Why Client Empowerment Generates More Revenue and Referrals

Welcome to episode 109 of Black Belt Startup with Feras. Thank you for tuning in. What's new in the world of entrepreneurship? Most consultants spend a tremendous amount of time trying to generate more leads. So they do more networking, more content, more referrals, more outreach, more advertising. Now I preach all of that, and while all of those activities matter, I see many consultants overlook one of the most valuable growth assets already inside their business, and that is their existing clients. So in today's live stream, I'm going to cover how to get the most advantage of these relationships and the clients that you have. And this entire livestream is built around a simple but powerful idea. The strongest consulting businesses don't grow because they consistently find new clients. They grow because every client relationship creates the next opportunity. So if you are a new founder and you only have 1 or 2 clients, what I'm about to share is even more important. And if you don't have clients yet, you're just thinking about taking the leap, or you've taken the leap and you're still not— you haven't had any traction yet, I want you to pay close attention because it is much easier to build these habits that I'm covering today and the principles from the get-go, from the start, than to build those and to fix those issues later. See, one of the most effective ways to create the opportunities I'm describing is through what I call client empowerment. It's not talked about a lot on, on YouTube, on social media, but from my experience, which spans now over 20 years of entrepreneurship, working with hundreds of clients, submitting over 2,000 proposals, winning over 600 projects from small, very small businesses, very small local businesses to Fortune 10, I've seen it in action. And this concept of client empowerment, to some of us, it doesn't come, it's not intuitive, it doesn't come easy to us. We think we have to be indispensable. We have to become indispensable so that clients appreciate us. So we start protecting information, we hold on tightly to expertise, and we unintentionally create dependency. But let me tell you, after all these years of experience, the strongest consulting businesses take a different approach. They help clients become more capable, more informed, and more successful. And they build and they establish and build these relationships based on trust rather than dependency. It might be counterintuitive to some of us, especially those of us who are not into sharing. But in return, when you share with clients, when you empower clients, you generate more repeat business, you get more referrals, you get more testimonials, you get more case studies. And more important, most importantly, you establish and you grow a long-term relationship with these clients, which will lead to long-term opportunities. So today in this livestream, I'll walk you through 5 principles that help make all of the above happen. And I'll share real-world examples. I'll answer the questions that I've received so far and also any other questions we get from our live audience, whether you're watching or listening. And then I will show you how to apply these concepts directly your business today. Cool. So before we get started, I'll also share templates and resources and a couple of worksheets and processes that I've used. I have them as Google Docs and Google Sheets, so you can download and make your own and use immediately. But before we jump in, if you're new to this channel, welcome. My name is Feras. And I've built several businesses, I've built several businesses, including a couple that reached 7 figures and one that got to 8 figures, and then we sold that business to Dentsu, the global media giant, in 2019, and since, I've been on a mission to help the next generation of founders, whether you are a recent graduate, or you have 5 years under your belt, or you have 15 years under your belt, or you're now on your second or third mountain and you're trying to figure out what to do in this age of AI where people have to reinvent careers, whatever, wherever you are on the spectrum, I'm here to help. My mission is to help you start, grow, and scale your consulting business in a sustainable way and to get to profitability and to achieve the dreams that you have, whether it's financial independence, whether it's being, being your own boss, whether it is creating this amazing culture with lifelong relationships with people that you have, your team that will help you grow the business, whether it's to leave a legacy, whatever your dream is, my mission is to help you get there. And don't hesitate to leave, to leave your comments or questions throughout this session, whether again you're live or listening later. I love to hear back from the community. I'd love to hear about your wins, small wins and big wins. I also want to be of help. So if you have— you're running into an issue with growth, you're burn— you know, about to burn out and you're not sure what to do, you're struggling to land clients, you're not sure what marketing program to, to, to try or to test out, you're about to make your first hire and you're not sure what to do, I'm here to help. I have a lot of resources, a lot of videos, a lot of case studies, a lot of worksheets and templates. I'll make, make all of that available to you, and there's no catch. The information is there on the channel and also on the website. The channel is @StartupWithFeras, Feras spelled like my first name, F-E-R-A-S, or on my website startupwithferas.com. So with that, let's step on the mat. All right, then I will be sharing a couple things here with you. Throughout the livestream. So, um, you can, you can sit back, relax, and take notes and download, uh, what you think is useful to you. So how empowering clients grows your consulting business. Principle number 1, delivery matters. Let me go to my slide deck here and show you the nice graphic that we've created for you here. My team and I created for you. So, well, of course, I want to make sure I switch to my slides here, and we're good. All right, so delivery matters. This is about excellence in execution is really a baseline. So let me go back, just make sure I've got the right— yeah, it's all working now. Good. Always got to check, even in Silicon Valley, got to check on technology. So delivery matters. Delivery is important. That's implementing the service that you sold, training, consulting, audit, financial advisory, HR consulting, IT consulting, AI automation, whatever the case might be. So Sales doesn't end when you close the deal. You close the deal, awesome, 10 out of 10, great. I want you to do that. Sales is an ongoing thing, not the pushy, sleazy type. No, when you are delivering to a client, you are offering a technical solution, you're solving a problem to whatever in whatever area that you're in. But growth happens during this delivery because you're establishing trust, you're establishing authority. Clients are seeing the results of your amazing work that you do. So, so in that delivery process, I don't want you to be pitching new services right after you sign your first deal. But no, as you establish credibility, as you you're adding value, as you're helping your client sleep better at night, now you start identifying opportunities within the client's environment where you can add more value. So it's not just a one-off. If you think of your business as a one-off, then you're always, you find the lead, you qualify them, you send a proposal, you negotiate, and then you close the deal, you deliver, And then you have to start this cycle over and over and over. Now that's okay. Part of— partially that's okay, partially, but I don't want you to leave money on the table. I don't want you to leave an opportunity to help and support a client that has been wowed by your performance and by your ability to solve their problems. So delivery in that sense impacts future revenue because you could be leaving a lot of revenue on the table behind you. And in, in this mindset of pursuing new business, you have to pursue new business. That's just the nature of being a founder. But you could be spending half of your time or one-third of your time in lead nurturing and in new lead nurturing or in finding new leads, whereas if you focus on getting more keeping your clients, so that's