Transcript Disclaimer - May contain the occasional confusing, inaccurate, or unintentionally funny transcription moment. It’s all part of the show.

Lena: You've spent decades becoming the expert. Now what if you became the product? Today on Midlife Circus, Rob and Brent go deep on what it actually takes to launch a consulting, advisory, or coaching practice in midlife, from foundational mindset to the six practical steps that get you to your first client. Before we begin, check out the message the show feature in your podcast player. It's a simple way to reach us, share feedback, or say hello. And remember to follow Midlife Circus on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. And join us in the Midlife Circus community on Substack. Let's dive into a guide to earning money as a consultant in Midlife.

Rob: Brent, you've been a consultant dating back to the late 1900s. I hate saying it that way too, but I'm trying to meet a younger demographic that calls us old. Anyways, you've been a consultant back since the 1990s. Thinking back to your start, what was the first paycheck you cashed as an independent consultant? How did that feel? And give us some insight into that experience.

Brent: I'm glad you say the late 1990s because that was just a shock to my system. I started consulting my consulting career in the 90s for PricewaterhouseCoopers in their management consulting division. And then I decided to go on my own in the early 2000s. So I'm going to put us into the next century. What was really interesting for me is I let my colleagues know, hey, I'm going to go do my own practice. I'm really excited. I started out as by myself. And one day I got a phone call. The person on the other end said, Hi, this is so-and-so from Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals. And I was like, okay. I'm like, nice to meet you. And she said, We hear that you do some really good work and we'd like to talk to you about doing some work with us. I was like, okay, sounds great. So fast forward, you know, a few weeks after negotiating, that was my first really big client in consulting. And I do remember the day I got my first paycheck because I just couldn't believe it. That here was a one of the, at the time they were one of the largest organizations in the world, very well known. And it was funny because when I was at their facilities in New Jersey and their offices that I was working in, across the hall from me was a group of McKinsey consultants who were the ones that they always hired. But for some reason, they hired Brent. And I was so excited. I'm sure I was probably one-fifth of the cost of a McKinsey or even less than that of a McKinsey consultant. But it was really energizing for me. And it was this big confidence boost. So yes, I can go do work for a large, you know, company. Because at PricewaterhouseCoopers, that's what I did, anyways. I worked with all those big organizations. I just was now on my own. And it was amazing. It just felt validating and exciting. And it was just so challenging. And it was something I really enjoyed. So I do remember the first check that I got from them. And I was just running around my house in pure joy of saying it happened. So it was exciting for sure.

Rob: It doesn't really become real until that first check shows up and it's cashed, right? I mean, they're sharing with you that they want to work together, but until you get that money in your pocket, it's not real yet.

Brent: Yeah, and unfortunately, working with a lot of big organizations, their processes are usually really slow. And I think it was a paper check to start up. It was uh it was so cool, Rob. Like I was so happy. And it just grew from there. Like I got really excited about being a consultant and I really liked the work. And I just I built a lot of confidence, but it was something that I didn't expect that phone call. And I actually didn't know exactly where it came from for several months after, because I would ask my counterpart, like, where did you get my number? And she said, Oh, I got it from one of your former colleagues. And then she kind of stopped there and I'm like, Who was it? And she explained, and I called that person, I'm like, Thank you. And he goes, Yeah, you know, it was too small of a work stream for us, and they were looking for a specific skill set. And I've worked with you in the past, so it was a great fit. And I was like, Thank you. So it's cool to see how it came together too.

Rob: One of the things we've talked about in our episodes is just some of the emotion behind big things that are going on. And working with a company like Johnson & Johnson, and you being an independent, just having gone independent, Brent Drever Incorporated, doing consulting. Was there any form of imposter syndrome or your lack of confidence that ever crept into your mindset when you were starting that conversation with them?

Brent: Simple answer, Rob. Absolutely. Because I didn't have any infrastructure. I didn't have a website, I didn't have anything. But I was confident in my ability. But what was really daunting for me is I worked with a lot of PhDs at Johnson & Johnson. So I'm like, why are they choosing me? And I remember I was on a project and I looked in the room, and I think it was either six or eight PhDs that we were working on this really technical part of the business. And I asked my counterpart, I said, why am I in the room with all of them? And she said, because you have a skill set that all of them do not have. So it's a really good marriage. You know how to run projects, you know how to bring people together, you know how to solve problems. And they're very technical in their line of work, but you're going to bring something. And they were intimidated, I learned, by me, which was shocking to me. So I quickly got over the imposter syndrome, but I definitely right out of the gates, I was like, why am I here? Because A, I was across the hall, as I alluded to earlier, from McKinsey Consultants. That's one of the top strategy consulting firms in the world. I'm like, why is Brent Inc. in the room with any of these people? But quickly you learn if you've got confidence and you're very comfortable around other humans. That's what consultants do really well, is they know how to interact with other humans really well. And I was confident with that. So I overcame it. But right out of the gates, Rob, it was different for me. It was a like, why is Brent in the room today?

Rob: Did you do anything to celebrate that paycheck when it came in?

Brent: I spent my first year as an independent consultant worrying about my next deal. When am I going to get my next client? Is it am I going to run out of business? Am I going to fail in this? And the celebration was more of a validation. And I quickly gathered up a few more really good clients right after that because I had this marquee client that I could leverage. I don't think I actually did a big celebration. It was more or less, whoo, we can rest a little bit here and know that we've got a client. And that client lasted for several years. So it was a great start to a fulfilling consulting career at that point in time in my life.

Rob: Such a fun way to start our conversation today. And really, our episode today is going back to something we discussed very briefly in episode 19, when we walk through different ways of earning an income during retirement. And today we're going to go deeper in just one of those areas and actually a broad area of consulting. And consulting can fit a number of different categories. We think of consulting as directly like executive coaching. It could be advisory services. It could be independent financial services. So we're using consulting as a broad term to describe the work of working with an individual or an organization. This approach puts you as the product. So one of the things different as a consultant, you're not selling anything else but yourself and the services that you're able to provide. And a lot of people miss a lot of the foundational steps in getting a consulting business up and running. As Brent mentioned, and I mentioned in the earlier part of this, Brent started doing consulting work in the 1990s and going into 2000s, having started a couple of different consulting type of services businesses on his own and work with some of the major players in consulting work. Brent has a vast knowledge in both corporate consulting and working with a big organization, but also multiple consulting firms doing different types of consulting services for clients. When we think about consulting, we think about really there's two pieces. There's the foundational work that you really need to do in advance of starting a consulting business. And it's really determining the purpose, what your purpose is, the product, which is you and what your services you're going to provide, and then what does the market look like? So that's the foundational components of this work. We're then going to get into late in this episode really six key steps to getting your consulting business started and up and running and helping you to find that very first client. So, Brent, when I say the word consultant, can you define that in its broad sense as we're going to be using it a little bit more here today?

