Marketing Consultants

But you’ll make more money if you do.

One of the objections I often hear about niching is something along the lines of, “Won’t my clients be nervous about me working with the competition?”

David C. Baker said it best when he said something along the lines of, ‘Your clients fear being incompetent more than they fear you working with the competition.’

Your job as a marketing consultant is to help companies be more of themselves and to amplify those differences in the market.

Usually, there is more than enough business to go around for everyone. Shouldn’t they be happy if you succeed in making them the top two companies in their field?

As long as you don’t work with highly overlapped companies at the same time, and you don’t steal their IP or share anything that isn’t publicly available with any of your clients, you’re usually fine.

Your clients aren’t paying you for your exclusivity. They’re paying you for your expertise.

More times than not, your clients will be happy you understand their industry enough to actually help them.

Some days, when I don’t have a lot of calls in my calendar, I find myself consuming a lot of content.

Some of it is useful, like a good course, article, book, or podcast. But a lot of it is mindless email checking and flipping through social media.

What I’m really doing in the latter case especially is procrastinating.

Instead of creating something—whether it be an update to my methodology, training, writing, podcasting, or creating a new offer—I’m easing the discomfort of creation by consuming.

One way or another, if you want to succeed as a consultant, you need to create. A lot.

The first part of achieving that is is being aware when you slip into fear-based consumption.

Are you mostly creating or consuming today?

The other day, I talked about how important it was to maintain access to the CEO in your clients’ organizations.

It’s fine to work with subordinates on the team as long as you have private and regular conversations with the person responsible for the long-term value creation in the company.

Mindshare member, Oren, said something in the community that really exemplifies the importance of this idea:

“I know a (very) successful agency owner who puts into the contract a 90min monthly meeting with the most senior decision maker. Claims it makes the world of difference.”

I’m not at all surprised to hear them say that. It’s so important that it’s often worth putting into your contracts.

You can’t do strategic work unless you’re closely involved with the financial buyer and the one person in charge of the long-term value creation of the business: usually the CEO.

You can do mentorship, or coaching, or training. But not the kind of strategic transformation most companies are looking for you to help create.

Demand access to the people who can make the value buy-ins necessary to really create change.

Otherwise, you’ll just be spinning your wheels.

(And if you’re not a Mindshare member and you’re reading this, hit reply or email me at hi@kevin.me and I’ll hook you up with access to the community. Just tell me what you’re working on so I know if we’re a fit.)

“People just want me to do the execution”, I hear a lot.

Selling advisory services is “harder” than selling execution when you’re just getting started.

Part of that comes down to how you sell it and part of it comes down to your prospects’ belief about the value of having access to just your brain.

The way to fix this is by demonstrating credibility. You need to be seen as someone who can credibly deliver on a result without using your hands.

That might be easier said than done, but once you establish credibility, selling advisory services is not any more difficult than selling execution.

After all, people don’t care how you get an outcome as long as you do can do it profitably with the least amount of stress possible.

You can build your credibility in at least three main ways:

1. Third-party validation (appearances on credible podcasts/blogs/media, speaking at conferences, word of mouth recommendations, testimonials, etc.)
2. Proof of results (case studies, portfolio examples, etc.)
3. Signals of competence (tightly-niched positioning, daily publishing, writing a book, building a community, high-profile clients, partnerships, or past employers, years doing what you do, etc.)

The more specific your positioning, the easier it is to establish yourself as a credible expert worth paying for access to your brain.

Your expertise needs to be rare and valuable. You can’t do that if you’re spread to broadly with your positioning.

Focus on building credibility before trying to go wide with your marketing and it will be a lot easier to sell advisory services.

The clients who give you the biggest headaches are also unsurprisingly the ones who take up most of your mental bandwidth.

As a knowledge worker, your mental bandwidth is your money generator.

Choose your clients wisely.

If you’re a marketing advisor, having access to the company CEO is essential to creating long-term, successful engagements.

Sometimes, you’ll work closely with marketing managers to execute the plan you’re recommending. And that can mean less frequent contact with the CEO (the financial buyer) over time.

And that’s not inherently bad. The CEO doesn’t need to be on every call with you.

But they should be on some.

If they’re out of the loop, they won’t be able to see and understand the value you create nor the vision you’re trying to build.

And that’s a problem.

The CEO’s job is to help champion your ideas and move roadblocks out of the way. Only the CEO can make true long-term value decisions. It’s your job to discuss these things with them.

And that means complete buy-in and understanding of what’s going on—heard directly from you.

When they only hear second-hand updates from the marketing manager, they only hear one perspective on the progress you’re making.

It may not be the whole picture, either.

If you want to get great results and continue adding value over time, you need to have a direct line of communication open with CEO at all times.

Schedule regular 1:1 calls and tell them to join one of your other calls at least once a month. Don’t let this slide.

Otherwise, your work will not make the impact it needs to and you’re engagement will end sooner than it should.

Note: Read a follow up response to this article here.