Seven Figure Consultant with Jessica Fearnley

What do you do with all the thoughts, ideas, notes, and possibly doubts that don't necessarily belong on your task list or in your business planner? We have so much in our heads, and when you run your own consulting business it feels like you are juggling a million thoughts at the same time. We need somewhere to put the thoughts which don't necessarily need to be acted on today, or this week, or t...

Are you finding it hard to get projects finished? Is your to do list bursting at the seams? No matter how many hours you work, that list of tasks keeps growing. None of us like not reaching our own standards, we are all trying to do our best. You might find this a painful realisation, but you could be the bottleneck in your business. This week on the podcast I am talking about what happens when yo...

We often spend our time sitting on the sidelines, telling ourselves we will take a particular step in 6 months' time. It might be starting your consulting business, or perhaps approaching a company you know you want to work with. Maybe you are planning to make your first hire or starting to scale your business with additional revenue streams. This week on the podcast, I am talking about getting br...

What are you struggling with right now? What do you see holding back people around you? Your answer will be different to my answer, and our answers will not be the same as the next person's. So many women consultants start their businesses because they want to make a change. They want to change the way things are done in their industry. They might need to change the way they work to fit around oth...

Do you have an intense feeling of angst about your work? Perhaps there is a nagging doubt that you have done something wrong or that you are about to get 'found out' and will be asked to leave, or to give a client a refund. You are not alone. This is an issue many consultants come across: it is called imposter syndrome, the feeling that your success is down to luck rather than being something you...

Is your business reliant on everything staying the same? It needs you, your expertise, and your presence. It needs the world to keep working the way it does. Perhaps it is reliant on one or two big clients. This can put your business at risk if something goes down in your sector or industry, with a particular client you work with, or even within your own business. You are extremely vulnerable if y...

One thing that has really been a surprise for me to discover while hosting this podcast, is how many women there are out there in the world, who are either in the process of setting up their own independent consulting business, or are already consulting under their own independent brand, but who don't yet feel part of a cohesive group of women consultants. It never fails to amaze me that there can...

When you are super clear on who you're talking to, and what they want to know about you, it's so much easier to communicate confidently and consistently every time you speak and write about your business. My friend Lucy Eckley is founder and director of strategic communications consultancy Build Your Brand Story. She helps independent consultants build a unique story so they can stand out in their...

The narrative around growing a business suggests that in the beginning things are quiet and you have lots of time on your hands but you don't have much money coming in. And then as it grows, the amount of money coming in gets bigger, but the amount of time you have available gets increasingly smaller. And because of that, your workload and the pace the business moves at are continually increasing....

Is there such a thing as a stress-free business? I don't know that any business will ever be 100% stress free. But you can minimize the stress you experience, by taking one small, but important action every single month - building up your cash reserve. When you compare it to the alternative, living hand to mouth, it's really no contest. In this week's podcast episode I discuss: What a business res...

The sales process with corporate firms can take quite a long time.  Sometimes we do get in touch with the right person at the right time, and you can meet the person, shake their hand, and have the contract in the bag by the end of the week. That does happen (but not often). Sometimes it can take six months.  Sometimes it can take 12 months. And these really long lead times can have a huge impact...

In the middle of the Covid crisis, many of us are in an uncertain season, a 'between Winters' stage and we don't exactly know how things will play out in the months ahead.  This uncertainty can cause a sense of scarcity, even desperation, and a feeling that we should take on any and all work offered to us, even if it isn't the work we would usually do. I encourage my clients to have an Ideal Clien...

Last week I had two separate conversations where basically the same question was being asked. And I realised this is totally something that other women consultants will want to hear the answers to, so I've recorded this podcast episode. The question that came up was 'how can I plan for anything in my business at the moment? Everything shifts so much from one week to the next.' So in this week's ep...

There are some misconceptions around building, and having, a seven figure consulting business. There are so many things that can affect our mindset in the area of business and money, and talking about a business with a turnover more than 1 million each year can open up all kinds of related issues around identity, what we feel able to receive, what we feel we 'deserve', what we have grown up believ...

Do you ever feel like the content you see online for people who run their own business, isn't well suited for you? That even the premium offers, like memberships and group coaching won't work for you, or aren't what you want. I speak to female consultants every week that have felt like they don't fit the female entrepreneur mould.  In this week's podcasts I explore why you need to be careful about...

Everyone would benefit from having a business coach. You should have a business coach all the time. You should choose a coach with the opposite personality type to your own. These are just a few myths around business coaching that I get asked about. In this week's podcast I'm addressing these, and exploring how you can decide whether a business coach is right for you, including: The empowerment th...

How confident are you about spending money in your consulting business? What metric do you use to decide if an investment in your business is affordable or not? There is so much material available online on how to market your business, get more clients, generate more income. We tend to be more comfortable asking for and receiving help in these areas.  But as turning a profit is the goal of our bus...

Often as consultants, we know that we're really good at what we do, we are the expert in our field, but it can be really difficult to be confident in the way that we present ourselves. We want our appearance to affirm that we are who we say we are, and we can do the things that we say we can do.  In this week's podcast, I interviewed Tracy Hooper, a personal stylist who helps professional women cr...

The world has been a heavy place to be. Social media has been… A lot. We've had months of coronavirus and lockdown, and protests and riots triggered by the George Floyd tragedy, and flare ups and backlashes, and amazing conversations and eyes being opened to the endemic problem of racism… But there's been such a lot of activity in such a short space of time. The emotional weight to nearly everythi...

As the UK makes a tentative return to work and school, we're starting to wonder what the next phase looks like for our businesses. In this episode I'm looking at the transition into the next phase of working, especially if you're accustomed to working in close proximity to your client, working in their office, travelling to meet them in person, or delivering events in person. This is a huge thing...

When lockdown first began back in March it felt in a lot of ways that life just hit pause. And certainly for me, that felt traumatic. It was the weight of it all, the unknowns and the fear of what this terrible disease would do to us as a population. As we move into a phase of easing the lockdown restrictions, I'm feeling a bit of a return to that brain-fuzz trauma uncertain place. So in this week...

Often when I start working with clients they have a good handle on what tasks they need to do to run their consulting business, and how much money they make month on month. But what they don't see is which activities are generating the most value. So often in business we can form a real attachment to certain marketing activities, or particular programmes or groups, or even an individual client or...

Is your consulting business thriving during the Covid crisis? We have all these tragic news stories coming at us all day every day. I know women who have felt the impact of the virus first hand – either because they've been ill themselves or they've suffered a tragic loss in their family. And I also know many businesses are struggling, or are simply on hold until further notice. But for many of us...

This week's episode is based on a lively debate I had on LinkedIn, started by a friend of mine, Christine Mortensen. Christine wrote "Recession-proof your business is BS" Do you agree? Over the last few weeks 'Recession-proof your business' has become the new hyper-inflated promise touted by formula-flogging 'coaches'. It's the Covid-crisis equivalent of 'six-figures in 30-days' that has been peda...

The current crisis seems to have split small businesses, including consulting businesses, into three camps: Everything's cancelled  Everything's carrying on as normal Everything's ramped up and they've got more enquiries than they can handle In this interview with Catherine Watkin (who coaches people on how to sell from the heart) we discussed how to handle selling to corporates at this time, incl...