This is the task that successful companies and consultants mark as a priority, and most others neglect: defining, testing and refining your ideal client profile. Your product or service or consultancy is serving a specific market, and that market must be defined. ...
Pitching your results is the best way to close a new client. We spend a lot of time working on our pitches to gain new clients. We delineate our services’ features and benefits. We tell our histories and stories of our mission and our passion. As we get more...
Often it is appropriate to offer our books or other collateral for sale when speaking in public. Here are some tips on the best handling of the sales. Preparation: What to take: an assistant (or the venue’s host) who has agreed to handle the selling activity...
There is a delicate line between pitching your expertise and offering your help. There are subtle behaviors in walking that line ~ without giving away too much information (or strategy or resolution) and engaging your prospect with full understanding of your value....
I admit I have a great aversion to paying for insurance. That said, I have always spent a great deal of my annual expenses for lots of coverage. As I have always been an independent consultant and entrepreneur, I have never had the (phantom) assurance of a larger...
Managing your calendar to support the efficiencies of your work life is a learned skill. There are tactics for controlling your time, your calendar, your clients and your work/life balance. You can learn them, adapt them to your own particular preferences, and then...
Lots of us sign up for life insurance, while few of us will pay for disability insurance, even though we are seven times more likely to be disabled for the short- or long-term, than we are to die. As independents, consultants and entrepreneurs, we are at much greater...
I was amazed the other day to receive a text message from one of my clients, that he needed the mobile number of another of my clients (they were meeting for the first time). Turns out that neither of them had confirmed the meeting the day before, nor had they shared...
All of us have our unique demons that can undermine our confidence and erode our authority to stand up for our value, demand our pricing, and refuse scope creep from our clients. Many of these creatures of the night snigger at us to create or sustain a context of...
I broke my own rule again this week… I over-extended, over-promised and, in keeping all my commitments, I exhausted myself. That made me mad (at myself). Then two of my clients reported doing the same thing — focusing on the less-important promises and...