Brent: And one thing I want to do too, Rob, is just give a quick disclaimer. What we're outlining today is really ideas for those that are considering doing consulting type work in their next great act. And we're not giving you the perfect formula. It's not a perfect guide, but it's what we've learned because we've both done consulting work throughout our careers. So I just want to be very clear with that because there's a lot of really good resources online. So we're just giving some ideas that we've experienced. And also because Rob and I have consulting practices or advisory practices that we do outside of the podcast, we want to be very clear that today we're not advertising ourselves at all, trying to bring on new clients or get new clients. We don't cross-pollinate the two at all between the podcast and some of the things that we do outside of the podcast. So we don't want to uh use and portray that this is a hook to get clients because it absolutely is not a hook. We're actually both full in our consulting work that we do, and we're not taking on new clients. So just wanted to state that so people don't feel like we're trying to sell ourselves in this episode because we're clearly not. So, what you're able to do as a consultant and putting a general definition around it is you're taking your wealth of knowledge, your wealth of information, the skills that you've gained throughout your career to actually work with an organization in a capacity as a consultant, like a project manager, as a coach that you might work with an executive team to help them improve what they do. You might have a specific niche that you're focused on that you're able to help with marketing or sales or product management. So you're bringing a lot of your skills in and you're augmenting the actual company that you're working with in many cases, because they may not have it, or you're elevating that organization. They may have a lot of skills, but you're bringing another layer as an outside opinion or an outside expert to help them navigate maybe a difficult or challenging decision or something that they're exploring. Maybe they're trying to acquire another company and you can bring in the expertise on how to bring companies together. So a consultant shows up as a level of expertise. And that's why a lot of people do this in midlife post their previous career, is they're actually taking all those lessons learned and all those skills. And guess what? This isn't something that AI does really well. It's like this is a human thing. And you're able to navigate the humans on the other side to help them get through their next breakthrough. So consulting is the way that we describe it, is it's just a way that you're able to leverage your skills and add value to your client. Rob, you've done a lot of consulting. Any other ways that you would describe, you know, what it means to be a consultant or what a consultant is?

Rob: I was going to ask you, when you think about consulting, what would how would you categorize the difference between a consultant and a coach? Because I use those interchangeably quite a bit, Brent. And I think a lot of our audience would use those interchangeably, a consultant versus a coach. Is there really a difference or should somebody think differently about consultant versus coaching?

Brent: I view them very differently. And the reason why I view them differently is I'll start with a coach. Typically, a coach is working with one-on-one with an individual. Let's say you're working with the CEO and you're actually coaching that individual on evolving as a leader and navigating the complexities that they're working with within their organization. And you're bringing your experiencing and coaching that individual, or you could be coaching an entire team, but it's much more around performance. It's more around, you know, the evolution of the individual or the group of people on how they can interact better together and how they can solve some really big challenges and so forth. So coaching often has a different type of duration than consulting as well. Coaching often is this ongoing relationship. And I know coaches and the executive side that have been coaching teams for upwards of 20, 25 years now. And they've been working with that company and working with those leaders and seeing them evolve over so many years. So a coach is very similar to like a coach in sports. You know, you're actually working with the team to make sure that they're gelling well together, making helping them make tough decisions and really challenging those leaders to evolve to the next, you know, evolution of their leadership practices and how they perform. Now, on the flip side is the consultant often is bringing in a specific skill. And you're bringing in a skill to an organization to say, and it might be a duration for six months where you're helping them execute a project. You might lead a project for them. They might be doing, as I mentioned earlier, might be merging with another company, and you're actually the consultant to help them merge because you've got experience doing that. So it has more project-based to it and it has a very skill-based project. I was talking to a gentleman yesterday who's a consultant and he retired about two years ago. And he's now a consultant and he does a lot of work in sales consulting because that's what he did for his entire career. So he works with a lot of different companies on their sales strategies and so forth. So he brings a skill into the organization to help them elevate their sales force.

Rob: So if I summarize maybe, and you correct me if this doesn't fit, a consultant helps a company or an individual or an organization work on what they do. And a coach is going to work on who they are. Would that be a good way of summarizing? The coaching is who you are, who that organization is, or how that work other group works together, versus let's work through what you do and work on processes and systems around what you do.

Brent: Yeah, that's a great way to describe it. I like that.

Rob: So defining whether or not you want to be a consultant or a coach, I think is really important up front because those do have different positioning with a potential customer of yours or a client down the road. What are some of the other big mental shifts, Brent, that our audience would have to go through if they were working in the corporate environment to go work on an individual consulting level, even if they're doing similar work between the two places and it's going to be a similar approach. What's the big shift that they need to make between working within an organization, doing consulting work versus an independent consulting company?

Brent: It's a good question. And I think we're a defining moment in time when you're thinking about what does it mean to be a consultant? When you work in an organization as an employee, the product that you're supporting is the company and then the company's products. You work for that company. When you are a consultant, and you alluded this to this in the intro, is you are the product. And you have to really think about yourself as you're the company. You are the representative of your company. And it's a different mindset entirely. And also where a lot of people struggle as a consultant is they come in and they try to be more like an employee versus a hired-in expert. Two completely different roles. Like it's a very different dynamic that takes place because as an employee, you're representing the company. As a consultant, you're brought in to be expertise. You're not brought in to share the ugly, you're brought in to share the bright side, like all the different things that sometimes employees are harder to do as an employee. So it's a really important distinction that as a corporate role, meaning an employee, the company is the product. As a consultant, you are the product that you're bringing in, that expertise.

Rob: So early on, Brent, you shared this concept with me as we start thinking about some of the foundational work around starting your own consulting or coaching type of business. There's three main components that you need to address in advance of getting that business up and running. So this is before we get into the execution phase. So I think the first one is do I want to be a coach or consultant? That's kind of a separate thing from these next three steps, really. The next three areas are identifying purpose, what is your product, and then what is the market for that product? Right. So let's start with purpose. Tell me a little bit more about why you always start with purpose and how do you approach building out what the purpose is of this new consulting or coaching business?

Brent: I think it starts out with a simple set of three questions when we think about purpose. The first question is are you excited about the work? So can you envision yourself being a consultant? Are you excited about that? And that is a good question to ask. Like, yeah, I think I can add value, I can do a lot of different things. That's number one. The second in purpose is are you good at it? Or could you be good at it? And so if you're marketing yourself as a consultant, and let's say you specialize, I alluded to a gentleman I talked to yesterday, is he is a sales consultant. Are you good at sales? Or could you can you represent yourself like you got the chops or the skills to coach other people on their sales practices? That's a really important question to ask yourself. And the third is do you genuinely believe that you can add value to your client? Because they don't hire you just to be status quo. They hire you to make a change. And whether you're helping them get more efficient at what they do, get more effective in what they do, they're hiring you to add value to the organization. So those three questions, if you break it down, is are you excited? So that's your own level of energy. Are you good at it or could you be good at it? Whatever you're trying to sell yourself as. And then number three is, do you believe that you can add value for your client? And if you can't answer those questions, you got to do a little bit more work around it. The one thing I'll say on that second question is, are you good at it? This is a risky thing that some people try to do, is they say, you know what, I kind of did some marketing, you know, back, you know, 10 or 15 years ago. I think I could do that. That is, you are misrepresenting yourself. Like sell the things that you're really good at. Like that's an important part of this process of thinking about your purpose, is make sure that you're in alignment or you go back to school to actually learn certain skills to sell yourself at that. And I see people do that too. Some people want to be an executive coach, they actually go get coaching, training, coaching certification. I think that's a great route. So then you can adequately represent yourself and you've got a roadmap on how to add value for your client.

