How Do You Sell Yourself As an Independent Consultant? - #37

Show Notes

You have years of experience and knowledge; have you considered offering consulting services as a side business? To find out how to get started as an independent consultant, Lori Vajda and Nola Boea sat down with speaker, trainer, entrepreneur, author, and sales enablement consultant, Melissa Madian, Founder and Chief Fabulous Officer of TMM Enablement Services. Melissa shares her insights, tips and methods professionals can use to effectively market, position and brand yourself as a consultant.  

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In This Episode You’ll Learn

• How to start a consulting business.
• The 5 main reasons organizations and companies hire out consulting services.
• Being a successful consultant has more to do with how you market yourself than it does what services you offer.
• How mindset can help or hinder a successful consulting business and how to ensure you fall into the former rather than the latter.

Establishing yourself as a consultant is an exciting way to launch and grow your side business or take your career in a new direction. However, there’s more to becoming an independent consultant than being recognized as an expert and a trusted brand to the markets, industries and audiences you want to serve. As Nola and Lori found out, you’ll also need a systematic approach for getting and selling your services to prospective clients. Once you have your strategy figured out, working a side business as a consultant can give your career a much needed boost in the right direction. It can also provide you with the freedom and flexibility to do the kind of work you enjoy, are good at, have a passion for, and that people are willing to pay you what you’re worth. And, isn’t that what we all want?

(5:22.94) How do you take a degree that is not related to the field you find yourself working in and turn it into a new opportunity for gaining new experience? 

(6:56.31) Certain personality types embrace new learning, while others avoid it altogether. What can you learn from Melissa’s approach to sales enablement, that could help you become the go-to person? And, more importantly, how could it set you apart from your colleagues?

(8:04.71) When it comes to educating executives who don’t know they have a problem and need your services, Melissa lays out an actionable roadmap that speaks their language.

(9:16:20) If you want to work for yourself, you have to learn how to ‘sell’ your services. Unfortunately, according to Melissa, many women get in their own way, primarily because they want to fit in. Hear Melissa’s tip for getting past this hurdle to become successful.

(11:37:33) As a consultant, you are your own brand and as such are responsible for promoting your expertise. Melissa shares insights and tips for how, where and in what ways you can promote your ideas, knowledge and expertise in a way that attracts interest.

(15:41:34) Action steps you can take to successfully transition from your fulltime job into your new role as an independent consultant.

(18:24:32) One great tip for establishing and promoting yourself as a consultant, write a book. Write what you know is an adage that when put into practice, can help you build credibility to a wider audience.

Resources 

You can subscribe to Lori and Nola's show, (we love you and want to make it easy) on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

• TMM Enablement Services
  
• Book: Enabler? I Hardly Know Her!: How to Make the Sales Experience Not Suck Find it on Amazon
  
• Melissa Madian on Instagram
  
• To Get Melissa’s Walt Disney Quote: Sticky Brand Lab Resources Page
  
• This episode was supported by: Be-YOU-nique

Transcript

Nola: [00:00:00] Have you reached the point in your career where people seek you out because of your knowledge and hands-on experience? Congratulations on becoming an expert in your field. And when you're an expert, your advice becomes a valuable resource individuals, companies and organizations are willing to pay for in order to help them solve specific problems. In fact, there's an entire industry built around expert advice. It's called consulting. And if you've been wondering how to get started, stay tuned because we're taking a closer look at this profitable side business with our guest, in today's episode.
 
Announcer: [00:00:34] You're listening to the Sticky Brand Lab podcast where time-strapped professionals like you learn how to create a business you love, in as little as three hours a week.
 
Lori: [00:00:46] Many career professionals offer independent consulting services as their side business, and for good reason. It's a great way to dive deeper into your existing career field and knowledge base. Consulting offers a more flexible career path and higher compensation, and it can be a great way to switch careers altogether.
Hello and welcome, aspiring side hustlers, Laurie, and Nola here to explore how to turn your expertise into a consulting business. But before we get started, be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Audible, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. That way, you'll never miss out on any of our weekly helpful, informative, and always opinionated podcasts. Now let's get this I'm-ready-to-become-an-independent-consultant show started.
 
