Latest / Black Girls Consult TOO! / Episode 160: When Clients Are Spending Less, Offering More Isn’t Always the Answer

Transcript

Episode 160: When Clients Are Spending Less, Offering More Isn’t Always the Answer · Black Girls Consult TOO!

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much competition in the market right now.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: AI has people spinning their wheels, trying to create new offers and find something that'll work with so many options that are on the table.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Not to mention the fact that the economy is a little bit shaky from the standpoint that we don't know what's happening next.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And what I find interesting in times like this is that when business gets a little bit harder to come by, we have a tendency to start offering everybody everything.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: We add another service, we throw in another deliverable, we begin to customize our offer a little bit more, and maybe even offer an extra session or two.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Why not?
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, we have the ability to do it, and that's going to help us land more clients, right?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And before you know it, we're promising to do twice as much work just to convince somebody to sign the contract.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I understand why we do it.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: When you're trying to keep revenue coming into your business and prospective clients are taking much longer to make a decision, it's really tempting to think that you just haven't given them enough reasons to say yes.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why you keep adding on.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what I want us to think about today.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: What if the problem isn't that we're offering too little?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: What if we're making it too difficult for clients to understand exactly what they're buying?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or better yet, what if we're asking them to make a bigger commitment than they're ready to make before they've even had an opportunity to experience what it's like working with us?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes the answer isn't to give clients more, sometimes it really is to give them a better place to start.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that is where the whole conversation about productization gets real interesting.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: But rather than wait for a seat at the table that may never come, what if we build our own table?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: What if we challenged our talents into guiding each other towards the success we deserve?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Black Girls Consultation Podcast.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Dr.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Andrewina Davis, and I block the path from healthcare consultant to a mentor for women like you.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Ambitious, unstoppable, and ready to make waves in the consulting world.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is your go-to spot for all famous entrepreneurial consulting.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: For us as women, especially women of color, think of it as your weekly coffee date with a friend who's here to ditch out real talk of building a solid business, elevating your thought leadership, and mastering that all-important mindset.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And let's not forget, we're doing all of this while balancing day jobs, family life, and running teams.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we can do it all.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: 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.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Grab your coffee, tea, or hey, even a glass of wine.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: I won't judge.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And let's get started.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, hello, hello.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Black Girls Console 2 podcast.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Dr.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Angelina, and today we're going to talk a little bit about what happens when the market gets a little tight.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know if you've been feeling it, but I know I definitely have.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: The market feels tighter than it has in the past.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And there are a lot of reasons for that.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need to get into all of the different reasons.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: We just need to know that, yes, this is happening.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it may feel like this right now.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And because it feels a little bit tight, uh, then it makes us think about how we are going to make more sales or land more clients because it hasn't been as easy as it has been in the past.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I want us to address this because I do think that often when we get in these moments, our knee-jerk reaction is to make our offer or our services seem more valuable to the client.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's a reasonable approach, but where we go wrong and where we have to rethink how we're approaching things is the fact that we tie more value to more stuff.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we hear things like, you know what, we need to think about the budget a little bit more, or we're not quite ready to move forward right now.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Let's circle back, you know, maybe next quarter.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: We hear that type of uh response to our pitch or our offer, then we're trying to make everything more enticing.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: We want our clients to look at what we're offering and think, you know what, this is too good to pass.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: I need to move forward right now.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I need to make that investment.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it makes sense that most of us respond by trying to make our offer more attractive.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the one thing that I want us to challenge is the fact that more work doesn't automatically make an offer more valuable to the client.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: I know we perceive it that way because one thing about consulting is that it's an intangible service.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And often we have to make it appear more tangible to the client so that they have a better understanding of the value it brings and it's easier to sell that way.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, many of us rely on deliverables in order to give our offers that tangible feel.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so adding on more becomes the natural reaction, it's how we begin to really weigh ourselves down because we're doing more and more and more without getting paid anymore.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's the that's the thing that doesn't change.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I want us to start thinking about how we can actually do the opposite.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of giving more, what if what if the answer is actually to give less?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of the reasons I think that productization deserves a closer look.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not just because it makes our lives easier because we create systems and we're able to serve more people, leverage our IP and all of those great things that you hear people say, but it really is because it can create a clearer way for clients to engage with us.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes having that clarity, having that ability to make an easy first step is the part that's missing.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: When I was working in healthcare consulting and we were trying to land a client engagement, uh, one of the services that we provided involved evaluating antimicrobial stewardship programs in hospitals.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're not in healthcare, don't get caught up in all the terminology because none of that matters.