Podcasts about impact wealth

In this episode: In part 2, Shannon and Amy continue the conversation on the Ten Dimensions of Wealth, exploring the remaining seven dimensions: Relationship Wealth, Impact Wealth, Personal Fulfillment Wealth, Legacy Wealth, Knowledge Wealth, Community Wealth, and Creative Wealth.Join our FB community:www.joyfulbusinessrevolution.com/fb

Welcome to another insightful episode of Wealth Wednesday presented by Latin Wealth. In today's discussion, we're delving into a significant financial topic – why you should now be concerned about investing in the top 7 tech stocks, often referred to as the 'Magnificent 7.' These stocks include META, NVIDIA, MICROSOFT, APPLE, GOOGLE, AMAZON, and TESLA. We'll be examining an article that urges caution and mindfulness when considering investments in these tech giants. Key Insights: A critical analysis of the "Magnificent 7" trade and the need to evolve thinking around it. Personal perspectives on the current stock prices and the potential future regrets of not investing at today's levels. An exploration of the article's "hater" tone and the quoted imperative to "Evolve your thinking on the Magnificent Seven, or else." Later in the episode, we shift our focus to the highly anticipated Apple Vision Pro headset and its potential impact on society. This VR headset, recently released by Apple on February 2, is positioned as a revolutionary product in spatial computing, seamlessly blending digital content with physical space. Highlights of the Apple Vision Pro: Introduction to the VR headset and its features. Apple's vision for a new era of spatial computing. Comparison with other VR products like Meta Quest Pro. Future considerations, including the possibility of Apple Vision Pro 2 and lens attachments for glasses wearers. As we navigate the complexities of tech stock investments and explore the transformative impact of innovative products like the Apple Vision Pro, join us in the conversation. Don't forget to subscribe for more Wealth Wednesday insights and share your thoughts in the comments section below. Let's continue building financial knowledge together. Follow us on IG: @latinwealth Email for questions or inquiries: latinwealthpodcast@gmail.com

Feeling stuck in the same old patterns? Want to break free from the status quo and create a life of your own design? Join us as we explore the way of the creator, where conscious awareness and skill-building pave the path to success. Don't settle for the default future - embrace the power of choice and become the architect of your own life. If you like the podcast, you'd LOVE being in The Matrix. Learn more here: https://www.itsambersmith/matrix

Host Letitia Berbaum was joined in the podcast studio by Jason Ma, a world-renowned Chief Mentor of Next-Gen Leaders and CEO of ThreeEQ, a family business. With over 38 years of industry experience, including cofounding and leading successful education and technology ventures, and over 2 million miles of world travel, Jason has inspired, guided, and transformed 1-on-1 the lives of numerous Gen Z and elder leaders, while easing legacy and succession planning in Ultra High Net Worth families. As an appointed member of the B20, the G20's official engagement group representing the global business community, Jason has served on its Future of Work and Education Taskforce in the G20 Presidencies of nine countries, being one of a select few Americans appointed yearly to the powerful B20/G20.   Jason not only is an Elite College Admissions Counselor, Life and Executive Coach, Parent Coach, and Speaker sought after by wealthy families, family offices, and top-tier event organizers, but also is the author of Young Leaders 3.0 (a highly acclaimed book), a contributor to Impact Wealth and Family Office Magazine, a star former Forbes contributor on Mentoring Young Leaders, and a delegate by invitation to the prestigious Forbes Global CEO Conference for 8 years. Jason is also a well-connected Board/CEO advisor and high-level rainmaker to select tech companies and family offices, as well as an investor.   In this episode learn more about: - How ThreeEQ is preparing the NextGen for greatness - How ThreeEQ helps create remarkable outcomes while reducing family stress - Why it is important to start preparing your children for college admissions success early Learn more about Jason Ma and ThreeEQ by visiting: https://threeeq.com/ *** The Zandbergen Report, where wealth strategies and investment wisdom collide, is led by host Bart Zandbergen. The show is also available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Store, Podbean and Spotify. Interested in being a guest on The Zandbergen Report? Email podcast@bartzandbergen.com. Learn more about Bart by visiting www.BartZandbergen.com *** NO OFFER OR SOLICITATION: The contents of this podcast episode: (i) do not constitute an offer of securities or a solicitation of an offer to buy securities, and (ii) may not be relied upon in making an investment decision related to any investment offering Axxcess Wealth Management, LLC, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Axxcess does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of the information contained herein. Opinions are our current opinions and are subject to change without notice. Prices, quotes, rates are subject to change without notice. Generally, investments are NOT FDIC INSURED, NOT BANK GUARANTEED and MAY LOSE VALUE.

In this episode, The BLK Currency crew sits down with the CEO and Founder of the Melanin Project, Afra Smith.  Afra discusses the importance of having a budget as a navigational system in life. Afra emphasizes that the budget is the roadmap to wealth and how critical it is to cultivate a wealth mindset. In this episode, we also dive into the details of the first annual Wealth Literacy Conference and the impact it will have on the community. @wealthliteracyconference @blkcurrencypodcast --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/blackcurrencypodcast/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/blackcurrencypodcast/support

1378 - Creating Freedom of Time with Impact Wealth Builders' Saket Jain

Ellen Violette (Vee-o-let) is a Grammy-nominated songwriter and 3X award- winning book coach including being named one of the Top 20 Book Coaches of 2022 by Coach Foundation. She helps high-achieving trainers, coaches, speakers and founders write a professional, nonfiction book, make it a #1 bestseller and use it to make a bigger impact, more money and leave a lasting legacy. Her company, Books Open Doors®, also offers ghostwriting and publishing services to make getting a book out as easy as possible for her clients. Ellen has more than 17 years' experience and is the author of 9 books including five #1 bestsellers and one she wrote with Jim Edwards, and she is a contributor to four more international bestsellers. She's also a former regular contributor to Publishing! Magazine. Contact Ellen Violette: https://booksopendoors.commy offerings, my podcast Grab a copy of the Rockstar Author's Toolkit With checklists for writing a bestseller, writing a bestseller title, a Kindle Planner to maximize their visibility and sales on Amazon, And 21 Simple Strategies to Jumpstart your book marketing online checklist. Dr. Kimberley Linert Speaker, Author, Broadcaster, Mentor, Trainer, Behavioral Optometrist Event Planners- I am available to speak at your event. Here is my media kit: https://brucemerrinscelebrityspeakers.com/portfolio/dr-kimberley-linert/To book Dr. Linert on your podcast, television show, conference, corporate training or as an expert guest please email her at incrediblelifepodcast@gmail.com or Contact Bruce Merrin at Bruce Merrin's Celebrity Speakers at merrinpr@gmail.com 702.256.9199 Host of the Podcast Series: Incredible Life Creator Podcast Available on... Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/incredible-life-creator-with-dr-kimberley-linert/id1472641267Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6DZE3EoHfhgcmSkxY1CvKf?si=ebe71549e7474663 and on 9 other podcast platforms Author of Book: "Visualizing Happiness in Every Area of Your Life" Get on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3dQlFuk Website: https://www.DrKimberleyLinert.com Please subscribe, share & LISTEN! Thanks. incrediblelifepodcast@gmail.com Social Media Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-kimberley-linert-incredible-life-creator/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kimberley.linert/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drkimberleylinert/gTwitter: https://twitter.com/LifeKimberleyTumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/settings/blog/incrediblelifecreatorPinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/lifekimberley/_saved/

Do you have an authority business? Have you focused on your expertise to become an authority in your business niche? If you're not sure, this episode is for you. Rochelle Moulton is an expert at building authority brands. She's built and sold 6,7, and 8-figure consulting businesses. She started out consulting at global powerhouses like Towers Perrin and Arthur Andersen. Now she focuses on turning consultants and big thinkers into authorities. She is also the author of The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise. This guide is all about teaching freelancers and consultants how to position themselves as authorities. It presents a way to monetize expertise and sell authority to ideal clients and buyers. Rochelle explains all of the advantages of becoming an authority and breaks down the steps for us. We talk about the importance of leveraging your expertise by speaking or writing in some form. Once we decide to leverage our expertise, we are on the road to authority. Rochelle realized early on that speaking became easy when she focused on transforming her audience. We also talk about creating a vision for who you want to serve and the life you want to have, finding the revolution you want to lead, defining your ideal client, and discovering your niche. We also discuss the importance of finding your origin story and connecting the dots between your perfect client and your niche. Find out why it's crucial to publish like it's a revenue stream, how to enlist your authority circle, and master the art of persuasion.  And be sure to subscribe to The Self-Employed Life in Apple podcasts or follow us on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss an episode. Everything you need can all be found at jeffreyshaw.com  Rochelle Moulton thank you so much for being here! Remember, you might be in business FOR yourself but you are not in business BY yourself.  Be your best self. Be proud and keep changing the world.   Guest Contact – Rochelle Moulton The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise Rochelle Moulton LinkedIn Rochelle Moulton Twitter Rochelle Moulton Facebook Rochelle Moulton Instagram Rochelle Moulton YouTube The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth   Contact Jeffrey – Website Coaching support My book, LINGO: Discover Your Ideal Customer's Secret Language and Make Your Business Irresistible is now available! Watch my TEDx LincolnSquare video and please share!   Valuable complimentary resources to help you-   The Self-Employed Business Institute- You know you're really good at what you do. You're talented, you have a skill set. The problem is you're probably in a field where there is no business education. This is common amongst self-employed people! And, there's no business education out there for us! You also know that being self-employed is unique and you need better strategies, coaching, support, and accountability. The Self-Employed Business Institute, a five-month online education is exactly what you need. Check it out!   Take The Self-Employed Assessment! Ever feel like you're all over the place? Or frustrated it seems like you have everything you need for your business success but it's somehow not coming together? Take this short quiz to discover the biggest hidden gap that's keeping you from having a thriving Self-Employed Ecosystem. You'll find out what part of your business needs attention and you'll also get a few laser-focused insights to help you start closing that gap.   Have Your Website Brand Message Reviewed! Is your website speaking the right LINGO of your ideal customers? Having reviewed hundreds of websites, I can tell you 98% of websites are not. Fill out the simple LINGO Review application and I'll take a look at your website. I'll email you a few suggestions to improve your brand message to attract more of your ideal customers. Fill out the application today and let's get your business speaking the right LINGO!   Host Jeffrey Shaw is a Small Business Consultant, Brand Management Consultant, Business Coach for Entrepreneurs, Keynote Speaker, TEDx Speaker and author of LINGO and The Self Employed Life (May 2021). Supporting self-employed business owners with business and personal development strategies they need to create sustainable success.  