Nola: [00:01:35] Companies of all sizes hire consultants. As an example, Dell Technologies recently listed the following consulting gigs: product management, public relations, corporate communications, and cyber security. According to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for consulting services is expected to increase by 14% between 2016 to 2026, as companies seek new ways to stay competitive, improve efficiency and control costs.  To understand the business as an independent consultant and how you can get started, we turned to Melissa Madian. Speaker, trainer, entrepreneur, author, and sales enablement consultant, Melissa is Founder and Chief Fabulous Officer of TMM Enablement Services. Voted one of 15 Top Sales Influencers to follow in 2020, and ranked 10th of the 35-Plus Most Influential Women Leading B2B Marketing Technology, Melissa Madian graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering, but soon found herself in the world of sales. One of the first people to pioneer the sales enablement role in B2B, Melissa has spent the past 25 perfecting the sales experience for revenue generating teams.  And she's the author of two books: Enabler, I Hardly Know Her! How to Make the Sales Experience Not Suck, which has a perfect five-star rating on Amazon. And a children's book: It Came From the Science Lab! Melissa, having had a chance to watch a video of you speaking, you are funny, smart, and so engaging. And we welcome you to the show.
 
Melissa: [00:03:22] Thank you for having me. Everything you said is absolutely true. I am fabulous and engaging.
 
Lori: [00:03:48] So you can wake up and say, you're lying next to a Chief Fabulous Officer, so deal with it, Babe,
 
Melissa: [00:03:56] I say to my husband often, I'm like, uh, anytime he says something that I disagree with him, like, uh, do you not know who I am?
 
Lori: [00:04:07] I should use that one rather than do you know who I think I am.
 
Nola: [00:04:16] Yeah, probably.
 
Lori: [00:04:19] Before we get into the specifics of entrepreneurship, can you tell us what's the most entrepreneurial thing about you?
 
Melissa: [00:04:28] Mainly just my ability to work without guidelines and take initiative on doing things. I've never been one to kind of wait around for stuff to happen. It's just, you know, hey, I see, this could be my engineering background. I see a problem. I'm just going to fix it. I'm not going to wait for anyone to tell me that I should, and I'm not going to wait for anyone to tell me that I'm doing it right or wrong. We've got to fix it and then kind of deal with whatever happens, positive or negative, after that. So, I'd say that definitely puts me into that sort of entrepreneurial. Then, and now, since I've been an entrepreneur for so long, as my husband says, I'm entirely unmanageable at this point. I don't think I could go back to being in a nine to five job where I work for somebody else, because I've done my own thing for so long.
 
Nola: [00:05:17] You graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and soon found yourself in the world of sales. Tell us how that education prepared you for sales and how it led to your career journey.
 
Melissa: [00:05:31] I fell into sales pretty much how most folks fall into sales. When I graduated, my first full-time job was a sales engineer for a process control company. And so the process control side of things was very much a part of what I had done in school. But the sales side of things, the sales engineering side of things was new. It was different. And I just enjoy that environment of listening to a prospective customer and then ultimately providing them a solution that fits and solves a problem that they have. I enjoyed that so much that when, when an actual direct selling opportunity came along, I'm like, yeah, I think I can really enjoy this stuff. And then I kind of fell into the next evolution of my, my journey, which was sales enablement, when I was at a company that I absolutely loved working at, it's a company called Eloqua, and I was running the sales engineering team. Our sellers, we had gone from this sort of you know, selling the big vision type sale to a highly competitive fighting in the trenches type of a sale, and our sellers were really struggling with that. So, I was like, well, I know this platform really well. Why don't I train you all on how to do this effectively and how to win in these highly competitive deals. That's how I fell into sales enablement.
 
Lori: [00:06:45] So when you were training that team, the title of sales enablement didn't exist yet. So how did you identify the niche in the sales field and what made your expertise unique for sales in general, and transferable? Because it wasn't just in the industry that you were working in.
 
Melissa: [00:07:05] At the time sales training was common, but this idea of sales enablement, it was kind of being batted around by a couple of analysts, but it wasn't really a thing. It wasn't a job function that folks thought about. So, I kept up to speed on all the analysts and sort of the up-and-coming trends in the marketplace, just as a function of my job as, as somebody who was in sales engineering. And I was like, oh, enablement, I'm hearing this term enablement, but nobody really knew what it was. And I'm like, I think that's what I, I'm not a sales trainer. What I'm actually doing is I am providing an element of training, but I'm also assisting with establishing process, I'm taking a look at overall sales pipeline, velocity, and working with our operations and our marketing team on what seems to be working well and how can we improve, how the sellers go to market. And so that all to me, sort of boiled down to the definition of enablement, which is providing process, tools and training to help your revenue generating functions close more business and close it quickly, while also creating a really great experience for your customers. 
 
