Latest / Black Girls Consult TOO! / Episode 94 Unraveling Complexity: Streamlining Your Consulting Business for Success [Consulting Simplified Series - Part 1]

Transcript

Episode 94 Unraveling Complexity: Streamlining Your Consulting Business for Success [Consulting Simplified Series - Part 1] · Black Girls Consult TOO!

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: There's a misconception that we don't exist, that somehow our ability to excel at the highest level of our industry is limited, that overcoming barriers as a woman of color would be insurmountable.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: But what would happen if we decided to venture out on our own, despite everything we're up against?
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you Welcome to the Black Girls Consult 2 podcast.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, dr Angelina Davis, a healthcare consultant, consulting coach, high performance fanatic wife and proud girl mom.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I help transform female professionals into thriving solo consultants and, just like you, I'm wearing all the hats and doing all the things.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: So this podcast is to empower the busy female professionals to move past fear, to start and grow a successful consulting business, despite the obstacles you may encounter.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: We'll dive deep into consulting practice, business strategy, mindset and more.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: So grab your cup of coffee or tea, if that's your thing, and let's get started.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome, welcome.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Black Girls Consult 2 podcast.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: And this is the Consulting Simplified Podcast series.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: I am so happy that you have decided to take this leap with me in the next five episodes as we dive deeper into how you can remove some of the complexity in your consulting business and focus on simplifying your overall approach.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Before we get started, I want you to know that this is going to be five separate podcast episodes and each one is going to dive into some aspect of creating simplicity in your business model, is designed to help you as a standalone episode, if you do happen to listen to one or two, but it is going to work most effectively if you're able to listen to all of the episodes.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about what complexity is what that looks like in your business, how you can identify it.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: On your end, we'll jump a little bit more into how you can alter things such as your offer, how you can remain more consistent in your approach.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Also, how you can track and optimize your business processes so that you can work efficiently as a solo consultant or someone who has a small firm and agency.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: And then, last but not least, we'll talk about that secret to you being able to attract and land more clients that align with your service and your offer.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: So, with that all being said, let's get started and dive right in.
• 2:38
  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.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: This consulting code is not rocket science and is 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.
• 3:16
  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.
• 3:25
  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.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Visit wwwexcelatconsultingcom for more information.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: If we're honest with ourselves, this whole concept of creating a simple business is much harder than most people think it is, and that's often because we are attracted to complexity.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Think about it.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Things that seem more difficult or harder to achieve we tend to value more.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Somehow we begin to interpret the expenditure of more effort as being a sign of value, when, in our actuality, the conservation of time and the conservation of your energy is what is truly the greatest value.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I always like to refer back to a quote that Steve Jobs made.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: I love to reference this because I look at Steve Jobs as someone who was able to capture this whole essence of innovation and a level of creativity and structure in the things that he created, to a point at which Apple has become a phenomenal, iconic business at this point in time.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: And there is something that he always spoke about and spoke of, and that is the role of simplicity.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: One of his quotes that you can find pretty much anywhere and definitely is one of my favorite is it says that simple can be harder than complex.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean, to make it simple, but it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: And this is so true because there is a reality check that we all have to face when it comes to growing a business, and definitely with growing our consulting businesses.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: As you grow, things will become more complex.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: That is inevitable.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Growth will lead to complexity, but I want you to remember that complexity within itself or in and of itself is not a bad thing.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: It's not a bad thing to have a more complex business model or structure.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: That's not bad, but when you allow this complexity to impact your success in that business, that's when you begin to have a problem.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: In very simple terms, I like to describe complexity in business, especially as a solo consultant, as the inability to effectively implement and maintain the necessary elements to support the development and growth of your business.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: When you are unable to carry out those things that are going to allow your business to grow, for you to make more money and for you to build a successful and thriving practice, that's when you've reached a level of complexity that is hindering you and that is not allowing you to reach your fullest potential.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: And so, for us to dive into this fully and understand how complexity can actually impact our business, we have to understand three key concepts and fundamentals.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: So the first thing is that we have to grasp this whole understanding of the buyer's journey, and we hear this often.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: We definitely hear it whenever we are listening in to any talk on business growth, but it pertains to what we experience day to day as we shop in grocery stores, or we are purchasing from our favorite online store, or we're picking out a next piece of furniture, whatever it may be, whatever we're spending our money on, your buyer's journey is the process that you're going through to make a decision to buy, and so, for us, it is the process that each potential client is taking to decide on utilizing a service.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Typically, this is seen as having three main steps.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Although some may say and argue as to whether or not it's three steps, five steps there are a lot of ways that you can split in and break it down and in general, there are three core main steps.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: That is, moving the client or the potential client through a period of awareness, to consideration, to decision making, and so the buyer's journey is something that is very key to us being able to land the clients that we want to work with, because each client, whether we know it or not, is navigating this journey, irrespective of how we are trying to get them there.