are critical, and, you know, and I'm not saying that they're not important, and I'm not saying that I haven't enjoyed working with the different teams, but this one is the one that's going to get you the most value for what you're spending with me. So we need to figure out, how do I get out of or how do you accelerate passing along some of these activities? Now that it's launched, the program is operational. So we did have a good conversation about he's he can, I can have the conversation you're talking about with him. He will understand. That.
Resisting the automatic yes
20:00
Well, let's, you know, put more into this conversation. Yeah, and I think, yes, there will be a conversation. There will be many conversations. But also, you know, one of the things that you're going to learn, or we're going to cover next week, is this idea that we are constantly teaching people how to treat us right, whether explicit, like, I don't think this is a good use of my time, or implicit in how we respond to things, how we talk about our own selves and our own businesses, how we you know, it's all these other pieces where we teach people how to treat us. So yes, there will be a conversation, and then there are going to be some things where you're going to start to teach him how to treat you. And one of them is a little bit, you know, so a tangent to what you just said, which is this idea of resisting the automatic, yes, yeah. So when we work in our companies, right, especially when we when we're more junior in our career, you just do it. If you're busy, you figure out a way to do it. Or you work till 10, or, you know, you just figure it out. And that's just the culture of, you know, working for somebody else. But when you are a consultant and you run your own asset, you know, grown ass business, right? One practice is to to start to resist the automatic, yes, if you get asked to do something, or something is just sort of implied, or just added to your list, or whatever, right? However it works, you know, it's up to you to be like, All right. Well, let's pause first with myself. Do I want to do this? Do I need, you know, like, Where does this fall on the list of priorities? You know, that sort of thing. So it's like, the first check is with you, right? Then you can start to have more of a conversation with him, right? And it's not about like, I don't think this is a good use of the money that you're spending with me, because that makes it like I in my mind, that brings it to like, a very transactional thing. And also it's like, okay, you're spending so much money that I it's my job to make sure that you are getting the most out of me. Does that make sense? Like, I just don't know. Yeah, yeah. I don't love what that teaches him to think about you, right? Okay, you know. So, yeah, resisting the automatic Yes. Now resisting the automatic yes gets easier when you do have, like, a either a project based fee, or you're going to learn value based pricing. And we get to week six, because what you want to be able to do is say, Absolutely, got your email about this additional project, or, you know, this additional thing, I'm happy to send you a proposal for that, because that stops the, you know, piling on assumption, right? It stops the piling on the scope creep, and it teaches him how to think about you. Right now, this, I'm just, I'm not putting this on your plate as my sort of employee. I'm bringing it to you as a service provider. Yes, right? I love that, but that's hard because, you know, the way you put it was, I'm an over helper, right? And it's also, listen, we have years of conditioning for this. Women are not taught like, Hey, you just, you just start saying no, right? Nobody teaches that. And so I real. I recognize that this is gonna, this is like fighting every bone in your body. But it gets easier. Gets easier, you know, yeah,
I think I'm ready. I think that I just need, I just need the mentoring and coaching in order to be able to know how to position it. Because I'm definitely ready. I'm over saying yes, yeah, yeah, and that's one of the reasons why I want to renegotiate this contract. And the bottom line is if, if he decides, or if they decide that, you know, they don't want to go that way, I've got to be willing to step out. And that's another reason why I without, you know, causing any hard feelings, certainly, but you know, I need to grow my business, and I right now, I don't have time to do that. Yeah, I don't have time to get all of my stuff together, right?