Rob: So something you said earlier, all of us that are in our 50s, early 60s, late 40s, we have a lot of experience and we've had a lot of business experience and had to redefine ourselves a lot of different ways, just even how we've used technology, how marketing has evolved with an organization. So you talked about marketing. If you did marketing 20 years ago, it is not the same work as it is today. It's completely different. It's like apples and oranges there. The third area you said, Brent, you talked about providing value. I think our generation could provide tremendous value back to organizations. And we had Sarah talk in a previous episode. Sarah Hager mentioned how she took a sabbatical and went back to work and the value she brought back to that organization. Now, it wasn't in consulting, but she brought tremendous value back. So I don't think there's any of our audience that would ever think that they wouldn't provide value back. But I think I want to go deeper in those first two questions because I think we'll answer the third one, I think, pretty easily, that we are going to provide value because we have a tremendous amount of experience at this point in our life. Can you help unpack excited? So when you think about excited, right? We're in midlife, you and I both retired. We started some consulting businesses. I got excited about money and the opportunity to make some money. It wasn't necessarily a side hustle, but it was a little bit of a hustle to make some money. What should somebody be thinking about from an excited standpoint to help them decide, yes, I want to go down this path?

Brent: I think it boils down to do you enjoy the work? I'll use myself as an example. I do strategy work with board of directors. I enjoy the work. Like I enjoy interacting with boards and leadership teams on the company's strategy. So that to me is I get excited about when. The client calls and says, Hey, we need to focus on our five-year strategy. That gets me excited, gets my intellectual curiosity boiling and a lot of things happening that I'm able to leverage so much of my past. It's something I enjoy doing, where I view that I've made some mistakes early on in my career when I was a consultant back in, as we said, the late 90s, the last century. Sometimes I would do work that I'm just not excited about. And that shows up with the client because it's just not something, yes, I can do it. Yes, I'm capable, but I don't really enjoy that type of work. So it's getting very clear on the work that you're doing. Do you enjoy doing it?

Rob: And you've earned the right to be excited about all the work that you decide to do, especially if you left an organization into a retirement or semi-retirement. You've earned the privilege of saying, No, it is great opportunities so you can be excited about the ones that you're actually pursuing. When you define fit, Brent, you said you made a comment that you could go and get training for something. Is that something you do while you're in the middle of it, or should you do it in advance of going and doing that work? So if I'm excited about doing something, but I'm bluffing the fact that I have a skill set. Should I actually go and get trained and get more certifications so I'm actually prepped up, ready to do the work, or can I do them simultaneously?

Brent: I think it depends on the type of work you're looking to take on. I use uh coaching as an example. I find that a lot of people say post their career, you know, they've left their job and they said, I want to be an executive coach. Usually that does not translate without a skill set or a tool set. You have the experience of being a leader, but you may not have the experience of coaching leaders. So that's where you could go acquire the skill set before you start marking yourself heavily as a seasoned executive coach. So I think there's this translation that needs to take place when you decide to do something, is think about how you're going to add value to your customer and having that credential of like, yes, I did some certification, because it gives you a roadmap, a process, and it'll you'll add more value for your customer. But there's also a caveat that I'll put in here, Rob, is some people try to overtrain themselves because they're delaying the process of going to get their first client. And I think there's a fine line there. Don't try to feel like I got to fill my toolkit with everything about whatever practice I'm trying to build. There's a point in time where you can get a lot of your information from just doing some internet searches and reading some books and things like that to get you going as a consultant and not uh delaying it by years or months just because you feel like I got to get more skills. Like that case, you're just getting educated.

Rob: The next area we're going to talk about is products. So, Brent, as and you said this already, in a consulting or coaching business, you're the product. What are you actually selling when you're acting when you're building out a coaching or consulting business?

Brent: So the product is typically the skill set that you have. So a product, and in some of these examples I've been sharing is are you a strategy consultant? Are you an executive coach? Do you focus on executive leadership development and training as an example? Are you focused on operations and helping with operational efficiency? Are you focused in on go-to-market strategy for products, product development? So there's all these different things that you can do as a consultant. It's getting very clear on the product that you are selling, the skill set that you're selling. Here's the trap that most people have as they get further along in their career is you get really good at doing a lot of things because over your 20 to 30 years, you've done a lot of things. On the flip side, it gets very challenging as a consultant when you try to sell yourself as a jack of all trades. You'll have a tough time getting clients because they're like, well, what are you really good at? Well, I can do anything. Yeah, of course you can do anything. They're not hiring you to do anything. They want to hire you to do a specific thing, and that's your go-to. And I've learned that the hard way over the years. I thought that I could just do pretty much anything, you know, just as it related to operations and executive leadership development. And I just started to get lost with clients and they'll be like, well, why should we call you? You're saying yes to everything, but you're really good at this. So is that the lane you should play in? That to me is the product. You are the product as a person. And then how are you showing up? And what are you very good at? That's the actual service that you're delivering.

Rob: If you are defining your product that finite, Brent, and the way I'm thinking about this with what you're just described to me, if you're defining that your product and the exact service you provide versus a jack of all trades, you're likely going to miss out on some client opportunity. I would assume, right? It is if you say, here's what I do, I do X really well, but my clients or this potential client wants a Y, I could do Y too, maybe not as great, but I could also do Y. I'm going to have a chance to miss out on an opportunity to pick up that client. However, I may not be excited about that work that I was doing as a why. I typically get excited about the things I'm really good at doing, and I like to avoid the things I'm not good at doing. Hence, I have this 50 list of things I want to learn. So I'm going to spend some time learning some stuff that I'm actually no good at today. But I think we have a tendency to want to say yes to everybody. But by actually saying yes to everybody, we meet nobody's needs. And so going deep in the one or two areas you're really good at can actually help make that work even more exciting for you.

