Kevin C. Whelan

Marketing Strategy Advisor and Mentor

Do things that light you up for people you like

Ever notice that some work gives you energy and other work drains you?

Or that some people you work with seem to light you up and others feel like you’re walking around with a weighted vest?

I’ve spent the last few years trying to do the former and eliminate the latter from my business. Doing so has created significant improvements in my business—from a profit and enjoyment standpoint.

For me, it meant doing more advisory work and less done-for-you execution work. I get to do the work I do best: create and facilitate marketing strategies that lead to measurable change for my clients.

I’m also becoming increasingly more aware of who I like working with. I’m more selective now than before. More attuned to personalities and businesses I’m best suited for (or not suited for).

I don’t know if there’s an invisible law of business that tells you to optimize for doing the things that light you up for people you enjoy working with, but I can tell you one thing: it won’t hurt to try.

In fact, it might open doors in your business you didn’t think possible.

How to succeed in business

In order to succeed in business, you generally need four things:

  1. The right product or service
  2. The right customer to buy it
  3. The right message to describe it
  4. The right marketing plan to build awareness

If something isn’t working, it usually means at least one of these four things are off. And you can’t succeed without all four working.

But here’s the thing: you rarely get it right out of the gate.

Business is about tweaks and adjustments. And even when you get it right, the target moves again.

If something isn’t working in your business, ask yourself:

  1. How many people are you reaching?
  2. Is it resonating with people? If so, who?
  3. How many are expressing interest?
  4. How many actually buy it?
  5. How many stay or buy again after making the first transaction?

Great marketing comes from asking the right questions and iterating until you get the best answers.

Just because you’re having challenges, doesn’t mean you need to change all four factors or stop trying.

Better to look for the answers one factor at a time based on what you’re seeing than to throw the whole thing away or give up.

Keep tweaking the dials on your system until you get it right.

Say one thing, say it well

Here’s something I found on Twitter the other week that I thought was interesting. It’s from a recent study by the University of Alberta, which makes it more than just a clever marketing meme.

The basic idea is that the more messages you try to share in an ad at one time, the less impact it makes.

That’s probably why I try to make my daily content short and focused on one topic per post.

By keeping it tight, it makes it more accessible to read and consume in one shot. With any luck, some of the ideas stick, too.

It’s not the only way to do things, but I think it works well.

One post, one idea. One ad, one message. You get the point.

Say one thing, say it well

The value of scarcity

Bitcoin has seen a tremendous rise over the last decade. The last year in particular.

Why? The underlying premise is the fact that there will only ever be 21 million coins in existence. Which means they’re inherently scarce. Unlike any fiat currency, which governments can print more at any time.

There are far more reasons why Bitcoin has seen such a surge in popularity, but that’s the crux of it.

If Bitcoin could arbitrarily create more supply, it would have little to no inherent value. And it’s the same with your consulting practice. 

There are two ways to be scarce:

  1. Stay small
  2. Be uniquely specialized 

I like being a solo consultant because my availability is inherently limited. If you want to work with me, you better either wait in line or pay the price (which goes up as I get busier).

I also like being specialized because it means my skills are rare and therefore more valuable to those who want what I offer.

Do you want to work with a generalist consultant, or me, the guy who specializes in exactly what you need?

If Harvard decided to expand and create multiple campuses around the world, would it still have it’s cachet? My guess is it would lose a LOT with every new location.

If Harvard accepted just anybody into their school, would it still be as valued? I’d guess no. Having a Harvard degree says a LOT about your academic caliber.

That’s because they’re small, which means they need to be selective, which reduces supply, which drives up price, which can be reinvested into the quality of the educational experience, which increases demand, and so goes the cycle.

If you want to increase your value, increase the scarcity of your availability and expertise.

When should you execute tasks and when should you advise on them?

As a marketing advisor, your job is to help clients get results. How you do that is up to you.

Should you roll up your sleeves and do a bunch of the work yourself, or should you stay in more of an advisory and oversight role?

Or, should it be somewhere in between?

The choice is yours to make. But if you want to find any kind of scale, you need to find ways to remove yourself from the day-to-day task work and into an oversight and facilitation role.

