Show Notes:

Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, a leading expert on project management, talks about his upcoming HBR book.  Antonio shares his career path, including his time at PwC, banking, and pharma, and his early realization of the importance of project management.

Changing the Perception of Project Management

He discusses his mission to change the perception of project management from a tactical to a strategic role, including his work with the Project Management Institute (PMI) and his goal to publish in Harvard Business Review (HBR). Antonio highlights the challenges he faced in gaining recognition for project management as a most important facet of any organization, and his eventual success in publishing his second book with HBR. Antonio explains the key concept of his new book and shares how he pitched the idea to HBR, emphasizing that everyone is a project manager and that organizations should be project-driven.

The Definition of Project Management

Antonio mentions the success of his first book with HBR, which sold over 50,000 copies and was translated into multiple languages. He moves on to outline the theme of his new book: how every organization should become project-driven to adapt faster and transform constantly in a changing world. When asked to define what a project is, Antonio provides a classic academic definition of a project, emphasizing its start, end, objective, and teamwork. He then shares a more inspirational definition, stating that projects build the future of organizations and should be seen as essential and prestigious. He stresses the importance of project managers being proud of their work and the significant impact projects have on the future of companies.

Project-driven vs. Operations-driven Organizations

Antonio compares and contrasts project-driven and operations-driven organizations. He explains that most established companies are operations-driven, with operations at the core and projects as secondary. He also discusses the impact of the agile mindset, which broke down silos and hierarchies but still prioritized operations. Antonio introduces his model of a project-driven organization, where projects are at the core, teams are fully dedicated, and operations become more modular and secondary.

Transformation from Operations-driven to Project-driven

When offering tips on driving transformation from operations-driven to project-driven, Antonio identifies three main challenges: the organization's culture, the role of leaders, and the evolution of project management. He highlights the high failure rate of projects and the need for continuous transformation rather than continuous improvement, and emphasizes the importance of co-creation, bottom-up approaches, and the courage to stop projects that are not working.

Managing Project Portfolios and Tracking Projects

Antonio suggests conducting an inventory of all projects, identifying owners, and cutting a significant number of projects to focus on the most important ones. He recommends using project portfolio management (PPM) tools or simple Excel sheets to track projects. Antonio stresses the importance of prioritizing projects that lead to exponential growth and big bets rather than incremental improvements. When managing project portfolios and changing their management infrastructure, Antonio advises leaders to sponsor no more than three projects and to group projects into programs for better focus. He recommends having fully dedicated project teams where people leave their day jobs to focus on projects. Antonio explains that leaders should act more as coaches, empowering teams to take decisions and prioritize within projects. And finally, he emphasizes the importance of sharing knowledge and being open to exchanging ideas with others.

Timestamps:

00:02: Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez's Background and Mission

04:08: Introduction to Powered by Projects

07:29: Defining Projects and Their Importance

09:05: Project-Driven vs. Operations-Driven Organizations

16:28: Challenges and Solutions for Project Management

22:28: Managing Project Portfolios and Prioritization

29:01: Empowering Project Teams and Leadership

Links:

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/antonionietorodriguez

Business: https://projectsnco.com

New Book: https://poweredbyprojects.com/

 Other Books: https://www.amazon.ca/stores/author/B00CMECP0U

HBR Articles: https://store.hbr.org/shop/?section=product&search_query=Antonio%20Nieto%20Rodriguez#/filter:categories:Articles

 This episode on Umbrex: https://umbrex.com/unleashed/episode-626-antonio-nieto-rodriguez-author-of-hbrs-powered-by-projects-leading-your-organization-in-the-transformation-age/

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

*AI generated timestamps and show notes.

 

Show Notes:

Samora Wolokolie talks about his dual roles as a CPA, CA and attorney in Monrovia, Liberia. Samora lists his credentials: chartered accountant, certified public accountant, certified forensic investigation professional, certified fraud examiner, certified tax practitioner, and lawyer, and details his academic background. He is also an assistant professor at the University of Liberia where he teaches all levels of accounting. Samora also teaches at other universities and holds graduate and post graduate degrees from Cuttington University, and Charisma University. He talks about his career path, including working with Deloitte in 2000, then moved to PKF Liberia and Baker Tilly, where he qualified as a chartered accountant in 2014.

Serving as Liberia's Deputy Minister of Finance for Fiscal Affairs
Samora served as Liberia's Deputy Minister of Finance for Fiscal Affairs from 2018 to 2024, managing the national budget and growing it from $600 million to $800 million. When asked about the major sources of revenue for the Liberian government, Samora explains that over 80% of the government budget comes from domestic revenue, with the rest from External resources (donors like the IMF, World Bank, and European Union). He details the importance of conducting audits and meeting benchmarks to access external resources and shares a few examples of how this works. Samora discusses his role in developing revenue policies and regulations, focusing on domestic resource mobilization to grow the budget to $1 billion. He highlights the challenges and strategies needed to achieve this goal, including tax policies and revenue measures. He goes on to explain the structure of the companies he currently works for, his roles there, and how it focuses on both accounting and legal issues.

Major Industries and Economic Potential in Liberia
The conversation turns to the main industries in Liberia. Samora describes Liberia as an input-driven economy with significant potential in mining, forestry, and infrastructure development. He mentions the mining sector's potential, including gold, iron ore, and diamonds, and the involvement of companies like ArcelorMittal. Samora also discusses the forestry sector's potential, including logs and the Kimberley Process. He emphasizes the government's efforts in infrastructure development, particularly road construction and building maintenance. He goes on to talk about investment potential and licensing, shipping, and exporting.

Consulting and Legal Processes in Liberia
Samora talks about the process of hiring independent consultants in Liberia. He advises talking to an attorney and a CPA. He recommends checking with the Liberian Institute of Certified Public Accountants (LICPA) and the Liberian National Bar Association (LNBA) for licensed professionals. Samora explains the distinction between attorneys and counsellors at law in Liberia and recommends dealing with firms to ensure coverage through professional liability and insurance coverage. He goes into detail on the importance of following processes and doing due diligence and background checks when hiring consultants.

Taxation and Labor Law Considerations for Foreign Companies
Focusing on the tax implications for foreign companies hiring consultants in Liberia, Samora explains the withholding tax rates for resident and non-resident taxpayers, including the 10% and 15% rates for ordinary companies and the 6% rate for mining operations. He clarifies the concept of resident and non-resident status based on the number of days spent in Liberia. Samora discusses the importance of understanding Labor law considerations, including contracts, occupational health and safety, and long-term employment. He also explains the tax brackets and Social Security tax obligations for foreign companies, employees and independent contractors, in addition to labour laws and health and safety laws in Liberia.

Insurance Requirements for Firms in Liberia.
Samora advises firms to have professional liability insurance to cover potential transgressions. He emphasizes the importance of ensuring payments pass through formal financial institutions to avoid money laundering issues. Samora suggests using bank-to-bank wire transfers or prepaid cards for payments to consultants, and he reiterates the importance of due diligence and background checks when hiring consultants in Liberia.

Timestamps:

04:11: Revenue Sources and Management in Liberia 

09:38: Major Industries and Economic Potential 

20:04: Consulting and Legal Processes in Liberia 

27:08: Taxation and Labor Law Considerations

36:50: Insurance and Payment Methods 

Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/atty-samora-p-z-wolokolie-ph-d-cfe-ca-cpa-fcfip-l-l-b-67315438/

Alliance CPA Inc:  https://alliancecpainc.com/

TORCH Professional Consultancy Inc:  https://topcinc.com/

This episode on Umbrex: https://umbrex.com/unleashed/episode-625-samora-p-z-wolokolie-how-to-hire-a-consultant-in-liberia/

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

 

Show Notes:

Sandor Marton, a McKinsey alum and co-founder of Chronos Insights introduces the AI research companion tool and explains its features. Sandor shares his background in growth strategy, commercial strategy, and due diligence work. He identifies the problems faced by small firms and independent practitioners who don't have large teams in place to assign people to do the massive amount of necessary foundational research, which limits the size of projects they can take on.

An Overview of Chronos Insights

Sandor discusses partnering with Matt Jones and Dustin Chrysler to develop an AI-powered solution for market and competitive landscape research. He talks about the background of the team and the issues they initially tackled. The team aimed to create a specialized prompt leveraging ChatGPT's large language model while moving away from ChatGPT's programming "to make people happy" and to deliver more accurate results. They developed their tool, Chronos, with a different approach. The tool uses neural search and keyword search to provide more accurate and sourced research solutions. Sandor talks about how they tested the agents. He found it saved 75% of research time using the platform and emphasizes the need for review and revision of AI-generated outputs.

Chronos Research Capabilities

The conversation turns to access to proprietary databases, and Sandor explains the current use of the alpha version sources publicly available information. He also talks about their engineering resources and can build a version that taps into proprietary, private, or licensed resources, and that the user can direct the agent to source from specific sources. Sandor refers to a large Fortune 100 company that has hired them to build an agent to work with their internal research team. Sandor discusses potential future features like an interview finder tool and a composite self-referencing insights feature. The discussion touches on the flexibility of the tool in handling different types of research problems.

User Interface Explained

Sandor explains the simple UI of the tool, which includes five landing pages: Project Overview, Research Statement of Work, Research Plan, Research Tab, and Research Summary.

The tool creates a research plan based on the user's research statement of work, breaking it down into discrete task prompts. Sandor demonstrates how to use the tool by copying and pasting a Word document into the Research Statement of Work tab. The tool generates a detailed research plan, including market landscape, competitor landscape, and key trends and developments.

Project Overview

Research Plan Generation

Sandor explains the process of generating a research plan, including organizing research tasks by major research categories and subsections. He shares an example of the various categories to be researched within the statement of work. The tool creates task prompts for each topic within the research statement of work. Users can edit tasks and change the language model used for research. Sandor highlights the efficiency of running multiple tasks concurrently using the platform and demonstrates how it works and the various categories of research that can be explored, analyzed, and summarized.

How Chronos Summarizes Prompts

Sections Identified and Tasks to Complete

Subsections Explained

Reviewing and Exporting

Sandor demonstrates how to review and export the research outputs generated by the tool. The tool provides citations for each task, allowing users to verify the sources. Users can rerun tasks and edit them as needed. The tool offers a research summary feature, which condenses the research outputs into a concise format.

Research Task Overview

   

Market Landscape Research

Use Cases and Future Developments

Sandor talks about use cases and future developments. He explains that it can handle various research topics and how they have programmed the agent to eliminate errors. Sandor mentions a project which included researching sales cycles and client selection criteria. The tool has potential for developing primary research, valuation and diligence work, and incorporating proprietary or licensed material.

Timestamps:

02:44: Development of the AI Research Companion

05:42: Current and Future Features of the Tool 

08:55: Walkthrough of the AI Research Companion Tool 

18:54: Detailed Explanation of the Research Plan 

25:22: Running and Reviewing the Research Plan 

33:20: Future Developments and Use Cases 

37:20: Conclusion and Contact Information 

Links:

Website: https://www.chronosinsights.com/

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

 

Show Notes:

Will Bachman welcomes Alex Boyd, the founder of Revenue Zen, a B2B organic growth marketing firm. Alex talks about organic growth marketing and how it is simply sharing knowledge about a product or service through platforms like websites, forums, and social media without relying on paid advertising. Alex's strategy works because clients are drawn to the content and reach out to him. He is now helping other B2B companies achieve success through organic growth marketing.

Developing Organic Content for B2B Markets

Alex Boyd works with B2B clients who typically have an average order value of at least 20k to 50k or more. He helps them to find their voice, clarify their thought process, produce content, get it out there, and watch that turn into leads and pipeline. His clients are usually software companies, consultancies, and other service providers who sell digitally and have a higher than average ticket size. By writing LinkedIn content that is well targeted and speaks to their audience and producing blog posts that are targeted to niche, lower volume keywords, his clients can see a huge ROI with just a few leads.

Alex talks about how they help software companies create content. He explains how they have a structured interview with the founders of the companies to understand their needs and goals, and draw out their expertise. Then, they create content that focuses on the specialty of the company as well as how technology can be used as part of the process. He emphasizes that the founders may not be social media writers, but they can provide valuable insights on how to implement the solution. Alex offers a sanitized case study of a software client. Most of his clients receive targeted, well-written content that they can post themselves. 

Alex's business helps clients craft effective social media content that can help them generate leads. He advocates for a structured interview process to draw out the client's expertise, and then they can coach them or produce content that the client can edit. Alex shares a few interview questions that help draw out valuable information on the company that helps build engaging content that yields results. He identifies the type of content that works. 

 

Tips on Creating Engaging Content 

He suggests starting with an origin story, as it helps the client's network to understand why they started the business. He also suggests asking about the client's favorite interview questions to draw out the information. Alex believes that making up content for social media does not work, and that it is important to draw out the expertise and knowledge of the client to create effective content. He emphasizes the need to be short and insightful in content marketing. 

Alex explains how to manage reaction and engagement to social and content posts, and how to transition from commenting on someone's posts to having meaningful conversation. He offers tips on backlinks, messaging and responding, and how to prep the groundwork for posts.  Alex said that the majority of the 135 engagements he has brought in from his LinkedIn posts and comments have been inbound. He suggests that the best way to have a conversation with someone is to have a natural conversation that doesn't have a direct lead into one's service but is still relevant. Will asks for tips on how to move from commenting on someone's posts to having a live conversation. Alex suggests providing a targeted note expressing interest in talking and engaging in meaningful conversations that don't lead to a sales pitch. He adds that the best conversations are those that don't lead to a sales pitch but are still relevant.

When engaging potential customers on social media, it is important to be mindful of how you approach them. Instead of leading directly into a sales conversation, it is best to demonstrate your expertise by asking questions that show your credibility. To do this effectively, ask questions related to the topic that you know about, and make sure they include your expertise. For example, if your expertise is in SEO, you could ask questions about backlink distribution and content production. Pretend you are giving a micro-consulting engagement and think about the value you can provide. This will help you create questions that demonstrate your expertise without feeling like a sales pitch.

 

How to Gain and Engage with Clients on LinkedIn

Alex explains how to choose questions that demonstrate your knowledge, and how to comment on a LinkedIn post. In addition to using a Sales Navigator account in order to highlight posts from those people, he suggests using a bookmarking system or a spreadsheet to track the posts, and how focusing on a smaller group of potential leads is the best way to comment on relevant posts.

Alex also suggests engaging with other people in the same space, such as influencers, consultants and software companies, as this can be more effective than engaging directly with the prospects. To find these people, Alex suggests creating pre-made influencer lists, which can be done by looking at which creators and consultants get the most engagement from decision makers. Finally, Alex recommends having offline conversations with others who also sell to the same market.

Alex talks about the software he created, Aware, to help with posting content on social media which orchestrates all LinkedIn activity on one platform to organize the process and save time. The typical person using Aware are usually growing on LinkedIn but want to spend less time managing LinkedIn data.

Sales Leadership on Social Media

Alex shares tips on how to drive engagement and points to Dan Morris as an example, whose posts do not get a lot of engagement but are targeted to a specific niche and resonates with them. He suggests creating content that is targeted to the right audience and that asks questions or request for reposts to encourage engagement.

He talks about sales leadership and how to best use social media to increase engagement and reach more people. One of the tips is to make sure the first couple of lines of a post are as powerful as possible, and to take the best line from the end of the post and put it at the beginning. He also shares how to respond when a post does gain a lot of attention to take advantage of the momentum. He suggests that virality often does not lead to much net new pipeline and it can even be distracting. If clients do have a post go viral, Alex suggests that they not try to respond to everyone, but instead look for the signal in the noise and prioritize business development. Alex also offers insight on the best and worst days and times to post on LinkedIn.

Alex states that it is more important to post quality content than to post frequently. He suggests that people should choose a quality threshold above which their content must be and be consistent. He also advises against pushing out half-assed content in the name of frequency. He suggests that if people are able to spend 3-4 hours a week planning and creating good content, they will do better. He also offers recommendations on formatting content whether text, video, or images.  He also offers one last piece of advice on sharing content for best results. 

 

Timestamps:

01:30 Unlocking the Potential of Thought Leadership for B2B Clients 

06:36 Uncovering the Power of Interviews for Content Marketing Success

13:03 Connecting with Social Media Engagers 

14:54 Transitioning from social media to Live Conversation 

18:22 Commenting Tips for LinkedIn

25:16 Proactive Ways to Engage with Clients and Followers 

25:48 The Benefits of Using Aware for LinkedIn Success

31:23 Tips for Generating Engagement on LinkedIn

35:32 Maximizing Engagement and Business Development Through Social Media Posting

 

Links:

Website: https://revenuezen.com

Website: https://useaware.co

CONTACT INFO:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexcboyd/

Get in touch with Alex: https://www.gated.com/@alexboyd

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes:

Chris Heivly and Will Bachman discuss the concept of startup communities and the importance of building them. Chris is the co-founder of MapQuest, which was sold to AOL for $1.2 billion, and the author of the Build the Fort. His second book, The Startup Community Builder's Field Guide, focuses on how five simple lessons learned as a 10-year-old can set entrepreneurs up for startup success. Chris defines a startup community as a set of people involved in innovative activities in a particular geography. He explains that startup communities can be incredibly powerful in helping entrepreneurs to succeed and should be proactively built by providing resources, mentorship, and capital.

The Benefits of a Startup Community

Chris talks about the concept of startup communities and how they are no longer geographically bound. He believes that networks are essential in order to develop a successful startup community, and that all members of the community, such as corporate innovators, investors, founders, researchers, and university students, should work together for the greater good. Additionally, he mentions that the concept of startup communities applies to industry-specific communities as well, and not just geographically bound ones. He believes that the key to advancing technology is through startups and corporate innovation, and that these networks should be utilized to the fullest extent.

Chris points out that it is important to rely on people outside of one's geographic network to build a successful community.  He explains that it can be difficult for founders to invest time and energy into the community due to the amount of tasks they have to complete in their business. He mentions that it is important to build meaningful connections in order to make a successful community and connect with venture capitalists, local investors, and to get involved in the local economy to make sure that it is thriving, and that one will gain knowledge and potential customers by doing so.  Chris suggests startup lawyers, marketing experts, economic development professionals, and people from universities want to ensure the success of startups and help create a vibrant local economy, and he shares a case study on a startup community he was involved with.

The Advantages of a Local Tech Scene

Chris talks about the advantages of being in a local tech scene, rather than working in a virtual space. He adds that the local physical advantage is that one can easily access mentorship and advice in a formal sense. He notes that this may come in the form of attending events, or engaging with other startups in the same building. He also points out that networking with local resources can be beneficial for finding answers to questions, and finding the right attorney for legal needs. He explains the importance of providing resources, such as programming and co-working spaces, to help new entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground. Chris emphasizes the value of what they call gear, or ad hoc advice and mentorship, as an invaluable resource. These resources can be found through serendipitous sparks, such as running into people at coffee shops or events. 

Chris suggests that the best way to create events and activities that will engage the community is to listen to what the people want and find a leader who is motivated to make a change. He encourages grassroots-style initiatives that come from the bottom up, and to move forward with the goal of helping or supporting others.

The Three A's that Help Build Local  Community 

To help the local community, Chris suggests that it can be done in various ways, such as running a Little League team or getting involved in the arts. He recommends getting involved in the entrepreneur community and how it can have a great economic impact. 

Chris talks about the three A's framework in his book which stands for actors, activities, and attitudes. This framework is designed to make the ecosystem more inclusive and inviting for everyone to play a role. Actors can range from economic developers, government bureaucrats, university people, corporate members, founders, investors, and more. Activities vary depending on the maturity of the ecosystem. Attitudes are the most forgotten part of the framework and are important in creating a collaborative, supportive, and inclusive mindset. Chris encourages everyone to adopt a better attitude and behavior in order to create a better ecosystem. He offers a few steps to drive this forward.