Brent: You'll get a lot more phone calls and a lot more references when you get focused on the work that you do. And where you start to see extensions typically is if you've got a long-term client relationship, you may help them in a couple different areas. It may not be your core, but they may ask you, hey, can you just help us out on this? A lot of times, no problem. I can do that. But when you go out to sell yourself as the product, if you try to sell yourself as I'm good at 10 different things, they're going to get confused on which menu item they want to choose from. If you sell yourself at three different things, you may lose out on a few, but I think your longevity with clients will go longer when you get very specific and you're going to be the go-to. And then you'll get better references and referrals when you do that, because they'll say, Hey, Rob, he is so good at this type of work. When somebody else says, How did you guys do that? Oh, talk to Rob. But if Rob's good at a lot of different things, it's too hard for them to recall. And I think you hit it on the head. You start to get less excited back to purpose. You start to get less excited when you start to just dilute yourself. And we'll talk about it a little bit further on in the conversation. Is your bill rates will be impacted by that as well when you try to be the jack of all trades? You just dilute yourself.

Rob: So the specificity on your way in the door, right? So the narrowness and on your way in the door, get your foot in the door, actually, with the right opportunity for yourself you're excited about. Delivering great work because you're excited about the work that's there will likely open the door to those other side things down the road that you actually can do. And that extends the contract with that overall organization. So as one project's coming to an end or one line of work is going to be coming to an end because you have done such great work because you're excited, you might be able to shoehorn your way into another opportunity.

Brent: Absolutely.

Rob: Great. All right. So the last area, and I think a lot of people, Brent, miss this category as they're in planning phases and actually trying to think about their business and consulting and coaching, getting up and running is really defining the market. So when you think about market from a coaching consulting standpoint, can you define what that means in your sense of the word?

Brent: Yeah, if you go back to the first two elements here, is we talked about purpose and then we talked about product. So you've got this excitement about what you're going to do. You know exactly how you're going to sell yourself now. Is who are you going to sell yourself to? Where do they exist? And that's the market. And getting very clear is are you focused on a specific industry? Are you focused on a specific stage of a company? Are they a late stage? Are they early stage? Are they large conglomerates? I mean, there's a lot of different stages of companies geographically, where are they located? The broader offering that the company is at something that you're excited about as well. So that to me is the market. Where people miss is they feel like I've identified myself as I'm a strategy consultant. I can go do strategy for anybody. That doesn't necessarily equate to a lot of organizations that are looking for a strategy consultant because they also want to have that contextual experience that you have with the industry that they're within. And that's an important part of the process, is being very clear on your market and how do you go find those clients. And I can tell you, it gets easier when you get more specific because you can target opportunities. And a lot of times you're tapping into your network and your network is associated with things that you've done in the past, and they're probably specific to an industry, they're probably specific to a company stage, and it can get defined really easily for you. But if you go really, really broad on this one, it's going to get harder to get clients. We're just trying to give you some ideas here on how to land your first couple of clients. And to me, if you don't have a clearly identified market that you're going after, it just gets hard because there's endless opportunities in your mind, but doesn't necessarily mean that your client is looking for you because you just you think you'd be delivering a great service for them.

Rob: Well, it feels like those batch messages you and I both get on LinkedIn for all sorts of services. They don't know nothing about me or really the business that I'm in, but I know I get those boilerplate emails or inbox messages on LinkedIn that have no real reference to what I might be looking for personally from a help standpoint.

Brent: Oh, it's a two-way street. I mean, we get those all the time, and that's what happens when you're a seasoned leader and you get these messages and these reach outs from recruiters, and you're like, did you read my bio? Like I have no experience in that space. And then on the flip side, they'll say the same thing. Did you read our background of the company? Like, we don't even do what you're trying to sell us. So we're not in need of it. So I think getting specific here only helps you launch a successful consulting practice based on the niche that you've identified. And I think getting narrow is helpful when you start to think about your market.

Rob: So LinkedIn, as I just alluded to on the messaging that we get on LinkedIn. LinkedIn, I think, is a really valuable tool in identifying market Brent. And we'll just land on the place of LinkedIn. How would somebody use LinkedIn to help identify their market for their new consulting or coaching business? Not the approach, but how would you use LinkedIn to create some of that foundational work that someone needs to do in advance?

Brent: The beauty of LinkedIn is it's so broad, meaning that you can search for pretty much anything and you can get very good clarity on who are consultants in certain spaces and what companies and how they're focused. The challenge of LinkedIn is that we're getting so inundated with people trying to sell services via LinkedIn, is there's a lot of no's that take place. But understanding demographic and opportunities, LinkedIn's pretty good about that. But I also find LinkedIn's great to identify potential partners for projects that you may go into a client together with somebody else. And I find that's a neat way of doing things as well, that you can find other resources or other people or getting your way into an organization through your network. That's the best way to do it, how LinkedIn can add value. So, Rob, what I'd like to do, we've now talked about the four elements, you know, as you start to think about before you actually execute and launch a consulting business. And the first one is just truly understanding what does it actually mean as a consultant. And then we talked about purpose, product, and market. About a year and a half ago, you launched your consulting practice. And let's just do a quick run-through example of your own situation and just kind of play through this. So, just giving our listeners a real life example on how you approach this for you. So, I'm just going to do a rapid fire QA. So, when you started to think about as a consultant, how do you represent yourself as a consultant, a coach, advisor? And maybe before we do that, Rob, just give our listeners a quick soundbite on what you actually do when you work with your clients.

Rob: So I help small business owners, specifically in financial services, actually build an enduring firm. That's really what the purpose is of my business. And so it's niched in financial services. That's where I spent 20 plus years of my career. There's a lot of need in that area. And so I help financial advisors, financial practitioners, consultants, and I even work with some CPAs on how do you build a more enduring business given the ups and downs within the marketplace?

Brent: Okay, that's good context. So when you go in there, and the first question we ask is how would you define yourself? Are you a consultant? Are you an advisor? Are you a coach? Are you an operator? How do you represent yourself?

Rob: Brent and I didn't have any of these discussions as we were getting my business up and launched so I'm learning a lot here on things I could have done differently and possibly a little bit better today. I went right into the six steps we're going to talk about later in this episode. I didn't do any of all of this foundational work. So some of it I did a little bit of, but not all of it. I actually Brent went into it as a twofold approach in working with clients, either as a consultant or as a coach. And I actually had two different models in working within a business or an organization. And it was really catered to what are the needs of that organization going to be or what's the needs of that practice going to be. Some people only wanted consulting work. They were working on a project. They wanted to actually get better at one form or one side of their business, and they acted as a consultant with those practices. I'm also doing some advisory work, executive coaching type of work with a couple of practices as well. So there, I am doing both of those things. And what I found is I gravitate more towards the coaching side than the consulting side. I'm really good at as a consultant, helping projects and stuff get done. That's something I did for 20 plus years of my career, just push things through to an end and fixing organizations. But I really get excited about the evolution of the business and the organization and truly the person. That goes back to my days, you know, in my 20s when I was a ski coach. It goes back to helping, you know, people get the best of themselves. And so I really end up gravitating more towards that coaching side of the business because I like to go deep with the individual or the team and helping them just become better overall.

