Marketing Consultants

Memes are an incredibly powerful form of communication.

They allow ideas to replicate and spread virally using a combination of wit, creativity, and repetitive visuals.

Just look at how well they perform on social media.

And if you can learn to harness the power of the meme, you stand a much better chance of getting your ideas to spread.

…but only if you know how to do it.

This Monday (sorry for the late notice!), I’m going to do a live interview with someone who has mastered the art of the meme, Dagobert Renouf.

He’s been able to grow his Twitter following (30k followers) and his logo business dramatically over the past year since starting to create publish unique startup memes almost daily.

If you want to explore the art of memes-as-marketing, for you and your clients, be sure to register for Monday’s live interview.

You’ll be able to ask the strategic and tactical questions needed to learn exactly how he does it.

No plans for publishing the recording yet, so be sure to tune in—even if you’re just listening in the background.

I plan to leave no stone unturned.

Register here if you’re interested: https://lu.ma/dagobert-renouf

When you price your services, there’s something called customer surplus to consider.

Customer surplus, in this case, means the amount of profit your customers gain after deducting your costs.

Not all profit is financial, but it’s easier to think about it in financial terms.

On the one hand, you want to price your services high enough to attract people who need and value the outcome of your services.

People with the highest needs want to buy expensive solutions because they need them to work. Higher prices are both a signal of quality and they allow you to invest the resources to do great work.

On the other, you don’t want to price too high or you risk capturing too much of the customer surplus, making your products and services less compelling.

It also makes you less likely to be referred because the price to value ratio after an engagement wasn’t high enough to have people rave about you.

You also can’t drop your prices too low or your ideal customers also won’t buy it because, profit aside, they want and need something of quality that will actually solve their problems.

So should you price your work? Give this a listen to unpack the concept some more.

I’ve always been a little vague in my mind about whether my daily writings are emails, blog posts, or something else.

My workflow is to publish to WordPress and have it auto-send to my email subscribers (you) via ConvertKit and RSS.

I also share it in the Mindshare community to engage in conversations with members when they find topics interesting.

So does that mean my posts are blog posts, emails, or community content?

In my mind, I’m writing letters to my subscribers.

They’re conversational. Designed to get you thinking about one core idea without a lot of fluff. It’s almost like a running dialogue with you, my reader.

If I wrote with the intention of creating blog posts, they would take a much different form and serve a different function.

The medium forms the message.

Start with the intended medium and let the format flow from there.

There are a wide range of ways to sell your expertise without actually doing execution work for your clients.

And the great thing is, a lot of this is accessible to people who are just starting out. It’s not just for the most seasoned veterans out there.

We can all teach something, right?

Below is an incomplete list ways you can sell your expertise separate from your execution.

My goal is to help get you thinking about what’s possible for you.

1. Consulting/Coaching/Mentorship

1. Retainers
2. Project
3. Single calls
4. Private
5. Group

2. Knowledge products

1. Books
2. Online Courses
3. eBooks
4. Audio courses

3. Live Training

1. Workshops
2. Cohort-based courses
3. Webinars
4. Seminars
5. Conferences
6. Speaking
7. Individual training
8. Corporate training
9. Group training
10. Lunch and learns

4. Memberships

1. Content
2. Community
3. Coaching
4. Hybrid

5. Masterminds

1. In-person
2. Online

6. Content subscriptions

1. Paid newsletters
2. Paid podcasts
3. Physical newsletters
4. Private podcast subscriptions
5. Limited content series

7. Templates

1. Checklists
2. Creative
3. Administrative
4. Swipe File

You can mix any of these together or sell them separately to create an unlimited variety of products and services.

You don’t have to sell your expertise 1:1. The options are endless.

The more you can get your ideas out of your head, ideally within a framework or process (or multiple) you can own, the easier it will be to sell your knowledge independently of your hands.

It’s easier than you think to expand your offers. It might be more lucrative, too.

Start small, see what feels right for you.

Mindshare member, Sean, had an interesting objection while selling his advisory services.

This is a common question when selling advisory work, so it’s worth unpacking this and other follow-up questions Sean had.

“What if my marketing budget doesn’t allow me to implement your advice?”

In this episode, I talk about:

• How to answer this question succinctly in your FAQs or sales conversations
• The difference between cash flow/budget adherence and long-term ROI
• Breaking out a spreadsheet to show potential cash flow scenarios
• Comparing their other options, like agency, in-house employee, and DIY
• Business model and pricing questions around advisory vs. managed advisory services

At the end of the day, your job is to get an ROI for your clients in a cash-sustainable manner.

If budgets are strict, your job is to work within their constraints.

But it’s also worth noting that sometimes, the ROI pays dividends over a longer time horizon.

The better you can prove a business case, the easier it will be to sell.

Listen to this episode for a more in-depth response.