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B2B consultant here for 30 years weighing in with broad truths: * If you are waiting on leads, you die. You create leads -- every day, as your top business pri

B2B consultant here for 30 years weighing in with broad truths: * If you are waiting on leads, you die. You create leads -- every day, as your top business priority -- by working to inform and educate people. You deliver value now (information, education) to capture value (a sale) later. * This is going to mean talking to strangers. It's going to mean experimenting with ads, native advertising, figuring out which channels your buyers frequent, etc. The failure-to-success ratio will be high and that, as painful as it is, is fine. It's part of the process. * As others have indicated: Don't assume you can just hire someone to do sales or marketing. If the founders don't fully understand the value proposition and the pain points of potential clients, it's very hard to succeed. * You're new and that means you're likely small. You're also specialized. Consider throwing effort at partnering with larger players who have cracked the code, have a steady stream of clients but don't have your expertise. Subconsulting is profitable and a way to keep the doors open while you figure out how to hunt and kill your own work. * Your rates have to be high enough to support you with 50%+ of your time unsold/unbooked. During that unsold/unbooked time? You are marketing. With the possible exception of sending out invoices, nothing else is as important.

JacobAldridge 6y ago
Fellow B2B Consultant here. I had the thread open to find some time to return and add my thoughts and experience. Everything you’ve said is spot on, and I think you’ve hit everything of substance. Growing a consulting (even a tailored tech solution) business means making it a sales business first and foremost - you can prioritize delivery if you reach a point you want to plateau, but 0 leads is not that point.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- chii 6y ago
  > business means making it a sales business first and foremost i think a lot of people have the misunderstanding that the world works under a "build it and they will come" model.
  - trevyn 6y ago
    Frankly, if you build the right thing, they will come. And it's very easy to deceive ourselves into believing that we're building the right thing.
    - faeyanpiraat 6y ago
      Yes, this sounds nice, but even if you build the actual right thing, most of the time they wont come.
    - pembrook 6y ago
      Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way. Especially for a commodity business like consulting/agencies. Even if you have product market fit, and are experiencing the “pull” of a hot market...if you have no reliable distribution channels, you have no business. Humans are busy, and the problems that businesses solve for in the modern world are not life or death issues. Any product that solves a problem that tons of people are already searching google for, is by definition, going to also have tons of competitors.
      - trevyn 6y ago
        Think bigger. Maybe things that businesses build are not the right things?
        oblio 6y ago
        And what are the right things?
    - omk 6y ago
      Can you back this up with a real case?
yed 6y ago
Great advice. On point 4 (partner with larger players) don’t be afraid to market yourselves as subcontractors/subconsultants to companies and coworkers you’ve worked with in the past. Even if you know they already have the expertise, consulting work has ebbs and flows so they often can use some additional staff when there is high project demand, especially in more complex or niche projects.
Pandabob 6y ago
Can you elaborate on the Ad part? What kinds of ads should one be thinking of? What do you think about content marketing (technical blogs etc.)?
- gwbrooks 6y ago
  Ads: Depends on your niche and where you are in your growth. If you're competing in a big pond, search-related ads + owned content for lead capture and some retargeting once you have the visit/lead is likely going to be faster and maybe cheaper than the longer (and, for some phrases/niches, impossible) slog of establishing SEO dominance. I'm a big fan of the cheap, audacious ad move to get a foot in the door. Know where the decision maker for your next enterprise sale works out every morning? Geo-fence very specific-to-him mobile ads around the building while he works out. That kind of thing. No ad is going to get you a sale; but ad ad can get you attention that leads to a conversation. (Yes, that's marketing blah-blah -- send me an email at gregb(at)west-third.com if you want to talk through it. I won't try and turn you into a client; those days are behind me. Just trying to be helpful.) Content: Content marketing has gone from a silver bullet about five years ago to being like a business card today -- you pretty much have to do it for baseline credibility, but a lot of people (particularly in B2B environments) aren't doing a great job. Their copy is too technical, too promotional, too focused on a shock-and-awe feature set instead of really talking about the problem their prospects have and how their (your) solution is a 10x improvement. I said in a comment a couple of weeks ago: Marketing is nothing more than delivering value (education, expertise on how a technical problem fits into the larger business, a path to growth, etc.) in order to capture value (the sale). If you think about it that way and enforce it in the organization, you tend to produce content -- well, marketing across the board -- that's more effective. Don't strip mine the audience by just trying to capture value without delivering anything of value.
tixocloud 6y ago
Thanks for the great insights. As a specialist, do you partner with large firms like Accenture, Deloitte, etc? Or 2nd tier firms? And how formal do these partnerships need to be (ie word of mouth, contract)?
- UK-Al05 6y ago
  I think it will be established boutique firms, not acccenture or deloitte.
- gwbrooks 6y ago