retention, and then getting more of your clients. So I'll walk you through specific examples throughout today's live stream, but this client that you just delivered value to, you are an IT consultant and you went in and they had no antivirus software, they've been hacked a few times, computers are up and down every other day, productivity is low. You come in and you address all You do an audit, you charge a fixed amount for that, then you have an ongoing monthly maintenance support, $2,000 a month where you come in and make sure you support the entire cybersecurity and IT needs for this client, and you have an 8 to 5 or 9 to 9 or 24-hour, 24/7 support, whatever you're charging. You do that, right? So that ongoing support, So that ongoing maintenance, that support is— you're retaining the client, you're getting more revenue, right? So that is— that's the concept is you're doing that. Now, while you're doing all this work, you might identify that the client has another facility, another office that you haven't worked on, so that's an opportunity. You might find that the client is planning on hiring a whole lot of people next quarter. and they need help getting all the computers set up and properly configured and properly secured, that's an opportunity for you to come in. You might have other services that you offer, and when you hear a problem that the client has where one of your services could be a solution, obviously you can introduce that. Now there's— you want to do this in a professional manner, you want to do this in a tactful way, tactful way, but the main thing, if you're looking for just one question to ask yourself on when to start introducing these new services and solving these new problems, it's after you add value, after you establish credibility with the client, you go and mention, oh, by the way, I noticed that, I heard, you told me that you're hiring 20 people, So instead of being reactive about their IT needs, we can do a quick workshop onboarding from an IT perspective, right? And tell them I'm happy to do that and I can give you a quick quote, right? So think of creative ways where you can solve the client's problems. Again, don't do it, it's just not a good form, it is not very professional if you close the deal and you go in and you start pitching a new deal. That's just not the way to do it. So that's one thing. Now, a question I get from some consultants, they say, well, my business doesn't lend itself to recurring type work. If you help people get into— I had a consultant who reached out with some questions. She offers support to those who are applying to law school. So it's very seasonal and is once you get into law school and you don't need her services anymore, Maybe you might get, you might need her the next year if things did not work out for you this year, but mostly there's no recurring type of business. So that's one type of solution or one type of business. Another one is, let's say someone who helps authors publish books. You're not publishing books every other day or every other month or every other year, so it's a one-off project. So yeah, there are some areas in consulting where the majority of the revenue is going to come from a one-off type project, so there's no recurring revenue opportunities. I get that. So even in that case, you can do 2 things. One is if you have some additional services you offer, that are adjacent to your core service, that's something that you can look into in terms of expanding horizontally, or if there's just no other thing that you can sell to this client, it just doesn't work based on some of the examples I mentioned earlier, then if you make those clients super happy, if they're delighted with your services, then you can tap into their network. You can Ask for the referrals. Some clients are the social type, the extrovert type. They just go and sing your praises. If you make them happy, they'll tell everybody about you. I've had clients like this. That's probably a smaller percentage of clients, but a lot of them would not hesitate to refer you to their, to their network, to their partners, to people in their personal network. if they've been very pleased and delighted by your work. So getting the referrals is important, whether you have a recurring revenue model or not, always ask for referrals. And the beauty of referrals is they work like magic. When you are working with John and John is a good friend with James, when John says, Hey James, this guy's amazing. That trust that you established between you and John will almost 100% carry over to that relationship with James because he heard it. James heard it from John, his friend, who is a trusted person to him, right? So when someone introduces you, when someone refers you to someone else, it's not just casual. It has weight, that introduction, that referral. Carries weight. And, and the person who is referring you to others, they're basically taking— they're taking— not, not taking a risk, but their reputation is on the line. So people hesitate to put their reputation on the line unless they think really highly of you and you've solved their problems and they trusted you. You know, they don't— didn't see any character flaws. They didn't You were dependable, reliable, professional. All of these things, if you do an excellent job in delivering your service, you are very likely going to be there as, as a candidate for recurring and new business with the existing client. And second, as I said, you can get those referrals. You do have to ask for referrals. Again, there's, there's a professional way of doing it. Do it when the client is happy, when they've seen the results, they've seen the value that you've added to their business. Hey, and by the way, as we wrap up this project, I'd love to know if you have someone in your network who would benefit from what I offered, someone, a friend, another CEO of another company, someone, maybe a partner of yours, I'd be more than happy to be there if you can make an introduction. So just, it could be very, it could be done in person, it could be done over email, But asking for those referrals is something that you want to make it just part of your second nature, part of your process, but without impressing the client first, without excellence in delivery, as I mentioned, as this is the number one principle, then it's hard to ask any of that. And one last thing, which I talk a lot about is with this existing client that you have, you can still squeeze more juice out of that relationship in a way. You can— you're bending over backward for them, you're helping them out. So, so most people reciprocate. So you can also ask for a testimonial, you can also ask for a case study. Now don't ask for all of these in one email, one thing at a time. Testimonials, they're the easiest thing to do. Basically a quick, quick quote you can put on your website, you can put on social media, they can make a recommendation on, on LinkedIn. All of that. A case study requires a bit more work. I have a full guide on how to develop case studies. I'll show you the link in a little bit. I'll put the link in the description. And then of course asking someone to refer you, it does— if they hesitate, it means they're not very happy or, or something did not go well in this project, or they just maybe don't think highly of you, or they're afraid that you will mess up with this other, with their friend or their partner or their someone in their industry. So be careful. If you're seeing hesitation, that should prompt you to ask, dig a little bit deeper. Potentially, you can get some feedback. You can send them a survey, maybe not the same day, maybe a couple of days later, and you can say, hey, part of our process when we wrap up a project, we'd like to hear your feedback, and we'd love for you to be very honest, very transparent, to give us this brutal candor, so we want to improve our processes. A lot of people would reply, not everyone would, but a lot would do it, and a lot of people are nice and they don't want to hurt your feelings, so they might not tell you exactly how it is. But look for signs of dissatisfaction. So if the client is hesitating to share, um, or to make referrals or to do a case study, it's, it's potentially something did not go well in the delivery. Again, not every client is going to jump up and down in happiness to do a case study because they just don't see the value of it