Podcasts about million dollar consulting

This one right here… is special. I sat down with one of the biggest influences on my journey — Alan Weiss, the author of Million Dollar Consulting. This is the guy who literally wrote the book on how to build a business around your expertise. I read this book 4 times. If you're a coach, consultant, speaker or just someone trying to turn what you know into impact , you need to hear this. We talked about everything from the truth behind Napoleon Hill to why you don't need an office, a big team, or even a website to become a go-to authority. Alan drops game on what it really takes to become a Million Dollar Consultant. We get into: Why overhead is the enemy of freedomHow to raise your fees without flinchingThe real reason most experts stay invisibleHow to position your value without overexplainingWhat “scope seep” is — and how it's costing you This conversation was an honor for me. If you've ever felt like you're great at what you do but still not getting the recognition or income you deserve, this one's for you. If it resonates, I'd be super grateful if you shared it with a friend or dropped a rating. That's what helps the show grow. And if you want to talk more about the episode or ask questions, join my private group here:

If you want to be a successful consultant, you need to focus on process—on creating "a set of pipes only you can play," as world-renowned consulting expert Alan Weiss puts it. In this episode, Alan shares hard-won insights from his decades of experience, including why successful consulting means being a good marketer, why presentations and pitches are midcentury relics, and why value-based pricing is the clear choice over hourly fees. He also shares practical advice on starting and growing a consulting practice, including the six key ways to meet buyers and why consultants should avoid unnecessary overhead costs when they're just starting out. Alan Weiss is a globally recognized authority in consulting and professional speaking, with a client roster including Merck, Hewlett-Packard, Mercedes-Benz, and over 500 other leading organizations. He's an inductee into the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame and a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants—one of only two people holding both distinctions. His prolific work includes over 60 books, notably the bestseller "Million Dollar Consulting," now in its sixth edition. Weiss has taught at prestigious institutions including Case Western Reserve University and Boston College, and holds a Ph.D. in psychology. Alan prefers the tried-and-true Dunkin' Donuts for his coffee. His book recommendations include  Managing in Turbulent Times by Peter Drucker (https://www.amazon.com/Managing-Turbulent-Times-Peter-Drucker/dp/0750617039) and Andrea Gabor's The Capitalist Philosophers (https://www.amazon.com/Capitalist-Philosophers-Geniuses-Modern-Business/dp/0609808877). Connect with Alan on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanweissphd If you have any questions about brands and marketing, connect with Itir Eraslan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itireraslan/

Send me a text message and get your questions answered on the podcast! I'd love to hear from you! Are You Unknowingly Sabotaging Your Million-Dollar Consulting Dream?You're not alone in dreaming big—many consultants have million-dollar aspirations. But what if the biggest roadblock to your success is… you?In this episode, we're cutting through the noise and diving deep into what truly drives growth and financial success in your consulting business. Spoiler alert: It's not about nailing the perfect pitch.Get ready for some real talk and unfiltered insights that challenge the status quo. If you're serious about leveling up your consulting game, this conversation is a must-listen.Tune in now to discover the keys to unlocking your full potential and building the consulting business you've always wanted! **************For more information on how to start, grow, or scale your consulting business, visit https://excelatconsulting.com/Let's Connect! I'd love to continue this conversation with you. Instagram:   @drangelinadavis  LinkedIn:    @drangelinadavis

Ever wondered just exactly what it takes to scale a consulting business while maintaining agility and delivering high-impact results? Keith Scott, today's guest, has mastered this art and is here to share his journey. Keith is the CEO and co-founder of K.L. Scott and Associates, a consulting firm that has seen exponential growth, doubling and tripling revenue projections year over year. With a deep background in top-tier firms like Deloitte and Gartner, Keith has successfully transitioned from the structured environment of these corporate giants to running a fully remote, agile consulting firm that serves major federal and state government clients across the U.S. In this episode, Keith dives into the strategies that have propelled his firm to success, from leveraging data-driven insights for public policy impact to building a remote team that delivers top-tier results without the overhead of a traditional office.In this episode, you will learn:The benefits of running a fully remote consulting firmHow to transition from a corporate role to founding a consulting businessThe key differences between working at large firms like Deloitte and running your own consultancyStrategies for winning government contracts and scaling a consulting businessThe importance of agility and intimate client relationships in a small consulting firmLessons on partnership dynamics and structuring a consulting business for growthInsights into the role of social impact in shaping a consulting firm's mission and cultureWelcome to the Consulting Success podcast. I'm your host Michael Zipursky, and in this podcast, we're going to dive deep into the world of elite consultants where you're going to learn the strategies, tactics and mindset to grow a highly profitable and successful consulting business.Before we dive into today's episode. Are you ready to grow and take your consulting business to the next level? Many of the clients that we work with started as podcast listeners just like you, and a consistent theme they have shared with us is that they wished they had reached out sooner about our Clarity Coaching Program rather than waiting for that perfect time. If you're interested in learning more about how we help consultants just like you, we're offering a free, no pressure growth session call. On this call, we're going to dive deep into your goals, challenges and situation and outline a plan that is tailor made just for you. We will also help you identify where you may be making costly and time consuming mistakes to ensure you're benefiting from the proven methods and strategies to grow your consulting business. So don't wait years to find clarity. If you're committed and serious about reaching a new level of success in your consulting business, go ahead and schedule your free growth session. Get in touch today. Just visit Consulting Success - Grow to book your free call today.Keith Scott, founder and CEO of K.L. Scott & Associates, LLC, is a seasoned leader in IT and management consulting with over 29 years of experience supporting local, state, and federal government agencies. Renowned for delivering results, he excels in optimizing client performance through strategic planning, organizational transformation, and IT strategy. With a proven track record, he has successfully led complex projects for over 50 government clients. Keith holds a B.S. in Computer Science, an MBA, and certifications in Project Management (PMP) and Business Analytics.In this episode, you'll explore the benefits of running a fully remote consulting firm and gain valuable insights into transitioning from a corporate role to founding your own business. You'll also discover the key differences between working at large...

On today's episode I talk with Nate Clark, founder and principal software engineer of Brand New Box.  We discuss Brand New Box's early days and what it's like to found an agency, the different ways Nate and I think about acquiring new business,  marketing yourself, how big picture thinking can sharpen your day to day plans, deciding to build a product, the difficulty of finding a problem to solve where it makes financial sense to do so, and how personal relationships beget opportunities.Million Dollar Consulting by Alan WeissTraction by Gino WickmanBrand New BoxNate Clark on LinkedInNate Clark on Twitter

Jess and Jeremy catch up in this one-on-one episode after a short summer break. We cover a number of topics, including our latest seasons of work, reading the book Million Dollar Consulting, our mastermind group, and some realizations looking back over the last year.

In this conversation, Henry interviews Alan Weiss, a renowned consultant and author. They discuss various topics, including Alan's background, his love for dogs, his eclectic taste in music, his reading list, and his biggest inspirations. Alan shares his journey of becoming a successful consultant and emphasizes the importance of referrals and delivering value to clients. He also talks about the significance of finding one's calling and the power of taking action. Alan Weiss shares his journey from being fired to becoming a successful consultant and author. He emphasizes the importance of providing value and building trust with clients. Weiss also discusses the power of creating a proposal that demonstrates the value and return on investment for the client. He highlights the significance of professionalism and self-worth in building successful relationships. Weiss offers advice for those starting their own businesses, including knowing your value, identifying your ideal buyer, and surrounding yourself with mentors. He concludes by emphasizing the importance of a positive attitude and a focus on helping others. Keywords consulting, Alan Weiss, background, dogs, music, reading, inspiration, advice, success, referrals, value, calling, action, consulting, value, trust, proposal, professionalism, self-worth, starting a business, mentors, positive attitude Takeaways Alan Weiss is a highly respected consultant and author with extensive experience in the field. He emphasizes the importance of referrals and delivering value to clients. Finding one's calling and taking action are key to success. Alan's eclectic taste in music and his love for dogs add depth to his personality. He believes in learning from fiction and the influence of teachers in his early education. Alan's contrarian approach challenges conventional wisdom and encourages critical thinking. Provide value and build trust with clients to establish successful relationships. Create a proposal that demonstrates the value and return on investment for the client. Maintain professionalism and self-worth to command respect from clients. Surround yourself with mentors and coaches who can guide and support you. Have a positive attitude and focus on helping others. Sound Bites "It's about success not perfection" "Perfection really kills excellence" "There are six ways to market effectively, and the only mandatory one is referrals" "Just having a conversation where I provided value, where I was a peer of the buyer and not a supplicant, not somebody searching for work, this guy was so strong, he wanted people like that around him." "One of the keys is to create a proposal, which I created the format for, which is just two and a half pages. No boilerplate, no legal nonsense, it's two and a half pages. And basically it says, here's what you want to achieve." "You have to show respect for your buyer. You have to show respect for the other person. And you do that by respecting yourself." Chapters 00:00Introduction and Background 03:08Alan's Love for Dogs 05:21Alan's Eclectic Taste in Music 09:09Alan's Reading List and Inspirations 12:17The Journey of a Rock Star Consultant 16:39The Power of Referrals and Delivering Value 21:27Creating a Proposal that Demonstrates Value 28:04The Importance of Professionalism and Self-Worth 29:54Surrounding Yourself with Mentors and Coaches 43:37The Power of a Positive Attitude and Helping Others More from Alan: www.alanweiss.com More from Henry: www.henrybiemann.com

Today we welcome the legendary Alan Weiss. Alan is a world-renowned consultant, speaker, and author who has helped hundreds of businesses and individuals achieve massive success. With over 60 books to his name, including the bestseller "Million Dollar Consulting," and inductee into multiple halls of fame, Alan is a true authority on entrepreneurship and leadership. In this value-packed conversation, Alan shares his insights on how attorneys can take their practice to the next level. Discover how to price your services based on value, generate a steady stream of referrals, and stay ahead of the curve in an ever-changing industry. Alan challenges conventional wisdom and offers fresh perspectives that will make you rethink the way you approach your firm. Get your PIMCON Ticket Today! Links Want to hear more from elite personal injury lawyers and industry-leading marketers? Follow us on social media for more. Rankings.io Instagram Chris Dreyer Instagram Rankings.io Twitter Rankings.io Website Alan Weiss LinkedIn Alan Weiss Website Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth Podcast Sentient Strategy: How to Create Market-Dominating Strategies in Turbulent Economies What's in This Episode: Who is Alan Weiss? How to be a better speaker. How doing the uncomfortable thing and removing one little obstacle can help you become limitless. Why quantity marketing and quality connection equal more referrals.  Past Guests Past guests on Personal Injury Mastermind: Brent Sibley, Sam Glover, Larry Nussbaum, Michael Mogill, Brian Chase, Jay Kelley, Alvaro Arauz, Eric Chaffin, Brian Panish, John Gomez, Sol Weiss, Matthew Dolman, Gabriel Levin, Seth Godin, David Craig, Pete Strom, John Ruhlin, Andrew Finkelstein, Harry Morton, Shay Rowbottom, Maria Monroy, Dave Thomas, Marc Anidjar, Bob Simon, Seth Price, John Gomez, Megan Hargroder, Brandon Yosha, Mike Mandell, Brett Sachs, Paul Faust, Jennifer Gore-Cuthbert Additional Episodes You Might Enjoy 80. Mike Papantonio, Levin, Papantonio, & Rafferty — Doing Well by Doing Good 84. Glen Lerner, Lerner and Rowe – A Steady Hand in a Shifting Industry 101. Pratik Shah, EsquireTek — Discovering the Power of Automation 134. Darryl Isaacs, Isaacs & Isaacs — The Hammer: Insights from a Marketing Legend 104. Taly Goody, Goody Law Group — Finding PI Clients on TikTok 63. Joe Fried, Fried Goldberg LLC — How To Become An Expert And Revolutionize Your PI Niche 96. Brian Dean, Backlinko — Becoming a Linkable Source 83. Seth Godin — Differentiation: How to Make Your Law Firm a Purple Cow 73. Neil Patel, Neil Patel — Digital A New Approach to Content and Emerging Marketing Channels

This one's for all you independent consultants, coaches, and experts who are looking to grow your business next year. We're going to chat about what it really takes to build a million-dollar consulting business.    Yes; you need the right mindset.  Yes; you need to be good at what you do   But did you know there's an actual mathematical formula to determine if your company is capable of hitting a million dollars in gross revenue a year? There is, and in this episode April Beach, an international business strategist, unpacks the key values you need to be aware of that become the inputs for your million-dollar business formula.    This episode is like your personal guide to growing your business in a smart way. It's super helpful if you're working on your own and want to increase your sales without burning out. We're going to talk about knowing your limits, which is really important, and using that knowledge to make better plans for your business. This way, you can make more money, keep your customers happy, and still have time for yourself! April's approach has helped people all over the world. She's got some great strategies that can be tailored to your own unique business.         At the end of this episode, you will:  Assess your Offers: It's important to really know the ins and outs of the services or advice you provide. This helps you see where you can grow. Understand Your Limits: Knowing how much you can handle is key. It helps you plan better and grow your business without getting too stressed. Clean Up Your Offers: Quickly see what offers are dragging you down and where to build improvements  For more details go to https://sweetlifepodcast.com/312

This episode is available on Spotify and Apple PodcastsIn this special episode of the Contrarian Marketing Podcast, hosts Kevin and Eli have an in-depth conversation with Alan Weiss, author of over 60 books on consulting and considered an icon in the field.They discuss Alan's background, his approach to consulting, writing, learning, and more. Listeners can expect to gain insights into becoming a successful consultant as well as Alan's perspectives on technology, AI, relationships, and personal development.⚠️ In the episode, we announce the launch of a cohort-based SEO course!Key Discussion Points- On learning to become a consultant: get a coach, focus on marketing yourself, have money set aside, get buy-in from loved ones (00:39:00)- On specializing vs generalizing: "You can generalize and thrive or specialize and die." Specialists become commoditized. (00:41:30)- On what makes a great consultant: Have original intellectual property (IP), be resilient, tolerate ambiguity, have a sense of humor (00:34:25)- On writing books: Writes books in 2 months, 20 pages a day, doesn't do much editing, has sold over 100k copies of books (00:12:23)- On technology and AI: Sees it as an aid but doesn't think it can replace human creativity and relationships (00:18:15)Quotes"A consultant is somebody who is six yards ahead of you on the skis, demonstrating how to bend your knees and traverse the mountain." (00:39:37)"It's not about what you do, it's about what you create." (00:08:02)"You have to have original IP, original intellectual capital, and that doesn't mean it has to be brand new." (00:34:09)About Alan WeissAlan Weiss, Ph.D., is the author of over 60 business books and founder of Summit Consulting Group. He has consulted for Fortune 500 companies for over 30 years and was inducted into the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame. Alan popularized the concept of value-based fees and has written several bestselling books on consulting, including Million Dollar Consulting and The Consulting Bible. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.contrarianmarketingpodcast.com

Jeff has been representing me for over 30 years, and was responsible for acquiring publishers (McGraw-Hill, Wiley, Macmillan, AMACOM, et. al.) for my four best-sellers, including the 30-year, 6-edition Million Dollar Consulting. He is responsible for thousands of published works and hundreds of authors' happiness. For example, he represented the famous Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. We talk of the takeover of publishing by large venture capital firms. We discuss why hard copy books have never disappeared or even greatly diminished, despite the false prophets of electronic dominance. Learn how to create a query letter and formal proposal to “sell” an agent to represent you, and why publishers are expecting the authors to market and sell enough books to pay for the entire initial press run (sad, but true, and publishers know next-to-nothing about marketing these days, and wouldn't invest in it even if they did). Publishers once paid for advances, but now they want the “advance” from you in terms of initial sales. You can, of course, pay between $50,000 and substantial six-figure amounts to firms which will “guarantee” a best-seller position in the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, but it's for a nanosecond. I know people who have done it. They don't even deserve the nanosecond. Jeff talks about the distinctions of the power of reviews vs. testimonials, and what it takes to convince an agent to represent you. This is a fast and furious tour through modern publishing. You might want to fasten your seat belt. Most of my business and referrals have originated with my books.