David C. Baker is the Principal of ReCourses, Inc. He is an author, speaker, and advisor to entrepreneurial creatives worldwide. He has written five books, three of which focus on the central elements of the business of expertise: positioning, financial management, and leadership.  David has worked with more than 900 firms, and his work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, NY Times, USA Today, Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, Forbes, MarketingProfs, Businessweek, and CBS. His most recent book is The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth. He is based in Nashville, Tennessee, and also enjoys photography, teaching motorcycle racing, flying airplanes and helicopters, and custom woodworking. In this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, John Corcoran is joined by David C. Baker, the Principal of ReCourses, Inc., to discuss how companies pivoted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. David talks about the lessons he learned from concentrating on working with a few clients, shares his tips for success, and explains how new media and technology have been impacting businesses. Stay tuned.

In this inaugural episode of Principles of Wealth, Holly introduces herself and the podcast, while outlining what listeners can expect from the show. She is later joined by Jim Hagerty, Bartlett's CEO, who shares more about his experience helping clients navigate life's transitions, the impact transitions can have on your wealth, and the parallels between golf and investing.  Learn more at bartlett1898.com. Join us on Facebook and Instagram @Bartlett198, and on LinkedIn @Bartlett Wealth Management

Reach the folks at Impact Wealth and decide if you should be borrowing money and using your portfolio as collateral. Is it a good idea? See what Anthony Harrigan thinks.

Will Uncle Sam get rid of the 1031 Exchange? Check out this quick podcast and see! And if you want to get in touch with Anthony, send a note to Impact@ImpactWealth.com

Loneliness carries the same health risk as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, according to a research study by social-connectedness expert Julianne Holt-Lunstad, PhD. It's a disturbing finding that's hard to accept. But for Ryan Gill, it only drives him in his mission to eradicate loneliness. In this episode, Matt Halloran joins Ryan Gill, CEO and co-founder of Communo, co-founder of Cult, and co-founder and chairman at The Gathering. Ryan shares why he has a deep passion for eradicating loneliness and how Communo is part of the solution. He also breaks down the core characteristics of a great leader –– and why he believes that if we build leaders, companies will take care of themselves. You will learn: How Ryan started The Gathering: a summit where leaders from the biggest cult brands share their expertise How Communo is helping professionals combat loneliness Why building great leaders is the key to ensuring your brand's continuity The difference between leading with passion versus position And more! Press play to get inspired by Ryan Gill's vision to eradicate loneliness and lead with courage. Resources:  ProudMouth | Matt Halloran on LinkedIn | Kirk Lowe on LinkedIn | Influence Accelerator Academy | Ryan Gill on LinkedIn | Ryan Gill Shares | Ryan Gill on Instagram | Communo | The Gathering Summit | Cult Collective | Chris Kneeland on LinkedIn | Rob Howard on LinkedIn | Charles Blackwell on LinkedIn | "Leadershift: The 11 Essential Changes Every Leader Must Embrace" by John Maxwell | "The Win Without Pitching Manifesto" by Blair Enns | "The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth" by David Baker | Dare to Lead Hub | Ted Lasso

http://impactwealth.com Listen to Jim Teegarden talk about fixed income and why it can help your portfolio.

Ever wonder what makes someone a credible expert?    In this episode, David C. Baker—dubbed “The Expert’s Expert” by The NY Times—gives top entrepreneurial tips on repositioning your business to pinpoint and solve bottlenecks for your key target audience.   A renowned author and advisor to entrepreneurial creatives worldwide, David has now coached over 500 firms and written five books—including his latest bestseller, The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth. A charismatic and much-loved speaker, David has given keynotes in over 30 countries and co-hosts 2Bobs—the most listened-to podcast in the creative service field.   In this episode we discuss:   The fear barrier faced by entrepreneurs and how to confidently overcome this hurdle The importance of defining your niche, both vertically and horizontally Mastering the art of saying “no” to create more business opportunities

Impact@ImpactWealth.com Reach out to us and have an honest discussion about commissions, and whether or not they help or hurt!

http://impactwealth.com. Here is a quick podcast to check on things to do before the end of the year.

http://impactwealth.com Market scaring you? There is a solution to shield yourself from volatility.

Impact@ImpactWealth.com. Why should you invest in a hedge fund? Check out this quick wealth management podcast and see why!

Impact@ImpactWealth.com Why should you invest in P/E? Listen to Anthony Harrigan speak about the benefits in P/E for a portfolio.

http://impactwealth.com. NOW is the time to do some tax planning. Plan now to keep your taxes under control for 2020 and 2021! And if you need to speak with Anthony, contact him: Impact@ImpactWealth.com

http://impactwealth.com Listen to Chris Schommer speak on the role of commissions in wealth management. Are commissions more transparent?

http://impactwealth.com. Will the 1031 exchange go away? What would it mean to the economy? Listen to Anthony Harrigan speak about the proposed change, and his opinions on it.

http://impactwealth.com CABRs is a cash and bond replacement strategy that keeps investors from losing money in the stock market, while participating in the gain!

http://impactwealth.com And what is the catch? There isn't one. Let us get a financial snapshot of your finances, risks and rewards so you get a clear picture

http://impactwealth.com Here is a podcast where you get to meet Alena, a valuable member of the Impact Wealth team

Anthony is a founder and principal at Impact Wealth. He's been in wealth management for decades. This podcast talks more about Anthony the man, not just Anthony the wealth manager.

http://impactwealth.com Listen to Chris Schommer, a team member of Impact wealth, tell us a bit about who he is. Enjoy!

http://impactwealth.com Let's talk with Jessica Martin about her role at Impact Wealth, and little about her personal life.

This quick podcast talks about Jim Teegarden, a founder and principal at Impact Wealth. Let's hear a little about his personal life and his feelings about his business.

Matt Teegarden has had the privilege of spending the majority of his career with Teegarden Financial and to have been with Impact Wealth since its inception. He brings with him each day a conviction for the high purpose our firm plays in the lives of our clients; a belief born anew each time another family is served. Heading the firm’s planning and design operations, Matt thrives on the creative aspects of his role, looking at each new client situation with the excitement and expectancy an artist may when looking upon a blank canvas.

Idea sharing is a core tenet of Lion Street. Gary Bottoms' Firm, The Bottoms Group, based in Marietta, Ga., created a newsletter to drive home the importance of life insurance during this pandemic. http://impactwealth.com Gary spoke with Lion Street Field Vice President Anthony DiTullo about the creative process and goals for The BottomsLine. Plus, they discussed how Gary used Lion Street resources in The BottomsLine and what planning opportunities have emerged as a result of the newsletter.

http://moretaxfreewealth.com Listen to Jimmy Calano, a friend of Impact Wealth discuss the stigma surrounding insurance. And his view is that there shouldn't be one!

http://impactwealth.com Premium finance can greatly help in retirement income, estate planning and as an overall tax instrument. Listen to Jimmy Calano speak on this quick podcast

Last on The Marketing Book Podcast to discuss his book, The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth, expertise visionary, international keynote speaker and bestselling author David C. Baker joins the (hopefully) limited time series, Authors in Quarantine Getting Cocktails to talk about being quarantined on his farm in east Tennessee, the impact of the pandemic on businesses, and his next book. Cheers! Click here for show notes! https://www.salesartillery.com/authors-quarantine-cocktails/david-c-baker

http://impactwealth.com Listen to Jimmy Calano speaking on insurance as an asset class. See why he feels that premium financed insurance.

Jim Teegarden says its not all doom and gloom! Follow his tips for being ready, financially, for the Corona Pandemic

Jim Teegarden speaks on protecting wealth in the middle of a Corona virus! But you'll be happy to hear from him. It's not as bad as we are seeing.

Jim Teegarden speaks on the Corona Virus. In this time of panic, Jim's words are pretty soothing.

A DST has another great benefit- you often get a higher quality tenant. The DST could be a a commercial space or a multi dwelling unit. There is management that screens the tenants as well.

A DST can get investors access to institutional quality real estate. And who knows? Other partners in your real estate may include large institutions.

When you set up a DST or even a 1031 Exchange, naturally there will be fees! But what are they? Here's a clean explanation of what you would pay.

DSTs have non-recourse financing. What is that, and why is it an important benefit? Check out this quick DST podcast!

A DST has another great benefit- you often get a higher quality tenant. The DST could be a a commercial space or a multi dwelling unit. There is management that screens the tenants as well.

Do DSTs have minimums? If so, what are they? Is this asset class only available to the super wealthy?

DST investors have the option to see and touch the properties they invest in. Or, they may choose not to! That's the freedom of a DST

A DST benefit that many people like is the ability to simplify an estate. No condos to split up for heirs, no farms to subdivide. Many clients use this vehicle solely for that, even though there are so many more benefits.

Tax advantaged income can increase with A DST. It doesn't happen all the time, but income and tax advantages can improve at the same time!

A DST can relieve the problems you may have when you are a landlord. As a passive investor with management in place, you aren't taking calls in the middle of the night!

DSTs and 1031s allow you to defer the depreciation because you buy new properties, and the depreciation schedule starts all over again!

A DST or 1031 allows you to defer taxes when you sell your property. And deferred taxes usually make people happy!

1031 and DST - Are there hidden fees? Who else is involved in getting fees with a DST?