To build an active network that you can lean on, Chris suggests introducing two people from your network who don't know each other, and having a 'gift first mentality' by reaching out to others without expecting something in return. He shares a story from 2009 to 2010, where he ran around doing 275 connections in five months, and at the end asked a simple question: What can I do for you?. He encourages people to ask what keeps them up at night, and what their challenges are, so that they can be helped.

Building a Network of Trust

Chris believes that by helping others without expecting anything in return, a strong network of trust and support is created that can benefit everyone. He has met with over 4000 people in the Raleigh-Durham area to build these relationships. He encourages young people to do the same to get more done faster. In return, these contacts are more likely to help him with projects such as writing a book or speaking at events. Chris believes that by investing time and effort into forming meaningful relationships, success can be achieved more quickly.

Chris has encountered thousands of people over the past 15 years and has created a system of pre-investing with each of them individually. He explains that he has an open office hours system where anyone can sign up for a 20 minute meeting. He also explains that, although he doesn't have a strong connection with all 4000 people, he can activate them whenever he needs to. His purpose is to support and empower founders to create successful businesses and cities. He hopes to accomplish this through his meetings and connections. Chris shares a few success stories from the people he has met and connections he has made, and the path he took after the success of his startup MapQuest.

Timestamps

01:49 Building a Startup Community 

03:47 Conversation on Building a Startup Community 

06:48 Exploring the Benefits of Joining a Local Startup Community 

13:58 The Advantages of Being Local in a Start-up Scene 

16:52 Building a Startup Community in Raleigh, NC 

25:14 The Four Stages of Ecosystem Maturity 

29:33 Exploring the Benefits of a "Gift First" Mentality in Building Community Connections 

36:33 Connecting People for Mutual Benefit 

43:06 Career Development and Corporate Venture Funds 

45:20 Writing the Build a Fort Series 

Links:

Website: http://heivly.com/

The Book: Build the Fort 

CONTACT INFO:

Twitter: @chrisheivly

Email: Chris@buildthefort.com

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

 

Show Notes:

In this episode, Will Bachman talks to Adam Braff, a former McKinsey partner who specializes in data analytics. Adam has been using chat GPT to explore how this powerful tool can be harnessed for data analysis. He explores the implications and potential impact of this innovative approach.

The Quest for Analyzing Quantitative Data

The ability to analyze quantitative data using generative AI has long been a holy grail for many data scientists. While Chat GPT and other language models have proven their prowess in generating text and even creating visual content. Adam talks about how to  tackle the challenge of applying these tools to analyze large datasets problems and uncover potential solutions.

Adam outlines four key aspects of the problem at hand. First, there is a need to upload data into the Chat GPT tool, as the existing training data may not encompass the specific dataset of interest. Second, an intuitive interface is required to facilitate a conversation with the tool, allowing for iterative exploration and analysis. Third, the ability to visualize the data in various formats, such as tables and graphs, is crucial for understanding and validating the results. Lastly, incorporating up-to-date contextual information about the world around us is essential to gain insights into correlations and patterns within the data.

Uploading Data: Bridging the Gap

To address the challenge of uploading data into Chat GPT, several options have emerged. One approach involves integration with popular spreadsheet tools like Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. Users can interact with the data by writing formulas and commands directly within the spreadsheet software. 

Another option is to paste data directly into Chat GPT, as long as it fits within the context window. This approach allows for a quick overview of the data and initial exploration of its contents. The ability to have a conversation with chat GPT is a significant breakthrough in data analytics. Adam highlights the emergence of third-party plugins that enable users to interact with the tool directly. These plugins, such as "chat with your data" and "chat with G sheet," bring us closer to the goal of conversational data analysis within the chat GPT environment.

Additionally, separate startups have leveraged APIs to connect with open AI models like GPT 3.5 and GPT 4. These startups, such as seek.ai and data DM, provide an alternative approach to interact with the data, although they operate outside the chat GPT window.

Code Interpreter: The 800-Pound Gorilla

Among the various solutions, Chat GPT code interpreter stands out as a powerful tool for data analysis. As an official open AI product, it offers a native and robust interface within Chat GPT. By activating code interpreter, users gain access to a chatbot-like interface where they can upload data, ask questions, and receive answers in real-time.

The code interpreter translates user queries into Python code, allowing for complex data manipulations and analyses. For example, if a user wants to analyze the correlation between variables or observe trends over time, code interpreter can aggregate and analyze the data accordingly. While the current interface may require users to refer back to the original spreadsheet for column names and other details, it provides a promising solution for non-technical analysts to engage with data.

Unleashing the Potential: A Case Study

To illustrate the capabilities of code interpreter, Adam conducted an analysis using three datasets: daily credit card spending on fast food brands, weekly food spending in various categories, and macroeconomic data from the Federal Reserve. The goal was to explore correlations between fast food spending, overall food spending, and economic conditions.

By uploading these datasets into code interpreter, Adam engaged in a conversation with the tool, asking questions and receiving insights on trends overtime. The analysis aimed to uncover potential drivers of spending on fast food brands and identify correlations with broader food spending and economic indicators. Adam explains the various types of analysis and data the tool can deliver and how it can be delivered.

Accessing a Python Interpreter

For those unfamiliar with Python programming, Braff provided guidance on how to access a Python interpreter. He suggested using platforms like Replit, which allow users to create a free environment for running Python code. Additionally, he mentioned that AI language models like ChatGPT can generate Python code for specific tasks, making it easier for non-technical users to experiment with programming. He emphasizes the importance of hands-on experimentation and encourages individuals to explore these tools to enhance their data analysis skills.

Navigating the Landscape of AI Tools

Adam talks about the landscape of AI tools and their potential applications in organizations. He talks about how he experimented with scraping. He stresses the need for a problem-solving framework and highlights the importance of breaking down complex problems into manageable steps. By understanding which parts of the problem-solving process AI tools excel at, users can leverage these tools effectively. Braff also emphasized the importance of experimenting with different modalities of interaction, such as step-by-step queries or end-to-end analysis, to find the most suitable approach for each problem.

Implications and Future Impact

The ability to analyze data using chat GPT and similar tools has significant implications for various industries. Adam talks about the problem of hallucination, where the tool is limited, and how far it is to becoming a plug and play data scientist. However, he explains how non-technical analysts can engage with data in a conversational manner, gaining insights and experimenting with how they ask questions and exploring correlations without the need for advanced technical skills. This democratization of data analysis opens up new possibilities for decision-making and problem-solving. Investors, corporate executives, and researchers can leverage chat GPT to uncover hidden patterns and trends within their datasets. By understanding the correlations between different variables, they can make more informed decisions and develop strategies based on data-driven insights.

The Role of AI Tools in Enterprise Data Analytics

When discussing the use of AI tools at the enterprise level, Adam acknowledges the need for caution and data security. He advises against randomly uploading corporate data into AI tools and highlights the risks associated with data leakage and potential misuse. To address these concerns, he mentions solutions like Microsoft Azure's OpenAI service, which allows organizations to run AI models locally and keep their proprietary data secure. He also mentions Chat GPT's incognito mode, and the upcoming release of ChatGPT for enterprise tool, which will probably have additional safety guarantees. He talks about what the tool is being used for today such as crunching numbers and making predictions, in addition to coding and analytics and generative AI.

Implications and Forecasting

As the conversation draws to a close, Adam talks about using the tool for forecasting but that it will become better when the technology merges with browsers. He emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and experimentation, as well as the potential for individuals to enhance their skills in domain knowledge, statistics, and technical/data knowledge. He highlights the role of AI tools as a means of human augmentation, assisting users in their data analysis tasks, and talks about his writing and teaching work, and writes about how generative AI is used in teaching and learning. 

Looking ahead, Adam predicts that AI tools will continue to evolve and improve, becoming more user-friendly and capable of handling complex analytics tasks. He emphasizes the need for organizations to embrace these tools while ensuring data security and compliance. By leveraging AI tools effectively, organizations can unlock the full potential of their data and drive better decision-making.

In conclusion, AI-powered tools like Code Interpreter and ChatGPT are revolutionizing the field of data analytics. While they have their limitations, they offer immense potential for organizations and individuals to gain insights from their data. By understanding the capabilities and limitations of these tools, experimenting with different modalities of interaction, and prioritizing data security, organizations can harness the power of AI to drive better analyses, generate value, and make informed decisions in an increasingly data-driven world.

Timestamps:

01:37 Options for uploading data into chat GPT

08:40 The interface of chat GPT code interpreter

12:25 The potential for non-technical analysts to use these tools

13:37 Example of using code interpreter to analyze credit card spending data

15:46 Using code interpreter

21:07 Experimenting with code interpreter and learning Python programming

23:34 Code interpreter can graph data, but limitations exist

25:16 Recommendations for using code interpreter effectively

34:33 Enterprise solutions for using code interpreter with proprietary data

35:45 Current use cases of code interpreter in companies

36:51  Using the GPT-3 tool for forecasting

Links:

Website: https://braff.co/genai-1

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes:

Keith Durst runs Friends of Chef (FOC), a consulting firm that works at the intersection of hospitality and real estate. Keith has worked on major projects in 15 different states, and he lists several projects they have worked on in New York City, such as Rockefeller Center, Lincoln Center, the Whitney Museum, and Blackstone's corporate headquarters as just a few of his projects. 

Reimagining the Rockefeller Center

Keith uses Rockefeller Center as a case study to explain the different stages and services his firm provides to their projects. The initial phase of the project involves understanding the needs and goals of the developer or owner.  He talks about researching the market, designing the concept, and bringing it to life with construction. Finally, they help with the launch of the project and ensure its success.

The goal of the project at Rockefeller Center was to create a place where New Yorkers would want to spend their time, rather than focus on it as a tourist destination. To achieve this, the development team looked at what was missing and why and how they redeveloped the area to be more open and accessible to New Yorkers. He talks about the changes that were made and how these changes have made the area an attractive destination for locals to visit.

Keith explains the specifics of how to do a needs assessment for the Rockefeller Center, including assessing the local community. They wanted to create an authentic New York experience on the campus, so they didn't rely on the competitive set. The goal was to create different levels of food and beverage, including bakeries, breweries, cafes, and sit down seating that would give people working at Rockefeller Center the ability to stay in the area to socialize and make reservations at popular places, but also that it would attract a wide demographic. In the end, Keith hopes that the changes will give people the time and energy back to spend more than one day in the area.

The Friends of Chef Mission and Vision

The goal of the FOC team is to create an environment that is welcoming to all kinds of people from different parts of the city. The team also plans out different day periods to maximize the restaurants' potential and manage flow periods. Keith explains why the balance between destination restaurants and quick lunch spots is important. He emphasized that it's important to bring in businesses that understand throughput and have efficient POS and under periods. Once customer needs and establishment needs have been assessed, the next step is working with the team and their engineers and leasing people to ideate and figure out how to make their plans a reality.

Viable Financial Planning for Restaurants

Keith talks about the process of developing a space for a restaurant. The first step is to conduct an assessment and determine which types of restaurants would be a good fit for the space. The next phase is financial underwriting, which involves understanding the costs from both the developers and operators point of view of pre-opening and building the space, as well as developing a critical path to open the restaurant. 

Keith talks about the importance of having a partner mentality when working with landlords in the restaurant industry. Keith explains that a good deal cannot be done with bad people, and vice versa, and that the landlord and operator need to have a solid relationship. He adds that the two parties need to come up with a plan that works for both, and that the developer needs to have a vision that will make the property worth more. Keith then explains that when developing a financial plan, the team identifies the type of restaurant that will work in the specific location to achieve buy-in from all parties involved. Finally, he mentions the need for sign off from the executive committee of the company.

Key Factors when Designing a Restaurant

Keith explains that when designing a restaurant, there are a few key considerations: the developer and superintendents should have a thorough knowledge of the building, engineers who can ensure all electrical and plumbing needs are professionally installed; a kitchen designer to monitor the essential health and safety needs of a kitchen are met, a health and safety official, a designer to work with Keith's team and the operator, and finally, the developer to sign off on designs. This is all before the final fixtures, furnishings. He explains why the menu should be an early part of the kitchen design to meet specific culinary requirements and that, as such, the chef often plays a key role in the kitchen design.

The Development of FOC 

Keith shares how his firm started.  Keith gained experience opening and running high end restaurants in New York City. He was approached by a hotelier who needed help getting their food and beverage program set up. Initially, he worked on it alone, but soon realized he needed a team to be able to execute and grow the business. He now has a partner who has extensive experience in the hospitality industry at a high level. 

Keith assembled a team of 15 highly skilled and experienced people in the hospitality industry. Through his team, Keith  has been able to work on projects of varying levels of complexity, ranging from setting up food and beverage for stadiums to small restaurants. He has also partnered with established restaurant groups to learn more about the current market and labor practices. Keith also mentions a close friend, chef and restaurant owner who he often consults with for practical and helpful advice and knowledge on the running of a kitchen. 

Keith explains a key factor to the success of his business is building relationships with the people in the hospitality, real estate, and other communities to find the projects they think will be the most motivational for his team. They seek out projects that everyone is excited about and are proud to work on. Keith believes that their team has figured out the best way to build relationships and communities in order to come up with great projects. They have been able to join boards and reinvest in the people they care about as a result of their success.

Timestamps:

05:51 Needs Assessment for Rockefeller Center Food and Beverage Options 

10:04 Balancing Different Restaurant Use Cases in Rock Center 

12:59 Developing a Restaurant Space 

14:13 The Importance of Partnership Between Landlord and Operator 

19:43 Skill Sets Required for Restaurant Design and Build 

22:40 Conversation on Restaurant Design and Menu Planning 

25:07 Founding His Firm and Building Teams for High-End Restaurants 

Links:

Website: www.friendofchef.com

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes:

Oscar Trimboli is the author of How to Listen and the host of the podcast Deep Listening. He talks about the importance of listening in the context of an initial discussion with a client, and highlights the importance of being present and mindful in the conversation, and to focus on understanding the other person's perspective. Oscar stresses the need to be aware of underlying emotions, and to be patient and respectful during the conversation. He concludes that having an open dialogue and listening to the other person's point of view is paramount to building a strong relationship and achieving successful outcomes.

How to Improve Client Projects

Oscar talks about the importance of listening during the context call with a client on their project. He emphasizes that listening should not be limited to face-to-face conversation but should include pre- and post- conversation activities as well. As an example, he mentioned his own pre-interview question to the client about the audience in attendance. Oscar suggests three questions to ask prior to entering the room. By posing these questions, you can gain a better understanding of the client's needs and desires and be better equipped to lead the conversation. Oscar explains how to best approach a context conversation for a potential project by asking these three questions, which should include the characteristics of a great listener: curiosity, flexibility and openness. 

In email introductions, Oscar explains how to add three bullet points to an email introducing the project, which should include mentioning three common issues the project may have, and how to refer to these issues to position yourself as knowledgeable while also gaining information. These questions can also position you as a problem solver and not just as a gaining a client for your business. 

The Importance of Listening to what Is not Said

In order to be a great listener, one must understand the science and art of conversation. Oscar talks about the importance of listening and the gap between thinking speed and speaking speed. Oscar suggests that we should be conscious of what is not being said in a conversation and offers some ways to self-assess. An effective listener should focus on both what is being said and what is not being said. A speaker typically speaks at 125-150 words per minute, but can think in a range of 900-1600 words per minute whereas you can listen up to 400 words per minute. Paying attention to what the speaker hasn't said can help create a more meaningful conversation and create a more positive experience for the client. As a result, referrals should increase as clients feel heard and valued.

What to Avoid When Mirroring Clients

Oscar talks about the best way to ask questions when trying to understand a project from a client's perspective and the importance of mirroring the client's specific language and vocabulary during a meeting. He suggests that the consultant should be careful and cautious when using language related to the future, as the client may not be able to believe in such a distant vision. He also suggests calibrating the language to the client's time horizon and paying attention to the type of language the client is using. For example, are they speaking in stories or statistics? Are they big picture or linear? The consultant should be matching the client's level of abstraction in order to have a successful conversation.

Oscar highlights the importance of using mental models to recognize code words, and listening to different perspectives. He expands on the advisor's role, giving an example with a client he worked with in the pharmaceutical industry to demonstrate gaps in listening and understanding, which degraded performance. 

How to Improve Listening and Comprehension in a Meeting

To improve listening, Oscar introduces the 70/70s squared approach, where roughly 70% of the way through a meeting, a person can ask a question to understand what has been heard. He offered a few variations of this question, like asking to summarize the last 30 minutes or asking what questions the CEO would ask if they were in the room. Ultimately, these questions help people to step back and rethink their approach, considering the perspectives of people in authority or in other areas of the business. 

Following Up after the Meeting

Oscar stresses the importance of being mindful of how one takes notes during a meeting and the purpose behind it. He suggests that it may be beneficial to record the conversation and to state your actions clearly. After the meeting, it is important to generate artifacts such as what happened in the conversation and supplemental materials. Within 24 hours, it is beneficial to ask the client if anything has popped up since the conversation or if anything was not covered during the meeting. 

To follow up after a meeting,  Will suggests sending a recap email as a way to show that the listener was paying attention and to provide a summary of the discussion. Oscar adds that, if the listener has paid attention to the other person's communication preferences, they could send a video or voice memo as an additional way to demonstrate understanding and increase the shareability of the summarised information and progress the complex ideas faster in the organisation. He talks about the benefits of thinking about how you communicate and not just what you communicate and talks about methods used in his own consulting practice. Finally, Oscar offers three valuable tips to improve listening and communication skills. 

Timestamps:

03:51 Exploring the Benefits of Pre-Meeting Questions for Effective Listening
09:01 Frictionless Scheduling: Making it Easier for Clients to Say Yes
09:52 Adopting a New Email Response Protocol

10:54 Understanding the Neuroscience of Conversation
14:41 Listening to What Is Not Said
20:23 Mirroring Client Language
25:09 Listening and Mental Models
25:36 Exploring Unheard Perspectives

36:40 After the Meeting Actions and Artifacts

Links:

Online Quiz: ListeningQuiz.com

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes:

Will Bachman and John Horn talk about competitors and how they should be taken into account when formulating a strategy. John points out that lowering the price is an easy response to a new product or market entry, which can prevent success. He suggests that understanding the competitor's mindset is a key element to predicting their next move and positioning oneself for success. He also emphasizes the importance of being aware of the competitors' strategies, as it can influence the success of any new idea or product.

A Framework to Understand the Competitor's Mindset

John states that companies should pay attention to both their customers and their competitors depending on the type of market they are in. For established markets, such as toilet paper, companies should focus on competitors and their pricing, product innovation, and market entry challenges. For newer markets, like AI, companies should focus on customers since customers may not know what they want and the market is open and wide. John believes that it is important to have different departments that focus on each aspect since customer and competitor focuses require different approaches. However, it is essential for companies to be aware of both their customers and their competitors in order to remain competitive in the market. 

John talks about the importance of competition intelligence in developing an organization's strategy. He explains the Blue Ocean analogy-- the idea of swimming in uncharted waters to find success. He emphasizes that one must understand why the competition is not in the blue ocean before considering it as a viable option. He then outlines his four-step framework for gathering competition intelligence: reviewing public communication and actions; assessing competitor assets and resources; considering the human factor; and predicting, observing, and adjusting. This framework can help organizations build a picture of their competitors' mindset and ultimately develop a successful strategy.

How to Gather Competitive Intelligence

John offers advice to a growing company that wants to build a competitive intelligence function. John recommends gathering information from companies that scrape and gather information from publicly available sources such as SEC filings, the company's website, and social media. He notes that the most valuable information comes from within the organization, and suggests running WarGames, which are business simulations that involve setting up players, choices, and a timeframe to unlock competitive insight. John gives a few examples of questions that should be asked. Companies can use a CRM system to gain better insight into their competitors. The idea is to start with one question, such as Who do you talk about? and then gradually add more questions to the CRM form to prime sales agents to ask about competitors. This will help the company track which competitors are discussed in different geographies and customer types, and what pricing, product portfolio, partners, etc. are discussed. This data can then be used to identify which sales agents have reported the most about a particular competitor, and to ask them for more information. This will make it easier for the company to collect information that may already be in the heads of their staff.