This episode is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.In this episode of the Contrarian Marketing Podcast, we discuss Apple's VR headset, WhatsApp channels, and the future of Meta, formerly known as Facebook.With TikTok taking headlines at the Mobile Apps Unlocked conference and Meta nowhere to be found, what does this mean for the future of tech companies? Can we really count them out? As Kevin says, "I think you can never ever count a tech company out, especially a tech company with tons of cash."They also delve into* The psychology behind contrarian marketing strategies * How Apple's VR headset might change the game for communication and productivity* Whether WhatsApp channels disrupt conventional brand marketing* If AI can change the playing field in searchJoin Kevin and Eli as they dissect these questions and much more!Transcript[00:00:00] Contrarian Marketing Podcast: Apple's VR headset, WhatsApp channels, and TikTok at Mobile Apps Unlocked[00:00:00] Kevin: Stop.[00:00:05] Eli: Hi, welcome to another episode of the Contrarian Marketing podcast where we give you ideas you might not be thinking about today.[00:00:11] Eli: We're talking about Apple's VR headset, WhatsApp channels and other news.[00:00:16] Eli: Eli, you just went to an event that is not the Apple WWDC.[00:00:21] Eli: Tell us about it.[00:00:22] Kevin: So I went to an event in Vegas call the Mobile Apps Unlocked conference and they did an interesting thing where they allowed all marketers who are not at agencies to go for free.[00:00:33] Kevin: So I'm not a big fan of paying 1000 $502,500 to go and attend a conference because if anything we've learned from the Pandemic, you could do a lot of learning without going anywhere.[00:00:44] Kevin: I go for the network, but I don't know necessarily if a network is worthwhile.[00:00:48] Kevin: So I don't really want to invest 1000 $502,500 in that conference because I can't go to that many.[00:00:52] Kevin: Like I would certainly do that for most the most awesome conference, but for a conference I've never heard of before or vaguely knew about, not sure I'd do that.[00:01:00] Kevin: But this conference was free for marketers.[00:01:02] Kevin: Obviously I had to pay my own travels in Las Vegas.[00:01:05] Kevin: It's called mobile apps.[00:01:06] Kevin: Unlocked.[00:01:06] Kevin: I think it was 1000 2000.[00:01:08] Eli: People talks about mobile.[00:01:10] Kevin: Of course, a lot of growth marketers there met fascinating people.[00:01:13] Kevin: But TikTok was a headline sponsor and they had dozens of TikTok employees.[00:01:18] Kevin: And they talked about all the things that TikTok does gaming, creative partnerships, a lot of things that go well beyond influencers.[00:01:26] Kevin: Dancing to the latest pop on TikTok videos, but really like how they integrate and how they monetize and how they can partner with creators.[00:01:34] Kevin: But what I felt was thought was fascinating was TikTok was headline sponsor.[00:01:38] Kevin: Facebook was not there.[00:01:40] Kevin: Meta was not there at all as a sponsor, as a booth, as anything, and they didn't even have any employees there.[00:01:47] Kevin: Now I get there are austere times at Meta, they're doing layoffs, maybe they are not out there as much as they used to be, but to not be there at all seemed fascinating to me.[00:01:57] WhatsApp and the future of Meta[00:01:57] Kevin: So we're going to talk today about WhatsApp which is a Meta company.[00:02:02] Kevin: But I think it's interesting that where Facebook is going and how they're going to retrench and how they're going to pivot.[00:02:08] Kevin: I think you can never ever count a tech company out, especially a tech company with tons of cash.[00:02:13] Kevin: Like how many times has Microsoft been counted out or how many times has even IBM been counted out?[00:02:18] Kevin: And then they came out there with Watson and you're like, oh, IBM is cool again.[00:02:21] Kevin: And people are saying maybe Google is behind the times because of chat JBT, lots of cash.[00:02:27] Kevin: So Facebook, certainly the usage of Facebook has been declining.[00:02:32] Kevin: I just saw this quote.[00:02:33] Kevin: I don't know if you watch Ted.[00:02:34] Eli: Lasso, of course, I just watched the last season of the third sorry, the last episode of the third season.[00:02:40] Eli: Yesterday.[00:02:40] Eli: I'm not going to spoil it.[00:02:41] Kevin: No, don't spoil it because I watched it.[00:02:43] Kevin: But we don't want to spoil it for our listeners.[00:02:44] Kevin: But did you see the part where Keeley got in trouble because she had a it wasn't a sex tape but it was just like a tape leak.[00:02:51] Eli: It was pretty close to sex tape.[00:02:53] Kevin: Yeah, close enough.[00:02:54] Kevin: Whatever.[00:02:54] Kevin: It's not real anyways.[00:02:55] Kevin: It's a show.[00:02:56] Kevin: And they told her that she had to put out her apology on the socials and they said you don't need to put it on Facebook because that's just for old people and rapists or something like that.[00:03:04] Eli: Pretty harsh.[00:03:05] Eli: Pretty harsh.[00:03:06] Kevin: That was pretty harsh.[00:03:07] Eli: I'm always a shoestring away from deleting my Facebook account and yet at the same time I am going to say that Meta's total number of users has gone to all time highs and I.[00:03:17] Kevin: Feel like Instagram and WhatsApp, but not through the Blue Facebook.[00:03:22] Eli: Well, not for us.[00:03:23] Eli: And I think even in the US they actually edit more Blue Facebook users.[00:03:27] Eli: But it's not our generation.[00:03:29] Eli: We're not the target audience of Facebook anymore.[00:03:31] Eli: I think it's I don't know about.[00:03:32] Kevin: You, but I am.[00:03:33] Kevin: I'm old.[00:03:34] Eli: Not that old.[00:03:35] Eli: Come on, it's not that bad.[00:03:36] Eli: We're going to talk a bit more about Meta in just a second.[00:03:39] Eli: There is some exciting news, especially for creators and for brands.[00:03:44] Apple Launches $3,500 VR Headset[00:03:44] Eli: But first we got to talk of course about the news of the day, maybe for me and not for Eli, which of course is that Apple has launched a $3,500 VR headset.[00:03:56] Eli: Now I got my own opinion about this, but I know Eli, you are the biggest Apple fan out there, so I'm going to let you speak first.[00:04:03] Kevin: So I used to be very anti Apple.[00:04:06] Kevin: I never purchased an Apple product, ever.[00:04:09] Kevin: I used a MacBook when I had a full time job because it was easier, of course.[00:04:14] Kevin: But when it came to purchasing products, I was never part of the cult of Mac or the cult of Apple.[00:04:19] Kevin: I've always had Android devices.[00:04:21] Kevin: My wife had an Apple device for some time and I didn't provide tech support for it when things happened.[00:04:26] Kevin: But I said if she was on an Android, I was going to be able to help it because I understood it.[00:04:29] Kevin: But I wasn't going to go learn an Apple system.[00:04:31] Kevin: So I've never purchased any Apple products.[00:04:33] Kevin: But I did recently purchase an iPad and this is my first Apple product and it's sucker man.[00:04:39] Kevin: I think it is a slippery slope to an iPhone, which is a slippery slope to maybe a MacBook, which next thing you know we're going to be doing this on a VR headset.[00:04:47] Kevin: So I typically think that a lot of what Apple does is extremely high end tech.[00:04:53] Kevin: It's not necessarily mainstream.[00:04:55] Kevin: That's my first opinion of the VR headset.[00:04:58] Kevin: I think it surprises me how many Apple watches have been sold because again, it's an expensive high end tool that you don't necessarily need if you're just trying to tell the time or get notifications.[00:05:10] Apple VR headset and its future impact[00:05:10] Kevin: Love to hear your thoughts on Apple VR headset and how you think it'll be used, especially at that price tag.[00:05:15] Kevin: I mean that price tag, it almost needs to be used expensed by companies rather than individuals.[00:05:21] Eli: The first thought is who is going to buy that?[00:05:25] Eli: And I think this is fulfilling a couple of purposes.[00:05:30] Eli: One is for Apple to have something out there.[00:05:35] Eli: I do believe that in the future we'll use VR and AR.[00:05:39] Eli: I don't believe that future is that close yet.[00:05:42] Eli: This is a high end consumer product for the richest of the rich, for maybe a few hotels or experiences that might provide this.[00:05:51] Eli: But this is not a yeah, you know, and maybe people said this about the $1,000 iPhone as well, but I don't see this being something that millions of people will buy just yet.[00:06:01] Eli: Maybe in the future when the price comes down and the price will come down.[00:06:04] Eli: The second thought is what's the use case here?[00:06:08] Eli: And it's really only a few use cases.[00:06:10] Eli: One of them is games.[00:06:12] Eli: And I don't think there is a killer game out there yet that you need these glasses for.[00:06:17] Eli: I might be wrong, I'll stand corrected.[00:06:19] Eli: I haven't tried them out yet, but I don't see this killer game yet.[00:06:22] Eli: The other one is sports events where you might be in the middle of a baseball field and that's going to be very attractive to people.[00:06:28] Eli: And then the third one, and that to me is the one that has the most utility and value is the office.[00:06:35] Eli: I think VR and AR is the best way to foster connections when people work remotely and that's where meta ism, is innovating heavily and I think that's their best trot.[00:06:46] Eli: Right.[00:06:47] Eli: I think VR and AR glasses are going to come through a work setting.[00:06:51] Eli: They're going to be a productivity tool to foster connection and to improve the experience you have when you communicate with people.[00:06:57] Eli: So that's kind of the first thought.[00:06:59] Eli: Again, the last thought that I'm going to say, which I think is a bit more contrarian, is typically innovation comes from the bottom up.[00:07:08] Eli: It's cheap and affordable, it comes from startups.[00:07:11] Eli: But I don't think startups are yet at a place to build affordable and good enough VR AR headsets.[00:07:18] Eli: So it has to be Apple.[00:07:20] Eli: And I think Apple actually has the best trot at making this a truly broad customer or consumer success.[00:07:28] Eli: But that time is not yet.[00:07:30] Eli: So I don't think they're going to make money on this in the next five years, but I think they're going to might set themselves up to crush it over the next ten years.[00:07:38] Kevin: Yeah, I think it's fascinating that they're trying this after Google failed.[00:07:41] Kevin: I mean, Google Glass failed is useless.[00:07:43] Kevin: Have you ever tried the google Glass?[00:07:45] Eli: I have not.[00:07:46] Eli: But Google is not a good hardware company.[00:07:49] Eli: They're not a consumer hardware company.[00:07:50] Eli: So this was a mood shot, and Apple has tons of experience in selling to consumers.[00:07:56] Kevin: Okay.[00:07:57] Kevin: And now Facebook tried, but Oculus is not saving Facebook as a company.[00:08:01] Kevin: So it's just interesting that Apple is trying this when there have been some notable failures.[00:08:08] Kevin: Oculus was not driven towards the business market, so maybe, maybe that's different.[00:08:14] Kevin: But again, $3,500 for a remote work tool when all of a sudden apple included companies are requiring that their employees come back to the office.[00:08:24] Kevin: Kind of interesting.[00:08:25] Kevin: It is.[00:08:26] Eli: I heard that the quality must be amazing.[00:08:28] Eli: It must be absolutely outstanding.[00:08:30] Eli: Again, I haven't tried it out yet, so I'm going to reserve final judgment, but those are the early thoughts you already started.[00:08:35] WhatsApp Channels: A New Way for Brands and Creators to Connect with Users[00:08:35] Eli: We mentioned Meta twice in this conversation.[00:08:37] Eli: Once with the TikTok event you went to, and the other time the Metaverse and all the hardware that they built with Oculus.[00:08:45] Eli: Now there's a new interesting development from the Meta side, which is on WhatsApp, and that is WhatsApp channels.[00:08:53] Eli: So in essence, WhatsApp channels are simply channels you can follow.[00:08:57] Eli: They're going to be interesting for brands and creators to basically broadcast their content.[00:09:01] Eli: And I think that could be an interesting channel for brands moving forward.[00:09:06] Eli: First of all, because WhatsApp has very broad adoption, I have to fact check myself and look at the latest numbers, but I think they're not too far away from a billion people.[00:09:15] Eli: And there are not that many channels out there.[00:09:19] Eli: We recently spoke about innovative marketing channels.[00:09:21] Eli: You're going to find the episode in the show notes, but there aren't that many channels out there that aren't super crowded.[00:09:26] Eli: And this seems to be more of a channel where you can select the content you get, but it is similar to an email where you get the content straight to your inbox, or in this case, straight to your WhatsApp phone.[00:09:38] Eli: So I'm bullish while there's not a lot of information out there, got to keep an eye on this one.[00:09:44] Kevin: Yeah, I think.[00:09:45] Kevin: WhatsApp is an underutilized asset for Meta?[00:09:49] Kevin: For Facebook?[00:09:50] Kevin: They bought it for 19 billion.[00:09:51] Kevin: I think it was 19 billion and everyone thought it was insane, but it was an amazing purchase.[00:09:56] Kevin: And they've really grown that platform.[00:09:59] Kevin: But the reason I say it's underutilized is because they're not monetizing it at all.[00:10:05] Kevin: They've tried to put ads, I think in India, maybe they injected ads, but they're not monetizing it directly.[00:10:11] Kevin: And there are a lot of different uses of it where they could inject themselves more into some sort of monetization strategy, but they're not at all.[00:10:19] Kevin: And then one thing that is interesting about the one way they are using it, of course, is backlash.[00:10:24] Kevin: But again, people are using the people that use Blue, Facebook.[00:10:27] Kevin: So when they log into the regular Facebook app and they're people you may what do they call people you may know, or people you should know or people you should connect with or whatever it is you get freaked out by who shows up.[00:10:39] Kevin: They're like, oh, that's my ex boss, or that's my ex girlfriend, or that's the person that tried to kill me, or something like that.[00:10:45] Kevin: That's actually feeding off the context that you've uploaded through WhatsApp.[00:10:50] Kevin: That's the way they're using it.[00:10:51] Kevin: And it's helping, in theory, build that social graph in Facebook and maybe in Instagram too, but otherwise they're not directly monetizing.[00:10:59] Kevin: So it's great to see an innovation within WhatsApp that allows them to do it.[00:11:03] Kevin: There are things within WhatsApp, like there are businesses that post statuses.[00:11:06] Kevin: They post the sales and you follow our business, here's our sale.[00:11:10] Kevin: Facebook is not injecting themselves into that process at all and trying to help promote that status, helping to gather followers for that status.[00:11:18] Kevin: There's so many things they could do.[00:11:19] Kevin: So it's great to see Facebook investing in there.[00:11:22] Kevin: And like we said earlier, don't count them out.[00:11:25] Kevin: They've got lots of cash, they've got a huge network between all of their different platforms.[00:11:29] Kevin: They have many, many billions of users.[00:11:31] Kevin: So lots of potential there.[00:11:33] Eli: Yeah, thanks for fact checking me here.[00:11:35] Eli: I just want to correct myself.[00:11:37] Eli: I said they're close to a billion users.[00:11:39] Eli: Actually.[00:11:39] Eli: They actually have over 2 billion users.[00:11:41] Eli: So massive channel, I'll be the first one to start broadcasting there because I'm hungry for a new channel where I can be early and where I can establish a a presence.[00:11:52] Eli: The thing that I'm going to be most curious about is the discovery aspect.[00:11:56] Eli: So how are people going to find new creators and brands to follow?[00:11:59] Eli: Because that will be its own little optimization game.[00:12:02] Eli: Call it WhatsApp SEO or maybe don't.[00:12:04] Kevin: Well, one of the things I love about Facebook is the ability to market and to use interest targeting.[00:12:11] Kevin: So I would love if they could plug that into WhatsApp.[00:12:14] Kevin: And you can get more followers for your channel.[00:12:16] Kevin: You can get more people to see your channel, or more people to see your statuses or add to your groups and do all that with just Facebook marketing.[00:12:23] Kevin: And I think that's great.[00:12:25] Kevin: Facebook is the number one channel for doing interest targeting because they've got so much information, except with the usage declining, it's harder and harder to target people.[00:12:35] Kevin: Again, like we said earlier, I don't log into Facebook that often.[00:12:38] Kevin: I don't use instagram.[00:12:39] Kevin: So yes, Facebook has my data.[00:12:42] Kevin: You can in theory target me, but I'm not seeing those ads if I'm not on Facebook.[00:12:45] Kevin: Facebook does actually have other ad or other ways of showing ads, and they have partnerships with apps, but it's far more limited.[00:12:53] Kevin: If you don't have those apps, you don't have those gains.[00:12:55] Kevin: But again, if they can get you on Facebook, they have almost everyone on WhatsApp they can get you on Instagram, then they can target you and maybe they'll revive Oculus now that Apple showed them there's potential there.[00:13:06] Kevin: And they can inject ads into Oculus too.[00:13:09] Kevin: And then you can have an immersive experience with an advertiser speaking about ads and broadcasting.[00:13:15] Missing the boat: GameStop and CNN's failed attempts to adapt[00:13:15] Eli: CNN just fired their CEO and there is another company who also fired their CEO, and that is GameStop.[00:13:22] Eli: And there are interesting similarities between both of them.[00:13:25] Eli: They both kind of missed the boats, but from different ends of the spectrum.[00:13:29] Eli: So GameStop, they tried too much contrarian stuff.[00:13:35] Eli: They tried to save their fading or eroding business with a crypto platform or a blockchain platform that went up in smokes.[00:13:43] Eli: Business has been dying for years and nobody has really been able to turn it around.[00:13:47] Eli: And then CNN, on the other hand, they've been moving too slow.[00:13:51] Eli: They weren't able to really establish themselves as a streaming platform.[00:13:55] Eli: They wrote off a 300 million US dollar check where they tried CNN Plus as a streaming platform and then overnight pulled the plug from that.[00:14:03] Eli: And now the CEO has to kind of pay the price for not establishing themselves and CNN on the streaming horizon.[00:14:10] Eli: Eli, how have both of these brands missed a boat?[00:14:13] Eli: I mean, from your perspective, what is your opinion?[00:14:16] Kevin: I'm going to be super contrarian here.[00:14:18] Kevin: I think both of these businesses don't need to exist at all.[00:14:21] Kevin: I think they're hanging on to an old vestige of something else that we just don't need.[00:14:26] Kevin: I mean, GameStop is a retail store in a world where many people buy things online.[00:14:31] Kevin: Do you need a GameStop when you can even go to GameStop.com?[00:14:34] Kevin: A Sharper Image, like they went out of business, but sharperimage.com still exists.[00:14:38] Kevin: You can still buy Sharp brand, it still exists as a brand, but you just don't need Sharper Image stores.[00:14:41] Kevin: I think the same with CNN.[00:14:44] Kevin: There's a lot you can say around the politics of CNN.[00:14:47] Kevin: I think they thrived on Trump.[00:14:49] Kevin: You wanted that narrative of anti Trump a couple of years ago already, that Trump has not been president.[00:14:55] Kevin: Now, is there a need for media?[00:14:58] Kevin: Is there a need for 24 hours media that you're going to watch and that's profitable now?[00:15:03] Kevin: I won't argue against the need for media in general.[00:15:05] Kevin: You're not going to have TikTok influencers and Twitter thought leaders and LinkedIn influencers flying to the interesting places in the world and riding in tanks alongside the Ukrainian army.[00:15:16] Kevin: That's not going to happen.[00:15:18] Kevin: You need the media.[00:15:19] Kevin: You need a funded, official, accredited, organized media to do that.[00:15:25] Kevin: So media should exist.[00:15:26] Kevin: But do you need to watch it 24 hours?[00:15:28] Kevin: Do you need a talk show to digest the latest thing that maybe happened in politics, when you can sit on Twitter and digest it just the same while you're multitasking, while you're supposed to be at work, you don't need to watch that online or on TV.[00:15:41] Kevin: Even worse, do you even need to watch it streaming?[00:15:44] Kevin: Do you want to catch up on the latest argument between two talking heads, five talking heads, or however many talking heads they have, when again, you could just go on Twitter and participate in it.[00:15:54] Kevin: So I think that CNN is they've been around for a very long time.[00:15:58] Kevin: They popularized the idea of 24 hours media when there was no 24 hours media.[00:16:03] Kevin: And I think now do you really need 24 hours media?[00:16:06] Kevin: So maybe that's what CNN struggling with.[00:16:08] Kevin: Is it's an entertainment platform?[00:16:11] Kevin: We had an episode on streaming.[00:16:13] Kevin: Look at what HBO did.[00:16:14] Kevin: HBO merged into Max and I just got a notification.[00:16:18] Kevin: Do you have Xfinity or what do you have for Internet?[00:16:20] Eli: There xfinity.[00:16:21] Kevin: Yeah.[00:16:22] Kevin: Okay, so did you get an email from Xfinity saying they're pulling peacock out of Xfinity?[00:16:27] Eli: No, but what is peacock again?[00:16:29] Kevin: Exactly.[00:16:30] Kevin: So there's a million streaming platforms.[00:16:31] Kevin: I got an email this morning saying, sorry to tell you, but you no longer get peacock for free.[00:16:36] Kevin: There's a good reminder that I even had peacock for free from Xfinity because they're both owned by NBC, owned by GE.[00:16:41] Kevin: I think it's a struggle, like all these streaming platforms, netflix, crackdown on, password sharing.[00:16:46] Kevin: So do you need a CNN subscription?[00:16:48] Kevin: Is there even a reason that you need to watch or even pay for a CNN streaming subscription?[00:16:54] Kevin: So I think that bigger question is, should they exist?[00:16:57] Eli: It depends on the content.[00:16:58] Eli: They had.[00:16:59] Eli: For example, one show with Scott Galloway, and I would have loved to pay for that because the guy is genius.[00:17:06] Eli: However, I think there's going to be consolidation at some point where all these streaming networks are going to be facilitated by YouTube, TV or someone else.[00:17:14] Eli: I don't think all of these are going to survive and people are not going to pay for all of them, at least not constantly.[00:17:20] Eli: You might pay for a show for a while and then you got to cancel your subscription again.[00:17:24] Eli: So that's going to be challenging.[00:17:26] Breaking News and Dopamine Addiction[00:17:26] Eli: But what's interesting, and one thing that I want to highlight is how breaking news and this kind of news real where you constantly have news and then a few ads in between.[00:17:36] Eli: There was the original dopamine factory before Twitter came out, before these social platforms come out.[00:17:43] Eli: And I'm just tired, man.[00:17:46] Eli: I'm tired out of the constant dopamine cycles.[00:17:49] Eli: I'm tired of Twitter, I'm tired of endless scroll.[00:17:53] Eli: And breaking news to me is just endless scroll once the news broke their old news.[00:17:58] Eli: And so basically, people watching that, I see it, I know people who watch that stuff constantly.[00:18:04] Eli: And are they younger than 80?[00:18:07] Eli: Slightly, but not much.[00:18:09] Eli: That's exactly the point, right?[00:18:11] Eli: That's kind of the dopamine addiction of the older generation and much older generation.[00:18:15] Eli: And so they're going to die out of it.[00:18:18] Eli: They're missing addressing younger audiences and bringing new audiences on board.[00:18:22] Discussing AI-Powered Search and The Future of SEO[00:18:22] Eli: So let's wrap up, speaking about one company that is struggling with something very similar, and that is Google and Alphabet.[00:18:29] Eli: Now, YouTube, to be fair, is incredibly hot with the teens and the young generation.[00:18:34] Eli: But Google is increasingly replaced by other platforms like TikTok.[00:18:39] Eli: I see.[00:18:40] Eli: It my fiance's sister, she's in her early 20s.[00:18:43] Eli: She searches so much more stuff on TikTok.[00:18:45] Eli: And I'm not here to say that TikTok is the SEO killer or the Google killer.[00:18:49] Eli: This platform is struggling to address and keep young audiences as well.[00:18:54] Eli: And they recently launched their search Genera Experience, which is based on AI, which we just recorded a full episode about.[00:19:01] Eli: But Eli, a lot has changed since we recorded that episode a week ago.[00:19:06] Eli: What's your freshest take on this?[00:19:08] Kevin: So I actually think that Google is going to win.[00:19:11] Kevin: I think because they own the platform, they have all the users, they can keep getting people back onto the platform from all their other, from Android, from Gmail, from Sheets and Docs and all the other things that Google does.[00:19:24] Kevin: But I'm very bullish on Google's future.[00:19:26] Kevin: I think what they're doing with Generative AI, it's buggy right now, but it will improve.[00:19:31] Kevin: They launched an update to Bard, which is what's powering Generative Experiences to begin with, which you can now do logic.[00:19:38] Kevin: And in this blog post, which we'll link in the show notes, they explain System One thinking.[00:19:41] Kevin: System Two, which is based on Daniel Kahneman's Nobel Prize winning economics theory, which is System One is your initial emotional response, and System Two is more thought out.[00:19:52] Kevin: So system one, where system two is more logical.[00:19:56] Kevin: So system one is barred.[00:19:58] Kevin: It's just language like it gives you a response, it may or may not be correct.[00:20:01] Kevin: System Two can do logic and that's where Google thrives.[00:20:05] Kevin: So Chat GBT is competing on the system one.[00:20:07] Kevin: It's just a large language model, can give an answer.[00:20:10] Kevin: System Two is where Google's been great at this for the last two decades.[00:20:13] Kevin: And they're doing logic like you can ask it math questions, it's pulling from knowledge graph, it's using the massive superpowers of Google.[00:20:22] Kevin: So I think that's where they win.[00:20:24] Kevin: I think there's no competitor right now that's as good at both of those as Google.[00:20:28] Kevin: It as long as they don't lose market share.[00:20:30] Kevin: I do think Google wins, even with their buggy product.[00:20:33] Eli: I think nobody can be Google and Search.[00:20:36] Eli: I much more think that other companies are going to try to fragment search and kind of break it apart.[00:20:42] Eli: For example, Microsoft.[00:20:44] Eli: I've changed my opinion.[00:20:45] Eli: I don't think they're trying to win with Bing.[00:20:47] Eli: I think they might have a chance to win with Chat GPT, which is a completely different experience that now also features Bing search results, or they're just going to bring the whole damn thing into the taskbar at the bottom of your screen.[00:21:00] Eli: They might break it out of the browser and bring it to the operating system level.[00:21:04] Eli: So there's a whole lot of interesting stuff going on with AI search and SGE.[00:21:10] Eli: But I think one of the biggest trends that most people don't have on the radar is that you might just not need the browser anymore.[00:21:16] Eli: It might live natively in an app, or in Google Sheets, or again in your taskbar.[00:21:21] Eli: And so I think the biggest chance for other companies is to change the game.[00:21:25] Eli: Instead of trying to beat Google ad it.[00:21:26] Eli: Google has one search period.[00:21:28] Eli: But the question is now, how can you change the field?[00:21:31] Kevin: How can you change the playing field?[00:21:33] Kevin: Absolutely.[00:21:34] Kevin: And you're right.[00:21:35] Kevin: I don't think anybody's going to be Google.[00:21:37] Kevin: I think the playing field is changing underneath Google, and they're now catching up and changing with it.[00:21:43] Kevin: A recent newsletter, I talked about how this is what Google's always been doing.[00:21:47] Kevin: These are featured snippets.[00:21:48] Kevin: These are knowledge graph.[00:21:50] Kevin: They had LLM to begin with, but they didn't want to release it for two reasons.[00:21:53] Kevin: One, innovator's dilemma, because they would kill their business model, and they're definitely hurting their ads for the people that are in the beta.[00:22:00] Kevin: And the second reason is that it's risky.[00:22:02] Kevin: I mean, when it comes to Knowledge Graph, most of knowledge Graph is correct.[00:22:06] Kevin: I know, like, you search certain people, like one search, I think Rand Fishkin, there was a picture of Neil Patel that was based on knowledge Graph is broken.[00:22:13] Kevin: But for the most part, knowledge Graph is accurate.[00:22:15] Kevin: It pulls off a structured data.[00:22:17] Kevin: LLM is not LLM can say offensive, wrong things.[00:22:21] Kevin: Like it can give you the wrong advice and you can follow and do serious harm to yourself.[00:22:26] Kevin: So they can't control it because they don't know what's out there.[00:22:27] Kevin: So I get why they didn't release it, but now that they are releasing it and they are working with it, I think they will win.[00:22:34] Eli: We're green too much, Eli.[00:22:35] Eli: We got to change that.[00:22:36] Eli: But one area or kind of one place?[00:22:39] Kevin: You're wrong.[00:22:39] Kevin: You're just wrong.[00:22:42] Eli: Do better now.[00:22:43] Eli: So much better.[00:22:44] Dealing with disagreements and building strong business partnerships[00:22:44] Eli: One area where we're not agreeing all the time, or where we disagree more, is our new Slack Group.[00:22:48] Eli: Eli, you want to talk about that secretly?[00:22:51] Kevin: Not secretly.[00:22:52] Kevin: We quietly discussed this a couple of weeks ago in an episode.[00:22:56] Kevin: We want to launch a Slack Group that would help consultants become better consultants.[00:23:00] Kevin: We have the slack group.[00:23:01] Kevin: We're going to put up a link where you can apply to be a part of this.[00:23:04] Kevin: We want to make sure it adds as much value to everyone that is in the Slack Group, and of course ourselves too, that we just want to have a high caliber of the best consultants out there.[00:23:12] Kevin: We have not yet defined what the cutoff will be, but this will be for really, the best consultants.[00:23:19] Kevin: And just to give a sneak preview to an upcoming podcast, the greatest of all time, the Goat of consulting.[00:23:26] Kevin: Alan Weiss, who published, I think, six best selling books on consulting, the Million Dollar Consulting or Consultants book, which is the first one he came out with in the late eighty s I learned everything from and he's had six updates to that book.[00:23:38] Kevin: So we just interviewed him for a podcast.[00:23:41] Kevin: This is our very first interview ever.[00:23:43] Kevin: So if you're not subscribed and you're just listening to this podcast for the first time, this one's coming.[00:23:47] Kevin: This is going to be the best episode we have.[00:23:49] Eli: Man, I'm still on a high from that conversation.[00:23:52] Eli: There's going to be so much we have to record an episode about that episode, just digesting and commenting on all the nuggets that he got out.[00:23:59] Eli: So, yeah, everyone look forward to this.[00:24:01] Eli: That was an absolutely mind blowing conversation with many things he never mentioned before, many fun stories about tanks and trains and jeopardy.[00:24:13] Eli: It's going to be a wild one.[00:24:14] Eli: So, yeah, Eli, this is a wrap.[00:24:16] Eli: Looking forward to talk to you again next week.[00:24:17] Kevin: Thanks, John.[00:24:18] Kevin and Eli Discuss Contrarian Marketing Strategies[00:24:18] Eli: And now it's your turn.[00:24:19] Eli: Head over to Contrarianmarketingpodcast.com and subscribe to the free weekly newsletter to get a summary of today's episode, key takeaways and community content.[00:24:28] Eli: And while you're there, go to today's episode and leave your opinion in the comments.[00:24:32] Eli: We'll feature the best thoughts in the newsletter and on the podcast podcast.[00:24:35] Eli: Also, if you like today's episode, please feel free to leave five stars on Spotify and Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcast.[00:24:41] Eli: As always, thanks so much for tuning in and here next week. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.contrarianmarketingpodcast.com