Nola: [00:08:11] Now that that's what you do, how do you convince executives about something that they didn't even know it existed?
 
Melissa: [00:08:18] I just have to think about who is my target buyer as a consultant? And what problems do they have that they don't know they have? And because I knew the problems that I solve for at the organizations that I was at, I knew that these are all problems that are existing in organizations that have a sales function that are trying to sell something that is more complex than toothpaste. And I’m all right, these are the problems that these executives have, and I'm just going to position, you know, “Hey, you do, you know, you have this problem?” And nine times out of 10 folks are like, “Oh yeah, I totally have this problem.” And either you need to hire an enablement person full-time, or you need to hire somebody to come in and help guide you on this process of putting enablement into place. And that's, that's where you would use me.
 
Lori: [00:09:07] If you are going to go out and do your own business, sales is a part of that. Can you talk about specifically about women in sales? You talk about, that women get in their own way about being bold. Can you define what you mean by being bold?
 
Melissa: [00:09:25] I think there is a lot of people I think sort of disproportionately affects women, is this idea that I need to fit in and I need to, roll with whatever's going on. And I don't want to overstep, I don't want to be perceived that way. And my cut at it is you shouldn't be afraid to be who you are first of all, and then to be bold because if you know that you're coming from a place of authenticity and information, then you certainly can be bold and make your opinion known. And I tell professionals that are a little reticent to rock the boat or disrupt status quo or be bold, it's like, what's the worst that's going to happen if you're coming from a place of authenticity and you're coming from a factual base, you're not just making stuff up. The worst thing that'll happen is, whoever you're talking to is going to disagree with you. Don't be afraid to actually, you know, state your opinion and be bold about it.
 
Nola: [00:10:20] And that's a really good point. However, there's a certain type of personality. Those that think that if we're good at something I'm good at it, people will notice I'm good at it. And I will get promoted on my merits, but that doesn't always happen that way. So can you speak to the inherent problems of that kind of thinking
 
Lori: [00:10:39] And not just inherent problems? Can you speak to us about that?
 
Nola: [00:10:47] So what is the problem with that thinking?
 
Melissa: [00:10:49] Therapy is in session.
 
Lori: [00:10:53] We're paying attention.
 
Melissa: [00:10:56] I do it as everyone is a salesperson. And even if you are not in the role of a salesperson, you are still the salesperson for yourself and your brand. So, I am a big fan of shameless self-promotion because the only person who's going to sell you is you. Yeah, you might have some awesome peers that also promote you, and that's fantastic. But if you're just sitting, thinking, if I just do a great job, I should just automatically be recognized for it, it's not going to happen because you're competing with so many other folks for attention and validation, that will not necessarily give you what you want. So, the only person who's going to give you what you want is if you get out there and get what you want and basically sell your why you should get that promotion and be recognized.  At a bare minimum. You are selling your brand to those who need to know that you are awesome at what you do. And I will say if I hadn't been really aggressive throughout my career about actively making connections, actively networking, making sure that I would post about various topics related in my field, as well as whatever companies I was working for. So, it was always on behalf of the organization, but still my own voice as well. If I hadn't done that. I wouldn't have accelerated my consulting business as much as I did when I did it leave. Because I had laid that groundwork of networking effectively, promoting myself as well as whatever companies I was at, when I did go out on my own, I was already established. So, it wasn't easy, but it was easier to get out there and promote that I was now a consultant because I had already sort of laid the groundwork of my voice out there in the market.
 
Lori: [00:12:44] Can you give a tip or two to take that step, to make that leap?
 
Melissa: [00:12:49] If it's not natural for you to shamelessly self-promote, that's totally okay. If it's not natural. I would and I, again, I'm going to put my engineering hat back on, make a plan for yourself and actually chart out. I would actually plan out, I block off time in my day to post. So, you know, Hey Melissa, post on LinkedIn, this article. Go to these networking events. So, I actually block it off in my calendar. It started to become sort of natural for me to do that on social media. Cause it was quite new at the time. So, for anyone out there who is a little bit more introvert and is struggling with that, just make a plan for yourself as, and nothing complicated. Something is easy as take your calendar, your iPhone calendar, whatever calendar you use, and just block off time to do things that will help to get your voice out there. And soon, it'll just be part of your natural day-to-day operations.
 