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: They are going to have to walk through this process, and each will do that in a different way, and the timeframe at which they do that can vary.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: So some people may be able to move through this buyer's journey in given setting, within 24 hours or overnight.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Others, it may take them two years.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: So the buyer's journey does not look the same for everyone.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: It can vary based upon person.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: It can vary based upon offer.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: It can vary based upon industry.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: We can also impact it just as much as it can have just a natural variability within itself.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: So the buyer's journey is something that we have to firmly understand as we are beginning to talk about this whole aspect of complexity.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: The second is that we need to know that from the bias journey you Establish something that we call the sales funnel, and this sells funnel we think about when we are hearing about a lot of different online marketing ventures or we're thinking about how someone is creating a funnel for an online evergreen offer or something of that nature.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: But a sales funnel is simply something that mirrors the bias journey and it is a reflection of the movement of people Along the path to purchase.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: So these are individuals that are going through the bias journey and they're moving from these stages that we talked about of Awareness, consideration and decision-making, and as they move through those stages, the numbers begin to decrease, which gives you the whole Image or picture of a funnel as they move through that process.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: And that happens even for us in the consulting space, although we may not necessarily talk about a sales funnel.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Often we may hear about sales pipeline and things of that nature.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: But just know all these terms are Interconnected.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: They speak to different aspects of the process and how we're navigating that, but the funnel is the movement, once again, of that potential client through the bias journey as they move to that path to purchase, especially when it comes to your world or your ecosystem, your environment.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: And then the last is the sales Cycle.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: And when we think about the sales cycle or some may mention a sales pipeline, this is talking about the specific actions you're taking as the sales person to follow the potential client through that journey into the point in which you're may have able to make a sale.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: The Sales cycle, or your sales pipeline, speaks to the actions that you're typically taking.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: We don't think about this concept as often, I feel like in the solo consulting space, because we're used to seeing that use on a larger scale when people have Massive sales teams that are doing a lot of this work.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: But the idea, the premise of this whole concept remains true.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Even when you're working as a solo consulting, as a small firm, you're still taking action to move individuals through this whole bias journey, through this thought process as to how they're going to work with you or decide to move forward to being a client and you want to be able to effectively shorten that cycle as much as possible, right, because you want to generate more clients, more revenue and Grow overall.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: So Two of the most common reasons why many people struggle to land clients consistently in their business is because, one, they have either created systems to generate business that are far too complex for them to maintain or, two, they have no system at all.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: So it's typically one of those two things, and while it's easy to understand how having absolutely no system in place prevents you from producing the results that you desire that that was pretty much easy to understand it is more difficult to grasp how the system that you may have created can potentially be too complex and that be the problem as to why you are not landing clients consistently or attracting lease consistently that you need.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: So I want to focus in on this whole aspect of having more complexity present because, like I said before, not having a system at all we know is going to cause a problem.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Now, if you have a service to offer and you lack the clients that you need in order to keep your business afloat, have some aspect of financial stability and predictability in your business, then what that tells me is that there is more than likely, a leak in your funnel.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: So we talked about before your buyer's journey and how that is the natural progression of how people move through the decision making process, and then we talked about the sales funnel, which represents the movement of individuals through this process within your system, within your ecosystem or your world.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: And so when you have a funnel that has a lot of leaks in it, that you're going to lose people as they move along, and if you're losing everyone as they move along, you have no one to reach that final stage in order to move forward with working with you, then that is going to be problematic when it comes to landing more clients, and landing more clients consistently and definitely, of course, this is true if you don't have a funnel that's Even in place or a way to strategically move people through the navigate them through this process.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: So, in that regard, there are a lot of ways that we can have our approach to land clients, and we may have been able to land clients in the past, but then find ourselves struggling to make sure that this is working over and over again, and some ways that this can happen are things like Whether or not you're attracting the wrong audience.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: So if you are attracting individuals that are not in alignment with the services that you offer or maybe they don't find the value in the services that you offer that's going to be problematic in terms of you being able to make the sale.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: If you're not listening to the needs of your audience and being able to address those effectively, then that's going to prevent you from being able to offer a service that is going to resonate with them and draw them in.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Or, in some cases, we may be skipping this whole process of prospecting altogether.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: So, although we may want to lean more heavily on referrals, or maybe want to lean more heavily into attraction marketing or organic marketing, if we are not doing some aspect of prospecting where we are able to identify individuals that may be potentially good candidates and nurture those relationships so that they can move forward in a very strategic fashion, then that is also going to be a way that we create these leaks that are going to be present.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Another is if you're failing to position yourself as an industry expert, because if your audience is able to look out in your industry and not recognize you as one of those key individuals that can provide some deeper insight, then that's going to keep them from thinking about you as a potential solution to their problem, because they may feel that their problem is much harder to solve and more difficult than you're able to actually address.