Kevin C. Whelan

Marketing Strategy Advisor and Mentor

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Digital Strategy Consultant - Kevin C. Whelan

Kevin is a marketing advisor and mentor. He shares bite-sized observations on marketing strategy, audience-growth, community-building, online education, and life as a consultant.

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Writing a lot is unremarkable—but writing daily is

I’m on a little streak here where I’ve written and published a post for the last 5 consecutive days.

A part of me wants (and have tried) to write and publish daily. The other part of me is like, “nobody cares of you skip a day.”

The truth is, writing sometimes—or even a lot—is in itself unremarkable. Unless, of course, your content is great.

But people who write and publish daily are remarkable simply because they do it every single day. 

Daily writing takes hard work and discipline. And disciplined marketing sends a signal. It builds trust, respect, and familiarity.

So, this is me showing up to overcome the second voice in my head to share an idea with you and lead by example. 

Not because I’m remarkable, but because I think it’s worth the effort to strive to be.

Something is almost always better than nothing. But “something” is usually unremarkable.

Striving to be remarkable by showing up daily is worth the effort. 

How to get started as a marketing freelancer or consultant

Someone asked me today how to do what I do for a living. I think they meant working for ten clients instead of one boss.

They currently work in the marketing department for a fast-growing company. They know they could potentially earn more doing it full time for themselves, but their question was one we all have at some point:

How do you even get started as a marketing freelancer or consultant?

To me, the answer was obvious. Start on the side.

Tap into your network and see who needs help creating a website, doing social media, or whatever it is you do best.

Someone you already know needs help with this… badly.

Start small. Be honest about your skills and experience. Charge just a little. Do the kind of work you already do, but as a freelancer. 

Be sure also to save your side-hustle money. You might just need it when you make the leap.

Then, just see if you like it. You probably will. Everyone does, even if it’s hard for a while.

Oh, and don’t tell anyone you work with what you’re doing, of course. Unless your employers are fine with you moonlighting, but even then I’d keep it low key.

This isn’t legal advice, so do what you need to do.

And as I wrote about yesterday, the best thing to do if you’re even considering going out on your own is to start a blog.

Publish stuff about the work you do. Give advice on your area of expertise or simply share things you learn in your day-to-day work. Just don’t talk about your employer or anything private without their permission.

Bonus points if you write and publish something daily. Big bonus points. That’s usually reserved for the vets.

But I digress…

Eventually, you may go full time. You may work up the guts to take the leap, or fate may impose itself upon you. Either way, all you’ll need to do is turn your blog into a business website by adding a services page.

Easy peasy. You have a business. Now the real fun begins.

Do you need a website if you’re new to consulting?

The short answer is no.

Chances are, your first few clients are going to find you via word of mouth anyway.

But if you want to grow a real business, you’ll eventually need one.

After all, would you trust someone who said they could help your business if they didn’t even have a website? Didn’t think so.

When I had a corporate job, I wasn’t “allowed” to work outside of hours without disclosing it—something I don’t fully agree with, by the way.

So I started a blog teaching what I knew at the time about marketing and web design. I shared my posts on LinkedIn and Facebook—no mention of any services.

And because of that, people in my network reached out to see if I could help them with their website or marketing, too.

Having a marketing blog let me at least point them to some of my ideas and look reasonably credible.

When I eventually left my job, I had months of content history built up. All I had to do was add a services page and it was officially a business.

So however you plan to find clients, you’ll want to look good “on paper”. People need to trust you if they’re going to pay I you.

Your website is your proof of credibility. Keep it simple, but definitely have one as soon as you can. It’s never been easier to get one online.

If I can help point you in the right direction, reach out.

The weekly newspaper

There’s a weekly newspaper that gets thrown onto my doorstep once a week.

I have lived in my current home for over a year and may have opened it once to see if it has any valuable content. It didn’t.

It’s essentially a bunch of flyers wrapped around some local “news”.

It’s not that I don’t care about my community. I do. But this is essentially unsolicited garbage (recycling) that I need to pick up and throw away every month.

The worst part is, I can’t opt-out. So, for all intents and purposes, it’s spam.

Does anyone ever look at spam closely enough to see if they get value?

