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Luk’s Bi-Weekly 'Think Piece' For Consultants

Edition #17 - February 3, 2021

Dear reader,

Here's the latest Edition of 'The Authority', helping consultants grow their revenue by sharing intriguing educational stories.

It’s my ultimate aspiration to create a bubble of calmness with this bi-weekly ‘think piece’, a place of stillness in the face of everyday stress. A chance to reflect on what really matters in your consulting work.

The Big Question

Questions I get from consultants. And my answers.

Question #17: I received this question from a reader (thanks!):

'Luk, I am fully booked as a consultant but the past 2 years, step-by-step I got in the trap of 'servicing my clients to death' and it's burning me out. I have a limitless ambition to please my clients and as such, it's rewarding. But they are often misusing my service spirit and this drives me nuts. How can I work my way up to a different status, becoming more selective about clients, client requests, and projects?'

This is a very common trap I see so many consultants - big or small - fall into. This challenge of 'servicing my clients to death' belongs to the top 3 discussions I have with my clients. Difficult discussions.

You start working with a client and you want to make sure you make a fantastic first impression. You go out of your way. You respond to their emails within minutes, you change your timeline a hundred times because your client asks you to, you re-work the same project multiple times because your client keeps changing his/her mind on the deliverables, and on and on it goes. Before you know it, your clients start taking this approach for granted.

You can’t really blame your client, though, can you? If that’s how you've positioned yourself from the start, your clients will assume that it’s your normal mode of working. You are the only one who can tell them otherwise. I get that, I've been there, don't worry.

Getting back in control: there are only 2 paths to follow

You either add additional (in or external) team members (the train of thought in most bigger consultancies) or you reduce the volume of work and compensate the lost revenue with substantially higher rates as a visible expert. In other words: doing less to grow your revenue! If you don't choose one of these paths: you risk to burnout in the long run!

Doing less? Higher rates? Visible expert? What the heck!

The past years, I reduced my work volume to 70% in a first phase and to 50% currently. The remaining time: investment in my visibility as a subject matter expert. Writing this newsletter, for example :-).

I kept challenging myself all those years to say ‘NO’ to anything that fell outside of my narrowly positioned area of expertise. I stopped chasing the next client, I accepted to earn less if needed. In return, I was able to free up time to grow my business on the back of my earned market visibility. It has always been a rewarding and prosperous approach.

I love this quote from Blair Enns (I am a big fan of him):

'We must simply choose to take control, first by specializing and shifting the power back from the client toward us, and then we can begin to shape our future as consultants.

It's scary to reduce, I know

I’ve seen many consultants fear to say ‘No’ to ill-suited opportunities in order to please a client (and/or earn an income/revenue), compromising their market credibility and ultimately seriously compromising their future consulting growth.

Many years ago, I told myself: “Luk, you either specialize and stand out in the very crowded consulting market or you’d better start looking for a regular job”.

The fear to narrow your expertise domain is the fastest way to becoming commoditized as a consultant and to get in the hamster wheel of having to say yes to everything to protect income, not having the time anymore to develop the business and as a result becoming a Jack of all trades to (try to) survive. The vicious loop to hell.

The undeniable truth

Consulting clients are searching for subject matter experts and trusted advisors to help solve their problems. Clients have more options today than ever before - there are more consultants and experts and advisors than ever and buyers can find anything in seconds. Your (digitally savvy) competitor is only one click away.

So, to conclude my long answer: you'd better focus on building the deep and unique competence that clients are looking for and are prepared to pay a premium for. And with those premium fees, you can compensate for saying no to protect your business development time. I've done that and you can do this too. The glorious loop to heaven!

The Next Big Question: To grow our consulting business, you encourage us to call attention to our expertise, to become a thought leader who demonstrates expertise by 'giving away' valuable information. Could you elaborate a bit on the thought leadership 'concept' for consultants?

Would you like to send a question for one of the following newsletter editions? Please send it to me here.

The Disturbing Truth

Unsettling revelations from experts I admire. And from myself.

Every Monday morning, I am sharing a consulting-related advice on Linkedin to start the new week.

These advices reflect years of my passionate thinking about the consulting profession and span one year of writing. I've mixed my own quotes with carefully selected quotes from experts I admire and you may never have heard of.

Here are the quotes from the past 2 weeks. Let the inspiration be with you (if you let it).

Topic 25-1-2021: Are you a baker or an eater?

👉 As my great inspirator Guy Kawasaki so wisely put it: 'Eaters want a bigger slice of an existing pie, bakers want to make a bigger pie and share it with others'.

👉 Do not worry about your competitors trying to get a slice of your existing pie. By being intentional in sharing your real-life experiences you will enjoy infinite supply to bake more and bigger pie. Bakers will always be seen as leaders and clients want to work with leaders.

👉 Ordinary consultants eat. Authorities bake!

Topic 1-2-2021: The bigger picture of sharing expertise

👉 My content has always been like 'my assets': the more I write, the more traffic, and ultimately the more clients I get.

👉 Your content should be organized in such a way it drives leads to your consulting business. Sounds like a no-brainer, or?

👉 "The investment isn't in the content, it's in the result of the content: the subscribed audience". (Robert Rose, Content Marketing Institute)

The Irresistible Content

I write a lot. Here's the update from the past 2 weeks.

TVA blog: 10 Consulting Trends For 2021

I've been updating this article from the beginning of the month. Have a look!

Trend #8 (February 1st): Getting visible requires a time strategy

Many consultants have the mindset of ‘there’s not enough time to develop my business’. Is that really true, though?

