Welcome to Profitable Joyful Consulting, where you'll discover how to
multiply revenues without exhaustion, working with perfect clients on
transformational engagements. Host Samantha Hartley shares how talented and ambitious women consultants–just like you!–can build profitable and joyful consulting businesses.
Samantha’s practical and motivating weekly episodes draw on her background in international marketing with The Coca-Cola Company, her 20 years as an independent consultant, and her work with successful women consultants in a wide variety of industries.
Subscribe and make Profitable Joyful Consulting your go-to resource!
Topics you care about:
How to increase revenues without exhaustion. You already know how to grow by working long hours, but that’s not sustainable—or joyful! If you’re
tired of the Revenue Roller Coaster, we’ve got proven strategies to help you double your revenues while avoiding burnout.
How to work exclusively with Perfect Clients on “Transformational
Engagements.” Bad-fit clients are neither profitable nor joyful. We dive into how you can attract, nurture, and retain perfect clients. You'll gain valuable insights about how to break the cycle of short-term projects that keep you living in the land of one-offs so you can create the high-impact, long-term, retainer-based consulting arrangements we call transformational engagements.
What are the fundamentals for having both profit and joy in your
consulting business? Samantha shares strategies for how to get started as a consultant, how to create a consulting brand and compelling messages that will help you to attract clients consistently, how to grow your consulting business with referrals and strategic alliances, how to scale with team and subcontractors, how to set fees for your services, how to write proposals that get accepted, how to leverage your impact with tools and technology, how to sell with integrity, and to make delivery more efficient while still getting results your clients will want to talk about in testimonials and case studies that will sell your services for you. WHEW!
How to cultivate a mindset for success. Samantha brings concrete
examples, client consulting success stories, and actionable tools to
overcome limiting beliefs with powerful intentions, affirmations, and
spiritual practices aligned with your values.
The show’s format respects your time and attention with concise
episodes!
Most episodes in the themed 12-episode seasons feature Samantha sharing practical training taken from her work with clients that you, too, can implement right away in your consulting business. A few times each season, guest experts and fellow consultants stop by to keep you updated on the latest trends and innovations in areas like marketing strategy, pricing, or productivity.
Hosted by: Samantha Hartley
Like many of her clients, Samantha worked in a corporate environment we’d now call psychologically unsafe or even toxic. Even though creativity was “encouraged,” new ideas were considered threatening, and casual misogyny and harassment were ubiquitous. Nevertheless, she built a bridge from there to her first consulting clients and has been self-employed, working remotely, ever since. She remembers her lean years and how she used the exact strategies she teaches on the show to begin to attract clients consistently and learn to get results without overworking. In recent years, Samantha has followed her passion to focus on women consultants and female founders. When we lift up women, everyone benefits!
Learn more here: https://samanthahartley.com/
If you're ready to unlock your full potential as a woman consultant,
increase your profits, and experience the joy of a thriving consulting
business, subscribe and turn on notifications. Join us for ideas and
inspiration at Profitable Joyful Consulting. Your success story begins
here.
Download the free Definitive Guide to Winning 6-Figure Clients at 6FigureClients.com.
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“Sometimes the most productive thing I can do is rest.”
Every time I experience envy of another business owner doing something like working fewer hours or being a digital nomad in Bali, I remind myself: “You’re self-employed! You can do whatever you want.” That’s why, today, I'm preparing to leave on an indefinite sabbatical. if you've ever wondered, “What's a sabbatical, and how do I get me one of those?” this episode is for you.
I once heard a fellow business owner talk about taking a sabbatical. It was the kind of thing that I knew was too soon, but I definitely felt a little bookmark activate in my brain. "That'll be me someday," I thought.
And now, it is!
Earlier this year, I heard the call to take a sabbatical. For a change, a HUGE change—I'm not burned out.
The next iteration of my work and life is coming through to me in divine downloads, but I can’t hear what it is with all the activity around me. So, I’m taking a hiatus from everything except my 1:1 clients.
As I prepare to step away on this indefinite creative sabbatical, I’m diving into what it really means to rest, renew, and create space for the next phase of growth.
