💡 The Lightbulb

Have you ever found an old shirt or hoodie in your closet that you forgot you had? You come across it in some sort of rush, and say ‘that’ll work.’ then find yourself wearing it over and over again? (If you’ve had a call with me recently, yes, I’m talking about the grey zip-up fleece vest.) Sometimes we forget we have gold hiding in plain sight. Back in January, I was taking an intentional look at my own positioning and service portfolio -- it’s a constant game of tweak and triangulation. I’d...

We made it! Yes, ‘we!’ In April 2024, I joined Jonathan Stark’s E365 workshop to try my hand at the insane task of starting up a daily list. Jonathan has said plainly and often that writing a daily email is the best thing he’s done for his business. Thinking that meant drumming up demand and revenue, I jumped right in. A year later, turns out it was so much more… When I first started this list, my ambitious thought was I’d aggressively build an audience of thousands, and it would be my ticket...

We’ve been talking about a dichotomy between “pre-pain” vs. “in-pain” clients, but pain isn't binary - it's a spectrum. As you become known for your niche, you’ll have inbounds coming from all over that spectrum. Your job? Understand where your buyer is along the pain curve, and adjust your message accordingly. Starting at the bottom-left: 😎 Blissfully unaware - this truly is the hardest one to crack. You’ll have to beg them to listen, and then push them up a hill. Honestly, why would you...

If you’ve ever sat down for a free consult with me, there’s a 80+% chance I asked you: “Where’s the urgent pain point that matches your expertise?” I probably even followed that up with: “People don’t go out of their way to seek out external help if they’re not bleeding in some way.” A little hyperbolic, though not far off the mark. But there’s actually another angle… Earlier today, I had an abnormal mole removed from my upper torso. It’s one I’d had my eye on for a while. No pain, but...

As promised, here’s a bit of the fresh Q&A from my talk at Chief yesterday on the fractional executive consulting model: “How do you price fractional work aside from just converting an annual salary into an hourly rate? When do you use a retainer?” The most advantageous pricing approach for a fractional executive (and for the client as well) is a monthly retainer. This gets you out of the chore of time tracking, the pain of haggling over an hourly rate, and the perverse incentive of lower...