Having issues with your company culture during rapid growth or simply need a second opinion on how to handle some complicated team members. Faith and Maryann should be your first call. They solve workplace problems using a therapeutic approach to business. I will let them explain further. Check them out below. https://collectivegrowthdesigns.com/advising https://collectivegrowthdesigns.com/get-in-touch https://www.hcwithmatt.com/ If you need a book recommendation or two dozen, here is a list of what Faith has been reading. Atomic Habits by James Clear Mastery by Robert Greene Traction by Gino Wickman The E Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking by Burger & Starbird The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth by David C. Baker Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Tim Ferris Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't by Jim Collins

https://impactwealth.com/solutions/wealth-management . . Jim Teegarden discusses Stretch IRA's. How do they help and are they in danger?

https://impactwealth.com/solutions/wealth-management . . Don't make these retirement mistakes! Listen to Jim Teegarden discuss how to avoid them!

http://impactwealth.com . . Listen to Jim Teegarden discuss what Kaizen can do for your portfolio. It's not as scary as it sounds...and can greatly impact your retirement!

https://impactwealth.com/solutions/wealth-management . . . Kaizen? What is it? What does it mean and how can it help your retirement?

https://impactwealth.com/solutions/wealth-management. . . We've discussed Kaizen and its advantages...but how difficult are they to set up? Not difficult, says Jim Teegarden at Impact Wealth

https://impactwealth.com/solutions/wealth-management . . Jim discusses the benefits of tax free compounding in this wealth management podcast.

https://impactwealth.com/solutions/wealth-management . . Let Jim Teegarden take some of the mystery out of the secure act...and learn how it can help you.

https://impactwealth.com/solutions/financial-planning People have a gut reaction to the word "annuity." Why do people have this reaction and what should we know when first thinking about them?

https://impactwealth.com/insights Listen To Anthony Harrigan discuss why a firm's structure matters...for now, for later and for tax and legacy matters.

https://impactwealth.com/insights . . Listen to Anthony Harrigan of Impact Wealth discuss why people even consult financial planners! And are they worth it?

https://impactwealth.com/solutions/financial-planning . . . Hear a quick impact wealth podcast about financial planning...and the 3 things you should be asking YOUR planner!

https://impactwealth.com/solutions/financial-planning . . . Can a taxable event kill your firm? Listen to Ann Diddlebock discuss how a CFO thinks about estate planning

https://impactwealth.com/solutions/wealth-management . . . A DST 1031 can save you taxes and the headaches of property management. Find out what Anthony Harrigan thinks of them!

https://impactwealth.com/solutions/wealth-management . . . Anthony Harrigan discusses a DST 1031 Exchange, and the logistics behind setting them up!

http://impactwealth.com Listen to David Prichard talk about a retirement income vehicle you should know about!

http://impactwealth.com Listen to Jim Teegarden discuss one of the biggest pieces to the finance puzzle....the client's behavior!

http://impactwealth.com Why would anyone purchase an annuity? Listen to Jim Teegarden at impact wealth and listen for yourself! Fixed Annuities are long term insurance contacts and there is a surrender charge imposed generally during the first 5 to 7 years that you own the annuity contract. Withdrawals prior to age 59-1/2 may result in a 10% IRS tax penalty, in addition to any ordinary income tax. Any guarantees of the annuity are backed by the financial strength of the underlying insurance company. ..... ..... ..... Asset Allocation does not guarantee a profit or protect against a loss in a declining market. It is a method used to help manage investment risk.  

Listen to Jim Teegarden of Impact Wealth discuss "behavioral finance." It's interesting to think that it may not be the market, it may the investor! Fixed Annuities are long term insurance contacts and there is a surrender charge imposed generally during the first 5 to 7 years that you own the annuity contract. Withdrawals prior to age 59-1/2 may result in a 10% IRS tax penalty, in addition to any ordinary income tax. Any guarantees of the annuity are backed by the financial strength of the underlying insurance company.

Daniel G. Siegel ist Berater für digitale Strategie, Redner, Privatpilot und 2. Dan im Taekwondo. Er hilft Unternehmen mit Expertise mit Strategie, Technologie und Methode zur gefragten Expertenmarke zu werden. Er war Mitbegründer und CTO von Not Just A Label, der weltweit führenden Plattform für Modedesigner mit ca. 35.000 Designern aus mehr als 150 Ländern, sowie Digitalstratege im Emerging Technology Team von Accenture. Sein Ansatz lautet: Technologie soll den Menschen nicht ersetzen, sondern befähigen, Dinge zu tun, die vorher unmöglich waren. Dein größter Fehler als Unternehmer?  Zu lange versucht alles alleine zu schaffen, anstatt auf kompetenter, externer Expertise zu bauen. Deine Lieblings-Internet-Ressource?  Airtable, ein schönes Tool um Daten strukturiert abzulegen.   Buchtitel 1:  Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology; Neil Postman Amazon-Link 1:  [audiobook_button url="http://tomstalktime.com/audiobooks/"][/audiobook_button]   Buchtitel 2:  The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth; David C. Baker Amazon-Link 2:  [audiobook_button url="http://tomstalktime.com/audiobooks/"][/audiobook_button]   Kontaktdaten des Interviewpartners:  https://www.dgsiegel.net/ Hier kannst Du Dir Daniels pdf zur perfekten Website runterladen: https://www.dgsiegel.net/perfect-website   +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Mehr Freiheit, mehr Geld und mehr Spaß mit DEINEM eigenen Podcast. Erfahre jetzt, warum es auch für Dich Sinn macht, Deinen eigenen Podcast zu starten. Jetzt hier zum kostenlosen Podcast-Workshop anmelden: http://Podcastkurs.com +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++       Erfolg kann man lernen. Jeder. Im Erfolgspodcast TomsTalkTime von Tom Kaules lernst Du in inspirierenden Interviews und einzelnen Storys die Strategien von erfolgreichen Unternehmern und Prominenten. Du lernst in Experten-Interviews wie erfolgreiche Menschen erfolgreich geworden sind und warum sie erfolgreich bleiben. Wie sie den richtigem Umgang mit Erfolg und auch den Umgang mit Niederlagen gelernt haben. Das richtige Mindset ist wichtig, um richtig viel Geld zu verdienen, glückliche Beziehungen führen, mit sich selbst im Einklang zu sein und dadurch Beruf und Familie bestens miteinander vereinbaren zu können. Einschalten. Zuhören. Sich motivieren und Inspirieren. Lernen. Tun. Erfolg haben.

http://impactwealth.com Hear Anthony Harrigan discuss his firm's process for bringing on new clients. What do they discuss? Why are they different? Investing in alternative assets involves higher risks than traditional investments and is suitable only for sophisticated investors. Alternative investments are often sold by prospectus that discloses all risks, fees, and expenses. They may or may not be tax efficient and an investor should consult with his/her tax advisor prior to investing. Alternative investments have higher fees than traditional investments and they may also be highly leveraged and engage in speculative investment techniques, which can magnify the potential for investment loss or gain and should not be deemed a complete investment program. The value of the investment may fall as well as rise and investors may get back less than they invested.

Interesting podcast about getting tax free retirement income . Asset Allocation does not guarantee a profit or protect against a loss in a declining market. It is a method used to help manage investment risk.  

Why should you buy insurance when you already have it? Listen to David Prichard of Impact Wealth discuss it! . . Investing in alternative assets involves higher risks than traditional investments and is suitable only for sophisticated investors. Alternative investments are often sold by prospectus that discloses all risks, fees, and expenses. They are not tax efficient and an investor should consult with his/her tax advisor prior to investing. Alternative investments have higher fees than traditional investments and they may also be highly leveraged and engage in speculative investment techniques, which can magnify the potential for investment loss or gain and should not be deemed a complete investment program. The value of the investment may fall as well as rise and investors may get back less than they invested.

Listen to Anthony Harrigan speak on the ups and downs of real estate Investing in alternative assets involves higher risks than traditional investments and is suitable only for sophisticated investors. Alternative investments are often sold by prospectus that discloses all risks, fees, and expenses. They may or may not be tax efficient and an investor should consult with his/her tax advisor prior to investing. Alternative investments may have higher fees than traditional investments and they may also be highly leveraged and engage in speculative investment techniques, which can magnify the potential for investment loss or gain and should not be deemed a complete investment program. The value of the investment may fall as well as rise and investors may get back less than they invested.

An interesting discussion with Jim Teegarden, about Alternative Investments Investing in alternative assets involves higher risks than traditional investments and is suitable only for sophisticated investors. Alternative investments are often sold by prospectus that discloses all risks, fees, and expenses. They may or may not be tax efficient and an investor should consult with his/her tax advisor prior to investing. Alternative investments may have higher fees than traditional investments and they may also be highly leveraged and engage in speculative investment techniques, which can magnify the potential for investment loss or gain and should not be deemed a complete investment program. The value of the investment may fall as well as rise and investors may get back less than they invested.

Hear an expert speak about alternative investments. They can help a portfolio greatly, and not as confusing as you may think! Investing in alternative assets involves higher risks than traditional investments and is suitable only for sophisticated investors. Alternative investments are often sold by prospectus that discloses all risks, fees, and expenses. They may or may not be tax efficient and an investor should consult with his/her tax advisor prior to investing. Alternative investments have higher fees than traditional investments and they may also be highly leveraged and engage in speculative investment techniques, which can magnify the potential for investment loss or gain and should not be deemed a complete investment program. The value of the investment may fall as well as rise and investors may get back less than they invested.