  I did both. I partnered with large do-it-everything firms when I was at a small, woman-owned shop because the big firms didn't have our expertise in house; needed to meet a woman-owned-business checkbox; or both. On my own, I would almost always chase business out of my local market (out-of-town solutions are generally deemed to be smarter, unfair as that seems) and find a local partner (so the client -- often a gov agency -- could feel like they were spending money in the community. Sometimes, a bunch of small fry would team up for a large group proposal, but that had iffy results. If it was a big-enough project for that, it was big enough that the client likely wanted one of the larger firms and subbing to them was a better strategy.
  - tixocloud 6y ago
    It's interesting - how did you identify the expertise gap in the big firms? From their websites, they advertise that they can pretty much do everything under the sun. Also, interesting there's a checkbox for woman-owned-business.
    - gwbrooks 6y ago
      Honestly, I think the gap identification came down to the two different cases for engagement: * If they chased government work, they almost always needed a minority-owned or woman-owned business. Could they do the work in-house? Sometimes, but hiring us checked the box. * The big, do-everything firms were looking at the same dynamics we were: Sometimes we got hired because we were the local partner and they needed a local partners. Sometimes we got hired even though they could do the work in-house because our reputation for that work was stronger. Stuff like that. Don't look for the expertise gap -- look for firms big enough that they're chasing really large engagements where the value of throwing you some of the work is more than offset by the boost you'll bring to the overall team. Not every large firm is that enlightened, but plenty of them are.
INTPenis 6y ago
I'm an asocial geek and even I've observed that sales or creating leads is the top priority. The best startups I've seen on my end over here in Europe have been one sales guy and one tech guy.
ablekh 6y ago
Kudos on excellent comments and advice (here as well as in your other reply below). I'm curious about your thoughts on productized consulting, if any.
- gwbrooks 6y ago
  At the low (and, to a lesser degree, middle) tiers? It's more than just a good idea -- it's a survival strategy. Why? Because you can't knock out custom, 20-page-proposal solutions for all the small fry or you'll spend all your time on that. Packaged/productized solutions allow you to sell a repeatable product off the shelf at higher margins (ideally) or at a lower/competitive price point (more likely in a crowded space). Once you hit scale? Well, it depends on your strategy and what you're selling but there's no shame in your game if you leave the productized world behind or dial back on it. Bigger clients in professional services usually have more margin (because admin/overhead doesn't evolve as quickly as billable hours with them) and lots of upsell opportunity, so you may decide to focus on that. If you do dive into productized offerings, don't just create packages -- create packages that lend themselves to natural upsell breakpoints. What that could look like in raw consulting: * Design an assessment package that essentially defines the problem and tells them how to think about solving it rather than solving it. * Then design a package that lays out the plan but not the implementation. * Then package implementation in time- or milestone-bound chunks that create breakpoints for strategic account review, which is just a 50-cent word for sitting down with the client to look things over and adjust scope upwards.
  - ablekh 6y ago
    Very interesting. I much appreciate your prompt and detailed comment. You clearly know the art and craft of consulting quite well.
    - gwbrooks 6y ago
      In my next life I'll be good at something more enjoyable. ;)
dimmke 6y ago
Hey, thanks for these comments. I was wondering, if someone wanted to do a deep dive into consulting especially for government agencies, and has little to no sales experience do you know of any books that are really good?
- gwbrooks 6y ago
  Ugh, I'm sorry -- I don't know that I've ever seen/read a book on the subject. (And now I'm horrified at myself for that admission.) A practical suggestion: If you live in a large metro area, reach out to the city or county purchasing departments, explain that you're new to selling into the public sector, and ask if they have any procurement fairs or seminars scheduled. (A sidebar: Federal sales are a whole other ball of wax and I'm not the most qualified to talk about them.) * If they say yes, you've got a chance to show up and meet people face to face, which is rare in government sales and can give you an edge. People buy from people they remember. * If they say no, put on your best aw-shucks humble act and ask if perhaps you could schedule a 10-minute informational call with someone from the department, just to better understand the process. Either way: Selling to the government means keeping some things in mind. The following is cut/paste from an answer to a similar question I provided about two weeks ago: * Do not wait wait for them to decide they need a solution and then engage; your business will die. Success comes from educating prospects, helping them understand the benefits -- hell, even helping them write the RFP, if they'll let you -- and being the preferred solution before the bidding process formally begins. * Related: All of your meaningful sales will come from formal proposals submitted as part of an RFP process. You need to get good at being the insider who helps them write the RFP or you need to get good at writing better, more compelling (not cheaper, not fancier -- more compelling) proposals. Even better? Get good at both. * You'll have high insurance requirements. Don't let them faze you too much -- commercial liability is cheap. Errors and Omissions, on the other hand, can be pricey and you want to avoid having to have that if possible. * Get very good at finding local partners, even if you don't need them. Big projects that leave some of the money in the community are more compelling. * If you are not a woman or a minority, get good at finding local partners who are certified as women-owned or minority-owned businesses. Some public agencies set up their RFPs with an automatic point deduction from your score if you can't tick this box. Happy to chat more if it's helpful.