to them. But I do cover a lot of that in— I have a long article with a step-by-step guide on how to ask for testimonials and case studies so you come out, you come across professional, and you show the value to them as well, not just to you. Because when they share a testimony, when they share testimonial or they share a case study, their name is on it, and it also shows that they are professional, they are in front of their competitors, they're using, they're applying best practices in their industry, or they have, they're improving their productivity, or they're efficient in running their business, whatever you're highlighting, the business value that you're highlighting in the case study, it also reflects well on their business. So that's what's in it for them when you ask for case studies. And I can tell you before we go to principle number 2, let me share a story. From the old days when we started the first business in building websites. I remember, I mean, we had several clients stay with us for a long time, 5+ years. We had a few clients 10+ years because we also pivoted and changed the core of what we were selling. So we lost some clients. We actually handed off some of those clients to other partners in the industry when we shifted from web design online marketing and later to analytics. But I remember we had, when we were doing website design and website maintenance and started to do some search engine optimization work, I remember we had this truck repair and rent— rental business here in San Jose. And I met with the owner. He was impressed. We sold him that very first project. I don't know, $1,500, $2,000. But then we came back and after we were done with the new design and they were very happy with it, we said, you know, you're a busy man, his business was doing really well, let us go and make those updates for your website, keep the site— if you have new trucks, if you have new services, if you have new pricing, you have seasonal promotions, just email those to us or I can come and meet you. I used to meet him once a month, get all that information from him, and we just then do all the work including some local search engine optimization work. So he stayed with us, John, from 2004 to 2011, 7 years. And then we shifted to something, to analytics. And actually, it was really hard for me to let go because you meet this person once a month, once a quarter for many years. You get to know them, you get to know about them, you get to know about their family, they get to know about you. So It was hard to let go of this client. We ended up finding a partner in our industry, Kevin, that I passed this client on to them, or no, it was someone else, not Kevin. But we told them, hey, John, we can't really service you anymore. We're moving on to doing other things, but we will keep you in great hands. And I made the introduction to another consultant that I knew locally. But the point here is that They were with us from 2004 to 2011, and we always found ways to identify needs that they had when I met with them once a month or once a quarter later. We understood everything they're doing in their business and what they wanted support with in terms of online and updating their websites, and that was what the scope of the work that we took on from them for all those years. So that's just one example. We just saw so many other examples where we really took care of the clients initially, and that led to just amazing client relationships and friendships. Some of those folks I run across every once in a while, and they still, you know, we talk about the good old days, and this was 2004, 2005, the early years of the internet, so it was just— Wow. It was really interesting to work with these clients, small businesses, and get them online. It was very, very rewarding for them and obviously financially for us. So that is the first principle is delivery matters. Take care of your clients, bend over backward for them, especially if you are a new consultant, if you're just starting out. The profitability of a project or 2 is not a concern. The time you spend on the first couple of projects is not a concern. If the client has a bit of an attitude, it shouldn't be a concern. I'm not saying you stay and work with jerks for the rest of your life, or you lose money on every project. Don't get me wrong. What I'm saying specifically, if you're struggling with sales, if you're struggling with going from that whole cycle from finding leads all the way to delivering what you sold and to upselling and maintaining a recurring revenue stream. If you're struggling with any of this, just, just take care of these clients, delight these customers, and identify ways to sell more to them, to add more value. And also referrals, testimonials, case studies— let them sing your praises. That generates a lot of positive energy, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of good work that will come your way. Um, maybe not right away, but that, that good work that you do will transform into— will translate into leads. And those leads, when they come through referrals, through someone who, who sing your praises, they'll be easier to close anyhow because the trust is already carried over from, from that other relationship. So the important thing is Avoid the common mistakes in delivery in terms of the quality of the deliverable, not being responsive and not delivering on time, and of course staying within the cost that you committed to. Don't go to the well every other week, I need more, this is larger than what we planned. You got to put some parameters around what you deliver and you have to work within those parameters, and most importantly, aside from the quality and the cost and the timeline, The rapport that you establish with the client, the trust that you establish, that those connections, those relationships, um, they are invaluable. Uh, so, so, so keep that in mind as you are working with, with clients. Now, a question I got, and again, for those of you who are live with us, feel free to ask your question, put it in a comment, or if— I always say this— if you're not ready to tell the world that you're starting a business and you don't want to leave a comment on LinkedIn or on YouTube, I get it. You can email me, email me at info@startupwithferas.com. Again, Feras spelled as F-E-R-A-S like my first name. So info@startupwithferas.com and I'll be more than happy to answer your questions. The question that I got here is, where do clients typically Become frustrated. So yeah, so we're talking about delivery and make sure you have— clients are satisfied and delighted. When, where, or when do clients typically become frustrated? I mean, why you and I, why do we become frustrated as people, as humans? Well, I think it boils down to expectations. If you told the client that, hey, we signed the deal, I'll get you the first draft of X, whatever, whatever that you deliver in a week, and then a week and a half goes by and they haven't seen a thing, and you did not send them an email, say, hey, I'm running into an issue, I was sick, I, I didn't get access to your system, so I can't produce X. I mean, that's, that's one, one point of frustration. So if you're not communicating, if, if you didn't do enough of a, of due diligence to, um, to, to scope the work, and now you think you're building something this, this big, and then for those of you who are listening, kind of small, small square, but if you end up having to build a much larger gadget or deliver a much larger more involved service, obviously that's going to eat up more hours and that's going to eat up your margin. So if you haven't done that due diligence in scoping the work and now you have to go back and ask them for more money or ask them for more time, that is also a source of frustration. And then preferences during sales, you might've learned from the client that they prefer that they meet in person. And then, and then you agree to that and you start the project and you start saying, can we have a Zoom call? You start emailing, you start sending updates, which is all good, great to send updates. But if the client asked for in-person meetings and you said yes, and then you're not delivering on that, or you're finding excuses not to do that, then it's unusual. The clients will be frustrated. And I'll tell you, and there are different stats on this, including One that's 80— more than 80% of