I Can Help You Succeed at Consulting and Have the Life You Dream of in Less Time.
I’m excited to share with you everything I have learned over the years about how to be a sought-after consultant while still enjoying time with my family and doing other things I love. I want to help you learn from my successes—and my mistakes—and fast track your success by avoiding the wrong roads and taking the right shortcuts.
Is Craft of Consulting for You?
Craft of Consulting is for accomplished professionals who are transitioning into being consultants or who have been consulting for a while. You don't have to be in a particular field. The information and tools here apply to all types of consultants, whether you’re with a firm or consulting independently.
What stage are you in?
2nd Stage
you've taken the leap
Your business is still new and you’re working on attracting more clients and keeping the ones you got. You feel the freedom and flexibility of your new life and the thrill of doing the work you love.
But…
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You might also be missing the security of a regular job and maybe are a little afraid of making mistakes that result in you losing income.
3rd stage
You're building your consulting Business
You’re starting to build a nice client base and know that you can attract clients. You’re enjoying the freedom and variety of your work.
However, you’re frustrated by the feast-or-famine cycle of consulting and you might even be feeling that your life is out of balance.
Stage 1: You don't have a consulting business...yet.
It is possible to build a successful consulting business that supports you and your family’s financial and lifestyle needs.
This free tool can help you get started:
Cultivating a Consulting Business Mindset
This tool will help you define who you want to help and test that there is room in the market for you.
These blogs will help you get started:
How to Become a Consultant in 7 Steps
Discover the basic path for becoming a consultant and the process for doing it well. Following these steps will make your life easier when you make the transition and increase the likelihood of success.
8 Key Questions for Becoming a Consultant
This blog focuses on answering fundamental questions about how you want to be a consultant and build a consulting business. In making these decisions upfront, this enables you to become the consultant you want and join or create a consultancy that matches what you want, who you are, and what you can do for clients.
Overcoming Your Fear of Becoming a Consultant
If you want to be a consultant, don’t let fears and doubts squash your dream. This blog will help you get past what's holding you back by focusing on what matters most.
Stage 2: You've taken the leap.
I’ve been where you are now and understand what you’re going through. These free tools will help you make important decisions at this stage and—most importantly—get clients!
How to Leverage Your
Network:
Email Templates to Land Your First Client
Leveraging your existing network is a powerful way to get clients. In fact, it’s the way most new consultants get their first clients. But you have to do it right to get people in your network to help you. This tool provides templates for a tried-and-true sequence of emails for you to send your network to get them to help you land your first clients.
How to Cultivate Prospective Clients and Get to a Proposal:
Initial Prospective Client Meetings Checklist
Preparing for your first meeting with a prospective client will allow you to seem like an “effortless expert” and more easily identify and articulate what you could do to help them.
Use the following checklist to prepare prior to your initial meeting or conversation.
Managing Client
Expectations:
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Contract Scope
Checklist
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Contracts are one of your primary tools to clarify and manage client expectations and help make sure you get paid for everything you do. This tool will help ensure that you include all the important details and assumptions in your contract so you don’t lose any income or clients.
These blogs will help you grow faster:
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Land Your First Client: A Low-Burden Technique to Leverage Your Network
Are you getting stressed out by trying to figure out how to get your first client as a new consultant? Try this powerful technique.
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How to Prepare Prospective Consulting Client Meetings Like You Want Business
Getting more consulting clients depends on your ability to walk into a meeting with prospective clients, find out what they need, and show them that they need your help to get them where they want to go. But before you walk in that room, take these critical steps to increase the likelihood that you’ll get a contract.
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What to Consider When Pricing Your Consulting Services
Getting the price right is critical to building a thriving consulting business that provides value to your clients and supports the life you want. This blog helps you unlock the mystery of how to price your consulting services right.
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How to Avoid the Feast or Famine Trap of Consulting
Don't fall prey to this common consulting business trap of too much work and then no work at all. Learn how to manage your pipeline so you have a steady flow of business.
How to Use Contracts to Manage Client Expectations
A client signs a contract. Great news, right? But then you start the work and the client starts asking you to do things that weren’t what you were expecting to do and that you did not include in the contract or budget. Now what?
How to Master Tricky Client Conversations
Discover how to master “those” conversations so they are far more likely to end well and keep a client relationship on track.​
Stage 3: You're building your consulting business.
Earn the income you need and want while achieving the balance you seek in your life with these free tools:
Life Balance Exercise:
Killing Vampires and Zombies
You can have life balance as a consultant...if you make deliberate choices to create it. A key aspect to creating life balance is maximizing what you do in the time that you are working. This exercise will help you identify people and activities that suck away your resources and have no value and repeated activities that don’t serve you or your clients.
These blogs will help you achieve balance in your life:
Setting and Defending Boundaries Like Your Life and Consulting Business Depend on It
Do you need help bringing more balance to your life?  This blog  can help you figure out how to set boundaries so you have the business and life you truly want.
Protecting Your Life Balance While Consulting: Part 1
Is it possible to have a balanced life as a consultant? Yes! The key is to figure out what you want and what you can do within your particular circumstances.
Protecting Your Life Balance While Consulting: Part 2
In order to have life balance, you need to make deliberate choices—choices that enhance your life balance in the ways you want and that work for your circumstances. These tips can help you make the right choices, even while having a profitable business.