JacobAldridge 6y ago

Fellow B2B Consultant here. I had the thread open to find some time to return and add my thoughts and experience. Everything you’ve said is spot on, and I think you’ve hit everything of substance. Growing a consulting (even a tailored tech solution) business means making it a sales business first and foremost - you can prioritize delivery if you reach a point you want to plateau, but 0 leads is not that point.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
chii 6y ago
> business means making it a sales business first and foremost i think a lot of people have the misunderstanding that the world works under a "build it and they will come" model.
- trevyn 6y ago
  Frankly, if you build the right thing, they will come. And it's very easy to deceive ourselves into believing that we're building the right thing.
  - faeyanpiraat 6y ago
    Yes, this sounds nice, but even if you build the actual right thing, most of the time they wont come.
  - pembrook 6y ago
    Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way. Especially for a commodity business like consulting/agencies. Even if you have product market fit, and are experiencing the “pull” of a hot market...if you have no reliable distribution channels, you have no business. Humans are busy, and the problems that businesses solve for in the modern world are not life or death issues. Any product that solves a problem that tons of people are already searching google for, is by definition, going to also have tons of competitors.
    - trevyn 6y ago
      Think bigger. Maybe things that businesses build are not the right things?
      - oblio 6y ago
        And what are the right things?
  - omk 6y ago
    Can you back this up with a real case?

yed 6y ago

Great advice. On point 4 (partner with larger players) don’t be afraid to market yourselves as subcontractors/subconsultants to companies and coworkers you’ve worked with in the past. Even if you know they already have the expertise, consulting work has ebbs and flows so they often can use some additional staff when there is high project demand, especially in more complex or niche projects.

Pandabob 6y ago

Can you elaborate on the Ad part? What kinds of ads should one be thinking of? What do you think about content marketing (technical blogs etc.)?

gwbrooks 6y ago
Ads: Depends on your niche and where you are in your growth. If you're competing in a big pond, search-related ads + owned content for lead capture and some retargeting once you have the visit/lead is likely going to be faster and maybe cheaper than the longer (and, for some phrases/niches, impossible) slog of establishing SEO dominance. I'm a big fan of the cheap, audacious ad move to get a foot in the door. Know where the decision maker for your next enterprise sale works out every morning? Geo-fence very specific-to-him mobile ads around the building while he works out. That kind of thing. No ad is going to get you a sale; but ad ad can get you attention that leads to a conversation. (Yes, that's marketing blah-blah -- send me an email at gregb(at)west-third.com if you want to talk through it. I won't try and turn you into a client; those days are behind me. Just trying to be helpful.) Content: Content marketing has gone from a silver bullet about five years ago to being like a business card today -- you pretty much have to do it for baseline credibility, but a lot of people (particularly in B2B environments) aren't doing a great job. Their copy is too technical, too promotional, too focused on a shock-and-awe feature set instead of really talking about the problem their prospects have and how their (your) solution is a 10x improvement. I said in a comment a couple of weeks ago: Marketing is nothing more than delivering value (education, expertise on how a technical problem fits into the larger business, a path to growth, etc.) in order to capture value (the sale). If you think about it that way and enforce it in the organization, you tend to produce content -- well, marketing across the board -- that's more effective. Don't strip mine the audience by just trying to capture value without delivering anything of value.

tixocloud 6y ago

Thanks for the great insights. As a specialist, do you partner with large firms like Accenture, Deloitte, etc? Or 2nd tier firms? And how formal do these partnerships need to be (ie word of mouth, contract)?

