i’ll share a little
more professional it looks and all that, the more i think it will help. at this point i know the book is not a gamble so i’m willing to invest serious time and money and effort into it. i know that if i create this book people will read it.
so those are the main things i’m working right now. i’ve basically shifted my focus to “what can i do to increase my product income” to “what can i do to increase my consulting income” since the consulting has proven to be more immediately successful.
1 Reply
[2023-05-11 03:55:04 AM] : I'm early on my journey, but I found Alan Weiss's book on Getting Started in Consulting quite helpful for getting into the mindset, and thinking about how to convert clients
[2023-05-11 06:03:01 AM] : I second Alan Weiss book(s) Big fan of value based consulting.
One suggestion jasonswett is have you considered "productising" some part of your consulting service. Whilst the notion of consulting is great because you can tailor to exactly what they need, this is also a barrier of vagueness and can burn a lot of (your) time.
In the past I've had a lot of success with "discovery projects" so short, cheap, fixed price review style engagements where I go in, get to know them and their organisation, understand how their systems are working and then the outcome is in effect a proposal, but basically a set of recommendations (with pricing) to help them improve their situation.
The nice thing about this is that it really aligns with 30x500 as you are not a solution looking for a problem, but a "fresh set of eyes" who can give them valuable feedback and different perspectives, whilst you in effect are pain storming on a 1-2-1 basis.
The final bonus is that you get to see how they work and work with you in a low commitment project. so if you don't think they will be good to work with you're not stuck on a huge project you can't get out of.
Still loving the snail mail newsletter concept! :slightly_smiling_face:
Hope this helps a bit
[2023-05-11 06:03:53 AM] : Are you comfortable sharing how you price the discovery product Samir?
[2023-05-11 06:03:59 AM] : (great approach btw)
[2023-05-11 06:09:55 AM] : Hey Steve Bromley sure. I just picked £3.5k and ran them over about 2 to 3 weeks, including communications (in person meetings, calls, emails etc) and writing up. If you can get this far (its harder than it sounds!) then the next step of winning the ongoing projects you're going to recommend is normally a little easier.
[2023-05-11 06:11:04 AM] : And is that 2-3 weeks of a full time commitment for you, or are you able to run alongside other work? :slightly_smiling_face:
[2023-05-11 06:15:32 AM] : 2-3 weeks of calendar time. People are normally busy so you have to find time in their diary. Its definitely not full time (so don't panic about the hourly rate equivalent!) but equally, you can think of it as being paid to doing the sales discovery work you'd need to do anyway in order to put a proposal together for them - i.e. work out what they really need help with and how to structure that into a consulting project.
[2023-05-11 06:36:11 AM] : Thanks for sharing. Inspired by Jason's experience, I'm trying to push this more this year - so really appreciate hearing your experience
[2023-05-11 07:07:39 AM] : Any time. Best of luck. :slightly_smiling_face:
[2023-05-12 11:13:07 AM] : i’m a huge alan weiss fan! i have several of his books. i’ve read million dollar consulting several times
[2023-05-12 11:13:54 AM] : > In the past I’ve had a lot of success with “discovery projects” so short, cheap, fixed price review style engagements where I go in, get to know them and their organisation, understand how their systems are working and then the outcome is in effect a proposal, but basically a set of recommendations (with pricing) to help them improve their situation.
Samir i think there’s something to this idea. i’ll ponder this
[2023-05-12 11:42:10 AM] : I found this podcast helpful, for thinking about paid project discoveries: https://podcast.ditchinghourly.com/episodes/alex-hillman-paid-project-discovery
[2023-05-12 11:53:53 AM] : ah yes, i’m familiar :smile:
https://podcast.ditchinghourly.com/episodes/lessons-learned-with-guest-jason-swett
[2023-05-12 11:54:33 AM] : haha :slightly_smiling_face: I'd only listened to that one episode I'd been recommended - I'll go through and pick out some others now! :slightly_smiling_face:
[2023-05-22 04:35:18 AM] : > In the past I’ve had a lot of success with “discovery projects” so short, cheap, fixed price review style engagements where I go in, get to know them and their organisation, understand how their systems are working and then the outcome is in effect a proposal, but basically a set of recommendations (with pricing) to help them improve their situation.
Interestingly. I’ve had this done to me. I was able to observe their approach and how they presented this as a fix to pain. I thought it to be an effective approach at the time.