In this episode, I share a tool to help you solve problems or blocks that you're having in your consulting business. This tool helps you unlock strategies you've hidden in the back of your brain and will eliminate the hesitation and resistance that have prevented you from implementing those strategies. This tool helps you to see where you might be going through the motions but not actually creating traction for yourself as an independent consultant.This game-changing business tool will help youunlock creative ways to solve problems, create a sense of urgency, pinpoint excuses, and identify logistical and mental blockers you don't even realize are running under the surface of your thinking.I'm excited to share why this tool is so incredibly powerful and how it can work as a universal problem-solver in every area of your consulting business. Stay tuned to the end of the episode when I share three specific examples that demonstrate how to apply this tool in your consulting business when you want to:Ramp up lead generationCreate urgency around finalizing contractsAdjust your consulting pricing models Click here for the full show notes and more information here.And click here for more on private coaching tailored to you as an independent consulting business owner.

Today's episode is the second half of an in-depth Licensing Q&A prompted by BFF Al Dia, host of the MBA Insider podcast. If you haven't already, listen first to 140: How to Licensing Your IP (Intellectual Property), followed by 186: Licensing 201 — Q&A (Part One) on Product Development, Attracting Clients, and Sales Process. Al submitted a series of wonderful questions that span five categories; in this episode I'll be addressing the latter three: selling and packaging, delivery (including Train-the-Trainer), and legal considerations. A caveat, as always, when it comes to this notoriously opaque arena: this is not the way, it's just what I've learned along the way in nearly a decade of setting my mind to licensing as a revenue stream.

