How to Start a Consulting Business Before You’re “Ready”

Welcome to today's episode of Black Belt Startup with Feras. Thank you for tuning in. What's new in the world of entrepreneurship? Stuck or stalling? That's the question. Do you ever feel like you're doing everything except actually starting? Like you've got 12 tabs in your browser, You have all those open tabs, you have a bunch of color-coded spreadsheets and action items, and then a list of potential business names that rivals baby names forums, but no actual clients, no offer out in the world, just vibes and maybe a slightly overused whiteboard. Listen, I'm not judging. I've been there. In fact, I practically had a PhD in planning before doing. I wanted the perfect logo, the perfect pitch, the perfect niche, the perfect client. But all that perfection talk is really a clever disguise for fear. It's a clever disguise for fear, the fear of starting. That is, that is the truth that I wish someone told me early on in my career, actually in life in general. Starting messy beats waiting forever. I once launched a consulting offer with a basic 4-page website. I cringed pressing publish, but that basic site got me my first clients. And while I was busy being embarrassed, my bank account was busy growing. See, most people think they need clarity, they need everything to be clear and perfect before action. But what if— just hear me out— what if the clarity Only comes after you move. And today we're going to talk about that— 3 mindsets, 3 things that unlock everything. One, about how to take action without feeling ready. And then 2, about how to stay organized without fancy tools. And then 3, on How empathy, yes, actual human connection, might be the greatest growth strategy you've never really used. But before we dive in, a couple of housekeeping items. Whether you're watching or listening live or tuning in later, I would love to hear from you. Leave me a comment. Leave me, ask me a question, send me an email. I want to know, I want to hear about your small and big wins, your struggles, your challenges, anything that is preventing you from growing, from scaling, from maybe making the next hire or maybe closing the next deal, or maybe you don't know why you're stuck. So reach out to me over email at feras@startupwithferas.com, and Feras spelled like my first name, F-E-R-A-S, on wherever you are, on YouTube, on Instagram, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on X, you'll find us there. And you can send me an email if it's something private and you want to— you don't want to share it with the world. Or you can just leave us a comment with the struggle that you're having, or the thought— the thoughts that you're having, or maybe, you know, you don't know what to do. So let me know what the issue is, and I'll be more than happy to, to help. And then we use this form here these episodes to answer questions that we get from the community. And we have these episodes every other Thursday now at 3 PM Pacific, 6 PM Eastern, which— where we cover a business topic and then answer the questions that we get from the community. So now that the administrative part is behind us, let's talk not about theory but about what it really takes to move forward even if it's not perfect. So we start with the first mindset, successive approximation. So what is this successive approximation? This principle— and we, I think we have a slide on that— this principle comes from, directly comes from cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT, and it's totally applicable to business. It's about not feeling that you have to do everything at the same time, or that you have to plan the whole trajectory of a project before you take the first step. See, many, many business owners fear starting before they're fully ready. Many entrepreneurs, if you're not a business owner yet, you know, you just— what if I fail? What if no one buys from me? What If I, you know, I get rejected? Or for existing business owners, if growth has been stalling, what if I go to this new market and it doesn't work? What if I start this new business and no one buys? What if I hire and then I don't have revenue and profit to support the new addition, you know, to my team? These are all legitimate concerns and fears. The challenge here is that a lot of times founders and entrepreneurs I speak with, they want everything to be perfect before talking to a single client if they haven't started, or before taking any step towards this big initiative they want to undertake if they already have a business. And a lot of times they're very adverse to, to taking risks. I'm not saying you take You take risks without being trained on taking risks, actually. And if you follow us on the content we produce, I show you exact steps on how to mitigate risks and how to take calculated risks. And that's maybe a topic for another, another session. But I want you to remember that your first project you do, whatever it is, a market plan that you write for your clients, or if you're an IT consultant, the first audit that you maybe run for your client, or if you are— you provide home decor services or office building maintenance, whatever the case might be, that first project, that first contract actually, the