In this final episode of Season 20, I share personal stories of burnout, unexpected sabbaticals, and the intentional decision to pause. You’ll learn about the origins of sabbaticals and why creating rest in your business is essential for long-term growth.
Whether you’re planning for a future sabbatical, curious about the idea, or just need to integrate more rest into your routine, this episode will inspire you to rethink how you approach your work.
Key Takeaways:
Why sabbaticals aren’t just for professors (and how to plan your own)
The difference between unintentional and intentional sabbaticals—and what both taught me
How business owners can integrate rest into their daily, weekly, and yearly routines
How to avoid waiting until burnout forces you to stop.
This isn’t just about taking a break; it’s about cultivating a sustainable, joyful business and life. Tune in to this reflective and practical episode of Profitable Joyful Consulting on your favorite podcast app, or listen/read the transcript directly at SamanthasPodcast.com.
The best way to stay in touch with me during my sabbatical, and after, is through my newsletter. Sign up here when you get free tools to grow your consulting business, like the Self-Assessment: The 10 Drivers of Consulting Business Success on The Path to $2 Million™ Visit: http://SamanthaHartley.com/Super
For more tips to help you create a profitable, joyful business without exhaustion, let’s connect on LinkedIn or Facebook.
Whenever you’re ready, here are two ways I can help you grow your consulting business:
🎧 Subscribe to Profitable Joyful Consulting on YouTube and your favorite podcast app:
Manifest Business Success (Exercise)
Season 20 · Episode 236
Tuesday, December 3, 2024 • Duration 13:29
Learn how to create your most amazing year yet with an exercise I love called “The Million-Dollar Dress™👇
On Profitable Joyful Consulting, I teach you how to increase your profits and enjoy your business more. In this episode, you’ll learn how to create your most amazing year yet with an exercise I love called “The Million-Dollar Dress™.”
Sometimes it’s hard to imagine what we want for our future, but a really fun visualization can sometimes help. I use this exercise with my clients all the time to create alignment and help them reach their goals. In this episode, I’m sharing it with you.
You are a powerful creator, and I believe in your ability to create your best year yet! You already have everything you need to be massively wealthy and successful.
Key areas discussed in this episode:
How the idea for this exercise came about many years ago
Reaching our goals and intentions with intangible and energetic alignment
The Million-Dollar Dress™ exercise and how it can help you get clarity about your business
How to pull The Million-Dollar Dress™ exercise into your everyday work
A second creative exercise that can help you support your success this year
Cheers to your most expansive self and your most expansive business this year! Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/96ATtrw3y1k or listen on your favorite podcast app to discover how to use this multi-sensory visualization to create it.
“If you have love and have empathy for and excitement about your audience, then you can love sales and enroll the people who are absolutely the best possible fit for you.”
So many consultants are repulsed by selling and struggle to make it feel good to them. They think of it as a necessary evil. When they do that, they miss out on everything that is possible with a different point of view.
Selling truly is one of my favorite parts of my business. I love making a meaningful heart connection with potential clients, and I want to take the opportunity to give to them generously, whether they end up working with me or not.
That’s what heart-based selling is really about. Dive into heart-based selling – and how to fall a little more in love with sales – in this episode of Profitable Joyful Consulting.
Key areas discussed in this episode
Introduction
What I love about selling
The client who said “The Universe tells me I have a $2 million business”
What you’re really doing when someone comes to you in a sales situation
What objections are about (and why they don’t have anything to do with you)
Having non-attachment in the sales process
Why sticker shock is okay (and where we go from there)
How heart-based selling can bring the right people to you and help you show them their potential
Empathy and listening in the sales process
The magical thing I do before sales calls
The secret sauce of my heart-based selling process
19:44 The behavior-changing mindset shift you must make
Watch this episode on YouTube or listen to Profitable Joyful Consulting on your favorite podcast app or SamanthasPodcast.com.
On the Profitable Joyful Consulting podcast, I teach you how to increase your profits and enjoy your business more. In this episode, you’ll learn how to answer the frequently-asked question, “What do you do?”