Blair and David explore the differences they see between consultants and agencies in an effort to understand how the landscape is changing and what creative firms can do to beat consultants at their own game.   Links The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth by David C. Baker Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life by Rory Sutherland

From growing up with a tribe of Mayan Indians in a remote village in Guatemala to becoming an author of five books, high performance motorcycle racer and TEDx speaker, David Baker’s vast and varied background is one of the things that makes him a sought-after business and marketing consultant. In this episode of Elevate with Robert Glazer, Robert talks with David about his fascinating background and some key insights from his newest book, The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth. Why it’s so important to specialize or be an expert in business today About the most common mistakes David see’s professional service firms making Examples of companies that are nailing the concept of identifying their expertise What parallels David sees between advising entrepreneurs and high- performance motorcycle racing

Are you an expert?  Don't over think this....yes, you are.  In something...you are.  Second question....do other people want to know about your expertise?  Don't over think this question either because I am sure that other people not only want to know what you know they probably also want to be you. This week on the podcast I talk with the expert in being an expert, David C. Baker.  He wrote the book (among many) on the business of expertise and I know you'll dig this conversation as much as I did.  He's real, he's frank and he shares the info on what you have that people want and how to mine it.  I really liked talking with David.  He gave me some solid things to think about and also apply in my own business life.  CHEERS! More on David... David C. Baker has written five books. The first was a ghostwriting project on the genetic underpinnings of seed corn. Don’t ask. The second was three-volume cased set published by NewPage and sold out at 10,000 copies. The third one, Managing Right for the First Time, has received nearly 50 stellar reviews (averaging 4.9 stars). It was recently named by Inc. Magazine as one of the “Top Ten Books on Management that Entrepreneurs Should Read.” The fourth one, Financial Management of a Marketing Firm, is the guidebook used worldwide for independent agencies. The IP behind all the ratios is also licensed to the leading integrated software package for marketing firms and in-house departments. The fifth one, The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth, was released in the summer of 2017. It is an impassioned defense of expertise and a call to the courageous positioning and development of the practice of expertise. It is available here or on Amazon. If you want to receive a notification of all the new materials and events, be sure to sign up at one of the many forms scattered around the site. It’s free, regular, and content-laden. ReCourses, Inc., is a privately held corporation through which David C. Baker applies his professional life. David began to serve the field on March 1, 1994, and ReCourses, Inc., was incorporated in Tennessee on January 1, 1996. RockBench Publishing Corp. is a separate Tennessee corporation that houses the publishing arm where we feature courageous thought leadership insight. It was formed on January 1, 2008.  Connect with him at: https://www.davidcbaker.com/  

David C. Baker teaches people how to turn unique knowledge into a profitable business. Referred to as the "expert’s expert" by The New York Times, David has written five books, advised over 900 firms, and keynoted conferences in over 30 countries. His work has also been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, USA Today, BusinessWeek, and more. David joins this episode to share insights from his newest book, The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth. Listen in to hear tips to help you develop your expertise, how the way we deliver expert services is changing, and what it takes to effectively combine expertise and entrepreneurship. You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: http://bit.ly/2yXWT49 

