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If you’ve ever been on the edge of burnout, you know it’s a very real issue.

The type-A trait that makes us successful can also lead to our demise. Our default mode is often singular: keep pushing.

And sometimes, that’s the right thing to do. We usually have more in us than we think.

But here’s the thing: if you go fully past your burnout line, you may never be able to do the thing you’re currently doing for work again.

It sounds extreme, but it’s true. You might end up hating the thing that once brought you joy, freedom, and a terrific income.

In this video, I give my top 3 tips for avoiding burnout as a freelancer or consultant.

It’s really about how you design your ideal workload to keep the pressure to a minimum and sustain for the long-term.

Our careers are a marathon, not a sprint. If we want to keep doing this for a long time, it helps to have a system to avoid burnout that goes beyond just taking the occasional vacation.

This video describes my system and some other tips to go with it.

If you’re on the brink of burnout, watch this video.

—kevin

Let’s say you publish marketing tips on social media.

You get a ton of engagement. People love it.

It might be a sign to publish more like that. The market is speaking, right?

Or is it?

What if it’s actually a trap?

If your goal is to win more ideal-fit clients, all that matters is whether your buyers are getting value from what you’re publishing. Enough that they reach out to do business.

If your peers love your stuff but don’t buy, it means you haven’t actually provided a business outcome for yourself. You’ve provided valuable content for the wrong person.

If, however, you publish stuff that drives leads, then that is a sign of what content to consider replicating next time.

Social media engagement is a fun metric. It’s addictive. The dopamine is real (*refreshes screen*).

But you know what’s even more addictive? Money. New deals. Client work in your zone of genius.

If you follow engagement without factoring in ROI, you might end up wondering why nobody is buying your stuff. 

It might be that you’re speaking an entirely different language than the people you actually want to serve.

I’m not saying don’t write for your peers. Just make sure it fits with the rest of your client acquisition strategy.

—kevin

What do you do when you lose one of your best clients?

The truth is, if you’re not used to it, it can hurt. It can scare you. It’s not fun.

But you know what? Good things happen when there’s turnover.

In my experience, when one door closes, another much better one opens.

Heck, if I were still working with my original clients, I wouldn’t be half the marketer I am today.

My growth (and income) would be severely stunted.

And yet, it never feels good.

In this video, we break down another freelance Reddit post all about what happens when you lose that great client (and what to do next).

If this recently happened to you, hopefully this video gives you a little lift and encouragement.

—kevin

Most companies have little or no structure in their marketing.

They may or may not be:

• Operating with a strategy
• Getting tasks and projects done on time
• Working with the right people
• Measuring performance
• Getting the results they want

It’s like throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks.

And if we’re not careful, we as consultants, can fall into this very trap and start reacting and throwing our own spaghetti at the wall with our clients.

Not good for anyone.

That’s because nobody teaches us how to operate marketing in a structured and comprehensive way.

My goal is to fix all that.

This Wednesday at 11 am PST, I’m kicking off a 3-part workshop on my 5 P’s of Marketing Execution.

This training is a result of advising clients on their marketing for going on 8 years, not including my freelance and agency work before that.

The 5 P’s are designed to give you a birds-eye view of your client’s entire marketing program. It helps you see the big picture and quickly diagnose what parts of their marketing need to be worked on next.

What are the 5 P’s of Marketing Execution?

1. Planning
Planning is everything from strategy development to tactical roadmaps, setting timelines, and establishing budgets.

It is what happens before, during, and after work gets done. It never ends. I have a process to help you do it in a relatively simple way.

2. People
You need the right people on hand to work on anything that comes your way.

Like paints on a palette, if you have the right colours, you can paint almost anything. I’ll cover the six core seats to have on every bus so you can operate with the ingredients you need.

3. Projects
Projects are anything that gets done once and doesn’t recur.

They include everything from a single task to a major initiative. They can’t be turned into SOPs—you just execute them according to a plan. There’s a simple way to do this that doesn’t involve complex project management tools.

4. Processes
Processes are the things you do that repeat.

Maybe they have a set schedule, such as daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Or maybe they don’t have a repeating schedule but they reoccur on some general timeline. These all need to be designed and/or documented so the machine can function properly and produce consistent results over time.