This episode is available on:* Spotify* Apple PodcastsToday we talk about building and thriving a consulting business based on our combined SEO and consulting experience of over 10 years.In this episode of Contrarian Marketing, we cover:* How to transition into a consultant role* What makes one a good consultant* Why Neil Patel Digital works as an SEO brandKey Takeaways* Many people do not understand SEO and accept mediocre work as ‘quality output'. Thus, real SEO experts can use this gap as a good opportunity to grow in the SEO industry.* Focus on gaining experience in-house or at an agency before venturing out as a consultant.* Work on creating a strong referral network by building a trustworthy personal brand among your peers and clients.* Learn to pitch and sell your expertise with confidence* The best way to get promoted is to make a switchThere is potential in consulting for the SEO industryEli shares why there is a huge untapped potential in the SEO industry for talented experts and where the opportunity lies:“I don't know him (Neil Patel). I don't know his practices. I've never worked with him. But I do think that Neil Patel and Neil Patel Digital, in particular, demonstrate the massive upside there is in this (SEO) industry. He was recently on the My First Million podcast, and I think he said they do over a hundred million dollars a year in revenue – most of it from SEO. That's the potential.There are so many companies out there that don't understand SEO.”He also shares his experience with PRNewswire on how people accept not-so-great quality output, and true experts can tap onto this potential to deliver great work:“I remember PR Newswire approached me pre-Covid about this webinar and they were charging  $900 to go to this webinar and – they sold it to their customers. There are so many people out there that don't understand marketing. They don't understand SEO.Then, they look at Neil Patel, PR Newswire, and all these other agencies who may not do the kind of work that we think is of high quality, but everyone else thinks it's of high quality. And to me, that's the potential of this industry.”The key is to build a strong personal networkKevin shares how his 12+ experience in the SEO industry via his job, speaker opportunities, and personal branding efforts helped him successfully transition into an independent consultant role:“How people perceive you, whether you're an agency or a consultant, is incredibly important, and I have never thought about it more than right now.  I have been active in this industry for 12-13 years now. I've worked even at Shopify and did things outside of SEO, but I'm still recognized as an SEO (expert).But having the blog, having spoken at conferences and all that kind of stuff has contributed massively. I was lucky to get a full portfolio of clients before I even announced that I am a consultant now.So, a strong network helped immensely. People were so kind to connect me with clients and all that kind of stuff.”Eli agrees by sharing his personal experience about the power of sales and having a strong network:“There was a company I talked to recently, which I was referred to by someone I sat next to at my very first job 16 years ago. So the longer time you spend within companies, the bigger network you'll build, and some of the best deals that I have signed have come from my former coworkers – they've referred me, and they've been at these companies. You have to build that expertise within your network.I don't have a blog, but I wrote a book, which really helps in closing deals.But it's so much more important that you have a network that can refer things to you, whether it's investors or friends, or past coworkers or past clients – that's where you're going to get so many things. And I've met some terrible consultants who do just fine because they have that network.”First, get hands-on experience in the industry Kevin also advises that its crucial to get legit experience in your industry before getting into consultation:“You and I were both fans of Alan Weiss's Million Dollar Consulting and how he approaches this practice. One of the things that he preaches is to be out there to build a brand, put content out, and demonstrate your expertise.I think that's something that you need to do to send out, and build a reputation, and this is also something that needs to be built on (top of) experience, right?So if somebody would really ask me – Hey, I'm a college grad, should I become a consultant?I would actually say, – No, that's a stupid idea. You need to gain experience first. As somebody new to the industry, I think you need to learn from others first – for which an agency or in-house is your best bet.”Be confident about yourself and your workEli shares his experience of an encounter with a confident consultant and how being confident helps build trust and close deals.“I have seen some fantastic consultants and I'd say the thing I learned the most from is a guy named Aaron Sheer, who unfortunately passed away many years ago. So I was working at this startup and Aaron Sheer was our SEO consultant.He did well – like he was a consultant for eBay and Zappos. The one thing I really learned from him was his level of confidence.So he would come in, and the team would say – should we do ‘A' or ‘B'?And he would say – you should definitely do ‘A', and they would say – how do you know?And he'd say – you're gonna do ‘A', like, this is my experience. He was super confident about it.And then it failed. ‘A' totally didn't work, we got less traffic.And he'd say, –  well, there was a 99% chance it would. Unfortunately, it fell into the 1%. I'm super confident my recommendation was right. I'm never wrong, but it happens to be that I don't know everything. I'm not Google. And I learned that confidence from him.And that's what people look for in consultants – an external expert who's not doing what those internal experts are doing for them, or they don't have an internal team, and they're looking for an expert to really weigh in and give them a point of view and not someone who's just going to be doing busy work.The real upside is saying – I will solve your SEO problems.I learned that from Aaron Sheer – he was super confident. I don't know whether he helped us grow or didn't help us grow, but everyone certainly thought he helped us grow.I think the most important thing for building a successful consulting career is really understanding sales. And it's not just about whether you can close the deal, but can you continue to have that confidence and direct your clients that they want to keep working with you because you know what you're talking about.”Build a good reputation among your peersKevin shares how your reputation in the industry is important for making it as a consultant:“I think putting yourself out there is a critical element.As you said, the network, and sales (are important), but then being visible in the industry and being perceived as someone in the industry who is good (is crucial too). I think it's often underestimated, but SEO is actually a smaller industry than most people would think – people know each other and people are getting asked.So, you have to make sure that your peers respect and appreciate you.”What can you learn from Neil Patel's brand?Eli thinks that the SEO industry's black-box nature makes it necessary to build a reputation that instills trustworthiness and expertise:“I don't think SEO's that hard or differentiated –  it's pretty basic.I think if you were to do SEO for CNN, or if I were to do SEO for CNN or Neil Patel would do SEO for CNN or Rand Fishkin – the results and the recommendations would be very similar. The problem with the SEO industry is that it's hard. You have to trust. It's a black box.We really don't know exactly how this is going to work. It's not like paid marketing – I spent this money, I returned this amount, should I spend more? I don't know, but I will spend more and I'll find out.You don't have any of those insights (for SEO), so it comes across as how confident are you in the ability of the person hired to give the right recommendations.”Kevin adds further about Neil Patel's ability to retain clients:“I think the art is to not only get in through a really good pitch but then also keep clients and keep delivering. That's always where, where I would love to just peek behind the scenes for once.”Eli also mentions how the SEO industry mostly re-packages data from SEO tools as recommendations, and how Neil Patel's ownership of tools like Answer the Public, and UberSuggest act as trump cards in sales pitches:“There was a company I talked to last week that raised this insane amount of money and they're using an agency. I showed them Ahrefs, and they said – oh, our agency uses it. We don't have access to it.I'm like, why wouldn't you just buy a trust for $120 a month? You don't need to spend $5,000 a month with a kid doctor. So, the data's there – their agency is packaging it and telling them what a fantastic job they're doing because they're using Ahrefs. There are basic tools within our industry – Ahrefs, Semrush, SimilarWeb, etc, and everyone else is just packaging and representing it.Neil Patel Digital owns some awesome tools, like, he has UberSuggest and they bought Answer the Public. So they have some of their tools, but they bought them, they didn't create them. I'm certain that when they go into a pitch, they are like –  these are your keywords, this is your content gap.So the whole industry is relying on the same tools and the same data, making the same recommendations – it's just how you sell it.”The best way to get a promotion is still switching companiesWe asked you via our LinkedIn post to share what you think is the best way to get a promotion. Interestingly, switching companies was said to be the most effective method to make your way ahead on the ladder.Eli supports this insight by sharing his example of getting promoted:“I tried to switch companies when I was moving to Singapore and I got a new job. I was at Survey Monkey at the time, and when I went to give notice, they convinced me to stay and I got a 40 raise. So, I got a 3-level massive promotion, and it was completely unintentional. I wasn't trying to negotiate it for it, but I do think this is valid.I think that companies don't necessarily appreciate their employees until they're gone and you could threaten to leave and get that promotion and you force them to really say – oh, we do appreciate you, and are willing to pay you more, willing to promote you. Or we could just go to another company who will appreciate us – I think that's the sad reality.With the layoffs, people might be scared to ask for promotions, but the truth is, the employees that are still within a company, they're even more valuable.I also always looked at other people and watched them rise in the company and they went from junior to senior pretty quickly. They seemed to have it all together. And the thing is, they were good at positioning how to do what they're doing.”Kevin adds further how one should work towards being ‘seen' by their managers:If you think that you have proof to back that (your promotion) up, it's totally fine to go and ask for a promotion. As you said, you might not get a big promotion as you did in 2019, but I also agree that just because layoffs are happening, that does not mean that no one should get a promotion or that you should not get a promotion.I think the art is in making the case well and having proof and having a fit with your manager. Meaning knowing what your manager wanted in the first place and then delivering.You also don't want to just do stuff, but you want to make sure your manager sees it, your manager's manager sees it, and other people see it too.”We discuss a few more views shared around getting promoted in our previous episode 9: Marketing predictions for 2023.Show NotesBook recommendations:* Million Dollar Consulting: The Professional's Guide to Growing a Practice by Alan Weiss – the book shares a time-tested model for creating a flourishing consulting business, while incorporating and focusing on the many dynamic changes in solo and boutique consulting, coaching, and entrepreneurship.* The Trusted Advisor by David Maister –  learn how to build credibility, respect, and trustworthiness with clients and prospects.* Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell by  Eric Schmidt – the book shares management lessons from legendary business executive and coach Bill Campbell. He mentored some of the most successful modern entrepreneurs and has played an important role in the growth of several prominent companies, such as Google, Apple, and Intuit.Join the conversationSubscribe to the newsletter for a free summary, key takeaways, and community content once a week.Would you like us to host ‘The Contrarian Marketing Conference?'What should it look like? – Should it be online or in person? Recorded or live?Reach out to us and let us know whether there should be some summit, conference, or mastermind – happy to take your input!Enjoyed this episode? – Subscribe to Contrarian Marketing on Spotify/Apple podcasts/Youtube to listen to past episodes and get notified of upcoming releases.Thank you!Eli and Kevin This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.contrarianmarketingpodcast.com

In early December I held our very first boutique planning workshop - “Fix your Crown”!  A completely different approach to Planning for Success in 2023!  We looked at Our Financial Performance of 2021 and 2022 Deeply rooted, honest truth bombs about what we love and hate in our businesses What really matters to us - and it's not the One Million Dollar Revenue! Now from a position of knowing - we created the goals for 2023!  This episode is packed with tipps and real life experiences! Let me know by email whether you wish to be part of the next “Fix Your Crown” workshop! I'd love to host you!  Links: Podcast by Elenor Beaton: Episode 444 - What is a Jewel Business Book Recommendation: 1 Million Dollar Consulting by Alan WeissRESET your Mindset by Natalie EckdalMeant for More by Mia Hewett Contact us at info@rutzconsulting.com or email me directly marianne@rutzconsulting.com Website: https://rutzconsulting.com/ Marianne on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marianne-rutz/   This Podcast is produced by: Andrew Madden Photography & Media Production  

Where do most law firms go wrong with SEO? One of the hottest topics and biggest marketing trends is leveraging SEO for business growth. In this episode, Eli Schwartz joins me to talk about SEO from a different angle than we typically speak about. He shares why most firms shouldn't in fact be prioritizing SEO. Eli is an SEO expert and consultant with more than a decade of experience working for leading B2B and B2C companies.  His ability to demystify and navigate the SEO process has generated billions of dollars in revenue for some of the internet's top websites, including such clients as Shutterstock, WordPress, Blue Nile, Quora, and Zendesk.  As head of SurveyMonkey's SEO team, Schwartz oversaw the company's global operations, helped launch the first Asia-Pacific office, and grew the company's organic search from just 1 percent of revenue to a key driver of global revenue. His work has been featured by TechCrunch, Entrepreneur.com, and Y Combinator, and he has given talks at business schools and keynote conferences around the world. His new book is 'Product-Led SEO: The Why Behind Building Your Organic Growth Strategy'.Eli gives listeners actionable tips on: [1:50] What most firms are doing wrong with their SEO [3:50] Why certain firms shouldn't be doing SEO [6:45] Why SEO isn't the right kind of approach to managing your marketing [8:30] Which metrics you should be paying attention to [12:35] Content creation tips as it relates to SEO [18:40] Which firms should be doing SEO [21:45] Where firms go wrong with ‘links' [27:50] Eli's book recommendation Resources mentioned in this episode: Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss Product-Led SEO: The Why Behind Building Your Organic Growth Strategy Connect with Eli here: Twitter LinkedIn www.productledseo.com  www.elischwartz.co  Connect with me Instagram Pinterest Facebook Twitter Karin on Twitter Karin on LinkedIn Conroy Creative Counsel on Facebook https://conroycreativecounsel.com 

Where do most law firms go wrong with SEO?   One of the hottest topics and biggest marketing trends is leveraging SEO for business growth.   In this episode, Eli Schwartz joins me to talk about SEO from a different angle than we typically speak about. He shares why most firms shouldn't in fact be prioritizing SEO.   Eli is an SEO expert and consultant with more than a decade of experience working for leading B2B and B2C companies.    His ability to demystify and navigate the SEO process has generated billions of dollars in revenue for some of the internet's top websites, including such clients as Shutterstock, WordPress, Blue Nile, Quora, and Zendesk.    As head of SurveyMonkey's SEO team, Schwartz oversaw the company's global operations, helped launch the first Asia-Pacific office, and grew the company's organic search from just 1 percent of revenue to a key driver of global revenue. His work has been featured by TechCrunch, Entrepreneur.com, and Y Combinator, and he has given talks at business schools and keynote conferences around the world. His new book is 'Product-Led SEO: The Why Behind Building Your Organic Growth Strategy'. Eli gives listeners actionable tips on: [1:50] What most firms are doing wrong with their SEO [3:50] Why certain firms shouldn't be doing SEO [6:45] Why SEO isn't the right kind of approach to managing your marketing [8:30] Which metrics you should be paying attention to [12:35] Content creation tips as it relates to SEO [18:40] Which firms should be doing SEO [21:45] Where firms go wrong with ‘links' [27:50] Eli's book recommendation Resources mentioned in this episode: Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss Product-Led SEO: The Why Behind Building Your Organic Growth Strategy Connect with Eli here: Twitter LinkedIn www.productledseo.com  www.elischwartz.co  Connect with me Instagram Pinterest Facebook Twitter Karin on Twitter Karin on LinkedIn Conroy Creative Counsel on Facebook https://conroycreativecounsel.com 

Where do most law firms go wrong with SEO? One of the hottest topics and biggest marketing trends is leveraging SEO for business growth.   In this episode, Eli Schwartz joins me to talk about SEO from a different angle than we typically speak about. He shares why most firms shouldn't in fact be prioritizing SEO.   Eli is an SEO expert and consultant with more than a decade of experience working for leading B2B and B2C companies.    His ability to demystify and navigate the SEO process has generated billions of dollars in revenue for some of the internet's top websites, including such clients as Shutterstock, WordPress, Blue Nile, Quora, and Zendesk.    As head of SurveyMonkey's SEO team, Schwartz oversaw the company's global operations, helped launch the first Asia-Pacific office, and grew the company's organic search from just 1 percent of revenue to a key driver of global revenue. His work has been featured by TechCrunch, Entrepreneur.com, and Y Combinator, and he has given talks at business schools and keynote conferences around the world. His new book is 'Product-Led SEO: The Why Behind Building Your Organic Growth Strategy'. Eli gives listeners actionable tips on: [1:50] What most firms are doing wrong with their SEO [3:50] Why certain firms shouldn't be doing SEO [6:45] Why SEO isn't the right kind of approach to managing your marketing [8:30] Which metrics you should be paying attention to [12:35] Content creation tips as it relates to SEO [18:40] Which firms should be doing SEO [21:45] Where firms go wrong with ‘links' [27:50] Eli's book recommendation Resources mentioned in this episode: Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss Product-Led SEO: The Why Behind Building Your Organic Growth Strategy Connect with Eli here: Twitter LinkedIn www.productledseo.com  www.elischwartz.co  Connect with me Instagram Pinterest Facebook Twitter Karin on Twitter Karin on LinkedIn Conroy Creative Counsel on Facebook https://conroycreativecounsel.com 

My guest today is Alan Weiss - one of the world's most highly sought-after consultancy experts. Alan's impressive list of clients include such well-known brands as Mercedes-Benz, Merck, Hewlett-Packard, New York Times and over 200 others. Alan is also a best-selling author of 64 books. One his most famous books - “Million Dollar Consulting” - has been through five editions and appears in 12 languages around the world.I invited Alan to be a guest on my show to discuss how to build a thriving consultancy.  I wanted to get his POV on what role branding plays in that process. And I was curious to learn about value-based fees and why more businesses should adopt this concept.

Is your to-do list piled to the sky with uninspiring tasks? Wait until you hear this listener submission from Leanne, sharing one of many favorite gems from participating in mastermind groups and 1:1 coaching with the legendary “Million Dollar Consultant” Alan Weiss. More About Leanne: Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, trusted advisor, and speaker who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences that predictably work. She combines her experience in marketing and her passion for group dynamics, with her education in psychology to help leaders dramatically improve their teams' performance. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Leanne has partnered with organizations all around the world (in-person and virtual) and believes in a strengths-centered approach to learning and development. Check out her two podcasts: First-Time Facilitator and Work and Live Large. What's your favorite time-saving system? Share with fellow Free Timers by leaving us a voice note at http://itsfreetime.com/ask or recording a brief voice memo on your phone and emailing it to hi [at] itsfreetime.com. We can't wait to hear from you!

Explains the ins and outs of raising capital, setting fees, self-promotion, and more. This book offers material on how to overcome objections and vital information on internet- and e-based marketing and sales. It also includes a chapter on how to work in smaller markets with family owned businesses, non-profits and other 'non-traditional' clients.  

Who better to learn about consulting from than "the consultants consultant" Alan Weiss? Alan wrote the famous best selling book "Million Dollar Consultant" and is the author of over 60 books on consulting and business. In this episode Matt and Jacob sit down with Alan to discuss how the principles of Alan's books can be applied to brand strategy. We explore why consultancy is a good option, different consulting approaches, how to sell it and how to grow a consulting practice. We go deep into value based billing and show how selling time is a terrible idea. Matt is especially thrilled with this episode as he has been using Alan's techniques to great success. This episode is NOT to be missed!

