The Irresistible Consultant's Guide to Winning Clients: 6 Steps to Unlimited Clients & Financial Freedom

Introduction

Imagine an endless stream of new clients calling your consulting firm, your revenues growing every quarter, and your biggest challenge being how to delight an ever-growing portfolio of clients.

Is that a pie-in-the-sky daydream? No! It’s not even a chocolate-in-the-sky daydream. Thousands of independent consultants are living in that highly satisfying, highly lucrative world, and you can too. All you need to do is practice the art of attracting and winning clients.

Notice I didn’t say "master the art of selling consulting projects." That’s because you don’t have to be a top-flight salesperson to enjoy a thriving practice. In fact, selling isn’t even on the agenda. Winning business is.

And it doesn’t take an outgoing personality or genius level IQ to win consulting projects. I should know. I started my journey as a shy, shoe store clerk. Adorning people’s feet isn’t the ideal training ground for a career focused on what’s in people’s heads.

Yet, I learned some important lessons working in shoe stores, and somehow I traveled from that pedestrian job (pun intended) to running an extraordinary, successful consulting firm.

The point is: if a shoe store clerk can build a robust, dream consulting firm, so can you. However, this book isn’t the story of how I rose from lowly beginnings to prominent consultant. That would be dull. What’s exciting is your story.

So, this is the story of how you can attract and win unlimited clients. Every consultant needs a reliable business development process. And that’s why it’s worth diving into the following pages. What you’ll find in this guide has been proven to work many times over in my own consulting practice and with the hundreds of consultants I’ve had the honor to coach.

The Story Behind the Story

In 2005 I co-founded Ascendant Consulting and focused the practice on helping large corporations enter new markets. Then, a few years later, I started an unusual business called the Ascendant Consortium, which is a general contractor for consulting. Companies hire me to solve problems, and I bring in other consultants to complete the lion’s share of the work.

In other words, I spend much of my days winning consulting projects. I also listen to pitches from the many, many consultants who want to work on the projects that I close.

Picture the conversations: clients who want consultants and consultants who want projects. Both sides, every day. It didn’t take too many years in this position before I became an avid student of what it takes to win consulting engagements successfully.

I’ve learned why clients bring in consultants, and why they choose the ones they choose. I’ve witnessed their deepest frustrations, as well as their fears and hopes and dreams. My first book, The Executive’s Guide to Consultants (McGraw-Hill, 2012), has helped clients around the world do a better job of selecting consultants. This book will help you do a better job of getting selected!

I know what both sides are looking for and why there’s such a huge gap. Most importantly, though, I know how to close that gap so an exquisite project falls right into the consultant’s lap. Your lap.

The Six Steps

Here’s a quick summary of the simple, practical steps you’ll practice on your way to unlimited clients and financial freedom:

Step 1: Think Right-Side Up

First, you’re going to revamp how you perceive yourself as a consultant by, ironically, thinking less about yourself! You’ll shift from thinking about your services and your expertise and your problem-solving skills to thinking about your prospects’ problems, needs, and situation.

You’ll begin to see yourself and your prospects with a new set of eyes that will effectively quiet the negative self-talk that plagues many consulting professionals. Plus, you’ll learn how a simple but critical change in your internal dialogue will help you gain massive confidence.

Step 2: Maximize Impact

Of course, before you start confidently shouting out to prospects, you have to make sure they’ll listen! There’s little point in ratcheting up your marketing if no one is paying attention to what you say.

That’s why, in Step 2, you’ll clarify your target and offering in a way you’ve probably never considered before. You’ll identify the Right People, the Right Problem, and the Right Solution, then encapsulate those in a Fishing Line that is guaranteed to hook prospects.

Step 3: Build Visibility

One thing I can tell you with absolute certainty is no consulting firm has ever won business from a client who’s never heard of them. You have to become known. Step 3 is creating and executing a powerful, efficient visibility-building program.

When you spring off of Step 3, you’ll own a detailed plan that will make you the first person prospects think of when they need help.

Step 4: Connect, Connect, Connect

Relationship power is the rocket fuel for your consulting practice (and life). No one buys a $100,000 consulting project with an add to cart button, which is why creating strong connections with decision makers is critical.

In Step 4, you’ll create relationships, nurture them, and use The Turn to leverage those relationships into rich opportunities.