Blair interviews David on what each of the three levels of success in running a creative firm looks like.   Links 2Bobs Episode 39 - "Replacing Presentations With Conversations" The Win Without Pitching Manifesto, by Blair Enns The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth, by David C. Baker Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You,by John Warrillow Pricing Creativity: A Guide to Profit Beyond the Billable Hour, by Blair Enns 2Bobs Episode 31 - "Mastering the Value Conversation"   TRANSCRIPT BLAIR ENNS: David, it's been a while. DAVID C. BAKER: Has it? I haven't missed you all that much. Have you missed me? BLAIR: Since we've last recorded a podcast, I was listening to one that aired recently and it was talking about my first book is in its fourth printing. It's now going into its fifth printing and I realized that it just aired and we recorded that over a year ago. So if Marcus is digging into a backlog that far, that means we haven't been together for a while. DAVID: Yeah. And it's scary too because imagine how much our thinking has changed in a year? 'Cause you were wrong about so many things. BLAIR: That's an old joke, you need new material. DAVID: Okay, sorry. BLAIR: So since we've last recorded a podcast, I know they keep airing because we've got all this in the can, but you and I did an event in London and then we came home and then you and your wife came up to Kaslo and we celebrated. I was just looking yesterday at a photo of your wife and my wife in a bear den together on her birthday. DAVID: Right, I didn't want to go in it, it's why I took the picture. BLAIR: You're too smart. I took it from inside the bear den, you were outside. DAVID: Right. BLAIR: And then you went to Chile on vacation and then you've probably been in some other places. DAVID: Yes, I have. I'm kind of off the road right now. I head back out of the country on Friday but I've been back trying to get our 61 acre farm livable. So just a few minutes ago, if you'd seen a picture of me, I would have been covered in white from head to toe because I am still trying to figure out how to use a paint sprayer and I realized I have a lot of expertise to develop yet. BLAIR: That's why on a hike I was carrying the bear spray. Okay, so it's been a while since we talked. Today we're going to talk, I want to call it good, better, best but it's really the three levels of success in running a creative firm and I think you've broken it down into the categories of starting, existing and thriving. And you sent me an entire spreadsheet to help navigate this conversation. Things like utilization, positioning, financial, marketing, etc. All of these different things that should be true or should be happening or you should be aiming for at these three different levels of success. Do you want to just take a minute and talk about those three levels of success? Are there lines that delineate between starting and existing and existing and thriving? Well, I think there are. We'll find out I guess, right? But I tend to think in triads. And so as I'm getting a question from a client, I'll sometimes just play this mental game, are they starting out or are they existing or are they thriving? And there seem to be these three different categories. And then you can expand that and say, "Okay, what about financial performance? What about how they think about service offerings or how they think about positioning and how they think about management?" And so I think it's useful to think in these categories because it's not as if a single firm is all in the existing, the middle category. They might spread across different ones and just gives us an eye opening into what our world looks like from the outside. DAVID: I think it'll be kind of interesting to talk about. But you're probably going to let me know how interesting this is or not. If you rush me through these, that'll be a sign that it's not that interesting. BLAIR: Well, let's just see. Let's start with utilization which is the first thing on your list. DAVID: Right. 'Cause such an exciting word, right? Utilization. BLAIR: Yeah. So I'll just have a little nap here while you talk about utilization. DAVID: Like I said to you one day, I'm pre-interested. Okay, so starting would be subsidizing clients and the typical firm in a developed country is charging and getting paid for 42% of their time and they should be getting paid for 60% of their time. So most firms are in this starting category and they never really get out of it. It's more of a typical category. So there's some significant degree of underpricing and/or overservicing. And that's the first one, subsidizing clients. And then hopefully, we get to the point where we get paid for everything we're doing, that's the middle category of existing. And then thriving is package pricing where we're applying what you would call value pricing. Where there's very little corelation between what we're getting paid and the amount of time we're putting in. It's really more about outputs and accomplishments and so on. The thing that interests me about this and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this as well, is that most firms want to skip the middle step. So they're not getting paid for all their time and they want to jump right to value pricing without going through the middle step of getting paid for all the time that they're working. And some of this is influenced by this hatred that everybody has for timekeeping, but it's also driven by this sense that people have of they're being cheated. It's like, "My clients are not paying me what I'm worth and I feel rotten about that, I feel anxious, I feel resentful and I want to jump right past that and go straight to getting paid for more than the time I'm spending." So that's the first one, utilization. BLAIR: Well, I wonder if that leap isn't because they're not really thinking about value-based pricing in terms of getting paid for the value that they create but they see it as kind of a packaged way of actually getting paid for what they do. Does that make sense? DAVID: It does. So they're using a very advanced way of sort of eliminating this subsidization without ... Yeah, it kind of does. I feel like people, they have this resentment level about not getting paid for what they're doing but they don't really know how to solve it and they jump into different plans to solve it without really understanding all of them. This is what you've spent so much of your professional life doing in the last couple of years, is helping them think through. Like we did a podcast recently about the value conversation and all of those things. And in London when you and I were talking, I was listening when you were talking about practicing the value conversation. And it was so interesting for people, the light came on on their eyes. And I don't know exactly why but I feel like they need to at least go through this second phase first because it's like learning to walk before you can run and run before you can whatever the next thing is, leap I guess. BLAIR: Yeah. And I wonder about that. I kind of think if I were giving somebody who's starting out right now some advice, my advice would be to skip over that middle section of getting paid for what you do. But if I may, I want to back up a little bit and just talk about these three categories of starting, existing and thriving and let's just put some description around them. I think we can agree that in the starting phase, essentially you have a hypothesis and your hypothesis is that you have something of value that the market values and that maybe there's a business there. So you open your doors and you're essentially exploring your hypothesis. You don't know whether you validated or not. There's all kinds of fear and there's all kinds of experimentation and there's all kinds of hard work and you're trying different things and you're seeking validation.  And I would say in the existing stage, you have validation, there's a business here. You're not going to go out of business tomorrow but probably you're earning like what you would in a job, maybe a little bit more. So it's okay, I have validation from the marketplace and then the next step is essentially optimization or getting ... Another way to look at it would be the third category which is thriving. Beyond existing, beyond earning what you would in a job. And I know I'm probably jumping ahead and maybe screwing up some of your things that you want to talk about here but we all have a sense of what thriving is and we all have a sense of what starting is. Starting is you were working with a hypothesis. Existing in the middle is I validated it. There's something here, now we need to take it to the next level. And thriving is the next level. Are those good enough descriptions for the three categories we're talking about?  DAVID: Yes. BLAIR: Or would you change them? DAVID: No, I think they are good enough. What's interesting to me though, is that some businesses that have been around for 10 years are still in the starting category and they don't ever get to that other one. And those are the ones where I might go in and say, "Hey, just an idea here, but have you considered that maybe you shouldn't be running a firm? You could be making a lot more money working for somebody else, you'd be working fewer hours and you'd have no financial risk." BLAIR: And you'd be sleeping better at night. DAVID: Right, exactly. All those things. Most folks just sort of look at me and grin and say, "Yeah, I know all that but I'm willing to invest that much just so that I don't have a boss." You don't automatically go from starting to existing after you cross, say a two year threshold or something like that. There is some mentality that has to change on your part. BLAIR: Yeah. Okay, so you talked about the first point of how utilization is different in these three categories of starting, existing and thriving. You go from essentially subsidizing your clients to getting paid for what you do to charging based on the value that you create or package pricing. The next thing that you want to explore under these three categories is positioning. So how does positioning change? DAVID: And this is a little bit different than we would have talked about it probably 10 years ago maybe. You and I both noticed that that's changed in the marketplace. So in the beginning, you're usually an undifferentiated firm. So there are many viable substitutes for what you do. And most firms make this transition for sure, they go into the existing category. And in this phase, and I delineate this scientifically in the book, The Business of Expertise, you need between 10 and 200 competitors and then we can talk about what that means in terms of your prospects set and so on. How many prospects you need. But most firms don't go into that third phase there where there are no competitors essentially because of some process they have or some proprietary IP or some black box. That's where you see firms thriving and they're making so much money. It's not wrong at all, it's just that they really control their marketplace. And so, most people in this category are probably in this existing, the middle phase, and very few are at the undifferentiated and very few are at the proprietary IP side. I'm not sure what that number is, I'd be interested to see what you think. I would guess that maybe 10% of firms are in that high level, less than that maybe. BLAIR: I'm going to recap what you said here. So positioning-wise, when you're starting out, you're saying the firm begins as fully undifferentiated. You're basically saying yes to everything and taking whatever you can. And then when you get to the existing phase where you kind of validated your hypothesis, you typically have 10 to 200 competitors. And then in the thriving phase or stage, you say you essentially have no direct competitors because you have proprietary intellectual property. Is that right? DAVID: Right, a black box. Something that they just simply cannot get somewhere else. And that's built on the second phase for sure. You start at the 10 to 200 competitor phase but then you figure out some magic and you bring it to the marketplace. And that's where just the light comes on and everything just falls in place for you. BLAIR: I want to suggest the slightly different way to think about this. And that is at the very beginning, you starting out, when you have one client, your firm is highly specialized. DAVID: Specialized in what? BLAIR: You're specialized in the discipline for market, you're doing x for why, you have one client. And then I'll suggest to you that your second client is a lot like your first client. And it's often because that first client maybe you took that client with you from another firm or whatever. He was attracted to you for whatever reason. Your second client is a lot like your first client so you're a highly specialized entity. And then you think, "Oh my god, I have to mitigate my risk. I don't want to put all of my eggs in one basket. I don't want to pigeonholed." And then you broaden out.  DAVID: And then you mess up your positioning with all these other clients. BLAIR: Yeah.  DAVID: That's interesting, I never thought about that. That is really interesting. So the secret is to never have more than one or two clients and then your ... That's Blair's advice for the day. BLAIR: Okay. Now let's move on to the category or employees. How does your employee base change as you go from starting to existing to thriving? DAVID: This one is really fun to me because I think everybody will identify with this. In the first phase, you're hiring what you can afford. It's just like, "What? I can't pay more than this and I know the kind of expertise I would like, I just cannot afford it. So the primary thing is this is what I can afford and I'm just going to get the most capable person I can with this amount of money." That's the first phase. BLAIR: Yeah. We can all identify with that. DAVID: Yeah. And none of those people are still working for you but you still remember those days. BLAIR: Yeah. DAVID: And the second phase is existing. And here there's this flip that occurs in your mind and you begin to hire for what you need even if it stretches you financially and you grow into it. So it's not what you can afford, it's what you need and you've built this new assumption on the fact that you're tired of training people, these blank slates that come to you and infusing them with everything you know. But the firm never grows beyond that because who's smarter than you is getting hired because you can't afford them. So the second phase, what do I need even if it costs more than I really I'm comfortable spending at this point? The third phase is a really fun one. And that's where you are on the lookout for amazing once in a lifetime hires. And even if you don't need that person at this point, you go ahead and snug them because you're running your firm so well that it's not going to put you under to have an extra and actually a highly paid extra person on staff. And this is that third phase where you make the once in a lifetime hire every once in a while even when you don't quite need them yet. BLAIR: I immediately recall a number of conversations I've had with my most successful clients and I'm sure you do too. You've had the same conversations where you asked about a particular team member and they said, "Oh, that person came to me, I didn't have a job for them but I just couldn't believe there skillset. So I hired them and I created a job for them." DAVID: Right, exactly. That's exactly what we're talking about. And it's so fun to be at that point in your businesses' history where you can do that. It's such a luxury. BLAIR: Yeah. Let's talk about financial. You've got some financial numbers and I want to know where the hell they came from. First, why don't you walk us through them. When you're staring out, you should be earning what? DAVID: So this financial thing is about how much money you're making. And in the first phase, it seems like principals are making 160 to 200 in U.S. dollars and there's not much more beyond that. That's pretty much what they get. They may not even get every pay check, they may catch up sometimes or they may not, but they're making 160 or 200. If they stop and thought about it, they would say "You know, I could make more money somewhere else." That's the first phase starting. Existing, they may make the same amount of money. 160 to 200,000 U.S. dollar equivalent, but there's significant profit at the end of the year. And this builds up starting at their fiscal year and they may take out some quarterly or when they're getting ready to buy a boat or another house or whatever, but there is some profit. And then in the thriving, the final one, the third one, they're making 400,000. Now, we have to index this if there's more than one principal but there's 400,000 plus a bunch of profit. And there are not many ... Again, they're probably on a 10 to 20% of firms in this third category with all the things that we're talking about and especially here, 400,000 plus profit. That's where firms are really thriving. BLAIR: So I'm imagining the principal of a firm who's in the starting phase, they've been at this like 15 months, they're into their second year. They're still starting, they're still figuring it out and they're thinking, "Whoa, I should be making 160 to 200? When does that happen?" DAVID: Yeah. Where somebody who's making 400 says, "I can't remember when I only made that amount of money." People's expectations are so different based on what they bring to the table. BLAIR: Yeah. DAVID: But what principal could not make that and more as a key leader at another firm? It kind of gets crazy when you think about it. BLAIR: But are you saying if you're at the starting phase, let's say you're a year in and you're not at 160, what does that tell you? DAVID: Well, I think we need to make allowance for the fact that we're going to invest in our businesses. But if somebody's starting out and they don't have employees, it's hard for me to foul them. Anybody making less than 160,000 equivalent U.S. dollars, I have to search a long time before I find somebody making less than that. So it tells me that either you're really starting out and haven't figured out some things or your expectations around money are very different than mine are. Or you're really making some huge investments in the business and you'll grow out of that at some point. But it should signal that something's wrong if you're not regularly making that amount of money very quickly out of the gate. BLAIR: Yeah, okay. And we could do some math on that around utilization rates and hourly rates etcetera, to come up with something, but we won't. Let's keep moving.   BLAIR: So the next category you have here is marketing. And when you're first starting out, how do you about getting new leads that ultimately turn into clients? DAVID: Yeah, most people don't do anything because they usually don't start with the blank slate. They usually start because some client has said on the Q.T., "Hey I want to work with you." And so they start with some promise of work. Or they're kind of the new kid in town and for the first, and I find that it's about three and a half years, that's about how long it last, they have enough referrals or just word of mouth kind of stuff happening. And then if things slow down a little bit, they'll do some cold-calling. That's what usually happens at this first phase and it kind of creates these bad habits for folks in the early days because it lasts for three, three and a half years and then it starts to tail off. Then we go into the second phase of existing where most firms rely on email marketing these days. Now you have some outliers who are doing different things but that seems to be the basic recommendation, email marketing. And it's still very effective and some firms are getting very wealthy doing that as their primary lead generation tool. But not many firms are really in the thriving category who are relying primarily on email marketing. They're doing something else, they have some notorious thought leadership and there are many things that fall in this category.  They could have written a great book or they could be a great speaker who gets invited to different keynote conference opportunities or maybe they have a podcast or something like that, but it's moving beyond the email marketing. And so cold-calling, referrals at the beginning, email marketing and then they leave that behind and they have this luxury of moving to more of a notorious thought leadership platform. BLAIR: I love your choice of an adjective there, notorious. What do you mean by that? DAVID: Notorious as in hated? No, that's not what I ... What I mean is well-known I guess is what I mean. So it wouldn't count to have a podcast that nobody listens to or a book that nobody buys. I'm talking about well-known type of thought leadership. And like you talk about often, it's probably something that's singular. Like it might be a conference that you do or it might be a book or it could be a podcast. It's usually not a combination of a lot of things. You've just fallen into a groove, a pattern that fits your personality and your particular focus in the marketplace and everything is working well. And as long as you're disciplined and you still take risks with your thought leadership, then you don't ever have to go back to just doing email marketing like you used to. BLAIR: Yeah. And so you've got referrals along with cold-calling in the starting category, but I think when done properly, referrals follow you at every level. And at the thriving level, I would suggest referrals really do come back. But I think your point is that like in the very beginning, it really is just about referrals. The first client is referred to you or they were a client at the firm that you worked at, you took with you. And you said there's a three to three and a half year cycle for referrals.  I don't know if it's referral-based but I've talked about this before. And one of the first patterns that I saw as a consultant is there's a seven year window. There's a point at which where roughly seven years where organic growth just stops. And you explained to me, your hypothesis was that's when you thought natural referrals quit working. And then there's school of thought around how you actually worked to cultivate referrals, that's an entirely different level. But I think we should probably do a podcast on referrals at some point because that's a topic in of itself. And I agree with you, it's vital early and then most people kind of let it go. But some of those firms that are really thriving, they have formalized how they get their existing advocate, loyal clients to refer other clients to them. DAVID: Yes, exactly. They're intentional about it. And the difference seems to me is that they bring their referral sources along with them. So as their capabilities change, they are providing the correct language to those referrals in an active way, so that the referral sources are given them even better business than they did in the past. That is something we should talk more about. BLAIR: Okay. Let's talk about fee billings per FTE. This is one of my favorite numbers that we often refer to it as AGI per FTE, which is ... Do you want to explain that acronym? DAVID: Sure. So AGI stands for Agency Gross Income. The rest of the world would say adjusted growth income but that's a very different meaning than what we mean by AGI in this industry, and it's basically your fee billing. And then if we define FTE equivalence, if there are nine full-timers and two halftimers, then that's 10 full-time equivalent. So the starting phase is less than $150,000 per full-time equivalent. So we have a 10 person firm, that means that their AGI is less than 1.5 million. There's some sort of a transition here that firms struggle to get beyond and they don't exactly know how to break out of that. It's a combination of all kinds of marketing and positioning and lead generation and confidence and all those things that we talk about quite a bit. But in this first phase, they're somewhere below this. The second phase is a really narrow band. It's really interesting. I can almost say on the phone, I can say to somebody, a prospect that I might be talking with, I can say, "Let me take a guess, you don't have to tell me if I'm right or not, but I'll bet your fee billings per full-time equivalent ..." And then I'll give them a number between 150 and 160. And this very narrow band is the second place they get stuck. And most firms, the vast majority, never get above 160. And the ones who thrive in this third category get above 160, and I've got clients that are even above a million, many of them above 450, 500. Now, you can't get there without value pricing obviously and packaging the work that you're doing with expected service offerings and so on. So those are the three, less than 150, 150 to 160, the big stuck point, and then above 160. BLAIR: So, again, I'm going to give you another way to think about this because when you say starting, that first phase or stage that we're talking about, I'm thinking about a solopreneur. And a solopreneur, if you're making 200, you're clearly billing more than 200. If you think of the solo creative person who goes out on his or her own, they're subsidizing the clients so they're not billing for all of the time that they're actually spending as you pointed out at the beginning. So they run into this maximum of how much they can based on the fact that they're subsidizing their clients. And it's probably around ... What do you think it is? Like what do you think somebody's earning, just say in kind of gross sales, before they have to hire that first person? DAVID: They probably should never hire anybody until they're at the quarter of a million dollar range, so about 250 I would think. When you hire somebody before that, you're really restarting the clock and now all of a sudden you're spreading this income that you've generated across more and more people. I don't see much connection between billings per full-time equivalent and the size of the firm. In other words, some of the most profitable firms are smaller but not always. So when I say starting, I don't necessarily mean the business is young, I mean they're starting on this path of entrepreneurial experience and success. So many firms could be 20 years old and they've never broken that 160 category per employee. So it's just something about like how do I get over this hump? And it may take people two years or it might take them 20 years or they may never get over that hump at all. BLAIR: Yeah. So you have these three categories of you're below 150 in AGI per FTE and then the middle category, where I see a lot of it too, you're stuck at 150 to 160. And I would say it might even be a little bit lower than that, 140 to 160. I don't know where the line is, you're drawing at 150 to 160. And then beyond that 160, once you tend to break free of that 160, then you kind of gain momentum again and it's easier to get out into the 200s and even 300s and that's almost always because you're moving to a value-based pricing. Is that right? DAVID: Right. Or you're very, very confident. But usually, yes. It's about value-based pricing. BLAIR: Yeah. All right, the next category is succession. So in a starting firm, it seems a little bit ironic that a firm that's in the starting category would think of succession. Because if you're just starting out and you're thinking of getting out, then something's not working therefore you don't have anything to sell, do you? DAVID: Well, again, I'm not talking just about chronology, I'm also talking about how successful they've walked this road of entrepreneurial success. And so many firms really are ... You have a 20 year firm and really they don't have 20 years of expertise under their belt, they have 20, one year periods under their belt. They don't operate like a 20 year firm, they just had the same one year 20 times, that's what I mean by starting. BLAIR: It's Groundhog Day 20 days in a row. DAVID: Exactly, right. And these are the firms where they're not just remarkable per financial performance and therefore nobody on the outside is going to be all that intrigued with buying the firm and yet the principal is tired. They're tired in part because of the lack of financial performance. If that wasn't the case, they probably wouldn't be that tired so they have to settle for either just closing the firm or getting almost nothing for it by selling to employees. That's that first starting phase of entrepreneurial success.  DAVID: And then in the second one, in this existing phase, they sell or merge within the industry. And you and I have seen huge changes here. There aren't many firms who are selling to the holding companies because the holding companies don't have all that much extra money and those purchases are so typical and the principal is not that interested in it but that's what happens in this existing phase. And then in the thriving phase, they get rich by selling in a very nontraditional sale. So it might be a consulting firm that buys them or it might be a huge digital firm that buys them. Or they could sell themselves to a client or maybe a roll-up in some rare circumstances. So it's just interesting to think about these three different categories that firms tend to think about from a succession standpoint. I put this on the list 'cause I do so much succession work and I see people strange expectations about what the firm will be worth. And they have this very glorious ideas about what somebody else will be pay for the firm and I have to have an awkward conversation. It's like, "You know, this has been more of a lifestyle business for you. You haven't made a lot of money, you've not made a lot of profit, there's not much to sell after you leave." But that's fortunately not true of every firm. A lot of firms are very, very saleable these days which is great news for them. BLAIR: And it reminds me of John Warrillow's book, Built to Sell. It's a business novel and the owner of a design firm is fed up and he goes to his business advisor or his accountant and says, "Okay, I want to sell the firm." And the guy laughs at him and says, "You've got nothing to sell." DAVID: Yeah, a great day in his life to find himself. BLAIR: So he helps him navigate to building a business that is built to sell. It's actually a great book and well worth reading. DAVID: Yeah. All right, so I am going to do something here. Are you ready? BLAIR: I'm always ready David. What are you going to do? DAVID: Well, I'm going to flip this on you and I want you to come up with three categories around pricing. BLAIR: Oh yeah, that's easy. DAVID: Okay, well you should have some thoughts about this, you just wrote a book. So what are the three categories for pricing that you see out here? BLAIR: Essentially, you have three things that you can sell and I think the three categories really mirror perfectly your categories of starting, existing and thriving. In the beginning, you are selling time, you are selling the inputs of time and materials. And then when you get to the next level which you're calling existing, and I'll just say it's the next level in pricing, is that's when you're selling outputs of deliverables. So instead of charging based on the time, you're charging based on, I'll put in air quotes, the market value of something. And you're still counting your inputs of time and materials but you're essentially pricing based on what the market will bear and you're probably commanding a premium.  The client is getting price certainty. So instead of saying it's going to be $200 an hour and we'll finish when we'll finish, you're making an estimation of the number or hours, probably a range, and then you're pricing it in the higher range and the incentives are for you to come in a bit below that. So your AGI per FTE is going to go up. You're trading a price premium for price certainty because you're selling the deliverables, the campaign, whatever the output is.  And then the third level is when you let go of both of those things and you're selling based on the value that you help create. So you're pricing based not on the inputs of time and materials, not on the market value of what you think the market value is, that service or that output, but based on the revenue gains or cost reductions or other emotional forms of value that your solution will help to deliver. And very often when you do it properly, it's really almost fully untethered from the inputs of time and materials. So those are the three levels of pricing. First you're selling inputs, then you're selling outputs then you're selling outcomes or value. DAVID: So if somebody's in the first category of selling inputs, can they skip the second step and go right to value? BLAIR: Oh yeah, absolutely. DAVID: Okay. Oh, that's interesting. BLAIR: Yeah, and so we talked about the value conversation before and if somebody hasn't listened to that, they might want to go back and listen to that episode. Really, the big shift that happens when you learn to conduct a good value conversation is you completely let go of the solutions and if you're letting go of solutions, you're letting go of cost. So you're actually setting price before you even think ... And this is the trick that you've got to learn to do. Before you even think about what it is that you would do for the client. And when you're able to do that, when you're able to set price before you think about your solutions, let alone your cost, then you have made that transition to the next level. DAVID: I hope people will go back there and listen to that one. It's called "Mastering the Value Conversation," April 4th. That was a really interesting one. Allright, this was fun. BLAIR: Hey, I'm driving here, this was fun David. DAVID: No, I'll tell you if it's fun. If it's ... We should do one like: what's starting, existing and thriving to do a podcast together? What are those three categories? I don't think we want to do that. BLAIR: Oh god, yeah. Yeah, we're still starting. Hey, when we reconvene (we're going to record again in a few days) we're going to talk about the X factor. Now, I'm going to send you some homework on this, I'm going to ask you to think about your most successful clients and what did they have in common. And then we're going to talk about that in the next podcast. DAVID: Okay.    