Setting aside time to talk about the work
24:32
Because you're essentially working full time, right? Because you're essentially working for full time for somebody else. So in preparation for that, for these conversations, I would do a few things. What we're going to think about and sort of talk about in the next few weeks is one thing that you know to go from being an employee or working with an employee or whatever, to really teaching. Him how to treat you, and renegotiating this relationship you have is setting aside time not just to do the work, but to talk about the work. Yes, so in module eight, you're going to talk about tactic called an executive debrief. And so essentially, you sit down and you talk about the work. How is this going? Is this still the ultimate goal that we're moving towards, you know, that sort of thing. And it's a little bit of a pause point, okay, but if you're so busy, you know, you're so heads down, you both are heads down, you know, just sort of like getting all the things done that doesn't come up, you know, and then the negotiation, renegotiation point comes up, and you're like, oh, shoot, you know, I've just been busy little worker bee, right? And then, you know, it might be a difficult conversation, right? Maybe not that executive debrief conversation, but the conversation that says, Okay, I've changed how I am running my business. It's not about you, it's not about the work we do together. It's not about anything. It's I've changed the way I'm offering my services. Yep, so you know it's like I've changed the way that I I'm offering my services in order to any number of things right, in order to, you know, better respond to the needs of my clients, or to, I don't know, get deeper into the business so that I can solve the bigger problems, blah, blah, blah, right? It's not like, you know, I've changed how I do my services because I don't want to do all this work for you. Have you treat me, you know, I don't want you to be I don't want you to treat me like an employee. So, yeah, so these are some of the tools that you can start to play around with. You know, there is no, there is no like silver bullet. How do you renegotiate this relationship? Right? You do it in small steps by teaching them how to treat you, setting aside time as a pause point to talk about the work. And then, you know, just coming right out with it. And I think the thing is, like, this is how I am moving forward. If you would like to move forward with me in this manner, I'd love to continue working with you. And it's not, you know, you mentioned that no hard feelings or whatever i How can there be?
Yeah, that's true.
You know, the business models are no longer a match. That makes sense.
Yes, yes.
It was never about the hourly rate
27:29
But I think if you start to sort of do these little bitty steps between now and then, then you're going to pave the way for a better conversation. And here's what I would say, 175 an hour is like, not a bad hourly rate. Oh, I know, right, but it's the value to you. What I'm hearing isn't just about the money. It's about how you feel about yourself, how you're made to feel about yourself, where you are going in the future. Yeah, I
think one thing that I have learned just in working with you guys already, is I'm just not tough enough yet. I need to, I need to start thinking like a business owner and and I didn't realize that I wasn't. So I'll be working on that as well. Just just being more objective, being more tough, being more business minded. I mean, I have to make a profit, right? Sure, it's not selfish for me to make a profit. See, I'm I'm telling all these things.
The cape, and the character
28:35
Well, listen, it's never too late. And let me offer two different let me offer two different ways of thinking about that. So the first is one time when I when I had started my business, and then I went back to corporate, I went back to working for somebody else because I couldn't, didn't feel like I could hack it. I was in a position that was customer facing and more senior than anybody that I had ever been. And I realized in doing that work that you know, for a lot of your career, you can take something to like, good 95% and then your boss can sort of take it over the finish line or provide the input that that helps you do that. And I realized that in that role, I was like, I am. I'm the 100% I have to get it to 100% there's nobody who's going to come and sort of fill that in for me. And I got this visual in my head. I'm like, All right, I just gotta put on my cake. Just gotta do it. It is uncomfortable. Love it. Everything. It was uncomfortable. Everything from like, I don't have the information, you know, and so I have to sort of go find it, or intuit the information. And on the other side, who am I? Who am I to take it all the way and say that it's right, you know? So those two things were sort of playing up. But I was like, I'm gonna my cape. Got to just do it like that. So that's one thing you can sort of play around with and see if that fits. The other thing that I read, you know, due to Shonda Rhimes. She's, you know, like a major producer. She does scandal, and she did Grey's Anatomy, yeah. And she wrote an incredible book called The Year of Yes. So her thing is, she was a total she was sort of like an introvert, but also, like, it's a no person, you know, she was always saying no and, and she discovered, as a writer, that, you know, basically she wrote, have you ever seen Grey's Anatomy? Yes, all of it. Okay, all right. So Christina Yang, right, like, yes, became sort of Shonda Rhimes is alter ego and but she didn't, she didn't totally know it at the time. But over, you know, as the character evolved, she realized that that this character was sort of living her this vicarious life, right? And so she, she sort of flipped the mirror on herself a little bit, and she was like, if, if the character can do it, then I can do it. And so if you and, you know, then there's this whole thing, like Alter Ego stuff. Like, you know, Beyonce has an alter ego named Sasha Fierce, right? So, if, if, if the alter ego, if the character can do it, then you can do it. So, you know, there's the cape method, and then there's the character method. If, you know, if it's more comfortable to sort of come up with a character and then let that character bring you along.
