1. Regaining Control of Your Consulting Practice
Judi Cogen
J Grace Consulting

2. I’ll have a special offer for participants that I’ll go over at the end of the webinar

3. Here’s the Great News
You work for the best boss in the world—YOU!
You have the flexibility to control your destiny
You have the power to control your income
You have the opportunity to do what you love
But unless you’re independently wealthy, it only works if you’re making money!

4. Clues You Are Not in Control of Your Business

5. Clues You Are Not in Control of Your Business
Don’t have the income you want (or deserve)
Don’t have predictability and consistency
Working longer hours than planned
Constantly putting out fires
Not sure how to change the situation

6. 10 Most Common Mistakes Made by Consultants and Coaches…
…and how to avoid them!

7. Can’t cover everything, but here are the top 10
Most common
Most important

8. 10. Believing Everyone is Your Client
You can’t be everything to everyone
For success you must narrow your focus
Need to clearly define your ideal client
Turning away business is hard but necessary at times
Clearly articulate your ideal client.

9. 9. Spending Selling Time on Administrivia
Getting caught in the trees
During the day, only 2 activities
Delivering services
Marketing and selling
Administrative activities during non-business hrs.
Delegate

10. 8. Waiting Until Everything is Perfect
Nothing is ever perfect!
If you wait for perfect, you paralyze your business
Is it good enough?
Set deadlines and move forward.

11. 7. Not Closing the Sale
The most common reason people don’t close business is that they simply don’t ask for the sale.
You have to believe that your potential client is worse off if they don’t hire you.
Analyze missed sales opportunities
Pull more perfect (potential) clients to you
Rehearse your sales tactics
Believe you are critical to your client’s success

12. 6. Not Culling Customers This assumes you have a full client load!
Annually cull 10% to 20% of your customers
Replace with more profitable clients
This assumes you have a
full client load!

13. 5. Not Collecting Fees Cash Is King, Queen, & Court Jester
Why are you waiting?
Why are you billing?
How can you improve cash flow?
Review your collection processes
Can you eliminate A/R?

14. 4. Inconsistent (or no) Marketing
This is the #1 key to avoiding cyclicality
It’s very easy to get caught in
It’s not perfect
I’m working on client issues
Marketing is too expensive
What is keeping you from consistent, quality marketing?

15. 4. Inconsistent (or no) Marketing (con’t)
Spend at least 1 full day each week on marketing activities
What are the areas where you can have a big impact for little cost? -
- Drip
- Social media
- Newsletters
- Snail mail
- Unbelievable Guarantee
- Bounce back cards
- Referral incentives
- Networking
- Blogging
- Articles
- Radio/webinar interviews
- Webinars
- Press releases
- Events

16. 3. Not Having a System Why reinvent the wheel each time?
What can you systematize?
How can you use that in your marketing?
Keep yourself legal
Create a system for marketing, delivery, billing, etc
Have someone review your legal status & docs

17. 2. Not Understanding or Watching the Numbers
Revenue
Overhead
How many clients do you need?
What should your fees be?
What can you do to generate passive and recurring income?
If you don’t know where you are, how can you know if you’ve improved?
Set specific, realistic goals and MEASURE!

18. 1. No Accountability System
We hold others accountable
We hold ourselves accountable for some things—what about the rest?
Why is accountability important?
Who are you accountable to?
Use an accountability partner

19. Next Steps Look objectively at your business—where are you struggling?
Make a 30/90/120 day plan to regain control
Commit to 1 new marketing strategy and execute rigorously
Special offer: will send you series of s w/ in depth tips –no cost—contact me anyway that’s convenient use code JCBPI1

20. J Grace Consulting JGraceConsulting.net 513.377.4107
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21. J Grace Consulting JGraceConsulting.net 513.377.4107
Blog:
Twitter: