The number one complaint I hear from solo consultants is that they need more leads– whether from their website, referrals, ads, speaking, etc. Who wouldn’t want more leads? The problem with focusing on quantity is that you create more (unpaid) … Read More
sales
Turn Zoom Meetings (and other content) into Evergreen Lead Magnets
One of the (many) challenges of solopreneurship is the feast-or-famine cycle of business development and project work, because there’s never enough time. Heaven forbid you might want to have a vacation in there somewhere. (After all, is it vacation if … Read More
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast
Patience has never been one of my virtues. Speed, urgency, and motion are more my, umm, speed. But rushing not only makes for sloppiness, it slows you down. When you’re a solopreneur, your to-do list always seems to extend beyond … Read More
Solopreneurs sure like to make sales and marketing hard on themselves
“Not me! I want to be as easy and painless as possible”, I said. But was that really true? Against my wishes for easy sales and marketing, I was doing a number of things to make it harder, instead of … Read More
The Simple Sales and Marketing Audit for Solo Consultants
The vast majority of solo consultants I encounter want more leads, and they invest a lot of time, money, and energy to get those leads, usually with disappointing results. They go through the “Cycle of Doom” (see below), or so … Read More
The Scam Economy
Don’t you just love those messages in your inbox that start “I’m so impressed by your work at [Company] and I’d love to connect to find ways to collaborate”? Or: I’m not opposed to advertising. I’m not opposed to getting … Read More
Cask-strength positioning for solo consultants
AI is all the rage (and what can I say, I find it very helpful), but for many consultants, AI is just making difficult work more streamlined, instead of transforming the nature of the work. What can transform your business** … Read More
Complexity is the enemy
When we’re deep into our field, we sometimes get so deep that clients and prospects have trouble understanding. Think of a doctor describing an operation to another doctor, rather than to the patient. This is the curse of expertise. But there’s another form of … Read More
Everyone updates the fine print, but what about your website headline?
Happy 2025. Many of you probably updated the copyright notice at the bottom of your website to include the current year. (Although I am not a lawyer of any kind, let alone a copyright lawyer, my understanding is that you … Read More
Proposals don’t win deals, they lose them
“Sounds good, can you send me a proposal?” These words used to excite and terrify me. Then, I’d go off to write an amazing proposal to wow the prospect and win the business. So much stress, for so little success. … Read More