What do you wish your audience knew that would unlock tremendous value for them? Peter Thiel delves into secrets and contrarianism is his book Zero to One. Thoughts on Peter Thiel and his influence aside, I think he’s onto something … Read More
conversion
Proposals don’t win deals, they lose them
“Sounds good, can you send me a proposal?” These words used to excite and terrify me. Then, I’d go off to write an amazing proposal to wow the prospect and win the business. So much stress, for so little success. … Read More
AI to make adding contacts easier
AI is the big buzzword, and advances have made it so anyone can get an always on-call, always patient intern. (Here are a few ways I use ChatGPT to help me get contact info into Mimiran.) Now you can paste … Read More
Do you own your own business, or does it own you?
Most of us start our own business because we want more freedom, more control, more spaciousness to pursue our purpose. Sometimes, though, it seems like the business starts owning us– even more than the corporate jobs we left. It’s hard … Read More
The Olympics, Degree-of-difficulty, and Sales
USA and France played 2 amazing basketball games this weekend– the men’s final on Saturday and the women’s on Sunday, As a basketball fan, it’s great to see the games get competitive, with amazing players from all over the world.My … Read More
Sales and marketing automation vs. organization
There are lots of tools for sales and marketing automation, some quite powerful and effective, in the appropriate situation. But all of these tools will fail if you need to have real relationships and you try to “outsource” your side … Read More
If you rely on referrals, what’s your referral strategy?
For years, I relied on referrals, but I wasn’t intentional about it– I didn’t have a referral strategy. I just hoped I’d get a good referral. And even if I didn’t get a good referral, I felt obliged to pursue … Read More
Your Consulting Website Has 1 Job
To get you leads. That’s it. Everything else is just for fun. (A polite way of saying “vanity metrics” or “waste of time”.) Even if you don’t get any leads directly from your consulting website (often a self-fulfilling prophecy), people … Read More
When does a solo consultant need a CRM?
I get this question a lot, sometimes from folks just starting out as a consultant, often as a corporate refugee, and sometimes from folks who have been consulting for a while and maybe even tried a fancy CRM that felt … Read More
LinkedIn Tagline Visibility Estimator
LinkedIn gives you 220 characters for your tagline, and if someone visits your profile, they will see all of those characters. But when you post, comment, or reply to a comment, LinkedIn shows only some of those characters, especially on … Read More