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How To Leverage Associations & Specialty Groups For High-Value ...
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Another way to say that, hopefully, this will be helpful for some, but you’re casting the top of the funnel. The goal is to build the audience. It’s still trying to attract people who are relevant and could be ideal clients, but it takes very little of your time. It’s one to many in terms of creating a newsletter, content, whatever it might be. That brings a lot of people in. “Over time, there are different opportunities for people to engage with you at different levels from free to tens of dollars, hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars, all the way down to the highest value and highest price or fee, which would be the actual consulting engagements.” Our key to this is in our content. Publishing stuff on LinkedIn, for example, you’re one of a billion people. Because of sector research, we can talk to our market in a much more evidence-based way. We have sector research no one else has. Ranging from my speeches to informing our webinars the whole bit. If you are on a board of directors, you could come to our sector research. You could register for free. There’s some value to that. You don’t have to check in all the time. You can access and customize that data to your sector. You can customize it to state, province, or global. You can customize it by industry. Download it and use it for free. You’re on our list.
Over time, there are different opportunities for people to engage with you at different levels from free to tens of dollars, hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars, all the way down to the highest value and highest price or fee, which would be the actual consulting engagements. You’ll have far fewer people down there, but there’s a lot of opportunity for people to build a relationship with you or get to know you without necessarily having to invest a lot of money upfront. “Because of sector research, we can talk to our market in a much more evidence-based way.” I was talking to a bunch of clients about the value of leveraging data in their business. I’m happy to hear you share that because you’re right. What’s going to cut through the noise? How are you going to stand out if you’re one of many? It doesn’t matter now. For anyone who’s joining us, whether you’re running $100,000 a year, a $10 million a year consulting business, or anywhere in between, there’s an opportunity for you if you’re not already using and leveraging data to do more with it. That will differentiate you from everybody else who’s sharing the same things over and over again.
In this episode with Dean, you’ll learn how to: The #1 mistake consultants make when launching their practice. Create a business that doesn’t revolve around YOU. Create an engagement period to grow your funnel. Utilize publications to grow your brand. Differentiate yourself from other consultants in the marketplace. Improve your profit margins. “What do you want the audience to do after the audience is done listening to me? Be clear on what value you are providing.” Download your FREE Consulting Blueprint
In this episode with Dean, you’ll learn how to: The #1 mistake consultants make when launching their practice. Create a business that doesn’t revolve around YOU. Create an engagement period to grow your funnel. Utilize publications to grow your brand. Differentiate yourself from other consultants in the marketplace. Improve your profit margins. “Demonstrate that you can customize your speech to certain audiences. Show you can speak their language.” Download your FREE Consulting Blueprint
In this episode with Dean, you’ll learn how to: The #1 mistake consultants make when launching their practice. Create a business that doesn’t revolve around YOU. Create an engagement period to grow your funnel. Utilize publications to grow your brand. Differentiate yourself from other consultants in the marketplace. Improve your profit margins. “Can you prove it? Prove that you can do what you’ve promised.” Download your FREE Consulting Blueprint
In this episode with Dean, you’ll learn how to: The #1 mistake consultants make when launching their practice. Create a business that doesn’t revolve around YOU. Create an engagement period to grow your funnel. Utilize publications to grow your brand. Differentiate yourself from other consultants in the marketplace. Improve your profit margins. “What separates you from other speakers? Utilize testimonials and videos to showcase your value.” Download your FREE Consulting Blueprint
Other organizations had similar challenges and opportunities. I didn’t see myself doing anything different at the end of the day. Gradually, over time, what became apparent was it was time to try and hang out my own shingle and see if I could make it as a consulting firm. I say it like that because what’s common nowadays is all of us get calls from our friends. I’m a consultant now. What they’re doing is trying to get some gig work before their next full-time job. Your mentality when you say, “I am starting a company,” is different than saying, “I want to make it through the next several months because I hate my job.” “I was working in an industry in which I had an existing reputation.” I always remember the first day at work because I started the company out of my condo in Chicago. On my first day of work, I walked across the street with my newly purchased laptop that I bought when I cashed in my 401(k) and I typed a list in. That list became a list of prospects that we faxed saying, “Association Laboratory is open for business. Give us your money.” It was more fun than that, but that was the announcement of the company.
Not everybody wakes up and goes, “I’m going to start serving the association market.” Take us back in time a little bit. What were you doing before you got into this? What made you decide that this was the area you wanted to focus on? “I became a lobbyist for the Iowa Medical Society by cold-calling associations in Des Moines.” I started going to Chicago because if I got to Chicago, a staff member of the American Medical Association could take me and all her friends out for free on her expense account. It finally dawned on me I could get a job in Chicago. I went to work for a consulting firm that ran professional societies. I worked for the American Society of Clinical Oncology. I became an executive director of two different associations and an owner of that firm as part of a buyout by the management team.
What happened when you sent that out? What was the response, if any? “I said, “I am starting this firm. You’ve got this engagement. Do you mind hiring me?” I had a first client.” This is where people sometimes sabotage themselves. I went to my company and said, “I’m leaving. You have clients that I’m responsible for. I will continue to be responsible for them until you can find somebody else.” I worked with my old firm of which I was one of the stockholders. I worked with my own firm for several months.
The more money you have, the more time you have. The more time you have to get a client, the more time you have to correct mistakes. I started with cashflow. I had engagements with my previous firm. It was negotiated out with them. It was good for them and me. I had a new client. For the first six months, I wasn’t suddenly burning through savings and credit. I’m putting things on credit cards, things like your mortgage. “We’ve seen in our studies that about 50% of all consultants, their first client is a previous employer.” The other thing that I want to point out to you that you mentioned is you talk about the mindset that you had, which was not to try and land a gig or do work. You were thinking, it sounds like, from early on being intentional in building a consulting business or a firm. This is a big difference between the mindset of a consultant/contractor, the person who’s thinking about delivering and thinking that doing work is enough, and somebody who’s thinking, “I need to run a business. Therefore, I need to think about business development. I need to send letters out, do faxes, and do follow-ups or whatever it is to tap my network.”
If you are a prospect, what we’re trying to do is create a minimal relationship with you and educate you about the breadth of our activities. With the industry sector research, you can access it for free but you have to register. That puts your name on our list. That creates a relationship with you. If you’re on the list, we can talk to you. “If you’re uncertain about how much money to give us, you come to one of our webinars for $40.” Apply to Join Clarity Coaching™
One of the questions I ask when people come to me up speaking is, what do you want the audience to be able to do once they’re done listening to me? Do you want to be motivated and excited? Do you want them to support some new initiative? Two, you have to demonstrate that you can customize what you’re talking about to their audience. When you’re speaking to an audience of several hundred surgeons, you say something different than we speak to an audience of several hundred commercial mining executives. How will the things you talk about resonate with this audience? “A) What do you want them to do when they’re done? B) What is it you’re saying that will resonate with them? C) Can you prove it? D) Is there anything that separates you from all the other people who can answer those questions?” These are things like a video of people applauding you and how wonderful you are and testimonials, things that show you’re not an amateur. Everyone else’s good will do that same thing. What differentiates you? When I speak, everything starts with our sector research because I know nobody else has it. That becomes my differentiator.
In this episode with Dean, you’ll learn how to: The #1 mistake consultants make when launching their practice. Create a business that doesn’t revolve around YOU. Create an engagement period to grow your funnel. Utilize publications to grow your brand. Differentiate yourself from other consultants in the marketplace. Improve your profit margins. “Demonstrate that you can customize your speech to certain audiences. Show you can speak their language.” Download your FREE Consulting Blueprint