clients will not share their complaints with you. They'll just be unhappy and they'll find another vendor. So again, look for commitments on scope, on timeline and milestones, on obviously budget, and also preferences. You're dealing with people. If you're in the services business, if you're in the consulting business, it is about people. It's about understanding people's likes and dislikes and preferences. And, and as a consultant, as, as a great consultant, you want to adapt to what the clients like within reason, within reason. And initially you want to do a lot of adaptation. You know, once you are into 6 figures and, and 7 figures and you have a positive— you have positive cash flow and you have, you strong pipeline and getting business is not an issue, you can be much more choosy at the time in terms of what clients to work with, what clients not to work with. Sometimes in rare cases you might have to fire a client, so that's a subject for another live stream. But early on, just got to go and, and keep that, get that business, and then turn them into a super happy client, and then that will generate a whole lot of positive outcomes for you as a business owner. So that is principle number 1. And I, I mentioned a couple of resources actually. Let me, let me share those with you here. Oops, give me one second. Uh, right here. Yeah, I mean, in terms of delivery, a couple things. I do have a full— The Ultimate Guide to Delivering services. If you haven't watched this video, uh, let me share with you this. Actually, yeah, right here in the channel. This is the video. It's a long video. It's— I believe it was a bit over an hour. And, um, right here. Yeah, no, it's actually 44 minutes. This is all about consulting, so, so you won't stop burning out. So that the No Burnout Playbook for Successful Consulting for It's an ultimate guide for service delivery. So I did a bunch of live streams on this, answered a lot of questions because a lot of people struggle with sales. Yes, I get that. Then once they start to sell, once they start selling, they struggle with delivering what they sold. So this guide here you see on the screen is your guide to improving things in delivery. And then in it, I had a number of tactics templates and worksheets including this one here, how to hand off from sales to delivery, so check that out and also if you're having issues actually in scoping the proposal and scoping the work and in winning proposals, I also have an ultimate guide on winning proposals, check out that video on the channel as well, I believe that was also a long one right here, this one is, Why Most Consultants Lose Deals at the Proposal Stage. So the proposal system that works is an hour and 4 minutes. I put everything I learned about proposals, done over 2,000 of them in all the companies that we've built, and put all the caveats, all the issues, all the steps they have to take. It's not— the proposal is not just one point in the sales process, it's more of a continuum. So I covered all of that here. And if you're looking for some proposal templates, including some AI assistants that I created for you, check out this templates, your proposal template, all of that I will include in the description of the video so you can grab it, make your own copy, and again get back to me if you have any questions on it, or if you find better ways to, to do this. Anything that I'm sharing here, I'd love to hear from you so we can share back with the community and improve, improve it all together collectively. All right, so back to the second principle now. So we covered delivery matters. The second one is on— here you go— on knowing your client. So I touched on this a little bit about knowing the preferences and all that good stuff, but this is— I look at it in terms of knowing your client from a business delivery, from a service delivery perspective, from a business model perspective, and I want to give you a bit of a summary of, of the main business, uh, business models that you could be operating in. So let me go back here and change the view. All right, good. So, so know your client. So, so we're talking about client empowerment. So delivery matters. That was principle number 1. We delivered the client. We solved their problem. That was all good. Now, when I say know your client, what type of support I want you to know and to offer the right type and the right level of support that the client, the client needs and wants. Okay, so you have to give them a lot of what they need and a little bit of what they want. That's what someone told me a long time ago, and it's true. So, so there are 3 models. There's the DIY, do-it-yourself, for you as a consultant. You can offer that as a service. You can offer your services as done with you, DWY, or you can do done for you, DFY. So, so basically in the DIY setup, you produce templates, you produce online material, you produce potentially videos that the clients can go through, you— how-to guides. All of that is ready for someone to have access to, and then they can solve the problem on their own using your expertise that you have documented and put together, developed, produced in assets like videos and white papers and checklists and processes. So that is a DIY model. You can have a very successful business Doing DIY, no customization, not a whole lot of interaction with the client. You just offer them access, you sell them access to your resources. So that's number 1. Number 2, done with you. So think of a management consultant. They come in, they understand what is going on with the business, and then they interview the stakeholders, clients, partners, employees, the C-level, And then they work with you on developing a strategy. So that would be an example of a done with you. You, the consultant, and the client are working together toward solving the problem or delivering on the service. And the third model is— the third one is done for you, DFY. So basically the consultant would come in and do most of the work and they're involved and they're hands-on. So for example, if we're using that management consultant example, once they've developed the strategy, they could also have another service where they actually help you implement the strategy, implement maybe you're having issues with retaining employees and they can go and examine your hiring processes or that you're having issues in retaining customers, they can go and work with your, with the project managers and account managers and understand why clients are leaving. So they are involved day in, day out with you or week in, week out. So these are the 3 different models: DIY, do-it-yourself, done-with-you, DWY, and then done-for-you, DFY. The reason, and I have an entire livestream on these 3 models, I'm going over them quickly here, so if you want more clarity on the pros and cons and how to do those properly, I'll put a link to that livestream on those 3 models, but the point today, since we're talking about establishing trust and client empowerment, is once you understand what the client needs are and their mode of operation, you should be— I want you to be matching your delivery model To the way to clients' expectations and also to the way the client wants to be helped. So that's that's very important. You have to match the delivery model, whether whether it's DIY done with you, DWY or done for you, DFY with the way the client wants to be helped. And that, a lot of that has to happen during the sales process. Sometimes you start with a DIY and the client realizes that they need help, so they call you, they email you, they text you, hey James, I need help. I've got your assets, your assets are amazing, but I need help implementing this stuff. So then you can add, have an add-on. You say, okay, we provide support, it's this many hours or this amount. Here's a proposal, we're ready to help, right? So if you've done this in the sales process, you understand how the clients, the level of support they're looking for, then you should package your proposal with a couple of options. One of them should be exactly what the customer is looking for, and the other one could be that and some other add-ons, right? So that's, If you do your job during the sales process and ask all the questions to understand how they work and the level of support they need, then you offer it in the proposal and also be flexible. So during implementation or after you close