Can you instead see the problem as a fixable issue? Can you shift it towards one of, ‘how do I create more time so that I can work on marketing for my business’?
It’s a question of mindset more than anything. It is imperative, in the crowded consulting space in 2021, that consultants will start making more time for (digital) marketing.

If you firmly believe there is not enough time in your day, then that will be your reality. If, instead, you begin to look at the problem creatively and find pockets of time in your day, you’ll be more motivated to do a complete overhaul of your mindset and the way you work.

10 Consulting trends 2021 - The Visible Authority - Luk Smeyers

TVA blog: 25 People I’m Thankful For This Year And What You Can Learn From Them As A Consultant

LinkedIn post: Consulting Trend #9: the new consultant archetype

The Authority, previous edition: Edition #16

The Inspiring Reading

I read a lot. Here's what I am reading right now.

I am reading between 30-50 books per year. I just finished reading:

'Think Again' by Adam Grant

Adam Grant sure knows how to write insightful, engaging, and thought-provoking books! I recommended another book of his in the 8th edition of my newsletter - ‘Give and Take’

In this phenomenal book, Grant makes a shrewd observation: we tend to favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt.

We indulge ourselves. We cherry pick which opinions we listen to and, almost always, they confirm our view of the world or opinion on matters. Disagreements are often seen as a threat to our ego rather than an opportunity to learn and grow.

Grant encourages his readers to assume a different mindset - a more productive, embracing way of thinking. It’s OK to be wrong. It’s OK to let go of old beliefs and preconceived notions. Being truly open-minded means making room for the possibility that what you’ve learned may have to be unlearned.

We all fall into this trap of thinking and acting inside our own bubbles. These bubbles are defined by social media, our circle of friends and family, colleagues, etc.

I love this book because it makes me face this reality, and actively and consciously fight my own bubble, looking for knowledge and opinions from those I find myself, at first, disagreeing with.

My 3 biggest takeaways:

1. Question your habits. You can fall into a rut both physically – performing the same activities, irrespective of their benefit – and intellectually, when you fail to question why you believe what you believe. This leads to mental laziness.

2. Rethinking is a skill that can be learned. Whether it’s on an individual level or making it a part of corporate culture, the ability to question assumptions should be actively developed.

3. Remain humble. Humility is what powers our ability to question our own assumptions and openly engage in dialogues with those we don’t agree with.

I also recommend listening to Adam Grant's podcast.

The Inconvenient Number

Visible Authorities have a better pipeline. The evidence.

It’s 2021 and the content race is on!

Longitude has released its thought leadership predictions for 2021 and it’s a must-read! It covers numerous areas of content: how to create it, who will create it, and how to promote it.

Here are a couple of statistics that stood out for me:

84% of companies agree that B2B will finally understand the value of emotional content.

68% agree that companies will create their content in a more unified way.

These numbers indicate two things:

1. Companies - and consultants - are realizing the importance of making content stand out and generating regular readership. This can be accomplished, among other things, by adding your 'emotions' to content. Don’t forget that your experiences, your communications style, and your unique perspectives (all your wonderful emotions) all allow you to be different than everyone else in your industry.

As I always say: Make YOU part of your service. Inject what’s unique about the way YOU think, what YOU sell, how YOU sell it, how YOU support it, how YOU explain it, and how YOU deliver it. Competitors can never copy the YOU in your service!

One client from a large consultancy firm said: 'We need to create a blend of the firm's prestigious name with the singularity (the emotion) of the consultant'.

2. Whether it’s a small, medium-size, or a large consultancy, active efforts will be made to produce content for clear business development purposes. If you work in a consultancy, you will have to do the same or risk getting beaten by your competitors. If you are a solo consultant, this is your wake-up call to start creating content in a strategic and consistent way.

Source: Longitude

The Secret Backstage

A sneak peek behind the curtains of my business. Luk's lab.

The ROI of the investment in my content.

I love that recent quote from Robert Rose from the famous Content Marketing Institute (see above also in 'The Disturbing Truth'):

'The investment isn't in the content, it's in the result of the content: the subscribed audience'.

In my article '10 Reasons why you should share your expertise' I have explained more reasons but converting readers/visitors to 'a subscribed audience' is a pivotal content objective to grow your consulting work. It's foolproof straightforward: the bigger your 'subscribed audience', the more growth potential in the long run.

95% of consultants I start working with, don't drive conversion from their content. Amazing!

I am big on including conversion actions in all my content. It’s what I often discuss in my posts - Traffic to Leads to Clients, the TLC model.

All of my articles on my blog - no exception - have calls to action (CTA) to sign up for my newsletter. This narrows down my audience from casual readers or someone who just stumbled upon my article to those who are genuinely interested in becoming better consultants.

Around 20% of all my newsletter subscribers come from my blog articles. Here are a couple of screenshots of my CTA's:

one is a floating slide-in pop-up (a small one, I don't like big pop-ups covering the text)
the other one - a static button at the end of each article. For a particularly long article, I may include the CTA a few times.

The Inevitable Learning

The programs I am teaching. To become a better consultant.

My Accelerator Program, limited slots for 2021: I have A LIMITED NUMBER OF SLOTS in 2021 for senior consultants eager to attract their ideal customers and grow their consulting business consistently. The Accelerator Program starts with a full audit of your market positioning and covers the necessary long-term improvements and quick wins. The number of participants for this 1-2-1 virtual training is limited. Access on a first-come-first-served basis. Here's the link to the info page with the program content. You can book a call on this info page to discuss your participation.

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Previous 'The Authority' edition: Edition #16