Latest / Black Girls Consult TOO! / Episode 126: How to REALLY Build a Million Dollar Consulting Business

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Episode 126: How to REALLY Build a Million Dollar Consulting Business · Black Girls Consult TOO!

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If you've attended an event or bought a course over the past year or two on how to create a million dollar or seven figure consulting business and you're still missing a few zeros behind your paycheck, then I want you to walk to the front of the church.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, come here, come here, come here.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: This message is for you, they say.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: The odds are stacked against us as women, especially women of color.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Trying to this message is for you.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Success we deserve.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Black Girls Consulting Podcast.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, dr Angelina Davis, and I've walked the path from healthcare consultant to a mentor for women like you, ambitious, unstoppable and ready to make waves in the consulting world.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: This podcast is your go-to spot for all things entrepreneurial consulting.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: For us as women, especially women of color, Think of it as your weekly coffee date with a friend who's here to dish out real talk on building a solid business, elevating your thought leadership and mastering that all-important mindset.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: And let's not forget, we're doing all of this while balancing day jobs, family life and running teams.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, we can do it all.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: So if you're ready to dive into how you can grow a thriving consultancy or get strategies and insights that actually fit your busy lifestyle, then you're in the right place.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Grab your coffee, tea or, hey, even a glass of wine, I won't judge and let's get started.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Hello, hello, hello.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Black Girls Consult 2 podcast.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, dr Angelina Davis, and you're probably wondering what's up with that intro.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: It's different, I know, but listen, this conversation is going to be a little bit different because I want us to have a real conversation, some real talk today about what we are buying into when it comes to building our consulting businesses.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: And it's not that a lot of these hopes and dreams and ideas of what we want for our future are far-fetched they're not.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: That's not what I'm trying to say, but I do want to talk a little bit about how we continue to hold ourselves back, prolong the process and make things a lot harder than they need to be, because we keep gravitating to the same message.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Now, we all desire to travel the path of least resistance, so it's clear and understandable as to why some of this messaging works.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Whenever you see something that promises a large financial outcome or some other positive outcome that seems simply amazing, you're going to gravitate to it.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: We can easily see this when we look at the diet industry.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Think about what sells Lose 10 pounds in 10 days, or drink this tummy tea and have rock solid abs.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Or maybe the 10 minute a day training to a 10k.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Listen, it all sounds great because it's coupling two things.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: It's coupling the fact that you have to put in a small amount of effort to get a huge reward, and that sells.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: It sells because our brains are wired for protection.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Our brains are wired to steer us away from what produces stress and anxiety.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: So there's no surprise as to why marketing tends to play upon that.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: As to why marketing tends to play upon that.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons why we focus so heavily on tapping into our customers or our clients' pain points.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: It's because we know that we wanna move away from that pain.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: We wanna get to something that we truly desire, something that makes us feel good, something that makes us feel accomplished.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: We wanna see our aspirations come true.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: And when we think about it that way, we can't get mad, because that is how particular programs or offers are marketed.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: It's their job to get you to buy into whatever is being sold.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Now, of course, we don't want to be dishonest, but when it comes to sharing how someone can achieve a goal, and achieve that simply or easily.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Well, listen, that at times is just good marketing, so we're going to put it on that.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: But if you're sitting here and you're feeling like you have been working for years and you should be further along, or maybe you have been following the expert advice of others and you're still coming up short, here's what I want you to do next I want you to listen in and tune in, because that's what this episode is all about.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: A thriving consulting business is built on a solid business foundation and a consulting code that leads you toward your ideal business and your ideal lifestyle, and the great thing about this code is that it works for any type of consulting practice, whether you help clients with professional development, business management, grant writing, it or something entirely different.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: This consulting code is not rocket science and it's not beyond your reach, and when you crack the code, it can jumpstart the growth of your solo consulting practice and is what you need to know to get started and land your first clients, and nothing more.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: This is a step-by-step process I wish I had so many years ago, and that's why I wanted to share this with you and how you can do this too.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: So if you're interested in starting your consulting business and creating a desirable offer to generate leads for your offer and to make sales, then the consulting code is your solution.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Visit wwwexcelatconsultingcom for more information.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: At consultingcom for more information.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: One of the first things that I think is really important for us to embrace is the fact that we need to drop the timeline.