the deal, after you sold the service, clients might realize they need more help. So they— you might start with done with you to a done for you, or maybe sometimes they lose a manager. Someone leaves, someone gets sick, someone is on maternity leave or paternity leave, and there's a gap. They thought they'll get the strategy from you and they will do the work, but this person is no longer available for whatever reason, and then you're tapped to help deliver what you planned. So there are opportunities there, but understanding how the client likes to operate is really important. I'll give you an example where hard lesson for me. We had a customer who was very happy with us, was with us for a few years, and he was— we had— we would do like a couple of projects every year, and then we had a monthly retainer, healthy monthly retainer, and became a friend, and we became trusted advisors to them. And he connected me with a friend of his, not a competitor, but someone in the same space, but they focus on a different vertical, which our clients did not focus on. So there was no issue with working with a competitor. And that person was a close friend of the CEO, and the CEO, our client, sang our praises. And he said, we deliver leads to them. We support them. We're responsive. So I went and one of my consultants, We went and we met with this new lead, the CEO of another company, and he said, whatever you do for this other person, whatever you're doing for this other client, I want done because my friend, our client, he told him that he was getting qualified leads and that's what matters for this business. So we said, great, that's what you want? Okay, here's the proposal, and we send the proposal to this CEO and the new lead and he signed it. Again, the trust was carried over from the relationship between his friend and then his friend and us, and we started to do our work and our implementation. And the difference here is that 2 different personalities. Our client, the first CEO, was totally, totally hands-off. He didn't want to involve. He just wants to make sure we're getting qualified leads. Whatever we did, within reason, he wanted to review things before we posted on the website, but he wasn't hands-on. He just wanted us— he trusted us, and we were running the ship, the whole marketing ship for their— for his company. Now, this new lead, the new CEO, the new customer, was very hands-on. He wanted to be involved in everything, and it— we just— we didn't understand. We didn't even think about it. And then within a month and a half or 2 months, he said, you know, this is not working out. I don't have any visibility in what you're doing, and I like you and everything, but let's just call this off amicably. He paid us for the first couple months and we moved on, and we lost a huge, huge opportunity. I mean, this client was very established. They were $50 million plus in revenue, and he needed help, and we could offer the help, but we did not read the signals that he was very hands-on, and we should have done more education We should have done maybe some onboarding workshops with him and his team. We should have said, here's what we want you to focus on, here's what we are focusing on, this is why, does that work? So you learn. So from that point on, I learned a lot about understanding and explicitly asking, here's how we do, here's how we do our work, these things we have to do, these things you have to provide, but there's an area where we could do a lot of things on our own, or we can do it with you. Tell us what model you prefer. And we also ask them like, how did you work with the previous consultant? What is it that the previous consultant did not do? So you ask those questions and you could be the first person who asked those kinds of questions. So they would open up to you. They should open up to you in most cases and share with you all that information that will be handy for you to deliver, to deliver not just what you promised, but also how how you deliver. You deliver in a way that makes sense for this client, and then they appreciate what, what you're doing. So, so keep that in mind. So, uh, that— I think I have a question here. Um, which client model is best? DIY, DFY, or DWI? They're all great depending. Of course I have to say it depends. I'm a consultant at the end of the day. So The done-for-you model typically involves more involvement from you. It requires more time, more effort, because you're doing the work, and naturally you charge more for that, and you have more money, you have more revenue, and then hopefully it's all profitable revenue. So that would be from a growth perspective, from a size of opportunity, that could be very, very compelling. That was most of the work we've done in most of the consulting companies we've had. At times, we did have the DIY, do-it-yourself. We had an online training program, and people could be self-sufficient, learn on their own. So I wouldn't say there's just one best, you know, one better model. It really depends also, I think, on you. Initially, I would be very open-minded. I would not be stuck in one, say, I want to DIY, I don't want to deal with customers. Initially, you don't know. Initially, you have to test out a lot of things, and you'll fail, and you'll get rejections, and things will not work out, but that's part of building a business. That's part of building the reps, the muscle to market, to sell, to deliver. So I would be very open-minded to the different models and what is resonating with clients, and then making sure the number one here, the number one point here is that You want to match how you're delivering the service with what the client is expecting and how they want to be helped and how they want to be serviced. Now there are some exceptions if you're dealing with highly sensitive type of work, let's say back to our IT and cybersecurity consultant, certain things that are very technical, you shouldn't really give them access to things that could be bring their whole system down unless they sign a huge disclaimer. So don't go casual on any of this stuff that is really, really specialized and requires someone who's trained to do it. So that would be the exception. So all models are great. Initially, for those of you who are just starting out, be flexible. DIY model, great because you can kind of sell while you're asleep, as they say. if you have assets, people have access to it, but also it requires a lot of upfront work. So there are pros and cons. And again, I will leave— I'll leave a link to a couple of live streams that I, I did on, on those 3 models, the DIY, DFY, um, DWI, DFY. So, so you can check those out later. Moving on to principle number 3. Let me share Screen here, and it is building trust. And trust is the bridge between a vendor and a partner, between a you as a consultant and a customer. So it's it's you're not really it's moving from from. thinking of a relationship, of thinking of a contract or as an interaction with a client as a transactional point to more of that trusted advisory role that I want you to be in. So we talked about delivery matters, we talked about knowing your client from a delivery perspective, delivery model perspective, and now Building trust, so that's really really important. This is the core of this live stream. So, so I talked about client empowerment, and I talked about trust. A lot of consultants, and I speak with two to three consultants and founders every week. A lot of a lot of consultants, they worry. That teaching clients everything they know will reduce their value. Everything they know that the client needs will reduce their value. That's, that's how they think about it. But in reality, if you want to establish that trust, um, you got to share. And I'll give you some specific examples how we did it and how I, I see other consultants not do it and then fail, or those who do it end up doing well. But in reality, trust often scales a whole lot better than dependency. You might be thinking that— I mean, let's unpack this. You know, you put a lot of— you do a lot of gatekeeping, so you're not sharing all the tools, all the processes that you have, you're not sharing all the documentation, you're not doing a whole lot of training, You're not getting into the weeds and going over some of the ways you're resolving issues and the thought process behind it. So you're not equipping the client with the