first demo, it's not going to be smooth. And if you want some comfort, here's what Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, said. If you're not embarrassed— he's talking about products, but this applies to services and consulting as well. But he says, If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you launched too late. So if you're waiting for this perfect pitch, for the perfect PowerPoint presentation, for the perfect client, for the perfect delivery, it's not going to happen. So, so I'm not saying that you willingly go out there and embarrass yourself. But just like driving for the first time, riding the bike for the first time, swimming for the first time, you're not going to be doing it effectively, efficiently. You're not going to do it properly, but that's okay. Without that very first step, you won't get to mastery. You won't get to proficiency and then later to mastery. And, you know, when I launched my first consulting business with that 4-page website, 4-page website. My— I was embarrassed. I, you know, I, I wasn't sure what to do. And, and what I produced in terms of the templates for my proposals, my PowerPoint slides, the demos, you know, they're very simple. And I knew I, I could— they could be better, especially because I, I came from a corporate, you know, I had a corporate background, but I didn't have the resources and not, not even, you know, the time or energy to, to, to develop a fancy website. Not— didn't have the budget either. So, so, but we took— my, my co-founder and I took these first steps with really simple slides, set of slides, simple templates, you know, we— simple pitches did not work, we had to work on those. But taking those first steps meant we built some muscle in each area of the business that got us to clients. And that's what's important because If you don't have clients, if you don't have business, there is no business. If you don't have revenue, if you don't have clients, if you're not out there selling, pitching, learning, there is no business. So waiting for perfection— to summarize this first mindset— if you wait for perfection, and, and for business owners out there, waiting for perfection is why most businesses Never start at all, and you miss out on an opportunity that could have been. It could be the best thing that you ever you know have ever done in your life. Now, having said all of that, I'm not saying you abandon planning. I'm not saying you you jump head first. No, every business needs a basic roadmap, some plan. I always tell founders, people who want to get into business, or those who are trying to scale their businesses, you do not need a fifty-page. business plan. It's more like a 5-page or maybe a 2-page business plan initially, because you can always iterate and improve. And, and this hidden trap that I want you to steer clear of is over-planning paralysis. I remember before we went out to sell, the very first day of my very first business, my co-founder and I, both of us had zero sales background. And we wanted to go out and sell and literally knock on doors and ask people, go to these businesses around us and tell them about what we do. We will help you, you know, we will build a website for you. And we kept delaying this first day of going out. Oh, let's, let's, let's think about our pricing. Oh, let's do some research on, on competition. Oh, let's talk to other business owners. Oh, let's, let's, let's look at our 5-year strategy. We kept putting these obstacles because we were fearful of being rejected. We were fearful of being out there and not being able to sell. But then we mustered all the courage we have, and it's always good in my mind to have a business partner or someone who would give you a bit of an encouragement, and we went out with a bunch of incomplete things— incomplete pitches, incomplete PowerPoint slides, incomplete knowledge of the whole industry that we're servicing, but we started with something workable, albeit incomplete, a workable strategy, a workable plan, some information about the offer that we have and how we can help businesses, and we took that risk of being embarrassed, of being rejected, of potentially not selling for a while, And all of those things happened, but without taking those steps, without knocking on those 5 restaurants the very first day I went out to sell, the first time in my life, 5 restaurants who gave us 5 rejections— without those rejections, there's no way that we could have built those 7-figure businesses that we've built, or the 8-figure business that we ended up selling to Dentsu. So remember that I want you to be out there putting some put some time into planning, and then go out and knock on doors, and go out and market, and go out and and and and try out these things that you've planned for because your plan should be your guide, not your prison. All right, so that's the first mindset on this on on being able to to. to take these first steps, small baby steps initially. And this successive approximation concept from CBT is, I think, very applicable to businesses. So before going to the second mindset, for those of you who are with us live, if you have a question, if you've tried to take these baby steps and you still struggle, let me