UK-Al05 6y ago
I think it will be established boutique firms, not acccenture or deloitte.
gwbrooks 6y ago
I did both. I partnered with large do-it-everything firms when I was at a small, woman-owned shop because the big firms didn't have our expertise in house; needed to meet a woman-owned-business checkbox; or both. On my own, I would almost always chase business out of my local market (out-of-town solutions are generally deemed to be smarter, unfair as that seems) and find a local partner (so the client -- often a gov agency -- could feel like they were spending money in the community. Sometimes, a bunch of small fry would team up for a large group proposal, but that had iffy results. If it was a big-enough project for that, it was big enough that the client likely wanted one of the larger firms and subbing to them was a better strategy.
- tixocloud 6y ago
  It's interesting - how did you identify the expertise gap in the big firms? From their websites, they advertise that they can pretty much do everything under the sun. Also, interesting there's a checkbox for woman-owned-business.
  - gwbrooks 6y ago
    Honestly, I think the gap identification came down to the two different cases for engagement: * If they chased government work, they almost always needed a minority-owned or woman-owned business. Could they do the work in-house? Sometimes, but hiring us checked the box. * The big, do-everything firms were looking at the same dynamics we were: Sometimes we got hired because we were the local partner and they needed a local partners. Sometimes we got hired even though they could do the work in-house because our reputation for that work was stronger. Stuff like that. Don't look for the expertise gap -- look for firms big enough that they're chasing really large engagements where the value of throwing you some of the work is more than offset by the boost you'll bring to the overall team. Not every large firm is that enlightened, but plenty of them are.

INTPenis 6y ago

I'm an asocial geek and even I've observed that sales or creating leads is the top priority. The best startups I've seen on my end over here in Europe have been one sales guy and one tech guy.

ablekh 6y ago

Kudos on excellent comments and advice (here as well as in your other reply below). I'm curious about your thoughts on productized consulting, if any.

gwbrooks 6y ago
At the low (and, to a lesser degree, middle) tiers? It's more than just a good idea -- it's a survival strategy. Why? Because you can't knock out custom, 20-page-proposal solutions for all the small fry or you'll spend all your time on that. Packaged/productized solutions allow you to sell a repeatable product off the shelf at higher margins (ideally) or at a lower/competitive price point (more likely in a crowded space). Once you hit scale? Well, it depends on your strategy and what you're selling but there's no shame in your game if you leave the productized world behind or dial back on it. Bigger clients in professional services usually have more margin (because admin/overhead doesn't evolve as quickly as billable hours with them) and lots of upsell opportunity, so you may decide to focus on that. If you do dive into productized offerings, don't just create packages -- create packages that lend themselves to natural upsell breakpoints. What that could look like in raw consulting: * Design an assessment package that essentially defines the problem and tells them how to think about solving it rather than solving it. * Then design a package that lays out the plan but not the implementation. * Then package implementation in time- or milestone-bound chunks that create breakpoints for strategic account review, which is just a 50-cent word for sitting down with the client to look things over and adjust scope upwards.
- ablekh 6y ago
  Very interesting. I much appreciate your prompt and detailed comment. You clearly know the art and craft of consulting quite well.
  - gwbrooks 6y ago
    In my next life I'll be good at something more enjoyable. ;)

dimmke 6y ago

Hey, thanks for these comments. I was wondering, if someone wanted to do a deep dive into consulting especially for government agencies, and has little to no sales experience do you know of any books that are really good?

gwbrooks 6y ago
Ugh, I'm sorry -- I don't know that I've ever seen/read a book on the subject. (And now I'm horrified at myself for that admission.) A practical suggestion: If you live in a large metro area, reach out to the city or county purchasing departments, explain that you're new to selling into the public sector, and ask if they have any procurement fairs or seminars scheduled. (A sidebar: Federal sales are a whole other ball of wax and I'm not the most qualified to talk about them.) * If they say yes, you've got a chance to show up and meet people face to face, which is rare in government sales and can give you an edge. People buy from people they remember. * If they say no, put on your best aw-shucks humble act and ask if perhaps you could schedule a 10-minute informational call with someone from the department, just to better understand the process. Either way: Selling to the government means keeping some things in mind. The following is cut/paste from an answer to a similar question I provided about two weeks ago: * Do not wait wait for them to decide they need a solution and then engage; your business will die. Success comes from educating prospects, helping them understand the benefits -- hell, even helping them write the RFP, if they'll let you -- and being the preferred solution before the bidding process formally begins. * Related: All of your meaningful sales will come from formal proposals submitted as part of an RFP process. You need to get good at being the insider who helps them write the RFP or you need to get good at writing better, more compelling (not cheaper, not fancier -- more compelling) proposals. Even better? Get good at both. * You'll have high insurance requirements. Don't let them faze you too much -- commercial liability is cheap. Errors and Omissions, on the other hand, can be pricey and you want to avoid having to have that if possible. * Get very good at finding local partners, even if you don't need them. Big projects that leave some of the money in the community are more compelling. * If you are not a woman or a minority, get good at finding local partners who are certified as women-owned or minority-owned businesses. Some public agencies set up their RFPs with an automatic point deduction from your score if you can't tick this box. Happy to chat more if it's helpful.