Black Girls Consult TOO!
The Black Girls Consult Too! podcast provides a business resource for women in consulting, especially women of color, to successfully navigate a hyper-masculine, highly competitive industry. It demystifies how to start and grow a thriving consulting business by simplifying the process and helping to avoid common pitfalls that can derail even the best ideas. Each episode is crafted to dive deep into consulting practice, business strategy, mindset, and more. For more information, visit www.excelatconsulting.com/podcast.
Black Girls Consult TOO!
Episode 122: Why You Should Productize Your Consulting Service
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Ever thought about packaging your unique expertise into a repeatable framework to serve more clients and scale your business? Discover the power of productizing your consulting services, creating consistent revenue streams, and maintaining business development efforts without falling into the feast and famine cycle. By sharing your thought leadership with a broader audience, you can expand your reach and make a greater impact. Grab your coffee, tea, or glass of wine, and tune in for an enlightening discussion on building a thriving consulting business.
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They say, the odds are stacked against us as women, especially women of color, trying to thrive in the consulting world. But rather than wait for a seat at the table that may never come, what if we build our own tables? What if we channeled our talents into guiding each other towards the success we deserve? Welcome to the Black Girls Consulting Podcast. I'm your host, dr Angelina Davis, and I've walked the path from healthcare consultant to a mentor for women like you, ambitious, unstoppable and ready to make waves in the consulting world. This podcast is your go-to spot for all things entrepreneurial consulting. For us as women, especially women of color, think of it as your weekly coffee date with a friend who's here to dish out real talk on building a solid business, elevating your thought leadership and mastering that all important mindset. And let's not forget we're doing all of this while balancing day jobs, family life and running teams. Yes, we can do it all. So if you're ready to dive into how you can grow a thriving consultancy or get strategies and insights that actually fit your busy lifestyle, then you're in the right place. Grab your coffee, tea or, hey, even a glass of wine, I won't judge and let's get started.
Speaker 1:Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to the Black Girls Consult 2 podcast. I'm your host, dr Angelina Davis, and I am excited that you are tuning in with me today. I hope to dive a lot deeper into some information that you're going to find helpful to build and grow your consulting business and practice and, most specifically, to grow that through the end of the year. So I know we have all started with tremendous goals at the beginning of the calendar year, and when you get to this midway point during July and August, you begin to feel as if you're either ahead of the game right, if you have been making a lot of progress in that timeframe, in the first six months or you begin to feel as if you are far behind and you're trying to catch up. And so what I want to dedicate the future episodes for the remainder of this year primarily to is helping you reach that finish line. So those of you who are well on your way and you're on target to reach your goals for this year, then I'm sure that you will also learn a lot from these episodes.
Speaker 1:But I really do want to focus in on those of us who may be behind a little bit in terms of achieving our goals, and this is not to say that you're not successful, because most often, we set goals that are pretty high. Most of us, as consultants, are very ambitious people, so when we're thinking about what we want to accomplish, we may have set out for some pretty, pretty significant goals to achieve, and I want you to know that you can still do that. We have more than enough time, and what I want us to focus on is how we can finish strong this year. All right, so let's start by asking you this question Do you ever feel like you're on a never ending treadmill?
Speaker 1:You're crafting customized solutions from one client to the next, and you're doing all this while you're watching your business goals slip further and further away? Because it's hard, let's be honest, to both serve clients as well as focus on business development. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about that constant hustle that leaves you feeling like you're drowning in just a sea of endless pitches and proposals and client work. It can lead even the most dedicated consultants feeling exhausted and stuck. If you are able to relate to that, then I want us to talk about how we can get out of this constant treadmill hamster wheel mode.
Speaker 1:You know, when I first started consulting, I was right there with you. Each new client felt like it was a monumental task to serve. I mean, the custom solutions that I was creating was sucking all of my energy away. Everything was focused on trying to create a new offer, a new solution, a new method for every client that I had, and so, as I did this on an ongoing basis, I began to feel as if my business was somewhat stalling and I would even say my vision was beginning to slip away, because I was so consumed with the day-to-day grind, the work in terms of client service and securing more clients and more business.