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: The important thing is that I want you to understand that hospitals needed to evaluate how they were managing the use of antimicrobial medications and then identify gaps in their program so that they can understand where improvements might be needed.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: At that time, there were a lot of new programs starting up, and much of the work had been ongoing for years in some cases, but no one kept track of exactly what was being done or the impact it was having or what needed to be added and how it needed to be supported.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: All of that was just unknown.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Our initial offer was actually to perform gap analyses.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can imagine, when you're working with different hospitals, each organization has its own set of circumstances.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: The politics are different everywhere, the resources are different everywhere, the level of support is different.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And with the differences that existed, the different challenges, the different levels of maturity of their programs, it was going to take a lot of work.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that work needed to be more strategic.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: It couldn't just be a cut-and-paste, cookie-cutter type of process.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the thing: just because the hospitals were different, it didn't mean that we needed to reinvent the wheel every time that we worked with another client or we tried to land another client.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you actually looked at the process and what we were doing, the actual assessment itself was the same.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: We were going through the same process when it came to assessing the gap.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: So for us, we did not need to recreate that part of the engagement.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: We had already defined what the initial assessment was.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: We had a consistent scope and we had a process.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: We even had consistent deliverables.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: I would sit down and type up the same report for each hospital.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't that we had to do any of these things from scratch just because the needs of the hospital was different.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want you to pay attention to what happened as a result because I think this is the part that's most important for us to learn from.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because yes, I'm talking about working with these larger hospitals and healthcare systems, but still they had expectations of what we were delivering as a service.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And because this process was more standardized, because we had the assets already built, because we knew what we were already doing and we were maintaining that consistency from client to client, our turnaround time was much faster.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And those initial assessments actually ended up serving, get this, as an entry point into larger three-year consulting engagements.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's significant.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because now we're not just figuring out how to work faster or how to make everything more efficient for us in terms of the service.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're actually creating a more intentional way for hospitals to begin working with us.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And at no point in time did we make our expertise less valuable by making the service more structured.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: They still were looking for our insights.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: They knew and did not expect the assessment itself to be the total value of the total package.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: So we were still bringing our knowledge, our experience, and our judgment to the work.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: We still had to understand what the findings meant and we had to package that into the story that we're telling.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we also needed to recognize what mattered in the context of that hospital or their health system.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that distinction is important because many times when consultants hear the word productization, they immediately start thinking about turning their expertise into something generic, something mass-produced, something that doesn't require much thought.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we're thinking, well, that's not what I do.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: My work is too specialized.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: My clients are too different.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: But like I just told you, all of these hospitals and healthcare systems were all different, vastly different, but they all had a common need.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: So productization doesn't mean that you need to have a cookie-cutter offer that you're giving everybody.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the goal, nor the purpose, nor I would argue the best design.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: When I talk about productization and consulting, what I'm really talking about is taking a problem you know how to solve and organizing your expertise into a more clearly defined and repeatable solution.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, there's more involved in developing one successfully.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to simplify this to the point where it just seems like you just kind of pull out a sheet of paper, you use this paper and this assessment for everyone, because it doesn't even have to be an assessment.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: But obviously, there's more involved.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: However, conceptually, that's what we're talking about.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of starting every new engagement with a blank page, starting from scratch, you're able to say, here's the problem that this service addresses.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what we're going to evaluate or accomplish.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what that engagement includes.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what you can expect at the end.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a structure, there's a process, and there are, yes, boundaries around that work.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And all of those are protection for you.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the client walks away with a very clear understanding of what they're buying.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's not something that they're just trying to grasp at straws for.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: They they know exactly what they're getting.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to notice what I didn't say.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't say you have to completely eliminate customization because you can add that in in small parts or in very strategic ways.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't say that every client has to get the same recommendations.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's definitely not the goal.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, in our case, every client had totally different, vastly different recommendations.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not going to stop using your professional judgment because that's part of consulting.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's what makes your expertise valuable in the first place.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I always like to talk about this is that we have to remember where the value lies when we're creating these offers.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: The value lies in what you are offering in terms of your lived experience and your expertise.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that part doesn't get eliminated.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: But how you're organizing the expertise and how you're applying that to more people, that's the part that's changing.