5. Performance
Everything above leads to one thing: the performance.

This is the sausage that comes out of the sausage maker. You either get the desired results or you need to go back and fix parts of the system above. I use a KPI spreadsheet. Reporting dashboards are fine but nothing beats a spreadsheet. I’ll get into why I think that is, how to create one, what to include, and more.

Benefits of the 5 P’s

1. You will look and act like a professional marketing consultant
2. You can focus on improving a system not a series of tactics
3. It gives you a common language to use with your clients
4. Your clients turn their marketing spaghetti into IP assets
5. The system reduces your clients’ key person risk (eg. you and/or their staff members)
6. The system increases the value of your clients’ businesses in the case of investment or acquisition
7. You and your clients will see more consistent and repeatable results

This training will be broken into three parts to avoid overwhelm.

The dates begin this week and are:

1. Wednesday, May 29th at 11am EST (Planning + People)
2. Friday, May 31st at 11 am EST (Projects + Processes)
3. Monday, May 31 at 11 am EST (Performance)

All trainings will have a recording and you’ll get any templates I propose (mostly Google Docs/Sheets).

Two ways to register:

1. Become a member: https://howtoselladvice.com/membership
2. Single purchase (3 trainings): https://studio.kevin.me/offers/J38vVDzB

What do you do if you really don’t like doing “content marketing” for your business?

I found another fun topic on Reddit that calls out this specific question and gives you my take on how to approach it.

So as a graphic designer, I am looking for new ways to market myself. I already do YouTube 1x a month and slowly but growing there. I also have a pretty good visibility on Behance.

Now I am looking to be more active on Instagram. I was trying to batch create content today but already dreading it because I haaaate it so much. The idea of making reels? Documenting my process? I just want to be low-key. Writing, designing, scheduling posts. This is why I don’t want to be a social media manager. I could hire someone else to do this but I can’t afford it right now.

I am probably just burnt out. Is there any way I can make this easy for me? How can I enjoy this process?

Watch it here →

—kevin

P.S. I’ll be sending you another email today about an upcoming training in case you’re interested. Stay tuned for that. 👀

 

I’m trying out a new series of videos where I go deep on a question, topic, or scenario inside a Reddit subreddit that we can all learn from.

This first one is from r/freelance and it’s all about not overthinking your first videos, getting them out there so you can make them better, get market feedback, and learn more with every iteration.

It’s not just about video, however I do think video is uniquely valuable, which I get into in the video. But it’s the same mindset if you’re just getting started with writing, podcasting, publishing on LinkedIn, or even speaking on stage!

Nobody is born with these skills.

The only way through is with repetition and a willingness to get started—even before you’re ready.

If you’re successfully selling your marketing services, you have expertise people will care about. The only way to find out what will resonate is to publish.

There might be better ways to do it, but this method has worked for me in every other area of life and business. So I’ll personally continue operating using this approach until eventually, the work becomes better and results start to follow.

It takes time, but what doesn’t?

Hit reply or let me know in the YouTube comments what you think!

—kevin

I’m a huge believer that you don’t need many ingredients to be a sought-after marketing consultant.

What you need most is strong positioning, clear credibility signals, and a willingness to show up and share your expertise thoroughly and regularly.

Ben Williams is a product-led growth consultant who seems to be doing a few key things right. I have no insight into his business, but I suspect he’s not hurting for clients.

His website is simple, his value proposition is clear, he has tons of credibility, and he shares his expertise prolifically via his newsletter and on LinkedIn.

I’m sure he does more, but from a quick analysis, these are the driving ingredients that underpin his online presence/marketing.

So, I created a short video walking through how a few core ingredients (along with a fair amount of actual credibility) can go a long way to selling yourself to your ideal clients.

If you don’t have decades of credibility and track record to lean on, fear not.

All it takes is one great case study that explicitly breaks down your results for a client to be able to get another client just like them (and more successively).

And the more you share your expertise in public, the more likely people are to give you a platform, see you have value to offer, and maybe even hire you.

