All Audiences

Here’s the thing about positioning.

Positioning isn’t just the words you use on your website.

It’s not messaging. It’s not copywriting. In fact, it has almost nothing to do with language at all!

Positioning is a result of the strategic decisions you make about your business.

It’s about what you do (or don’t do), what you’re good at, who you do it for, how you do it, and a variety of other business strategy-related factors.

In the book Positioning by Al Reiss and Jack Trout, they say that positioning is where you exist in the minds of your customers relative to the competition (paraphrasing).

So how do you create a clear-thinking business strategy that makes for a compelling position in the market?

It all starts with your promise. Your universal value proposition, as I call it. The thing you do that permeates every corner of your business.

That promise informs your content strategy, the services you provide, your messaging, prices, methodology, and so much more.

It’s the through-line. The thing that keeps you aligned in everything you do. It’s your north star.

Once you’re clear on that, you can look to see where you might fit relative to other options in the market. 

You might have the same core promise for the same audience as someone else, but you decide to do things in a different—perhaps more opinionated—way.

That would inform your positioning in the minds of the market. But that’s not positioning. That’s business and marketing strategy.

Your promise shows up in everything you do. And that promise—delivered consistently—tells a story.

The market then picks up on that story in their minds. They begin to place you—often subconsciously—somewhere in their minds relative to the other players in the market.

That is your positioning. And sure, you can coax it by communicating more effectively about what your strategic promises are. But you can’t really position yourself directly.

Positioning is a byproduct of good business and marketing strategy.

If you chase the wrong thing, you might end up running in circles.

—Kevin

P.S. Here is a behind-the-scenes look at just SOME of the topics and questions happening in the membership this week:

1. Reaching out to ideal clients and when/how to use it (Private Podcast)
2. How to design a consulting service ladder (1:1 Mentorship DM + YouTube video)
3. What to do when a lead prescribes their desired deliverables for a project (1:1 Mentorship DM)
4. The difference between community and memberships (1:1 Mentorship DM)
5. Selling to the consumer vs. selling to the financial buyer on a sales page (1:1 Mentorship DM)
6. Should you use pricing and/or comparison pages on a consulting website? (1:1 Mentorship DM)
7. What it means to “own the whole problem” with your value prop (1:1 Mentorship DM)
8. What to do when you sell to two distinct audience verticals (1:1 Mentorship DM)
9. The value of a defined methodology vs. maintaining flexibility (Group Call)
10. Positioning and packaging expertise vs. hands work (Group Call)
11. Designing, launching, and marketing a membership program (Group Call)
12. Generalist vs. niching and hybrid advisory + done-for-you services (Group Call)
13. The “expensive skills” people are learning to create more value for their clients (Group Call)
14. Continuation options: what to do after the initial consulting term is up (Community)
15. What software people use to manage their admin on the backend (Community)
16. If you want to make more money, focus on creating this first (Private Podcast)
17. Should you include variable fees on top of a retainer? (Community)
18. How to scale your consulting practice once you max out on client time (Community)

If you’re a marketing consultant and are interested in topics like these, learn more here.

One of the most fundamental questions that comes up in my world is how to design your productized consulting services.

There are core two ways to go about it:

1. By levels of access to you/what you deliver
2. By customer segment and/or problem

After seeing the question come up again recently, I figured I’d create a definitive video explaining the two general approaches—and why a hybrid is probably your best bet.

I’ve sold well over US$1M with these exact approaches and continue to use them today, generating multiple six figures consistently each year as a result.

Needless to say, these services work extremely well for me and practically sell themselves.

Check out my YouTube channel for all the details on how I do it.

—kevin

P.S. If you use YouTube much, be sure to subscribe to the channel as I don’t always email with new videos like these.

I have two kids under five. They’re amazing.

But I only need to leave them for five minutes before the living room with all their toys becomes a hazard zone.

And frankly, it’s not that different than how we run our businesses. We play (work) and before long, things get a little.. disorderly.

All things tend towards chaos and complexity if left unchecked.

Having downtime and slack in the system helps. But you know what helps even more?

Having fewer toys.

One of the most common things I hear from the consultants inside Mindshare is that we’re all a little bit overwhelmed.

We do too much. We believe we can do everything, help everyone, and be everywhere.

But you want to know a secret? So little of it actually matters.

There’s a good chance that 20% of what you are doing right now is driving 80% of your results.

And yet, we pile on more instead of focusing on doing fewer things better.

How do we know what to do then?

We follow our instincts. We try things. We experiment.

But then we look backward and see what worked.

The signs will be there. They might be boring—maybe even a little obvious—but they’ll be there.

You might find that most of your leads will come from referrals and word of mouth. And that means relationships are the key to you growing your business.

Or you might find that your YouTube channel is going gangbusters and is driving all your opportunities. Doing more videos is probably not a bad idea.

Or you might find that 80% of your profit comes from a very specific type of customer. Perhaps make them your sole focus and ignore everything else.

Our job isn’t to be busy.

That feels like the way but it rarely is.

Our job is to try things, see what works, be objective about it, and then do more of it.

It’s a process of adding and removing things based on what works. 

So sure, experiment. Have fun. Throw the toys around. Follow your hunches and interests.

But then take a hard look backward and ask yourself one single question: what’s actually driving business results and what is just busywork?

Avoid the chaos. Keep it simple.

—Kevin

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://indiestrategist.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!