David grew up with a tribe of Mayan Indians in a remote village in the highlands of Guatemala. He's an author, speaker, and advisor to entrepreneurial experts and his fifth book, The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth teaches entrepreneurs how to elevate their impact. David is a helicopter and airplane pilot, an avid photographer, and taught high performance motorcycle riding/racing. Based in Nashville, he has visited and worked all over the world. He is married, has two boys, two daughters-in-law, and multiple grandchildren. His work has been featured in the WSJ, Fast Company, USA Today, Inc. Magazine, and Forbes. He speaks regularly at various TEDx events, Harvard, Adobe, and major international conferences to audiences looking for accessible and refreshing insight into how experts shape their world.   www.davidcbaker.com www.recourses.com  

David C. Baker is the author of a fantastic book called The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Turn Insights into Impact + Wealth. This book is a must-read for anyone who calls themselves an expert (i.e. you) and sells services that stem from their expertise. In this interview, David shares his professional journey and […] The post The Business of Expertise with David C. Baker appeared first on Boutique Growth.

David is an author, speaker, and advisor helping entrepreneurial experts make better business decisions. His work has been discussed in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Fast Company. Inc. Magazine, Forbes, MarketingProfs, and BusinessWeek. He has been a featured speaker at many marketing industry conferences and has spoken at multiple TEDx events.   Quotes To Remember: “Define your expertise very, very narrowly.” “I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be.” “Entrepreneurship begins somewhere but it never stops.” “You do have to burn bridges with the right people and the right organizations.”   What You’ll Learn: Being an Expert vs. Feeling an Expert Converting Your Insights to a Platform Reinventing Your Business   Key Links From The Show: David’s Site Free 1 month Audible   Recommended Books: The Business of Expertise by David C. BarkerThe Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used by Peter Block   Support Breakthrough Success On Patreon Please consider supporting Breakthrough Success on Patreon. I publish five episodes per week which I carefully prepare for, and I choose to not run ads in my podcast to enhance the listener experience. I offer my patrons various perks, and even a donation as small as $1/mo would make a big difference for growing and maintaining Breakthrough Success. You can support Breakthrough Success by going here.

David C. Baker is a business consultant who has written 5 books, advised 900+ firms, and keynoted conferences in 30+ countries. His work has been discussed in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Fast Company, Forbes, USA Today, BusinessWeek, and Inc. Magazine. David lives in Nashville, TN, but grew up in Guatemala, where his parents did medical and literacy work. His family lived with the K'anjobal, a tribe of Mayans in San Miguel Acatán, Huehuetanango. David helps entrepreneurial creatives make better business decisions about their positioning, their marketing, how they structure their roles in the firm, and how to benchmark their financial performance. His most recent book is called The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth. He also produces a podcast with Blair Enns at 2bobs.com.

Blair revisits David's new book, "The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth" in front of a live audience in London, who get to ask their own questions.