“Share everything of value. Give away all your knowledge” is common advice in today's marketing world. But is it enough to become a thought leader inside a field? Is it enough to become an expert? In today's conversation we share our thoughts around what it means to be an expert, THE expert, or a thought leader -inspired by Alan Weiss' book, Million Dollar Consulting. Enjoy! Get Your Minimum Viable Content Cheat Sheet for FREE: www.contentisprofit.com Connect with BIZBROS: Join the Content Is Profit's Facebook Group! Facebook Instagram  Connect with FONZI: Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Twitter Connect with LUISDA: Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Twitter Subscribe to the podcast on Youtube, Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, or anywhere you listen to your podcasts. You can find this episode plus all previous episodes here. If this episode was helpful, please don't forget to leave us a review by clicking here, and share it with a friend.  You can go here to see the full list of episodes

Hey, have you subscribed to the bookmark newsletter? If you liked this, you might like my twice-monthly email with book reviews and ideas of what you should be reading, and listening to, next. Click here to subscribe.   About the author Alan Weiss is one of those rare people who can say he is a consultant, speaker, and author and mean it. His consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, State Street Corporation, Times Mirror Group, The Federal Reserve, The New York Times Corporation, Toyota, and over 500 other leading organizations. He has served on the boards of directors of the Trinity Repertory Company, a Tony-Award-winning New England regional theater, Festival Ballet, and chaired the Newport International Film Festival. His speaking typically includes 20 keynotes a year at major conferences, and he has been a visiting faculty member at Case Western Reserve University, Boston College, Tufts, St. John's, the University of Illinois, the Institute of Management Studies, and the University of Georgia Graduate School of Business. He has held an appointment as adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Rhode Island where he taught courses on advanced management and consulting skills to MBA and PhD candidates. He once held the record for selling out the highest priced workshop (on entrepreneurialism) in the then-21-year history of New York City's Learning Annex. His Ph.D. is in psychology. He has served on the Board of Governors of Harvard University's Center for Mental Health and the Media. Source: https://alanweiss.com/about-alan-weiss/   About the book The newest thoughts and examples on the best practices and language for successful professional services proposals. This is the contemporary version of the seminal book How to Write A Proposal That's Accepted Every Time, originally written in 1998 and updated in 2002. Adopt the best global practices Alan has generated for conceptual agreement, options, escalating fees, avoiding the legal department, eliminating cancellations, and much more. He includes information about RFPs (requests for proposals) and retainers. Increase your income by six figures a year without doing anything different — except how you formulate your proposals. Source: https://alanweiss.com/shop/books/paperback/million-dollar-consulting-proposals/   Big idea #1 — Proposals with purpose Your proposal doesn't do the selling for you. This is the fundamental idea of the book; the proposal isn't doing anything that you haven't already done. The sale should really already have been made from the meetings you've had, and the relationship you have built with the economic buyer. It's a summary of what has come before and what has been agreed. There's a quote in the book that says;A proposal is a summation, not an explanation. It is a summary of the conceptual agreement you've reached with your economic buyer and not a negotiating document or an attempt to make a sale. It's easy to fall into the trap of sending a proposal without having actually ever sold anything, and making the mistake of seeing a proposal as the start of the sales process, rather than the end. Alan says that the things that proposal should do include; summarizing the agreement detailing the objectives, metrics of success, and the value of those objectives being met giving options for levels of value detailing the fees and the terms and conditions Conversely, what the proposal documents shouldn't do is; be a document for gatekeepers to use on your behalf be vague establish credibility (that should already have been done) include anything that hasn't already been agreed to be used to build a relationship with a buyer (again, that should already have been done),  be a comparison point for competitors (ie you shouldn't be in a situation where your proposal was being looked at and compared to another) He says that most people send proposals too early and too often, even sometimes using the number of proposals sent out as a measure of success. Big idea #2 — Know your buyer This isn't just from an avatar perspective and coming up with your stick figure pretend ‘buyer' and writing things that they like / feel etc. This is about really building a relationship with the economic buyer; the person who can sign off the purchase order, who can pay the invoice, who can approve the finances involved in working with you. At several points in the book Alan makes some sick burns at HR people (he often refers to them as Hardly Relevant in other talks / podcasts) and emphasizes many times that you should never deal with them. A proposal in the wrong hands, he says, is worse than no proposal at all. So we need to be working directly with our economic buyer. Building a trusted relationship with your economic buyer might take several meetings or interactions, and is not done through a proposal document. He says you know the relationship building is going well when the other person shares undisclosed/non-public information with you and ask your opinion. By working with the buyer you are able to better articulate value, because you know exactly what is important to them, what their objectives are, what outcomes would be valuable to them, and how to talk about those things in their words. He says when gatekeepers are involved (or low-level people, as he often refers to them) that keep you from your buyer, it's time to ‘blow a hole in the wall' and find your own way to the economic buyer. He acknowledges this is a bit of a risky approach, and may only work 10% of the time, but that's better than the 0% which you're going to get if the gatekeeper keeps you from the economic buyer. Big idea #3 — The nine key components Alan very helpfully in the book provides several templates to use an example proposal, including wording and structures. Some of the wording you might not like, but it gives you a chance to make these your own. There are nine key components to one of his million dollar proposals: Situational appraisal: the context of the problem (keep it short and focused on the problem, don't include the company history / what they do… your buyer already knows this!) Objectives: the desired business outcome Metrics: how success and/or progress will be measured Value: the impact of meeting the objectives Methodology and options: how the outcomes will be achieved / the levels of value available Timing: key dates / timing estimates / overall timeline Joint accountability: what you will do and what the client needs to commit to, in order to be successful Terms & conditions: legal blurb and payment terms / rates etc Acceptance: how does the client accept the proposal? He says including these sections means easier and clearer conversations every single time, and therefore a better acceptance rate. But only if the work has been done upfront and you're using proposals to summarize, not sell.   Let's connect LinkedIn Instagram See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The dictionary defines “legacy” as leaving an inheritance or property after death. That term is simply outdated.  We need to make an impact while we are alive and vibrant. And I believe that CMOs are not the only leaders who should consider a new approach to living their legacy. Here's why... Today, our teams and loved ones no longer expect a clear, predictable, 20 year strategic plan. Those days are over.  They want to follow courageous leaders with a growth mindset.  And a growth mindset begins with our clarity of purpose and a desire to live a meaningful life TODAY. We are more capable than you think, too. Look at the crises we have endured, and our own resilience. In just a 20 year time span, we have witnessed massive social unrest,  9/11, the pandemic, and economic volatility.  And we are still here. Our economy continues forward. Innovations abound. Families continue to gather, shift gears, and re-invent their future. Within the past day, I reconnected with two business colleagues between 61-64 years young. Both have redesigned their careers, relocated to new cities, and built a new community. They are flourishing. Those two men taught me that our reactions to a crisis can either be a beacon of courage for others to follow--or a trail of victimhood that they would rather circumnavigate. As we look to expand our marketing organizations, or reach new growth targets in the post-pandemic economy, we should seriously consider our mindset and our daily leadership habits. My mentor, Alan Weiss, understands legacy at a visceral level. In his latest book, Your Legacy is NOW, he proffers an entirely new approach to developing a legacy: “What you create every day influences people, hopefully positively. Your age is a new page in your book. And the question is: is it the same page as yesterday, is the page blank, or is someone else writing that page for you? That, to me, is the metaphor for legacy.” Watch the LinkedIn Live replay now. We cannot let a good crisis go to waste. Today is the ideal time to re-write our career and life "playbook," not when facing our demise. Here's what you will learn in this episode: ✔️ If you want to be a game-changer, follow "The Lobster Principle".  Alan has spent four decades as a profound storyteller. He shares how we can learn alot from crustaceans and how they molt.  Strong leaders are willing to be vulnerable. They are willing to shed old beliefs, habits, and mistakes. That's how they can achieve massive growth and inspire others to do the same.  ✔️ We don't need careers; we need a calling. We have limited time on this Earth. We can start today to take small actions that fulfill a purpose and give us meaning. We cannot outsource this; nobody else can do it for us. "When you have a calling, you're fearless; you have passion, you seek it diligently. And in doing so, you help others." Click here for the replay.  ✔️Jettison the term “new normal” from your vocabulary. Alan says,"What we want is deliberate disruption. There is no ‘new normal;' there is ‘no normal.'”(A term he has trademarked). We want to create not unhealthy turmoil but positive and creative volatility so that we all advance. If you are not innovating, you're not growing."  Disruption and volatility are now part of the zeitgeist. Embrace them. ✔️  Your Legacy is NOW could be the catalyst you need to confidently emerge from the crisis cocoon. He unpacks how we've got to write our stories now, not when everything is perfect or until when things go smoothly: "What you create every day influences people, hopefully positively. Your age is a new page in your book. The question is: Is the same page as yesterday, is the page blank, or is someone else writing that page for you? That, to me, is the metaphor for legacy. Be more intentional, meaningful, and mindful." I encourage you to purchase a journal and start asking “WTF (What's the Future) I want to create?” Not what will you DO...or what will you BUY...but What experiences do you want to create for yourself and others? Then ask “What have I done today to create my modern legacy?” Your responses might just help you molt into something new and extraordinary.  Click here for the replay.  Copyright 2021, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved. Lisa Nirell of EnergizeGrowth™ LLC helps courageous marketers and CEOs accelerate growth and get promoted faster. She was recently inducted into the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches Community. Her clients include Google, Hilton, AARP, LinkedIn, and Skillsoft. You'll find her e-courses on LinkedIn Learning, Skillsoft, and Knowable.fyi.  Download your Mindful Marketer learning bonuses at themindfulmarketer.com/bonus. You will also join the “know ahead” list for our upcoming Life Streams. Alan Weiss, Ph.D is a leading business author, consultant, and professional speaker. His publishing includes over 500 articles and over 60 books, including the best-seller, Million Dollar Consulting, now in its 25th year and fifth edition.  Buy Your Legacy Is Now book: https://www.amazon.com/Your-Legacy-Now-Creation-Yourself/dp/0367723190 Or, learn more and visit https://alanweiss.com/. ------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2021, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.

HIGHLIGHTS02:12 Nathan's passion for side hustling and military service 05:42 Entry to entrepreneurship after defense contracting11:35 Time management is the biggest challenge to side hustling16:12 Scale faster: Let go of time-consuming tasks and hire talent to grow with you25:11 Work ethic: Know what you want so you can decide what to give up28:03 Life hack: Add software as you fix problems, not as infrastructure 33:16 Connect with NathanQUOTES06:47 "I started looking at how this company was making money and everything, and I was just like, there's no reason why I need to sit here and work  for what little bit I'm working for when I can just go do this on my own."12:59 "As we were growing, it was more of I need to book 10 a year, right? When we made that transition, then I started realizing that okay, my time is way more valuable selling than it is me working."18:06 "You can just go out Willy-nilly and say I'm going to go get the best people or I'm going to get the cheapest people. It doesn't necessarily work that way, you've got to try to find that middle ground of getting the most out of people that are looking to grow with you." 26:12 "You gotta figure out what you can give up and what you can't. And some people, you gotta decide what your side hustle wants to be. If you want it to just give you an extra thousand a month, there's nothing wrong with that."29:55 "You want to look at systems that give you the most in one place, if that makes sense. So you kind of want to create this unified ecosystem. Will you be able to cover everything with one company? No, but you can get most of it."You can find out more about Nathan in the links below:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nateflood/Please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. Be sure to visit our website at https://www.tandemconsulting.co/.

About a year ago, I had a conversation on this podcast that completely changed the way that I viewed my facilitation business. That conversation was with today's guest, Alan Weiss, the Rockstar of Consulting.Not only did that interview resonate with me, it resonated with many of you, so I had to invite Alan back on the show for an encore performance.  Last year's interview was a real watershed moment for me. Since then, I've been really adjusting, reshaping, rethinking the way I work... Spending less time on social media, and also focusing on my mindset… in an attempt to be more fearless! In this conversation (which is like a group coaching call!), we pick Alan's brain on: How to 10 x your feeWhat to do with feedback - the answer may surprise youWhat we can do everyday to build our self worthFree or fee? Should we charge for our webinars and information sessions (or not)?How to reach true, economic buyers in organisationsHow much research you should do before contacting a buyer…and much, much more.Members of the Booked Out Facilitator program were my co-hosts, and jumped in to ask Alan questions about every aspect of building our facilitation businesses.  I enjoyed being a lazy facilitator on this call and letting the brilliance of the Booked Out Facilitators take over the microphone.Underpinning all of Alan's responses is a philosophy of being fearless - of tooting your own horn, and of leaping into action. If you're curious about joining the next round of Booked Out Facilitator, check out bookedoutfaciliator.comAbout our guest: Alan WeissAlan Weiss is the rockstar of consulting. Marshall Goldsmith once called him “The finest entrepreneurial coach in the world.”His consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and over 500 other leading organizations. His Ph.D. is in psychology. He is an inductee into the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame® and the concurrent recipient of the National Speakers Association Council of Peers Award of Excellence, representing the top 1% of professional speakers in the world. His prolific publishing includes over 500 articles and 60 books, including his best-seller, Million Dollar Consulting (from McGraw-Hill) which is one of my faves.I also love Million Dollar Maverick and his ebook, The Martial Arts of language.Contact with Alan on all of the platformsReach out to Alan - he LOVES hearing from you. Join him on social media - Twitter, LinkedIn - thats the reason he came back, he got some tremendous feedback from his last show.Connect with Alan Weiss on LinkedInFollow Alan on TwitterAlan Weiss' websiteMillion Dollar Consulting Growth Access Grab the second edition of The Consulting BibleShhh... I'm releasing 5 secret podcast episodes over 5 days to help you book out your facilitation business, BUT you need to register to get access.Head on over to bookedoutfacilitator.comSupport the show (https://buymeacoffee.com/leannehughes)

Leanne Hughes is a brilliant, bright light in the world based in Brisbane, Australia. Along with her smarts and expertise, she truly embodies putting serendipity to work as a business strategy. You are going to love the origin story that launched her podcast, and how she has connected with some of the most well-known people in the speaking and consulting industries to accelerate her business and personal growth. More About Leanne: Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, trusted advisor and speaker who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences that predictably work. She combines her experience in marketing and her passion for group dynamics, with her education in psychology to help leaders dramatically improve their teams' performance. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Leanne has partnered with organisations all around the world (in-person and virtual) and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. ❤️ Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review. Free Time is listener supported—consider donating to become a podcast BFF Insider and you'll get access to a monthly Q&A call with Jenny and private feed.

The world of sales is changing radically. In this day and age, we are asked not only to sell a product or a service, but to provide value to our clients. We are asked to deal with our customers in a way that turns them into loyal patrons, advocates and evangelists for our brand. Considered to be a disruptor in the consulting industry, Alan Weiss is one of the pioneers of this approach to sales when he introduced value-based fees for consultants in the 90s. Alan is a sought-after keynote speaker and the author of dozens of books, including the bestseller, Million Dollar Consulting and his personal favorite, Million Dollar Maverick. In this episode, he joins Doug C. Nelson to talk about value-based pricing, which he tackles extensively in an eponymous book. Join in and get some valuable insights from one of the world's premier consultants.

Click here to access this episode's web page on KenNewhouse.com where you'll have access to (100%) FREE Bonuses from Consulting Mega-Superstar Alan Weiss, PhD and from your host Ken Newhouse. (No Email Required!)