You want to be the air traffic controller, not the pilot. And the best way to do that is by creating leverage.

Leverage comes in many forms. For me, it usually includes examples, templates, training, and access to implementation partners I can trust.

These things greatly reduce the need for you to explain things over and over again, or end up doing things yourself every time because it’s easier. They also get results more quickly because you’re not reinventing the wheel every time.

That’s where niche specialization comes in.

When you specialize in a niche (i.e. a market vertical/industry), you can create repeatable assets that remove you from doing the task work and help your clients get results faster overall.

Your templates are all highly tailored to a specific audience. Your training fits precisely with their needs. And your examples are all right on point for their situation.

If you specialize, your leverage grows. Your expertise becomes more rare. Your results become better and more predictable.

And by the way, people are willing to pay good money for rare expertise that applies directly to them.

On the other hand, if you don’t specialize, your templates are generic. Your partners are generalists. Your training is boring. And your examples are hard to apply to each client’s situation.

At the end of the day, by not having a niche specialization, you don’t create nearly as much leverage.

And if you don’t have leverage, you don’t really have a business. You have a job.

Reputation management

My wife’s grandfather was the CEO of Green Giant Canada some many years ago. I never got a chance to meet him, but I’m told he was a remarkable guy.

He not only led the company for a number of years, he was also the sole breadwinner of a family with eight children.

His legacy remains strong within his family and local community where he lived.

One piece of advice that he gave to my wife when she was starting business school that sticks out in her mind was this: in business, all you have is your reputation.

It takes a long time to build a good reputation. Years. Decades.

The best reputations are ones made through longevity. That’s where the value comes from.

If you can find a thing and stick to it for a long time—while managing your reputation along the way—the end result will be rare and valuable.

All you have is your reputation. Manage it wisely.

The daily portfolio

Here’s a quick article by Craig Burgess about why he publishes his visual graphics daily.

There are a lot of good lines in it, but this is one of my favourites:

A lot of designers will be better at design than me. A lot of them will be worse. But I can promise you one thing: 99% of them don’t have a daily portfolio.

There’s a certain credibility and weight that comes with daily publishing—whether it’s your art, writing, or whatever your area of expertise is.

This post really resonated with me, so I thought I’d share it in case it inspires you to create daily content, too.

Daily portfolio post by Craig Burgess

Why it’s important to like who you serve

To be a great consultant, you need to develop your Methodology.

To develop your Methodology, you need to specialize.

To specialize, you need to actually like the people you serve.

Why? Because it takes a long time to build a Methodology that makes you sufficiently unique and sought-after.

It also takes a long time to build your audience and reputation. There are no shortcuts there, either.

If you don’t genuinely like who you serve, you won’t be around long enough to turn your Methodology into something meaningful.

Something you can sell at scale. Something you work hard at to improve day in and day out. Something you can make your life’s work.

If you’re starting on the journey of specialization and you want to building a meaningful business over the longterm, remember it’s important to like who you serve as much as it is do like what you do.

You gotta have both or it won’t work.

Two things that make you more likely to be hired

As a consultant, I see help my clients hire people all the time. Agencies, freelancers, consultants, employees, you name it.

The ones who end up getting hired usually have two things in common: experience and likeability.

We have to remember one thing: people buy on emotion.

We pick specialists because they provide the best likelihood of a good outcome. That makes us feel more confident and assured in our decision.

We pick people we like because they make us feel like we can work well with them in collaboration. There’s a gut instinct to it.

If you can optimize how you make people feel, both in how you position your business and how you do business, you’ll be more likely to win deals and keep clients happy over a long period of time.

Yes, you need to deliver great results. Yes, you need to be dependable and have integrity.

But you also need to create and maintain a positive feeling with your clients to be successful.

Like it or not, it’s the truth.

Daily means daily

I’m on the road for the next few days visiting family.

I could miss a day of writing but then it would, by definition, mean I’m not daily blogging anymore.

There’s nothing wrong with doing “sometimes” blogging—i.e. whenever you can, or even doing it weekly/monthly.

But if you’re going to commit to daily, you can’t miss a day. That’s the rule. You show up, add value, and do it again tomorrow.

One idea, one post, one day at a time.

Keep it simple.