Marketing Advisor, Mentor, & Educator
Kevin C. Whelan
It’s okay to not have all the answers. Nobody does.
But as an advisor, it’s not okay to pretend like you do.
When you begin to cross from advisor to “here’s my opinion”, it’s important you let your clients know up front.
It shows them that when you do give advice, you’re doing it from a place of expertise. And that builds trust and confidence in your recommendations.
Advice without expertise is opinion.
Tow the line closely.
A lot of info products give you immensely valuable information to use in your business.
They help you get smarter and do your job better, which can have a big impact on your bottom line.
It has for me.
And sometimes—sometimes—if you really put in the work, you can transform your entire business with that knowledge.
But in my experience, the biggest transformation comes from direct feedback and coaching from someone you trust.
When you’re making an investment decision into your professional development this year, ask yourself what kind of improvement you’re trying to make.
If you want to make incremental improvements to your business—even significant ones—info products can be immensely helpful.
It’s just harder to squeeze all of the juice out of the lemon that way. Nobody is there to hold you accountable or fix the inevitable mistakes in your implementation.
But if you want to make a serious transformation, it’s often better to get help from someone who’s done it before and can help you adjust to the nuances of your situation and avoid the pitfalls along the way.
Both types of solutions are worthwhile for what they do.
I invest heavily into coaching and info products every year and it shows on my bottom line.
I’d be out of business without them. There is no school for what we do.
But I’d be lying if I didn’t say coaching has the bigger impact in terms of transformation—at least for me.
It just costs more up front—often a lot more—and that feels riskier.
—kw
P.S.
I’m working on a beta group coaching program starting next month. I’m pretty sure it’s going to transform the businesses of all five participants in the group for a negligible cost.
If you’re interested, I have a couple spots left but lots of people asking. Don’t wait.
Hit reply and I’ll send the rest of the details.
The key standing out as a marketing consultant is specificity.
If you focus too broadly either in who you’re for or what you promise, you’ll blend in with the rest of the world.
I prefer to make one specific promise to one specific market segment and focus everything I have on that outcome.
For me, I help marketing consultants build a more profitable business. That’s the core mission.
This singular focus informs the content I create, how I show up, and even the products and services I offer.
I also tailor my content and messaging specifically for this audience. Not freelancers, not agency owners—consultants.
The marketing consultant is the bullseye for everything I do.
But guess what? The subscribers of my email list and members of the Mindshare community include freelancers, agency owners, and consultants.
And that’s a good thing.
Just because I lead with one promise for one sub-market doesn’t mean I can’t work with others or have extended promises.
I just don’t lead with that.
Picking a narrow lane helps you get noticed and allows you to go deep on the nuances of the core problem you solve.
As Blair Enns says, “the target is not the market”.
Find your specific promise for a specific audience and watch your business expand beyond your expectations.
You will still do more than you promise, and that’s okay.
Seth Godin wrote a post last week that resonated with me.
I’ll copy it below in it’s entirety because it’s short:
No matter what it is you’re cooking, if you put too much in the pot, it’s not going to come out as well.
Very few things scale forever.
The hardest moment to stop scaling our work is the moment when it’s working the best.
And that’s precisely the moment when we need to have the guts to stop making it bigger.
The business world seems to be focused on scale and growth at all costs.
But in my experience, marketing professionals who pursue it without a throttle often find themselves doing shoddy work for unpleasant clients at low margins.
So what if you could have a highly effective, profitable, and small business?
I believe you can.
In fact, I think it’s the better way to operate a marketing practice.
Distribute your free content widely and sell your products at scale. But keep your services limited.
You’ll likely sell more easily (due to inherent scarcity), at higher prices, for more loyal clients, while delivering even better results because your focus is not watered down.
It’s also a lot less stress.
One of the bigger red flags I see during sales discussions is a need for immediate results. Usually financial ones.
If your prospects need results yesterday, it’s usually a good idea to either reset expectations or turn them away.