Today I speak with Alan Weiss, owner of Summit Consulting and author of more than 60 business books, including Value-Based Fees, Million Dollar Consulting, Fearless leadership, and more.    What we cover: Value-pricing requires a wholesale shift in thinking.  You have to do a 180 - from starting with your costs and building to some form of cost+, to starting with the client’s objectives, what they are coming to you to help them accomplish, determining what that is worth to them, and pricing back from there.  Once you can do that, then… the really the first sale is always to yourself. You need to be able to say these numbers to yourself in front of a mirror without turning red.  No doubt there will be a big swing in your actual prices. In many cases, my clients are charging 4 - 10 times what they would have had they set their prices based off hourly rates. You will need to get used to this shift, on the inside.  Other shifts in thinking include how you frame what you do.  The value to your client isn’t in the doing. The value to your client is what your doing creates.  Cranking out numbers isn’t it. But cranking out numbers that are scenario plans that help a client make a better informed decision that doubles her margins – that has real value.  Reframe all that CPA terminology.  Your clients don’t understand activities you perform, like: monitor activity for any fixed asset/ intangible capitalization items maintain fixed asset reports  maintain proper accumulated depreciation records What does the above DO, for your clients? Keep them out of hot water? Help them save tens of thousands of dollars? Reframe, reframe, reframe.  There are limits to the value of compliance.  Become an expert in the finance and business side of things for your clients. When you look at your client’s prices, the cost of creating products and services, what the market will bear, and ensuring margins are in the right zone, suddenly the value you provide can skyrocket.  Consider: who else in your clients’ network of vendors they work with, can provide this level of expertise?  No one.  You are uniquely positioned to help them grow their business.  Behind every corporate objective is a personal objective. Clients want to create financial value, but there are often deeper reasons that motivate them.  Those might include: Saving time, getting time back, going from a 50-hr work week to a 40-hr work week (get home for dinner, happy marriage!) Stop wasting money to free it up to use elsewhere in the budget (look good for the boss, get promotion) Stop stressing and fretting about business (my kids tell me I’m always distracted, and I feel like I’m losing them/missing their lives) Focus on results. Always think and act in your client’s best interest. Focus on outcomes and results. Consider how you will improve their condition, and how they will be better once you’re gone. When you orient your business around getting results for your clients, everything gets easier.  Connect with Alan: Website: https://www.alanweisss.com/ Episode mentions: 111 - Better Pricing Methodologies For CPA Firms, with Jonathan Stark 106 - Better Pricing Strategies for Accountants: Stop Billing by the Hour, with Jonathan Stark 081 - Time To Rethink Your Pricing Strategy? Free 5-day email course - Better Pricing Strategies for CPAs Get here   Download the ebook “6 Simple Steps to Double Your Revenue” https://shethinksbigcoaching.com/download-double-your-revenue   Schedule time with Geraldine: https://calendly.com/geraldinecarter/15min   Work with Geraldine: https://shethinksbigcoaching.com/coaching-options  

Alan Weiss is the Rock Star of Consulting.If you want to discover the secrets of building a million dollar consulting practice or any type of practice as a solo practitioner, this is the show for you.In this episode, Dave and Alan discuss: Moving beyond your own cocoon and taking in the rest of the world. Differentiating yourself as someone you and others want to know. Networking – it's a process, not an event. Creating and maintaining a healthy self-esteem when you're an independent professional or sales executive.  Key Takeaways and actionable tips:  Be well-read and well-traveled. Stop talking about your field and start talking about other things. Charge for value. Appear in the public square that makes sense to your clients frequently with new intellectual property. Do not listen to unsolicited feedback. About Alan Weiss:https://alanweiss.com/Email: alan@summitconsulting.comAlan Weiss is one of those rare people who can say he is a consultant, speaker, and author and mean it.His consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, State Street Corporation, Times Mirror Group, The Federal Reserve, The New York Times Corporation, Toyota, and over 500 other leading organizations. He has served on the boards of directors of the Trinity Repertory Company, a Tony-Award-winning New England regional theater, Festival Ballet, and chaired the Newport International Film Festival.His speaking typically includes 20 keynotes a year at major conferences, and he has been a visiting faculty member at Case Western Reserve University, Boston College, Tufts, St. John's, the University of Illinois, the Institute of Management Studies, and the University of Georgia Graduate School of Business. He has held an appointment as adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Rhode Island where he taught courses on advanced management and consulting skills to MBA and PhD candidates. He once held the record for selling out the highest priced workshop (on entrepreneurialism) in the then-21-year history of New York City's Learning Annex. His Ph.D. is in psychology. He has served on the Board of Governors of Harvard University's Center for Mental Health and the Media.He is an inductee into the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame® and the concurrent recipient of the National Speakers Association Council of Peers Award of Excellence, representing the top 1% of professional speakers in the world. He has been named a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants, one of only two people in history holding both those designations.His prolific publishing includes over 500 articles and 60 books, including his best-seller, Million Dollar Consulting (from McGraw-Hill) now in its 25th year and fifth edition. His newest is Threescore and More: Applying the Assets of Maturity, Wisdom, and Experience for Personal and Professional Success (Routledge, 2018). His books have been on the curricula at Villanova, Temple University, and the Wharton School of Business, and have been translated into 15 languages.

His firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, State Street Corporation, The Federal Reserve, Toyota, and over 500 other leading organizations. He is an inductee into the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame® and the concurrent recipient of the National Speakers Association Council of Peers Award of Excellence, representing the top 1% of professional speakers in the world. His prolific publishing includes over 500 articles and 60 books, including his best-seller, Million Dollar Consulting (from McGraw-Hill) now in its 25th year and fifth edition. His newest is Threescore and More: Applying the Assets of Maturity, Wisdom, and Experience for Personal and Professional Success. Success Magazine cited him in an editorial devoted to his work as “a worldwide expert in executive education.“ The New York Post called him “one of the most highly regarded independent consultants in America.“ He is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Press Institute, the first-ever for a non-journalist. Join me on this episode of the Curve Benders podcast, with one of my Curve Benders, Dr. Alan Weiss. Don't forget, I turn the show notes from these podcasts into more in-depth articles, so check them out on our blog at NourGroup.com/Blog. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/david-nour/message

Dr. Alan Weiss is the author of over 500 articles and 60 books including his best-seller, Million Dollar Consulting. He has consulted with over 500 leading organizations including Merck, Hewlett Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, The New York Times, Toyota, and the Federal Reserve. Alan is also an inductee into the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame®, recipient … The post Dr. Alan Weiss, The Rock Star of Consulting first appeared on TRANSLEADERSHIP, INC®.

Top tips from the world’s definitive business coach. Wouldn’t it be great to have an expert business coach in your pocket? Somebody whose advice is so great, people will pay millions of dollars to receive it? Well, thanks to the updated fourth edition of 1992 guidebook Million Dollar Consulting, that advice is now yours! Updated to reflect the business concerns of the modern world, Million Dollar Coaching is your guide to success. Packed with actionable top tips for attracting clients and cultivating best practices, Weiss’ consulting guide will show you how to become a million-dollar consultant yourself. *** Do you want more free audiobook summaries like this? Download our app for free at QuickRead.com/App and get access to hundreds of free book and audiobook summaries.

SHOW NOTES KEY IDEAS: Today will our second installment talking about pricing and “is profit evil?”  I did that for a reason.  This is a question that has come up several times.  It came up for me in my business.  It has come up with guests that I have interviewed on the show.  And, it is has come up from people who are working in my industry who have since gone out of business. The fact that they went out of business is a hint as to how important this issue is.  By being generous or being nice, rather than pricing their products or services correctly, they are now out of business and not sharing their gifts with the rest of the world.  This is not a sustainable way of doing business. We need to be concerned with sustainability, business sustainability.  If we use entrepreneurship to support our farming or rural lifestyle and the business fails, then we lose the lifestyle.  So, it is important that we price our goods or services in a way that will sustain our business.  Otherwise, all of the positive impact we could have had with our agricultural enterprise will no longer exist. Here is where we left off in Part 1. There are also possible hidden costs.   Loan principle repayments Utilities Loan Interest Sale prices Employee discounts Desired Profit - which should be counted as a fixed cost Who is your target market?  You must identify who the ideal customer for your product or service is.  Then you must go get that customer.  If you are priced incorrectly, you can miss this target market.  Perhaps your want high end customers who have stables full of $25,000 horses.  Working for these individuals will allow  you to work less, spend more time on your own farm and make as much money as working for 5 times as many customers with $2,000 horses. In order to get into this group you are going to be forced to raise your prices, year after year, until you accomplish this.  According to the book “Million Dollar Consulting” by Alan Weiss you should be “dropping” the bottom 15% of your customers every year.  This makes room for a new 15% who are closer to your ideal customer.  If raising your price causes you to lose 15% of your customers but allows you to cater more to your ideal customer, mission accomplished. What are you trying to do with your price?   Are you trying to increase sales?  If so, be careful lowering your price to do this.  You might find yourself working twice as much for the same amount of money. Are you trying to increase profit?  This can be done by increasing price or decreasing price.  But the model and lifestyle are much different.  In one you work a lot more.  In the other, you might even work less.  **Remember, this is about more time to manage and grow your farm. Are you chasing your competitors price?  If you are trying be stable in the market place that is fine.  Just make sure you find out your competitor’s prices ethically. Are you trying to improve the perception of your product?  A higher price can make the bulk of consumers believe that there is better quality.  Price and perception of quality and skill level go together, no matter how irrelevant that really is. Are you trying to improve your public image?  If you want to donate products or services to charity that is fantastic.  Make sure that you price high enough that you can do that without taking a loss. Are you saving up for a slow season or economic downturn?  Both happen.  It is wise to charge enough that you can have “retained earnings” that will get you through these hard times. Discounts In your business would you like to provide discounts?  Maybe you would like to provide a bulk discount for those great customers with really big orders or big jobs.  Make sure you are priced appropriately so that you can absorb the reduced revenue from these discounts. Perhaps you would like to provide a senior discount.  Seniors might fit into your demographic perfectly.  However,

If you're going to learn something, you might as well learn from the best, right? I'm still reeling from my interview with today's guest, Alan Weiss.This is another episode for you if you run your own business or looking to be a solopreneur. I reached out to Alan after Michael Bungay Stanier's contribution to Episode 120, where he said, “If you read Alan Weiss' book Million Dollar Consulting, you'll never go hungry again”. Alan Weiss is the rockstar of consulting. Marshall Goldsmith once called him “The finest entrepreneurial coach in the world.” He is one of those rare people who can say he is a consultant, speaker, and author and mean it. His consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, oyota, and over 500 other leading organizations.  He once held the record for selling out the highest priced workshop (on entrepreneurialism) in the then-21-year history of New York City's Learning Annex. His Ph.D. is in psychology.  He is an inductee into the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame® and the concurrent recipient of the National Speakers Association Council of Peers Award of Excellence, representing the top 1% of professional speakers in the world.  His prolific publishing includes over 500 articles and 60 books, including his best-seller, Million Dollar Consulting (from McGraw-Hill) now in its 25th year and fifth edition.  The New York Post called him “one of the most highly regarded independent consultants in America.“  Yep folks, he's impressive and as he mentions in this interview, he's not humble about that fact, either! In today's conversation we cover many topics, including:  Debunking the myth that the riches are in the niches Who we should target in our marketing efforts (spoiler alert: Not HR or Training people)  How to create our value proposition to share the value we bring  Why it's important to create content to build marketing gravity Honestly? This is a masterclass in how to market your facilitation and consulting business. This was an experiential joint interview with the Show.Up community. Get on the waitlist when doors open again later this year! Make your online experiences amazing! Doors open soon for Virtually Possible, a collaboration with myself and Joeri - The Magic Sauce. Click here for show notesShhh... I'm releasing 5 secret podcast episodes over 5 days to help you book out your facilitation business, BUT you need to register to get access.Head on over to bookedoutfacilitator.comSupport the show (https://buymeacoffee.com/leannehughes)

"The only place you can coast is when you're going downhill (in business and life)!" This tidbit from the interview with Dr. Alan Weiss is a great reminder for current or future coaches or consultants who are looking to build their business, their program or their impact. As the author of Million Dollar Consultant, Dr. Weiss has helped thousands of individuals around the globe to improve their business outcomes. If you're heading up an internal health/wellness program, running your own business or considering starting your own business, this episode is a must.

Today our guest is a Business Growth Strategist | She works with her clients to build an expert Authority Business | and scale to 7 figure FAST | she has a reputation of being one of the best business strategists and marketing and sales consultant for entrepreneurs who want to sell high value products and services. Lesson: Learn how to restructure your lifestyle business for maximum growth. Learn more about Jessica Yarbrough on most social platforms When we touch a heart we change a life When we change a life we become unstoppable Together! She was cleaning houses before filling houses, your host Connie Pheiff is a Philanthropist, Social Venture Entrepreneur, and #BeyondMeToo Activist is the Jewel in the Crown of the Pheiff Group, Inc. With her distinctive voice audiences everywhere know her. She is blessed from her work as a corporate CEO, award-winning speaker, Podcaster, Mentor, Coach and author. She is provocative, edgy, and brings a genuine humor to the platform.  Connie is best known as the Unstoppable DIVA, former executive turned Media Industrialist. In addition to producing the Connie Pheiff Show, she is a serial-entrepreneur, author, speaker, and mentor with her most daring venture leading Talent Concierge, an artist agency with heart.  Each week she brings you confident conversations with today's most daring thought-leaders who made the bold choice to go from moving up to moving out and building a successful lifestyle business.   The Connie Pheiff Show is heard in 610 countries and tracking nearly 6M impressions each month. And she is not done yet… The Connie Pheiff Show can be heard on… Be sure to subscribe, because you don’t want to miss any of the good stuff.  Networks | Benchmarks Apple Radio  iHeartRadio Google Radio  Stitcher 190 Digital (online) Networks  Countries: User reported from 210 countries 6M Podcast Impressions per month BROADCAST YOUR STORY EVERYWHERE Let us know what you need to hear on a future episode of the Connie Pheiff Show. We work with the World’s Most Daring Minds who are keeping the passion of life activated.  Apply to be a guest on the Connie Pheiff Show and be certain to subscribe to the show to receive each episode right in your inbox on   Have a successful career and ready to share your story with the world but not quite certain how to make it happen? Talent Concierge can help and is now accepting new Talent for 2020. Contact the team at https://talentconcierge.co/contact/ to book the next five-star Talent for your next event  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The journey to scaling your business can be quite complex, but with the right guidance, you will eventually get to the top. Today, Michael Zipursky chats with Jennifer Brown of Jennifer Brown Consulting about running her multi-million-dollar consultancy and working with clients like Adobe, Samsung, and Coca-Cola, to name a few. She shares how she shifted from delivering her expertise to building and scaling her own business. Learn from Jennifer as she explains her best practices in building a team and booking conferences, and gives advice around content and thought leadership. Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Consulting Success Community today: consultingsuccess.com

The journey to scaling your business can be quite complex, but with the right guidance, you will eventually get to the top. Today, Michael Zipursky chats with Jennifer Brown of Jennifer Brown Consulting about running her multi-million-dollar consultancy and working with clients like Adobe, Samsung, and Coca-Cola, to name a few. She shares how she shifted from delivering her expertise to building and scaling her own business. Learn from Jennifer as she explains her best practices in building a team and booking conferences, and gives advice around content and thought leadership. Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Consulting Success Community today: consultingsuccess.com

The journey to scaling your business can be quite complex, but with the right guidance, you will eventually get to the top. Today, Michael Zipursky chats with Jennifer Brown of Jennifer Brown Consulting about running her multi-million-dollar consultancy and working with clients like Adobe, Samsung, and Coca-Cola, to name a few. She shares how she shifted from delivering her expertise to building and scaling her own business. Learn from Jennifer as she explains her best practices in building a team and booking conferences, and gives advice around content and thought leadership.Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!Here’s How »Join the Consulting Success Community today:consultingsuccess.com

In this week’s episode, join me in hearing tons of advice from Alan Weiss, author of a phenomenal book called “Million Dollar Consulting,” or as I like to call it, The “Bible” of Consulting, which is one of numerous books and articles he’s written. Alan is also the owner of Summit Consulting Group that provides management consulting services to clients across the globe.    During Alan’s professional journey, he quickly learned he could charge for the value of his consulting services, to which he’s pioneered value-based fees. Alan is also all about simplifying everything to place more speed on doing business and getting results. Overcomplicating processes won’t grow your business. Alan hones in on his core values of focusing on what’s important and why you should “carve away everything that doesn’t look like a career.”   The “Million Dollar Consulting” book is at the heart of everything I learned to start my businesses- my mindset, the tactics, the concepts behind charging for value, and more. Listen here to get more insight and tons of value out of this. And don’t forget to check out Alan Weiss.com, where you can find his blog and free articles, videos, audios, and locations for his next attendance.