Collecting Data to Understand Competitors

John talks about the value of collecting data to understand competitors. He suggests that data should not be collected by marketing or finance unless they are strategically focused and deliberate, as it may not receive enough focus. He adds that asking questions up and down the supply chain can be a great way to collect information, but there can be challenges in how it is implemented. John explains that competitive insight functions are cost centers, meaning that they don't directly drive revenue, so it can be difficult to get buy-in from the senior level team.  He explains the best way to ensure competitive intelligence is properly implemented.  When using competitive insight to make strategic decisions within an organization, it is important to start small and focus on one or two competitors at a time. It is also important to identify which teams within the organization need what type of information. John also stresses the value in using anecdotes and using story over data to gain support from senior leaders. 

Investing Competitive Intelligence

John highlights the value of focusing on the competitor's USP to gain valuable insight. 

He explains how to convince senior leaders of the need for a competitive insight function. He suggests using stories to demonstrate the value of CI and its ability to help prevent costly mistakes. He also suggests that if senior leaders are convinced of the importance of CI and can see its value, they will continue to invest in it. He gives an example of a company where the CI function had such strong support from senior leadership that anyone making a strategic presentation to the CEO had to first consult with the CI group or leave the room. His conclusion is that, if senior leaders can be convinced of the value of CI, they will continue to invest in it.

Finally, he provided links to his own firm, Gateway Insights, and the Washington University Olin Business School website for anyone who wanted to contact him and learn more about competitive intelligence.

Timestamps:

03:10 Balancing Attention Between Customers and Competitors 

08:15 Understanding the Competition for Strategic Planning 

09:05 Investigating the decision makers

13:25 Building a Competitive Intelligence Function for Growing Companies 

15:30 Competitive intelligence type of dashboard function

21:50 Collecting Data and Voice of the Customer Insights 

26:57 Exploring the Role of Competitive Intelligence in Decision Making 

27:46 Competitive insight functions as cost centers

29:18 Defining which team needs what information

31:14 Using anecdotes to inspire action from leaders

Links:

Website: www.gatewayinsights.com

CONTACT INFO:

Email: johnhorn@wustl.edu

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes:

David A. Fields talks about the purpose of outreach emails and how to ensure they are effective. The purpose of outreach is not to sell, but rather to create conversations. He talks about both  'cold' outreach, which is to contacts who you don't know and 'cool' outreach, which is sending emails to people who the sender knows, but who have not been in contact in a few years. He also covers developing a tracking system, and follow-up calls.Regardless of the type of outreach, the goal is not to sell, but rather to create conversations that may lead to relationships and opportunities.

David talks about the importance of creating meaningful conversations instead of transactional ones when reaching out to potential clients. He states that jumping right into "Do you need my help on anything?" or selling, can ruin a relationship. He suggests using the 111 Email approach which has been found to be extraordinarily effective. Instead of focusing on oneself, the email should be about the recipient and what they are interested in. This approach can get a response rate of 40-50%, which is a very high rate for cool outreach. David explains that the email should include only one line and one focus question. He  gives an example of a 111 Email and emphasizes that the focus should always be on the other person and not on trying to sell something.

David emphasizes that even if the person is not a client, it is still beneficial to talk with them as it increases the chances of business finding their firm, and that the more conversations one is a part of, the more likely it is that business will find their firm.

Emails Questions that Engage Clients 

David shares an effective approach to continuing the conversation. One tip is to give a link to schedule a time for a call, and decide that it would be better to simply ask the other person if they would like to catch up.

When asking someone for a quick catch up, conversation, or call, he suggests to not be too business-like and to keep it simple by starting with Are you up for a quick catch up? 

Follow up questions should include: "I'm gonna have my assistant scheduled something," "What about these times?" "How's next week?" etc.,  to make it easier for the other person to respond. He also suggests not asking too many questions on the email, but to keep it simple with the goal of getting the other person on the phone or into a Zoom call.  David discusses the importance of using live conversations, as opposed to email or other messaging apps, in order to create better relationships with clients. He provides examples of how to transition from email conversations to live ones, such as asking if the client is open for a quick conversation and catch up. David also advises against using humor in emails, as it can often be misinterpreted and can put one at risk. The goal of the email is to get the client on a call.

 

How to Contact People for Networking Purposes

David talks about the best ways to contact people for networking purposes, including categories of emails people should use, such as job related, comments on LinkedIn, and questions that ask if an email address is still valid. He also talks about the frequency of emails and suggests sending them once every two to three months, and tracking the responses in a CRM system. He also offers tips on how to approach a person on LinkedIn who seems to be an interesting contact, but with whom you have  no prior connection and suggests a few ways to reach out in a cold contact situation such as explaining  why you are reaching out and how the contact could be beneficial to the client. Additionally, David recommends researching the person to get an understanding of their background and interests, and how the contact could be mutually beneficial. He suggests making the message personal and concise, and also including a call to action. To connect with potential clients, David suggests using personalized connections as a way to make a connection, such as referencing an affiliation they might have. He gives examples of successful email outreach and follow up messaging and timeline.

Cold Leads in the Consulting Industry

David talks about sales tactics for cold leads in the consulting industry. David recommends the Ben Franklin approach, which is asking for help with a project such as being interviewed for a podcast instead of trying to sell directly. He also suggests an aggressive reframe, where the consultant takes an opposing stance from the norm and then offers a solution. He offers examples to demonstrate how this works. He talks about how emails  help improve lead generation.  When asked if a direct approach like saying "here's what we do" is helpful, David responds that he has not seen it work and  identifies the type of  email content and approaches that are ineffective and questions that fail to engage. He also talks about the importance of crafting a personalized subject line. David explains that his team focuses on having a clear, one-topic message and keeping it personal. He also mentions that the subject line should be short and make it clear that the message is personal.  With short, question emails,  it may not be effective due to the high volume of spam emails using this format. David closes by sharing the one line follow up message and explaining why the "turn" works.

Timestamps

04:24 How to Reach Out Without Being Transactional

06:51 Making Sense of 111 Emails

12:40 Building Relationships and Generating Business 

15:00 Exploring Conversation Strategies for Professional Networking 

16:56 Consistency and Influence in Networking 

21:45 Maintaining Relationships Through Email and Other Messaging Apps

30:04 Network Core Frequency and the 2099 List 

32:00 Creating a Personalized Connection Point for Cold Outreach

43:17 Effective Outreach Strategies 

51:25 How to Use the "Turn" Technique for Professional Networking 

Links: 

Website: https://www.davidafields.com/

CONTACT INFO:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidafields/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/_davidafields?lang=en

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes:

Will Bachman and Ashlee Horn spoke about her practice, which focuses on coaching new sales leaders. Ashlee outlines the problem she is trying to solve that 50% of new sales leaders fail within the first year. She speaks about the lifecycle of a sales manager and why sales leaders are so important to an organization. She explains that she focuses on those who are new to frontline sales management or director roles. She works with star performers who have made the leap into leadership, and star managers who  are now trying to manage teams of teams. Ashlee provides coaching for these roles to help them drive sustained behavior change.

Training Sales Leaders

Ashlee outlines her approach to promoting new sales leaders. She has identified six key areas of focus: building relationships, holding people accountable, multiplying themselves, creating a culture of execution, developing their team, and driving strategic planning. She stresses the importance of building relationships based on trust and value, as well as the need to be able to articulate what makes them successful. Additionally, she emphasizes the need for leaders to be able to hold people accountable and have candid conversations. Lastly, she highlights the importance of creating a culture of execution, developing their team, and driving strategic planning. All of these areas are essential for successful leadership. Ashlee  recommends that salespeople prioritize the highest revenue generating activities, focus on effective communication, simplify complex topics, and use data-driven decision making. She has experience working with technology sales and service sales, specifically SAS sales. 

Time Management for Sales Managers

For frontline salespeople, she recommends they focus on facetime with clients, build pipeline, and take care of customer service activities. For frontline sales managers, she suggests they prioritize their time and get six to ten people motivated to make changes to their daily habits that will lead to success. A good time allocation for a frontline sales manager with eight reps at a tech company may include focusing on individual team member goals, mentoring and coaching, analyzing data to make decisions, creating and executing sales plans, and managing customer relationships.

Ashlee talks about the importance of reverse engineering a sales manager's priorities. According to Ashlee, the majority of the manager's time should be spent on coaching activities that improve customer retention, as this will be the highest revenue generating activity. This includes one-on-one meetings with the team members, team meetings, and individualized programs. Additionally, Ashlee suggested that the manager should spend 70% of their time with the team, observing calls, preparing for calls, and reviewing deals. The remaining 20% should be spent on broader team activities such as setting the vision, having internal meetings, and working with their VP or director to understand their marching orders as a sales leader, and 10% should be spent on understanding clients.

Motivation Coaching for Sales Leaders 

She talks about assessing the motivators of their team members in order to come up with the best solutions for them, including looking at examples of mindsets other than the mindset of the sales rep who was promoted. She suggests looking at the broad category of growth and fixed mindset. This involves understanding how people respond to challenges, failure, and success, as well as their attitude towards change and effort. This can help sales managers come up with a roadmap for understanding different categories of motivation and how to best approach each person.

Ashlee identifies different mindsets that salespeople may have and how to address them to develop an effective coaching strategy.  The first mindset is the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset, where the growth mindset individual believes they are in control of their own success and the fixed mindset individual believes external factors determine their success. The second mindset is the individual who is not money motivated and does not want to be competitive. To address this mindset, Ashlee recommends focusing on uncovering what motivates the individual. Ultimately, it is important to understand the mindset of the individual in order to help them be successful in sales, and how to overcome the reluctance to sell to people who don't want to take the call or listen to the pitch.

Accountability in Sales Management

Ashlee talks about  the concept of accountability in sales management. Ashlee points out that in order to hold team members accountable, managers should be explicit about expectations upfront and use data to ground conversations in facts and ensure objectivity, and that conversations should take place early and often. Moving on to teaching managers to scale their impact,  Ashlee suggests that it begins with simplifying the complex and getting into habits that allow them to effectively and efficiently manage their teams. 

Ashlee explains how sales managers can multiply their impact. Ashlee recommends that they take the tacit knowledge they have and document it into a simple, repeatable process, known as unconscious competence, that can be shared with the team. She also suggests managers prioritize their time and their messaging with the team to align with moving a key performance indicator (KPI). Additionally, Ashlee suggested that instead of spending a lot of time one-on-one, managers should  offer batch coaching sessions with two or three reps who are newer or working on the same skill. She also explains what they should prioritize to be most effective, and  how she helps sales managers with communication techniques. 

Data-driven Decision Making

On data-driven decision making, Ashlee  explains that it is important for leaders to be able to react to data and anticipate decisions for the business instead of responding emotionally. Ashlee then gives an example of a leader who noticed their team was not making many calls and assumed that improving that would help, when in fact the data showed that their conversion rate on cold calls was already high. She explains which metrics they should focus on and which ones should be avoided. Ashlee advises that the front end of the funnel is the easiest to track and that looking at the data can help leaders to identify more effective solutions. 

How Sales Managers Navigate Their Roles

Ashlee talks about how new sales managers can navigate their roles. She stresses the importance of focusing on the quality of conversations, rather than just quantity. As a sales manager, it's important to judge conversations based on the organization's expectations, and setting clear objectives for the call, and if the client is clear on why they should take another meeting. For sales directors, the challenge is coaching through a layer and helping managers foster their individual style. Ashlee also offers advice for independent consultants on cold outreach, suggesting that they should research the customer and approach the call with a point of view. People enjoy being told about what they're excited about, and if the consultant is wrong, the customer will be happy to correct them.

Ashlee shares how to create a compelling message when trying to build a relationship with a Chief Strategy Officer. She suggests that the message be more detailed and have a point of view, rather than a generic one, as that could be seen as uninteresting and not differentiate the sender from others. Ashlee believes that having a point of view is bolder than a generic approach and that it is better to be wrong and have a point of view than not have one. 

Timestamps:

03:51 Structured Program for Onboarding New Sales Leaders 

06:58 Sales Leadership Prioritization and Time Allocation 

09:06 Reverse Engineering Priorities for Sales Managers 

11:54 Effective Sales Management Strategies 

13:53 Strategies to Motivate Sales Teams

15:05 Different Mindsets in Sales Teams 

21:13 Accountability and Scaling Impact for Sales Managers 

26:24 Multiplying Impact and Prioritizing in Sales Management 

28:24 Effective Communication in Sales Management 

32:14 Engaging Participants and Performance-Based Conversations 

Links:

Website: HornSalesCoaching.com

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Josh Leibowitz spent 13 years at McKinsey and was elected partner in New York. He then moved to Miami and grew the office there before joining Carnival, the largest leisure company in the world. He talks about the  ideas behind Parenting MBA, a book that aims to help parents give their children the skills they need to be successful in life. Josh joined the cruise line Cunard as Chief Strategy Officer, and eventually became president of the luxury brand Seaborne. Post COVID, he was tasked with supporting the relaunch of the line, and made it his goal to ensure every employee was back to work. This spring, Josh left the company after bringing back 4,000 employees and launching a new expedition division. Josh explores misconceptions people have about the cruise industry, explaining that most people don't appreciate how special of a way it is to see the world, as it's 70% water. He added that Seaborne specialized in three different kinds of places: big cities, secondary cities, and remote expedition destinations like Antarctica and Greenland. During lockdown, as a father of three children, Josh had more time to reflect on how much time work took from family life. He reflected on how  his experiences from work could be used in parenting and decided to write the book, Parenting MBA, which applies the principles of success in business to raising and preparing children for life as an adult. He stresses the fact that he is not a parenting expert and that the book merely puts forward points that he has found to be successful in his life. 

 

An Inside Look at the Book, Parenting MBA 

The book is divided into three sections: getting the vision right, managing the day-to-day, and long-term performance. The first lesson of the book is to act as a mentor to your children and show them unwavering support. Josh believes this can help you raise incredible human beings. 

He provides a case study example from Harvard, in which a student suggested that rather than firing an employee who was underperforming, they should mentor them instead. Josh reflects on their own experience with mentors who overlooked mistakes he made, and how mentorship helps people develop and achieve goals.

 

Josh talks about what it takes to be a mentor. Josh explains that the first characteristic of being a mentor is having an unmatched belief in the mentee and what they can do. Even as an adult, it can be difficult to believe in oneself and thus having a mentor who has an unmatched belief in the mentee is special. The second characteristic is having close and meaningful interactions. Mentors often know more about the mentee than the mentee knows about themselves. Trust and honesty is a key component of the relationship, and the mentor should also be demanding, providing encouragement while also pointing out errors. 

 

Management and Branding Techniques Applied to Parenting

 

Josh talks about the concept of applying management techniques to parenting, including: setting a vision, creating patterns, building trust and honesty, and helping children overcome barriers. One of the points, defining a brand, is the idea of linking marketing and branding to a child's self worth and understanding of what they are all about. 

He focuses on the concept of helping people, and especially children, understand themselves and their brand better. The idea of a brand having two sides is presented: the intrinsic side, which is the brand values, and the extrinsic side, such as what the brand delivers or what skills the child has. He proposes three intrinsic values for consideration, starting with being a good person, then striving to reach one's full potential, and finally, finding one's voice. The idea is to encourage children to find their own brand values and to use them to become successful people. He suggests talking with children about their favorite brands and asking them what they think they stand for. He also discussed the balanced scorecard to manage the day-to-day challenges, which is used to evaluate the performance of a company, and suggested applying this to parenting by looking at the child's core skills, activities, relationships and good person attributes. 

Being a Vacation SuperHero and a Lifelong Learner

Josh is curious about the concept of taking vacations seriously and conducted a global study with over 100,000 respondents and focus groups. He believes that being a vacation superhero is important and gave a TED talk on the topic. He shares a story where he was at a resort in Miami with his wife and family, in the pool with the kids but still distracted by work. The idea behind being a vacation superhero is to treat vacation time as seriously as one would treat work time, in order to gain the most out of the experience. Josh talks about the concept of the indispensable complex and how it can be used to better balance work and play in our lives, and the idea of focusing on taking time off and treating it as seriously as one would treat work because this is often when the best ideas break through.

Josh and Will discuss inspiring lifelong learning, suggesting that continuous learning is key to staying relevant. He encourages stimulating curiosity, engaging in self awareness, and being flexible and adaptable. Finally, he emphasizes the importance of lifelong learning with passion projects such as a TED talk and his book. He also reads a lot of both fiction and non-fiction to get ideas. He has recently been focusing on the intersection of human and artificial intelligence. Finally, he suggests taking long-term time off to increase learning capacity.

Timestamps

04:13 Josh Leibowitz on His New Book, Parenting MBA 

11:05 Mentorship and Mentor Characteristics 

12:59 Parenting Strategies for Raising Successful Children 

16:46 Branding, Balanced Scorecards, and Parenting 

21:33 Raising Balanced and Compassionate Children 

24:38 The Benefits of Being a Vacation Superhero

33:46 Lifelong Learning and Choosing Books to Read

Links:

Website: https://www.parentingmba.com/

CONTACT INFO:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leibowitzjosh/

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes:

Mahan Tavakoli is a consultant, leadership coach, and host of the podcast Partnering Leadership. He talks about his podcast, the incredible guests he has had on his show, and his time at the Dale Carnegie Leadership Institute. Mahan has been an avid podcast listener for over a decade, and he decided to launch his own podcast in 2020. His podcast focuses on the journey of CEOs and leaders in the Greater Washington DC region. He has interviewed some impressive names and his show is now in the top 1% of podcasts in the leadership category. He credits the pandemic for allowing him to make his podcast more antifragile, as he is now able to reach a much wider audience.

Promoting a Podcast and Crafting a Compelling Story

As the host of the podcast Partnering Leadership, he  has conversations with CEOs from the Greater Washington, DC DMV region on Tuesdays, and leadership book authors on Thursdays. He has interviewed authors such as Seth Godin, Ken Blanchard, John Kotter, Stephen Covey, and Ciaran. He offers tips on reaching out to authors, including using the momentum of the podcast being in the top 1% of podcasts, and often the agents for the authors who want to promote their book reach out to help promote the book. CEOs he interviews are often people he knows well enough to invite on to the show. He shares what he has learned from the CEOs he has  interviewed and notes that they have a tremendous sense of humility and confidence, as well as a growth mindset, and are constantly looking to learn.

Mahan talks about the importance of storytelling for CEOs. He believes the key to a great story is to focus on one moment in time and draw inspiration from Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. He suggests that the leader be the guide of the story, not the hero. He also sends stories of successful storytelling to CEOs, so they can learn to do the same. This will help them communicate their story both internally and externally, which can strengthen the organization. 

Podcast Promotion, Content Development, and Distribution 

Mahan and Will discuss strategies for promoting a podcast. Mahan offers valuable tips, including creating micro content, posting on other places, and getting guests to send out notes. He also suggested posting on LinkedIn as a way to raise awareness. He suggests creating multiple pieces of content from each episode to promote over a six month period. His team focuses primarily on promoting on LinkedIn, but also shares content on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Mahan discusses how he has focused his content development on LinkedIn to get the most traction. He also explains how videos from his interviews go up on YouTube, even though less than 1% of his audience actually watch them. He shares a story of when he got a great client, where he believes they discovered him from his website, podcast, and personal relationships and networking. Overall, he has seen great benefits from his podcast, including building relationships and learning new things, as well as landing new clients. He explains how his team repurposes content to post on social media over a six month period, and how this is important to reach people who like to consume media in a variety of different ways. 

From Salesperson to Chief Strategy Officer at Dale Carnegie

Mahan shares his experience of working for Dale Carnegie, emphasizing the importance of sincerity and genuineness when building relationships with others. Mahan has found that his podcast has helped build his reputation and credibility throughout the business community and has received many referrals who know him as an authority in business leadership. He is currently working with CEOs and senior leadership teams. His practice also involves individual coaching sessions and consulting services.  Mahan started as a salesperson  but eventually moved up to helping start franchises internationally as his board of directors sought to expand their operations. Despite the busy travel schedule, Mahan was able to successfully contribute to the CEO's strategic vision and was eventually promoted to Chief Strategy Officer. Through this position, he has been able to lead the organization in constant reinvention and adaptation. 

Success As a Business Executive

As a business executive Mahan was constantly on the road, but he realized that his values of family could not be seen in his lifestyle. As a result, he decided to stay in DC, and he started a youth-serving organization to help underserved youth gain access to college and internships. Mahan believes that it is important for the right people to take the right kids to work, so that they can see the opportunities available to them. He has dedicated his life to providing these opportunities to young people and inspiring them to look at the world differently.

He has also been active in the regional community, serving on the board of directors of the Greater Washington Board of Trade and the executive committee of Leadership Greater Washington. His regional focus allows him to take advantage of the relationships he has built in the area, while also allowing him to spend more time with his family. Mahan stresses the  importance of developing relationships and differentiating oneself in the business world. He highlights the importance of building trust, which can be accomplished by showing genuine interest in the other person, and having genuine conversations. He also discusses the importance of brand names and noted that he has been warmly received in various countries because of his affiliation with Carnegie. Finally, he stresses the importance of focusing on differentiating oneself rather than trying to be better than others.

Timestamps

01:24 Mahan Tavakoli's Journey to Becoming a Top 1% Podcast Host

03:16 Insights from CEOs and Leadership Book Authors

10:05 Analysis of CEO Storytelling: Examining What Makes a Great Story Resonate 

16:32 Exploring Strategies for Promoting Content on Social Media 

18:17 Exploring the Benefits of Content Development for LinkedIn and Other Platforms

24:52 Mahan Tavakoli's Journey from Dale Carnegie Training to Chief Strategy Officer

29:06 Regional Focus in Consulting and Coaching 

33:05 Leveraging Regional Relationships and Trust Building with Dale Carnegie

39:07 Building a Leadership Brand

41:26 Appreciating Hard Work and Giving Back 

Links:

Website: https://mahantavakoli.com/

Podcast: https://www.partneringleadership.com/

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

 

Show Notes:

Sid Masson, co-founder and CEO of Wokelo.ai explains that Wokelo is an agentic platform for investment research and commercial due diligence, automating market research and desk research activities performed by consulting firms, investment banks,  private equity analysts and so on. It offers  private market research and allows the user to pass through hundreds and 1000s of data sets in a matter of minutes, but beyond just research, it automates end-to-end deliverables, all the way to a well formatted PowerPoint deck in a format of your choice.

How Wokelo.ai Works

Sid mentions that Wokelo has been in production for two and a half years and commercially launched in November 2023. The platform has 40+ paying customers, including big four consulting firms like KPMG, investment banks, and venture capital firms. Pricing starts at $30,000 annually for five seats and proportionate usage. Sid explains that  larger enterprises use bespoke models which cost more and cases where certain boutique consulting firms who may not have may not need five or 10 seats and are offered customized pricing.

Wokelo also ensures various security levels, including SOC 2 compliant cloud, private cloud instances, and on-prem deployments.

A Demonstration of Wokelo

Sid explains Wokelo's web application, which offers several workflows for different tasks. The platform includes standardized workflows like company research, industry research, and market maps, as well as custom workflows designed by users. He demonstrates the process of creating a live report for a company, including adding company attributes, uploading files, and generating insights. The platform generates a detailed, editable notebook with insights, sources, and charts, which can be exported in various formats. Sid lists the data sources Wokelo uses, including third-party data partnerships, public data scraping, and user-uploaded data. The platform has partnerships with CrunchBase, PitchBook, SNP Cap IQ, and IEP Query for patent data. Wokelo's proprietary private company database includes detailed information beyond firmographics, such as product catalogs and management profiles.

Wokelo's Custom Workflow Feature

Sid explains the custom workflow feature, which allows users to design their own bespoke workflows to mimic their existing methodologies. Custom workflows can include custom analysis, synergy potential mapping, and IC memos, tailored to specific user needs. The platform's user interface is designed to be easy to use, with guardrails and standardized constraints to ensure high-quality outputs. Wokelo's editable notebooks and charts are designed to be user-friendly and customizable, allowing for detailed and professional reports.

The Wokelo Team

Sid shares the background of the Wokelo team, including his and his co-founder's experience in management consulting and AI. The team has grown from 10 to 25 members in the last 12 months, with a focus on building a solid product and team. Wokelo has raised two rounds of funding: a pre-seed round in 2023 and a seed round in September 2022, totaling $5.5 million. The funding has helped the team build a solid product and team, focusing on quality and value rather than excessive funding. Sid discusses the challenges of selling to large firms and the initial skepticism they face. Wokelo plans to continue iterating and improving the platform, focusing on user experience and domain expertise. The team aims to expand their customer base and offer more customized solutions to meet the evolving needs of their clients.

Timestamps:

00:02: Overview of Wokelo and its purpose 

02:47: Customer base and pricing 

05:51: Demonstration of Wokelo's features 

08:50: Data sources and security 

19:24: Custom workflows and user interface

27:04: Team background and funding 

35:46: Challenges and future plans 

Links: 

https://www.wokelo.ai/

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

 

Show Notes:

John Driscoll is the President of Walgreens Boots Alliance and the co-host of the second largest healthcare podcast on YouTube, CareTalk. In this episode, host Will Bachman welcomed John to the show. John has extensive experience in the healthcare industry, having played a leading role in creating successful companies like MedCo, Surescripts, Oxford Health Plans, and Care Centrix. John discusses topics such as monkeypox, mask mandates, baby formula shortages, Silicon Valley Bank's failure, and healthcare related topics. He also shares his  opinions on a variety of healthcare issues. 

The Future of Pharmacies 

John started his career in health care after being influenced by his mother, a nurse. After college, he developed housing programs for homeless and mentally ill people. He then became a management consultant, before moving to Asheville Health Plan. He has worked in multiple parts of the health industry spectrum, gaining experience in Medicare and Medicaid. 

He has found his career to be full of big and challenging problems, but is motivated to improve the world and create successful businesses. His main initiatives involve investing in Village MD, Summit, and Espadin Shield Specialty Pharmacy to show how an integrated pharmacy and clinical model can improve outcomes at lower cost. Walgreens is also working with health plans and has 9000 stores and 90,000 clinicians to provide access and convenience, trust, and traffic. Their goal is to become essential in healthcare by leveraging their expertise in retail and pharmacy services.

He discusses how pharmacies can become better partners to health plans by taking advantage of their advantages in brand marketing, trust, convenience, and patient specificity.

He shares  a specific example of how a large regional health plan achieved a return rate of three times greater on colorectal screenings than before they partnered with the pharmacy. The pharmacy was also able to increase the rate of colorectal screenings up to 51% in underserved areas due to the support of non-clinical personnel in their stores. Additionally, the pharmacy is partnering with health plans to reduce admissions to nursing homes by 20% through nurse visits, follow-ups, and care navigation. The system leads to better patient and contact information.  Overall, the pharmacy is providing an invaluable service in helping health plans lower costs while improving outcomes. He explains how his company invests in bespoke automation machines to allow pharmacists to spend more face-to-face time with patients, and how pharmacists could be more involved and take on more responsibility in the treatment of patients and how this would expand access to more care in an overburdened health system.

Pharmaceutical Healthcare,  the Pandemic, and Value-based Care

John reflects on  health regulations and restrictions and also the risk taking and flexibility that came into place under the COVID pandemic. He confirms how important it is to prepare for pandemics in terms of vaccine supplies, communication, and pre-deploying and integrating national and state employees in operations. He also notes the critical role of pharmacies in crisis situations. He tackles the issue of employee burnout and the current pharmacist shortage and the steps Walgreens is taking to solve the problem across states.

On value-based care, he explains how it is the future, especially in the U.S. where healthcare is more expensive than any country in the world, how this is unacceptable, and how this should be approached to address health issues earlier to avoid hospitalization. 

The CareTalk Podcast 

John talks about the inspiration and intention of his podcast, what the content is and what has surprised him throughout the conversations. Guests that have been on his podcast include Andy Slavitt, Zeke Emanuel, Tony Cosgrove, and Amy Abernathy. When asked what he learned from his guests,  John shares that he was surprised to find out that even though healthcare is very complicated and people are in silos, there is still room for novel and provocative opinions that can be explained. He also found out that everybody knows that drug costs are too high, but there are practical ways to bring them down without destroying the biotechnology industry that is creating new drugs to cure aging and extend lifespans.  The podcast explores various issues surrounding health care and how to best address them. Toby Cosgrove from the Cleveland Clinic brought up the importance of creating heart-centered care in a large inner city hospital. It was noted that there are a lot of people working on solutions to healthcare problems, such as telehealth and AI to solve labor shortages. He also touches on the potential for AI and Chat GPT to be used in health care. While it is still early days, he mentions that there have been some companies experimenting with using these tools.

Health Care and AI

John talks about the impact of artificial intelligence on healthcare. He believes that AI has the potential to reduce administrative costs and waste in healthcare by simplifying billing and reconciliation processes. He also believes that AI can help in drug discovery, clinical pathways, and personalized care.  He is looking forward to having guests on CareTalk with whom he can discuss the economy, healthcare costs, and the pandemic's effect on inflation.

He wants to discuss  the current chaotic economic landscape that is impacting healthcare, and the labor industry in particular. He mentions the growth of traveling nurses who are paid by private equity firms and how hospitals have had the worst six months financially in US history.

He sources his information from HealthTech Nerds,  the Washington Post, New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Health Affairs, and Jim and Science,  the MIT Tech Review, Science and Cell, all as good sources of information. He suggests Kaiser Family Foundation and Kaiser Health News as exceptional sources, as well as government sources such as CMS for basic data.

Timestamps

03:20 Walgreens Boots Alliance's Healthcare Initiatives

06:35 Partnering with Health Plans to Improve Outcomes and Lower Costs

09:52 Improving Patient Care Through Pharmacist Interaction

10:48 Automated Fulfillment Centers and Patient Care at Walgreens

28:45 Healthcare Innovations 

31:54 Exploring Solutions to Healthcare Challenges

32:15 The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Healthcare 

36:49 Exploring the Impact of the Changing Labor Industry on Healthcare 

Links:

https://www.caretalkpodcast.com/

https://www.walgreens.com/

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes:

On May 12, 2023, Chad Oakley, CEO of Charles Aris, a top retained search firm in the US for placing former and current management consultants, spoke to members of Umbrex about the current state of the job market for consultants. Chad gave an introduction to Charles Aris and spoke about their strategy practice. He encouraged attendees to ask questions to make the conversation interactive. The conversation focused on the job market for consultants, including the current state of the market, the opportunities available, and the strategies consultants should use to navigate the market. Chad offered his perspective on the job market and provided insights for consultants looking for positions.

Charles Aris, Executive Search Firm

Charles Aris is a classic executive search firm that has been in business for 54 years and has 90 team members located across 15 states. They specialize in bespoke searches and their five main areas of focus are strategy, corporate development, finance and accounting, engineering, operations and supply chain, and sales and marketing. Their client base is split between private equity firms and non-private equity organizations. They also produce monthly newsletters about their searches and offer reports and compensation studies. Charles Aris has the largest strategy recruiting practice in the United States and their practice is headed by a former consultant from Deloitte Consulting and Wharton MBA. They specialize in placing current and former strategy consultants from firms such as Bain, BCG and McKinsey in various positions from pre-MBA level to partner level.

Increased Demand for Management Consultants

Since May 2022, the United States experienced  unprecedented economic growth during the past year and unprecedented numbers of employees leaving current positions which led to a shortage of staff in many firms. As a recruiting firm, Charles Aris was overwhelmed with search requests and had to implement a 40-day delay on all new searches for the first time in its 54-year history. A pullback started in December, and interest rates were raised to tame inflation, even if that meant driving the economy into a recession. We are now in the middle of a transition from a 100% candidate-driven market to a 75% company-driven market. Despite this, mixed messages are coming from the market causing confusion; major corporations such as Amazon are announcing sizable layoffs, while the monthly labor reports are robust and unemployment rates have fallen. Chad explains what is behind the conflicting reports between the numbers.  He goes on to explain how this has impacted the consulting sector, how numbers of hires have fallen dramatically compared to the previous year. He mentions how major consulting firms are rolling out their playbook, how they are managing people out, and promotions are slowing, taking on fewer hires, and he identifies a common lie amongst top-tier consulting firms when it comes to promotion, and what many firms are offering in terms of "transition payments" to accommodate moving people out of the firm.

Areas of Demand for Management Consultants

However, he also talks about what firms are looking for in terms of remote or on-location hires. He talks about the areas of consulting where there is an increase in demand for transformation skill sets. He explains that companies want to reduce their cost structure and are in need of transformation and cost containment experts. Companies have built up investments during the hay days and now need help unwinding them. Companies need assistance in cost containment as they look to their future and realize they likely won't hit their revenue targets. These transformation and cost containment services can help them reduce their cost structure, allowing them to be successful in the coming years. Private equity firms are facing a challenging time right now, as the cost of capital has increased and deal flow has slowed. To make up for this, private equity firms are investing in their existing portfolio companies to make sure they reach their full potential. There is a spike in demand for individuals who specialize in areas such as transformation and cost cutting, finance and accounting, talent professionals, and operations and supply chain. CFOs are the hardest positions for companies to fill due to a demand and supply imbalance. He recommends that independent consultants should specialize in a few areas to ensure they are able to take advantage of the current market demand with Finance as the highest area of demand.

The Demand for Specialists over Generalists

In the current economic downturn, companies are less likely to take risks on hiring generalists and more likely to hire specialists for projects. Companies want to make sure that their money is being spent in a way that will yield a strong return. Therefore, it is important for people to identify their true specialties and market themselves aggressively as a specialist in those areas. This can be difficult, as it is tempting to present oneself as a generalist in order to secure more work. However, companies in an economic downturn are more likely to look for specialists they can trust to get the job done. Chad offers key tips on how to market oneself in the current down market.

Chad shares that demand is steady across all industries, with insurance companies being particularly consistent in their hiring practices; general financial services, life sciences, and healthcare also show steady demand. Consumer-facing and retail jobs, however, have seen less demand. To illustrate the extent of the downturn, he states that in the first four months of this year, they have enacted 30% fewer searches and that one should prepare for the ongoing downturn by cranking up their marketing efforts and skills. 

Finally, he also discusses some of the challenges consultants may face, such as the importance of having a strong online presence and demonstrating value to potential clients.

The International and Future Market for Consulting Services

Charles Aris represents the U.S. but has 50 partners in other countries. He shares feedback from their annual meeting in Columbia this year that a recession in the U.S. affects the rest of the international community and that a recession is inevitable. To ride the wave, Chad recommends taking proactive steps to deal with an economic downturn. He shares how they have seen a reduction in compensation rises without a decrease in current compensation. He shares how major consulting firms such as McKinsey are managing to maintain their current fees with their clients. In terms of the Data Science market, this is a no-lose career choice moving forward, but in the ESG sustainable market, a lot of companies consider this a luxury and it's not at the core of their business, Chad forecasts that companies will downplay the focus in this area.

He confirms that corporations will reach out to independent consulting firms especially when they are experts in the fields of Finance, AI, Data Science, and Big Data, in addition to healthcare companies and hospital systems that may need to hire a boutique firm. 

How Independent Consultants Get Noticed by Recruiting Firms

Chad explains that, despite how extremely talented and experienced his clients may be, they can't always place top talent with a company. The candidate's skills must be specific in alignment with the company's demands. When reaching out to an executive search firm, focus on the information on the resume because the resume will be uploaded to the internal database which will be matched with queries. Also, Identify what you are looking for in the initial email, but Chad also recommends that applicants should continue to network. When asked about working for private equity firm's portfolio companies, Chad explains that it's advisable to approach the professionals in the private equity firm to gain a better understanding on what the firm wants to accomplish and who to contact. He offers advice on email subject headings, the type of quantifiable information that will get you noticed, and when to follow up. He also explains how consultants who have "been on the beach" for an extended "vacation" should approach firms.

Timestamps:

05:42: Current State of the Job Market

19:44: The demand for independent consultants vs. demand for consulting firms

24:02 Consulting Demand in Times of Uncertainty: Transformation and Cost Containment Skill Sets 

32:31 Quantifying Expertise to Secure Consulting Gigs and Hiring Former Consultants for Full-Time Jobs 

34:56 Impact of Recession on Recruiting and Consulting Services 

37:51 Exploring the Impact of the US Economy on Business Development and Marketing Strategies 

35:18 Bracing for a Tough Year: Insights from International Search Firms 

39:36 Recession Strategies and Fee Levels in the Consulting Industry

54:09 Leveraging Independent Consulting Experience for Full-Time Roles 

Links:

Website: https://charlesaris.com/

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

 

Show Notes:

Evan Polin, founder and operator of Polin Performance Group, talks about how his firm helps professionals in the service industry build their businesses and grow their practice. He helps them get in front of their ideal clients, make sure they're not giving away their expertise for free, and qualify opportunities more quickly. He also helps them take a strategic approach to problem solving and use their expertise to close more business with the kind of clients they'd like to work with.

Evan provides professional services firms with sales and business development advice. He starts with a diagnostic, using the Harver behavioral-based assessment tool. This gives him a 35-page report on the client's strengths and weaknesses in sales and  business development. He asks about the client's goals and what kind of practice they want to build, how much revenue they'd like to develop, and what their mix of clients should be. He then puts together a customized business development plan to help the client reach their goals.

Strategy to Leverage Your Contacts

Evan helps individuals and businesses reach their goals by breaking down the process scientifically. He typically starts with helping them understand how to get in front of the right opportunities. He also helps with issues such as people feeling like they are being used for free consulting, and those not getting as many referrals as they think they should be. He helps them leverage the relationships they have already developed, and figure out the most effective way to use them to get introduced to the right people and focus on the right opportunities. 

To get in front of opportunities, he advises clients to first sit down and think about what their ideal client looks like and whom they need to target within an organization, and what the engagement looks like. Furthermore, he suggests leveraging their relationships and current context to start by downloading their LinkedIn connections into a CSV file. This file can then be separated into three categories - A list, B list, and C list. A list contacts are those who are more likely to get back to the consultant within a week. The B list is composed of contacts who may take a bit longer to respond, while the C list includes those who may not respond at all.

Cold Outreach Tips and Using Sales Navigator

Evan talks about reaching out through telephone calls and emails. He explains how to be  successful with cold outreach, and suggests that it is better than making a cold call but cautions not to set expectations too high as the response rate would still be low. Common best practices include sending a message that introduces the person and their role, and mentioning any connections they might have in common. Evan explains how to use Sales Navigator to manage the outreach list of contacts.

Evan suggests sending messages to carefully selected prospects, and paying attention to who is looking at your profile. He also suggested filtering out those with less than 500 connections, as they are likely not active on the platform. Polin highlights the importance of understanding the psychology of sales and marketing, and how it can be used to target the right people. He also mentions that if someone views your profile, but does not respond, it is worth reaching out again in a week or so. 

Evan suggests ending the message with an open question in order to get a response rate. Evan added that he often sends a short version of his elevator speech, which outlines the biggest challenges he helps people with and then inquires which of those things the other person is running into. This is done to see if the contact is responsive and to see if they are a good potential prospect.

Reaching Out to Past Contacts

Evan talks about how he reaches out to people he served in the past in order to get referrals. He suggests to start by reconnecting with them, asking how they have been and what has changed. He also suggests sharing what he is currently working on, and to ask them if they know anyone who could be a good introduction for him. Evan also suggests that if someone has referred him in the past to remind them of how they first started working together. When it comes to following up, Evan suggested to follow up two to four weeks later and to keep a spreadsheet with the date of outreach and the result of the outreach. He has found that, recently, a call is regarded as more personal and people are more likely to respond. He also talks about reaching out through email and effective subject lines.

How to Leverage Relationships for Referrals

Evan explains that most people don't ask for referrals. If it's a current client, he suggests asking how satisfied they are with the service provided. He finds that if he shares information about his business, it allows him to present a broader range of services and plant the seed for future referrals. He also suggests the kinds of clients that would be a good fit. He also puts a timestamp on the conversation to see how interested they are in offering the referral. He also offers tips on how to reach out to contacts on LinkedIn who don't really know you. A 20% response rate is considered a good result and he stresses adding a bit of nuance to the message to show that it is coming from a real person and not a bot, offers a handy tip on using your profile to determine interest in your outreach, and how to reach out to and follow up with potential clients with whom you have no connections and/or do not return your messages, and when to put them on the back burner.

Timestamps:

05:27 Top Challenges Faced by Professional Service Firms

08:07 Exploring Strategies for Gaining Access to More Opportunities

10:32 Exploring Strategies for Reaching Out to Ideal Targets

14:22 Business Development Consulting Practice

15:29 Networking and Introductions

32:58 Crafting an Effective Cold Outreach Message 

35:03 Exploring Sales Coaching and Psychology Strategies on LinkedIn

36:12 Cold Outreach Strategies for Consulting Firms 

37:55 Reaching Out to Past Clients and Following Up 

44:30 Cold Outreach Strategies for Business Development

46:15 Follow-Up Strategies for Outreach Success 

Links:

Polin Performance Group www.polinpg.com

Selling Professional Services the Sandler Way: Or, "Nobody Ever Told Me I'd Have to Sell!"

CONTACT INFO:

evan@polinpg.com

215-970-2360 (office)

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

 

Show Notes

Sarrah Rose is an executive intimacy coach who runs the firm CEO on Fire. CEO on Fire helps senior level executives optimize their lives. Sarrag works with clients to help them achieve personal growth and spiritual development. She has been working in this field for the past 10 years, and rebranded to CEO on Fire to focus on executives specifically. 

Sarrah works with primarily male senior executives to help them balance their personal and professional lives. She looks at their relationships, sex lives, and other aspects of being human to give them more fun in life. Some of the challenges of working with senior executives include having less time for family, travel, and the specific personality type needed to become a CEO. ADHD is common among executives and can be both a superpower and a challenge. The benefits include hyper focus, the ability to see the bigger picture and from different perspectives, there's also a lot of sexual energy. Sarrah introduces her clients to tantra which helps them use and channel this sexual energy productively. She has noticed that many clients are self-made and grew up in a more impoverished situation. This change in their lives often leads to a disconnect with who they were and who they are now, and how they are perceived. Rose helps her clients overcome these difficulties and create a balance between their personal and professional lives to better enjoy their lives.

 

Relationship Challenges of Senior Executives 

Sarrah talks about the challenges that high-powered male executives face in their roles as fathers and in their relationships with their significant other. Sarrah explained that presence and empathy is one of the biggest areas that executives need to focus on to provide for their children. They need to be able to give their children their undivided attention and love, safety, and belonging. Sarrah explains that the process she takes her clients through helps them develop these skills. 

Will asks Sarrah how executives manage to shift roles from boss at work to partner at home.  Sarrah explains that it depends on the relationship. She talks about the initial attraction to the partner is a combination of nature and nurture, and that the attraction is often tied to wounding. To navigate this, Sarrah helps her clients understand the layers of attraction, create more intimacy, and be aware of the different seasons of relationships and how to intelligently navigate the changes and the tough times.

Sarrah believes that one of the challenges that these executives often face is understanding the difference between men and women, and how to seduce their partners and maintain a state of heightened arousal. To help her clients, Sarrah suggests flirting through text throughout the day and engaging in roleplay and fantasy before you enter the bedroom. She also emphasizes the importance of leaving business talk out of their relationship and engaging in more light-hearted and fun conversations. Sarrah also mentions the importance of maintaining friends outside of one's work life. Some have stayed connected to people from their past and have maintained those long lasting relationships, while others have not. 

Strategies Used in Executive Intimacy Coaching 

When she starts working with a client, Sarrah starts off with an introductory call with her clients and then follows up with a diagnostic session. During this session, Sarrah gets to understand what her client is looking for and engages on a personal level. When it comes to exercises and tips, Sarrah explains that communication is the most important and also the most difficult area for her clients to master, especially when it comes to discussing intimate sexual and emotional conversations. She offers a few questions to help explore and connect on a deeper level. Sarrah notes that the first and most important area to focus on with clients is their relationship with themselves, including patterns of self-sabotage, trauma, and triggers. Throughout the program, Sarrah explains that they use four main strategies that begin dealing with the nervous system, including breath, sound, movement, and focus, which can be combined in different ways. By using these strategies, clients can release stress cycles and better understand their own needs and desires. Additionally, Sarrah helps clients focus on what one desires to create in life and then looking at where there are fears, resistances, and self-limiting beliefs that need to be worked through in order to move forward. By understanding oneself and engaging in self-reflection, it is possible to build a strong relationship with oneself and achieve one's goals.

Sarrah adds that sleep is a common issue among senior executives, who often struggle to fall asleep due to the demands of their job and the inability to turn off their minds; she suggests specific questions and practices to help address this issue. 

CEO Case Study and Dating in Today's World

Sarrah talks about how high-powered CEOs approach dating in today's world. She shares a success story from one of her clients who was in an abusive relationship and how she helped him heal and prepare for his next relationship. Sarrah recommends that high-profile CEOs use matchmakers and that she works with the matchmakers to help her clients find the right person to have a fulfilling relationship. Sarrah also shares that she personally uses dating apps and that she sees many high-profile CEOs on the apps.

Sarrah explains that she works with the top 1% of men, helping them to become more confident and successful with women. She also shares that she makes organic introductions for her clients if they seem to be a good fit. Sarrah emphasizes that men need to be willing to do the work necessary to make successful relationships with women.

Timestamps

01:32 The Challenges of Senior Executives' Personal Lives

09:48 Seduction Tips for CEOs 

11:26 Maintaining Friendships Outside of Work 

12:57 Intimacy and Sexual Energy Exercises 

14:31 Relationship and Sexuality Coaching 

22:29 Exploring Intuitive Movement and Sounding for Self-Exploration and Transformation 

22:53 Sleep and Habits for CEOs 

26:38 Sleep Challenges for Senior Executives 

27:32 Executive Intimacy Coaching 

29:59 Success Story: High-Powered CEO Overcomes Insecurities After Divorce and Prepares for Next Relationship 

Links:

https://ceoonfire.com/

https://www.instagram.com/sarrahrosenyc/

CONTACT INFO:

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

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes

Author Jimmy Soni kicks off the conversation by explaining why the PayPal mafia is more noteworthy than other large startups. Soni explains that he wrote the book to document not only the business successes, but also the personal stories of the founders. He explains that the market has been good and that people can learn a lot of new things from the book. Soni reveals that his favorite thing about the book is learning about the inventiveness and innovation PayPal had.

The Birth and Growth of the PayPal Mafia

Jimmy  and Will discuss the phenomenon of the PayPal Mafia, the group of entrepreneurs who emerged from PayPal's success and went on to found some of the most successful companies in Silicon Valley. Soni explains that the PayPal Mafia is a unique phenomenon because the founders were relatively young when PayPal was successful, they had faith that businesses on the internet could be successful,  and they supported each other's ventures. PayPal alumni invested in and supported each other's companies, and they hired alumni as their first employees. This mutual support and collaboration was key to the success of the PayPal Mafia, and their success has been a major factor in the success of Silicon Valley.

He shares how PayPal was able to succeed in the early 2000s due to their right timing and how important that was, the selection of very talented people, and the nurturing of their employees. They were able to take advantage of the increasing ubiquity of email addresses and the platform of eBay, which hadn't yet sorted out its payment infrastructure. They also managed to survive the .com burst and make a successful IPO. This was due to their selection of very smart and entrepreneurial people, and their experiences of putting a company together from scratch and having it be a success. He mentions how the book The PayPal Wars by Eric M. Jackson shows how messy real companies can be and how PayPal started out as two companies, Con Finiti and X.com, that merged and began toying around with the idea of beaming money from one palm pilot to another.

Building a Startup

Jimmy  reflects on his experience of studying the formation of PayPal and how it taught him about Silicon Valley strategy and the messiness of how companies actually grow. He emphasizes that building a company from scratch is much harder than most people think and that things that seem inevitable can often look ridiculous at the start. He demonstrates this by using the example of the Palm Pilot that was labeled one of the 10 worst business ideas of the 1990s but that company became PayPal. He emphasizes that researching the book has made him more aware of the difficulty of creating something and has taught him to not to dismiss ideas that seem silly or take for granted the companies that occupy our lives.

The creation of PayPal was a "dogfight" that required a lot of hard work and effort. The biggest challenges in making it successful were to convince people to use the payment system and make sure that people were not taking advantage of it.  Jimmy talks about the uncertainty and anxiety that comes with being involved in a startup and the do or die moments that can arise and that there are often one or two decisions that are crucial to survival. He noted that CEOs usually only make six important decisions per year, so it's important to go into a startup with eyes wide open and know that these moments will arise and that the company could go under at any point. He also talked about how chaos can be beneficial for a startup, as it can bring about new ideas, but also can just be chaos. His insight from the story of PayPal is that a lot of what appeared to be chaos from the outside was actually a controlled chaos that was directed towards the right problems and issues. 

The Elon Musk's Pressure Cooker Leadership Style

Will and Jimmy discuss Elon Musk's recent acquisition of Twitter and his ability to lead a tech company. Jimmy explains that he and Musk never spoke about social networks, and that they only discussed payment networks. He noticed that Musk's management style and that Musk used the term 'maniacal urgency' to describe it, and believes that Musk's intense approach is necessary for the success of a startup. Jimmy goes on to explain that this style of management has been consistent from Musk's first venture, Zip Two, to his current companies Tesla and SpaceX.

Elon Musk's leadership style is one of prioritizing urgency and setting unreasonable demands for his employees. This was the case in his experience with PayPal, and is now being seen at Twitter. An engineer from X.Com shared that during this period, Elon worked longer hours than anyone else and that it was an energizing environment for engineers who wanted to build something quickly, get rapid feedback, and keep moving towards a big goal. This style is not for everyone and can be difficult to understand, but it has been successful for Musk in the past. Through his research, it became clear to Jimmy that startups need to be maniacally urgent and dedicated in order to succeed. 

He discusses the market for books about companies, including his own book The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley

The book has done well, both domestically and abroad, and Jimmy  believes that people are drawn to the book because of the famous and controversial players involved. Feedback received from professionals  in the startup world have told him that the book captures the energy and feeling of what it is like to be in a startup. Soni shares that the market for books about companies is big and that the Silicon Valley halo has not diminished abroad; all of these factors have contributed to the popularity of the book. His book has international appeal and what differentiates his book from others in the same genre is the inclusion of personal stories. 

Researching the Book 

He talks about the importance of invention and how startups are allowed to look at a problem and create something new to solve it. He shares how many inventions were developed by PayPal. 

When it came to gathering information, he struck gold when he was interviewing someone who offered him access to the company's early records. The person sent Jimmy several gigabytes worth of emails from the time. Jimmy was able to access emails sent and received by key players in the company, giving him a better understanding of the story he was researching. To capture the widest possible story, he started with any emails sent to the company and printed them all out. He then read through every page, looking for any interesting gems that could be included in the book. He found a motivating note from Elon Musk outlining the company's struggles and signed off with Work like hell, Elon. This note was unexpected and captured the character of Musk that is still seen today. 

When writing his book, Jimmy explained that he took a methodical approach to email research, using folders, binders, and highlighting to identify key points. He used Google Drive to store PDFs of her citations for fact-checking. This email archive was instrumental in making the book more accurate, rather than relying on hazy memories. 

Jimmy talks about the secret sauce of recruiting talent. He specifically mentions Peter Thiel's superpower. Jimmy believes that it is talent identification. Thiel has an uncanny ability to identify people who have potential and to offer them help in the form of introductions, investments or by sketching out a vision of their career that is bigger than they thought possible.  Jimmy shares what he learned about his time working at McKinsey and how that helped him as a writer, and what he is working on now, which is a co-writing project on tech history. 

Timestamps

07:41 "The Evolution of PayPal: A Story of Near-Failure and Success" 

09:57 Exploring Contingency in the Story of PayPal's Success 

13:33 Managing Uncertainty in a Startup Environment 

14:15 Analysis of Elon Musk's Management Style at Twitter 

18:42 Recruiting Strategies at X.com and Confinity 

24:34 The Market for Books About Companies 

27:59 On PayPal's Inventiveness and Innovation + Exploring the Origin Story of PayPal's CAPTCHA Technology 

38:10 Analysis of Peter Thiel's Superpower: Talent Identification 

41:23 Peter Thiel's Approach to Hiring and Recruiting 

44:42 Writing Books, Consulting, and Professional Development 

Links:

The Everything Store, Brad Stone

The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley, 

A Mind at Play, Jimmy Soni

https://jimmysoni.com/

CONTACT INFO:

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimmysoni/

Twitter @jimmyasoni

https://jimmysoni.com/

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes:

David Newman is a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), marketing expert, speaker, and founder of Do It! Marketing. In this episode, Will Bachman and David discuss his new book, Do It Selling. The book is organized with 77 instant action ideas that can be used to land better clients, bigger deals, and higher fees. The book is  divided into micro chapters which focus on topics such as understanding the sales process, creating an ideal customer profile, building relationships with potential clients, using content to create credibility, and closing more sales. Additionally, the book includes many stories, case studies, and advice from David's own experiences. The goal of the book is to help independent consultants learn how to market and sell their services effectively. 

David talks about the fact that many consultants and professional services firm principals love the work but not the sales aspect. David explains that one needs to upgrade their sales brain to be successful in sales. The idea is to replace the words 'selling' and 'sales' with invitations to conversations and reframe the idea of selling to connecting. 

Lead Generation and Client Communication Ninja Tricks

He encourages people to change how they view sales to  be less  focused on chasing and persuading, and more focused on the qualifying, sorting, and filtering business rather than chasing and persuading. He encourages a shift from taking an inferior vendor stance trying to persuade the client of your value to that of a casting director for whom the clients are auditioning. He moves on to the idea of targeting the clients you want and launching intentional and specific relationships to open doors rather than "taking what comes." This puts the seller back in control of their lead generation and prospecting, and allows them to be more proactive and hold better conversations. The crux of this approach is to lead the client to want what you do.

David talks about the current approach to cold calling and prospecting when generating leads, and how the approach should be more about serving before selling and helping before pitching.  He suggests making an "active 20" list and gives tips on how to reach out to and warm up those contacts and avoid your proposal landing in a black hole. David offers tips on how to connect with clients through being where they play, write where they read, and be where they attend. He talks about checking into trigger events in the industry you are targeting such as upsizing, downsizing, mergers and acquisitions etc. This entails doing thorough research on the client and understanding the clients' situation to ensure your communication relates to their current situation. 

How to Reach Out to Cool Contacts

Will and David discuss tactics for reaching out to cool contacts. David suggests apologizing for the lack of communication and to follow with a direct and authentic request to catch up on where they are and where they are going – but not to sell. He also offers a few  ninja tricks on how to encourage a follow up conversation. The goal should always be to build a rapport with the customer or client, and to show that your company cares about their needs by demonstrating thoughtfulness, relevance, and value. David offers examples of each to clarify these three points and how this approach works for reaching out to past, present, and future clients to ensure you are perceived as a trusted advisor. 

Revenue Acceleration and Business Growth

David divides his clients into three buckets: Zero to Hero (consultants who have just left a corporate role), Hero to Superhero (those who have gained experience in their industry and are looking to take their consulting to the next level) and Superhero to Intergalactic (those who have a lot of experience and are looking to take their consulting to a much higher level). 

For those in the zero to hero stage, he helps them with lead generation, prospecting, sales, and sales processes. Those in the hero to superhero stage are looking to double or triple their current business and need to make changes to do so. Finally, those in the superhero to intergalactic stage are looking to scale their business to reach the million dollar mark. David focuses on helping them with scaling strategies, such as hiring a team, licensing, and digital programs, to help them become the CEO of their business. David discusses how consultants can reach the 500k plus plus level, by building infrastructure and focusing on revenue multipliers. 

He explains that businesses need to make money even when the consultant takes time off or goes on holiday, and emphasizes the importance of setting up systems that can make this happen.

Recommended CRM System 

Will Bachman and David Newman discuss the advantages of using a CRM system over just a spreadsheet for tracking conversations and action items. David recommends One Page CRM, as it has powerful features on the back end and is simple to use on the front end. He also recommends grabbing free resources from his website, doitmarketing.com, such as the companion tools to his book, the 500k Consulting Gameplan session, and the Do It Marketing Manifesto. David's company offers a few different ways to work with clients, either through one-on-one discussions, mentoring programs, or group sessions and includes daily coaching, live events, online communities, sales labs and sales gyms. He is open to chatting with people who contact him at his email, David@doitmarketing.com.

Timestamps

03:44 Professional Services Firm Growth and Sales Mindset 

08:48 Tips for Generating Initial Conversations in Sales Prospecting 

16:33 Reaching Out to Cool Contacts

20:34 Catching Up with Past Clients: Revitalizing Old Projects and Teams 

23:07 Follow-Up Strategies for Unresponsive Prospects 

29:03 "Strategies for Direct Prospecting: An Email Example" 

36:04 Revenue Acceleration Strategies for Consultants and Executives 

38:13 Revenue Multipliers and Technology Recommendations 

39:25 CRM Systems and Consulting Services 

45:24 Content to Solve, Not Content to Learn 

Links:

www.doitselling.com - to get the book bonuses

www.doitsellingbook.com - to buy the book 

www.doitmarketing.com/manifesto - free 37-page guide

www.doitmarketing.com/webinar - free on-demand training for consultants

The Selling Show Podcast

CONTACT INFO:

David@doitmarketing.com

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes

Greg Fincke is a Managing Director at Equiteq, a global sector focused investment bank that works with entrepreneurs in the IT services and management consulting sectors to create exit strategies. They have offices in London, Singapore, New York with smaller outposts around the globe. They typically advise on companies with 3-25 million EBIT range, and revenue up to $200 million. The firm has 70 members around the world and did 20 transactions last year with an aggregate value of a billion. An expert in M&A deals, Greg discusses how the big deals are typically handled.

What it Takes to Build a Sellable Consulting Firm

The conversation focuses on the question of what it takes to build a sellable consulting firm. Greg suggests that one of the key factors to consider is key person risk; if a potential buyer is looking at a buy versus build situation and the equation starts becoming too expensive for the buy, it may be difficult to close the transaction. To build value and reduce the risk, it is important to have multiple people who can drive the business forward. Other factors to consider include developing a strong brand, having a good network of clients, a diversified client base,  and a good mix of services or products. Additionally, it is important to have a good relationship with other consultants, vendors, and potential buyers. Finally, it is also important to focus on long-term goals and invest in the growth of the firm.

Greg explains that when looking at the financials of the firm gross margin is an important factor. Buyers typically want to see firms with a gross margin of 40% and discounted when under 40%. When thinking about valuation, you're looking at how the business looks financially and what they do.  Greg talks about gross margins for consulting firms when the owner is selling the business. He explains what the two types of gross margins are and how to calculate partner cost, and typical multiples are for a consulting firm. 

Scaling a Consulting Firm

This conversation focuses on the difficulties of scaling a consulting firm. On one side, there is the need to acquire new clients and promote the services of the firm, and on the other, there is the need to create, onboard and teach new consultants. Achieving a balance between these two elements is crucial, as buyers are looking for firms that can deliver services that scale, on both supply and demand, and are willing to pay a premium for it.  Greg talks about buyers' preferences, suggesting that they would rather work with firms that have good web traffic and reputation and are able to generate inbound leads, rather than those that need to grow the sales side and bring in clients. He explains why they consider IP an important factor of consulting services.  He talks about talent recruitment and retention, and the value of a firm that offers a strong career plan and training and coaching systems as this demonstrates the ability and control to scale with in-house talent instead of relying on recruiters to find talent which can be unreliable and expensive. 

Beyond Corporate and Private Equity

According to Greg, the best options in firm valuation in management quality are how well companies are run, retention, sales and profit growth, and who your clients are and how you engage with them. Fortune 500 and private equity are the two most valuable in the market, and vertical specialization. From a delivery model, being able to deliver fixed fees on good margins is most desirable. 

Smaller consulting companies are seen as less valuable because their financial spend is significantly lower.  These companies tend to engage in one-off consulting projects and do not have a consistent spend on consulting, making them less desirable to broker deals. Greg states that the buyers for deals have changed over the last five years and shares a few examples of company M&A his company has facilitated. 

What Partners Can Expect when they Sell the Firm

Greg shares what partners can expect in terms of a percentage and timeline. The numbers vary widely depending on the buyer. He explains what can happen to the team after a sale, and how it often inspires an entrepreneurial spirit. He mentions that often buyers are looking for a new service line and that the synergy between companies should accommodate this growth and value, in this scenario the team stays independent, in other cases, there may also be an integration of teams. 

Greg reflects on how clients move forward after selling a firm; often they take a role in the management team of the larger company, and some have retired from business  to sail around the world, or just retire, but he hasn't encountered any who regret the sale or decide to start a new business.

He talks about the advice he gives companies when the founders are not quite ready to sell such as having a goal for the sale, this entails examining what the bottlenecks for growth are, whether that is client or talent acquisition. Greg helps them focus on the goal and target market growth. This may include building talent to open doors, and investing in marketing.  He talks about the buyer universe for smaller firms, how this differs from the larger M&A buyers, and who takes care of the billion dollar deals. 

Greg shares how his company secures clients, his team's laser focus on a specific industry, and the type of advice they give clients. 

Timestamps

02:42 Exploring the Value of a Consulting Firm: Key Person Risk and Building Value

10:43 Scaling a Consulting Firm

13:16 Growing Sales Through IP and Recruiting Processes

17:01 Management Quality, Retention, Sales and Profit Growth, and Client Engagement

22:19 Private Equity and Strategic Acquisitions in the Consulting Space

23:53 Selling a Firm: Earnout Periods and Expectations

37:35 Recent Private Equity Acquisitions in the Management Consulting Industry

39:42 Billion Dollar Deals in the M&A Space

40:32 Exploring the Range of Options in the Consulting Industry

43:37 Building Value in the Consulting Industry

47:09 Resources for Learning About the Consulting World

Links:

Greg Alexander The Boutique

E2E.com

Consultancy.uk

Collective 54 Podcast

The World's Newest Profession – Chris McKenna

The Lords of Strategy – Walter Kiechel

CONTACT INFO:

https://www.equiteq.com/

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Ulrich Riedel and Will Bachman discuss Ulrich's unique cold lead generation process via LinkedIn. Ulrich advises to respect the leads and to be careful to select only candidates who would benefit from this process and to be careful not to spam. He shares why he chose to find leads this way and explains why  there is more upside than downside to his process. He explains that the process involves several aspects such as researching the prospects, creating a message, and following up. He also suggests focusing on building relationships and emphasizing the value of the offer. Finally, he stresses the importance of tracking results and being persistent.

Using LinkedIn Sales Navigator to Contact Leads

Ulrich offers three pieces of advice on how to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to reach out to potential leads. He stresses the importance of your investment in time and money investments to ensure the leads are super targeted, as sourcing too many leads that do not fit the needs of the company will be a waste of the time and money invested. He emphasizes that real expertise and external help are needed to set up the process. 

Hiring an Expert in Lead Generation

Ulrich discusses how he hired an expert to help him with his lead generation process. The expert used a Sales Navigator, which is a powerful search tool, to look for leads and contacts, and then organize them in groups and tag them to make sure none were duplicated. Ulrich created the messaging, but they were responsible for sending out initial connection requests and any follow-up messages. Once a prospect accepted and engaged, the expert would set up a call in the prospect's calendar and then hand the contact over to Ulrich to handle. Ultimately, the expert helped Ulrich to find, organize, and contact the leads, which saved him time. He talks about his direct and concise communication technique that helps him build a connection with suitable prospects. 

Reaching the Right People through LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Ulrich helps reduce implementation risk and increase project value for large complex projects and strategies. He has been doing this since 2004 and has found that his initial connection requests were not reaching the right people. He now targets Senior Vice Presidents and above in companies with $3 billion or more in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. His current connection requests are clear and direct, stating his goal to reduce risk and increase project value followed by an offer to explain how he would achieve this for the person he is reaching out to. Once he has secured a lead, Ulrich transfers the client from LinkedIn Navigator to his own CRM system to keep track of communications, campaigns, and status etc. He explains how and when he makes first contact, how he follows up with them, often using GetEmail and RocketReach to find emails of his clients, and how he schedules meetings. 

Most importantly, Ulrich focuses on authentic and respectful communication. He stresses the importance of patience and persistence, and that following up with clients on a regular basis to remind them of the benefits they will receive from Ulrich's expertise pays off. He finds that out of 100 connection requests sent, usually 20 will connect. He sends the 20 a longer message and roughly five will reply. Out of five, he will secure one client. Ulrich shares when and how he follows up with the other potential clients. He checks his CRM system daily and explains why he uses Outlook Contact instead of Hubspot.

Timestamps:

04:15 Exploring Strategies for Effective LinkedIn Outreach 

05:05 The Benefits of Utilizing Expertise for Lead Generation

08:38 Maximizing Project Value Through Risk Reduction

10:51 Exploring the Benefits of a Custom CRM System for Lead Tracking 

12:41 Lead Management and Prospecting Strategies 

18:56 Building Professional Connections on LinkedIn 

24:56 Networking Strategies for Building Trust and Connections 

28:37 Utilizing Sales Navigator and CRM Systems for Lead Generation 

30:13 Leveraging CRM Systems for Business Growth 

Links:

https://www.drulrichriedelconsulting.ch/

CONTACT INFO:

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

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes

Ulrich Riedel and Will Bachman discuss Ulrich's unique pricing model for independent consultants. Rather than being paid upfront or daily rates, Ulrich gets paid a percentage of the value he creates for the client at the end of the project. To make this type of pricing model possible, Ulrich needs to make sure certain conditions are met, such as creating value for the client, measuring the value,  and convincing the client of the value. He also needs to make sure that the client will be willing or able to share in the risk associated with the project. Ulrich has learned how to do this through experience, and was willing to share his knowledge with Will and the viewers of Unleashed.

What to Consider with an At-risk Pricing Model

Ulrich Riedel explains that there are four main themes to consider when using an at-risk pricing model. First, the offer needs to have unique value to the client. Second, the individual must be willing to accept risk. Third, the client must be open to the at-risk pricing model. Fourth, the approach to project generation must be tailored to the at-risk pricing model. He suggests that the network may not be enough for project generation because many close relations may not be able to accept at-risk pricing. A solution to finding suitable clients, may be to develop cold  lead generation through LinkedIn might be helpful. He also suggests partnering with people who have contacts to potential clients and projects, and what he found most helpful is to establish oneself as an expert to increase trust. 

Pricing the Project

Ulrich specializes in large, complex projects that are worth more than $100 million that involve many functions, hierarchies, global reach, different countries and cultures, change management with hesitancies  and conflicting priorities, and the list goes on. He analyzes the entirety of the project, helps implement it, and generates an added value of 8-15%.

Ulrich discusses a project they are working on with a client to shape the future. His role is to provide insight and advice on the strategy and execution of the project. He recently worked with a small company with a few $100 million turnover to help them optimize three main projects.  He is also responsible for talking to many people in different hierarchies to collect data and figure out where value is hidden and how to create an intervention and implementation plan which could generate much more value. 

Prospect Generation

Ulrich studies the mentality of the client and the company and  talks to people in all hierarchies to gather in depth information from all levels, including employees at the water cooler or the factory floor during the night shift. Once he has an implementation plan in place, he sits down with the client to discuss two main variables: volume and cost. Ulrich also talks about how he determines his fees, and the search time for finding projects, and how long projects typically take. 

Timestamps:

• 03:54 Exploring At-Risk Pricing Models: Strategies for Generating Projects and Establishing Trust 
• 06:05 Exploring Value-Based Pricing for Large Complex Projects
•  06:25 Consulting on Building a New Business Model with a Hybrid Technology 
• 11:46  Value Creation and Compensation for Consultancy Services 
• 14:39 Exploring the Long Sales Cycle and Prospect Generation 

Links:

https://www.drulrichriedelconsulting.ch/

CONTACT INFO:

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

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes

Tony Martignetti and Will Bachman discuss the importance of maintaining energy and excitement as a solopreneur or independent professional. 

They talk about taking an assessment of the tools and different parts that you have been working on for your business. It is important to check in with yourself and ask what it is that you really want and what you are driving towards. It is necessary to determine which tools and activities are providing you with energy and which are draining you of energy. 

They also discuss how to tap into inspiration and creativity. Martignetti recommends getting out of your current environment to experience awe, which can't be done while sitting behind a desk. Tony shares a few activities where he found inspiration, including climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. 

Priorities and Values in Leadership

Tony talks about the concept of grounded leadership and how to achieve it in the context of executive coaching. Bachman asks for the first step to take to become more grounded. Martignetti responds that it is important to first be thoughtful, clear on one's priorities and values, and that all decisions should be based on these. From there, one can focus on creating calm within the chaos and help others to do the same. This could involve creating a plan to keep oneself grounded, such as setting reminders to pause and check in with oneself, or reflecting on values and purpose. Ultimately, it is important to remember that everything should be done with these priorities and values in mind. 

Tony talks about the importance of understanding the foundation of one's values, mission, and purpose in order to make decisions. Will and Tony discuss the STOP method, an acronym for Stop, Take a Breath, which is a classic mindfulness practice that can help in moments of stress and when one is triggered. Taking the pause allows them to slow down and not react. This method encourages people to take a moment to reflect on their values and ask themselves questions about why they are doing something.

Dealing with Difficult Situations

Will and Tony discuss maintaining mindfulness using the Stop, Observe, and Proceed method of dealing with difficult situations, which involves taking a moment to understand what emotions are coming up, and why. Will mentions the importance of not sending emails when annoyed and suggests making a phone call instead. Will talks about his executive coach's question, "What are you currently avoiding?". The conversation ultimately emphasized the importance of taking time to understand and process emotions before taking action.

Questions Used in Coaching

Tony talks about the questions he uses in his coaching practice. Tony's first question is, "when you look at the week ahead, what do you look forward to the most?" He then moved on to the question of "what is one conversation that you are putting off that you really need to have." This helps to identify any areas of avoidance and to move forward with life and work. He suggests taking note of what you are tolerating. Will  asks Tony what sorts of responses he gets from his clients to the question of avoided conversations. Tony responds that he typically gets a variety of answers, ranging from fear of failure to fear of rejection to lack of clarity on how to approach the conversation.

Tony tells Will where he found inspiration for his book, Climbing the Right Mountain, and how to think differently about success, and how to determine the right mountain for you. He talks about his coaching practice and workshops, and how many of his clients feel stuck or want to grow in a new direction. 

Timestamps

03:03- Assessing Business Activities to Maximize Energy and Productivity

04:43- Evolving and Inspiring Yourself as an Entrepreneur

07:30- Reflection and Inspiration for Business Growth

10:12- Experiencing Awe and Climbing Kilimanjaro

13:41- Exploring Human Experience: Tips for Training for Kilimanjaro and Experiencing New Things

15:08- Expanding Consciousness and Grounded Leadership

16:52- Grounded Leadership

18:30- System Two Thinking and Executive Coaching

20:53- The Benefits of Establishing a Foundation for Decision-Making

24:17- Incorporating Questions into Coaching Practice

Links:

Climbing the Right Mountain

https://www.inspiredpurposecoach.com/

CONTACT INFO:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonymartignett1/

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes:

Will Bachman and Dina David, the facilitator for the Umbrex and Veritux Mastermind groups, discuss the program's basics. Mastermind groups are peer-structured programs for middle-seven to nine people, ideally eight, over a 10-month period. The program kicks off in September and wraps up in June, 2026. Applications are due August 15, and for those not yet members, independent consultants should join the community to access the opportunity.

The Details on Mastermind Groups

Dina explains that meetings take place monthly and are one hour sessions. The sessions take place online.They typically start with an introduction, a quick update on goals, and a check-in on progress. The majority of the session is dedicated to a deep dive into a specified topic, sharing practical ideas, best practices, and lessons learned. The session ends with a closing check-out, focusing on what was learned and what the group plans to do in the next month based on the conversations that have taken place. Dina also discusses the different formats of the groups, such as breakout groups, warm seats, guest speakers, and show and tells.

Business Development and Online Presence

Dina shares an example of how the program works and helped improve LinkedIn profiles. She also discusses the importance of deep dives into a website. The discussion revolves around firm overview documents, business development, and pricing strategies. It highlights the importance of having clear deliverables and testimonies to ensure that clients can remember their work. Business development is another key topic discussed, with examples of specific topics such as the fishing line, which helps consultants understand who they serve and what problems they solve. The group also discusses strategies for implementing comprehensive business development processes, such as using CRM systems like HubSpot.

How to Improve Marketing Strategies

Dina also touches on strategies for marketing, such as warm and cold outreach, and how to get people to respond to LinkedIn messages or emails. The group emphasizes that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, but learning from others' strategies can help consultants stay ahead in today's busy world. Sharing templates and examples has been helpful in addressing the overwhelming amount of information available online.

Approaches to Pricing

Price is another important topic discussed, with many groups discussing tier-based pricing approaches, such as Bronze, Silver, and Gold options, and how to word offerings. This approach brings consultants closer to the value brace and helps them learn best practices from each other. Strategies include pricing when working with startups or maintaining a retainer.

Handling Client Negotiations

However, the discussion also touches on handling client negotiations and managing scroll scope creep. Many consultants face challenges in handling changes at the leadership level, dealing with organizational changes, and managing relationships with clients. Internal operations, such as insurance and invoicing, are also discussed, with examples of how consultants can benefit from external support.

Scaling Up for Independent Firms

The discussion revolves around the journey of scaling up for independent firms, which can be challenging but rewarding. It is essential to build networks and connections, as well as understand when to hire and manage subcontractors. The group debrief helps in making informed decisions about hiring and managing subcontractors.

The Benefits of Joining a Mastermind Group

Dina the benefits of joining these groups which include new projects, client referrals, networking opportunities, and accountability. Members gain access to peer-based resources, which can help them hold themselves accountable and stay motivated. Members state that they have built genuine relationships, which can be invaluable for their businesses. In between monthly sessions, members receive a recording, summary recap, and additional resources. They are assigned an accountability buddy from their group, who they check in with within the month of the next live session. This allows them to discuss ideas, support each other, and work towards their goals.

Applications for the 2025 to 2026 cohort are due on August 15. If you are a member of Umbrex or Veritux, you will receive emails about the program and links to fill out the application. 

Timestamps:

00:02 Introduction and Overview of Mastermind Groups

01:23: Monthly Meeting Agenda 

02:54: Specific Topics and Examples 

09:00: Business Development and Pricing Strategies 

11:05: Internal Operations and Scaling Up 

13:31: Benefits and Accountability 

15:02: Between-Session Activities 

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes:

Nick Shevelyoff is a cybersecurity expert who recently left his role as Chief Information Security Officer at Silicon Valley Bank to pursue consulting services.

In the mid-1990s, Nick Shevelyov began his career in technology. He soon became interested in cybersecurity and went on to work for a boutique security consulting firm. Shevelyoff later spent years working in Enterprise Risk Services at Deloitte, specializing in cybersecurity and data privacy. In 2005, he joined Silicon Valley Bank as the chief security and chief privacy officer. During his 15-year tenure at the bank, Shevelyoff became CIO and then chief information security officer. Throughout his career, he has been interested in understanding cyber risk from a holistic perspective. 

 

The Book on Cyber War and Peace

Nick discusses his new book, Cyber War and Peace, which explores how organizations can learn from lessons from history and behavioral science to improve their cybersecurity posture.

In his book, Nick covers a wide range of topics related to cybersecurity, from the history of technology to the importance of risk management. He highlights how ancient civilizations such as Babylon and Rome dealt with technological challenges and draws parallels to modern cybersecurity concerns. He also emphasizes the importance of knowing oneself in order to effectively defend against cyber attacks.

Nick enjoys reading about ancient Greece, Rome, and the Napoleonic Wars, among other periods. He draws upon lessons from these periods in his book, specifically around the importance of practice and preparation. 

To get a sense of a company's current level of preparedness, Nick recommends asking questions about the company's existing investment, business outcomes, and risks. He also suggests using a framework like the National Institute of Standards and Technology critical security framework to measure the organization against that framework and understand where the gaps are.

 

Executive Planning for Investments and Technology

The need for business executives to properly plan ahead when considering investments and technology cannot be overemphasized, and Nick  suggests that it is important to understand the existing conditions, the age of the company, the outcomes they are looking for, the risks they may face, and the value of the data they have. He recommends a Z-shaped relationship to connect the goals to the risks, and to understand the unique risks facing the organization. Nick also suggests that it is important to consider the volume, variability, and veracity of the data, and the layers of control that can be used to manage the uncertainty.

 

Bespoke Security Models for Organizations

Nick and Will discussed the process of creating a bespoke security model for an organization. Nick suggested using a commonly accepted framework, such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology Critical Security Framework, to measure the organization against and identify gaps. Additionally, Nick suggested considering the Mitre Attack Framework to assess how an organization is susceptible to different types of attacks and the OWASP Top 20 to identify any potential application vulnerabilities. To further understand the current security state, Nick suggested conducting vulnerability scans, penetration testing, and application security assessments.

He also talks about leveraging tactical conformance checks to assess an organization's cyber health. Nick provided insight into the criminal business world of hackers today, which is an industry run by criminals who attack organizations, steal data, and sell it on the dark web. This hacking as a service has become operationalized and victims of ransomware attacks, where malware is deployed on networks and locks up their systems, are all too common. 

He discussed the ongoing cyber war, where foreign governments are encouraging and supporting hacking of US and Western companies. He also mentioned that cyber risk is a reflection of geopolitical risk, and that organizations should always be investing in the right risk posture. Nick is now offering consulting services to help innovators and entrepreneurs all over the world improve their probability of success. He is also working as a fractional Chief Information Security Officer.

 

Timestamps

09:58- Exploring Risk Management Strategies for Business Executives

12:16- Exploring a Bespoke Security Model for Organizations

14:00- CYBER HEALTH: Leveraging Tactical Conformance Checks to Assess Organizational Risk in the Criminal Business World

17:06- Cybersecurity and Cyber Risk

22:22- Fractional CFO and CISO Services

27:13- Developing a Security Program for Organizations

30:17- DevSecOps and Risk Management

Links:

https://www.nickshevelyov.com/

https://www.amazon.ca/Nicholas-Shevelyov/e/B09BDGQD22%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

https://authorhour.co/cyber-war-and-peace-nick-shevelyov/

CONTACT INFO:

shevelyov@gmail.com

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

 

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

 

Show Notes

In this episode, Will Bachman explains how independent consultants can set up and use a paid CRM system. 

While a spreadsheet is a great place to start when setting up a CRM system as it is free, and can help you understand which features of a paid system you would like to have, Will explains why, at one point,  you might want to upgrade to a paid CRM system, and how CRM systems offer advantages over spreadsheets when tracking contacts, opportunities, and projects.

Advantages of a CRM System over a Spreadsheet

One advantage is that you can add documents to the categories mentioned in the previous episode: contacts, company and/or opportunity. Other features can include the ability to add notes from discussions to  keep track of customer interactions, automated reminders, and tracking customer feedback.  The CRM system provides the ability to attach documents, such as resumes for potential subcontractors, and add notes from conversations. It also allows for a photo of the contact to be attached, as well as other fields like name, title, employer, education, location, and LinkedIn profiles. Custom fields can also be created to track newsletters, gifts sent and received, and who introduced you to the contact. 