Brent: That's a good way to describe it. I remember you telling me that like you loved the coaching aspect, but I don't think we should ever get caught too much in the semantics of coach versus consultant versus advisor. They're interchangeable, but it's cool how you described it. Sometimes there's some project work in there, and sometimes there's this long-term coaching, advisory work. And often the work we do is blended. So now going into purpose. So there's three filter questions when we talked about purpose. The first one is, are you excited about it? The second one is, are you good at it? And number three is, do you generally believe you can create value for your clients? So how do you answer those? And we don't have to get overly specific, but are you excited? Are you good at it? And can you add value to your clients?

Rob: I'd say yes on all three. I'm confident in the answers on all three of those. And that is one of the areas that I think I did well. And it was going to kind of push us into the market area when we get down there. Was I defined the market and I actually made some clear lines early on. What so I'd be excited about doing the work. I knew that if I was going to start doing consulting work, I wanted to actually be excited about that. So I defined my market a little bit better to help keep me excited about the work. Am I good at it? I don't have any doubt that I was good at it. That's not me being arrogant or cocky. I know I was good at both coaching and consulting. And then I genuinely believed that because I was good at it, I would easily create value. In fact, a lot of my clients generated revenue above and beyond the fees that I was charging rather quickly of interacting with them and starting to work together. So I knew those two were there. I spent my energy a lot up front is would I be excited about the work and what types of businesses do I want to work with? Originally, when I started building this out, I thought, you know what, I'm going to work with all sorts of businesses in the marketplace. I could work with the coffee shop down the street as a business consultant. I could work with big companies and organizations, and I can work with directly with a financial advisory practice. Started kind of building that business out and wasted a lot of energy and time because I'm not great at just working with individual businesses. I could figure that out, but it didn't excite me. Big organizations didn't excite me because that's where I ended my career working really deep in fixing things within a big organization. I wanted to get back to some of my roots of working with advisors and I chose advisors and practices and businesses that I truly wanted to work with. I said no to a handful early on. That wouldn't have been a good fit for me personally, just because I don't think we would have aligned really well. I would have likely looked at my calendar and dreaded those interactions, not looked forward to having those conversations. Whereas every one of my clients, I get excited about the interaction that we're going to have that week.

Brent: That's good. And you started to answer a little bit of both product and market as you were navigating this because you went really broad. And that's what we think as a consultant is like I can just go work with anybody. But then challenge yourself. Are you going to be excited about that? Do you have the experience doing that? And can you really add value? So as you started to think about the product, how did you break it down to say you walk into an advisory practice and you say, hey, I'm Rob. We know each other. Here's what I'm doing. How did you start to narrow that down?

Rob: So I became really good at Brent as describing what my value proposition is and why it actually would fit them. And so as I shared earlier, the one sentence that I have is I help financial advisors build enduring firms. And it's different for every business. But it would start with me asking questions. And really I sat on a different side of the table. I wasn't trying to convince them to hire me. I approached that interaction on the product is is this a practice that I'd be excited about working with? And do I actually believe I can provide value given what they were seeking? So I actually started the process not by telling them all about my business. I actually asked them a lot of questions about their business, where they want to go, how they want to approach the work, all of those things. And then I did it early on as a way I could cater my approach to working with that practice is like, oh, I can just adjust how I'm going to be working. And after I got into some of those conversations and asked them a lot about their business, I realized that wasn't going to be the work that excited me, which made it an easy way to say no early on. And so I got really good at defining what my deliverable is is to help businesses continue beyond the original owner actually stepping away. So the original lot of businesses and financial services, the founder steps away and the businesses start to collapse or go down, or they just have to out sell it. And so I can help somebody get ready for selling a business or acquiring a business, but it really is how does this business continue in perpetuity without the owner? So I got really good at defining that. And if that advisor or that business wasn't looking for that services, we pretty quickly realized we shouldn't be working together.

Brent: And what you described is really important because you don't have all the answers right out at the front until you start having interactions with people and talking to potential clients because then you can narrow it down and expand it and learn from it. So you've also talked about the last element a bit here is the market. And I like how you described it. Maybe I'll just recap and you could say if I missed anything. But you said, you know, you started out this idea, I want to be a consultant and I want to work with all sorts of businesses and the coffee shop down the street and advisory practices and financial services and so forth. But then you started to say, wait a minute, I don't necessarily want to work with certain types of businesses. I don't have the experience in those types of businesses. I don't want to go work with really large organizations because I actually worked with large organizations for a big part of my career. But it wasn't necessarily you saying, I don't want to work with large organizations. You, the way you phrased it is, I know I can add more value when I'm working with this size of a practice and this industry. Did I summarize that all right?

Rob: You did, yes. And the thing I made a mistake with early. And it really it, I didn't ever execute on it, but it was a lot of the spinning the wheels early and probably an exercise I should have just done. When I got ready to launch the business, I ended up thinking and building this thing way bigger than I actually wanted at this point in my life. And so I thought, wow, look at the opportunity that exists. I can do this, I can do this, I can do this. How many employees would I need to have in this business if I was going to go do and execute on all of these areas? What resources should I have? Oh, I can do an online education forum as well. And maybe a book will get involved in this. And I know Brent, you've talked about launching different businesses. All of these ideas were under the one umbrella of my consulting business. And so I hired a designer to actually build a logo. I hired someone to help with some of the documents that I was putting together, actually outsource some of the things early on in doing this. And I had to go through that exercise to actually get to the end of it and realize, and you and I did a little bit of this in our podcast as well, but I had to go through the end of it and realize, wow, that's a lot of work. I just left work for a purpose of spending more time doing fun stuff. While I enjoy this, this isn't as much fun as going out for a bike ride or going on a hike or taking a big vacation. What's the real reason why I'm doing this? And that's why when you started this episode, we're not adding clients because I have a very fine niche practice right now that I'm very excited about running and being part of. I don't want to go out and build this mega business with employees at this point in my life, with number of employees, people I have to manage and all of those things. So in defining the market, I had to go through the exercise of how big could I make this, and then realizing I don't want to do all that work. Okay, great. So if Don't want to do all this work. Let me fine-tune to a very fine niche that if I'm doing just this, I would have fun, I'd be excited, I'd provide value, and I would have an endless supply of potential clients because I know I'm going to have turnover within those clients. If I'm doing my job, I'm going to have those clients move on and move away from me. There's enough opportunity just in this one niche for the lifestyle I want to have right now.