In this episode of The Freelancers Show, Erik Dietrich explains the term economic buyer and how it can affect freelancers and business owners. An economic buyer is the person within an organization who has the authority to purchase something. Knowing who your economic buyer is will affect how you market your product, for freelancers, this includes labor or services.  Starting with the most desirable, Erik lists the main types of buyers’ situations. The first is the autonomous buyer situation. A lone buyer makes the decision about purchasing a product. Erik shares the example of a manager taking the team out for lunch. They didn’t have to consult anyone and decided to do that on their own. The next situation and the second most desirable after the autonomous buyer situation is the buyer and research assistant/influencer. For this situation, Erik uses the example of the CIO or director of engineering choosing the new IDE for a new project. They may not care about the finer details or don’t have the technical know-how or time to do the research, so the pick someone to do the leg work and allow them to advise them on the purchase. The next situation is the buyer committee. In this situation, the committee debates the purchase and will eventually make the purchasing decision. Erik shares an example of an organization overhauling its website and wanting to get a CMS and starting a blog for marketing purposes. This involves IT and Marketing and has multiple paths to choose from. The last and least desirable situation is the system/algorithm. The example Erik shares is the hiring process for a large organization. An interview is held by someone who has little or no authority in hiring, they are there to play their part in the system. The actual buyer would be the CIO or VP of engineering, who would sign your checks. They can’t be involved directly so they delegate to someone who delegates to someone else, leaving standing orders to fill a specific number of positions. The developer hired is as Erik puts it of no valuable than a stapler to an office manager, they are replaceable.  Erik explains the more you can talk directly to the buyer the more advantageous the situation is. He goes over examples of different types of economic buyers. The economic buyer you deal with will vary based on the size of the organization, the larger the organization the more vertically distributed the economic buyers get. The highest authority starts at the top and slowly trickles down, the economic buyers you deal with have varying names and degrees of authority. Next, Erik explains what difference this all makes from a sales and marketing perspective. With a system/algorithm it is very difficult as each process differs, so marketing to a system takes a lot of effort and time for each organization. With a buyers committee, it is possible to train yourself to address rooms full of people and maintain more control over the process. Buyers and research assistant/influencer situation is even easier with only two people to convince. The best situation is dealing directly with the buyer, with only one person to get to know and convince.  Erik gives advice on how to go from appealing to the whims of a system to working directly with the economic buyers. First, he suggests switching things up and marketing to smaller organizations that don’t have a system. Doing this could help you the credibility needed to work directly with economic buyers higher up in a larger organization.  Another way is by looking at the four-step problem-solving solution. This is where you diagnose a problem, prescribe a therapy, apply the therapy and finally, reapply the therapy. Start by looking at your context in the solution, most likely you are applying therapy. Knowing this you can work your way backward and find the diagnoses. The diagnoses made by the economic buyer can help you understand what the buyer cares about.  Another suggestion he gives is working your way up the value chain, working through each level of economic buyer, finding what the next level cares about and marketing towards them. Or, he suggests selling smaller offerings that will change up your economic buyers. Finally, he explains the first step to any of this is by thinking about who your economic buyer is, get your wheels turning on how to reach those people. Just doing this will help you market more efficiently which will lead to more work and help you be better in what you do.    Panelists Erik Dietrich Sponsors   Sentry– use the code “devchat” for two months free on Sentry’s small plan Sustain Our Software My Angular Story CacheFly Links https://twitter.com/daedtech https://www.facebook.com/freelancersshow/ Picks Erik Dietrich: Million Dollar Consulting The Hit Subscribe Side-Hustle Email List

In this episode of The Freelancers Show, Erik Dietrich explains the term economic buyer and how it can affect freelancers and business owners. An economic buyer is the person within an organization who has the authority to purchase something. Knowing who your economic buyer is will affect how you market your product, for freelancers, this includes labor or services.  Starting with the most desirable, Erik lists the main types of buyers’ situations. The first is the autonomous buyer situation. A lone buyer makes the decision about purchasing a product. Erik shares the example of a manager taking the team out for lunch. They didn’t have to consult anyone and decided to do that on their own. The next situation and the second most desirable after the autonomous buyer situation is the buyer and research assistant/influencer. For this situation, Erik uses the example of the CIO or director of engineering choosing the new IDE for a new project. They may not care about the finer details or don’t have the technical know-how or time to do the research, so the pick someone to do the leg work and allow them to advise them on the purchase. The next situation is the buyer committee. In this situation, the committee debates the purchase and will eventually make the purchasing decision. Erik shares an example of an organization overhauling its website and wanting to get a CMS and starting a blog for marketing purposes. This involves IT and Marketing and has multiple paths to choose from. The last and least desirable situation is the system/algorithm. The example Erik shares is the hiring process for a large organization. An interview is held by someone who has little or no authority in hiring, they are there to play their part in the system. The actual buyer would be the CIO or VP of engineering, who would sign your checks. They can’t be involved directly so they delegate to someone who delegates to someone else, leaving standing orders to fill a specific number of positions. The developer hired is as Erik puts it of no valuable than a stapler to an office manager, they are replaceable.  Erik explains the more you can talk directly to the buyer the more advantageous the situation is. He goes over examples of different types of economic buyers. The economic buyer you deal with will vary based on the size of the organization, the larger the organization the more vertically distributed the economic buyers get. The highest authority starts at the top and slowly trickles down, the economic buyers you deal with have varying names and degrees of authority. Next, Erik explains what difference this all makes from a sales and marketing perspective. With a system/algorithm it is very difficult as each process differs, so marketing to a system takes a lot of effort and time for each organization. With a buyers committee, it is possible to train yourself to address rooms full of people and maintain more control over the process. Buyers and research assistant/influencer situation is even easier with only two people to convince. The best situation is dealing directly with the buyer, with only one person to get to know and convince.  Erik gives advice on how to go from appealing to the whims of a system to working directly with the economic buyers. First, he suggests switching things up and marketing to smaller organizations that don’t have a system. Doing this could help you the credibility needed to work directly with economic buyers higher up in a larger organization.  Another way is by looking at the four-step problem-solving solution. This is where you diagnose a problem, prescribe a therapy, apply the therapy and finally, reapply the therapy. Start by looking at your context in the solution, most likely you are applying therapy. Knowing this you can work your way backward and find the diagnoses. The diagnoses made by the economic buyer can help you understand what the buyer cares about.  Another suggestion he gives is working your way up the value chain, working through each level of economic buyer, finding what the next level cares about and marketing towards them. Or, he suggests selling smaller offerings that will change up your economic buyers. Finally, he explains the first step to any of this is by thinking about who your economic buyer is, get your wheels turning on how to reach those people. Just doing this will help you market more efficiently which will lead to more work and help you be better in what you do.    Panelists Erik Dietrich Sponsors   Sentry– use the code “devchat” for two months free on Sentry’s small plan Sustain Our Software My Angular Story CacheFly Links https://twitter.com/daedtech https://www.facebook.com/freelancersshow/ Picks Erik Dietrich: Million Dollar Consulting The Hit Subscribe Side-Hustle Email List

Consultant, speaker, and prolific author (of 64 books!) Alan Weiss joins us and shares how to create a successful business with longevity; including the top habits that have contributed to his success.

Today we're joining Shirag as he launches into building his own personal online empire.  Shirag's consulting business reached 7 figures this year and he's been doing it ALL ON THE SIDE! A true hustler, right? Let's catch up with him...TopicsHow Shirag's consulting business works and reached 7 figures onlineCopywriting SkillsSEOSales Funnel […] Read More → The post Building a Million Dollar Consulting Business Online w/ Shirag Shemmassian of ShemmassianConsulting.com [Episode #72] appeared first on Human Proof Designs.

Sponsors Sentry– use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan Paymo | Opt for monthly & get 30% discount on paid plans for 6 months CacheFly Panel Eric Dietrich Reuven Lerner Summary The panel discusses different billing models and their experiences with each. They start by sharing their current billing model, upfront payment. Net +30 and Net +60 are discussed; the panel advises freelancers to get used to waiting for payment. The upsides and downsides of hourly billing, fixed rates, value pricing, and retainers are considered. The panel explains how to choose a billing model, how to evolve to other models and how to raise your rates. Picks Eric Dietrich: Million Dollar Consulting https://www.hitsubscribe.com/apply-to-be-an-author/ Reuven Lerner: Alexander Hamilton

Sponsors Sentry– use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan Paymo | Opt for monthly & get 30% discount on paid plans for 6 months CacheFly Panel Eric Dietrich Reuven Lerner Summary The panel discusses different billing models and their experiences with each. They start by sharing their current billing model, upfront payment. Net +30 and Net +60 are discussed; the panel advises freelancers to get used to waiting for payment. The upsides and downsides of hourly billing, fixed rates, value pricing, and retainers are considered. The panel explains how to choose a billing model, how to evolve to other models and how to raise your rates. Picks Eric Dietrich: Million Dollar Consulting https://www.hitsubscribe.com/apply-to-be-an-author/ Reuven Lerner: Alexander Hamilton

Alan Weiss is the author behind one of my FAVORITE books on consulting and business ever — Million Dollar Consulting. In today’s podcast, I talk to Alan about his thoughts on business and life. Learn how he grew a million-dollar business after getting fired and starting from zero, plus more.   Full show notes at https://okdork.com/podcast/88

In This Episode We Discuss: How to represent yourself as a million dollar consultant Marketing strategies for top consultants How to create Bullet Proof Proposals and close the deal About Alan Weiss: Alan’s consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, State Street Corporation, Times Mirror Group, The Federal Reserve, The New York Times Corporation, Toyota, and over 500 other leading organizations. His prolific publishing includes over 500 articles and 60 books, including his best-seller, Million Dollar Consulting (from McGraw-Hill) now in its 25th year and fifth edition. His newest is Threescore and More: Applying the Assets of Maturity, Wisdom, and Experience for Personal and Professional Success (Routledge, 2018). His books have been on the curricula at Villanova, Temple University, and the Wharton School of Business, and have been translated into 12 languages.

Leaving your consulting business to spend time with your family or friends in some other part of the world seems an inconceivable idea, most especially if you are the type who worries about their business constantly. Learn how to be able to do just that. Michael shares how he managed to run his million-dollar consulting business while traveling the world for five months. He lays down his approach and shares how to generate a significant income, be a consultant, and realize your full and true potential while still having plenty of freedom and time to do anything you want. Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Consulting Success Community today: consultingsuccess.com

Leaving your consulting business to spend time with your family or friends in some other part of the world seems an inconceivable idea, most especially if you are the type who worries about their business constantly. Learn how to be able to do just that. Michael shares how he managed to run his million-dollar consulting business while traveling the world for five months. He lays down his approach and shares how to generate a significant income, be a consultant, and realize your full and true potential while still having plenty of freedom and time to do anything you want. Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Consulting Success Community today: consultingsuccess.com

Leaving your consulting business to spend time with your family or friends in some other part of the world seems an inconceivable idea, most especially if you are the type who worries about their business constantly. Learn how to be able to do just that. Michael shares how he managed to run his million-dollar consulting business while traveling the world for five months. He lays down his approach and shares how to generate a significant income, be a consultant, and realize your full and true potential while still having plenty of freedom and time to do anything you want.Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!Here’s How »Join the Consulting Success Community today:consultingsuccess.com

Alan Weiss is one of those rare people who can say he is a consultant, speaker, and author and mean it. His consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, State Street Corporation, Times Mirror Group, The Federal Reserve, The New York Times Corporation, Toyota, and over 500 other leading organizations. He has served on the boards of directors of the Trinity Repertory Company, a Tony-Award-winning New England regional theater, Festival Ballet, and chaired the Newport International Film Festival.His prolific publishing includes over 500 articles and 60 books, including his best-seller, Million Dollar Consulting (from McGraw-Hill) now in its 25th year and fifth edition. His newest is Million Dollar Maverick (Bibliomotion, 2016). His books have been on the curricula at Villanova, Temple University, and the Wharton School of Business, and have been translated into 12 languages. Joe Daltonhttps://joedalton.ie/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

CHECK OUT HIRED.COM: https://www.simpleprogrammer.com/hiredsp When it comes to freelancing, there is a lot of stuff you, as a freelancer, need to learn how to handle. In the software development world, you need to handle a lot of stuff: billing, contracts, price and, most of all, how much time it will take in order to complete a specific project. This is exactly what we are going to talk in this video... How do you estimate the time to finish a programming project? Is it ever possible to estimate how much will it take to finish a project? How do you bill your clients in that case? Watch this video and find out! Million Dollar Consulting: https://simpleprogrammer.com/milliondollarconsulting

A few years into building websites for people, in the very beginnings of my little agency, I picked up a book with a pretty bold title: Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss. Picking up that book was one of the biggest game changers of my entire consulting career. Alan Weiss wrote about how to create value for clients, how the amount of time that you spent on a project should have nothing to do with the fee that you charge, how the very idea of trying to sell your time for money was unfair to the client and to you. I wish I could say that this was an overnight change for me, but it took time for those lessons to sink in and to make the mindset shifts needed to realize that it really is all about finding ways to create value. Now, I’m very pleased to welcome Alan Weiss, best selling author, and million dollar consultant, on to Freelance Transformation. Here, Alan shares his personal journey through consulting and coaching, how to market yourself as a consultant, what makes a consultant, the psychological challenges of being a consultant and selling, and common mistakes made by beginner and not-so-beginner consultants. https://freelancetransformation.com/episode112

'There's no such thing as writer's block. It's a myth. What you do is you sit down at a keyboard and you type a letter, and then you type some more letters, you have a word. Then you type some more words, you have a sentence. A few more sentences, you have a paragraph. What you write is better than you think, but what stops people is the self-editing, this little person in your head who keeps critiquing you. You got to kill that person, you just got to flick them off your shoulder, stomp on them 'til they're bloody. You have to sit down and write, and stop worrying whether people will like it. Just write for yourself.' Alan Weiss's approach to writing is bracing. If you're getting bogged down in endless rewriting or self-critiquing, this is going to be uncomfortable listening. Uncomfortable, but essential. 

This week Cut The Crap Podcast features the management book, 'Million Dollar Consulting.' In Million Dollar Consulting, author Alan Weiss shares with readers his best advice and guidance for growing a million dollar consulting firm. There were 4 Golden Nuggets taken from 'Million Dollar Consulting.' ----------- Cut the Crap Podcast Stakeholders SierraSil Health was founded in 2003 to market SierraSil®, a clinically tested and shown, safe and effective mineral supplement. The company is committed to providing exceptional customer service, to being ethical in all relationships, and to supporting all health claims with real science.  Go to http://www.sierrasil.com/ and enter the coupon code CUTTHECRAP for 15% off your order!   Modern Earth Web Design does much more than custom web design! No matter what your business - association - organization may need in terms of improving your online presence, Modern Earth Web Design can help by providing affordable marketing solutions. Go to http://www.ModernEarth.net to book a no obligation online marketing consultation for your business! ----------- Go to CutTheCrapPodcast.com and signup to receive a summary from each episode that will highlight all of the golden nuggets shared in the podcast. ----------- See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

02:42 - Ryan Waggoner Introduction Twitter Facebook Blog Lead Curation: LetsMakeApps 04:30 - Getting Over the Hump Goal Setting Productivity Habits 06:05 - Preparations for Freelancing 07:33 - Job Security 10:08 - Pricing 12:31 - Working with Startups 15:35 - Low Lifetime Value Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss 18:15 - Equity For Payment 19:27 - Vetting Process 21:16 - “Hustling” Craigslist 30:04 - Filtering Criteria 32:58 - Cognitive Load 34:54 - Project Billing Trust and Communication For our listeners: please visit letsmakeapps.io/fs/ to get  PDF guide: "Lessons Learned from My First Million Dollars from Freelance” 50% discount on paid plans for LetsMakeApps.io when they launch (worth $294) Picks Sony MDRMA900 Over-the-Head Headphones (Philip) Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss (Ryan) Solo Retreats (Ryan) Pick Four Notebooks (Ryan) Working Podcast (Reuven)

02:42 - Ryan Waggoner Introduction Twitter Facebook Blog Lead Curation: LetsMakeApps 04:30 - Getting Over the Hump Goal Setting Productivity Habits 06:05 - Preparations for Freelancing 07:33 - Job Security 10:08 - Pricing 12:31 - Working with Startups 15:35 - Low Lifetime Value Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss 18:15 - Equity For Payment 19:27 - Vetting Process 21:16 - “Hustling” Craigslist 30:04 - Filtering Criteria 32:58 - Cognitive Load 34:54 - Project Billing Trust and Communication For our listeners: please visit letsmakeapps.io/fs/ to get  PDF guide: "Lessons Learned from My First Million Dollars from Freelance” 50% discount on paid plans for LetsMakeApps.io when they launch (worth $294) Picks Sony MDRMA900 Over-the-Head Headphones (Philip) Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss (Ryan) Solo Retreats (Ryan) Pick Four Notebooks (Ryan) Working Podcast (Reuven)