Step 5: Become the Obvious Choice

As your relationships evolve into active leads, you’ll engage in dialogues designed to uncover exactly what will prompt your prospect to sign on the dotted line. In consulting, you are never the only choice. But in Step 5 you’ll use the Context Discussion—the one conversation that renders competition moot, and exponentially multiplies your ability to close a project.

Step 6: Propose, Negotiate & Close

The final step is one easy, smooth action where you enjoy the payoff from your previous efforts. You’ll write perfect proposals, effortlessly handle objections, deal with minor and major pricing issues, and negotiate like a seven-figure pro.

Most importantly, you’ll consistently win more projects from more clients and earn some serious dough!

Making it Work for You

Speaking of dough, it’s going to be a running theme throughout this book. To make the ideas in this book more concrete, I created a fictional prospect named Mr. Yuri Yusimi (pronounced you-see-me). Yusimi is a plant manager at (what else?) a bakery firm called Sereus Dough Inc.

It just so happens that Yusimi has a problem that he will pay the right consultant oodles of money to solve—and I want that consultant to be YOU.

Every tip, tool, technique, and script I’m going to give you to win a project from Yusimi and Sereus Dough will work for you, no matter the focus of your consulting practice, and no matter your target’s industry, function, or position.

And every step we take together is going to make you a better, wealthier, more irresistible consultant.

Bonus Materials

There are so many tips, techniques, templates, exercises, and examples I want to give you that this could easily have expanded into an unwieldy, monster wedding cake of a book—yummy, but tough to bring on a plane. The solution was to slim it down to a fat-free Danish and include plenty of delicious extras as bonus materials that are available online at davidafields.com/winningclients. All the bonus materials are free and easy to access.

Now, are you hungry for more clients? Good. Let’s begin…

STEP 1

Think Right-Side Up

(Prepare Yourself to Succeed)

When we thought the sun revolved around the earth, our vision was limited to a tiny planet. Then, a startling reversal of perspective opened up a universe of possibilities.

Your journey to unlimited clients and financial freedom starts with a similar, fundamental change in your frame of reference. And it turns out your opportunities are boundless.

  CHAPTER 1  

Right-Side Up Thinking

This book is all about YOU and your practice. About YOU winning a steady stream of new clients, month in and month out. About You learning six steps that will take you from wherever you are today to being a happier, more confident, wealthier consultant. That’s incredibly ironic, given your first lesson on the path to Nirvana:

Consulting isn’t about YOU. It’s about THEM.

If you put this book down now, after only learning—and fully adopting—that one concept, you’ll walk away a far more successful consultant. (But please, keep reading!)

As normal, healthy human beings,* our world view looks like an upside down pyramid. In fact, it looks like the one on the next page. Most of our world view is dominated by a tiny group of one: it’s only us. That’s where we focus the majority of our thoughts. Then we spread our attention to the slightly larger groups comprising our family and friends. If we broaden our outlook further, we attend to acquaintances and other connections. Even though those are much broader populations, they tend to be obscured by the people closest to us. The rest of the world is way off there in the murky distance.

It’s natural to think about yourself first. In fact, I’m glad you do, because thinking about yourself is what motivated you to pick up this book!

But from the perspective of attracting clients, that pyramid is upside down. To kick your business development into overdrive, invert your pyramid, and adopt Right-Side Up thinking. Put them first.

The Power of Right-Side Up Thinking

Let’s look at a conversation between a fictional consultant named Bob and the equally fictional prospect you’re going to be winning a project from throughout this book—Yuri Yusimi.

BOB: Hi, uh, Mr. Yusimi. I’m Bob Jenkins from TopNotch Consulting.

YURI YUSIMI: Good to meet you, Bob. What is it you guys do?

BOB: We help companies grow. I see you’re with Sereus Dough, Inc. We’ve helped many companies just like Sereus improve their operations and profitability. We have access to some of the world’s leading experts in all areas of manufacturing, and we’ve developed a breakthrough process called 9-T testing to identify exactly how to increase margins. I think Sereus Dough would be a great client. Here’s my card. Can I give you a call to follow up?

YURI YUSIMI: Uh, thanks. Well, I have your card. Let me reach out if I think there’s something we can do together.

Pretty bad, right? You know there’s virtually no chance Yusimi will call Bob. Ever. You could probably count a dozen different mistakes Bob made. But the one underlying, fundamental challenge Bob has is his mindset. He’s thinking about himself. As a result, he’s talking all about himself. B-o-r-i-n-g. Also, irrelevant. That’s upside down thinking at work.

