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 #20: This subject comes up often in my discussions with consultants. Let's take a closer look.
I did several consultancy virtual workshops in 2021 already. Each time we got into a lively discussion about - what I call - the contaminated ‘Default Consultancy Model’. As this is an extremely important component of transforming a consultant into an authority, I decided to discuss this further.
In my previous newsletter #19 (please have another look at it), I introduced the concept of ‘Altitude of Involvement’ (and I referred to authors Stark & Baker). I explained that most of the consulting work falls into one of these two categories:
1. Downstream day-to-day execution/implementation work with relatively low impact (implement, monitor, respond, support, fix/repair) at low hourly/day rates.
2. Upstream high-level strategic/diagnostic advisory with relatively big impact (diagnose, design, map/plan, advice, guidance) at premium rates.
During my workshops with consulting teams, I always ask them to describe their most common ‘working model’, starting from the client request. With very few exceptions, they always land with explaining to me the process from developing a proposal to sending reminders to pay the bill. See the visual below.
The Default Consulting Model will drive you crazy
Everybody always agrees this ‘default consulting model’ (model details in previous newsletter) is exhausting and often drives consultants crazy (or burns them out). It did with me many years ago. And I got rid of that model. Entirely.
But consultants consider getting rid of it as a huge mountain to climb. And I keep telling them it’s not that difficult when your clients have started to consider you as an authoritative subject matter expert. But if you are not, you will never get in the lead of your projects (clients will decide for you what to do and how to behave) and you won’t get the power to impose your ‘way of working’.
Start thinking differently
If you keep your options open as a generalist consultant or consultancy (because you are afraid of losing business) and you don’t focus your consulting work on solving a specific (expensive) problem from a specific (minimal viable) audience in a specific (packaged) way, you will most likely get stuck in the ‘default consulting model’ forever. Think about that.
Final advice
So, to keep a long story short: I got rid of my downstream, non-authoritative positioning as a consultant (low altitude of involvement) and you should stop this way of working too:
● Doing ‘activities’ for your clients (instead of client transformation) ● Being considered as ‘one-of-many’ (without negotiation power) ● Working at a low hourly/day rate (working yourself to death to earn a living) ● Being considered risk-free to get replaced (unexpectedly) by your buyer/client ● Getting stuck in the vicious ‘default consulting model’ (see visual above)
I moved to a transformational value proposition as an expert step-by-step and never had to deal with the vicious ‘consultancy default model’ again. What about you in the coming months?
In the next newsletter, I will dive into the topic of ‘Altitude of Involvement’ one more time, summarizing everything I wrote in this and previous newsletter (and provide you with a cool diagram/visual).
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 8-3-2021: It's time to evolve what you do and how you do it.
The single piece of 2021 advice for consultants: focus on building the deep and unique expertise that clients are looking for and are prepared to pay a premium for!
Evolve from ‘doing activities for your clients’ to ‘doing a pain-resolving transformation for your client’. Picture them ‘The Promised Land’. Explain to them your distinctive ‘vehicle’ to drive them from point A (problem status) to point B (problem-solved status).
Show them how you can secure a transformation home run, with process details. Show them how you can ensure stakeholder buy-in. Shift their thinking. Inspire behavioral change. (Luk Smeyers)
Topic 15-3-2021: Your consulting expertise is not unique!
The plain truth is that your consulting expertise is NOT UNIQUE. Many competitors are doing exactly the same thing and, who knows, they may be more successful than you.
However, there is one vital distinction! Your consulting expertise is probably not truly exceptional but YOU certainly are!!!
MAKE THE YOU PART OF YOUR SERVICE! Show your prospects and clients what you’ve learned and what they can learn from your experiences.
Competitors can never copy the YOU! Never! (Luk Smeyers)
The Irresistible Content
I write a lot. Here's the update from the past 2 weeks.
🅾️ Webinar Summary:Fire your clients, you can't grow unless you specialize as a consultant
Last week I hosted a webinar on the importance of narrowing your field of expertise. Here are the main webinar takeaways:
● Always saying YES gets consultants in the Vicious-Loop-To-Hell
● Specialization means: I) a narrow focus of your consulting work
● Specialization means: II) specific audience, specific pains, specific pain resolution, specific process, specific thought leadership
● Evolve from ‘doing activities for your clients’ to ‘doing a pain-resolving transformation for your client’ (creating a value proposition)
● Narrow focus requires courage and discipline
● Move from generalist to specialist step-by-step, using lean principles
Digital marketing will run the show in consulting!
Before coronavirus, consultants kept telling me: "Luk, growing my consulting business is all about my network and my relationships”. I’ve heard variations of this statement more times than I can count.
Today, I don’t have to convince anymore. The lockdowns have surfaced the incredible weakness of a network-heavy approach.
“If your agency's future is tied to making stuff, then you're destined to be on a perpetual financial roller coaster,” argue McLellan and Woessner. In this brilliant book, they dig into the success factors of striving as an agency in the era of authority.