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I had a coach tell me this years ago and it sticks with me.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I tell it to myself even now.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: When I get frustrated about certain things not happening fast enough, I say I just have to drop the timeline, because when we have these timelines as to when we're supposed to achieve a goal, how swiftly we're supposed to get to the next level, how fast you're going to make the next you know million dollars or land your next client, when we have a timeline in place, it's not that the timeline itself is wrong.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Like you know, we should have goals.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: We need to have some level of a time constraint.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: When we're forming a goal you know that's the whole SMART acronym but when we think about the timeline, what often happens is that we create timelines that are unrealistic, because most often the timelines that we're creating are based upon our perception of what someone else had to do to achieve that goal.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: And there are a lot of flaws in doing that.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: One of the flaws, and probably the biggest, is that you're looking at someone else's experience and you cannot assume that your experience is going to be the same.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: All the variables are different.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: The time spent, the education, the access, all of those things are different.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: And I like to stress this because, in the consulting world especially, this is a field in an industry where women have not been major players historically.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: So if you're looking at how long it took a white male counterpart to get further along, well, listen, they have a completely different experience in this industry than you do as a woman, and especially a woman of color.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: So you have to begin to remove a lot of these assumptions from the development of these timelines.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: So that's one of the first things that we have to do.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: We have to break our need to get there so fast.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Now I'm not saying to not have a plan to accomplish a goal by a certain time or timeframe, but we have to make it so that that timeline is realistic, based upon what we are facing in terms of obstacles, what we're bringing to the table in terms of experiences and how easily we can access the clients that we need to serve in order to get to that next level.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: There are so many factors that go into developing a realistic timeline, a feasible timeline, but when we're just arbitrarily pulling that out the sky and telling ourselves that we're just going to get to this point in a year because we want to, because it's something that we feel is a trend or something that we, within our ego, feel as if we should be able to do because we've seen others do it, or maybe we've seen someone that we maybe look at and think that we're more qualified than, or qualified as, achieve that goal, we feel like we should be able to match that energy.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Listen, that is one of the easiest ways to set ourselves up for failure, and here's how that happens.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Typically, when we set out on achieving a goal, we come up with a number of steps that we need to take.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Maybe we're following a roadmap or a guide that someone else has given us and we're checking out the boxes.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: We're going through the process, we're trying to make sure that we dot all our I's and cross all our T's, but if we run into any obstacle or we happen to just flat out fail when we go through the process the first, second or maybe even the third time.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: We tend to get into a cycle of self-sabotage, and this is where we allow our mind to take over.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Right, it's taking over and trying to protect us.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: It's trying to keep us from going through the cycle of disappointment again.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: So what do we do?
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: We begin to be less consistent in the actions that we're supposed to be taking.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Maybe we're shifting our focus and we're trying to pivot and adjust too soon or too early.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Maybe we just walk away altogether and figure you know what this isn't for me and I just need to let it go.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: But then sometimes we come back later because it's truly something that we're passionate about and it's a goal that we wanna reach.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: It's in our heart.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: The problem is that we go through this cycle over and over again, with each failure, with each negative outcome, and if we don't break this cycle of self-sabotage, we never get anywhere.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: What I found from working with clients is that if you go back and trace back to what actually triggered this cycle, it more than likely is attached to the fact that they had a timeline in mind for when they should be able to accomplish a goal in mind, for when they should be able to accomplish a goal.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: They felt as if I should be able to make $10,000 a month in 30 days, or I should be able to land my first six-figure client in a couple of months.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: The problem is that life rarely works that way.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: So the moment you release the timeline, most often this leads to you having success, because you're not triggered by the fact that you don't reach the timeline at the point at which you desired originally, meaning that you took this arbitrary date and you're throwing it out the window and you are determined to keep going, no matter what.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: And the fact that you're throwing it out the window and you are determined to keep going, no matter what, and the fact that you're consistent with your actions.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: You keep doing the things that you need to do, you keep showing up, you keep putting in the work, you keep building out your business the way that you know that you should.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: You find success a lot sooner.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: So one of the first things above all is removing, dropping, get rid of that timeline Now.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: The second thing that I want to share is that consulting is a practice, and it's a practice because we keep working on it.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: You will never get to a point as a consultant where you're not expanding your knowledge base, where you're not learning what's new in the market, where you're not growing and expanding your skillset, you're not working on getting better at least, you should not.