Kevin C. Whelan

One of the ideas I admire from Seth Godin is the idea that a professional don’t need to be authentic. A professional needs to show up, whether she feels like it or not.

That’s what they are paid for.

When you commit to whatever you’re working on, it’s important to think like the plumber does, according to Godin.

The plumber does not deliberate about whether they will fix your faucet based on how they feel that day. They show up, take care of business, and go home feeling proud of their day’s work.

Creative work can feel different. Putting out content or creating client work can feel like you’re putting some of yourself out there to be judged.

It feels personal.

And yet, that’s exactly what the creative professional must do. We must put our “boots” on and do the work, even if the work is not our best that day.

Just because our work makes us feel uncomfortable, doesn’t mean we’re excused from doing it.

Otherwise, we’re not really professionals.

Yesterday, I talked about how having a methodology as a consultant is the path to compounding leverage.

What I meant by that is with every new engagement your work gets better, results are more predictable, and you use less personal resources (time and energy).

So what’s in a good methodology?

For me, my coworking consulting methodology involves a 100+ point checklist. It’s broken out by channel in the approximate order that I typically build things.

I build it out in Basecamp as a project template. With every new client, I duplicate the template and invite the client into it so they can see a list of all the things I hope to accomplish with them.

And while every client is different, it allows me to give my clients visibility into the expected roadmap while ensuring I follow a similar pattern with each engagement.

As I run the process each time, I flesh out the information attached to each checklist item in my template. I might also add additional resources, links to training videos I create on Loom, or any other number of things.

Now, the next time I audit a website or do an email marketing build-out, I have a more efficient process to rely on, saving me time and my clients money.

The three main things to have in your methodology are: 

1. An approximate order of priorities for building things
2. Documented systems and templates you like to use
3. Supporting resources and training for you and/or your clients

Timelines will always be contingent on a client’s internal resources and capacity, so I fill those in on an as-needed basis.

The result has been interesting. My engagements are more streamlined and everyone knows what’s on the roadmap at all times, as well as what has been done so far.

But the real interesting part is that I can create training around it. I have a whole membership section and course covering a broad portion of what I do in my consulting engagements.

This is where the leverage really kicks in. I’ve been doing this in the coworking industry for only a few years but it’s really just getting started in terms of how I run my consulting work.

I highly recommend you start standardizing your methodology today.

It’s the path to leverage in an expertise-based business.

One best things about consulting is you get better at it every day.

Each of your learning experiences makes you smarter and more effective—especially if you focus on a niche specialization.

And if you’re really smart, you package those learnings into your methodology. Your way of creating repeatable results.

Think of your methodology like artificial intelligence. The more you show it scenarios, the smarter it gets.

But for that to be true, you need to continually tweak your approach, document new ideas, and improve your system with each piece of feedback you encounter.

If you want to succeed in selling your expertise, you’ll want a well-organized methodology.

If you don’t have one, start today. Then, keep making it better. Forever.

If you’re selling your expertise, you better have a damn good reason why someone should choose you over anyone else.

The best way to do that is to have rare skills and experiences. A speciality.

And yet, so many people are terrified of picking something small and specific to be excellent at. They want to do all the things for all people because it feels safer.

But when it comes down to it, the more alternative options there are, the harder you’ll have to work to find, win, and keep clients.

Find expertise that makes you rare and you’ll understand what real leverage is.

Think small and specific.

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Being a marketing consultant is not easy.

There are endless layers—from strategic to tactical, creative to technical, and everything in between.

But the hardest part is not any one of those things. The hard part is the unpredictable nature of it all.

As marketers, we work hard to specialize, create frameworks, apply methodologies, and continually develop our skills.

But even if you find people with the same problem—which happens a lot when you specialize—the solution is never the same.

Reality is just too complex to have one answer for all problems, even if they’re highly similar.

Which means, as consultants, we need to apply everything we know to each problem—in a unique way—in order to get a solution that works for each individual situation.

The best you can do is work hard, run the system, and be ready to iterate.

Either your clients are bought into that idea from the beginning or they are not.

And if they aren’t bought into any of those three things, there’s a very good chance you won’t see results quickly enough to satisfy them.

So this is it: work hard, run the system, and iterate until you succeed.

It takes time and there are no shortcuts. That’s the law of marketing reality.

Part of my approach to successful consulting is to specialize. To be highly compelling to a small group of people.

But here’s the thing: you have to like what you do and who it’s for.

If one of those is out of alignment, you won’t be successful long-term.

Business is too hard to things you don’t like for people you don’t like. It would be like wearing a weighted vest going up an already steep cliff.

Choose your work and clients wisely.

You might think it’s worth saving some of your secret sauce for your paid products or 1:1 consulting.

That if you shared just some of your best tips, people would be keen to buy the rest.

But here’s the thing. It doesn’t work that way.

When people buy consulting from you, they don’t just want to know what to do and how to do it. They want your expertise applied to their situation to move them closer in a straight line.

When people buy your info products or memberships, they want you to organize your methodology and make it simple to consume.

I heard somewhere a quote that resonated with me. It was something like, ‘your expertise is like an encyclopedia. Your marketing should be like pulling out a page at a time and sharing it with the world’.

Don’t hold back and people will be even more likely to buy your expertise as long as it’s aligned with their goals.

They’ll know your ideas are good and will be willing to pay for the complete and organized clarity of your paid products or services.

Be generous with what you know.