Jade Tambini shares her story from nearly quitting B2B marketing to transitioning to a full time marketing consultant.

I learnt so much from this conversation, and it was fascinating to learn her journey from corporate marketing and how she uses social media to fuel her own pipeline.

Here are the takeaways I learned from this chat.

• “If I wanted more sales I made more calls      now I make more content”. Jade’s take on the evolving B2B buyer.
• Being more comfortable in her own skin,      and being happy to say I don’t know to her clients
• The role of content to help reposition      herself
• The importance of pushing back and being      honest with clients
• TikTok’s role in driving the majority of      her inbound opportunities
• How quickly your personal brand can fade      away if not maintained
• Knowing what works for you and doubling      down on it
• An example of somewhat relatively knew to      marketing who is crushing it social media

When you’re stuck to a resume stack, how do you stand out?

Covid at play, Michael Roberts decided to use Linkedin preempting the challenges ahead.

His hunch was right, and unfortunately he was laid off.

Fortunately he had already been building his personal brand, and side hustles.

He used his severance and existing side hustles to extend his runway, and he hasn’t looked back since.

Key things I learned about Michael's journey from employee to one man agency.

• Make sure you understand your why. Michael has built a consulting career around his life, he’s present for his three kids, wife, his hobbies. Whilst maintaining a consulting marketing practise
• The importance of a support network who are going down a similar path, he uses his friends as a soundboard on his strategic decision making
• His network was key to landing his first set of clients
• LinkedIn posts early on got over 100k impressions, he end up with 12 inquiries on the back of one post
• Conversion rate significantly increased on his proposals when he switched to his new framework pitch vs selling his experience
• Six months on, his salary has increased by 40%

I had an insightful conversation with Joe Reynoso, who explains his story about what he's learnt over the last 7-8 years of consulting, most of which was as a full-time employee.

He finally set up shop full-time a few years ago and we discussed some of his key learnings...

Key learnings

• He knew early on that he wanted longevity in his career, and foreseeing most senior roles typically lasted 18 months, he wanted to take an alternative path
• He was inspired by the lifestyle of friends in the arts
• Joe had a very considered approach to how to approach employers and future employers about his intentions of consulting on the side.
• He was privy to his family business, and whilst in the medical category, he was able to take on, listen and learn from business strategy. He used this as the inspiration for how to deal with customers
• How he worked backwards from his goal to become a full-time consultant
• It took 7-8 years to feel comfortable that he was able to provide value to others
• His 3 tactics that get his clients
• The early goals he wanted to hit when he first made the shift full time

Key Quotes

• “The half of knowledge is where to find it” “Optimising his career for deep learning”. Joe leans into his career and intentionally seeks out those that are generous with their time that can provide mentorship
• “It’s about the perspective and attitude you bring to the conversation when speaking to senior management” - When speaking to senior leadership about your intentions of consulting on the side

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In today’s episode I talked to Stefan Repin.

He comes from a family of entrepreneurs, and he built his career working at various agencies and start-ups.

In this conversation we talked about where he finds his customers, how he has evolved his pricing, and becoming your own SDR.

Becoming a good sales person is an important part of becoming a consultant.

Liam MacCormack is a full-time consultant solopreneur, who shares insight after insight. After 3 pages of notes, I left with one significant change that inspired me to completely change my consulting offering, 3-5 actionable learnings on how to position myself to clients, and tactics to get my foot in the door.

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Contact: 

After spending over 20 years climbing the corporate ladder at Hewlett Packard, Zsuzsanna Ferenczi decided it was time for a change.

Zsuzsanna shares her transition that went from overseeing a large team and multi-million dollar budgets to working for herself and finding her first few clients.

She discusses what drives her, and what should drive you too.

Zsu goes into detail about the transition, how she got her few clients and finding the value you provide for your clients.

Reach out to Zsuzsanna via LinkedIn.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/zsuzsannaferenczi/

Fascinating story that started with a bike ride from the UK to Japan, creating videos in lockdown, and building a career that allows him to live the life he wants.

I spoke with Adam Faulkner on his inspiring story.

Key learnings

• He made the most of his circumstances, despite being in lockdown he built a bar, created cocktail drinks video, and landed his first major client
• He reiterated the importance of getting exposure in front of the righr people, and using his client’s brand name to add credibility to his offering
• His early success was actually a hindrance to his positioning, he was seen as a content creator in confectionery
• Hustled his way into new categories, one by one, leveraged the brand names and not the category. But reiterated the need for resilience and patience. There was a lot of no’s, before he landed a yes
• The importance of LinkedIn and how he uses it as an “outlet for his thoughts”. He likes to use his voice to help other freelancers
• He uses LinkedIn to not only share his thoughts, but to help with his mental health
• He doesn’t chase likes, he is more considered with being positioned as a thought leader

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After spending over 17 years as a journalist, with most of his career at the BBC, Cosmo Shield shifts to becoming a full-time content freelance writer.

Admittedly not a B2B expert, he leveraged his storytelling abilities to enable him to take advantage of a unique position in the market, which has enabled him to scale his freelance work and remain on course for a six-figure year.

Reporting on constant negative stories was taking its toll, and the pandemic was the catalyst that forced him to reconsider his career. After chatting with his wife and friend, he found his 2nd career in B2B content writing.

Key learnings from Cosmo.

• 3 months to start earning his monthly salary and remains on course for a six-figure year
• Stepping out of his comfort zone from LinkedIn lurker to content creator has helped build his network, find new clients and refine his positioning
• The importance of keeping in touch with former colleagues as you progress through your career
• Courses have fast-tracked his learning, but there's nothing better than taking action and learning first-hand
• The importance of showcasing your work on his socials and how that has helped win clients
• Using a cornerstone piece of content throughout the week, that is repurposed into different formats underpins his weekly content strategy

This, plus a ton more value!

