💡 The Lightbulb
A daily email about monetizing and visualizing your corporate expertise. Give me ~1 minute a day, and I'll help you turn what you know into your most differentiated and lucrative asset.
💡 Why the subtitle trend matters for consultants
A lot’s been written about the subtitles vs. no-subtitles debate while watching TV. I, for one, find them highly distracting, and particularly inexcusable while watching comedies (they blow every punchline and obliterate comic timing). And while some reasonable use cases for subtitles exist, like assisting those hard of hearing, following dense plots, or deciphering difficult accents/dialects, I hadn’t recognized the predominant use case for captions among the younger generations is:...
💡 Very niche: Can a GOAT be niche?
Last night, I started watching the new Ken Burns series on The American Revolution. My guess is a) you’ve heard of him. And if so, b) you have some idea what a Ken Burns series is like: Multi-year effort. Multi-part deep dive. On some pivotal period or personality within American history. A slow, deliberate re-telling using voice overs, simple melodies and slow pans over still images. Typically some watercooler buzz and critical acclaim. And ultimately required viewing in your kid’s high...
💡 The buyer's view on brain vs. hands work
Yesterday’s niche evolution map prompted a lot more replies than usual! ICYMI, one of the takeaways from plotting my own service evolution visually was that despite the typical desire/advice to shift toward more scalable 'brain' work, I found that a shift toward more 'hands' work has brought me closer into my genius zone, and revenue has followed. Brand strategist and interim CMO Claire Elvers wrote in specifically about what she’s seeing regarding the ‘brain vs. hands work’ spectrum from the...
💡 TOOL: Map your service evolution
My final layoff was exactly three years ago. That milestone coinciding with writing the 'Finding Your Niche’ section of my book this week has prompted a lot of reflection of my solo path so far. Yesterday, I mentioned a series of pivots in my audience and services, some more extreme than others, so I decided to map them out. My services/niche evolved in the following steps: First gig: Hourly BizOps work for an edtech startup Ghostwriter | courses for SaaS execs ‘Signature Service Intensive’...
💡 LISTEN: Making a sharp pivot
My first year as a soloist was pretty fortunate, in retrospect. I had enough inbounds (and a severance check) to keep me rolling as I tried to find my footing, build a pipeline, and cobble together a brand on the fly. But about a year in, I recognized that nearly everything had been reactive. An inbound would come to me. I’d write a proposal. The urgent ones would convert. Some would even renew. Nice life. Until I realized that without putting a stake in the ground about who I served and what...
💡 RESOURCE: 30+ talks for Solos
The holidays aren’t quite here yet, but the folks at Lettuce.co just dropped a giant gift for any and all solo consultants. It’s ALL of the talks from last week’s Solo Summit, free and on-demand. And all of them from February’s inaugural Summit as well. They’re not paying me to say this, but I’ve yet to find a more comprehensive conference geared specifically at solopreneurs, virtual or in-person. Sessions from our community’s top voices on: Generating referrals Building partnerships Setting...
💡 Very niche: Dazed and (not) Confused
In this week’s installment of Very Niche!, meet Richard Linklater - the filmmaker of cult-classic Dazed and Confused, who has since stumbled into a niche of longitudinal projects. That is, films created over decades from start to finish. You might have seen some of them. The Before-trilogy of Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight followed the same two lovers in films released in 1995, 2004 and 2013. Same cast throughout. Then came Boyhood, filmed annually for 12 years, finally...
💡 Free 'Practice'
Being a soloist is freeing and exhilarating. It’s also messy, frustrating and yes, sometimes lonely. Earlier this week, I took my friend and fellow soloist Brad Did up on his offer for a ‘Connect’ call. A free, no-strings, watercooler-type call just to chat and, well, connect. As much as I like to tout the benefits of fleeing the corporate cage and the baggage that came with it, what also often gets tossed are these types of impromptu conversations that used to happen in the lunch room, in...
💡 In-the-wild: Rookie vs. Future-maker
I caught author Ben Angel’s session at today’s Solo Summit, put on by Lettuce.co - the topic was AI That Actually Works: Tech Investment for Solos Ben had a lot of fresh insights to share about how AI will undoubtedly change the type of work we’ll do as consultants. He’s even written a book about it, The Wolf is at the Door. With my eyes always peeled for unique visuals, I found this rather understated framework to be quite an effective framing for his talk: Essentially, he’s saying you can...
💡 Listen to your fellow Lightbulbers
A few Lightbulbers wrote in after yesterday’s note on podcast guesting. Some were podcast guests, some were hosts, and at least one Lightbulber does both prolifically! Check out their recent appearances as both explorations of interesting topics and as inspiration for getting yourself in front of the mic. Thanks for those who submitted — awfully grateful to have such a bench of fascinating ‘talkers’ on this list. 🙏 Kymm Martinez Founder of Wilder Marketing Group, fractional CMO for...
A daily email about monetizing and visualizing your corporate expertise. Give me ~1 minute a day, and I'll help you turn what you know into your most differentiated and lucrative asset.