I'm the character. I'm all about literature and characterization and character development, so absolutely, that would work for me and you. Maybe she'll have to.
Yeah, is there a character from literature who you can think of to be your
alter ego? Yeah, you wouldn't. You would probably wouldn't know her, moth Flanders, she she had to be a prostitute in 18th century Britain, because she didn't have any men. And just her fight through all of that, what she had to put up with. It's just phenomenal. It's a novel, obviously, and it's 18th century, so it's about that thick, but, but it's just, I've always loved that character. I might have to go back and read that one,
yeah, well, I love it. Let, let that character serve you in in either bulldozing ahead so that you can follow or or just giving you strength,
you know, yeah, yeah, that's an excellent suggestion. Thank you, yeah.
My take: a business, or a job?
32:27
Welcome all right. So like I said, there is so much in this episode, but I want to try to pull out one lesson that you can apply to your business. And I was thinking back to a woman I worked with years ago whose story tracked with the woman that you just heard me talk to. For that woman, the first fear of her business had been awesome, like, as soon as she announced that she was starting her own thing, she got her first clients pretty quickly, she was busy and, you know, she was making pretty good money, but about a year and a half into it, she realized that she had money, like she was making way more than her last salary job, and she had work, but she didn't have what she really wanted, which was time. She didn't have time for herself or her family or time to build her business, because she was spending all of her time on client work. And so she came to me because it wasn't what she wanted when she started her own business. And in listening to her, you know, talk through it, I kind of saw what was going on, which was that she didn't really have a business. She had a job. I mean, yes, she had her own logo and her company name and, like, LLC or whatever, and she was sending emails from like a business email address, but she still had a job, and we talked through how to tell the difference, because a job is where somebody else dictates your time. You know you're paid in direct exchange for your time or your work, and you don't really have much space or as much space as you want for the things that are important to you. But a business is where you dictate your time. You're paid for your expertise, and hopefully paid handsomely for your expertise, and you have as much space as you want for the things that are important to you. When you go from having a job to having a business, it opens up so much like I'm thinking of another one of my clients who went from charging $120 an hour, which charging hourly, of course, we know leads directly to overwork, and she went from that to signing $30,000 projects up front with no tracking hours and Actually a lot less work. So imagine how much time and space that opened up in her life. So it's worth asking, Do you have a business or do you have a job? And if the answer is that you have a job, then that's probably not where you want to be, but you can change it. It just means it's time to re evaluate and re. Structure things to change the dynamic. It's time to think about, you know, setting boundaries with your client, and it's time to think about your pricing and getting paid based on the value you provide, not the hours you work. And of course, it's time to think about filling your pipeline so you have more opportunities and you're not beholden to the one or two clients that are taking up all your time. So it's totally possible to go from having a job to having a business. It just takes a strategy and it takes making some important moves, but it's very, very possible. How do I know it's possible? Because I've seen it many times, but I also know it's possible because the woman you heard me talk to today did it a few weeks later, she was able to successfully renegotiate her contract to a six figure contract with no hours, and they brought on subcontractors to do some of the lower level work for her. So like I said, it's possible. And of course, if you want help to do that, reach out to us at team it's markets paid Comm, and we'll help you out. You 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
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