David Baker is a consultant who has been working with marketing firms and advertising agencies since the late 1980s. He is an author, a speaker, and an adviser who helps companies make high-quality business decisions. David focuses on finances, benchmarking, performance, and positioning of firms, as well as PR, advertising, and more. Having spent the majority of his childhood living in a Mayan Indian tribe, David didn’t attend formal school until he was nearly 18 years old. It was during graduate school where he was studying theology and language that he (somewhat naively) decided that he could produce better ads than the ones he was seeing in newspapers. He began consulting peers on the side and realized that he wanted to pursue consulting as a full-time career. Once he discovered that he had the skills he needed for success, his career took off and hasn’t stopped since. In our conversation, David shares the mistakes he made in the early days of his career, how he has achieved the perfect work-life balance, and the number one error that he wishes consultants would stop making. With over three decades of experience under his belt, he is definitely a consulting and business expert, and you won’t want to miss the insights he shares on this on this episode of the Consulting Success Podcast.   Don’t Compromise Just to Keep Feeding the Machine For many of today’s successful consultants, taking the leap from a secure paycheck to an independent consulting business can be a very scary one. David knew all about that reality — and the potential unreliability of consulting gigs — when he first started out. He decided to take on a second full-time job to help buffer his potential risk while getting his consulting business up and running. By doing this he was guaranteed a way to still feed his family without having to deal with potential pressure from the economy to lower his consulting work. It only took him a few months, but the security that the second job offered him was priceless as he was starting out. By having an extra stream of income, David was able to only take on consulting clients that he really wanted to work with, and he didn’t have to compromise his pricing, either.   You may find yourself in a similar situation where you are considering negotiating on your pricing so that you can secure more work, but David says, don’t! There are endless opportunities for growth within the consulting field, and that growth can be used to your advantage. When business slows, you may be tempted to lower your prices or take on work from a less-than-ideal client, but that will undoubtedly lead to a constant stream of compromises.   In our conversation, David shares several tips to help you avoid making these kinds of detrimental compromises. First, you have to decide how big you want your firm to be. Don’t let the marketplace decide that for you, and don’t grow or shrink based on the marketplace either.  Second, you have to size your firm in proportion to how many opportunities you regularly encounter. You should position yourself in such a way that you can routinely turn down work, and be more selective about the kind of work that you are willing to take on. This will put you in a position to make the best choices for your firm. You’ll want to listen as David explains why this approach will give you greater success over the long run.   A Successful Business Isn’t Just a Hobby Too many entrepreneurs approach their business as a side job. While it’s true that some people are simply more success-minded than others, if you possess the number one qualities that David outlines in our conversation, you will be more successful than your peers and competitors. But first, you can determine if your business is headed toward success by truthfully examining your income levels. A successful entrepreneurial enterprise yields profit consistently, while those who find that they are constantly having cash flow problems are, in reality, the ones that are having legitimate business problems.   Taking Risks Means Securing Success In David’s fifth and newest book The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Conver Insight to Impact + Wealth, David conducted a series of surveys with over 1,000 entrepreneurs and found that they all had only one major characteristic in common — their willingness to take risks. In our conversation, we discuss the payoff that comes with taking risks as your consulting business grows.   Many consultants are afraid to make decisions, but you can’t let this happen to you. By looking at the negatives before the positives in the risks that you may encounter, you are only going to paralyze your progress. David recognizes that the only safe way to never make any mistakes is to never make any decisions, but that will hardly create a thriving consulting business. Although the potential for taking risks may compound as your company grows, so will the rewards. Your employees will surely be forgiving of the bad decisions you make, but they won’t be forgiving if you never make any decisions at all. Anytime you are faced with a decision to make — whether it be to add a partner or take on a new client — weigh your options quickly, pull the trigger, and don’t look back.   Making Mistakes Means Becoming a Better Consultant If you’re like David, you may not remember the good choices that you’ve made nearly as well as you remember the mistakes you’ve made along the way. But don’t worry — that is a good thing. The lessons you learn from your poor choices are the ones that are going to teach you how to be a better consultant. David shares several of the mistakes that he made — some of which prompted the writing of his fourth book Managing (Right) for the First Time — and those that have allowed him to achieve the level of consulting success that he enjoys today.   Finding the Right Size Business for You Every entrepreneur and consultant dream of achieving the right size business that also allows for perfect work-life balance. Despite years of pressure to grow larger, David resisted this pressure and instead found ways to make his one-person company work harder for him. He details the formula that he uses to grow his business, starting with his weekly content-filled email, which reaches an audience of 30,000 readers and potential clients. His decision to produce content consistently has been the biggest contributor to his company’s success. He admits that he’s not much of an extrovert or a networker, but he has still managed to find a very successful way to reach his clients that fits his personality perfectly.   Avoid These Common Mistakes to Find Greater Success David has been in the marketing and consulting industry since the late ’80s, and he has seen consultants make plenty of mistakes along the way. The biggest mistake is watching consultants consistently solve clients problems on an individual basis. When a client approaches you with what seems to be a unique problem, you have to take a step back and recognize that this is a problem that many consultants have experienced before and that many more will face in the future. If you can find a way to solve a client’s problem on a greater scale, you can increase the demand for your expertise and also reduce your future workload. David also shares the easy fix to the second biggest problem he has seen in the consulting world, and it starts with increasing your confidence level and perfecting your positioning in your marketplace. A successful consultant doesn’t spin his wheels — he learns from his mistakes and propels himself from there to success. You can hear all about David’s tips and advice for starting out right and achieving greater success on this episode of the Consulting Success Podcast.   Key Takeaways: [:19] Introduction of David Baker — current consultant, former Mayan Indian tribe dweller. [6:45] Why you can’t afford to compromise your standard of work. [10:07] Successful entrepreneurs have these key qualities in common. [12:31] Taking risks will compound your consulting success. [16:37] The lessons learned that allow David now to serve his clients so well. [20:27] Finding the right sized business means resisting pressure and producing content. [24:27] David’s earliest steps to consulting success. [26:20] Avoid these common consulting mistakes, starting with increasing your confidence level. [31:14] How you can connect with David Baker.   Mentioned in This Episode: Expertise.is The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth, by David Baker Managing (Right) for the First Time, by David Baker   Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Consulting Success Community today: consultingsuccess.com

David Baker is a consultant who has been working with marketing firms and advertising agencies since the late 1980s. He is an author, a speaker, and an adviser who helps companies make high-quality business decisions. David focuses on finances, benchmarking, performance, and positioning of firms, as well as PR, advertising, and more. Having spent the majority of his childhood living in a Mayan Indian tribe, David didn’t attend formal school until he was nearly 18 years old. It was during graduate school where he was studying theology and language that he (somewhat naively) decided that he could produce better ads than the ones he was seeing in newspapers. He began consulting peers on the side and realized that he wanted to pursue consulting as a full-time career. Once he discovered that he had the skills he needed for success, his career took off and hasn’t stopped since. In our conversation, David shares the mistakes he made in the early days of his career, how he has achieved the perfect work-life balance, and the number one error that he wishes consultants would stop making. With over three decades of experience under his belt, he is definitely a consulting and business expert, and you won’t want to miss the insights he shares on this on this episode of the Consulting Success Podcast.   Don’t Compromise Just to Keep Feeding the Machine For many of today’s successful consultants, taking the leap from a secure paycheck to an independent consulting business can be a very scary one. David knew all about that reality — and the potential unreliability of consulting gigs — when he first started out. He decided to take on a second full-time job to help buffer his potential risk while getting his consulting business up and running. By doing this he was guaranteed a way to still feed his family without having to deal with potential pressure from the economy to lower his consulting work. It only took him a few months, but the security that the second job offered him was priceless as he was starting out. By having an extra stream of income, David was able to only take on consulting clients that he really wanted to work with, and he didn’t have to compromise his pricing, either.   You may find yourself in a similar situation where you are considering negotiating on your pricing so that you can secure more work, but David says, don’t! There are endless opportunities for growth within the consulting field, and that growth can be used to your advantage. When business slows, you may be tempted to lower your prices or take on work from a less-than-ideal client, but that will undoubtedly lead to a constant stream of compromises.   In our conversation, David shares several tips to help you avoid making these kinds of detrimental compromises. First, you have to decide how big you want your firm to be. Don’t let the marketplace decide that for you, and don’t grow or shrink based on the marketplace either.  Second, you have to size your firm in proportion to how many opportunities you regularly encounter. You should position yourself in such a way that you can routinely turn down work, and be more selective about the kind of work that you are willing to take on. This will put you in a position to make the best choices for your firm. You’ll want to listen as David explains why this approach will give you greater success over the long run.   A Successful Business Isn’t Just a Hobby Too many entrepreneurs approach their business as a side job. While it’s true that some people are simply more success-minded than others, if you possess the number one qualities that David outlines in our conversation, you will be more successful than your peers and competitors. But first, you can determine if your business is headed toward success by truthfully examining your income levels. A successful entrepreneurial enterprise yields profit consistently, while those who find that they are constantly having cash flow problems are, in reality, the ones that are having legitimate business problems.   Taking Risks Means Securing Success In David’s fifth and newest book The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Conver Insight to Impact + Wealth, David conducted a series of surveys with over 1,000 entrepreneurs and found that they all had only one major characteristic in common — their willingness to take risks. In our conversation, we discuss the payoff that comes with taking risks as your consulting business grows.   Many consultants are afraid to make decisions, but you can’t let this happen to you. By looking at the negatives before the positives in the risks that you may encounter, you are only going to paralyze your progress. David recognizes that the only safe way to never make any mistakes is to never make any decisions, but that will hardly create a thriving consulting business. Although the potential for taking risks may compound as your company grows, so will the rewards. Your employees will surely be forgiving of the bad decisions you make, but they won’t be forgiving if you never make any decisions at all. Anytime you are faced with a decision to make — whether it be to add a partner or take on a new client — weigh your options quickly, pull the trigger, and don’t look back.   Making Mistakes Means Becoming a Better Consultant If you’re like David, you may not remember the good choices that you’ve made nearly as well as you remember the mistakes you’ve made along the way. But don’t worry — that is a good thing. The lessons you learn from your poor choices are the ones that are going to teach you how to be a better consultant. David shares several of the mistakes that he made — some of which prompted the writing of his fourth book Managing (Right) for the First Time — and those that have allowed him to achieve the level of consulting success that he enjoys today.   Finding the Right Size Business for You Every entrepreneur and consultant dream of achieving the right size business that also allows for perfect work-life balance. Despite years of pressure to grow larger, David resisted this pressure and instead found ways to make his one-person company work harder for him. He details the formula that he uses to grow his business, starting with his weekly content-filled email, which reaches an audience of 30,000 readers and potential clients. His decision to produce content consistently has been the biggest contributor to his company’s success. He admits that he’s not much of an extrovert or a networker, but he has still managed to find a very successful way to reach his clients that fits his personality perfectly.   Avoid These Common Mistakes to Find Greater Success David has been in the marketing and consulting industry since the late ’80s, and he has seen consultants make plenty of mistakes along the way. The biggest mistake is watching consultants consistently solve clients problems on an individual basis. When a client approaches you with what seems to be a unique problem, you have to take a step back and recognize that this is a problem that many consultants have experienced before and that many more will face in the future. If you can find a way to solve a client’s problem on a greater scale, you can increase the demand for your expertise and also reduce your future workload. David also shares the easy fix to the second biggest problem he has seen in the consulting world, and it starts with increasing your confidence level and perfecting your positioning in your marketplace. A successful consultant doesn’t spin his wheels — he learns from his mistakes and propels himself from there to success. You can hear all about David’s tips and advice for starting out right and achieving greater success on this episode of the Consulting Success Podcast.   Key Takeaways: [:19] Introduction of David Baker — current consultant, former Mayan Indian tribe dweller. [6:45] Why you can’t afford to compromise your standard of work. [10:07] Successful entrepreneurs have these key qualities in common. [12:31] Taking risks will compound your consulting success. [16:37] The lessons learned that allow David now to serve his clients so well. [20:27] Finding the right sized business means resisting pressure and producing content. [24:27] David’s earliest steps to consulting success. [26:20] Avoid these common consulting mistakes, starting with increasing your confidence level. [31:14] How you can connect with David Baker.   Mentioned in This Episode: Expertise.is The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth, by David Baker Managing (Right) for the First Time, by David Baker   Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Consulting Success Community today: consultingsuccess.com