EntreProgrammers Episode 85 Interesting, If Not Beneficial 1:35 Alright we’re live! John is already working on improving is vision. John says it is to soon to tell if his experiment is working. John’s mentions that his wife is doing the eye exercises as well. She may be on to something, as her last vision test was a small improvement.  3:45 John is doing the 48 hour fasting experiment. He mentioned he is suffering some mental challenges by not eating enough. John is now experimenting with a 85% fat diet. John says its is similar to to Paleo diet. Johns explains how the Ketosis diet works. 8:40 Derick subscribers are still growing since he announced his birthday sales. He thinks the primary difference is that he is talking about Watch Me Code to his email list. Derick talks about all the different series that are available on the new series page. This page should work well on any device your using from tablets to desktop.  12:15 Derick mentions that he is sending more email then he ever has. Derick talks about the new email sequence he is implementing. John is interested in the strategy Derick is trying out. John thinks this will filter out those who are not so interested. Derick may have to deal with un-subscribers with all these email going out.   15:25 Derick talks about a double opt-in for his email strategy, and shares how his strategy is slightly different from Ben Settle’s .  18:00 Derick thinks his new strategy will drive new traffic to his page. John is curious to see what will happen with Derick's new email strategy. Derick is excited that these are subscribers who are not using coupons and discount codes.  19:45 Derick mentions doing a podcast interview with Matt Krammer. MK 015 “Using Email List for Traction.” Derick also mentions that there are no traces of SignalLeaf anymore, it is completely dead! 24:00 John asks why he couldn’t make his iPhone into to a webcam or at least connected to his computer over wifi or usb? Is there an app for this feature? 27:10 Josh mentions that Derick’s email strategy may lead to an influx of sales, then a drop off.  Derick mentions that he is two weeks ahead or his work. Derick thinks that his productive is due to killing SignalLeaf, and his son’s health is stabilizing.  33:00 Chuck hosted the Angular Remote Conf. last week. Chuck mentions that everything went well and got a ton of great feedback. People have asked Chuck to do a monthly Remote Conference. John thinks a yearly pass that allows you to pick from four out of six for the year is a good idea. Chuck is still playing with the idea, but thinking about doing six remote conferences.  38:30  John thinks that Chuck may have found his synergy with podcasting and remote conference.  42:00 Chuck is talking about creating apps for the new “AppleTV” type systems. This will mean approaching media companies who want to be on this new platform. Welcome to “TV Chuck.” Josh ask Chuck if he has read “Million Dollar Consulting,” a great suggestion for this type of venture.  49:20 Josh talks about how he was approach by a certain prospect. Josh was reluctant to take on this client. Josh talks about the process and changes he is implementing with the new client he is taking on.  57:20  Josh gets a new iPhone 6s, and talks about the 3D touch feature. The EntreProgrammers talk about the cell phone companies systems and upgrades. Derick talks about how his service is grandfathered in on the unlimited data for 35 dollars.  1:07:35  John mentions the the Google cell phone service. Hmm, that may make Android profitable finally, Derick says.  1:11:00 Josh drops a few quotes from Hacker News. Josh shares some feedback about Infusion Soft consultants. Josh was not received well by the letters he mailed out. However, he has the consultants talking about the handwritten letters. Josh talks about the plan B, if this strategy does not work.  1:18:00  Chuck asks Josh how to go about posting a news letters on LinkedIn. Josh talks about the importance of the subject line and how to create a engaging title.  1:33:00 Josh maybe taking over certain sections on Simple Programmer. John shares his future plans with Simple Programmer.     1:39:10 John talks about how he redesigned the podcast page, products pages and resources page on Simple programmer.  1:43:00 John is having issuing from Reddit. Derick blocked Reddit and redirected the traffic to Google.  1:49:00  The EntreProgrammers discuss the difference between the Pop-up and the Welcome Mat.   Thoughts for the Week Chuck - Keep the positive mindset. Josh - Spend the time to re-enforce the value Derick -  Your mailing list is your life blood.  John -  Don’t keep doing something, just because you were doing it before…  Resources Mentioned in this Episode Ben Settle  http://www.podcastchart.com/podcasts/antipreneur-the-ben-settle-show Matt Krammer Podcact with Derick Bailey https://mattkremer.com/mk-o15-derick-bailey-using-email-lists-for-traction/ “Million Dollar Consulting” by Alan Weiss http://www.amazon.com/Million-Dollar-Consulting-Alan-Weiss/dp/0071622101

Episode 58 "If She Doesn't Float, We Burn Her"1:07 – We're Live!2:28 – EntreProgrammers Retreat, December 4-5, 2015, in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Workshops on email marketing, podcast, brand building, etc.  Sign up for the mailing list and stay up to date with detail as they develop.http://entreprogrammer.com/retreat2015Chuck shares his week9:53- Chuck’s Kick-starter campaign reached it’s funding requirements!  Time to record videos, and begin work. This is a great example of entrepreneurial planning. Chuck decides from multiple point of view how he should maximize on the screencast he is going to market. There are several approaches he is using to market; in this case, email is one ways in this particular market that is used to reach out.    Josh talks about soccer ball…a job Josh was looking into19:41- Josh receives advice for the EntreProgrammers about techniques on following up, and creating a conversation to get the next interview.   John talks about understanding the employer’s need and be confident enough to carry out these duties.  Chuck: "Hulk wants job…now!" or give this approach a shot.Virtual Office tools 26:45 – John buy Boomerang, a Gmail plugin that help you follow-up. John is trying to connect with Chad Fowler, and Chuck has some connections.  http://www.boomeranggmail.comJosh shares a similar plugin called Streak a free Gmail plugin https://www.streak.com 30:04 – John's book, Soft Skills, is on the front page for the ultimate list of programming books.http://simpleprogrammer.com/2015/03/23/the-ultimate-list-of-programming-books/John has a plan or technique to help Soft Skills in sales, is to make associations with other books in the best-seller list.  This is a simple, but affective way to market.36:00 – Minimalist or EssentialismJohn talks about focusing on one project at a time, and completing project that will be used through out the rest of the year. These new ideas are to create a new book, along with 52-blog post scheduled for a weekly release. This blog post will coincide with the book. The main point is to create this material within a 2-month time period and schedule the material for the rest of the year. Next, to is complete all the video material for Simple Programmer within a month, for the rest of the year. This allows for focusing on one project, instead of juggling several.  42:21 – Josh ask what things John plans to cut out of his task. Some WorkoutsGet Up and Code! 45:46 – Derick directs Johns attention to author, blogger, Chris Strom http://japhr.blogspot.com50:32 – John is about to up his video quality soon.58:00 - John charts out the hour of his week. Blog =3 hoursYouTube = 2 hoursEntreProgramers = 2 hoursEmail =10.5 hoursGet up an Code = 1 hourSpeaking Engagments = 7 hours  Guest Post = 4 hours Anthony at Health CareDoug = 1 hourTwitter = 3 hoursZephyr = 1 hour  Total about 35ish hours1:00:00 – The EntreProgrammers talk about the pros & cons of breaking the cycle of work. Watch and listen closely to the possible drawbacks and successes involve in taking a cessation in your regular schedule. 1:11:17 – Josh had his conference, Get Clients in 30 Days as a Copyrighter Conference. Josh idea is to target software companies for clients. Josh attempts to get one on one time with Bob Bly. He manages to get the teacher's pet treatment form Bly.This proves the social and communication skills entrepreneurs have to possess to make successful networking and connections.1:27:43 – The EntreProgrammers talk about the Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss great book for adding to entrepreneurial skill set.  Speaking at Conferences1:30:00 - These programmers discussing value in participating in conference as a keynote speaker. Is it worth the time? What kinds of opportunities does this attract?  When should you speak at conferences?1:34:30 - Chuck has other appointment to keep, iPhreaks and such. 1:39:07 – John an actor? What? 1:45:31 – Josh and the programmers decided that speaking at a conference may give leverage to a "new comer" in the field.1:46:03 - John recommends the book,Traction 1:49:19  Thought for the DayDerick – It’s not about being perfect, it about progressJohn – Focus on what is essentialJosh – Don’t be content to stand inline Publish your podcast with SignalLeaf: https://www.signalleaf.com/

Episode 56A Lesson In Pricing Models1:07- Alright, we’re live! After 56 episodes these EntreProgrammers have yet to perfect an introduction. Here is some awkward discussion about pirating of music and Disney movies.6:24 – Our guess, Wes McClure joins us from a New York City jail cell. Joking! http://devblog.wesmcclure.com9:09 - Wes gives the lo-down about the process of achieving a Value Base Price system. This information is a great resource for software developers and those in similar fields.    13:03 - Chuck shares his approach to pricing and how much value it provides the client.  Derick shares this thoughts on fixed bid rates and trials of a project using this type of rate.14:50 – John talks about the Fixed bid, Hourly, Weekly based pricing and focusing on the value and project. John continues on about when to use which kind of billing model, in each type of project. Wes shares his prospective on when, where, and how to work, value base pricing in to your projects. Looking at the outcome of your project is key.  23:34 – John makes some good points about the value base pricing of projects.  The time is takes to track your hourly work verses the value on a fix base priced project. The time it takes to administer to your operative is out of the question. On the upside, a fixed base operation with a guarantee job, and has aches to deal with.   24:35 - Wes talks about a Value Buyer, shopping based on the value of the product, not focusing on the price tag.29:45 – Wes differentiates the Contingent model and Value based model. Wes gives information on how to coach your client if they lack the expertise of value in their project. Wes also distinguishes another type of buyer, Price Buyers.34:51 – Derick asks about the risk involved on the developers side of the project.  Wes provides that risks are elements like: the possibilities of issues with the product, maintenance and support of the product, the training aspects, users and feedback.42:56 - Chuck asks about how to deal with joint responsibilities when implementing a development. Or what to do if the client does not uphold their end of their responsibility when the software is launched and their outcome is not what they expected.  Wes gives feedback on the do’s and don’ts, and the kinds models project work best with.51:07- Josh’s question is about how to getting clients from an hourly-based rate to a value based pricing. Wes answers that providing extreme value is a starting point.    54:50 – Josh’s question is about what to do to gain more clients. Wes says to go about gaining clients like your using an hourly model. Elements such as, word of mouth offers great leverage and being proactive.  Wes urges excellent customers service and locking in a future client. 1:04:12 - John talks about 4 levels of freedom, and how these levels tie into the entrepreneurial stance in this field of business. 1:07:23 - Wes gives his background in work, consulting and developing. 1:10:52 – Derick asked how to deal with living paycheck to paycheck to making the change to a value based pricing pay. Wes describes how to slowly convert by saving, doing both pricing models, and various different tactics to implement. Also, Wes talks about the money back insurance to the client, and how it helps the confidence of your client in your services.1:23:50 - John’s famous advice is to go to Thailand, live for cheap and create a passive income to gain freedom. Best advice till now! Finally I get it!  John also gives excellent advice and thoughts of where to begin with using the value based pricing model. The bottom line is you have to be willing to sacrifice to make the change.1:25:45 – Josh asked about the kind of life style Wes leads, according to his current work model. Is there freedom? Wes answers…1:42:00 – John talks about the practice of bonuses or perks in the corporate business and how that would translate to a VA (Virtual Assistant). Johns mentions the practice of intrapreneurship inside of a business. Josh talks about the book, Million-Dollar Consulting, and how the concepts here are also shared in the book.http://www.alanweiss.com/growth-experiences/million-dollar-consulting-convention/1:54:01 – Thought for the WeekDerick: “Focus on small things that are easy to count as a success…” Very insightful!John: “One Percent More” Chuck: “ Be true to yourself”Josh: “Guard your mindset”Wes: “Buy on value”Publish your podcast with SignalLeaf: https://www.signalleaf.com/

Consultant, author, speaker and educator, Linda Galindo teaches leaders how to bring accountability into their organizations to significantly improve performance. She specializes in working in healthcare and government, bringing the principles of accountability to organizations where it is truly needed at the leadership level. She's written 3 books and shares her story about how she's built such a successful consulting practice, how she wrote her books and how she trains CEOs to completely shift their companies through accountability. She is full of passion and shares tons of resources on how YOU can succeed in business!

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Intro to CoffeeScript) Discussion 01:36 - Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch (Eric) 04:51 - Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen (Chuck) David Allen Company Podcast 06:30 - Time Management for System Administrators by Tom Limoncelli (Eric) 08:47 - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey (Chuck) 12:26 - Get Clients Now!: A 28-Day Marketing Program for Professionals, Consultants, and Coaches by C.J. Hayden (Eric) 15:08 - Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling by Michael Port (Eric) 17:09 - 48 Days to the Work You Love: Preparing for the New Normal by Dan Miller (Chuck) 48 Days Podcast 20:10 - The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Frederick P. Brooks Jr. (Eric) Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco (Eric) 24:11 - Rich Dad Poor Dad: What The Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Rober T. Kiyosaki (Chuck) 26:29 - Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss (Eric) 28:50 - The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development by Chad Fowler(Chuck) 32:18 - Dead Tree Books vs eBooks Tactile feel Convenience Note-taking 39:20 - Managing to-dos Phone apps & email Highlighting Quotes folder Tweets 40:35 - Skipping/Skimming parts of books Book samples 42:57 - Finishing books Reading multiple books at once Reading more than one genre at once 45:09 - Books as mediums for learning 46:52 - Reviewing books Picks Developer depression: Isolation is the biggest problem by Lauren Maffeo (Eric) RubyTapas Episode 4: Barewords (Eric) HandBrake (Chuck) BitTorrent (Chuck) Transmission (Chuck) Transcript [Are you a busy Ruby developer who wants to take their freelance business to the next level? Interested in working smarter not harder? Then check out the upcoming book “Next Level Freelancing: Developer Edition Practical Steps to Work Less, Travel and Make More Money”. It includes interviews and case studies with successful freelancers, who have made it by expanding their consultancy, develop passive income through informational products, build successful SaaS products, and become rockstar consultants making a minimum of $200/hour. There are all kinds of practical steps on getting started and if you sign up now, you’ll get 50% off when it’s released. You can find it at nextlevelfreelancing.com] [Hosting and bandwidth provided by the Blue Box Group. Check them out at bluebox.net] CHUCK: Hey everybody and welcome to episode 35 of the Ruby Freelancer show. This week on our panel, we have Eric Davis. ERIC: Hello. CHUCK: And I'm Charles Max Wood from devchat.tv and this week, we are going to be talking about… we were looking at like the top five books that we recommend, and I think we are just going to kind of add and just recommend our top books. It’s hard for me to make a list of top five and it sounded like Eric had like, four that he’d recommend outright and then it was a tie between another four or five. We’ll just kinda see how it goes. Eric, what is your top book? I'm kind of curious to hear about that. ERIC: And by “top” you mean top of the pile of books that's sitting on my desk? CHUCK: Yeah, the one that you would recommend the most, I guess. ERIC: OK. So I think the one that’s had the best impact was I think “Duct Tape Marketing” by John Jantsch. It’s very much a marketing oriented book, but it has a lot of good like how to run your business and it’s just not just marketing but sales and customers and who you are working for and kind of like what services you are providing. And it’s kind of an older book. I have used it for many,

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Intro to CoffeeScript) Discussion 01:36 - Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch (Eric) 04:51 - Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen (Chuck) David Allen Company Podcast 06:30 - Time Management for System Administrators by Tom Limoncelli (Eric) 08:47 - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey (Chuck) 12:26 - Get Clients Now!: A 28-Day Marketing Program for Professionals, Consultants, and Coaches by C.J. Hayden (Eric) 15:08 - Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling by Michael Port (Eric) 17:09 - 48 Days to the Work You Love: Preparing for the New Normal by Dan Miller (Chuck) 48 Days Podcast 20:10 - The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Frederick P. Brooks Jr. (Eric) Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco (Eric) 24:11 - Rich Dad Poor Dad: What The Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Rober T. Kiyosaki (Chuck) 26:29 - Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss (Eric) 28:50 - The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development by Chad Fowler(Chuck) 32:18 - Dead Tree Books vs eBooks Tactile feel Convenience Note-taking 39:20 - Managing to-dos Phone apps & email Highlighting Quotes folder Tweets 40:35 - Skipping/Skimming parts of books Book samples 42:57 - Finishing books Reading multiple books at once Reading more than one genre at once 45:09 - Books as mediums for learning 46:52 - Reviewing books Picks Developer depression: Isolation is the biggest problem by Lauren Maffeo (Eric) RubyTapas Episode 4: Barewords (Eric) HandBrake (Chuck) BitTorrent (Chuck) Transmission (Chuck) Transcript [Are you a busy Ruby developer who wants to take their freelance business to the next level? Interested in working smarter not harder? Then check out the upcoming book “Next Level Freelancing: Developer Edition Practical Steps to Work Less, Travel and Make More Money”. It includes interviews and case studies with successful freelancers, who have made it by expanding their consultancy, develop passive income through informational products, build successful SaaS products, and become rockstar consultants making a minimum of $200/hour. There are all kinds of practical steps on getting started and if you sign up now, you'll get 50% off when it's released. You can find it at nextlevelfreelancing.com] [Hosting and bandwidth provided by the Blue Box Group. Check them out at bluebox.net] CHUCK: Hey everybody and welcome to episode 35 of the Ruby Freelancer show. This week on our panel, we have Eric Davis. ERIC: Hello. CHUCK: And I'm Charles Max Wood from devchat.tv and this week, we are going to be talking about… we were looking at like the top five books that we recommend, and I think we are just going to kind of add and just recommend our top books. It's hard for me to make a list of top five and it sounded like Eric had like, four that he'd recommend outright and then it was a tie between another four or five. We'll just kinda see how it goes. Eric, what is your top book? I'm kind of curious to hear about that. ERIC: And by “top” you mean top of the pile of books that's sitting on my desk? CHUCK: Yeah, the one that you would recommend the most, I guess. ERIC: OK. So I think the one that's had the best impact was I think “Duct Tape Marketing” by John Jantsch. It's very much a marketing oriented book, but it has a lot of good like how to run your business and it's just not just marketing but sales and customers and who you are working for and kind of like what services you are providing. And it's kind of an older book. I have used it for many,

This week, I had the great opportunity of interviewing Dr. Alan Weiss. Also known as The Rock Star of Consulting, The Contrarian and The Consultants’ Consultant among other impressive brands. Alan is truly an amazing person who leads a life … Continue reading → The post Technology Guru Chad Barr Intreviews Million Dollar Consulting Guru Alan Weiss (podcast) appeared first on The Chad Barr Group.