knowledge that is important to them. So if you're not doing that, you're really not building loyalty. You're building dependency, and you might be thinking dependency, they'll come back to me when they have a question. Yes, But I think that's short-term thinking. Long-term thinking is I don't want you to worry about the clients will not be needing us, or that's what I used to think initially. If I give them everything I know, they just, they won't come back, or what if someone on the client's team share my proposal document or my implementation document or my workshop slides with competitors. Oh my God, they could— we could lose business, or someone on the client side will find all this information super useful and they'll pass it on to their nephew Jimmy, who will go and start a consulting business and will take some of our revenue. All these thoughts were coming to my mind, and we were hoarding, not sharing. And some of these concerns are legitimate. I think a lot of them are exaggerated. And over the years, if you educate the client and you share with them and you go over some of the thought process and why you come to certain decisions, you're building authority. You're establishing thought leadership without even saying that. That word. And I would say even beyond sharing that information with clients, I remember back in 2007, 2008, blogging, blogs were a new thing, or at least became more popular and posting, writing articles. This was before Medium and before people posted LinkedIn articles. So blogging was a thing. And we started blogging really early on, and we saw other people in the industry doing the same, and we became— our blog, and the company was E-NOR at the time, E-NOR, one of the most respected blogs on the concept, on the topic of analytics, and we were Google Analytics certified and all that, so we had a lot of social proofs as well, because we were Google certified on 5 of the Google products, Analytics and Optimizer and and AdWords and a few other things. So we started to share strategies and techniques on capturing data and making sense of the data and improving marketing campaigns and improving return on investment, and I can tell you that in almost every sales call, and we were now working with Fortune 1000, Fortune 500, That was 2010, 2011. We would hear it on a sales call from one of the stakeholders because we were selling to B2B and usually there are a lot of people involved in the decision-making process. On almost every other call, they would reference a blog, a post, they would reference one of our blog posts. They would say, oh, I read this and I was impressed and I mentioned your name to my director, And now we're having this call. So, so I know I was talking, talking earlier about, about establishing thought leadership and authority with the client when you share and you educate and you train. And I'm telling you to even go a step farther, and that is a step further, and that is share insights and, and things of useful things about, about solving your clients' and solving things in your industry, if you share that publicly, that also helps a lot. You're empowering people in your community, your people, I'm assuming people who are on your LinkedIn, in your LinkedIn network or people who follow you on social media, they're interested in what you offer, so when you're sharing useful information, even publicly, you are also getting— you'll be getting leads and you'll be establishing authority. And you have people will say, yeah, this person is knowledgeable, he's always— he or she always share useful insights. So, so yeah, starting— start with your clients, empower them, educate them, train them, share with them how you reach, um, certain conclusions, um, and the payoff is amazing. And of course You're not going to make someone a consultant in your space over one engagement. You're not going to— they're not going to be as— they won't have the depth and the breadth of knowledge and expertise that you have because you're doing this every day. They have their own business, right? But when it comes to, let's say, IT or marketing or HR, you share with them best practices, industry insight, you're enabling them. They feel more, they feel that empowerment, they're learning, they're seeing the value that you're adding to their business, and that just, that loyalty, that trust, that engaging you in discussions that typically you wouldn't be engaged in, all of that changes once you become this trusted advisor and this knowledgeable consultant. that, um, that, that, that they deal with, um, that, that they, that they see and they see in action. And of course, educating and training and, and, and helping clients requires time and effort. But over time, as you do it with one client and you do it with another client, you'll establish documentation and templates and, and processes, and you can leverage AI 100% to customize and personalize what you're sharing with the client based on the engagement, based on what you're doing for them, and you become not just more valuable, you also become very efficient because you're doing this very, very efficiently if you're leveraging technology and you're leveraging AI. So people are not just looking for information. You can go and search, you can go on Gemini or Claude or ChatGPT and get a book, on whatever topic, people are looking, they will continue, they are and they will continue, that's my prediction, they'll continue looking for the human touch, they'll continue to learn and look for judgment, they're looking for someone who's been there, done that multiple times and now they're customizing the solution and they're mapping and leveraging all that experience and expertise to help them solve a problem. So keep that in mind. Don't be stingy with sharing. Share and you will reap the benefits. Moving on to principle number 4. Again, for those of you who are watching now live or listening live, or for those of you who are listening later, watching later, let me know what questions you have. We're talking about client empowerment. We're talking about some really foundational principles to build your business on, whether it's focusing on delighting the client, delivery matters. That's principle number one. The second principle, really knowing your client and delivering what you offer in a way they understand and they are interested in. We talked about the IOI, the FYI, the WII, and then the third principle about sharing and establishing that trust and then strengthening that trust, and that leads to loyalty, and they engage you in other type initiatives they're running. You'll be their trusted advisor they check with before they make a lot of decisions, and that's the place you want to be as a trusted advisor. Moving on to principle number 4. Going back to my slide deck. And those of you who are listening, you're missing out on those amazing slides, but guess what? I will make those available. Just, or just leave me a comment. I'll send you a link to those slides, to those, those 5 slides. So on the 5 principles. So principle number 4, stay focused But flexible. So, so sometimes when I work on my outline for these live streams, or if I'm doing a video or speaking to a group, sometimes I feel like I give 2 opposing principles. Like on one hand, I was saying build trust, bend over backward, do everything you can to make the client happy, right? Here now I'm telling you the opposite, but but bear with me. So I'm saying you stay focused but flexible. So when I say bend over backward and do the things that are not that don't scale early on early on that's really underline the word early on. You got to do all of that to be successful. Trust me. So so so yes, I want you to be. All of that and, and, and spend a lot of time helping the clients solve their problems and move them from unhappy to happy to satisfied to delighted. But boundaries still matter. Boundaries still matter. Let's, let's unpack this. So a common thing in consulting is that this concept called scope Scope creep. So scope creep is you committed to deliver A, B, and C. Now the clients want to have you do A, B, C, D, E, F, all the way to Z, or maybe just a couple more things, right? So what do you do? The issue could be, the gap could be in the proposal phase, and again, for those of you who are maybe joining joined us later, I did talk about my ultimate guide to writing winning proposals and why most