Brent: And that's an important step. Like you don't know that till you start having those conversations with yourself. Or in this case, you and I had a lot of conversations because like, Rob, where do you want to be? And we started this whole idea of like building a big practice and having a bunch of consultants working for you. You're fully capable of doing that, but you also realized I don't want to do that. And it's okay to build something that's a little bit smaller, one person shop, and you're comfortable with that, and it provides you with that fulfillment that you were looking for from a work perspective and that engagement with clients and adding value. So it takes a little bit of thinking through that process, but you don't know that typically until you dive into it. And the reason why most people go into saying, I'm going to build this really big practice because you came from an environment was grow, grow, grow, build, build, build. Now you're in an environment to say, do I want to do that and marry it with all the other things I want to do? And usually there's an imbalance, but it does take that thought. So that was an aha moment that you had, which is really cool. And I'm thanks for sharing kind of your pathway as we went through it. So I think the next step, Rob, is let's dive into the how-to. So there's six steps that we like to follow and we recommend if somebody wants to launch their own consulting practice. I'll take the first one, Rob, which we call path selection. And path selection is really defined as how do you want to consult? And do you want to be an independent consultant? As Rob described, Rob is an independent consultant. I'm an independent consultant. I work for myself. I don't work with another firm. I actually just do work as my own organization. Rob does the same thing. Then there's another path that you can be a contractor through certain platforms. And those platforms are really looking for independent contractors, independent consultants that do projects upon assignments. And sometimes you get to pick the assignments you like to do, but it's through a platform. And there's a lot of platforms out there that allow you to do that. And they're actually more business development platforms, and some people really like that as well. And that's a second option. And then the third option is you can go work for an established consulting firm. And some people do that really well. I know of a few consulting firms that cater towards people in this stage of their career to give them that flexibility. They love bringing on that type of experience. And it's a much more flexible environment. But once you say yes to an assignment, you got to go do that assignment. So that's the inflexibility that may come in. But you're going to have inflexibility anytime you get into consulting work because once you have a client, you need to do good with your client. So that's the path selection is how do you want to perform your work? And it's really what umbrella do you want to be represented? Do you want to be independent? Do you want to work through more of a platform where you're still independent, but somebody else is doing the business development for you? And then the third is do you want to go uh work for another consulting firm? Each one of these has their trade-offs. Your rates and your bill rates are going to be different, your autonomy is going to be different, and your overall opportunities for business and clients is going to be different. So you just got to weigh those options.

Rob: Can you give an example, Brent, of a platform organization that somebody could do, or one or two examples there?

Brent: Yeah, there's a firm that I've used in the past. So when I was in private equity, there's a firm called GLG. And what they do is they reach out to seasoned leaders and they bring you in for specific assignments. So they've reached out to me a handful of times in the last couple of years because I've got certain industry experience. And they bring you in to bring a subject matter expert on a specific topic. And so that's an example of a platform where they are working with a number of clients and they're trying to find experts to help that client fill a gap. And there's a lot of companies like GLG. So that's an example.

Rob: And then, Brent, for a consulting firm, if you wanted to join an existing consulting firm, you just go look for who would be your normal competitor in the marketplace. Is that how you look at it for a consulting firm that you would go and join?

Brent: There's a couple of ways. Like who's doing really good work in the niche that you're trying to target? That's a good starting point. I can tell you, consulting firms are always looking for really good talent. And it's hard with consulting because there's these ebbs and flows, and AI is obviously causing a lot of disruption for some of the larger consulting firms because the efficiency that it may be bringing. But that's how I would start. But that goes back to LinkedIn. Just start to learn who's doing really good work in the space that you're in. Reach out to them. And they may have specific assignments. They might want to bring you on full-time, part-time. There's a lot of ways to do it, but you're exactly right. Find the firm that does really good work or companies, firms that do really good work in the space that you're targeting in the market and reach out to them.

Rob: My experience, and I like how you just described that on path selection, really three different paths. When I think about the path selection as independent, means I own everything. I'm off on my own. That means I have to find my own clients. I create everything myself. The other end of the spectrum, which is the platform organization, you're going to join a platform. They're going to do a lot of the marketing of me. They're going to find my assignment. They're going to tell me here's who you're going to go work with. They're going to define a lot of that. And that consulting, really, another consulting firm is kind of the hybrid between the two. You're going to bring some of your own clients to the table. They're going to have some clients they assign to you as well. You're going to fit into their kind of marketing engine, but you're also expected to market yourself as well. Is that another way to define that too?

Brent: Yeah, depending on how senior you are, when you're in a consulting firm, if you're a senior leader, you're expected to go do business development. And some cases you're expected to go fulfill the work as well. So yeah, exactly a good way of how you summarize that. So moving on to the next one, Rob, is bill rates. And this is probably the number one question that I get when people ask me about consulting. It's like, how do I bill myself? Here's my advice to you is you've got hourly models, you've got daily kind of models that says, here's my daily rate. You have project-based models that says to do this whole project, here's what it's going to cost. And then you have a retainer type model. Retainers often show up when somebody's like a coach, where it's like, I do a retainer and it's a quarterly retainer. And then project work is very self-explanatory, and daily and hourly are pretty explanatory. Here's the challenge that most people are going to face is you got to do some homework to figure out rates for your specific industry. The benefit of AI is it can identify some pretty good rates and it's pretty tight, meaning uh fairly accurate based on your experience and the type of work that you're going to do and the clients that you're targeting. So that's where I would start. Where a lot of people make the mistake is they're trying to translate what did they make as an employee in their last job, and they're going to divide it by commonly 2,000 hours, because that's what, you know, an easy way to look at an annual. And you're going to say, okay, my rate is 250 an hour. I don't recommend doing it that way because you're thinking much more as an hourly type math. It's a mentality shift. You've got to think about at this stage in your career, what value are you offering? So, Rob, your example, when you go to clients, you're adding value and they're actually generating more revenue. So your rates can justify whatever rates you're putting out there because you're adding value. And I do the same thing. And if somebody balks at a certain rate, guess what? Maybe they're not the right client. Now, if you price yourself out of the market, I've done that too. I've had reach outs from platforms and I say, to do that type of work, I give them a daily rate or a project rate, and they'll laugh at me and I'll say, I have a full schedule right now. If you want me to do it, I think I'm a good fit for this client. But that would be my rate. And they say, Well, try. And then I don't hear back from them. So that can happen, but sometimes they may say yes because there's a really good fit. So just think about this process. And I think, Rob, you've probably had some experience on the billing side where you've had to say no to clients, you've said yes to clients, and any lessons learned before we move on to the next one?

Rob: I followed the model as you were sharing it, Brent. I went to the retainer model just for the simplicity. And I had a couple early-on interactions where my fee was out of the price range that somebody was willing to pay for it. And I decided not to reduce that because I think that's what I'm worth. And I've been able to demonstrate that throughout my career and even with the early practices that I actually did start working with in the businesses that I started working with. So I know it's easy to say, well, maybe I should have discounted it. We're all at a point now in our lives where we don't have to discount our experiences. And we should value the experience that you're bringing to the table, the knowledge you're bringing to the table, the expertise you're bringing to the table. You can't replicate that with AI. And there is a fee that somebody should pay to be able to access that resource that you're bringing to them. So that was one piece of it. The other thing when I think about billable rates, I also think, Brent, about the way in which a client would pay me. And I want to keep things very simple. And I need to keep them pretty simple for a couple of reasons. One is the mechanics behind the scenes and working with a bank when you set up an LLC, whether they'll take credit cards, how they can bill, ACH, that became really complex. And I didn't want to have that complexity personally to try and figure out all this billing model. So I actually only do two models, it's annual or semi-annual, and that's it. And if someone's going to work with me, here's the model that we have. And yes, that turns away some clients, but it makes my life very simple behind the scenes too, which is something I'm seeking at this point in my life.

