What the Heck is Your Value as A Consultant?

When I first started consulting, what I was doing to get clients, well...it just wasn't working. 

And it kept not working for longer than I care to admit.

One day, I finally did what any desperate person who had run out of options would do: I asked for help. 

I turned to others who had been consulting—and consulting successfully—a lot longer than me and asked for advice. 

It wasn't easy. I was so used to being successful in my past jobs and feeling confident that it was difficult to admit that things weren't going well despite my best efforts.

That last thing I wanted was for anyone to know was that my confidence was shot. 

But I had three choices. I could either keep struggling and hope that something worked, give up and go back to being an employee, or get over my pride and ask for help. 

Thankfully, I chose the latter.

One particular conversation stands out. I remember talking to one consultant who had been consulting for many years and had built a very successful practice. 

He was also someone I had worked with years before. So he knew I knew my stuff. 

I remember admitting to him that I was meeting with a lot of people, but I wasn't getting any clients.

He made one simple request that changed the game for me.

“Describe to me what you can do,” he said. 

I'd like to say that I nailed my description. That I was polished and dazzled him with my answer. 

The truth is that I stumbled, mumbled, and didn't say anything that was tremendously coherent. 

I was as baffled as he was. I knew what I could do! Why couldn't I articulate it to him?

His advice was to develop a clear articulation of my value proposition. 

That is, a way to describe my value that would woo the right clients because they know I can help them with their problems, desires, and demands.

“And,” he said, “you have to be able to do that easily, without hesitation. Get so used to saying it that it easily rolls off your tongue."

Time to Stop Winging It

After that conversation, I realized that I had been taking simple things for granted. I was winging it and, by doing so, not saying anything compelling to prospective clients. 

I spent time learning more about value propositions and how to construct one that would work.

The first thing I learned is that it’s not my resume or a long list of my accomplishments. 

Plus, I learned that it’s not generic, and it’s doesn’t signal that my value is for everyone.

Nope.

What a Value Proposition Is

A value proposition is how you describe what you can do as a consultant for clients in your market and why they should hire you instead of someone else. It describes your value:

• In a specific market and niche within a market
• For clients who match your ideal client 
• In providing a set of services and achieving specific outcomes
• Relative to your competitors

And it can be stated succinctly. 

Like this: “I help [your ideal client type] to [solve what problem(s) and/or achieve what outcome(s)] by [what you uniquely do].

I sat down with a piece of paper and wrote out what the people I wanted to most work with cared about, what problems they wanted solved, what desires they had. 

I then matched that to what I could do to help them solve their problems and get what they had a demand for. 

After that, I developed a pretty darn clear value statement. I was so proud. And I loved it but…

I wanted to make sure I wasn't still making rookie mistakes. (I had made so many already!)

So I got advice from people in my market—you know, those market-savvy, ruthlessly honest people who you can trust to tell you the real deal. 

Did they love it? Not so much.

They said I was being too vague. Still trying to be too many things to too many people.

They shared what they knew about me and what I could do that folks would be willing to pay for in my market. 

I then refined my value proposition and kept making it better as I tested it in my market. 

Did It Work?

As soon as I had a good value proposition, prospective client meetings improved.

Look, it wasn’t magic. I still had a lot to learn about getting yeses, but I started to get clients. 

I was still the same person who could do the same things, but now I was properly communicating just how valuable I could be to the right people.

This game-changer would not have been possible without other consultants who helped me. 

And I am incredibly thankful to the consultant who took the time out of his day to talk with me, this deflated, wild-eyed neophyte... 

And help me get on my path to easier and faster success.

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