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a very useful way, I think, to think about productization and consulting.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can standardize the parts of the work that repeat over and over again without treating every client situation as identical.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Those two things can coexist.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: They really can.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: And for many of us, recognizing that fact, recognizing that we can do this opens up a completely different way of thinking about how we run our businesses.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: So let me address another misconception while we're here.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because whenever people start talking about productizing expertise, the conversation seems to head straight toward digital products.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's the natural reaction.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: We start thinking about creating a course.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: We are talking about sell a workbook, build a template library.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And listen to me, all those things have a place in business.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: They are all valuable.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Those are all things that you can do.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: It does include some of that, but that is not the only way for you to productize expertise.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Your offer actually might be a diagnostic assessment, like I was just mentioning.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: It could be a very defined strategy engagement.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's an audit.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: That is something that many people do.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Or it could even be a very structured implementation program where you're helping a number of people build and install a proven system that you have created and that you have optimized.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: The question isn't whether you've removed yourself completely from delivery.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's really the fact that you've created a more consistent and intentional way to help clients solve a particular problem.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where that leverage comes in.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: At one point, I offered a cohort-based, like guided implementation experience for people who were trying to start their consulting businesses.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it did have a group component.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, people were learning.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's always a level of learning that happens in any of these uh formats or structures because, of course, if you're going to utilize a skill, you're going to want to know why it works or how it works.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: So people were learning.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: But the experience wasn't simply about giving information.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we always talk about how information is so abundant right now.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the reasons why we don't want to hang our hat on just doing that and leaving them to figure out the rest.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: But there were milestones.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: So there were certain milestones where we would go through building out a certain part of the process, a certain phase.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was feedback.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the participants were doing the work of building their business as they moved through the experience.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I was helping to give more guidance and consultation as they navigated that path.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: So the structure was designed around helping people move through a standardized implementation process that had been proven.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: So there are different ways of doing this and different ways that you can actually build this out for your business.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I don't want you limiting your thinking about productization to just courses and templates, because you actually may be sitting on opportunities in the services that you're already providing, things that you can pull out that are commonly done or performed for a number of clients that you can pull out and you can turn into that product that can be utilized.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: So this is where I want to shift our conversation a little bit because I think some of the resistance that we have when you hear someone talk about productization in this way is that as women, you know, in particular as women of color who've built our careers in environments where our competence hasn't always been assumed, where we've had to prove ourselves time and time again, I think many of us have learned to succeed professionally by anticipating what people need, being flexible and taking on difficult assignments.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're always trying to do the most to show that we're adding more value.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: And to the person who's used to doing those types of things, when you make the job easier, it's hard to sit with that.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to feel like you quote unquote deserve to be compensated at a high level because you're doing less, because you're sitting at a place where you're being appropriately compensated for, which often doesn't happen because that's that part is also new in many of our settings and many of our instances.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: But because you're experiencing this new level of expansion, it doesn't feel like the norm.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't feel like you are giving that extra effort, like you're presenting yourself in the excellence that you're used to presenting.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to know that excellence and overextension, they are not the same thing.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, in order for us to grow the businesses that we want, we have to start addressing some of these professional habits that we do have, that we carry with us, because those are the things that begin to hinder us.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of us focusing on how to narrow down the services that we offer and how to hone those in so that the scope is clean and everything is contained by boundaries.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: We begin to feel like we need to give a little bit extra, you know?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that little bit extra turns in a little bit more and a little bit more.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: And before you know it, you're back in overwhelm.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: You're back customizing everything right in love because being capable of doing something doesn't mean it makes sense for your business to keep doing it that way.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we have to start reminding ourselves of that.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to be doing the most in order to be the most valuable.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: We don't.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And in a corporate environment, you know, being the person who could take on anything that might have helped us advance, I'm guilty of it just like you.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm probably, you know, I'm saying this from the standpoint of I've I've been there, I'm still there, I'm still working through these things.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like we are all still working through these things together.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: But in business, being the person who has to do everything, who's going to take on everything is a serious limitation for you.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the one great thing about developing these offers that are more productized is that you are getting away from another set of custom processes, another set of deliverables, another set of expectations that you normally would carry.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if your business is to grow, it means that you have to be able to give more of yourself to developing that growth.