Brent: I think it's a really important distinction there. You know, if you want to try to start doing hourly type work, that is actually more like an attorney, more like a CPA that does hourly advisory work. Those are different sometimes than consulting. And so find a model that works for you. And I like how you describe that. There's a simplicity behind a retainer. That's how I typically work too, is in the retainer side of things, because I just believe in the value that I'm offering. If I'm not selling that story well enough to the client or they don't see it, then maybe it's not a good fit. So just figure out what works for you on the billing side. But my challenge back to our listeners, if you're considering this path of being a consultant, is really dig deep on this one. And also you mentioned discounts. If you're trying to offer discounts to get business, that's actually typically a mistake right out of the gates because once you sell a rate, that's going to be your rate for a very long period of time. So just know that. And then also the only time that I've done significant discounts is when it's a long-term, large contract. And I'm working with a large organization, multiple work streams, multiple consultants. This is in my past. When I build consulting firms, yes, I will give them a discount. But when I'm a solo practitioner, I think it's you're underselling yourself typically. You're just trying to get the sale versus you're not believing in the value that you're providing.

Rob: The next area we're going to cover is actually marketing. And so, how do you help people become aware of this new coaching, consulting, advisory business that you have? And this comes down to a number of different ways of doing it. Brent talked about how to identify the market and where do you find people and do you already have a network that exists? But I think it starts with positioning. And the first thing in positioning, and probably the easiest thing to think from a positioning standpoint, is many of us as professionals had LinkedIn profiles. And that profile is built around what you did historically. And that a lot of times was built out for a recruiter model that a recruiter might say, Oh, here's what he did. I can hire them to do that again. Instead, your LinkedIn profile should actually address more of what you're going to do for that organization or for that individual or for that uh client of yours. You're really going to need to think about how do you redesign your own experience in the marketplace to demonstrate what this new business is going to do, not just what you did in the past. So that's the first step. The second thing is to try and make it as simple as possible. And you heard me say this earlier today. This is one of the things I think it did fairly well, is building out a one-sentence positioning statement. And I adjust it slightly, but it is still the same ending of the sentence. I help financial advisors build enduring firms. That's it. That's the positioning of what I do. And enduring means different for different businesses, but it's very simple to position. And so the simplicity of marketing, it gets easier to market your practice when it's simple, or what your business when it's simple to actually design. So then you can actually design one-pagers, websites around what is that simple deliverable you're going to provide for an organization? What's that one sentence you're going to be able to do for or for people? A lot of people, Brent, gets, I think get stuck just before this step. And they start thinking about billing, they start thinking of infrastructure, naming, and things like that. And they actually never get into the marketing phase. How do you think people break out of the foundational work and actually start marketing themselves?

Brent: It's easier to create checklists, you know, of all the things that you should be doing. Get your bank accounts set up, get your LLC set up, get a website built. The moment you overcomplicate the process, you're kind of taking away from the essence of what you're trying to do. There's people that I know that have said, I want to start a consulting practice, and they're two or three years into they're still building their materials, still building the website, still doing it. They're not getting clients because all they think is if I build it, they will come. That's not going to happen. Hard to do. So where we take this one on the marketing materials, which is a nice segue into the next one, is your website and digital presence. My recommendation is so start so simple. Work on your LinkedIn profile, as you alluded to. Build a very good LinkedIn presence. And then if you want to build a website, build a one-page website that is really just leveraging the content you just created for LinkedIn. There's great website companies that make it so easy for you to do this. Like we use Squarespace as an example for Midlife Circus. It's not complicated these days to go build a one-page or a two-page or a three-page website. You put your contact information in there, you do a little bit about you and a little about your service. That's a good starting point. It also gives validity to the work that you're doing and you're serious about it. Our recommendation, do not overcomplicate it. The moment you do that, then you're going to get stuck in a wheel of like, I need to create so much stuff because you're now trying to sell yourself as jack of all trades. Let's try to avoid that. Which leads into entity structure. So this is our fifth element on how you launch a consulting practice. So this is pretty straightforward. And I do recommend consulting with a CPA or an attorney just on this simple step. But usually your starting point is going to be an LLC. You can be a sole proprietor and you can do an S-corp election. But the LLC, why it's designed the way it is designed is it's just a starting point to create some liability protection. But consult with your tax advisor or your attorney on that. Depending on the type of practice you're going to do, you may want to have a different structure or a different level of coverage. And some industries and specific skills that you're selling may require that. So we recommend that. But once you pick your path, these are not very difficult to go fulfill. You can launch an LLC in a matter of a half an hour if you really have your ducks together or your process in order. It's not difficult to do.

Rob: Brent, before you start up an S LLC, one of the things you helped me with was just thinking about the sequence of order of actually doing things. And I think this might be a great place to insert this before we give the last step. And I'm just going to share the sequence you gave to me and have you correct me if I'm wrong in terms of the approach to building out and starting this. So the first thing you suggest I do is if I'm going to build out a business that's not my own personal name, which I do believe most people should think about not using their name because they never know where this is going to end up growing to. I created an entity name. And I actually, first thing you suggest I do is find out if that entity name is available as a URL. And can I actually get a website using that name? And that took a lot of iterations. I found out that a lot of variations of words and names are already owned by somebody else. So I can't have a domain to actually have people go to if I was going to go out and build a business. So that was the first step in the process was to see what names might be available that would meet within the company. Once I had the name, it was to buy the domain. So I actually own those and then set up the LLC. And so you gave it in that order. So I had not only had the domains, I then had an email address, I set up the LLC, and it allowed me to have all correspondence from day one going through my business account was a sequence of order. And then I can actually build the rest of the parts of the business after that. But really is the name available? Can you do it by the domains and by variations of the domains so you don't have issues down the road and then go and create the LLC?

Brent: Absolutely. And the reason why you want to do that is because then your correspondence with the government as it relates to your LLC is done and through the state is done through your email address that you just set up for the company name. Changing those things aren't hard to do, but they are a process. So if you can just think through a couple of these steps early on and just say, hey, what do I want to call myself? Some people choose their name and that's fine. And some people choose an entity name and that's fine as well. But if you follow that order, it'll just be easier for you from a cleanup perspective that you don't have a lot of cleanup. If you identify the name, reserve the name, set up an email address, then register the entity and the bank account. When you're an LLC, you're going to want to set up a bank account as well. But then when you have all those documents taken care of and those email addresses, it's really easy to go into a bank and say, here's what I do. And they're going to ask you for your, you know, your organization docs and you'll have them prepared because you had to do it for setting up the LLC. Not hard to do. Most CPAs or lawyers have a really simple way of doing that. And it's not that expensive.

