In this People Magic podcast episode, host Gina Bianchini answers a listener’s question about escaping the feast‑or‑famine cycle that plagues many consulting businesses. She first distinguishes two versions of the feast‑or‑famine problem: (1) the constant scramble for new consulting clients and (2) the launch‑centric volatility of one‑time courses or cohorts. Gina then proposes a weekend‑sprint approach to convert a consultant’s expertise into a membership or community product. The process starts by identifying a compelling life transition that the consultant can help people navigate (e.g., new job, first manager role, health shift, major life event). She outlines how to design the community experience with monthly themes, weekly calendars, and daily actions that foster habit formation and peer‑to‑peer support. Pricing is framed around the “3 Rs”: Results (the outcome members achieve), Replacement (what members would otherwise spend on), and Respect (the perceived value and dignity of the offering). Gina advises a launch plan that leverages the consultant’s existing contacts, positioning the offering as a purpose‑driven challenge or 30‑day cohort. The episode emphasizes the power of a 30‑person seed community—data she claims shows such a group can grow into a self‑sustaining ecosystem. She also references the “9 pillars of People Magic Profit” as a framework for building a $1 million community. The benefits highlighted include revenue diversification, reduced reliance on constant selling, a community that markets itself, and deeper insights into delivering value, ultimately leading to a more durable consulting business.
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Just takes 30 people. The data on this is super, super clear. 30 people will turn into a community that grows and essentially runs itself. Hey, I'm Gina Bianchini, and this is People Magic, where I show you the easiest way to set yourself up for a $1 million community. Let's get to the next question.
Hi Gina, I have a consulting business that's currently feast or famine. I feel like I'm always selling. I wanna start to coach and even do a membership, but will it get me out of this cycle?
The feast or famine is one of the most challenging dynamics, so I just wanna acknowledge that. So I, I sort of see 2 flavors. So there's the flavor of feast or famine that you're talking about as a consultant, where it's just like, where are my next clients coming from? Especially if you're doing project work or in the economy where people are like, oh, I can't afford you as a consultant anymore. You're constantly selling. Let's tackle that in this episode. But I also wanna acknowledge a different feast or famine dynamic, which is if you're selling a course, a one-time course or a cohort where you're always doing what's called, you know, open or closed cart, you, you, you're like building towards a launch and the launch happens on X date. And then whatever happened during that launch, you have how, like 6 months or 6 weeks or some set period of time. Or even just a one-time course fee, that becomes your entire business. So if you had a great launch, you're golden, you're feasting. And if you had a bad launch, you don't have another opportunity to create a feast for quite some time. So this is a dynamic. I'm gonna focus on the, I'm Constantly selling as a consultant. So there are a lot of amazing things about being a consultant. You get to work on really interesting projects. You're not beholden to kind of any one company or any one boss. It's nice.
It's nice.
You get to apply your expertise and your knowledge to new challenges and new interesting situations. But it also means that in this moment, especially where it's so dynamic, so many things are changing, you know, companies are coming, companies are going, you know, opportunities are coming in, opportunities are going, that even if you have built a consulting business where you have a couple of anchor clients, those anchor clients can go away. That sucks. That sucks. And so, not only are you constantly selling, you're doing everything you can to have a longer sales cycle as well. So, you know, you gotta have the right time and the right opportunities. So, the benefit of thinking about just taking a beat with a consulting business and saying, okay, I— Yeah. I'm gonna stop selling and networking and doing all the things to get proposals out and make sure that, that I'm able to sell. And instead, what if you took a weekend and thought about how you could translate your expertise? And you don't really even need expertise, but into a course or a membership. So let's talk about what that could look like. Like if, if, if you were my friend and you were staying with me for the weekend and you're like, Gina, I'm coming and I'm staying with you at your house because we're gonna be up and running with a new idea after this weekend, what would I do? So the first thing that I would do is seek to understand, again, if you were a little bit of a just, Reserve judgment here, because if you were my friend, I would hopefully know this already. But we're gonna— like, this is a weekend dedicated to you. The first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna listen for what in your consulting business could be translated into helping a group of people through a transition. So people pay attention to what they pay for. The most motivated people in the entire world are people who are going through a transition. Whether that is that they just graduated from college and they're starting their first job, or they're becoming a manager for the first time, or they are paying attention to their health like they have never paid attention to their health before, or they have just had their first baby or their 8th baby. I don't know why I said 8th baby, but just bear with me. Or they are Getting married, they're getting divorced, they are tackling a new hobby or a new skill or the next level of that hobby or skill. They're learning how to fly a plane or drive a car really fast or program a robot or learn how to build a personal brand on social media. So I'm going to be listening for What could your expertise translate into as a transition that you can help people through? The second thing I'm going to do once we really— and the hardest thing is going to be nailing down that transition because you're like, oh, but my, my expertise lets me help these people and these people and these people. We'll get to all of those. The single most important thing that you can do to