Speaker 1:So I had to begin to think of a way to move beyond this traditional approach of how we land clients and how we serve clients as consultants, because I think often we've been taught that as experts, our guidance and the guidance that we're providing should be customized each and every time that we need to start from scratch and build everything from the ground up for every client that we have, and the thing about doing that is that it leaves us as a disadvantage, especially as women and women of color, because we are limited in terms of our time and our capacity to do so. You're limited in terms of manpower, but then also uniquely. As women, we're often limited because we are caretakers, we're nurturers. We're doing so much more within our lives. That goes beyond our business and the clients that we serve In this work our families, our friends, our relationships, our other responsibilities they're important too. So we have to find a way for us to navigate both the challenges within our business as well as our personal life and do that with harmony that doesn't bring on fatigue and exhaustion and unlimited bandwidth. Often, when we are creating these new offers for every client, we're just complicating that picture, and I found that there is a better way of doing that. Instead of trying to customize every offer, every approach for every client, I want us to start thinking about how we can begin to save time in that process.
Speaker 1:Typically, we're serving clients that are rather similar. They're not coming to us with unique problems. They feel as if they're unique, but I'm sure you have recognized after working with clients thus far that many clients come with similar challenges. They're not exactly the same. So we do have to think about how we navigate certain situations and modify and adapt, but generally, most of what they struggle with, most of their challenges, are rather similar. When we are taking that to consideration. It's an opportunity for us to think about how we can pull together those pieces of the puzzle that are similar among the clients that we serve and put that into something that resembles more of a product, something that we can use over and over again and that keeps us from recreating what we're doing the service delivery, the offers, the day-to-day work recreating that for every client.
Speaker 1:We want to start off with a sustainable way to build and grow a consulting business, so we're going to talk about how you can begin to package your expertise in a way that does not have you spinning your wheels, that doesn't have you stressed out and that allows you to take your skills and your passion and drive and actually put it to work in a way that benefits you, that works with you and your lifestyle. Here's the game changer. I'm talking about productizing your consulting services. This is about taking what you're already doing and what you do best, and you want to turn that into a scalable, high-impact offer that delivers consistent results. That means that there is a process that you follow that can be consistently implemented to yield the same result over and over again for different clients. Not only is this helpful in general, for your sanity, for the way that you're running your business and for you to create more ease and more comfort in your life. But we're going to talk about in this episode how this is the greatest benefit to the clients that you're actually serving, how this is a greatest benefit to the clients that you're actually serving, because when you do this, you're going to begin to turn what feels like chaos into clarity, and that, right there, my friend is going to make all of the difference.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's start by talking about what productizing your consulting services actually means. Now, when you think about creating a product, you're creating a formula or some type of recipe that you are going to put together and sell to a consumer. And I know that we don't think about consulting services in this way, because we are selling something that's intangible our expertise, our knowledge and our skills. But productizing your consulting services is rather similar. It is a matter of packaging your unique methodology. So it's the way that you do things. It's the insights that you offer that can help clients achieve their goals, and when you're able to put this together into some type of package so that the client can use it without you having to go through the process of building out something new and sharing things with them day to day or moment by moment. It makes it a lot easier to serve more people.
Speaker 1:So productization is all about packaging your unique expertise, the things that you know. It's still a custom approach, right, because what you're taking are the unique frameworks and concepts and methodologies that you've used with clients in the past. You're finding those similarities between what you have been able to accomplish and then piecing that together so that it is creating a framework that can be used over and over again to generate similar results. You know I always like to think about productization as you being able to put yourself in a box. It's almost as if they are opening this gift of your knowledge that has been packaged to get them one particular transformation. Now, this, I wanna stress, is just one component of what you do. So you may offer other services, and we'll talk even about how you can adapt your productized offer into something that looks a little bit different, based upon the needs that each client may have.