Nope. And it’s the same with most marketing.

If you depend on interrupting people with unsolicited garbage (recycling) on a regular basis, you can expect people to treat it for what it is: rubbish.

Flyers can work when done properly. But there are better ways to do marketing than this newspaper’s approach.

The better way to do marketing is to focus on creating enough value that people want to consume your messages.

How to become an expert

Yesterday, I said the only real asset an advisor/consultant has is a client’s trust.

But as I wrote those words, I realized one thing might be even more important than trust: expertise.

Trust and expertise are both critical partners. You won’t succeed without having both. But expertise is the foundation for everything else.

For example, you can trust someone, but if they don’t have expertise, you won’t hire them. 

On the flip side, you may not fully trust someone, but if they’re the best at what they do, you’ll hire them.

So how does one become an expert?

The difference I see between high-paid consultants and those who struggle is the amount of time and resources they spend on learning, investing in their expertise.

The successful ones I see are constantly investing in themselves. Courses, coaching, books, events, anything they can get their hands on.

As Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying:

“If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”

It’s because “no man can take it away from him” that school debt doesn’t go away with bankruptcy.

Personally, I invest 5-figures a year into my professional development. I buy education on value, as an investment, knowing it will likely return several times what I pay for it.

Without constant reading, coaching, courses, and other self-explorations, I don’t think I’d be anywhere near where I am today.

I don’t even blink when I see a book that might help move the needle (which is, by the way, why every expert should write and sell a book).

It’s because of these investments in my education that I can do two things:

  • Market myself effectively to keep opportunities flowing
  • Provide solid advice for my clients so they keep getting results

As it stands now, I’m fully booked. Not to brag or anything (but I will just for a sec), there’s a waiting list to hire me. The marketing stuff is working.

But on the flip side of that, my clients are also happy. Why? Because I deliver results. 

I attribute this fact to my investment in education (and maintaining trust). These are the critical assets.

Trust you can lose, which is why it must be managed closely. Expertise is yours forever (although it fades with time).

Invest in your education. You simply can’t be world-class unless you spend the time, effort, and money making yourself better.

You deserve it. Your clients deserve it. And honestly, it’s just fun to get smarter.

Do you agree?

An advisor’s only real asset is trust

As a marketing advisor, the only real asset you have is trust.

Without trust, you have no business. Period.

So how do you build and maintain trust with your clients and community at large?

Here are the main ways as I see it:

  1. Maintain honesty and integrity at all times.
  2. Actually be an expert at what you do.
  3. Always act in the best interest of your clients.
  4. Focus on achieving the results they’re paying for.
  5. Be consistent in how and when you show up.
  6. Follow through on your commitments.
  7. Play the long game at all times.

Things will happen. You will need to make tough choices. You will make mistakes along the way.

Maybe you’ll need to tell your client that their company’s value proposition is mediocre. That they need a better business strategy for their marketing to succeed.

And they won’t want to hear that. At first. They’ll want you to do more “things” to make it work.

Or, maybe you need to own up to a mistake or acknowledge a lack of expertise on a subject they expected you to have.

They won’t want to hear that, either. But they’ll appreciate you telling them.

As an advisor, you need to be acting in your clients’ best interest at all times. Even if it comes at a personal cost to you.

Especially when it comes at a personal cost to you.

And that means being radically honest, among other things. It means making decisions that are hard for you but best for your clients.

It means playing the long game.

Behaving this way is what will make you a successful advisor. Putting yourself on the line for your clients is what they pay you for.

It’s rare because it’s hard. And that’s what makes it so valuable.

So my gentle reminder to you is this: always optimize for trust by focusing on the client’s best interest, not yours. Even when it’s hard. 

Your clients will respect you for that. But the best part is, you’ll respect yourself, too. 

Going your fastest

I was driving three hours out of town to visit family today. I realized something interesting.

When I tried to maximize my speed to say, 120km/h, the ETA on my Waze app only improved by a minute or two.

So I decided to relax and take my speed slow and steady. I got there within a couple minutes of my “fast” ETA.

It might be tempting to try to move as fast as possible with your business.

But as they say, slow is steady and steady is fast.

Not only is the experience better, you also get similar results and you’re far less prone to error or burnout.

