The world of an independent consultant can be lonely at times. A remedy for this loneliness can be found in a collaborative community. Collaborating with other independent consultants can ease the sense of isolation and help your business to become successful in many ways. 

My guest today, Will Bachman, was very aware of this fact and as a result, he founded Umbrex, a global community specifically for independent consultants that creates opportunities to build relationships with peers, share lessons learned, and collaborate. 

In this conversation, Will shares some valuable insights on how to build and grow your independent constant business. He also provides a very detailed step-by-step guide on how to successfully engage with a community like Umbrex to ensure mutual success. 

As a bonus, Will shares a discount code you can use to gain access to The Umbrex Guide to Setting Up Your Consulting Practice, a video course that covers everything you need to know to set up your own consulting practice: setting up your legal entity, getting insurance, building your virtual team, and finding consulting clients.  90 videos; over 30 downloadable tools, templates, or checklists; and more than 200 curated links to additional useful material. 

Click here to get full show notes and more information.

Want help achieving your consulting business goals? Melisa can help. Click here for more on coaching tailored to you as an independent consulting business owner.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4 million Americans quit their jobs in July 2021. Resignations peaked in April and have remained abnormally high for the last several months, with a record-breaking 10.9 million open jobs at the end of July. How can you use the Great Resignation to create consulting clients? 

Listen in to learn how you can use the Great Resignation to create client acquisition for your business. I will share with you three specific ways that you can leverage this movement to increase your pipeline and close those lucrative high-paying deals that you want to be working with.

Click here to get full show notes and more information.

Want help achieving your consulting business goals? Melisa can help. Click here for more on coaching tailored to you as an independent consulting business owner.

Our guest today is Brian Hoffmeyer, SVP Market Strategies at Beeline. Brian shares with us that right now they have “325 clients and 50 billion in spend running through their system every year.” That's a massive number. There is so much opportunity out there for independent consultants who know how to take advantage of it. 

Brian shares insights from his 17+ years working with the Fortune 1000 procurement and business teams who purchase contract labor and consulting. Listen in as Brian shares actionable tips and strategies that you can use to build and grow your IC business. 

Get full show notes and more information here.

Want help achieving your consulting business goals? Melisa can help. Click here for more on coaching tailored to you as an independent consulting business owner.

Have you ever completed a business task like making a presentation or had a consulting call and afterward you were second-guessing yourself? Did you wish that you’d never revealed something, or that you could go back in time and undo the action that made you question yourself after the fact? 

This is called the “Vulnerability Hangover”. It’s a term coined by Dr. Brené Brown. She defines it as “the gut-wrenching feeling of shame and fear right after we undertake an emotional risk.” 

As consultants, this experience of the Vulnerability Hangover can be viewed as something to avoid. 

I want to offer that this is a good thing. It’s a way for you to grow past your comfort zone. Any time you put yourself out there and you experience this ‘hangover”, it’s a sign that you’ve embraced growth. In fact, I recommend that you purposefully create situations that make you experience the Vulnerability Hangover. 

The key is to plan ahead to (1) intentionally put yourself in situations that could create a hangover, and thus the more rapid growth of yourself as a business owner and (2) to know how you’ll handle it when it does happen, so you don’t allow it to slow you down.

There are a few effective ways to do this. Listen in to learn more. 

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Want help achieving your consulting business goals? Melisa can help. Click here for more on coaching tailored to you as an independent consulting business owner.

There are five mistakes that I see independent consultants make with their service offerings that ultimately lead to low close rates and the feast or famine cycle. 

In this episode, I want to bring these 5 mistakes to your attention so you can address them. After you do, you’ll set yourself up to start earning more, continuously filling your pipeline, and ultimately feel more fulfilled in the work that you do because you're landing ideal clients you can’t wait to work with.

This is the work that I help my client with. My clients are independent consultants like you who are running their own businesses and want to grow and create more income, more impact, and more independence for themselves. So if you are someone who wants help with that work, reach out and we can have a conversation. The easiest way to do that is at the website www.consultmelisa.com. 

Click here to get full show notes and more information.

Want help achieving your consulting business goals? Melisa can help. Click here for more on coaching tailored to you as an independent consulting business owner.

Are you approaching your consulting sales process based on what your prospects care about or based on what you have to offer? This is a very common deal-killing mistake that Independent Consultants make. The mistake is when you are approaching the sales process based on you assuming that a client needs what you have rather than what the client cares about. This mistake can end up killing your deals. In this episode, I will help you to identify if you are making this common mistake so that you can course-correct.

Listen in as we take a deeper look at this deal-killing mistake and an alternative approach including 11 specific questions that you can use to figure out why a prospect should care about what you're selling, and not just assume that they should. 

Click here to get full show notes and more information.

Want help achieving your consulting business goals? Melisa can help. Click here for more on coaching tailored to you as an independent consulting business owner.

Are you working as a consultant or as a contractor, a staff augmentation-type resource, in your consulting business? If you’re like many independent consultants, you’re trapped taking staff augmentation roles, and as a result, overworking, underpaid, and not making the level of impact that led you to consulting in the first place.

Listen in as I share with you how to get out of the staff augmentation abyss and elevate into the business owner zone so that you create the business you desire.

Click here to get full show notes and more information.

Want help achieving your consulting business goals? Melisa can help. Click here for more on coaching tailored to you as an independent consulting business owner.

Are you ready to finish the year strong in your consulting business? 

Listen in as I share with you a tool that you can use to create consistent revenue in your consulting business. This tool can be used at any point in the year, but especially in Q4, so that you finish the year strong and build momentum as you move into next year.

Click here to get full show notes and more information.

Want help achieving your consulting business goals? Melisa can help. Click here for more on coaching tailored to you as an independent consulting business owner.

There are several critical differences between searching for a job and selling consulting services. In this episode, I walk you through two additional differences between a job search and your consulting business development process. After you recognize the differences, you’ll be able to position yourself more effectively, and in turn, land more lucrative and fulfilling consulting clients. 

Click here to get full show notes and more information.

Want help achieving your consulting business goals? Melisa can help. Click here for more on coaching tailored to you as an independent consulting business owner.

Independent consultants who treat their business development process like a job search create a feast or famine situation in their consulting business. There are several critical differences between searching for a job and selling consulting services that I’ll dive into in this episode, so you can increase the income and impact you’re making in your independent consulting business.

Click here to get full show notes and more information.

Want help achieving your consulting business goals? Melisa can help. Click here for more on coaching tailored to you as an independent consulting business owner.