Not anyone can be called an ‘authority’ or a ‘thought leader’. True authorities are those who write with a great deal of expertise on a very narrow subject. Such experts are afforded the highest level of confidence and trust. Their level of expertise is undeniable. As a result, they don’t compete on price.
In their book, McLellan and Woessner explain how to capitalize on this new ‘authority’ era that we’re entering and future-proof your agency/consultancy. A must-read for every consultant and consultancy owner!
My 3 biggest learnings:
1. Authority description: the book provides us with a great description of an authority profile. This is for me the best chapter of the book (chapter 2):
● They have a focus area or subject-matter expertise. ● They don’t just repeat what everyone else is saying. ● They have a public presence where they share their expertise. ● They don’t stray from their area of expertise—think specialist versus generalist. ● They aren’t equally attractive to everyone. In fact, they probably bore most people to tears. ● They’re significant—which is different from prolific—in terms of content creation. ● They don’t create any generic content that someone with far less knowledge or experience could have just as easily written. ● They’re perceived as an educator in some way. ● They have a passion for their subject matter. ● They have a strong point of view, which is the foundation of all of their content.
2. Counterintuitive to narrow our focus: the authors recommend to be ruthless in terms of focus but it seems to be counter-intuitive. When it comes to our business development efforts, we toss out a huge net, hoping that the right species of fish will swim in so we don’t go hungry. Intellectually, state the authors, we get that (the need to focus) yet our choices and behaviors often suggest we’re still focusing on quantity, not quality.
3. Sharing expertise: It’s really great to read that the authors describe the power of ‘sharing expertise’ (see my blog on this subject). Whether called an expert, a thought leader, an authority, a sought-after pundit, advisor, or specialist, they’re all words for the same thing—a trusted resource who has earned that trust by demonstrating and generously sharing the depth of their specialized knowledge over and over again.
My favorite quotes:
Quote 1: A narrow niche, a strong point of view, and being findable in multiple places are the hallmarks of an authority position.
Quote 2: As an authority, you will attract clients who are a perfect fit that you are set up to wow every day. Attracting those types of prospects will shorten your sales cycle and lengthen the number of years you happily serve those clients.
The Inconvenient Number
Evidence-based learning for consultants.
Consultancies and other businesses produce A TON of content. But, what good is it if it doesn’t get used or it’s the wrong type of content?
70% of B2B content goes unused. Wow!
How can this be? Especially in light of the fact that decision makers are actively seeking out thought leadership content from such sources?
91% of senior executives see thought leadership as critical or important to who they choose as advisor.
I imagine that the waste of content is due to either the lack of a strong promotional mechanism or the content itself being not appealing to the audience and, therefore, not delivering results.
Over the years, here’s what I’ve observed authoritative consultants do in a very successful way:
● Thinking shift: they help bring hidden problems and patterns to the surface, inspiring their audience to shift the way they think about their fundamental or underlying challenges. These consultants understand that their audience doesn’t want to hear what they already know about their problems.
●Transformational potential: they create a bold vision about the transformational potential of switching to a new, different approach. Their vision is contagious. They translate their expertise into the confidence that they give their audience about the positive potentials of a transformation.
A sneak peek behind the curtains of my business. Luk's lab.
Dealing with Google in 2021: don’t wing it, have a strategy!
It is extremely important to understand how prospects think and react when they have a problem.
Like all of us, when they have a problem, they Google it! And they check the reviews, the references of consultants who could become their advisors.
So, you’d better spend quite a bit of time thinking about your ‘problem solution’ and the keywords you will be using in your content. It always starts with being able to answer these 4 questions:
1. What specific problem(s) are you solving? 2. For which specific target audience? 3. What is the intended outcome? (result, gain) 4. How do you bring them from point A (problem status) to point B (problem solved status)? (your process, your methodology)
In the words of Blair Enns: “As a consulting profession we appreciate that Google has driven specialization like nothing else before”.
When I started The Visible Authority, this is exactly what I did (again). I thought about my target audience and what problems they would be looking to find answers to on Google that are relevant to my offering.
I took it one step further. I thought of the keywords that indicate buying potential. Check out the screenshot of my top 10 targeted keywords below. I devised this strategy right from the start and ever since January 2020, I’ve been building my content with these keywords in mind (focus on: 'growing a consulting business' & 'how to market a consulting business'). As a result, by now, my website ranks on the first page of Google for both keyword 'families'.
In my pursuit of optimizing my content strategy, I was (and still am) relentlessly learning from the experts in the industry. One such expert is Neil Patel. Here’s a great overview from him on how to set up your keyword and content strategy.
The Inevitable Learning
The programs I am teaching. To become a better consultant.
🅾️ My next free webinar: If you hate selling in consulting, you are doing it the wrong way.
What you will learn in the webinar on April 14 at 2 pm CET:
● Marketing in consulting is not about selling but about sharing your expertise ● As a consultant, you are always the marketer of your expertise ● It's all in the mind, how you can adopt an 'anti-selling' mindset ● The new consultant archetype and how it will impact your consulting growth
🅾️ My private training 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.
This individual training program starts with a full audit of your market positioning and covers the necessary advice for 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.