Just don’t stop, whatever you do.

The value in taking a stance

No matter what you create, most people won’t like it. Luckily, it’s never your job to convince the unconvinced.

Instead, your job is to take a stance on things. To make something for someone specific—whether that be a blog post, business idea, or anything in between.

By doing that, the thing you make will inherently not be for everyone. And not only is that fine, it’s what you want!

Strong values bring together people who share them and repel those who don’t. In some contexts, that can and does create division, but it also creates extreme unity when those values are held closely enough.

It’s the same thing in business. Your goal is not to please everyone. Your goal is to take a firm stance on what you believe in and stand by it.

And that’s a trade-off; one that is inherent in all businesses whether we accept it or not.

It means doubling down on something at the expense of something else. It means investing resources and time doing one thing instead of another.

If your bets (trade-offs) are smart, you have a winning idea. If not, you don’t.

You don’t need to be controversial or political in order to take a stance. You can, but that’s not usually required. As long as your trade-offs benefit your customers, you’re on the right path.

It can be something as simple as believing that short-form content dripped slowly over time is what make transformative changes possible. Or, that the best way to sell advice is when you don’t also profit from implementing that advice.

Here’s the thing. No matter how hard you try, your idea will not be for everyone. It just can’t. With that in mind, your focus should be on going to the edges of what you believe in to create something rare or one-of-a-kind. To double down your efforts on the best ideas you have.

And then, as good marketing dictates, go out and talk about your trade-off.

Talk about how specific, rare, and valuable it is. Talk about how it’s “this”, not “that”. It’s for this kind of person, not that kind of person.

It’s in these trade-offs that true value is created. It takes guts. You will resist. You will want to water down your ideas to make them palatable to everyone.

And that would be a mistake.

Takeaway: Good marketing (and business) happens when you take a stance, make conscious trade-offs, then talk about it until it reaches the people who get it.

How to create content that gets consumed today

A lot of articles and newsletters these days are long-form covering heavy topics. I’m not sure who has time to read them all.

I certainly don’t.

The emails I notice myself reading the most often are short, punchy articles that cover one topic and one idea. Things like what Seth Godin produces.

It’s not that I have an attention deficit—though we all kinda do online—it’s that there is a value vs. time deficit in most medium and long-form content.

In other words, the value I get out of most long-form content is small relative to the cost of my attention.

My hunch is others feel the same way. So, I have three alternative approaches:

  1. Create short-form content with as little fluff as possible
  2. Use audio to convey ideas when possible
  3. Focus on a single, highly specific topic for each post

Audio has been a big part of The Mentorship subscription so far. Probably more than 80% of posts are short-form audio podcasts. The rest are short-form text and video posts.

It’s intentionally created that way because I’m busy and so are my subscribers.

As a busy professional, I’m working when I’m at my desk—not consuming content (unless it’s a course).

If I have a minute to read someone’s content, it’s probably on my phone during a break. Which means I’m rarely reading long-form digital content unless it’s very specific and high quality.

In contrast, I have a lot more spare time away from the computer, such as on walks with my dog, driving, cleaning dishes, or while doing other chores.

I can’t work during these times, so I like to learn instead.

I don’t think I’m alone, so I’m betting on that in the way I produce content.

As a result, I’m optimizing for three things:

  1. Busy people reading on their phones
  2. Busy people who like to consume ideas via audio
  3. Busy people who cherry pick specific topics with specific benefits

There’s no right or wrong way to create content. I’m just doing it this way because that’s what I want from content right now.

And since my target audience is generally people like me at earlier, similar, and future stages of their independent careers, my hope is that this bet with this approach pays off.

Long-form articles aren’t bad. There’s a place for them, to be sure. It’s great for SEO and content that requires nuance and detail.

But it’s just hard to get busy people (like you and me) to justify giving their time in the hopes they’ll get commensurate value.

Unfortunately, the value in many cases is smaller than the time investment to retrieve it.

I personally prefer a slow trickle. One specific idea after the next. Leading to a bigger whole.

After all, our minds can only take on so much at a time.

The better way to sell advice

I’m a big believer in selling advice and implementation separately.

That doesn’t mean selling both at the same time is bad. That’s how most expert businesses are run.