Will explains how CRM systems sync with the user's emails and the contacts' emails, making it easier to track emails from multiple addresses. 

Using a CRM System for Opportunities

The CRM system also allows the user to track and easily see all the project opportunities associated with your contacts. Additionally, the user can tag contacts, opportunities, and projects with an  industry tag, or functional tags, or skill-based or discreet defined tags, making it easier to categorize and track these elements.

Using a CRM system to Manage Tasks

Using a CRM system has several advantages. One of these is the ability to easily manage tasks. This can be done by adding task tags to contacts or projects and then viewing them all in one place, whether that is to follow up with a contact or submit a proposal, and you can easily mark them as done or change dates etc. 

Another advantage is the ability to easily manage opportunities. It is possible to have a visual view, with columns for the status of each project, and have the ability to drag and move the tiles. A third advantage is the ability to customize the names for the stages of an opportunity. These stages include identified opportunity, completed context discussion, submitted proposal, and finally whether the project was 'lost'  or if it is '1 Active', or '1 Completed'. Additionally, when a project is moved from one stage to another, a pop up will appear asking for the reason. You could also add other stages such as 'On Hold' to remind you to follow up at a later date, and you could add a 'Future Opportunity' tab to remind you to follow up about it. You can also add documents to opportunities to keep all that information in one place and easy to access. Another useful feature is to add reports to give insight into projects won and lost. You can also easily add other users to give easy access to team members, but you also maintain control over the system to ensure no-one accidentally deletes or changes information. 

Researching CRM Systems

Will also explains how to set up a paid CRM system, such as choosing a provider, setting up user roles, and integrating the system into your workflow. Lastly, he talks about the importance of finding the right CRM system that suits your needs. Will recommends starting with a spreadsheet to get an idea of how you need to structure the information you need, and then look into resources on Umbrex.com where you will find information on CRM systems used by members.  

Timestamps

00:01 The benefits of using a purpose-built CRM system

02:38 The benefits of a CRM system for tracking contacts

03:49 Creating custom fields

04:57 The benefits of a CRM system for tracking opportunities and projects 

07:36 Stages of opportunities in a CRM system

11:18 Adding users to the CRM system

Links:

Notes on using a purpose-built CRM system: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SfVS9cB_YtmTgtRoBb1hWAxo-qy1vbC6BqiOKtTpEFo/edit?usp=sharing

Show Notes

In this episode of Unleashed, Will Bachman explains how independent professionals can use a spreadsheet as their CRM system. A spreadsheet can be an effective first step before investing in a paid CRM system, and for independent professionals, the most fundamental use of a CRM spreadsheet is to keep track of the people, organizations, and project opportunities, in addition to confirming new projects, but the first step in setting up a CRM system should be to create a spreadsheet of all your contacts, and another tab with all your past projects. 

Ultimately, using a spreadsheet as a CRM system can be a great way to get started and gain familiarity with the features of a paid CRM system before investing, but when you do, you'll be able to upload your spreadsheet into the CRM.

Will walks you  through setting up a CRM system. The initial tabs discussed are 1.contacts, 2.opportunities, and 3.companies.

Using a Spreadsheet for Contacts

When setting up the contacts tab, a few fields are recommended, including:

info about the person, like employer and title, name, pronouns, ID number

URLs/links/social media links

Physical address

It's also recommended to have separate columns for first name, middle name, last name, maiden name, and nickname. It is also recommended to  include the option to track if the contact is a connection on LinkedIn or not.

When it comes to tracking contacts, emails are essential, and often, the preferred method of communication. It may also be helpful to track physical address, how the contact was originally met, the strength of the relationship, the level of decision making power, whether they are a client or potential partner, the industry they are in, the date of the last contact, the time interval between points of contact, if they are subscribed to your newsletter, if they are on your holiday card list, what gifts have been sent, topics of interest, the name of their executive assistant and their contact info, and the next action to be taken with the contact. Additionally, it is helpful to also track notes from interactions with the contact. Will suggests creating a separate tab for notes on each conversation, and to filter it for any given individual. However, the drawback of using a spreadsheet is that it is not as great as a relational database. 

Using a Spreadsheet for Opportunities 

For opportunities, the fields suggested to track are:

Current pipeline

Project/opportunity ID, title, associated company/organization

Client executive name, billing contact, and any other names related to the opportunity

A description and stage of the opportunity

Source of opportunity

Will learned this system from David A. Fields and he talked about it  in episode 172  of Unleashed. David's three stages are: identified opportunity, but not yet talked to the client; completed context discussion (which entails live interaction with client), and finally,  submitted proposal. If you have several projects in the pipeline, you could also add several stages such as: 'in contract phase'. Will  suggests adding two stages for a contract:  '1 active' - for current projects, and '1 complete', for the final stage. It may also be useful to add a stage for 'lost' and/or 'on hold' and 'possible opportunity' for potential opportunities on the horizon that you may want to follow up on in a few months. You could also track the dollar size of the opportunity and likelihood of closing. By tracking 'likelihood to close' you'll gain a better understanding of your ability to your accuracy in estimating potential opportunities, and dates of each stage. And most importantly, columns to include are your next action(s) and action due date(s).

Using a Spreadsheet to Keep Track of Organizations

Company ID, website, LinkedIn, industry

All the projects you have done for the same company

Who else works at the same company

Be able to see all the projects you have done for the same company

Who else you might speak with at the company

Will also suggests adding if you have a service agreement with the company, termination dates, payment terms, and any other key contractual terms, such as a non-compete agreement, and invoicing instructions. While the former company details may not be necessary if you have the details of the company contact  in place, the latter is particularly useful if it's been a few years since you worked on a project for the company.

A link to a downloadable spreadsheet template has been added in links to to help you customize your own spreadsheet.

Timestamps

00:01 Using a spreadsheet as a CRM system for independent professionals 

01:49 Tracking contact Information for professional relationships 

09:27 Tracking conversations and opportunities 

16:21: Tracking contact and contract information on organizations 

Links:

Notes on using a spreadsheet as a CRM: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PQssMvenlu4EPVaLevbRNWGlgppIWc8IXFatU4RG5sY/edit?usp=sharing

 

Show Notes

Will Bachman and Niul Burton discuss procurement and strategic sourcing. Procurement is the function of acquiring goods or services as inputs to a company's operations. Strategic sourcing is a subset of procurement that focuses on the sourcing of goods and services in order to maximize value and efficiency. Niul explained that procurement involves identifying, negotiating, contracting, and working with suppliers on an ongoing basis. He also discussed the importance of understanding the needs of the company, the market, and the supplier in order to ensure that the best deal is being offered. Finally, Niul stressed the importance of building relationships with suppliers in order to ensure successful and long-term collaborations.

Functions of Procurement

Procurement is the process of buying goods and services from external suppliers. Strategic sourcing is a subset of procurement that takes a big-picture perspective to maximize value from spending. Other functions within procurement include contract negotiation and purchase to pay, which is the day-to-day operational execution of requisitions, purchase orders and invoicing. Third party risk management is an evolution of procurement that includes managing risk for external suppliers, licensees, and distributors.

Strategic Sourcing to Drive More Value

Strategic sourcing is an evolution of the procurement function to drive more value for an organization. Historically, purchasing was simply a department that executed purchase orders. Now, strategic sourcing is focused on creating value, as more than 50% of an organization's revenue goes out to their supply base. To manage costs and drive value, procurement and the relationship with the suppliers creates a tremendous opportunity. Procurement is now also doing more supplier risk management, which is a subset of third parties. Strategic sourcing is focused on understanding the current market, developing the right supplier relationships, and creating a competitive environment to drive the best value for the company. The process typically includes conducting a market analysis, negotiating with the suppliers, and implementing a contract.

Strategic Sourcing – A View on Spend

Strategic sourcing is a way of taking a new view on how money is spent. It involves centralizing contracts and purchases, standardizing specifications, and creating competition in the market. A former client of Niul was a big manufacturing company which had 36 different agreements for different sites, each with different terms and conditions and pricing. Strategic sourcing enabled them to look at the situation from a bigger picture view, and negotiate a commercial relationship with the supplier which was worth $1.5 billion over five years. Some of the levers used to create more value included consolidating skews, reducing the number of vendors, and having one standardized contract. Other strategies included aggregating volume, aligning to industry specifications, creating new competition, and process improvement.

Timestamps

00:01 Procurement and Strategic Sourcing 101 

02:07 Exploring the Different Functions of Procurement

08:12 Leveraging Value Creation Through Process Improvement

09:25 864 different strategies that can be deployed in strategic sourcing

12:13 Assessing the Procurement Function

15:47 Category Management

30:59 The internal process

39:38 The difference between RFI RFP and RFQ

Links:

https://www.beroeinc.com/podcasts/niul-burton-procurement-digitalization-journey/

CONTACT INFO:

Niul@NiulBurton.com

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

https://niulburton.com/

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

 

Show Notes

Jessica Magoch is a jazz musician and sales expert who has put her two skills together to help others. She started her sales career when she was auditioning for college musical theater programs and realized that the best job for her would be one with flexibility - sales. She quickly excelled in the field and went on to work for a company that she helped build from zero to 100 million in revenue. After leaving that company, she started her own consulting and coaching business, where she helps women-led social enterprises learn how to sell.

How to Improve Your Sales Technique

Jessica explains that people who are successful in sales often have an inexplicable thing that cannot be taught. This is because they are able to connect with people emotionally, which is something that can be learned. She explains that music is the fastest way to affect someone's emotions and that using it in a sales conversation can make a difference.

The conversation explores the idea that people make decisions based on emotions and then back them up with logic. The idea is from the study of emotional intelligence. The study found that information travels through the amygdala first before it hits the frontal cortex. The amygdala is where emotions happen, and it is also where gut reactions are. The study also found that the information in the logical part of the brain is very limited. The conversation then discusses how to incorporate these insights from music into sales. One way is to start with your scales, which are your sales frameworks, your sales techniques, and your processes. Another way is to bring artistry to it by looking at the dynamics of music and applying it to sales conversations.

The salesperson's main role is to help the customer take action, and musicality can help with that by adding emotion and creativity to the conversation. Musicality can also help salespeople be more creative in general.

Building Confidence in Business

Jessica talks about the importance of performance in all aspects of life, from music to sales. The idea is that sometimes you have to access different parts of yourself in order to be successful and that this is not a bad thing. Beyonce is cited as an example of someone who has an alter ego that she calls upon when she needs to be fierce on stage.

In business, it is often important to be able to sell oneself and one's ideas confidently. One way to build confidence is to develop an alter ego or character who is comfortable with selling. This can be helpful especially when cold calling, as it can be difficult to remain confident when speaking to someone who may not be interested.

Outbound Sales Strategies

Will Bachman and Jessica Magoch discuss the importance of outbound strategies that involve phone calls. Jessica says that cold calling is often ineffective because people feel like they are just a target on a list. Bachman and Macgoch agree that cold calling is not a pleasant experience.

In order to make a cold call warmer, it is important to do 15 seconds of research on the person you are calling. This will help you to better understand them and get their attention. It is also important to ask permission before continuing the conversation and to be specific about the problems that you are solving.

Timestamps

2:06: Making decisions first emotionally and back them up with logic.

7:24: How to incorporate music into sales?

11:14: How to teach creativity in sales.

15:38: How to be creative in the moment.

20:51: Eliminate the emotion from objections by eliminating the objection.

29:08: How to avoid cold-calling.

34:02: How to personalize your call?

38:06: How to get your voice to be dynamic.

 

Links:

https://www.jpmpartners.com/

 

CONTACT INFO:

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

 

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes:

Unleashed has been running for six years and has 335,000 downloads. In episode 500 of the podcast, host and creator, Will Bachman wants to share three things: the deep personal history behind the podcast, what listeners can expect going forward, and the impact it has had on him. 

An Interest in Journalism

Will began his publishing adventures in junior high school when he started the Henry James Herald, a photocopied newspaper he sold or gave away in the lunchroom. He  tried to start an alternate to the school newspaper in high school when he found the school paper to be a little less interesting than what he thought it could be. 

Despite not having the opportunity to pursue his initial dream of starting his own newspaper in high school,  his passion for journalism continued in college when he joined the Harvard Crimson. He became a photographer and learned how to develop film and print photographs, spending around 30-40 hours a week as a photo editor. He enjoyed this experience immensely, as it gave him a sense of being in the know and being able to see his photos in print. 

From College to McKinsey

Will discussed his experiences in college, the Navy, and business school related to publishing. During his time in the Navy as a communications officer, he created a bulletin designed to keep the crew informed during a tactical readiness exam. In business school he created an elaborate cheat sheet for his fellow classmates to use in their exams. One day when walking into the exam room, he was thrilled to see almost 80% of the room using his cheat sheet.  And later in his career at McKinsey, he had a dream of gathering together a collection of resources, but never had the time to execute it.

At McKinsey, Will had the idea of getting the whole business analyst class together every Friday morning to share tips and tricks they had learned from their projects.

The Birth of the Book

After being an independent consultant for four years, Will had an idea to write a book about how to thrive as an independent consultant. This was the birth of a book called Unleashed where he could share his experiences as an independent consultant. He designed a cover for the book with a dog leash and a dog jumping off the page which eventually became the logo for the show. Looking back on his life, Will realized that he'd always wanted to talk to people and then share what he'd learned, and that is the purpose of the show: to share practical lessons learned so people can apply them in their professional lives.

Timestamps:

• 05:26 Taking cheat sheets into Business school
• 07:26 The birth of an idea at McKinsey
• 09:21 The creation of the Unleashed logo
• 11:06 Interviews that address a specific need
• 12:47 What Will has learned from the podcasts
• 13:27 Authors interviewed
• 15:10 The importance of having a podcast
• 18:49 David Fields episodes

 

Show Notes

John Livesay is the pitch whisperer - he helps people calm down and deliver a winning pitch. He believes that the best way to win more sales is to tell a story that includes your own personal story, a company story, and then turning a case study into a case story. He was approached by Anthem insurance to be their sales keynote speaker and ended up staying for their improvisation session to help people with their pitches.

Ink Magazine dubbed Jordan a pitch whisperer after she gave an example of how she helped a client tell a better story. She was working with Olympus medical, who had a piece of equipment that could make surgeries go 30% faster, but they couldn't understand why more doctors weren't buying it. Jordan explained that people buy emotionally and then back it up with logic, and then she asked the client some questions. The client told a story about how their equipment had helped a doctor at Long Beach Memorial put a patient's family out of their waiting misery. The other doctor saw himself in the story and decided he wanted the equipment. The client was amazed and said they had never thought to make the patient's family a character in the story.

4 Steps to Effective Pitches

John Livesay talks about his process for pitching and how he uses a four step structure to make his pitches more effective. He gives an example of how he used this process to pitch for an airport renovation project. He first paints the picture with the who, what, where, when. Then he highlights the problem and the stakes involved. Next, he provides a solution. Finally, he brings the story to life with dialogue that allows the listener to see themselves in the story.

The speakers discuss the importance of focusing on the problem statement when seeking independent consultants. They tell a story about a fictitious client, James, who needs the caliber of consultant found at a big firm like McKinsey or Bain, but without the full team. James exhausts her personal network and then has trouble finding the right person. The speakers argue that this is a problem that their company, UpWork, solves.

Pitching Tips for Independent Consultants

In this conversation, John Livesay discusses some tips for independent consultants who are pitching their services to potential clients. He stresses the importance of selling yourself first, as people are more likely to buy into your energy than anything else. Additionally, he talks about the importance of using stories to connect with potential clients, as this will help them to see themselves in your experiences.

Will Bachman and John Livesay discuss the importance of finding a mentor, and how to go about finding one that is a good fit. They advise against simply posting a request for a mentor online, and instead recommend reaching out to people you know personally or have worked with before. They also suggest stacking multiple problems to solve, in order to make the mentee more attractive to potential mentors.

Cold Email Subject Lines

John Livesay, a sales trainer, recommends focusing on empathy, listening, and storytelling when making cold calls or emails in order to build an emotional connection with the person you're trying to reach. This will help you earn the right to have a meeting or conversation, rather than be seen as an annoyance.

The conversation discuss tips for writing cold email subject lines and John Livesay shares his tip of funneling potential contacts on LinkedIn. He believes that by staying connected with potential contacts, it won't feel like a cold email when you do reach out.

Links:

https://johnlivesay.com/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChWp7P-2gv2a-nppJpXswoA

https://www.amazon.ca/Successful-Pitch-Conversations-Invisible-Investable/dp/0982285353

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-successful-pitch-with-john-livesay/id982063571

https://www.joinbytext.com/

Timestamps

0:01: What is a pitch whisper?

4:18: How to find the right story to sell.

9:15: The importance of telling the best story.

11:55: How did you get into the field of consulting?

18:50: How do you find the right person?

23:34: How to open your email with a compelling pitch?

28:07: What's a great open?

 Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

 

Peter is an energy industry thought leader, and consult and international keynote speaker and co-founder of NorthBridge Energy Partners LLC, an independent consulting organization with expertise and perspective on US energy markets.

Peter has worked with and advised companies as large and established as GE, Nike, and SunPower while also helping numerous start-ups navigate the challenging path to success, and he is the author of "The Energy Switch: How Companies and Customers Are Transforming the Electrical Grid and the Future of Power." You can learn more about Peter and his work at www.peterkellydetwiler.com.

Key points include:

• 06:02: Current challenges faced by the energy system
• 13:25: Energy storage and the energy grid
• 39:02: The future of consulting for the energy industry

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Todd Cherches is a visionary leader with experience as a consultant, trainer, executive coach, TEDx speaker, keynote speaker, panelist, professor, author, blogger, and thought leader in the field of leadership and visual thinking. In this episode, he talks about his patented VisuaLeadership® approach. You can learn more about Todd and his work at www.toddcherches.com or www.bigbluegumball.com.

Key points include:

• 06:18: How to host a creative meeting to drive growth
• 11:43 Exercises in visual leadership
• 24:07: The origins of visual leadership

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Jonathan Paisner has worked with B2B Fortune 1000 companies to evolve and implement their corporate brand to adapt for the changing needs of their business. He has held leadership and senior consulting roles at DeSantis Breindel, CoreBrand (now Tenet) and Siegel & Gale, and previously, he created and ran the brand licensing division of A&E Television Networks. In this episode, he shares his expertise in brand architecture. You can reach out to Jonathan on Linkedin or through his company website BrandExperiencedGroup.com.

Key points include:

• 02:32: Brand architecture as a window to the overall business strategy
• 11:51: A case example of brand building 
• 21:06: Securing alignment between teams and departments

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes:

Brian Stollery talks about AlphaSense, an information provider that independent consultants and boutique firms are using to gain an edge over those who rely on chat GPT or consumer LLM tools. AlphaSense is built for this kind of work, pulling in verified content such as industry reports, broker research filings, earnings calls, expert calls, news, and internal research and internal content. It layers this with market-leading AI functionality that can read and synthesize all of it to deliver consulting-grade insights at scale.

AlphaSense Explained

Brian clarifies that AlphaSense is not primarily an expert network like AlphaSights, but rather a market company and enterprise intelligence search engine for the AI generation. It offers the depth and breadth of authoritative data that would be obtained from a legacy research platform with the intuitive user experience of modern AI tools. The value of AlphaSense lies in the deep, authoritative content set that is the foundation of AlphaSense, along with the speed and accuracy of the AI that allows users to quickly surface relevant insights. Brian also talks about the major categories of sources of proprietary information that feed into AlphaSense.

The AlphaSense Platform

The AlphaSense platform features an index where users can go to different things, such as portfolio monitors, research topics, expert insights, news, risk signals on consumer tech growth investment strategy, events, company documents, and talent job executive movements.

