Today, I want to discuss the five stages of marketing your consultancy practice. From my experience with hundreds of consultancy firms and my own practice, I've identified five distinct ways consultancy firms market their services. These stages align with the historical ages of growth: Stone Age, Agricultural Age, Industrial Age, Information Age, and the Conceptual Age. Let's explore each of these in detail.…

Most consultancy firms tend to work on promotion as their marketing strategy, judging by their websites and the way they present themselves and their firms both online and in networking meetings. However, from what I see, promotion creates resistance and triggers questions that raise doubts about competence, trustworthiness and reliability. On the other hand, the few consultants that use positioning as their marketing strategy, avoid triggering those same questions, especially when they are using authority positioning. In this episode, I explain why authority positioning is a much better strategy than promotion, when it comes to attracting and acquiring more premium level clients who are ready to buy your services. Learn more at https://businessflightpath.com Schedule a free 60 minute strategy session at https://businessflightpath.com/ss…

There is one critical question your marketing must answer, if you are going to be able to create relevant marketing messages that connect with your ideal clients. I see a lot of marketing from consultancy firms that fails to answer this question. The result is failure to attract the attention of ideal clients and an inability to attract regular new sales opportunities. When you do answer this question, it makes the world of difference. You find potential clients seeking you out. They come to you ready to buy. They already see you as the market authority when they come. How can the answer to one question make such a difference. Find out in this week's Accepted Authority episode. For more information go to https://businessflightpath.com To book a 60 minute strategy session, go to https://businessflightpath.com/ss…

Many consultants have a fear that if they give away any or much of their valuable intellectual property in their marketing process, the recipients will use that material to solve their own problems instead of coming to the consultant who provided the material to ask for their help. The conundrum is that we know that if we give away some of our IP it will enhance our authority positioning and attract some potential clients to want to work with us. However, if we give too much, we will suffer from people using that information without our help. The question is: how much should we give away? How much is too much? How should we create the content that we provide our market in a way that it attracts them and motivates them to want our help instead of doing it themselves? In this episode, I answer those questions and describe a successful format for providing educational content that elevates your authority and gets clients wanting to work with you, no matter what price you charge. Learn more at https://businessflightpath or book a call with Greg at https://businessflightpath.com/ss…

Most consultancy firms make a big mistake in their marketing that slows down their progress to new sales and acquiring new clients or may prevent them having an opportunity with some potential clients at all. There is a predominant tool on most consulting firms' websites that asks for too much too soon. That is typically the innocuous "Contact Us" form. What comes with that form most often is the offer of a free initial consultation. What is meant to be an easy and fast way for potential clients to move towards working for you is actually the biggest barrier. That is the case because it violates natural human relationship building principles. There is a faster way to sales that is achieved by actually slowing down the process. However, it ends up being faster, because it mirrors natural human relationship principles. In this week's episode, I explain how the fast way to sales ends up being slower than the seemingly slower approach I recommend, an how mirroring natural human relationship development principles in your marketing will get you clients faster. Discover more at https://businessflightpath.com Learn about Strategic Authority Marketing here: https://businessflightpath.com/sam…

In many consulting firms, operational processes are more complex than they need to be. Rather than offering a wide range of services to potential clients in order to achieve higher revenues, in my experience, operating with a focused specialization is what achieves greater simplicity in running the business, greater operating efficiencies, lower operational costs and greater profits. The fact that it also created differentiation from competitors and attracts more qualified clients is an added bonus that should not be ignored. In this episode, I detail why having a focused specialization should be the strategy employed by your consultancy firm and use a specific example of where I have applied this strategy with one of my clients and how it significantly increased their sales and profits, while reducing complexity in their business at the same time. Go to https://businessflightpath.com for more details or book a strategy session with me at https://businessflightpath.com/ss…