consultants lose deals at the proposal stage, and it's an hour and 4-minute video. I put everything I've learned about proposals in this video, so check it out. It's on my channel @StartupWithFeras right here. So in terms of scope creep and what I was mentioning earlier and why these happen, it happens Scope creep happens a lot of times because things were not well-defined in the proposal, in the sales process. At times scope creep happens after— sorry, at times scope creep comes up because of things outside of your control. I'll give you some examples to both. So if someone is looking for HR consulting, and you are an HR consultant, and you come in and assess the way they do performance, the way they hire, the systems they use, and you're thinking, yeah, just the business owner and his VP of operations. You go in there, and the company is 10 times the size you thought, and they want you, the client wants you to meet with 10 different directors and managers and train them and none of that was discussed in the sales process, so that's on you, you did not specify, you did not dig deep enough to put some scope around the proposal, it happens and you learn from that, so that's fine, keep that client happy, talk to the 10 managers, impress them, they move on to another company, they'll hire you there, so it'll pay off in the long run. So that happens if you do not scope things well. Before, before you sign the contract. Now, after you sign the contract, you go in between you and the client. For both of you, like, things come up, whether external factors or, or things when you start digging, things come up that you just did not anticipate. You didn't even know to ask about it. It happened to us one time. We were building a website for a customer and he wanted some basic forms to to inquiry forms, to when people are requesting proposals from the business, his business, so we thought, you know, 4 or 5 forms, 5, 6 fields for each, pretty straightforward, we put a package around it, I think we sold that project for $5,500. We go and build that website, put it in a beta environment, in a staging environment, And gave him access to it. I said, oh, for these forms there's a huge, huge drop-down for each of the, each of the fields. And that drop-down is very dynamic depending on the previous— what the first person, uh, responded in the first field. It will determine what the next drop-down is. And, and, and then it's all, it's all in one database, and you have to in real time integrate with that database. So that became a significant project, 5 times as— and he didn't know, the client wasn't technical, he didn't know. I mean, we could have asked more, but I thought we asked, we specified what's in these forms. So we went back to him, Steve, amazing guy, still connect with him every once in a while, and we said, hey Steve, like, here's the proposal, here's what we built. and now between you and us, we, we are uncovering that we need to, to integrate with a database, and this is way outside the scope, and we just have to spend a whole lot of time scoping this new project. He understood. So we ended up scoping at $25,000 over like multiple phases. It was a pretty complex project, and he understood. Nothing— none of us could have flag that early on. It was later once we started digging into his existing outdated system that we found that out. So sometimes things come up after you sign the deal. Sometimes you can do a better job in scoping the deal, but regardless, this is what happens in terms of boundaries. If you don't set boundaries and you say yes to everything, then you will lose your shirt. You won't have a business. Initially, it's okay to have a couple, 2, 3 unprofitable projects. That's okay because you're learning, but it can't be a habit. It can't be your ongoing business model to lose money on every project, spending 40 hours instead of 10 hours on every project. You'll burn out, you'll lose money, of course, and then the clients won't be happy. Just it just it's downhill from there. So so it's a spiral downward down. It's a downward spiral from there. So one example I think will help you with with setting up boundaries. If things don't take a lot of your time, and you can do it very quickly. A few more hours here and there, do it. But if it's going to be a completely new project, you pause, you assess, you let the client know, then you bring in a new contract. So one, I'll give you an example. One time, one of our clients who didn't have any marketing support internally, it was just the CEO. They were pretty established, $20 million company, very established, but he didn't have any marketing. They just grew organically. And we started to do a lot of the online marketing for them. So they wanted to participate in an industry conference and they want to have a booth and they sign up for the booth, cost them a lot of money, $7,000, $8,000. And later I was in my weekly meeting with the CEO. We had a nice healthy retainer. So I would visit with them and they were local. I would visit them every week. I said, yeah, we're going to this exhibit. We're exhibiting at this conference next, next week. And I said, oh great, have you set up the booth yet? Yeah, we have a table and we have some, some, some flyers. I said, my friend, you know, it's professional. You got to have some— this is the backdrop. You got to have the stage, or not a stage, but you got to have some, um, banners. You want to have some promotional items. You want to have business cards. You want to have a mechanism to capture information from those who stop at the booth, because we've done some work and we've done a lot of actually marketing by that time on our own for our own business, and I had experience setting up booth— booths for my own business. So, so he didn't know what to do, and he was a busy man running a company. So I found a local partner, a printer who does all of those things I mentioned, and they manage this whole process. So we ended up facilitating on a very short notice, getting this person, this client ready to exhibit at this conference, and we saved the day for them. Yes, it cost me 3, 4 hours that week to facilitate the discussion between the providers of the banners and the promotional content and items and all that, But we, the amount of trust and appreciation and gratitude we had from this client, immeasurable. So I think for you, if the question is where do I draw the line between doing the work and pausing and sending a proposal, I would say create 2 lists, things that you can handle by yourself informally, doesn't cost you money to get a vendor or a third party to deliver the service, things you know, things that come to you quickly, things that you're good at. So those you can offer some of that no charge, but then requests that require you hire someone to do it for you on your behalf for the client, or you have to invest a lot of time, especially in areas, things that are not very well defined. Those, you want to let the client know that those will require a new, a new contract. And let them know, like, we've done this for you, we can expand it a little bit, no charge, and we can do a couple more workshops, some more training, be on call for the next 2 weeks, but after that— so, so let them know that you will go above and beyond and deliver to their expectations if that's their expectation, but after that point in time or after this many hours or after delivering X, Y, or Z, then that will be a new scope. So accommodate, help, especially with things that come natural to you, things that you're good at, fast at, those, and they are perceived values of the client, do a lot of those, no problem, but do set your expectations, set the those boundaries that after I do these 3 things, we really need to discuss a new contract. All right, so that is principle 4. Now the last principle for today, and again, for those of you listening live or watching live, if you have a question, even if it's unrelated to today's topic but it is about entrepreneurship— I don't want to deal with personal stuff, but entrepreneurship-related, business-related, Let me know. Put your questions in in in the chat box. I'll be more than happy to in the comments. I'll be more than happy to answer. But now let's look at the last, the fifth principle right here: compounding growth. So we talked about delivery matters, know your client, building trust, stay focused but