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: You can't give more of yourself to developing that growth if it's stuck just delivering to clients.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can't.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the mindset of an entrepreneur.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we have to give ourselves permission to question a lot of what we have learned and been conditioned to do from our professional environment, from our careers and from corporate.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: We have to think through why it is that those things worked in that setting and also be able to understand why that actually begins to hinder us in this one.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because we don't have to prove our value by making every engagement as labor-intensive as possible.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: We can demonstrate our expertise through the quality of our thinking.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: We can demonstrate it through the way that our offers are created so that when you're building out and developing this productized offer, it is going to inherently allow you to leverage that expertise, to provide clarity with your recommendations and to actually solve the problem in a fast and succinct way that clients automatically know, like she has to know her stuff in order for her to even be able to do this.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: So be able to create an excellent client experience can be done in a way that's very efficient and sustainable.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: For you, you don't have to be blessed committed to your clients in order to do that.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is just us shifting our mindset and realizing that customization is not always the answer.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And let's bring this back to the economic environment that we're currently in.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is where I think the conversation actually becomes most relevant, especially when we're talking about the productization and how much we're actually tend to customize offers or to start from scratch.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: When a prospective client is very cautious about spending, one of the biggest challenges can be getting them comfortable enough to make an initial commitment.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And making an initial commitment around something that varies from person to person is hard to do.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: In one regard, we think that customization sounds very exclusive.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds premium.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds bespoke.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it sounds good, frankly.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: But for someone who is more cautious about what the outcome may be, it's actually a risk.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: It really is.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know if you're going to do the same work for me that you did for someone else.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if the outcome is going to be as good as theirs.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I'm going to have a better or worse experience with you.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: I really don't know what customization would mean for me.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, the image that your prospective client gets of working with you becomes a problem because they can't, they can't visualize what that experience would be.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: They can come up with ideas, but that idea is going to vary, right?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be good, it's going to be bad, it's going to be so-so.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: They don't really know.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when they are unsure, guess what they're not going to do?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: They're not going to buy.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's providing a standardization.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's giving a repeatable method.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's showing outcomes that have been replicated.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And usually it's going to be at a lower price tag.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: So these are all reasons why people will more readily commit because it's smaller.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good starting point.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And this is great when they're not ready for a commitment that be large and long term.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: They may not want a large engagement right now.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: They may not understand the full scope of their problem yet.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: So they're nervous about taking on something so big, this bigger investment without being able to justify it.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: This, I feel, is a game changer.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you're trying to land more clients, it really does help open up more doors because you're delivering a meaningful outcome on its own.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: People understand what you're doing, they're willing to kind of dip their toe in the puddle, so to speak, and really build a consulting relationship with you.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that once we begin to build this relationship, that relationship will grow.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then that is what actually can lead to more work in the long run.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: So there are really benefits on both sides.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: The client gets a clearer initial engagement, and then we get a repeatable service that could support a much larger consulting engagement.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that's huge.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's so huge.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not suggesting that every consultant needs to create a cheap introductory offer.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: That please don't hear that.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because the last thing I want is for someone to listen to this episode and decide the solution to slow sales is to cut their prices and start doing a bunch of work for very little money.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: I repeat, I am not saying that.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what we're talking about.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm talking about is a smaller scope that does not automatically mean a low-value service.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: The scope is smaller, things are more repeatable, so it doesn't take more effort from you.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: It is more of an add-on.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: It solves a real problem.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be worth what you're charging.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be worth its value.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it can stand on its own, whether the client eventually hires you for additional work or not.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you have that in place, it makes it easier to keep your pipeline moving.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: It makes it easier to have more clients reaching out over time.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to think about that.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's not watering down your work, it's just taking a part of it, clearly defining it, and packaging it into more of a product.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that brings us back to the bigger issue because as consultants, we can sometimes confuse the amount of work we deliver with the value we create it.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we assume if the report is longer, it's better.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: If the engagement includes 10 meetings instead of five, it's more valuable.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: If we're doing more behind the scenes and staying up at night, the client must be getting more money.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Clients are necessarily buying our effort.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: That they don't, to be honest with you, they don't care about your effort, right?