Nola: [00:13:43] So we'd love this quote of yours. You said "No one is a bigger sales person for yourself than yourself." And you have alluded a couple of times now to shameless self-promotion. But you say that it's not only necessary, but it's part of being your own advocate. Can you just dive a little deeper about shameless self-promotion?
 
Melissa: [00:14:07] So I used to say this all the time with my employees when I actually had a team, I can't read your mind. So, if you want something, you need to tell me and you need to tell me what it is that you want, and you need to tell me why. And, I sort of view, that's kind of my lens on shameless, self-promotion. If you want something, you need to tell the world what you want and why you want it. So, when you're trying to get people to go to a webinar, when you're trying to get people read an article, you know, I'm trying to put out there in the world, this is what I want you to do. And here's why I want you to do it. And then it's up to the audience to determine whether or not it's something they want to do or not do. People can't read each other's minds. So, no one's going to know until you actually, shamelessly self-promote yourself.
 
Lori: [00:14:52] So as a sales expert, how do you sell consulting?
 
Melissa: [00:14:57] First off, I need to know who my target buyer is. So, I've established I know who my target audience is. I know who has the problems that I solve for. The way I typically position it is, if you were to hire me full time, it would cost you three times as much as it would to hire me as a consultant to fix the problem that you have.
 
Lori: [00:15:19] Now. I'm so glad this is a podcast recording because now I can, 
 
Nola: [00:15:23] hit replay, you can press rewind, rewind,
 
Melissa: [00:15:27] And the timeline is a lot shorter too, because if you hire somebody, they got to go through the whole process of like getting acclimatized and getting your laptop and yada yada, yada. Like I already know how to solve a problem that an organization has. I just need to know what their situation is, and that's a lot cheaper, a lot faster than it would be to hire someone full-time of my caliber, but hiring me as a consultant is a lot cheaper and you get it done a lot faster.
 
Nola: [00:15:50] So, let's say, we're sold. Where I know I'm sure, I'm sure by now most of our listeners are like, okay, I can do this. So, what advice would you have for someone who wants to make that transition from their corporate, you know, day job, to consulting?
 
Melissa: [00:16:08] The first thing you have to ask yourself is if you fail, can you still live? That's like the most important thing. And then the second thing is assuming that you succeed, what is it going to take to make you succeed? So, what is the one thing that you're providing to the market that is the solution to people's problems? And then also take a look at what's my competition? And then think about, am I entering a field that's really heavy with consultants? Or is this something that I can really carve out a niche and make a name for myself because there's very little competition out there? So, think about that. And then think about, what's my strategy? What's the kind of work that I'm doing as a consultant? Figure all those things out before you start targeting the people that you want to potentially buy from you.
 
Lori: [00:16:55] So, can you speak to your experience, developing your own brand, as well as offer up some ideas and suggestions for listeners?
 
Melissa: [00:17:04] The thing that I did that still remains true now is I just stay true to myself. And now if I look back, I'm like my brand is sort of, energetic, humorous, and off the cuff, tell it like it is type of a human being. I'm pretty authentic that way. What you're seeing here right now is essentially what you would get if we were best friends for a million years, and we're sitting in my backyard having a glass of wine or two. I think the how you establish your personal brand is what is unique and authentic to me, and does that translate to whatever the message or the products or services that I have that I'm putting out there? I think that that's a really long way of getting to, I think what you need to ask yourself is, what makes me ME, and am I comfortable with that in the context of an environment where I'm trying to build a business around that? Or like, I'm not shy about telling folks I enjoy wine. I love wine, and I love cats, like, that is super clear. So, if that's who you are, and that's authentically who you are, you know, don't be afraid to put that as part of your personal brand.
 
Lori: [00:18:13] I know that the three of us could be really good friends because I really love wine, and Nola has a cat.
 
Nola: [00:18:23] We would love to know about your experience in writing and publishing a book. How have you used that to establish and promote yourself as an expert in your field?
 