Over the last several years, there's been a backlash against elevator pitches as being inauthentic, awkward, and reducing someone to their profession. Of course, there are many facets to a person, not just their work.
But we still need to be able to explain our work and the value of our work to others so they can recognize if they need to work with us or want to refer us to someone else.
Our answer to this question should engender goodwill and create a conversation with someone who has taken the courtesy of asking us the question in the first place by taking an interest in us.
I’ve talked in past episodes about how I answer the question, “What do you do?” Today’s episode is a deep dive into the specifics and how you can put this message together for yourself.
When someone asks, “What do you do?” they’re really asking, “Do I need to know you?”
It’s harsh but realistic. We're all busy. We only have so much brain space and so much capacity for new colleagues, contacts and friends.
What people want to know is: can you offer them or someone they know value? Can they offer value to you? They’re figuring out if they need to know you and how you can fit in their lives.
The proof that they do need to know you is in your response to that question. If you answer it right, their jaws can fly open or their eyebrows can go up and they may say, “Oh, wow, interesting,” or “Can you help me?” or “Can I have your card?”
The truth is, the right answer to this question can be very profitable.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
The attention-getting way to answer “What do you do?” that delivers more connections, leads, and profits
How to Increase Your Consulting Fees
Season 20 · Episode 233
Tuesday, November 12, 2024 • Duration 24:57
“I want you to command prices that are commensurate with the value you are bringing your clients.”
I see male consultants charging $300,000+ for an engagement, but I’ll see a woman consultant really struggle to say a number like $30,000 for similar work.
There are tons of reasons for that (which we’ll get into in this episode), but the bottom line is: I want you to charge what you want for your services. I want women consultants to ask for hundreds of thousands of dollars and get it. And you can. I know this because I’ve done it, and I help my clients do it, too.
In this encore episode of Profitable Joyful Consulting, I’m sharing some brutally honest observations when it comes to gender disparities in charging what our work is worth and what women can do to charge the price they’re looking for.
So much of this is kept secret, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Key areas discussed in this episode
Introduction
Confusion about how other people are charging
Why men are charging more and getting what they ask for
Taking responsibility and empowering ourselves to do things differently and get what we want
Ramping yourself up to getting paid more and more
How to get unstuck from making the same number you were making at corporate
Tapping into a competitive spirit to embolden yourself to raise your prices
Embodying and standing by your numbers
How to command high prices and charge the value of your work
On Profitable Joyful Consulting, I teach you how to increase your profits and enjoy your business more. In this episode, you’ll learn how to overcome self-sabotage.
What would be possible for you if you didn’t get in your own way? What kind of results could you get in your business and for your clients?
I had a client who was writing her speeches the night before big keynotes - and they never went as well as she wanted them to. I once was in the habit of making really bad hiring mistakes. I’ve had clients exhaust themselves in pursuit of doubling their business.
These are all different, but they’re all examples of self-sabotage.
It may be an unconventional one, but overcoming self-sabotage is a vital growth strategy for your business. When you learn to work with your Saboteur, you unleash possibilities.
Key Takeaways:
Self-sabotage isn’t what it seems like on the surface. There’s a spiritual and energetic perspective to it, which I cover here with Spiritual Director (and my husband) Christopher Carrick.
Why we sabotage ourselves - how we disguise it from ourselves - and how we can stop doing it, so we can be the productive, effective people we know ourselves to be.
You don’t have to exhaust yourself in the process of doubling your business. Exhaustion is actually one of several sly sabotage strategies we reveal.
“I’d never do that to myself.” Find out the sneaky way powerful, confident people sabotage themselves.
The role of the unconscious and the ego in self-sabotage — and how to better understand the voice of your own inner saboteur.
With the right awareness and tools, dealing with self-sabotage can actually be kind of fun (I said “kind of”!) and doesn’t have to be shaming. We share simple exercises to take back control and get out of your own way.