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: They don't care if it's easy or if it's hard.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: They just know they can't do it, you can do it, and they want the outcome.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: They are buying the outcome.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: They want the insights, they want the solution, they want the end result.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: How you get there, they could kill us.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: And if we really do embrace that, it'll be a lot easier for you to stand out in a saturated, noisy market because you're doing something that most other consultants and firms and groups are not doing.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're making things crystal clear as to what they can get without a huge commitment.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a great starting place to be.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's something that can make all the difference, especially right now.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I want you to think about.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been consulting for any length of time, there is a good chance you've started to notice some patterns.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: You've worked with clients and you realize that they're not all having the different problems, that they're asking some of the same questions.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: They really, really are.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're starting to notice this, then it probably means that there are certain things that keep showing up, certain problems that you understand and that you keep solving over and over again, that may be a great place for you to start because it represents where you're using your experience and judgment for a common problem that needs solving.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's a defined assessment hiding inside the work you're already doing.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's a diagnostic process or a focus strategy engagement, or maybe some type of AI-driven tool.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: There are just a lot of things that you can fit into the place where you've been giving this guided implementation over and over again.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not telling you to go create all of those things.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Please don't.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm just saying think about one.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: What's one thing that you can pull out that's a commonality for most of the clients that you're serving that you can address as a separate product and then begin considering whether the way you're currently delivering that expertise is the only way that it can be delivered.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: There are so many ways that you can deliver, whether it is through a sprint or if it's through having some type of workshop or guided offering that is disseminated to multiple people within the organization.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: If it's uh being able to help others install a system with guided support, there are definitely a number of ways that you can create a repeatable product and system that can open a lot of doors in more ways than one.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: When clients are hesitant and projects are taking a lot longer to close, that makes revenue feel less predictable.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I know it's very natural to want to do more in order to get them to sign on that dotted line.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: But once again, I want us to stop responding to every challenge we have with sales, with more time, more access, more deliverables, more customization, more, more, more, more, more.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we're not careful, we can end up winning business, yes, and landing clients, but we do it in a way that actually makes our business harder to sustain.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not the goal.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is to build a business that really does create meaningful value for clients while also being able to give us greater capacity, greater financial opportunity and even greater flexibility.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the things that we really want.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that means that we got to start doing things differently.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: We got to break some of these habits that we have of tying so much of our value to doing more, to recognizing that having a clearly defined first engagement can be more useful than trying to sell everything we know how to do at once as a customized offer.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I know this can be uncomfortable, but we really don't have to offer everything to be valuable.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: We just need to be clear about what problem we're going to solve and be very intentional on how we solve it so that we're just giving ourselves a better chance at winning in the long run.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the question I want to leave you with today.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Are you making it easier for the right clients to work with you?
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you making your offers bigger and more complicated to deliver and understand?
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because you actually may not need to just sell harder or add more stuff to the offer that you're already selling.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: You may just need to look at the work you've already been doing and figure out what can stand alone by itself.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that if you really look at it through a different lens, you'll find likely more than one or two things that can.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: All right, guys, I hope this helps.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Please, please, please stop adding more and more and more to your services.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Start thinking about how you can save yourself some time, increase your capacity, make things easier for you and your clients, and give productization a try.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: And as always, this is the work that I do with my clients on a one-on-one advisory basis.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're interested, don't hesitate to reach out.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: You can send me a DM on Instagram or uh a message on LinkedIn, and we can talk in more depth about it.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: But just whatever you do, know that you have options and that those options can include a way for you to leverage your expertise in a different way, other than just creating a course or some templates.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely, definitely another way.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: All right, until next time, take care.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for tuning in to the Black Girls Hunter 2 podcast.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to leave your review on Apple Podcasts, subscribe, and share it with a friend.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're on a mission to increase the success and longevity of women in consulting.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you can help us do just that.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I'd love to hear from you.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: So let's admit at Dr.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Angelina Davis on Instagram formally doctors to visit at consulting.com and for more information to support your consulting journey.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep Brain Glass Dillard.