Melissa: [00:18:35] Writing that book was something I wanted to do. So, Enabler, I Hardly Know Her, How to Make the Sales Experience Not Suck, is a book on sales enablement and revenue enablement. And I knew I wanted to write that book after, I think it was a couple of years ago now, a good friend of mine and I were out for drinks and, um, having wine. And he said, why aren’t you writing, you know, the Sales Enablement for Dummies book? Like he, he goes, I would read that book. And he's not even, in sales enablement. And I was like, oh, that's a really good point. And then I started to write, I would write like a chapter here and I'd write a chapter there, and then, you know, life gets in the way. And work gets in the way. And then the pandemic happened and there was just a period of time where nobody was doing anything. So, I thought, well, if there's any point in time where I just sit my butt down and write, this is the time to do it.  My intent was I'm going to write a book because there's a lot of stuff in my brain that people ask me about all the time as a function of being an expert in the field. I'm just gonna put it into a book. And then when I go to clients, I can give them the book as a gift. And then if people ask me, I can say, “Hey, I wrote a book on it, go ahead and download it and read it, and if you have any questions after that, go for it.” So, my intent was, I want to put it all, all everything's in my brain into a book, and I want to write it in a way that somebody could grab it, grab a glass of wine and just read it and enjoy it. 
 
Lori: [00:19:55] I've noticed that wine is definitely a passion of yours. You touch on something about being authentic and every way that you interact on our episode, I felt like I got to know you and thought if this is how you behave on stage, I want to hang out with you. off stage.
 
Melissa: [00:20:18] I appreciate that. I'm not trying to be authentic. I'm just being me.
 
Nola: [00:20:24] Well, wrapping up, we believe in inspiring quotes. And as a matter of fact, we developed a PDF of inspirational quotes for aspiring side hustlers and entrepreneurs. We thought it'd be interesting to see what your personal favorite motto is, and you gave us the motto, "If you can dream it, you can do it" by Walt Disney. Tell us in what way it reflects your experience and journey to becoming a successful entrepreneur.
 
Melissa: [00:20:50] I have always been a Disney fan. And when I first went to Disney World theme park, all over Disney World, there's like, if you can dream it, you can do it. And that sort of Walt Disney's motto, and they talk about the history of Disney and that was his idea. And I always thought, even as a kid, I'm like, that's really inspirational that means I can do anything. Like that means if I can just put my mind to it, come up with inspiration, I can do anything. And I've carried that all throughout my career. It's like, am I in dream it, if I can visualize it, I can do it. It might take a while to get there. And I might have to do a lot of things between where I'm at now and what I want to get to, but there's no reason why I can't get there. I just got to put in the work and think about how to do it.
 
Nola: [00:21:34] That is so inspirational.
 
Lori: [00:21:35] So as a fun question, and a way for our audience to get to know you a little bit better on a personal level:  If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would that be?
 
Melissa: [00:21:45] Don't be afraid to be you. That would be it. Don't be afraid to be you. I think I was really cautious when I was younger to not be my kooky, whole, funny self. It's like, well, I'm just going to do my work and keep my head down and not make myself known, and looking back, I would just tell that Melissa, just be you. Who cares? Like Don't be afraid what anybody else thinks, because that's all going to come into play, make you successful down the line. So yeah, don't be afraid to be you.
 
Nola: [00:22:16] Perfect advice. Well, thank you Melissa, for being our guest and helping us and our listeners. Would you tell our listeners how they can learn more about you and your work?
 
Melissa: [00:22:25] Sure. Uh, you can go to my website. It's www.melissamadian.com, all about me and my services there, or follow me on LinkedIn and just find Melissa I'm I think I'm the only Melissa Madian out there, so find Melissa Madian and feel free to connect and follow me on LinkedIn or on Instagram too. I'm on Instagram as well.
 
Nola: [00:22:43] Great. Listeners, you can also get the links, details and information about Melissa, her services, and capture her motto, by visiting our website, www.stickybrandlab.com and checking out our show notes and our Resources page.
 
Lori: [00:22:57] Be sure to come back next Tuesday and every Tuesday for another informative, inspiring and motivating episode. And remember: Actions create results. So tap into your desire to create a business and brand you love, by taking 1% action every day. Small steps, big effects.
 
Nola: [00:23:16] Do you have questions about creating a personal brand, side hustle or small business? Sign up for one of our clarity sessions. For more information, contact us at www.stickybrandlab.com/contact.
 
[OUT-TAKE]
Tell us in what way it reflects your experience and journey to becoming a succexful let me rephrase that,
​
Lori: [00:23:39] Yeah, because you don't want to be succex and sex ful.