The video isn’t taking into account everything Ben does or has done, but hopefully it inspires you to focus on the few key ingredients that matter most.

Watch the video here → 

—kevin

P.S. Doors are still open for the community for marketing consultants… for now. The conversations inside have been extremely in-depth and frankly quite inspiring lately. We also have a new training dropping next week. More soon!

Are you getting leads but they’re just not closing?

It could be due to a lot of reasons.

It might be your perceived skills, prices, business model, your sales approach… or it could be something else entirely.

The first place I would check is your positioning…

Are you super specific, broad, or… somewhere in between?

Are there a lot of alternative, more specialized options to compare you to?

I recorded a video sharing my recent experience hiring construction contractors and how it applies to growing your marketing practice.

Watch on YouTube →

—kevin

Daniel Priestly shared an analogy recently that running a business is a bit like having a box of Legos without the instructions.

You can see what the final product should look like on the box, but getting there is an entirely different story.

As a business advisor, he sees his role as being the metaphorical instructions. And I couldn’t think of a better analogy for independent marketing strategists.

There’s a good chance your clients have a box of Lego without instructions, trying to assemble the pieces using just the picture on the front for reference.

Strategists are the instructions.

We don’t build it for you (what would be the fun in that?), but we are there to break down each individual step, making it easy for you to get the intended result.

Providing guidance on how to build the Lego set for people who have no instructions is precisely the type of value we create.

But that’s not all we do.

We also provide the tools to go with it, ensuring clients can be successful right away. And unlike the instructions, you can ask us questions when you inevitably get stuck. We don’t leave you hanging.

The better we detail the steps and ingredients of our methodology, the more leveraged our guidance can be because your clients will have fewer questions.

Instruction manuals have to be extremely clear and thorough because nobody is there to answer questions if people get stuck.

That’s where your documented IP Assets come into play. 

It’s one thing to have a process in your head, it’s another to document it so that anyone can build the Legos without you.

My goal is to document everything I know so that I can live at the strategic level and not get too bogged down in what can be easily taught via documented instructions or chat GPT.

I do that by:

1. Teaching Frameworks and Mental Models to make it easier for clients to think on their own.
2. Organizing my ideas into a Methodology Playbook that contains my best ideas.
3. Writing down the steps (Standard Operating Procedures) for each item that requires instructions.
4. Creating my Proprietary Templates to make running processes easier and faster for everyone.
5. Having an Inspiration Swipe File with examples to make it easier to overcome the blank page.
6. Providing a Vetted Rolodex of specialist suppliers whom I can refer when needed.
7. Operating with a Customized KPI Sheet to let my clients measure the performance of our work.

None of this is me doing the tactical execution but it makes that part easy and more efficient because the hard part (the thinking/ingredient provisions) is done for my clients.

I’ve said it before in a tongue-in-cheek way, but execution is a commodity when you have the right instructions. Almost anyone can build a Lego set with the right instructions.

The key is being the instruction manual and well-equipped guide for when things aren’t clear.

But then also making your instructions clearer until eventually, people barely need you to get the result they want.

—kevin

P.S. This is the stuff I teach in the membership, with my own suite of templates, examples, a rolodex, and more. You can grab a spot whenever you’re ready here.

 

A few weeks ago, I recorded a YouTube video on the risks and downsides of the fractional CMO model.

Subscriber Emilie gave an astute comment that I think is worth exploring:

I’ve been a fCMO for almost 1.5 years, and I resonate with the downsides you listed. I’m looking into evolving my business, but I’m not convinced about the advisor model. It can quickly look like a McKinsey type of work where it is mostly fluff and no value, which I hate. I’m still workshopping my next moves, thanks for the food for thought.

I LOVE this comment because it’s a great opportunity to go back to the fundamentals of advisory work and how to actually add value, not just provide fancy Powerpoint presentations that collect dust.

Watch my response YouTube video here.

—kevin

P.S. Whether you’re struggling to get clients or feel like it’s time to upgrade your business model, the membership is for you. The Engage plan gives you unlimited access to me via Slack plus SO much more for only $379/month.

Learn more: https://howtoselladvice.com/membership