Listen to this episode to learn how to change your relationship with your inner saboteur wherever you get podcasts or click here to listen and subscribe:.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
Season 20 · Episode 231
Tuesday, October 29, 2024 • Duration 22:05
How to deliver client work with ease 👇
On Profitable Joyful Consulting, I teach you how to increase your profits and enjoy your business more. In this episode, you’ll learn how to deliver client work with ease.
Ted is frustrated by clients who always want to see him in person. The travel there and back eats up valuable time he could be spending elsewhere. And many times the meetings could be done remotely or even by email.
When Beth lands big new engagements, she’s excited, but then it sinks in just how much work she now needs to do. From coordinating meetings to designing workshops to outlining new process models to convey key messages ... she loves some of it, but it’s still a LOT.
There IS a way to deliver work more efficiently so that the clients get amazing results but you don’t have to put in so much effort. When you do, you’ll find fewer hours spent means the work is more profitable, and focusing on the right things will mean you're more joyful as well.
In this episode of Profitable Joyful Consulting, you’ll learn:
How to use your Joy & Genius Zone™ to determine what you should work on (and what you should hand off)
4 key ways to make delivering client work so much easier
How to take leadership with your clients to help them get the best results possible
The one phrase you can say to help your clients understand how best to work with you
The #1 delegation trick you need to free up your time and energy
Your clients need you, and we don’t want you to burn out. Listen to this episode to learn how to deliver amazing work to your clients with ease wherever you get podcasts or click here to subscribe.
On the Profitable Joyful Consulting podcast, I teach you how to increase your profits and enjoy your business more. In this special encore episode, you’ll learn what defines transformational engagements and what they could look like in your business.
Most consultants do project-based work. They come in, work for three or six months, and solve a problem with a beginning, middle, and end. (And truthfully, we probably solve a smaller problem, which then leads to the discovery of new problems.) This can lead to ongoing work but ... it doesn’t always.
Transformational engagements are different from the usual way of working (and they can make your business way more profitable and joyful). What makes a transformational engagement transformative? What’s your version of a transformational engagement? In this episode, we’ll dive into what transformational engagements could do for you.
Key areas:
What to look for in a one-off engagement
How to figure out what a transformational engagement might be for a client
The problem with short-term fixes
How long it actually takes to make changes truly stick
The defining aspect of a transformational engagement
Why transformational engagements last for no less than a year
Figuring out the costs of the problems you solve with transformational engagements
The kinds of problems that are incredibly expensive for companies
Paradigms that my clients are shaking up for their clients
The core of transformational engagements (and why it’s valuable to your clients)
There are all kinds of ways that you can do transformational engagements. Get helpful and expansive ways to increase both your profits and your joy through transformational engagements in this episode. Get the full episode and transcript here.
Learn how to receive exactly what you want in your business 👇
In this encore episode of Profitable Joyful Consulting, I teach you how to increase your profits and enjoy your business more. In this episode, you’ll learn exactly how to receive what you want in your business.
Is it difficult for you to achieve your goals? Do you find that some of them simply elude you, despite your best efforts?
Your ability to receive is one of the things that either facilitates or blocks you from bringing in what you want to have in your business and your life. Having an obstacle to receiving is one of the recurring issues I see with my clients that’s critical to address.
Tune into this episode to learn how to become aware of your capacity for receiving and to get better at receiving so you can bring more of what you want into your life. If you’ve ever been stuck at a plateau in your business or struggled to delegate to team members, this episode is for you!
Key areas:
Why most lottery winners go bankrupt within three to five years
The three things to work on receiving (hint: it’s not just money!)
What someone is really saying when they’re trying to support you in your business
Why trusting that help is available is so valuable (even if you think that doesn’t work for you)
How to figure out where you’re stuck at receiving money
How to expand your capacity to receive more money
Watch this episode on YouTube: link or listen on your favorite podcast app to discover how to expand your capacity for receiving in your life and business.
How to Create Your 3-Part Client Attraction System
Season 20 · Episode 228
Tuesday, October 8, 2024 • Duration 22:03
“Build your brand and being consistent enough in your marketing that you attract your own leads. I’ll show you how.”