get out of feast or famine is to start with a really compelling transition and then understand how to articulate and paint a picture for people of their best year ever. What does it look like when they have made it through that transition, that they're on the other side and they have achieved results or a transformative experience that they would never have gotten on their own without you and the other members of the community or the membership? Or cohort that you've brought together. That is what you are listening for. Then we'll probably stop, have some cocktails, maybe even a pizza, and we'll get into how does this feel. Then, you know, what did— what should we call it? What should we map out as what we call the community design plan? So that's what are the monthly themes? What's a weekly calendar? Which is there to Help people build a habit. And then daily actions, which that's not you doing something daily, it's laying out whether it's questions, whether it's a gratitude practice, a give-ask, whatever that might be in a week. And then we'll work on your offer. So what should you price it at? Well, what results are you gonna help people get in their lives? That's the first R of the 3 Rs of pricing. What is the replacement? What are people doing instead today? What are they spending their money on? And 3, respect. What is it going— this new membership, how are you going to respect it and how are they going to respect it? Because people pay attention to what they pay for. And then as we pick a price, then we'll lay out the launch plan. And then you're gonna sit there and instead of going through your network to think about how you're gonna sell consulting projects, You're gonna open your contacts. You're gonna open your contacts, and we are going to together craft your big purpose, which is you take I or we bring together, and then who you're bringing together in which transition so that we can have our best year ever and what that looks like and what that means to have your best year ever. That's the promise. That's what you're building. And then we're gonna launch it. We're gonna get it out there. You're gonna start to talk to your contacts. I talk about as your people, your people's people, and then your community's people. You're gonna, you're gonna do it first as like a, a one-time challenge or a one-time cohort over 4 weeks, 30 days, really dialing it in. And we're gonna do it together and it's gonna be awesome. And what are you going to get out of all of this that is different from your business today? Number one, you're going to have revenue diversification. So you could still be doing your consulting business, but you also have this membership or this course that is going to be there, that is going to be running as close to running itself as possible because you're not going to be creating something that's about your content. You're gonna be creating a framework for people to go and do together in their lives. And the whole goal is that you are hosting this membership so that people are able to meet and build relationships with each other, share their stories, their experiences, their ideas, and to help each other build practices or change their habits In ways that only happens with them taking action, not consuming your videos, not consuming your content, but taking action. And as you have this set of people, number one, you're gonna have a stronger foundation because you have this revenue diversification. And number two, you might also find yourself in a situation where you're gonna learn so much more about how to provide value to people. That you can now grow that revenue stream of a membership that essentially grows itself, that you are building a culture where your members are bringing in new people so you're not having to go out and sell. And it's going to give you insights into how do you create a more durable and sustainable consulting business as well. So There's something about, especially if you're in this feast or famine mode, or you always feel like you're just selling and selling and selling, and, you know, you sell one thing, something else falls out, to diversify into a new revenue stream and think about just the challenge and the excitement and opportunity of bringing together 30 people. It just takes 30 people. The, the data on this is super, super clear. 30 people will turn into a community that grows and essentially runs itself.
Not—
it's not perfect, but essentially runs itself, especially when you just take advantage of these 9 pillars of People Magic Profit, which we will have gone through over pizza on a weekend, and it's gonna be awesome. So that is the best way to think about feast or famine. I feel like I could do an entire episode on thinking about open and closed launches and the difference between, you know, selling one-time courses where they require that kind of launch and running an ongoing membership. And I would say that sort of what's really essential when you're running a membership and really looking for that ongoing revenue stream, that, that ARR or annual recurring revenue, or MRR, the monthly recurring revenue. The key thing to just remember is you're creating a party where you want your members to be inviting other members in. And if you think about it as a network where it is about New people bringing other people to that party versus a funnel that's like, I have to always be the person pouring people into and paying for people at the— to, to get into the top of the funnel, and then I squeeze them out at the bottom and no one else is expected to do anything. That's gonna continue to be a tough road or a tougher road. So I feel you. I really do wanna have you over to my house and we just like take a weekend and plan this all out. I think that would be really fun. And I'm just, I'm grateful for the question and I'm grateful for just even the openness to, can I create a different revenue stream? Can I create a membership? Can it be something that is a foundational aspect of my life and my business that allows me to be pickier with the consulting clients I take on or get clearer on the kinds of projects that really bring me energy and bring me joy. So with that, hopefully that's helpful. I'm Gina Bianchini. This is People Magic. Download this episode, keep it handy. And if you have not subscribed to the show, subscribe to the show and I'll see you in the next episode. If you want to know exactly how to build a $1 million community, click the link in the description to get access to our full free course.
