Layoffs: How to Sell Your Knowledge as a Consultant.

So you got laid off... probably not the first time. Congratulations and welcome to consulting life!

Not a consultant yet? Bullshit.

You got paid for your knowledge in an unstable contract that randomly dumped you for no reason. YOUR A CONSULTANT! Only different between me and you is that I expect it and plan for it. I control it and use the flexibility to my advantage.

You've been deceived by "the man" with an illusion of comfort and stability.

Never again.

My Dad would like to clarify that the word consultant simply translates to: "charge whatever you want".

I'm writing this to help you with some big THINGS as quickly as possible. You've already started rolling down that runway. We don't have time.

THING 1: KNOW YOUR TERRITORY

Consultants sell knowledge. The more knowledge you have, the more valuable you become and the greater the price premium you can charge.

Important questions:

• Who are my ideal clients?

• What kinds of businesses will pay me the most?

• What should I sell?

The simple answer to all these questions: wherever we have the most expertise.

Clients don’t pay us to learn their business . . . they shouldn’t, at least. They pay us for tapping into our lifetime of accumulated knowledge.

Survival in this game requires we make a shift: stop selling time and start selling access to our knowledge.

My grandfather always said: “You have to know the territory.”

Smart guy. I miss him.

THING 2: PICK THE TARGET YOU KNOW

My first strategy product was called the Content Marketer’s Blueprint: a repeatable system and three-month action plan for attracting ideal customers and nurturing them to a point of sale.

The “CMB,” as we called it, was specific to content marketing and the software product it supported, but not specific to any particular industry.

It easily sold for $2,500.

Three months later we sold the same strategy, same workshop, same deliverable, same system for $30,000. The only thing that changed was how we positioned it. We changed some words to align the product with our prospect’s industry: higher education, a college.

I literally replaced the word “lead” with “prospective student” in the templates and multiplied the price by ten.

How do I explain this?

A college’s investment in marketing is relatively high. They have full-time team members, which means they spend a LOT of money for disappointing results.

But the MEGA-PREMIUM came from a reduction in replaceability. Remember, price premium equals value divided by replaceability.

At the time, April 2013, it was difficult to find someone who was selling content marketing strategy without jamming software and content down your throat. But finding a specialist in content marketing for higher education: well, they didn’t exist.

There was nothing to compare me to. I was in control.

THING 3: DO ONE THING REALLY WELL

Focus amplifies value because it counteracts replaceability. End of story. Want to charge more? Solve a specific problem for a specific kind of company.

You can stop reading now . . . go do that! The rest will fall into place.

The reason we don’t take our own advice without significant third-party therapy is fear and hunger. Fear of missing out and our hunger for the next paycheck.

I inherited higher education as a focus from my business partners who’d worked in the space for years.

I got lucky.

That said, I quickly decided I never wanted to work in higher education ever again. It was the exact opposite of what I wanted: “decision by committee” made me sick. I don’t have the patience for it. I don’t want to explain my recommendations to eleven people. I just want them to follow my f*ing directions!

Higher education was the complete wrong space for me.

Yet the moment I chose to take a risk and focus on higher education, I commanded a ten-times price premium for the exact same process. Focused positioning, not the amount of work, not a more complex process, just different packaging made it more valuable to the client.

Lexus is basically Toyota. Packaging.

I digress: choosing the wrong thing cured me of not focusing.

THING 4: GIVE YOUR THING A NAME

There is a single answer to the following question: “What is the most valuable thing I know how to do?”

The answer lies at the center of your life experiences, not in research or a mentor’s advice.

Ask yourself these simple questions:

• Who have you helped?

• How did you help them?

• What made YOU so damn good at it?

The most powerful combination is where you should focus. Give it a name.

Make it a thing.

Give yourself permission to sell the wrong thing. Remember the 90/10 rule: 90 percent of the value comes from the act of focusing; 10 percent comes from choosing the right thing.

The more specific the better.

What am I selling again?

RESULTS!

Your contribution to results is the “thing”: an actionable plan that guides the implementation team.

To sell an intangible “thing,” you’ll need to define the following:

• What they get.

• How they get it.

• How they pay you.

THING 5: PRICE IT LIKE AN INSURANCE POLICY

Nobody needs dental insurance until they smash their teeth in.

Strategy and planning are essentially an insurance policy. They ensure the clients’ investment in marketing is going to achieve the desired result.

As such, the amount a client is willing to pay for strategy is directly related to the clients’ implementation budget: full-time employees, contractors, content, technology, ad spend, and so on.

My recommendation is to charge between 10 percent and 20 percent of whatever they are spending to get disappointing results. Of course, for people who don’t spend money on marketing, strategy holds very little value. To these people the planning stage is an obstacle.

We can see them coming a mile away. They want to get started. They want people who can do the work fast and cheap. They want the basic version of the software.

Go find clients with their teeth smashed in; they’re easy to find.

Follow the money.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from a mentor of mine.

"If you choose to work with people who have no money, you will soon have no money".

Congrats again on your newfound freedom. Don't let it slip away!