Many consultancy firms do a lot of activities in their marketing with the aim of attracting their target market. But do these activities actually attract? A lot of the activities I see consultancy firms engaging in don't get the results the owners of those firms are looking for. They don't attract. Instead of doing things to try to attract more clients, I believe more owners of consultancy firms should be focusing first on making their firm more attractive to the target market. Many firms are not attractive, therefore whatever activities they try to attract their target market will fail. What does it take to be attractive to your target market? In this episode, I reveal the three essential elements of making your consultancy firm so attractive to your target market that you will have prospects lining up at your (virtual) door hoping you will take them on as clients. More information at https://businessflightpath.com…

One of the most common scenarios that consultancy firms experience is what I call the sales roller coaster. That is where the firm goes from being busy with client delivery work for a while, maybe a month or two, and then goes through a subsequent period of having not enough work and needing to find new clients or projects. The main reason this occurs is that when the firm is experiencing a shortage of work, the focus shifts to finding more work. However, the activities involved in finding new clients or projects are labour intensive and typically not the favourite type of work that consultants enjoy. It does get results though, which means that when the need arises, these activities, typically networking oriented, are the fall back strategy that consultants use. But when they succeed in generating new work, the focus shifts to getting the work done and happily, the networking activities are dropped in favour of doing the client delivery work that is either more enjoyable or more likely to generate more income in the short term. This common approach is what keeps growth for the firm limited and commonly, even though over the months, sales results are up and down like a roller coaster ride, the annual results somehow tend to be about the same as the last few years. Growth hits a plateau that seems the limit to how high the firm can go. The only way to break through this plateau and avoid the sales roller coaster syndrome is to develop a consistent marketing outreach system that operates continuously in the background without requiring the time and involvement of the consultants who are focused on client delivery work. If you only ever operate with a short term focus and continue to create the roller coaster ride by continually shifting focus to marketing or delivery when the need arises, nothing will change. In this podcast episode, I reveal how to change the roller coaster scenario and avoid the ups and downs in work loads and short term revenue, by building a system that provides consistency and predictability in client acquisition and provides the platform for growth beyond the revenue plateau you may be experiencing. Learn more at https://businessflightpath.com…

For most consultancy firms, client acquisition is not a systemtic process. Typically, we get clients through referrals and maybe networking, which ends up being a referral process too. Unless we have our marketing systems perfectly dialled in, we cannot expect our client acquisition to be consistent or predictable. When this is the case, we have no confidence in being able to grow our business, and perhaps even no confidence about when and how our next client will turn up. There are three steps to systematic client acquisition. The first and last of these are probably reasonably well understood, even if not well executed a lot of the time. The first is what I call connection. We first have to make a connection with our likely prospects, whether that is through advertising or other organic methods. We have to get on their radar and we have to have some sort of interaction where we get their name and, or at least, their email address and any other information that helps us know who they are. The third step is quite obvious. I call it conversion. That's when we convert the prospect into becoming a paying client. Both these steps should be systemized. The middle step however, is not well understood. However it is the critical step in the process that creates the bridge between connection and conversion. Even if you think you might know what this step is, it's my bet that you don't understand it in the way I explain it in this podcast episode. Most people get this step wrong, which makes it ineffective and leads to a lot of hard work with little to show for it. Check out the podcast episode to find out what it is and how to get it right. More information at https://businessflightpath.com…

I believe there is actually a lot of confusion about the importance of branding and what branding actually is for many owners of consultancy firms. In this episode, I reveal my take on what branding really is and how we can waste a lot of time and money when we get this wrong. In my experience, many consultants go about branding the wrong way, in a way that is ineffective and potentially harmful to the business. When you go about it the right way, you create connection by being more relevant to your target market. When you use an authority positioning strategy to create your brand, your target market creates your brand for you, which creates much more demand for your services than when you try to do it yourself. Learn more at https://businessflightpath.com…