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: You will never get to a point where you just know so much that you don't have to do any more personal development, growth, education, et cetera, in order for you to be a better consultant in the marketplace, and so the second thing that you have to do is to begin to focus on mastering your craft, and this this right here is the part that nobody talks about.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: It frustrates me to no end because nobody talks about this, but it's so important because you can learn how to sell and to pitch, and that is going to work in the short term.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: You do need to know how to do that.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Those are very valuable skills and the skills that you need to have and you need to master.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: But I think what people underappreciate is the fact that the differentiator between you and any other consultant in your market or in your field or in your industry is your expertise in your industry, is your expertise.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: You are in the business of expertise, which means that you need to be that go-to person, that expert in a particular niche, in a particular space, in a specialization.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: There's a reason why, if you look at the trend reports definitely for 2024 and even going into 2025, a lot of what you're seeing happening in consulting is a focus on specialization, because that's a differentiator.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Even when you look at larger firms whether you're looking at the Deloitte's or the Bain's or the Accenture's, et cetera they have specialized divisions.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Specialization is key.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: You have to begin to focus on mastering your craft, thinking about how you can be different Whenever you feel as if you're not standing out.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: One of the first things I like to tell clients is to stop and think about what you're saying and whether or not you've heard it somewhere else.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: And most people will say well, you know, there's nothing new under the sun.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: That's true, but there are new viewpoints, there are new perspectives, because the truth is that we all have very unique and different lived experiences and it's not just about giving a hot take or trying to share some information that you think or perspective that you think is different and sounds very edgy.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: It's about you truly understanding what is most important to drive results in your space and then being able to take that information and create something that is innovative, that is new, that is different, to guide people along.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: This is the whole premise of being a thought leader.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: It's not just you publishing content.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: It's not just you writing a blog post.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: It is you beginning to think about your industry in a different way.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Posts.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: It is you beginning to think about your industry in a different way.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: And I always talk about how, as women, and especially women of color we're just I don't know so well positioned to do that, because our perspective has always been different.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: You see things through a different lens and when we capitalize on that, then we're able to produce something that is unique.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: That is our differentiator.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: But we can't do that if we're not mastering our craft.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: We're not getting better at the work that we actually do for the client.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: That's the part that matters, because you need to think about not just how to get the contract, but how to keep it, how to get more referrals from other clients based upon the work that you do with that client.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: This is where people fall short.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: This is where people end up with an opportunity that's very lucrative to start, but then it falls off because the client tends to go in a different direction once that contract is complete.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: The beauty of you being able to master your craft and to keep growing and evolving with the clients that you have is the fact that you maintain them for a longer period of time.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: The lifetime value increases.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: This is another aspect of business growth.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: So don't focus solely on just landing the contract, just making the greatest pitch, just trying to make the right sale.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Focus on mastering your craft, because the thing about mastering your craft is that when you become the best at what you do, people will seek you out.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Period.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: People will look for you because they know you know your stuff, you've driven results for other people and they want you.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: And that's just the truth.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: And that's why you see so many consultants that may be highly successful, although they may not have a big social media following or a big presence on LinkedIn, they're not DMing people left and right.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Because they have mastered their craft and people are coming to them.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: So if you're starting to lose sight of who you are and how you're different, I want you to think about this and if you want to stand out more, I want you to focus on your mastery, mastering your craft, getting better at it and becoming that go-to Now, number three and this is the third one, and definitely the one that rounds all of this out is that you have to establish a platform.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: I want you to think of your platform as your stage.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: You are going on stage every day to showcase your knowledge, your expertise and to help other people navigate their difficult moments.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: You're creating this platform for yourself so that you have better control as to your messaging, how you're interacting with those people who find interest in what you're doing.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Find interest in what you're doing and then being able to take that information and use it to continue to build and elevate your platform so that you're able to create a client acquisition system around it.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: And I think that many times we get lost when it comes to marketing, especially in social media, or even marketing with paid advertising, et cetera.