Speaker 1:But I want to remind you that, although you may make adaptations, although you may make changes, you're not starting from ground zero. That means that you're saving a lot of time and energy by creating this productized consulting service, and there are a number of benefits to being able to do that. One is that when you are able to productize your consulting, you are going to be able to serve more people, because now you're taking yourself out of the day-to-day work to some capacity and you're putting that into a framework or a method that can be utilized over and over again in a specific packaging that allows you to oversee it but not have to deliver it. You're not having to deliver that service day in and day out, and that makes a difference in your time and your capacity to do other things. So one of the benefits of being able to do this is the fact that you'll be able to grow, you'll be able to work with more people and the fact that you will be able to scale, so that growth is not just a few clients here or there, but this growth is something that you can scale over time into a much larger consulting business without having to bring on a massive team. That is huge when you're thinking about starting out as a solo consultant or a solo entrepreneur. Now. An additional benefit of the scalability is the fact that it can bring consistent revenue streams when you have a packaged product. Right, and we're thinking about your services, like I stated before is that packaged products and we're thinking about it as the thing that you can actually unbox. Although it's not physical, it's still intangible. We're going to think about it that way. When you have this product as offer, you are able to create systems and funnels and flows and approaches to generate revenue consistently. So it takes the guesswork out of you being able to acquire clients.
Speaker 1:Often, within consulting, we struggle with feast and famine mode, and one of the reasons why we do that is because we are building out these customized offers that have to be delivered to the ease of our capacity. We have very little time for business development or to continue our marketing efforts at the scale at which we need in order to bring on more clients at a timely manner through our sales pipeline, because we just don't have the bandwidth to focus all of our attention on that and it can cause those dips and those ebbs and flows that we typically may feel. One way of getting around that is to have this productized offer that helps you to sell something on an ongoing basis. You don't have to start from scratch, and nor does this have to be an offer that provides everything for your client. It can actually be something that maybe you piece together that is an option to sell, instead of doing a manual on-site discovery offer. Maybe you're using this in place of someone who is following up and being maintained through your consulting services, instead of you doing the maintenance on a quarterly or monthly or bimonthly basis or whatever it may be. There are a number of different ways that we can employ the productized offer, but the key is the fact that it does allow for you to keep things going and keep money flowing in over time without having those dips. So that is very, very helpful in terms of the financial stability of our businesses and our ability to reach our goals and our targets.
Speaker 1:Now, another benefit of privatizing your offer, in addition to just gaining more clients, is that it does help you to expand your reach and influence. So this is where we often are limited, because, outside of content marketing or thought leadership and other content creation, maybe speaking on public stages, we are somewhat limited by the work that we do. Typically, as a consultant, as an advisor, you're not working with as large of a market as many other service providers, so from that standpoint, your spread of impact. Your reach is often limited. One of the things that productizing your offer can do is that it does allow you to take those ideas, the thought leadership, the concepts, the frameworks that you have created, and it allows you to share that with more people, and the more people that you're able to share that with, the more of an impact that you will make. So not only is this a matter of gaining more clients based upon the actual service or the package that you're offering, but it's about making a greater impact even among those who may not purchase your service.
Speaker 1:The product that I offer has the ability to do that, because once you are selling and marketing this particular product and there is a commonality that exists among clients that you serve, then you're gonna be speaking to an audience that is often highly aligned with the services that you offer, and this is in vast contrast to customized services. If you were creating a solution on a case-by-case basis, it's going to be rather difficult for you to take what applied to that one business and make it apply to the other businesses that you may serve or that may be in your target audience. It's often very difficult to do and an association is difficult to make, so one of the ways that we get around that is by creating an offer and productizing an offer that we can begin to brand, that we can speak to and share with others, and it becomes not necessarily a household name but something close to it for those who are in our industry. They become very familiar with the service that we offer. It's just like the course that I currently offer, which is the Consulting Code. That is an online course that helps new consultants get their businesses off the ground to actually jumpstart.
Speaker 1:Above and beyond just the simple basics of getting a website or trying to determine whether or not you need an LLC, this goes into the deep work and practice of consulting and how you land your initial clients, and that is a way of being able to productize the consulting that you have. It can be productized in a course. It can be productized into workshops. It can be productized in a course. It can be productized into workshops. It can be productized into various packages that utilize specific frameworks. There are a lot of ways that we can do this, but it allows people to become familiar with the solution that we offer, to become familiar with how we can help them and become more familiar with our brand. So these are all of the ways that productizing can actually help in terms of you being able to expand your impact and your reach.