know. Ask us a question, leave us a comment on whichever platform you're on. And I'll be more than happy to answer it now or at the end of this session. And then for those of you who are watching or listening later, again, leave us a comment and we'll make sure to get back to you. And if you want to email me directly, email me at feras@startupwithferesh.com, especially if it's something maybe private or personal, you don't want to share it with the world, and I'll be more than happy to get you a response. And I, you know, we keep everything confidential, so no worries. Whatsoever. Good. The second mindset, staying organized. See, as an entrepreneur, you, you need the mental capacity, the mental energy, the mental space for the strategic aspects of your job, for client acquisition, for service delivery, and also most importantly, to take care of your team. Oops. But don't squander it, that energy that you have. Don't squander it on just keeping track of things, and then don't miss opportunities because you don't keep track of things. I don't want to focus too much on, on personal traits, like this person, this founder is so, so organized, and this other, you know, founder has no idea what organization is. That, that might be true. Some of us are better organizers, some of, some of us are right-brained, some of us are left-brained, and, and we are very systematic. But what I really want to highlight is not about personal traits, although again, those might help, but I want to highlight the role of systems in entrepreneurial success. So when we— when, when I say stay organized. I'm talking about having systems, having processes, having checklists that will help you and your team stay organized. And in my mind, it is a prerequisite. Not having these systems and these processes and these documentation and checklists is, is, is just— will not— without those, you cannot really grow. And, and a quote here, um, Unforgettable, amazing quote, very applicable here, is by James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits. He said, you don't rise to the level of your goals, your aspirations, the things you want to accomplish. You fall to the level of your systems. So as a business owner, your success depends heavily on systems. I mean, simple things like task management, a task management system. You can use a spreadsheet, you can use any, any, uh, click, uh, Notion, you can use Basecamp, you can use any of these systems. Start simple, right? I'm not a big fan of spending a lot of money on technology initially. Technology is important. We use a lot of tech in our companies, But initially start with something that will get the job done. You can always upgrade. You can always get better, fancier tech, but task management systems, you can, you should have client onboarding checklists. If you are about to hire people, look for onboarding checklists. And we have a lot of these tools actually. If you follow us on LinkedIn, if you follow us on YouTube, you'll see a lot of the videos we have on these specific topics and we have free templates. and tools that you can use to help you out building and customizing these checklists for your business. And then also, as you get bigger, like have a checklist for every marketing campaign that you do as you hire people to help you with marketing. And then as you have leads, qualified leads, you want to definitely track these leads in a CRM, a client relationship management system. Potentially, you can have your own, like a DIY. We have a DIY CRM. Actually, we have a video on that topic and we have We have that DIY CRM that you can make a copy and use it right away. But the idea here is building this habit, building this muscle of using systems to grow the business. These systems, maybe not very glamorous, a checklist here, a spreadsheet there, you know, a Google Sheet, you know, in the other place. They're not glamorous, but they are very powerful. Because organization isn't just helpful, it's, it's, it literally could save your business. Let's say you have a client deliverable and you've done a good job in documenting the process to service the client, and you happen to be out sick, or you have an emergency, you know, at home, or, or you're traveling for a conference. So if you have things well documented and you have a new employee or a contractor, and if you train them on things, they can then fall back on that checklist or that document or that process workflow and use it to deliver the service on your behalf. So if you don't have these systems in place, it's going to be really hard for you, uh, to, to, uh, to get the business going. And then without these systems, without task lists, uh, you won't be able to, to track what, what is a priority today, what's it, what's the priority this week, what is a priority, you know, this month. I'll give you an example from a very incredibly talented consultant, Lisa. And we changed some of the details here to protect the privacy of folks. But Lisa was incredible at what she did, what she does. And she had this opportunity toward the end of the year where a client said, hey, I have some budget, end-of-year budget. I'd like to spend it with you. I just need a proposal. by early December. And, you know, and he said, you