Many consultants make the mistake of hurrying an potential client towards the sale, without realizing that this process violates the normal buying journey that all potential clients take. Our approach to selling is more like seeing the selling process as an event that happens around the sales meeting, instead of a journey that the client can take with you. It is your job as the consultant to provide the vehicle for the client to be able to take that journey with you. If you do not provide that vehicle for them, they will find someone else's vehicle to take that journey on. When that happens, it is unlikely they will come to you when they are ready to buy. In this episode, I describe how you can build your marketing strategy to align with the clients' typical buying strategy and how to create the vehicle that they will be able to ride towards buying with you. Learn more at https://businessflightpath.com…

Many consultancy firms are great at satisfying demand for their services, but not so great at creating demand for their services. Most consultants start out in business for themselves and develop a team around them because they are good at what they do. They already demonstrate a level of authority in their field, especially when they can receive referrals that helps them grow the business. However, at some point, referrals cannot be relied upon to continue to scale a consultancy business. At this point, we need to become proactive at creating demand for our consultancy services. The challenge here is that most consultants have never been taught about marketing. The result is that we tend to copy what we see others doing, and create the same type of ineffective marketing approach that is typical of consultancy firms. Hinge Marketing research has identified that around 87% of professional service firms state that marketing and clients acquisition is their biggest challenge. Most consultants end up with a marketing approach that creates too much pressure on the sales process, where we need to try to convince our prospective client that they would be better off using our services. The typical response from that process is, "Send me your proposal." When we create a demand creation machine in our business, we change the dynamics so that we bring prospective clients to our sales meetings already pre-sold, virtually demanding that we take them on as a client. In this week's Accepted Authority podcast episode, I reveal the three steps on the demand creation machine that are required to create demand for your services from your ideal clients and have them coming to you demanding to take them on as a client. Discover more at https://businessflightpath.com…

In this episode of The Accepted Authority Podcast, I discuss the difference between a consultancy practice and a consultancy business. I see most of the consultancy firms that I come across being run as a consultancy practice, which tend to end up being complex operations lacking consistency and predictability around the outcomes they are striving for. This is in contrast to the few that are run as a consultancy business, which tend to be systemized, scalable efficient operations with consistency and predictability of outcomes. I describe what makes the difference and how you can create a successful consultancy business, which not only performs at higher levels, but also creates more freedom of choice for the owners.…

As we come to the end of 2023, I'm hearing thought from many consultants about how glad they are the 2023 is nearly over, but that they are worried about how the challenging economic environment might affect them in the new year. What appears to be uppermost in their thoughts is how the external environment will impact them. What my concern is however, is how are they planning to improve what they have been doing in their businesses and in their marketing, so that they can control their own destiny. In this episode, I describe a process of analysis that I have used successfully to help you assess what's been working well for you and what hasn't, over the past year. Once you work this out, you can decide what you can do more of and what to eliminate. I think you'll be surprised at where I suggest you focus this analysis, as it's not a common approach. However, this approach has created significant improvement potential for both my companies and my clients who have taken this route over the years. I believe it has the potential to provide the greatest impact and upside potential for your firm, so that you can make 2024 your best year ever. If you would like to learn more, go to https://businessflightpath.com. If you would like to speak with me directly about your situation, go to https://businessflightpath.com/ss.…

Many consultants display and obvious need for speed when it comes to selling their consulting services. However, this need for speed is counter productive to results. Your need for speed in selling your consultancy services undermines your authority, which ultimately undermines your sales effectiveness and your financial results. In this episode, I explain why many consultants display a need for speed, but also describe how to sidestep that need for speed to be able to establish, maintain and assert authority through the entire sales process, from the point of initial enquiry to the delivery of results the client will be delighted in. After all, it's not just about winning the sale. It's about working with quality clients who enable you to do your best work so that you can deliver the results your clients need, not necessarily what they thought they wanted when they first made an enquiry. Find our more about how to become the accepted authority in your market at https://businessflightpath.com…