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: If you're not differentiating yourself and your services, this can be problematic as well, because then if you're making yourself more of a commodity and becomes difficult to stand out in that manner without competing directly on price In some cases there are inconsistencies in your messaging or engagement that begins to erode trust and break that sales cycle.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: If you are thinking beyond the funnel and the sales cycle, remember the actions that you're taking to move people along this journey.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: If you are being inconsistent in that approach, in that communication, in how you're showing up online and how you are messaging on different platforms or through different materials that you're using for marketing, if those things are leading to inconsistencies, then people will not know what to believe.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: They won't know what to think, they won't know what to trust and so, therefore, that can erode the trust that you need in order to land the clients and build the relationships in order to generate more business.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: If you are lacking nurturing your potential clients or your audience through education or connection, then there is going to be a gap where they have not been able to fully consider what you have to offer, and so you may leave yourself trying to take someone from a period of awareness straight to conversion, which is not going to be effective I would say virtually almost at all.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Also, failing to track your data and to focus and adjust your efforts so that when you identify things that are not working, then you can actually fix them, that is another huge problem that can lead to a leak, because you may not be able to identify where you have these leaks that have occurred and you're not able to plug them swiftly, and so therefore, they grow and get bigger and bigger.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: And, last but not least, if you are just not even making the offer to help, if you're not actively selling your services, then that is going to be also an area of concern or leak, because then you have moved someone effectively through your sales funnel and you get to the very end and you're not moving forward with that call to action.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: So there are a lot of ways that we can create these leaks in our funnel and our processes that can lead us to a situation where we are unable to attract leaks consistently and generate clients on a consistent basis.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: So the one thing I want to point out is that, although I listed a lot of ways that this can happen and you may say, okay, I get it, but this is an overwhelming list and how do I know how to manage this the one thing I want you to understand is that the more complex your business model is, the more likely you are to have more leaks in your funnel.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna say this one more time the more complex your business model is, the more likely you are to have more leaks in your funnel, and here's why this matters.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: It matters because the end result of this is not fixed is that it will lead to burnout.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: You will have lagging revenue goals.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: You can even potentially get to the point where you are just quitting and you're ready to just throw in a towel and close up shop, and the reason why this happens is because complexity actually decreases your ability to be efficient.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: It creates a situation where things are highly unmanageable and can feel overwhelming, and also it can cause confusion or a lack of understanding on the side of your audience or from the perspective of your potential client, which is often seen as being something that they don't feel comfortable with and they may not trust, and for you, it's gonna create scenarios that are unpredictable.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: That means the results are unpredictable, that means the finances are unpredictable and the ability to make a greater impact will be unpredictable.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: So the question is this how do you determine whether or not you've made your business model too complex?
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: And I want you to think about these five questions, because this whole episode that we've been talking about complexity has been designed to help you think about what complexity actually is, how it can look and how it can play out in your business.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: And then I want you to think right now about ways that you may be showing up in your business and whether or not this reflects too much complexity currently in the way that you have things designed.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: So the first question is this have you been able to expand your reach, your visibility or your brand awareness over the last three to six months?
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, have you been able to expand your reach, your visibility or brand awareness over the last three to six months?
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Just answer yes or no to these.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: The next question is do you have a clear, repeatable and effective process to land clients?
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: So again, number two is do you have a clear, repeatable and effective process to land clients.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Number three is are you creating content on a consistent basis to showcase your expertise?
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: So this can be in the form of a blog, it can be podcasts, it can be social media, it can be even if you're writing a book.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't have to do that over and over again, but do you have a consistent way of showcasing your expertise?
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: So the question number three are you creating content on a consistent basis to showcase your expertise?
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: And number four are you remaining consistent with your marketing and sales efforts, even when you're working with clients that you serve?
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: So number four again are you remaining consistent with your marketing and sales efforts, even when you're working with clients you serve?
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: And last but not least, is question number five do you have a way to measure and track the impact of your efforts and make adjustments to your process when necessary?
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: So number five is do you have a way to measure and track the impact of your efforts and make adjustments to your process when necessary?
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Now here's the thing if you answer no to any of these five questions, then it's time to simplify your approach.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: So if you cannot answer yes to each and every question, then it's time to simplify your approach, and that's actually what we'll be gonna be talking about over the next four episodes.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: So I want you to continue to tune in.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to talk to you again in the next upcoming episodes.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: So take care, we'll talk soon.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in to the Black Girls Console 2 podcast.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to leave your review on Apple Podcast, subscribe and share it with a friend.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: We're on a mission to increase the success and longevity of women in consulting, and you can help us do that.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Also.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you, 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.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Until next time, take care.