know our needs for, for next year, so just send me that proposal. And for some mid-sized and larger companies, they have budgets that they have to spend before the end of the year, their fiscal year or calendar year depending. And because if they don't spend it, they'll lose it. They lose that allocation the year next year. So, so Lisa, our friend Lisa here, she lost this huge upsell opportunity for her, $15,000, because she forgot to follow up with this client during this very time-sensitive period, early December, before they have to turn all these proposals in to get purchase orders issued. So you could be losing big opportunities. You could be not following up with your employees. You could be not attending certain events, networking events, what have you. You could be missing tax deadlines if you don't have things organized. So you got to get your stuff organized and losing opportunities a lot of times, here, I'll raise my hand, you know, you learn from these big mistakes. And our friend Lisa, from that loss, from the pain of losing that opportunity and those $15,000, that forced her to finally organize And put her client list in, in the, and, and the next action item for each client and the time to take on this action. She put all of that in a spreadsheet in our DIY CRM and helped her a lot for the next couple of quarters before she ended up upgrading to a real CRM that would help your business go to the next level. And people talk to me lot and they think I don't get any commissions from— actually, I'm not mentioning any vendors when it comes to CRM because there are many good ones out there for small businesses, whether it's Salesforce or HubSpot or others. I don't get any commission on any of this stuff, but if you are serious about scaling your business without a CRM, I don't know how it can be doable, or you can do it, but you're probably leaving a lot of money on the table. Your margins are not where they need to be. And you're just not as efficient. So use basic spreadsheets initially. Don't invest heavily in tech. Tech is not a magic wand. Tech needs people, yourself, your time, people who work with you to manage this tech. And then set up your daily, weekly, monthly priorities and stay as organized as you can to help you get to the next level on your business journey. Without this organization, without, you know, if we have a lot of external chaos, it can definitely breed internal chaos. And, you know, while external organization can support and can support and tools— sorry, while external tools can help us stay organized, without us having this clarity of mind, this energy, this space where we can think about the business, not being too busy in the business, without that, without these external systems that we use, without that little organization that we talked about, it's going to be really hard for us to focus, to have focus and clarity. Which also A prerequisite or very important to the 3rd mindset. And before I move on to the 3rd mindset, let me just double-check if we have any comments or questions. Again, I'll address those at the end of the session, but feel free, for those of you who are listening live, leave us a question, leave us a comment. Let me know what is it that is keeping you from taking that first step. Is it a financial issue? Is it you don't have support at home? Is it you're not sure if you can turn your skills into a business? Is it the fear of rejection? Let me know. Share with me, you know, what you're going through, what's going through your mind. And again, feel free to email me at feras@feras@startupwithferas.com, and I'll be more than happy to answer your question. So the 3rd and last mindset that will help unlock everything for you, part of this system here, is Staying empathetic. And this is not— I'm not just talking about being nice, but believe it or not, this principle of empathy features prominently, if indirectly, in the practice, in the martial arts practice of Aikido. And for those of you part of our community, you know that I'm big— I'm into martial arts and dabbled with many arts and last 15 years or so focused on Aikido, where there's a lot of philosophically, it's a bit different, you typically don't initiate the attack, you think of your opponent in a different way, instead of maybe blocking, you're trying to find harmony, maybe you're trying to blend with this attack, maybe you're trying to get out of the way, so the goal in Aikido is to harmonize with the energy of the attacker, as one of my teachers says, you gently introduce them to the mat. So the idea in Aikido, which is very applicable to business, is not about the excessive focus on self, and it's not about overwhelming your opponent in every engagement. Again, the goal, the goal is to harmonize, to find harmony between you And what's going on around you. And in business and in consulting, I think it's very important, it's crucial that we adopt, adopt this, the same mindset. So we stop thinking and seeing clients as transactions, and we start seeing them as partners with actual needs and pains and aspirations. But, and, and they're something that is tangible that we are producing, offering for them, but they also have emotional goals. So you want to stop seeing these