For more stories, check out https://adviseo.co/

Melissa is a freelance content writer who took just 3 months from deciding to leave employment to recouping her salary and becoming a full time freelancer.

Here are the key things I learnt from our discussion that can help you.

• Freedom of choice is what motivated her to make the leap, and how that differs from the perception of work/life balance
• Her very strict guardrails on the engagements she has with her clients
• The open conversation she had with her boss that enabled her work on side hustles whilst she prepared to go full time
• How she is working out pricing and what she envisages in the future
• How communities have helped her find work
• Simply asking for people for help, and how beneficial that was
• The simple finance and work balance goals that she has set for the next 18 months

He spent $15k on a mentor to help him get started with consulting. The consultant helped him refine his positioning, learning how to pitch and win clients, as a result, he saw an immediate impact with more business, a higher conversion rate, more inbound and a 4x instant return.

He moved away from being a marketing generalist to focus on becoming France’s number one LinkedIn specialist.

Mony has a unique partnership process in place which means he doesn’t have to do any outbound.

I made 8 videos for our content library, so tons of insights, here are the key things I loved.

• $15k spent on mentorship to help prepare for life as a consultant
• His why defines how we work with clients. Making this clear from the start of any client engagement. He optimises towards to freedom, to work with whoever he wants, wherever he wants
• Despite his success, he wishes he built his personal brand from day one
• He is on the path for a five-figure MRR
• Mony has a podcast which has helped attract clients he wants to work with. It has been extremely helpful for pre-positioning himself as a thought leader. With over 1000 downloads per month
• He has a unique partnership with complimentary peers, such as CMOs’. He pays them a lifetime commissions for any clients they recommend to him
• Community play a big part in his development, peer engagement, learning and finding clients

Please meet Thiago Monteiro, he has been consulting for nearly a year now. Which consists of his own consultancy practices, and a fractional CMO service partnership.

He took the leap nearly a year ago with one client, which took him 4 months to hit the monthly income he typically received from his previous employer.

His long-term aspiration is to increase more of his time to his fractional CMO services because it has a higher yield whilst delivering more benefits for his clients.

He has learnt that to be an effective growth consultant you need full access, and someone on a short-term hands-on contract doesn’t have the access and time to make the impact he wants.  This also renders your ability to have the short-term impact you need to reflect your abilities.

One of Thiago’s biggest learnings was the need to shift his mentality,  going from employee to full-time consultant was a big step.

He has quickly learnt the need to be more direct and the need to show results quicker, whilst also staying away from internal politics.

Thiago acknowledges he needs to develop his sales ability, but quickly discovers you need to become your own SDR and learn what’s not working, and what works presenting your value proposition. He reiterates this is a “real life” experiment.

One of the biggest obstacles he had to get over was the fear of reaching out, he explains what’s the worst that can happen. You can’t control the reaction from the other person, all they can do is not respond

He tries to get a balance between offering his time up front for free, whilst being mindful of your time, is your product. Offering his opinions and feedback has helped him land long-term clients.

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I spoke to the energetic Effie Moss about her progression from her head of marketing roles to owning her fractional CMO agency,

The network effect has played an integral role in her growth, she reiterated the importance of organic relationship building and how that helps grow her businesses.

She focused on her toolbag which is jammed packed with experience, and how that enables her to dip in and out when she needs to.

Niching downing doesn’t work for her, and states that possessing knowledge of different areas of marketing doesn’t mean you’re a jack of all trades.

Effie focuses on impact, and this has underpinned her objective of scaling. Consulting was limiting the impact she wanted to have on her clients, so she wanted to create a service that could take advantage of the wisdom and experience she has built over the years.

She has focused on building a “magnetic” brand that helps attract the clients she wants to work with. Her brand reflects her, which is colourful, fun and bold, which is reinforced by brand characters, which are not often seen but help her stand out.

She made a conscious effort to use these brand mascots, but also to ensure her language, comms and pricing reflect her value and provide a flavour of working with her.

As a result, this attracts the types of clients she wants to work with.

When it comes to finding clients, she speaks of the importance of having both an outbound and organic motion working in tandem to help improve the output of her own marketing.

She has started to introduce outbound, but with a twist. She goes against the grain, avoids templates and “best practices”, she is very hands-on and provides guardrails to protect her brand.

Effie focuses on value and experience, she knows what might be around the corner, using well-timed and well-thought-out outreach messages to try and find the types of clients she wants to work with.

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Linked - https://www.linkedin.com/in/effiemoss/

Website - https://www.weareboostagency.com/

Jay designed his life around delivering impact on all the projects he works on.

Jay has a full-time job, and several consulting gigs and is building his very own SaaS product.

Key learnings

• It’s not about allocating time for deliverables, it’s about managing your time to have the biggest impact
• It takes time to learn how to have difficult conversations. He acknowledges how is has developed speaking with clients about his side hustles
• A systematic approach can help drive ROI for your client
• Technology can take out the drain of repeat tasks
• Efficiency wins can help you deliver more with less
• His formula for calculating his price strategy

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Niki shares her story of how she used her passion for numbers to help find her consulting niche.

After a background working in finance and working with financial advisors, Niki reveals not only how her value proposition has evolved but how she selects her ICP.

Niki has progressed with her consulting gig, whilst still working a full-time job.

She shares her ambitions and what drives her and the 3 core services she provides her clients. We dig into the why behind these core offerings.

Key learnings

• How her passion has helped identify her ICP
• The importance of iterating the type of clients you work for
• Her competitors are her biggest cheerleaders
• Taking on everything at the start is fine, but you need to laser in on what you want to do
• The impact of imposter syndrome has had on her progression

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