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: We get lost in the game of the hunt.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: We're hunting for the next hundred leads, we're hunting for the next big contract, we're hunting for the next lucrative opportunity and instead, what we need to do is focus on building the platform that everybody can see, that everybody can visit, that they can attend and go to.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Think of it like you having a concert in the area.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: A concert is not going to attract one or two people.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: It's going to attract a whole arena of people, a whole coliseum, and that's what your platform can do.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: It can bring that many people to your front door.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: I think oftentimes we don't take all of that in, and I get it.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: It can be very frustrating to be on some of these platforms and trying to figure out how to just use them and how to relate to people on that level.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: But if we start thinking about our platform as not a particular tool or an outlet, but think about it as our ecosystem outlet, but think about it as our ecosystem, what are we building out that is accessible 24-7, seven days a week for someone to consume, to learn more about us, to understand what drives us right, our personal code, the things that matter to us, to have a better understanding of our philosophy and the way that we approach problem solving or the way that we see things in our industry, the way that we visualize the future in our space, and then get an understanding also of the type of solutions we offer, somewhere where that person can come and just literally binge from one piece of work to the next.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Your thought leadership, your ideas, your concepts, your frameworks.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: This is what you want to create.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: This is what will sell your services time and time again, without all of the added effort and stress of you trying to keep up with things that are ever changing.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: It's building the platform that becomes part of your expert brand, part of what people know you as and know you to be.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: You want to put that out there.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: You want to build that intentionally, and when you have this platform, the beauty of having it is that it becomes like this lighthouse.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Right, you think about the lighthouse in the middle of the water, like if you're ever at the beach especially I don't know, I'm in the South, I'm closer to Florida, so if you're ever out at the beach and you're seeing a lighthouse out there, what is the lighthouse there for?
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: It's there to draw the boats in.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: They can see the light in the fog, they can see the light from far away and they're attracted to it.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: They move toward it, and that's exactly how your audience, how your clients, will move toward you, and that's true no matter what space you're in, no matter what industry you're in.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, when you look at the stats with regards to B2B marketing, a lot of companies and businesses are relying on the information that they're able to dig up themselves, that they're able to search out and find themselves.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: They may turn down a call that comes in, a cold call that may come in, or may not respond to an email, but you best believe, if they have a problem, they're online searching for who can help them solve it, and you need to have something there for them to find.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: So, yes, word of mouth is a great way to land business, referrals are a great way to land business, but they have to stop being the sole ways that you are relying on generating income and revenue in your company, in your business, in your firm.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: We have to start moving beyond that.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: It's a new era right now.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: It's a totally new era.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Everybody is used to hopping online, dropping something into a chat GPT bot and getting an answer.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: They're used to finding information in the fastest, quickest way possible, and sitting on a phone is no longer the fastest and quickest way possible.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: So you have to be where people are, what they're naturally doing day to day, and by building your platform, you position yourself to do just that.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: So, listen, I know what it feels like.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I know that it can be frustrating to continue to work at something over and over again, do all the right things and feel like you're not making progress.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I know what it feels like to be in an industry or a space, know what you have to offer, know everything that you have been able to do in your corporate job, or in everything that you know from the degree and trainings that you have been able to do in your corporate job, or in everything that you know from the degree and trainings that you've been through and that you have, and still seemingly lose business to someone who doesn't have a fraction of that.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: I get it, I understand, but I also want you to know that there's a lot that you can do to make the shifts and the changes you need to reach those big goals that you're dreaming about, and that starts with you dropping the timeline, focusing on mastering your craft and then establishing your platform, and if you do that, I promise that everything that you're working toward is gonna fall into place.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: All right, guys, this has been a great episode for me to just talk and chat with you.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I love when we can just have these real talks like this, so if you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: And then also don't forget to reach out and connect with me on LinkedIn or on Instagram.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: And until next time, take care.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in to the Black Girls Console 2 podcast.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to leave your review on Apple Podcasts, subscribe and share it with a friend.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: We're on a mission to increase the success and longevity of women in consulting, and you can help us do just that.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Also, I'd love to hear from you.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: So let's connect at Dr Angelina Davis on Instagram or LinkedIn, and don't forget to visit excelatconsultingcom for more information to support your consulting journey.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Until next time, keep breaking glass ceiling, all right, take care.