On the Profitable Joyful Consulting podcast, I teach you how to increase your profits and enjoy your business more. In this episode, you’ll learn how to create a three-part client attraction system.
A system is a repeatable process you do that gets predictable results. I find that many consultants don’t have systems in their marketing - they’re winging it, or they market when they feel like they need to.
Sound familiar?
But a sustainable marketing system can help you make more money with more ease and joy. It gives you access to generating clients when you want and need them, and gives you some control over your business. Learn how to create this system in this episode of Profitable Joyful Consulting (I promise, it’s easier than you think)!
Key Takeaways:
The #1 question to ask yourself to understand your own critical marketing needs
3 kinds of marketing strategies you need to have in your business
Reverse-engineering that reveals how to get new clients
The best ways to nurture leads who aren’t ready to buy from you yet
How to keep your brand top of mind for the people who need your work
The accompanying video ranks #1 for marketing strategies for consultants on YouTube. Hear what listeners are saying!
"Simple and to the point.. sometimes we get lost in all the hype and jazz..keep it simple." "Very rarely have I seen a video that has resonated with me so much. Thank you!You have reinvigorated my motivation to market my services.""Really found this very insightful, as it explained a lot of what I never understood before as other people tended to just mention the strategies but not explain them as you have done."
Listen to Profitable Joyful Consulting on your favorite podcast app or SamanthasPodcast.com.
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I have a confession to make. I hate shopping, but I love the way I feel in beautiful clothes. I love to have new looks, and I really don't want to be seen in the same outfits over and over, but I also don't want to clog landfills with more fast fashion. Because I despise shopping, I've been known to buy too quickly and end up with a closet full of things I don't wear.
But everything changed for me when I discovered Armoire. I was heading to a business event in Hawaii and I wanted to look fantastic. I got a gorgeous dress and the cutest jumpsuit. Armir is like sharing a...
I have a confession to make. I hate shopping, but I love the way I feel in beautiful clothes. I love to have new looks, and I really don't want to be seen in the same outfits over and over, but I also don't want to clog landfills with more fast fashion. Because I despise shopping, I've been known to buy too quickly and end up with a closet full of things I don't wear.
But everything changed for me when I discovered Armoire. I was heading to a business event in Hawaii and...
My simple tip to quickly grab the attention of your target client in your Jaw-Dropping Self-Intro
How to test out and refine your message so you know it resonates
A different way to deliver your message to hook your ideal clients
How to get your Jaw-Dropping Self-Intro in front of potential clients
I have a confession to make. I hate shopping, but I love the way I feel in beautiful clothes. I love to have new looks, and I really don't want to be seen in the same outfits over and over, but I also don't want to clog landfills with more fast fashion. Because I despise shopping, I've been known to buy too quickly and end up with a closet full of things I don't wear.
But everything changed for me when I discovered Armoire. I was heading to a business event in Hawaii and I wanted to look fantastic. I got a gorgeous dress and the cutest jumpsuit. Armir is like sharing a closet with your girlfriends who just happened to have fabulous taste. Once a month, I choose stunning new selections, and a few days...
I have a confession to make. I hate shopping, but I love the way I feel in beautiful clothes. I love to have new looks, and I really don't want to be seen in the same outfits over and over, but I also don't want to clog landfills with more fast fashion. Because I despise shopping, I've been known to buy too quickly and end up with a closet full of things I don't wear.
But everything changed for me when I discovered Armoire. I was heading to a...
I have a confession to make. I hate shopping, but I love the way I feel in beautiful clothes. I love to have new looks, and I really don't want to be seen in the same outfits over and over, but I also don't want to clog landfills with more fast fashion. Because I...
I have a confession to make. I hate shopping, but I love the way I feel in beautiful clothes. I love to have new looks, and I really don't want to be seen in the same outfits over and over, but I also don't want to clog landfills with more fast fashion. Because I despise shopping, I've been known to buy too quickly and end up with a closet full of things I don't wear.
But everything changed for me when I discovered Armoire. I was heading to a business event in Hawaii and I wanted to look fantastic. I got a gorgeous dress and...