flexible. Those the 4 principles, and now compounding growth. So what do I mean by that? I'm going to wrap up with that here in the next few minutes. So this is where everything comes together. Empowered— when you empower clients, they become repeat customers, they refer others, they provide testimonials, they help you develop case studies, And they become, and this is the most important, they become strategic partners. So I want you to think of yourself as a trusted advisor, not just as someone who delivers a service, who provides a service. You are the technical person, you're a consultant, so my assumption is that you know your stuff cold. But maybe you haven't done the reps. So in terms of selling, marketing, delivery, nurturing those client relationships, you're not great at yet. But if you think of yourself as a trusted advisor where you provide the technical solution to your client and then you are establishing that rapport, you are there for them when they're in a tough spot, when you have done something for them way above and beyond the scope, when you've done all of these and you're reliable and you show up on time and you're dependable and you're professional and, and you're responsive, when you do all of that, you become that trusted advisor. And then and this is really key here, then they'll come to you proactively. They won't come and say, help me solve this. They'll come and say, hey, and it used to happen a lot to us with these clients that we had repeat business with, recurring contracts with. I'd meet them once a month. The higher-end ones we were meeting once a week. They would come up proactively and say, hey, Feras, I have this issue in business, even sometimes outside the area of your expertise, but they trust you as a business person and they're interested in your thought process and how you would deal with it. I remember a client of ours had an employee who was suing them, something very personal, suing the company, some employment issue. And the client was never sued before, was the nicest person. They've done everything right from the way I was seeing things, but they know they could get a lawyer, but they just were asking for my opinion on how I would deal with that situation. And I thought about it and I said, look, here's how I would deal with it. I never had that experience either. And then I made an introduction to an attorney, my friend Diane at the time, who ended up helping them, really did a great job for them, and basically settled with very little amount, and, and, and they moved on. So, so, so, but the point here is that the client came to me for something way beyond and different than our core services, but they trusted us and they trusted me as this professional, this consultant who they can confide in, they can bounce off ideas with, and again, this is, you can't afford to do this with every client, especially those who are paying you well, paying you on a retainer basis, you have time, you have margin, you have enough margin to spend more time with them, and also you feel good that you are helpful to others, you're helping other human beings, you're eliminating, eliminating suffering, people come to you with issues. At times, these meetings also, I mean, depending on the relationship, but sometimes they bring up personal issues. Tough day, tough week at home. Can you help me with this thing this week? Because I can't think about it. Let's delay this meeting this week because, you know, I got to deal with stuff at home. So over time, as you deliver value, as you deliver technical value, and as you help clients solve problems, as you help them sleep better at night, you become this trusted advisor that they come to for new opportunities, for new businesses. And at a minimum, if there's nothing for you to do for them, there's no new opportunities, they can generate referrals and sing your praises. And that by itself is invaluable in business because then your reputation as this trusted advisor, as a trusted advisor, is also amplified because you'll get this other lead and then you take care of them and then you have this reputation in the industry that this consultant does a great job technically, but also he or she, they're just nice people that we want to work with. So that is the 5th principle, is this compounding effect, this compounding growth that happens when you put all the 4 principles together. So with that, I think I have one question here. Let's see. Curious, what percentage of your business comes from existing relationships? That's a very good point, and we used to track it, and We were tracking 2 actually later, once we were well into 6 figures and later in 7 figures, and a lot of consulting companies do that. You track 2 things, you track net new sales, I want to get new logos, new customers, and also I want to maintain and retain existing customers, right? So you want to look at their different metrics, different— when we got bigger, we had a dedicated team a dedicated team, a customer success team that handled all the existing relationships and then nurturing, growing, upselling, cross-selling, all of that happened within this customer success team, and then the net new sales happened by the hunters, right? Hunters-gatherers, right? So I would say you'd have dedicated teams in the future when the company's larger, But initially, early, early on, you got to get the few sales, the first few sales. Once you have the first few sales, then everything I said today applies 120%. You got to take care of those customers. So percentage, it will depend on your industry. It will depend on the service you're offering. It depends on the business model, depending on a number of things, but typically, typically, typically having a nice revenue stream, having a steady, Typically having a steady revenue stream from existing clients, whether it's something you do like one-off project, they come back to you every once in a while, or something on a recurring basis, that is gold. That gives you a lot of stability because you know every month, even with some churn, 10%, 15%, 20% churn, even with that you still have a steady source of income, steady source of revenue. That will help you plan better financially, that is hiring, investing in the business, investing in technology, investing in processes, because you know that revenue is coming. And then you have obviously other goals to get new logos, to get new clients. So that is it for today. We covered those 5 principles, and I'll share those resources that I mentioned earlier quickly here before we wrap up. I shared the sales to delivery handoff. I'll have that description in the— I'll have that link in the description, the proposal template, including some links to the AI assistance we have that I've developed for new consultants. And then if you're— we talked about getting customers, getting the feedback from— getting feedback from customers. If you're not sure how, I have a client feedback form or questions. You can put those in a Google Form and send it to clients. You can ask clients when you meet with them in person, and then I have the project retrospective process. This is once you're done with the project. You can use this process to collect information about how you've done as a company, areas for improvement, and this could actually identify. things you can go and fix and improve and upsell to the client. So all those resources are there for you, including all the video— all the videos and the playlists I have on the channel on sales, on marketing, on hiring, on legal, on accounting. So check it out. And of course, if you're liking this content, hit the like button and share it and subscribe if you're not a subscriber today. That's it for today. And I'll see you next time. Send me a question or a comment or a win. I'd love to hear from you. We'll share all that great stuff with the community. See you next time. Steven, you are most welcome. Thank you again for being here, and don't hesitate to— before I wrap up here, I have a couple more minutes. Let me know if you have any questions. Happy to wait for a minute and see if you have a question. I'll be more than happy to answer. I don't see any comments, so I will— feel free to email me at info@startupwithferus.com or Or just next Tuesday, same time, noon Pacific, 3 PM Eastern. I'll be here and we'll be more than happy to answer your questions. Have a good one. See you next time.