David Baker is a consultant who has been working with marketing firms and advertising agencies since the late 1980s. He is an author, a speaker, and an adviser who helps companies make high-quality business decisions. David focuses on finances, benchmarking, performance, and positioning of firms, as well as PR, advertising, and more. Having spent the majority of his childhood living in a Mayan Indian tribe, David didn’t attend formal school until he was nearly 18 years old. It was during graduate school where he was studying theology and language that he (somewhat naively) decided that he could produce better ads than the ones he was seeing in newspapers. He began consulting peers on the side and realized that he wanted to pursue consulting as a full-time career. Once he discovered that he had the skills he needed for success, his career took off and hasn’t stopped since. In our conversation, David shares the mistakes he made in the early days of his career, how he has achieved the perfect work-life balance, and the number one error that he wishes consultants would stop making. With over three decades of experience under his belt, he is definitely a consulting and business expert, and you won’t want to miss the insights he shares on this on this episode of the Consulting Success Podcast.   Don’t Compromise Just to Keep Feeding the Machine For many of today’s successful consultants, taking the leap from a secure paycheck to an independent consulting business can be a very scary one. David knew all about that reality — and the potential unreliability of consulting gigs — when he first started out. He decided to take on a second full-time job to help buffer his potential risk while getting his consulting business up and running. By doing this he was guaranteed a way to still feed his family without having to deal with potential pressure from the economy to lower his consulting work. It only took him a few months, but the security that the second job offered him was priceless as he was starting out. By having an extra stream of income, David was able to only take on consulting clients that he really wanted to work with, and he didn’t have to compromise his pricing, either.   You may find yourself in a similar situation where you are considering negotiating on your pricing so that you can secure more work, but David says, don’t! There are endless opportunities for growth within the consulting field, and that growth can be used to your advantage. When business slows, you may be tempted to lower your prices or take on work from a less-than-ideal client, but that will undoubtedly lead to a constant stream of compromises.   In our conversation, David shares several tips to help you avoid making these kinds of detrimental compromises. First, you have to decide how big you want your firm to be. Don’t let the marketplace decide that for you, and don’t grow or shrink based on the marketplace either.  Second, you have to size your firm in proportion to how many opportunities you regularly encounter. You should position yourself in such a way that you can routinely turn down work, and be more selective about the kind of work that you are willing to take on. This will put you in a position to make the best choices for your firm. You’ll want to listen as David explains why this approach will give you greater success over the long run.   A Successful Business Isn’t Just a Hobby Too many entrepreneurs approach their business as a side job. While it’s true that some people are simply more success-minded than others, if you possess the number one qualities that David outlines in our conversation, you will be more successful than your peers and competitors. But first, you can determine if your business is headed toward success by truthfully examining your income levels. A successful entrepreneurial enterprise yields profit consistently, while those who find that they are constantly having cash flow problems are, in reality, the ones that are having legitimate business problems.   Taking Risks Means Securing Success In David’s fifth and newest book The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Conver Insight to Impact + Wealth, David conducted a series of surveys with over 1,000 entrepreneurs and found that they all had only one major characteristic in common — their willingness to take risks. In our conversation, we discuss the payoff that comes with taking risks as your consulting business grows.   Many consultants are afraid to make decisions, but you can’t let this happen to you. By looking at the negatives before the positives in the risks that you may encounter, you are only going to paralyze your progress. David recognizes that the only safe way to never make any mistakes is to never make any decisions, but that will hardly create a thriving consulting business. Although the potential for taking risks may compound as your company grows, so will the rewards. Your employees will surely be forgiving of the bad decisions you make, but they won’t be forgiving if you never make any decisions at all. Anytime you are faced with a decision to make — whether it be to add a partner or take on a new client — weigh your options quickly, pull the trigger, and don’t look back.   Making Mistakes Means Becoming a Better Consultant If you’re like David, you may not remember the good choices that you’ve made nearly as well as you remember the mistakes you’ve made along the way. But don’t worry — that is a good thing. The lessons you learn from your poor choices are the ones that are going to teach you how to be a better consultant. David shares several of the mistakes that he made — some of which prompted the writing of his fourth book Managing (Right) for the First Time — and those that have allowed him to achieve the level of consulting success that he enjoys today.   Finding the Right Size Business for You Every entrepreneur and consultant dream of achieving the right size business that also allows for perfect work-life balance. Despite years of pressure to grow larger, David resisted this pressure and instead found ways to make his one-person company work harder for him. He details the formula that he uses to grow his business, starting with his weekly content-filled email, which reaches an audience of 30,000 readers and potential clients. His decision to produce content consistently has been the biggest contributor to his company’s success. He admits that he’s not much of an extrovert or a networker, but he has still managed to find a very successful way to reach his clients that fits his personality perfectly.   Avoid These Common Mistakes to Find Greater Success David has been in the marketing and consulting industry since the late ’80s, and he has seen consultants make plenty of mistakes along the way. The biggest mistake is watching consultants consistently solve clients problems on an individual basis. When a client approaches you with what seems to be a unique problem, you have to take a step back and recognize that this is a problem that many consultants have experienced before and that many more will face in the future. If you can find a way to solve a client’s problem on a greater scale, you can increase the demand for your expertise and also reduce your future workload. David also shares the easy fix to the second biggest problem he has seen in the consulting world, and it starts with increasing your confidence level and perfecting your positioning in your marketplace. A successful consultant doesn’t spin his wheels — he learns from his mistakes and propels himself from there to success. You can hear all about David’s tips and advice for starting out right and achieving greater success on this episode of the Consulting Success Podcast.   Key Takeaways: [:19] Introduction of David Baker — current consultant, former Mayan Indian tribe dweller. [6:45] Why you can’t afford to compromise your standard of work. [10:07] Successful entrepreneurs have these key qualities in common. [12:31] Taking risks will compound your consulting success. [16:37] The lessons learned that allow David now to serve his clients so well. [20:27] Finding the right sized business means resisting pressure and producing content. [24:27] David’s earliest steps to consulting success. [26:20] Avoid these common consulting mistakes, starting with increasing your confidence level. [31:14] How you can connect with David Baker.   Mentioned in This Episode: Expertise.is The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth, by David Baker Managing (Right) for the First Time, by David Baker   Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Consulting Success Community today: consultingsuccess.com

In this episode of the Expert Marketing Matters podcast, your hosts, Mark O’Brien, Chris Butler, and Lauren Siler, are joined by David C. Baker to discuss his newest book, The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth.

"The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth" by David C. Baker   Click here to view the show notes! https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/business-expertise-david-baker

David has written 5 books, advised 900+ firms, and keynoted conferences in 30+ countries. His work has been discussed in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Fast Company, Forbes, USA Today, BusinessWeek, and Inc. Magazine. He lives in Nashville, TN, but grew up in Guatemala, where he lived with the K'anjobal, a tribe of Mayans in San Miguel Acatán, Huehuetanango, where his parents did medical and literacy work. David helps entpreneurial creatives make better business decisions about their positioning and marketing, how they structure their roles in the firm, and how to benchmark their financial performance. His most recent book is called "The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth." He also produces a podcast with Blair Enns at 2bobs.com.Learn More: www.expertise.isInfluential Influencers with Mike Saundershttp://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/

David has written 5 books, advised 900+ firms, and keynoted conferences in 30+ countries. His work has been discussed in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Fast Company, Forbes, USA Today, BusinessWeek, and Inc. Magazine. He lives in Nashville, TN, but grew up in Guatemala, where he lived with the K'anjobal, a tribe of Mayans in San Miguel Acatán, Huehuetanango, where his parents did medical and literacy work. David helps entpreneurial creatives make better business decisions about their positioning and marketing, how they structure their roles in the firm, and how to benchmark their financial performance. His most recent book is called "The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth." He also produces a podcast with Blair Enns at 2bobs.com.Learn More: www.expertise.isInfluential Influencers with Mike Saundershttp://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/

In this Outperform podcast episode, AP founder Robert Glazer talks with David Baker about his fascinating background and some key insights from his newest book, The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth. From growing up with a tribe of Mayan Indians in a remote village in Guatemala to becoming an author of five books, high performance motorcycle racer and TEDx speaker, David's vast and varied background is one of the things that makes him a sought-after business and marketing consultant. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why it’s so important to specialize or be an expert in business today How to make better decisions as a business when demand exceeds supply Some of the mistakes David’s made in his career that he’s learned the most from About the most common mistakes David see’s professional service firms making Examples of companies that are nailing the concept of identifying their expertise What parallels David sees between advising entrepreneurs and high performance motorcycle racing Enjoy the episode! To learn more about Acceleration Partners, check us out at www.accelerationpartners.com.