Don’t be the miracle worker or the firefighter. Save that work for people who don’t have a choice. It rarely results in a positive outcome for anyone.
Instead, be the farmer who plans crops years in advance and nurtures them consistently over time until they reliably bear produce each year.
Sure, you might be able to get some quick wins early in your engagement—and it’s a good idea to try—but quick wins don’t build a business.
Do things the right way. Do things that take time.
It all starts with the upfront expectations.
The first draft of my daily posts are usually pretty rough.
It often takes several passes before the idea becomes clear in my mind, let alone “on paper”.
It’s no different with any other area of my business. I’ll be refining what I until my last day on the job.
Your business is a living organism almost in the same way you are.
As soon as you stop innovating (growing), your business starts to stagnate and then decline.
Stagnancy—in nature and in business—is death.
You can either lean into change or simply hang on to the things that are working in the hopes you don’t lose them all.
But you can’t do both.
Staying in business requires forever innovation, iteration, and change. It’s not easy, but that’s the natural order of things.
When is the last time you took a meaningful leap of evolution?
If people buy with emotion and justify with logic, what emotions do your clients usually feel when they buy from you?
The feelings may vary by person and context, but I’m willing to bet they can be grouped into a small handful.
For some, it means creating a purpose-driven brand that builds trust through shared values.
For others, it means showing people how you can help them avoid or eliminate pain.
For others still, it might be to create excitement, motivation, or inspiration for a better future.
If you can genuinely empathize with the feelings your clients experience when they buy from you, it’s a lot easier to do good marketing.
It’s a lack of genuine empathy for the buyer that makes most marketing dry and unmoving. It’s usually focused too much on logic, which doesn’t work.
Aim to do marketing that connects with the way your prospects feel first and foremost. Show them you understand where they’re coming.
Once you know the feeling you’re trying to create, the logical part of your marketing should be easy.
But you can’t do that well without real empathy.
It might be daunting to think about all the possible things you could be doing to improve your business.
Marketing yourself, creating documented processes, building relationships, designing new offers… the list is endless.
It’s easier than ever to do nothing. To coast. To procrastinate. To stay in your comfort zone. Or even to put off making decisions at all.
The best thing you can do is pick one main goal and see it through to completion before moving onto the next thing.
It sounds simple, but it works.
Sometimes, you just need to put on the blinders and give yourself permission to achieve less than you think possible.
Slow is steady and steady is fast.
P.S. Hiring a coach or mentor can help a lot, too. Hit reply if you need help deciding where to focus next in your business.
Do you feel like your business is starting to stagnate, or worse—beginning to decline?
Are you working too many hours and not seeing the results you know you should be?
Do you feel scatter-brained and nervous about where your next client will come from?
If so, I have something that can help.
I’m launching a new mastermind-style small group coaching program for independent marketing professionals.
I’d like to help you design a wildly profitable business with predictable cash flow and less stress.
In short, we’ll help you design the business you want, not the business that happens to you if you aren’t intentional.
I can only offer space for up to five people at a time. Two are already registered, which means three spots remain.
This beta program, so the price will be no-brainer in exchange for your feedback and testimonials.
Enrolment will be open until the end of October only. After this one begins, there will be a waiting list for future groups.
If you’re interested and would like to learn more, email me (hi@kevin.me) or reply to this email and I’ll send you all the details.
Let’s pretend you’re aspiring to become the best in the world at what you do.
It might take time, but you’re on a mission and committed to achieving it.
Chances are, you’d have to pair back what you do and/or who you do it for.
The more specific you can be about what you focus on, the better your chances are that you’ll actually achieve best-in-the-world status.
The opposite is also true. The broader you focus, the more likely you are to run into competition.
Is there a possible scenario you can imagine where you become the best in the world at what you do?
If so, how narrow would you need to focus to make that conceivable?
If you’re struggling to find your place in the world, this thought experiment is a great place to start.
You don’t need to aspire to become world-class, but it doesn’t hurt to imagine it to see if it leads you somewhere meaningful.
And heck, while you’re at it, why not try?