The dashboard includes eight or nine widgets that provide a list of seven or eight articles on various topics. These articles are sourced from various sources, such as news articles or interviews with experts. The platform also has over 200,000 pre-recorded, transcribed expert calls, which are added to the library for analysis by the AI.

How AlphaSense Gathers Information

The interviewers are usually conducted by-side analysts, corporate users, and experts in respective fields. They work with corporate development teams and head of corporate strategy to conduct these interviews. The platform believes that a rising tide lifts all boats, and every expert call that happens throughout the AlphaSense is published back in the platform to further enhance and grow its library of expert calls from subject matter experts who are currently active in their industry.

 

AlphaSense Use Cases

In management consulting, AlphaSense may not be suitable for calls that would be better suited to AlphaSights where the information is sensitive or should have restricted access.  However, the use case for AlphaSense is to get up to speed on an engagement and quickly search across benchmark expert perspectives. This allows them to bolster their expertise within the management consulting space. AlphaSense is an institutional grade content engine that consolidates information from various sources, including expert calls, news, research reports, broker research, and more. It offers over 6000 vetted business and market news sources and trade journals, most of which require paywalls. AlphaSense allows users to bypass these paywalls and provides real-time insights from over 700 partners.

 

The AlphaSense Dashboard

The dashboard includes relevant documents related to executive movements, risk signals, growth, and investment strategies. Users can explore the dashboard by searching for trigger words related to their watchlist of consumer tech companies. The AI can then pull relevant documents, such as expert insights, event transcripts, press releases, and news, to provide valuable insights for business development or due diligence.

The Executive Search Function

The document search module within AlphaSense allows users to get forensic insights from relevant documents, such as executive search, talent, and hiring practices. The AI can also generate summary responses, which are useful for top-tier consulting use cases. However, the AI may sometimes make a guess or hallucination if an answer is not available. This is why the Big Three and Big Four rely on AlphaSense for their consulting use cases.

The AlphaSense Research Tool

The AlphaSense generative search tool is a research analyst team in a box. The tool is designed to answer macro business questions, such as market size or pricing trends. Brian checks McKinsey, Bain and BCG's performance in 2025, including their revenue, talent, hiring, and growth areas. The AI agent breaks down these questions into subquestions and finds 3000 documents across the content library. It then extracts documents from expert calls, press releases, investor relations presentations, research reports, and sustainability reports. The AI outputs a summary of the documents. The tool is particularly useful for understanding the performance of consulting firms like McKinsey Bain and BCG.

Quality Sources and Quantitative Data

AlphaSense provides bullet points on McKinsey, revenue, growth, talent, and hiring, with links to expert calls and other sources of data. The AI outputs are deep linked and cited to the source, ensuring accuracy. For instance, McKinsey Sciences for Growth, a 2025 focus, integrates tech-enabled capabilities and AI. BCG reported $13.5 billion in 2024 revenue, achieving 10% global growth and expanding its workforce to 33,000 employees. AlphaSense also has sentence-level citations, ensuring every sentence is deep linked and cited to its source. AlphaSense uses various models from partners like open AI, sonnet four, and Gemini 2.5, all grounded in high-quality, relevant documents. The tool's intelligence selects the best model based on the use case, whether it's reasoning-based or quantitative or qualitative. The AI is a comprehensive market-leading library of authoritative content that consultants care about.

Modes of Research and Meeting Prep for Management Consultants

Brian shares the typical use cases for management consultants using generative search platforms. He highlights two modes: think longer and deep research. Brian used generative search to prepare for a meeting with a client at a mid-sized consulting firm, focusing on digital strategy. The AI summarized transcripts, expert calls, earnings calls, and press releases from iHeart, highlighting the company's focus on technology, digitization, and AI-enabled automation as the key to cost savings and digital revenue acceleration. The platform also offers an iPhone app for on-the-go access to insights. The AI analyzed bullet points and planned insights on every section, creating a comprehensive competitive intelligence report. The report includes chatter on core service offerings, engagement models, pricing structures, sector specialization, news partnerships, partnerships, and tech bets. 

 

AlphaSense's Generative Grid

Brian talks about using AlphaSense's generative grid, which is a generative AI-powered spreadsheet to aggregate documents and interrogate them. This is useful for tracking executive compensation and performance components for target accounts. The grid allows consulting users to analyze past performance and understand the current climate. Another use case is connecting consulting, transformation, and strategic advisory services to key performance indicators, such as free cash flow, human capital, strategic objectives, or EBITDA. By attaching value drivers directly to performance components, consultants can focus on adjusted EBITDA growth, cost optimization, Target, discover integration execution drive, adjusted ROTC, and revenue growth tied to executive compensation.

AlphaSense for Understanding Business Development

Brian explains that the use cases and projects of consultants using AlphaSense  vary, but one major use case is business development understanding. It helps in identifying companies' propensity for M&A or divestitures, such as changes in management or new strategic initiatives. AlphaSense also offers a deal scanner for M&A consultants looking at acquisitions or private equity deals across a portfolio of companies or industries. It also provides due diligence services, such as meeting prep, company research, trend analysis, market assessment, client benchmarking, and sentiment analysis.

Alpha Sense's Access to Information Providers

AlphaSense has access to SEC filings, newspapers, trade journals, investment bank coverage, and reports. AlphaSense also has access to other information providers like CrunchBase, capital, IQ, and Pitch Book. The Venn diagram highlights the overlap of information between AlphaSense and other information providers, such as CrunchBase, Morningstar, and CrunchBase. If a company's revenue or employee count is in CrunchBase, it can be accessed via AlphaSense.

Alpha Sense vs. Capital IQ

The conversation turns to the differences between AlphaSense and Capital IQ, a financial reporting platform. AlphaSense is an end-to-end intelligence engine that provides access to investment banking reports, but it requires downloading them one by one. It is not possible to search across all content sets at once. Capital IQ, on the other hand, offers valuable structured data, is great for downloading Industry Reports, and is a strategic database of financials and filings. It is also useful for importing statistical or financial models into Excel. AlphaSense, on the other hand, is an end-to-end intelligence engine that provides decision-ready insights across billions of data points.

Timestamps:

03:23: Overview of AlphaSense's Content and AI Capabilities 

07:27: Detailed Walkthrough of AlphaSense Dashboard

12:38: Exploring Different Categories of Information Sources 

16:36: Generative Search and Deep Research Capabilities 

26:05: Use Cases for Management Consultants 

42:50: Comparison with Other Information Providers 

49:22: Pricing and Accessibility

Links:

Website: https://www.alpha-sense.com/

Recently feature on AlphaSense on CNBC with more insight on our Deep Research differentiation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HJ8Egisg-w

If folks want to reach out directly for their own personalized demo:

Email: bstollery@alpha-sense.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briancity/

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Raffi Grinberg is the Executive Director of Dialog and an educator. He also created and taught the course Adulting 101 at Boston College (the most popular course in the undergraduate business school). The course covered personal finance, relationships/communication, positive psychology, and career skills. In this episode, he talks about developing this program and why it has been so successful. You can reach Raffi through Linkedin.

Key points include:

• 05:22: Cognitive skills coaching
• 14:18: Growth mindset
• 34:32: Communication skills

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

After graduating with a BA in History and Education, Krysten knew she wanted a career where she could help people and make a positive impact. She became a teacher at middle school, but three years later she moved to an insurance agency where she led multiple departments, from operations to training to sales. Since the early days of her career, she has used her skills to coach sales in several industries, including entertainment, construction, retail, property management, consulting, health care, financial services, waste management, manufacturing, and software. You can reach Krysten on Linkedin or through her website Crosscuts.io.

Key points include:

• 01:19: Tips on running a successful Linkedin content strategy
• 12:07: Reaching out to decision-makers
• 22:13: The importance of engaging with comments

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Kyle McDowell is an author, speaker, and leadership coach. Kyle started his career in a regional bank as a front-line customer service representative. He has nearly three decades of experience leading tens of thousands of employees for some of the biggest companies in the US, and he has recently launched his best-selling book, Begin with We, which he talks about in this episode. 

Kyle can be reached on his social platforms as Kyle McDowell Inc. and his website KyleMcDowellinc.com.

Key points include:

• 09:47: Dealing with mistakes
• 18:31: Measuring ourselves by activities or outcomes
• 25:42: Challenging with diplomacy

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

JJ Kasper is the founder and partner at Blue Collective, a company that invests in extraordinary entrepreneurs. JJ is also a McKinsey alum, a former teacher, and a paper boy. He is also a self-professed failed attorney, disgruntled academic, reformed consultant, retired turnaround guy, wistful musician, and reluctant VC…. You can connect with JJ through his company bluecollective.com or Linkedin. 

Key points include:

• 02:53: How venture capitalists make money
• 13:17: The different stages of investment
• 32:04: The backstory of Blue Collective

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Tom Critchlow is a freelance strategy consultant and writer of the book The Strategic Independent - Theory & Practice for Independent Consultants. Tom specializes in digital marketing and how to generate leads, understand clients and their needs, and how to shift to a leadership mindset. You can check out Tom's work at tomcritchlow.com or connect with him on Linkedin. 

Key points include:

• 04:18: SEO consulting
• 22:27: Fees and pricing
• 34:41: Examples of new content initiatives 

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Nick Gray is an entrepreneur and the author of The 2-Hour Cocktail Party. He is the founder of Museum Hack. Nick started a web hosting company called vs3 Web Services in high school, and he has sold two multi-million dollar businesses. In this episode, Nick talks about his new book and shares the secret to the success of the 2-hour cocktail party. To learn more about Nick and his businesses, check out the following links.

How to Host a Party Website

The 2-Hour Cocktail Party: Website

The 2-Hour Cocktail Party: Amazon

How to Host a Clothing Swap

How to Plan a Networking Event

How to Host a Happy Hour

My Parents Hosted a Party: Here's What They Learned

Mocktail Party: How to Host When You Don't Drink Alcohol

If I Had $10 Million Dollars, How Would I Live Differently?

Nick Gray's personal website

Nick Gray's blog

Key points include:

• 06:05: The NICK formula
• 18:08: Icebreakers
• 27:07: Cocktails and concluding the evening

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Joe "Hark" Herold is a former Air Force colonel, he is the CEO of Design Thinking Denver, a consulting firm that takes a human-centred approach to innovation, and the president and COO of Bunker Labs. Hark's background covers information technology, cyber, civil engineering, and academia, in addition to strategy development and execution. 

In this episode, he talks about Bunkerlabs, an organisation that provides community, programs and courses to help military veterans and military spouses start and grow successful businesses and startups. To find out more, visit www.bunkerlabs.org.

Key points include:

• 05:01: The programs at Bunkerlabs
• 08:44: Bunkerlabs' funding sources
• 13:27: The CEO Circle
• 16:49: The Mastermind Session

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

 

Umbrex co-founders, Margarita Soto and Jing Liang discuss the development of the nonprofit organization they established to support orphans in Ukraine.  For more information and to donate to the organization visit:

GOFUNDME: https://www.gofundme.com/f/ukrainian-orphans-need-help

SUNFLOWER ACADEMY: https://sunfloweracademy.org.ua/

To support on social media:

SUNFLOWER ACADEMY INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/sunflower.academy.ua/?hl=en

 

SUNFLOWER ACADEMY FACEBOOK:

https://www.facebook.com/SunflowerAcademyUA/

Key points include:

• 01:10: The background on the orphan-foster situation
• 06:26: Growing from supporting two families to 60
• 10:84: Oversight on GoFundMe for nonprofits
• 13:44: Raising awareness for the nonprofit

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Thomas Breuer is a McKinsey alum with over 26 years of executive line level experience in the medical devices industry. He has held management positions in various international markets and regions, including Hollister Incorporated. He has also worked on a broad range of management consulting assignments in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America with McKinsey. You can reach Thomas through his website at www.breuerpartners.com, or through Umbrex.

Key points include:

• 05:50: First line role in Mexico
• 11:48: Starting his own consulting firm
• 13:45: A case study
• 18:24: Creating his own subsidiary

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Bryant Suellentrop is the founder of Elevate and Delegate, a virtual staffing company that helps professionals hire the assistants they need to run their business efficiently. In this episode, Bryant talks about hiring professionals in the Philippines and how his business facilitates the process. Learn more about Bryant's business at ElevateandDelegate.com or reach out to him on Twitter @SullyBusiness.  

Key points include:

05:50: The range of rates and salaries

11:22: Tips on success in hiring and managing the relationship

15:15: Payment processes

18:58: Online security

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Wes Wheless helps solo consultants bottle their secret sauce.  To do so, Wes offers two services: The NicheFinder Sprint and The IP Builder Sprint. He believes that consultants need to identify a niche or specialization and a unique approach to serving that niche, typically codified into intellectual property (IP). Each sprint is delivered one-on-one over 1-2 weeks.

Niche Finder Explained

NicheFinder is designed for early-stage solo consultants who are struggling to narrow down their niche. It involves working one-on-one to identify their zone of genius and then lay out potential ICPs. The client and the consultant come up with three specific ICPs, which are then run through a custom GPT that runs a detailed viability analysis on each lane.  The GPT also derives three additional ICPs based on context and evaluates their viability as well.  With an identified niche, the consultant can now decisively focus on building a market position around that specific problem and buyer.

Examples of Niche Consulting

Wes shares an example of a client whose determined niche is fractional CMO for B2C subscription companies that have hit a growth plateau and have not invested in brand marketing.  Another example is a client who went solo from a boutique consulting firm that specializes in change management. Her genius zone was being the translation layer between strategic vision and operational teams. She had a keen understanding of internal issues and also helped new executives acclimate to their roles. The GPT analysis suggested that she should focus on innovation teams running pilots but not getting traction due to organizational resistance. Wes explains that the GPT analysis includes 12 viability factors, including access, lifetime value, competitive alternatives, and target revenue numbers. These factors help narrow down options and identify red flags, ultimately leading to a more viable solution.

Sourcing Consulting Opportunities Before Niching Down

The discussion explores the approach of starting with potential buyers from your existing network, rather than relying on staffing firms or referrals. Will suggests starting with decision makers or influencers. This approach can help you identify your potential universe of buyers and determine what services they are willing to pay for. Wes adds that this approach can help you learn about selling yourself and what people are interested in. However, Wes points out that it can also lead to triangulating into a specialty that might not be interesting or appropriate for you. If you continue to work for anyone who will hire you at the moment, you may end up working in areas where you don't have much business taking on that kind of work.

Identifying and Validating a Consulting Niche

Wes discusses the process of developing a niche through the NicheFinder sprint. He emphasizes the importance of having a strong understanding of the client's pain points and interests before proceeding with the niche finder. Wes suggests that the process should be followed by market validation conversations, where potential clients can share their ideas and validate their interest in the service. This process should take around three to five conversations. Wes suggests changing the LinkedIn headline and content to be specific to the identified problem. He also suggests codifying relevant IP and developing visual assets that can be shared.

The IP Builder Sprint and Intellectual Headshots

Wes suggests that consultants should have served at least two or three clients within their niche before starting the IP Builder sprint. Wes suggests that consultants should display their expertise prominently through visual assets, which Wes calls intellectual headshots. These are instantly digestible visual articulations of your expertise that can prompt and streamline conversations. They can be distributed at scale and can look like typical consulting frameworks. Some clients have created headshots that look like comic strips or memes, which can open up dialogue and help clients see their problem or pain point. In conclusion, The IP Builder Sprint is a valuable investment for consultants to showcase their expertise and engage clients. By creating intellectual headshots, consultants can instantly telegraph their unique expertise, ultimately leading to elevated sales conversations and more client conversions.

Examples of Client Intellectual Headshots

Wes shares examples of client intellectual headshots. The first quickly communicates the five service models and personas in the consulting industry. The framework is designed to help consultants understand their roles and potential career paths.

Another example is a line chart showing the client mix over time, with a warm network starting at zero and gradually increasing. Word of mouth referrals also increase over time, but the social plateau indicates that word of mouth referrals will eventually hit an asymptote.

Wes then presents a client example,, a fractional general counsel for B2B SaaS companies. Mark wanted to address the stereotype that lawyers are not liked and can gum up the process. They created a visual to illustrate this point, using a skier jumping off a ski ramp to demonstrate that lawyers can build momentum rather than kill deals. This humorous approach makes fun of the stereotype and encourages clients to focus on building momentum rather than killing deals.

In this discussion, Wes Wheless and Will Bachman discuss their approach to business and the importance of memorable and easily digestible content. They discuss the Grim Reaper, a humorous concept that addresses the elephant in the room and highlights the co-creative nature of the sprint. They also discuss Mark's ability to speed up the sales contract process, which is crucial for closing deals faster and increasing sales revenue. Mark's approach is not about charging by the hour but about making sure deals close, rather than covering his own assets or inflating his billable hours. He uses simple, clear language to convey his main point, making it easy for people to understand and remember. 

The final topic discussed is the sale contract process, which can lead to deals losing due to the lack of a clear and concise presentation. Mark's approach focuses on shrinking the contract process, reducing the risk of losing the deal once it's won. This differentiation with Mark and his ideas can lead to increased revenue and better deals for the company.

The Benefits of the Intellectual Headshot

Wes highlights the importance of posting these assets on LinkedIn and other platforms to ensure they reflect the work done. Wes also emphasizes the role of visuals in reducing pressure on consultants, especially new ones, who may feel anxious about speaking their expertise. By providing a simple visual that serves as a common ground for conversation, it allows consultants to focus on the main points of the conversation without having to deliver a lengthy spiel. On the client side, Wes emphasizes the importance of reducing cognitive load and freeing up time for the discussion. 

Timestamps:

0:02: Introduction to Wes Wheless and His Services 

01:11: Details of the Niche Finder Program 

12:43: Implementation and Validation of Niche Finder Results 

20:53: Introduction to IP Builder and Intellectual Headshots 

32:43: Examples of Intellectual Headshots 

Links:

• Website: developmyip.com

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wwheless/

• The Lightbulb daily newsletter for solo consultants: developmyip.com/daily

 

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

 

Gabe Nelson is the owner operator of a registered investment advisory firm, a fee-based financial planning and investment advisory services to solopreneurs and self-employed professional clients. In today's episode, Gabe talks about the important details of financial planning for solo entrepreneurs.   Access Gabe's book, The Solopreneurs Money Manifesto on Amazon, listen to his podcast, Solopreneur Money, or visit his website, GabeNelsonFinancial.com.   Key points include:

04:22: The services of a financial advisor

10:16: Insurance planning

20:27: Retirement accounts

31:38: Tax changes for an S corporation

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Dorie is a strategy consultant, executive coach, keynote speaker, a recognized branding expert, and author of several books, including the bestseller The Long Game, Entrepreneurial You, Reinventing You, and Stand Out, which was named the #1 Leadership Book of the Year by Inc. magazine and one of the Top 10 Business Books of the Year by Forbes.

She has worked with a variety of high-profile clients including Google, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Fidelity, Yale University, the IMF, and the World Bank. In today's episode, Dorie talks about her working philosophy and her newest book, The Long Game: how to be a long-term thinker in a short-term world. Learn more about Dorie's work at www.DorieClark.com.

Key points include:

07:53: How to maximize connection dinners

18:51: Setting boundaries

25:03: The Long Game toolkit

31:01: Creating an online course

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Maria Gabriela Brito is a Venezuelan-born curator, art advisor, and author. She is the author of How Creativity Rules the World, the art and business of turning your ideas into gold. Her published works also include Out There: Design, Art, Travel Shopping, and Greek Gotham. Maria is a graduate of Harvard Law, and after school, she moved to New York City to pursue a career as a corporate attorney. She started collecting contemporary art in the same year, and after nine years practicing law and acquiring art, Brito opened her own interior design and art advisory company. Learn more about Maria's work at MariaBrito.co, and access her book, How Creativity Rules The World: The Art and Business of Turning Your Ideas Into Gold

Key points include:

01:50: From Harvard Law school to art advisor

09:17: Her work as an art advisor and NFTs

15:28: Advice on buying art

34:02: Advice on building creative muscle

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.