Speaker 1:Lastly, the biggest benefit that I would say of productizing your offer even beyond attracting more clients, even beyond having a more well-known and renowned brand around your business, in terms of your reaching your impact is you being able to simplify your workflow. To simplify your workflow, the whole goal for many of us when we started our businesses was to create something that allowed us to have the lifestyles that we desire, to be able to make money, make great money, to build wealth, but then also to build a quality life, a life that we love. And in order for us to do that, we need to have space, room to do that. We need to have work and life harmony in order to accomplish that, and this is one of the things that having a productized offer can actually help you do, because when you are focused on one core offer, one method of delivery, one particular framework or methodology, then you can create templates, you can devise and set up automations, you can work with extended help through contractors or maybe virtual assistants, you can bring on the team and the resources needed for you to be stressed over marketing or even sales. These are all things that you can build messaging around more confidently, and you can tweak it, you can improve it so that it resonates more and more and more with the target audience that you want to serve. And all of this is true whether you're working in the business to consumer or the business to business space. The fact that you have a focus area of work that you can begin to sell can make the world of difference in you being able to practice at a level of quality that more than likely exceeds your expectations under your expectations of high Expectations, under your expectations are high. So this is just an overall win-win situation when we consider productizing the services that we offer. You know, I want us to think about how we can begin to do this moving forward, because the ability to attract more clients, to increase our impact and to simplify our lives is worth the effort of creating an offer that is a product.
Speaker 1:As a consultant, I don't want you to think that just because you're an expert, that somehow this does discredit your expertise. Somehow it makes you a commodity, because it does not Remember that it's a myth that productizing your offer is something that can be easily replicated. You are still creating a product around your knowledge, your expertise, something that's unique to you, and your lived experience. Your frameworks, your concepts, your strategies are all uniquely yours. They are not cookbook methods. This is not a way for someone to easily steal or replicate what you're doing. They may try, but they won't easily be able to do it, because what you're sharing is unique to you, and I don't want us to have that fear around this myth that productizing your offer will make it easier for someone to steal your intellectual property or it'll make it easier for you to become a commodity in your space. Actually, it will be the opposite. This will allow you the bandwidth to capitalize on the business that you have been unable to attain and secure, because now you'll be able to focus more heavily on acquiring those larger contracts, on working with those more complicated systems or corporations. You're going to be able to do a lot more once you're able to take some of these smaller offer, some of these smaller services, off of your plate.
Speaker 1:I want us to think about this as we move forward through this year, so that you can increase the number of clients that you're able to serve and what we're going to talk about in future episodes is how you actually do this. So this is why you want to begin to productize your offer, but then in our next episode, we're going to talk about how you actually do this and how you can do it effectively. All right, I hope this episode is one that will help you think about how to simplify your business and to increase the sales that you're going to make throughout the end of the year. And tune in, as I stated before, to the upcoming episodes, because we're going to dive deeper and deeper into these concepts. But remember, productizing your offer is your friend. Turning your knowledge into a package, into a product that you can box up with a bow and ribbon and deliver to your client is gonna be one of the best things you can do for your business, and I promise you're gonna thank me later.
Speaker 1:All right, guys, if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe to this channel and also, if you're listening to this via audio, then make sure that you leave your rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. I will greatly appreciate the five-star rating and the feedback in the comments. It does help this podcast to grow and until next time, take care. Thank you for tuning in to the Black Girls Console 2 podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to leave your review on Apple Podcasts, subscribe and share it with a friend. We're on a mission to increase the success and longevity of women in consulting, and you can help us do just that. Also, I'd love to hear from you, so let's connect at Dr Angelina Davis on Instagram or LinkedIn, and don't forget to visit excel at consultingcom for more information to support your consulting journey. Until next time, keep breaking glass ceiling, all right, take care.
