126 Strategies for a Successful Consulting Business with Michael Zipursky
“In the consulting world, the more conversations you have, the more opportunities you have to generate sales and to provide value and serve people.”
Michael Zipursky is the CEO of Consulting Success. He’s advised organizations like Financial Times, Dow Jones, RBC, Omron, Sumitomo and helped Panasonic launch new products into global markets, but more importantly, he’s helped over 300 consultants from around the world in over 50 industries add six and seven figures to their annual revenues. Michael is one of the world’s top authorities on growing a consulting business.
In this episode, we talk about:
How to grow your consulting business
The importance of dialogue in an organization
Marketing maturity model
Building your brand
How to grow as a consultant
Finding the right speaking engagements
Authority building strategies
How to be a thought leader
To learn more, listen to the full episode!
Mindset Matters in Sales
For many people, sales still is a bad word or it’s something that instantly makes people feel uncomfortable. People think sales is something you do to someone, but really, for those who are good at sales and knows what sales is all about, you recognize that sales is something that you do with someone.
It’s really about recognizing that you can help someone and that you can make an impact in that person’s life. It’s about having deep conversations and really listening and understanding what’s really important to the other person.
Being a Perfectionist Can Hold You Back
Many consultants are perfectionists. They really want to have everything done properly before they go out and start “selling” or having conversations with buyers.
And I think that mindset comes from the corporate world or working within organizations where you are tasked with doing things properly and following the guidelines and the process, so now when you’re on your own, the belief is that you need to have everything planned out to get a positive result. But it’s also because people are afraid to make a mistake.
The Importance of Dialogue in Selling
The belief that some people have is that as long as we have input, we can get a sale, we should be able to see results instantly. But that’s not how it works.
When you’re selling a service that’s worth 100,000 or even millions of dollars – we’re talking about consulting sales – it’s not going to happen with just one quick interaction, and that’s why it’s so important that you focus on having conversations, that you recognize that the first conversation isn’t your only opportunity.