Right-Side Up thinking flips your focus from YOU to THEM.

Amazingly, this simple switch will be your key to winning new business, growing your consulting practice, boosting your confidence, and, ultimately, securing your financial freedom. If you’re willing to act on Right-Side Up thinking, you’ll become an irresistible resource to your clients and your prospects.

Since successful business development revolves around this core idea, you’ll see it come up over and over again throughout this book. It affects everything you do as a consultant. Perhaps most importantly, Right-Side Up thinking will change how (and when) you think about yourself. And you’re going to love the results.

The following table summarizes the difference between Right-Side Up thinking and typical consultant-think.

Table1-1

Every aspect of Right-Side Up thinking in Table 1-1 will be explored and expanded upon in the following chapters, so you’ll have everything you need to make it work for you.

Right-Side Up thinking isn’t rocket science. It’s just common sense. But it’s also the linchpin of your business development. If you embrace it, you’ll be ahead of the game for the rest of your consulting life. If you reject it, you’ll struggle.

How to Adopt Right-Side Up Thinking Instantly

Take a look at the opening line of your emails to prospects. Do they start with I language or with You language? Emails that start with I are less likely to engage a prospect, no matter how valuable or thoughtful the content may be.

A typical follow-up email might begin this way: Hi Mr. Yusimi. I enjoyed meeting you yesterday.

Who’s that email talking about? You! Does Yusimi care whether you enjoyed meeting him? Not really.

A simple shift makes the email feel a bit clunkier to you, but infinitely more interesting to Yusimi: Hi Mr. Yusimi. You were a pleasure to meet yesterday…

Now, who’s the email about? Yusimi! It’s a subtle difference, but it provides a big clue about your thinking. (And yes, I know your high school English teacher would pour red ink all over that opening line. Well, we ain’t in English class.)

Move on to the body of your emails. What do you see? Are you talking about you or about him? Are you talking about what you want and what you have to offer, or are you talking about Mr. Yusimi’s needs, his goals, and his situation?

Let’s shift gears and examine your overall marketing communications. Does your marketing display typical consultant-think or is it overflowing with Right-Side Up thinking? How much I language fills your speeches and articles? Your answers will clue you in on your mindset. Chances are, you need to flip your thinking Right-Side Up.

Hold on there, buckaroo, you may be muttering (if you believe consultants from Connecticut are cowboys, that is). Don’t stories about me make things more personal for prospects and allow me to create a deeper, more personal connection? Good point. Personal stories are important. But it’s a matter of balance and intention.

Think of it like a cocktail conversation. Your host starts talking about his recent trip to Italy, and Bob from TopNotch listens politely until the first pause, and then interjects, That’s great. That sounds just like my trip to Greece. I spoke to the Athenian Association of Feta Makers and… blah blah blah… it’s all about me. (Well, Bob doesn’t say that exactly, but that’s what it sounds like.)

In contrast, because you’re a master of Right-Side Up thinking, you listen attentively to your host (or Bob) for a good while before contributing anything. That sounds great, you say. Your adventure reminds me of my trip to France. The managerial style there was surprising. What did you think of the senior executives you met in Italy? Just like that, you’ve shared something personal, connected to the other person, and kept the focus exactly where he wants it: on him.

Your business conversations and marketing work exactly the same way. Even during a speech, which tends to be a monologue rather than a dialogue, your stories can briefly reveal an endearing slice of yourself, then quickly revert to what it means for your audience. Why? Because even though your story is about you, the message is about them. It’s always about them. That’s Right-Side Up thinking.

From Hating Outreach to Loving It: Craig’s Story

To see the power of Right-Side Up thinking in the real world, let’s look at what transpired with a West Coast consultant named Craig. Craig quickly built a $300,000/year practice, despite the fact that he absolutely dreaded picking up the phone to make calls to prospects. Unfortunately, the well dried up after about five years (which is pretty common).

During every coaching session with Craig, he offered me a range of excuses for why he hadn’t met his goals. He was perpetually shy of his objectives for outreach, for revenue… for pretty much everything. Craig hated picking up the phone. His confidence was shot, and he didn’t know why anyone would listen to him. At this point, I asked Craig to walk me through some typical phone calls, and the problem stood out like a pro basketball player in a third-grade class:

Craig’s prospect calls were all about Craig.

Craig wanted to make sure his prospects understood what he did and, if at all possible, he wanted to find out whether there was a project he could work on. It was locked in on him, him, him. It was Craig