Rob: All right. The last thing is going to come back to the Nike slogan of just do it. And actually, it's move first framing would be the last step of the six-step process of launching. We've said this already. Don't try to build everything out in its perfect format before you start working with a client. There is nothing that'll define your value proposition more than actually working with a client directly. And so finding that first client. And a lot of people go into the build mode to avoid the rejection they might face. Well, that rejection helps you build out the model even better. And so it is to start thinking about whether you want to go into consulting, doing those five steps to launch your business, and then actually taking that first step. And it's actually really about taking that step that's going to help move you into the place where you're starting to define more of what that business is. And you may not develop the website for a year, a year and a half after your business is up and going because you're still redefining what it means for you, what you're trying to accomplish as a consultant or as an advisor to an organization. Brent, as we wrap up, is there anything that our listeners that we haven't addressed today that we probably should address for our listeners as they're setting up and thinking about launching a consulting business?

Brent: I want to just go back to what you just said. So when I launched my first consulting company, it was 2001. And my dad was a serial entrepreneur throughout his entire career. And I was telling him all the things I'm going to go do and I'm going to build and all the materials and all this intellectual property. And I just went down this big laundry list and he said, Well, I recommend something a little bit different. I'm like, What's that, Dad? And he goes, I think you should just use your name and give them a phone number and just start selling. Go get your first client because they're going to help you define what you are and what you're going to do. Go back through that simple process that we outlined, which he was alluding to. But the moment you get stuck in the infrastructure phase, you could be stuck there for months. And I alluded to earlier, I know people have been stuck there for years and they don't have any clients. They just keep building stuff. So his advice was at the time, and this was, you know, 25 years ago, was have a phone number and your name on a business card and just start talking to people. But he was a good sales guy, so that's how he operated. So now I would say have a phone number, have your name, and have an email address with the company name. That's a good starting point. So as we wrap today, your question was great. I really think for anybody to get going. And if you want to be a consultant, I think it's a really can be a very enjoyable space. I've done it for a number of years. I know you enjoy your work, Rob. I do want to reiterate to everyone that we are not positioned as podcasts to try to build our consulting practices. They're two completely separate endeavors. And our goal today was just to give people a perspective. If their next great act has some sort of consulting, advisory, coaching practice, we've done it. We think you can get some value from this episode. But I think it always starts out if you're going to start something new like this, is you have to be able to answer a really simple question who do I help and how? But that's a starting point. And if you can't write that yet, you just got a little work to do. So we're excited about this. This episode is something that we've been talking about building for a number of months because we get a lot of people asking us, What's it like to be a consultant? So we thought we'd just go a little bit deeper from previous episodes. So hopefully you've gotten some value out of this one. And uh anything else you want to add as well, Rob?

Rob: Yeah, as we go to wrap up, if you have any questions about building a consulting business or some additional thoughts, please go to the episode page on whatever app you're using on your podcast player, and you can actually message the show. So it's one of the features we're adding on to our episodes going forward, is either answering questions from prior episodes or helping us with uh suggestions for future shows. To reiterate what we talked about today, and I think Brent, you did a really good job helping our audience identify the steps in actually getting up and running and starting a consulting practice. I think of as actually two different areas. One is there's a bunch of foundational work that you need to do in advance of setting up the business. And that is understanding if you want to be a coach, a consultant, or an advisor and kind of defining what that is. The next thing is it's actually what is the purpose? Are you excited about it? Are you good at it? And do you genuinely believe you could provide value? The third is product. What do you actually be selling? So it's not, it's yourself and the services that you're providing. Can you define a one-liner for that, a single sentence that actually outlines what you actually do for the organization or for the individual? And last is getting real clear on the market you would be serving. So those are the four foundational steps. Finishing with market, who is it that you would actually go and work and serve? We then go into the execution steps. And the first one is what path are you going to follow? Are you going to be an independent? Are you going to join a consulting firm? Are you going to join a large platform for consulting services? Billing rates and figuring out what your worth is. And I would say don't undercut yourself. You have tremendous value you're going to bring to whoever you work with. Set a price and see what happens. And you're likely going to set it below what you're probably actually worth in the first place. Build out marketing materials and stay simple with that. Brent, I love the fact just start with LinkedIn is probably the easiest place to start. It's the market a lot of business professionals go to first and foremost for almost any resource anyway. So start with LinkedIn, then go and build out digital presence. Entity structure, there's a lot of options there. Consult with a CPA or an attorney to figure out what entity structure might work for you. A good starting place there could be AI to help you with some of that foundational knowledge. If you don't know anything about entities at all, what type of entity might be good for you early on before you go and meet with a CPA or an attorney, just give you some baseline knowledge. And last step is just do it, as Nike says, just do it. Just go out and talk to people, identify who your clients might be and have some conversations. You can even float this conversation by a couple of them and see what the reaction might be. They may give you a tone of what the marketplace looks like for this being a professional business for you.

Brent: Rob, that's a really important point. I just want to highlight that last closing point before we close out the episode is just do it. And how you get clients in today's day and age with your experience and your expertise, tap into your network, start talking to people, tell them you're one line. Tell them I'm looking for clients in the space. That's the best way to get clients at the stage of your career that you're in, is start interacting with your network and let that network effect help you in the process. That's always a great starting point. But you got to start that first phone call, that first email, make it personal, make a connection with that person. And my guess is you're going to be very successful in finding your first few clients by just reaching out to your network that you already have in place.

Rob: So as we wrap up today, the isn't finish out today, one of the new features that I just mentioned earlier is you do have a way to message the show, whether it be a voicemail or a text message to lead to the show. And I'm actually going to read a text message that we received from one of our listeners, Rose. Here's what Rose wrote to us. Hello, Rob and Brent. I can relate to the most recent show having two of our three in college. Another stage of life with children that has its highs, its learnings, and its adjustments. Love the content, keep it up. Still haven't completed my 10-year letter to myself, but will. In quote, in parentheses, great episode. And that came from Rose. What I would say to Rose is find that person that you could actually share that 10-year letter episode with. Share the episode and send them a text in that when you're sharing it saying, I'd like to do this exercise with you. That's the first step you need to take in doing the 10-year exercise, is building that accountability in with somebody else. And again, when we did that exercise, it was more impactful having done it with somebody else, knowing I was going to have to read it to somebody else that was going to hold me accountable to what I said, but also was going to hold me accountable to what I didn't say. And actually asked me a lot of questions about what some of the meaning behind this was to really get to make that letter a more impactful thing for myself. So thanks everybody for listening today. That's our show.

Lena: That's it for this episode of Midlife Circus. Visit midlifecircus.fm for show notes, transcripts, and all the latest happenings. And be sure to join us in the Midlife Circus community on Substack. Follow Midlife Circus on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts, so you never miss your next great act. Quick reminder: the opinions and stories shared here are personal reflections, not professional advice. This show is for entertainment and inspiration only. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you under the big top next time. Midlife Circus is a Burning Matches Media production.