clients as just a transaction. I want to sell, I want to close the deal. Yes, I want you to feel great. I want you to close the deal and feel great about it. But these are people, these are partners that they have emotional goals just like you do. So Imagine yourself changing your entire sales approach, your entire consulting approach, instead of just immediately pitching and being aggressive in the way you pitch, to begin being more conversational, to be an attentive listener. And it's probably one of the best sales skills is to be an attentive listener. So when we talk about this empathy, it's not just about being nice. It's being there, let's say, with the lead at a networking event and asking them genuinely, what is your biggest worry right now? What have you tried and hasn't worked? And then maybe again, naturally, normally, just share with them a short story on how you as a consultant, as a service provider, have helped others in similar situations. So instead of these clients feel pitched to, uh, feel or sometimes ignored, nobody's talking to them, no one is listening to them, instead of say, I do this and I'm great at this and I have these certifications, no, start listening to their issues, to their pain points, to the problems that they have. And as you start engaging with them at that level, clients will feel seen and heard, and your business could double in just a few months because clients trust you deeply. So, so empathy isn't just about being nice. It's a valuable business skill. And when clients feel understood, they become— when leads feel understood or existing clients feel understood, they become, they become, they come, they come to you for for advice, they come to you for service, they become loyal, and then when they're loyal, your business thrives. So remember this clearly. Empathy isn't just a soft skill. It is your strongest competitive advantage. There you have it. We covered these 3 mindsets. One is on how to take action. without feeling ready, that concept of successive approximation. If you remember, we said that earlier. And then about how to stay organized without fancy tools. Start with even a basic Google Sheet. And then how empathy, this actual human connection, might be your greatest growth strategy. So what do I want you to do next? We have on startupwithferus.com, I have this Ask Feras Kipp feature where you come in and schedule a private session with me. And it is, I'm not gonna— I'm not going to be selling you anything. I'm not going to be pitching anything. It's 100% free. I offer a few sessions every week to help entrepreneurs and business owners through, you know, on their journey. A lot of people, and people say, why do this for free? Because a lot of people helped me on my journey, and this is my way of paying it, of paying it forward. And again, this will be, uh, totally for you, um, totally free, no gimmicks. And you bring all your questions, all your comments, all the fears, all the challenges, all the roadblocks that are holding you back, and then I'll be there with you helping you go through these issues and provide you with specific tips. We can't cover a whole lot in 20 minutes, but believe it or not, a lot of times we get, we get 2 or 3 recommendations that are spot on, and people come back and update me in a couple months how those recommendations help them get unstuck. Alrighty, so that is it. That's it for now. And before we wrap up, uh, I have one special for our loyal, uh, watchers and listeners. We first would love you to go to our YouTube channel at Startup with Feras, and if you're liking this content, if you're benefiting from this content, please subscribe, hit the like button, share this video and others with those around you, and we also, if you go to blackbeltstartup.com, we have a training and a coaching program where we have a complete and a full curriculum on how to start a business, how to grow a business, 60+ It took us months to, to research it, to develop it, and now it's available. You can buy it on the site. We have a free course actually that you can sign up for, 12 modules you can finish in 1 hour that will give you sort of the essentials. And then you can go and buy the, the other courses we have. We have a course which is the curriculum, and we have one with weekly hours with me so we can answer your questions and help you along your, your journey, your journey. And then we also have a mini course on pricing. So if you're not sure if you're charging too much, too little, leaving money on the table, check out that pricing course. Processing course. And we do have a 20% promo code for those of you who have been watching or listening to this point. It's BBSU, Black Belt Startup, BBSU20. You can apply it to any and all of the products we have on blackbeltstartup.com. Again, if you have any questions, reach out, leave me a comment. If you're liking this content, hit the like button and hope that you're not getting stuck Hope that you are taking what we covered today and and have a plan to start. I think I think it was Sarah Blakely who said at one time you have to make that one day make it day one. So make that change that one day I'll do something to day one of doing that thing. Alrighty, see you next time. Bye bye.