How to Sell Advice

What do you do when clients give you advice but then do their own thing anyway? In this episode, I talk about why this happens, how to prevent it from happening, and how to both give and get the best possible advice. —kw

I interviewed Dagobert Renouf of Logology last week on how he's been so successful on Twitter. Dagobert is extremely active and publishes a meme every day of the week, which is a big hit for his 30k+ audience. But like any successful story, there's an underlying mindset and strategy that makes the tactics more successful. So I wanted to dig into those. And he delivered. ​We’ll get into the specifi...

It can be nerve-wracking to propose a project that is more expensive or takes longer than a client is asking for. Our first instinct might be to charge the bare minimum to get the job done. Or to promise the most ideal timelines—assuming nothing will go wrong—to win the deal and avoid pushback and rejection. But we know that's not realistic. Something always comes up. The problem is, while you thi...

I recently decided to switch from daily publishing to a more flexible format. In this episode of Mindshare Radio, I break down the reasons why I started publishing daily in the first place (549 days ago) as well as the reasons for giving myself permission to publish whenever I want. I'm still bullish on daily content. It's an extremely powerful tactic if it aligns with your strategy.  But for now,...

When you price your services, there's something called customer surplus to consider. Customer surplus, in this case, means the amount of profit your customers gain after deducting your costs. Not all profit is financial, but it's easier to think about it in financial terms. On the one hand, you want to price your services high enough to attract people who need and value the outcome of your service...

Mindshare member, Sean, had an interesting objection while selling his advisory services. This is a common question when selling advisory work, so it's worth unpacking this and other follow-up questions Sean had. "What if my marketing budget doesn't allow me to implement your advice?" In this episode, I talk about: How to answer this question succinctly in your FAQs or sales conversations The diff...

Mindshare community member, Jack, had a great question about how narrow to go with your niche when just starting out as a new consultant. Here's the gist of his question: I'm currently in-house at what would probably be classed as a B2B manufacturer.  The plan is to step into strategy/advisory within the next 6 months. So with my current experience, I see it as an easy step to niche further into B...

Mindshare Pro used to be a premium upgrade to the free Mindshare Community membership. But in my opinion, that was a mistake . It should have been positioned as Group Coaching . And the templates/resources should be categorized separately as knowledge products.  In this episode, I talk about categorizing your own products and services, how to break them down, why it matters, and also how to apply...

On a long drive today, I re-listened to some of the book, The Passion Economy , by Adam Davidson. It spoke to me the first time I read it. It's about craftsmanship in your business and working on something you're passionate about. It's about the power of building small-scale, high-quality work instead of mass-produced commodity work that can be scaled infinitely. The book has a lot of great rules,...

How much work should you take on? When does the quality of your work suffer? What are the ethical implications? I talk about this and more in today's episode. —kw

A while back, I had my car detailed at a new shop around the corner.  When I called to book, the new business owner asked how dirty it was.  I said it was decent but it had some dog fur in parts of the back seat. He grumbled and told me (reluctantly) to come in.  They were closed a few months later. In this episode, I get into a few lessons we can all learn, including the importance of: Doing work...

There are a lot of problems with having purely generalist positioning. The main one, though, is that potential clients don't know what you're actually good at. So they're left to figure that out for themselves—and there's no way to tell what you're actually good at until they work with you. And by then it's too late. The best clients will go to someone who looks the most qualified on paper.  They...

I cleaned my office today and I felt a lot better. More clear-thinking. Strange how your environment can affect your mental state. And to me, this is analogous to all areas of your business.  For example, cleaning out expenses you no longer use. Or services that are not profitable enough.  Or clients who are not the right fit for you. Or emails that are left unanswered for too long. Or tasks that...

I had a window installer come by recently to quote new windows on my house. When I asked how the process works, he told me he'd educate me on the products, size the windows, give me a quote, then I'd "beat him up" on price, and then we'd make a deal when we figured out the details. The throwaway line about haggling over price had me feeling uneasy. I don't know anything about windows let alone how...

One of the things I've noticed about myself is that when I don't have a fixed publishing schedule, it's easy to push it off for long periods without publishing anything. Just like exercising, the longer you don't publish content, the harder it is to get going again. I noticed this recently with Mindshare Radio, too. I used to publish episodes 3 times per week—every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. T...

Could you take one day off client work per week to work on your business (and yourself)? I've been doing that for the past five weeks and it's been incredible. In this Mindshare Radio episode, I talk about how and why it might just be the best thing for you, too. Listen on the web or subscribe on your favourite podcast player. Have a great weekend!

Super-consumers are the 10% of your customers who account for upwards of 50% of your profit. All industries have them. All of us are super-consumers of at least something. It's true. And for very logical reasons. In this episode, I break down the concept as coined by Eddie Yoon in his book, Superconsumers —and why it matters to your both business and the clients you serve at a strategic level. Giv...

There's a common misconception that marketing advisors don't execute. The reality is, we  do execute. We just don't use our hands nor manage the minutia. In this episode, I talk about how to think like an agency (even if you're doing advisory work). At the end of the day, you're responsible for execution. You just do it differently than a typical agency. Listen in and use this way of thinking in y...

What do you do when a client comes along looking for your help, but until now, they haven't been doing much (or any) of their own marketing? Do you take on the work, turn it away, or do you use this as a chance to educate them on what to expect? Personally, I prefer the latter. And if it seems like they are bought-in to reality, I'll consider working with them. In this episode, I talk about how to...

> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community. Your thinking will get updated. You will try things that don't work. You will pivot your advice based on what works. In this episode, I give you permission to change your mind and update your thinking—regardless of any sunk costs. Listen in to hear more. —k

> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community. One of the biggest challenges I hear from marketing consultants is getting stuck doing execution work. Managed advisory services/fractional CMO is a great way to ease into advisory work. In the short-term, it can be an exciting and profitable line of work. But if you don't manage to shift into pure advisory work,...

> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community. Are you a freelancer or agency owner looking to sell advisory services in addition to or instead of execution services? If so, are you willing to stop earning money on execution so you can become a "trusted advisor" to a fiduciary standard?  Do you need to? Should you create a new website/business or add advisory...

> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community. If you've done any fractional CMO/freelance head of growth/managed advisory work (as I like to call it), you'll quickly notice how much it limits your time to work with multiple clients and do your own marketing. In this episode, I unpack a few topics, questions, and constraints brought up by member Rob Denton-Ros...

In order to be successful as an advisor, you need to be able to: Prove you're worth hiring for your knowledge in the first place Reinforce why you're worth listening to after they hire you If you have difficulty selling advisory services, or if clients stop listening to your advice during your engagements, it might be due to one of the three things I talk about in this episode. Give it a listen an...

> Click here to join the conversation on this episode in the Mindshare community. It can be tempting to ignore all or parts of your core process with a new client. You might find yourself jumping into an engagement head first, reacting to demands and/or responding to tactical projects already in motion. Things may be under tight timelines and the client feels like they know what they need to do...