But selling advice AND getting paid for execution is different than offering advice for a fixed fee.

In this article, I’ll give you two examples that demonstrate why one kind of advice provides a better experience for everyone.

The veterinarian

I bring my dog to the vet for a checkup a few times a year. But every time I do, they consistently try to sell me on premium food, insurance, or multiple inoculations against various potential diseases.

Recently, I went to the vet to look at a rash on my dog’s chin. They correctly guessed that it might be ringworm, but he couldn’t be sure without testing.

He then asked me if I’d like to test first or try the medication and see if it works.

But before I could answer, he then said some people in similar situations simply decide to cut off the patch of skin just in case its cancer. He paused for my reply.

…that escalated quickly.

Now, I’m left with the choice to give my dog a test, some pills, or cut off a chunk of her chin.

How should I know what to do?

After experiences at multiple vets where they try to up-sell me on various things, I admit I was a little bit wary. It felt like another case of up-selling, even though I knew he was probably just tying to help.

And that’s the heart of the problem when the person advising you is also financially incentivized by the implementation of that advice. Especially when you have no idea what the right choice is.

Your guard is up.

The financial “advisor”

Another example is a time when I purchased a mutual fund from my bank. I was in my early 20’s and knew nothing about investing.

Several years later, I opened a self-directed investment account so I could manage my own money.

At that point (and no time prior) they said I could keep the same mutual fund and pay 1% less in management fees since I was no longer “under their advisement”.

But here’s the thing.

In the many years I owned and contributed to their mutual fund, not once did they give me additional guidance outside of the original consultation.

In fact, it wasn’t even a consultation to begin with. They simply asked some risk assessment questions and sold me something “suitable” for my needs. Of course, it was one of their products that earn them a management fee.

They didn’t once suggest the option of going self-directed and saving a percent on their fees (which was in the range of 30-50% of their management fees).

I’d hardly call this financial advice, but that’s what I thought I was getting. It certainly wasn’t neutral advice looking out for my best interest.

Suitability vs. fiduciary standards of advice

The reason for this experience at the bank was because they were selling a “suitability” standard of advice instead of a “fiduciary” standard.

In the financial world, a fiduciary advisor is legally bound to put their clients’ interest ahead of their own.

If they sell products to their clients, they cannot have a conflict of interest (such as a back-end commission or ongoing benefit). Or, if they do, they must disclose it.

A fiduciary must offer you the best possible advice with abundant due diligence. They take a fixed-fee, not a percent or commission for selling some financial product that pays the best.

If they do their job well, you keep working with them. If not, you go elsewhere.

But the main thing is they have no financial incentive to pick one security, fund, or any other investment. They simply must select what they believe will work best for their clients’ interest, and they have an entire world of options to choose from.

A suitability advisor, in contrast, is legally allowed to suggest investments that are simply suitable for a person’s needs. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the best solution for their objectives or profile.

They’re allowed to exclusively offer their own products, even if obviously better options are available elsewhere. Even if it means they make more in commissions from choosing one product or another. As long as they pick a suitable option for you, it’s perfectly legal.

That’s the detail that makes the two kinds of advisory experiences distinct.

To be perfectly clear

There’s nothing wrong with selling advice and implementation. It’s perfectly fine, especially if you’re genuinely acting in your clients’ best interest. I know you are.

But when you make money by implementing the advice you give—distinct from simply overseeing the implementation—it automatically puts you across the table from your clients.

You become a consultative salesperson instead of a confidante. It’s not an advocate relationship in the same way as hiring an expert friend would be.

Again, nothing wrong with that. It’s just different.

Multiply this by month-over-month strategic and technical decisions, the experience begins to matter.

I personally strive to sell advice at the fiduciary standard. I take a fixed-fee, bring in specialists to execute, and don’t mark up their time nor take a commission.

I even pay those same specialists to do work for me if I ever need something done. No back-end freebies. Strictly conflict-free.

So, whatever stage you’re at, whether freelancer or advisor, my advice is this: be a true advocate for your clients.

You’ll enjoy your work more and the money will follow, too.

And if you want to be a trusted advisor, try out the fiduciary standard.

Yours,

—k