Make Money as a Consultant

Most of us ask for advice and then don't take it. Or we try something new and give up when we're not great at it right away. It's human nature, and it quietly holds back a lot of talented people.

This week, Chris is joined by his client Lia Izenberg, who has made a habit of doing the opposite. When a recommendation feels uncomfortable, she says yes anyway, and she sees it through to the end. The results speak for themselves. This year Lia had her best revenue year yet, landed contracts she wouldn't have won before, and for the first time ever, brought in new clients who didn't come from referrals or word of mouth.

Chris and Lia talk about the excuses our brains come up with to avoid hard things, why following good advice beats thinking you know better, and what it looks like to stay committed when the work gets uncomfortable.

Connect with Lia:
Instagram: @lia.izenberg
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liaizenberg
Substack: https://liairisizenberg.substack.com/

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Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com
Track: Urban Legend by Musical Bakery
https://tunetank.com/track/3362-urban-legend/

My goal right now is to make $1 million a year. I want to do it working only 40 weeks of the year and never more than 40 hours in a given week.

I don't know exactly how I'll get there yet. That's the point.

A lot of you are doing some major self-sabotage when it comes to your goals. Most of us were never taught to want things. As kids, wanting something usually ended in disappointment. Then we became adults, lost the structure and momentum, and got on the conveyor belt.

But the pursuit of a goal is inherently rewarding, whether or not you ever hit it. It feels better to try and fail than to sit in the comfort of complacency.

In this episode, I break down why goals matter and the 3 traps that keep you stuck in goal purgatory.

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Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com

Track: Urban Legend by Musical Bakery⁠

https://tunetank.com/track/3362-urban-legend/

Most people think their time management problem is about systems: the wrong calendar app, an out-of-control inbox, not enough hours in the day. But prioritization isn't something you do. It's a way of thinking.

We fall into the same traps over and over. We don't know where to start, we feel overwhelmed by all the options, and we lose momentum when things don't seem to be working. Over time those traps become loops, and the loops become self-fulfilling prophecies. The more you doubt what you're doing, the worse you perform.

In Part 2, I walk through the 4-step prioritization process I've spent years developing, and I'm teaching it for free for the first time. You'll learn how to notice the thinking that keeps you stuck, sharpen the quality of your decisions, and follow through on what matters most. The payoff is more time, more revenue, less stress, and a sharper version of yourself that clients value even more.

If you haven't heard Part 1 yet, start there, then come back for this one.

PS. My next free workshop, The Independence Equation, has been completely revamped and is clearer and more useful than ever. If you want a practical guide to landing top-dollar clients, grab your spot: https://chrisdonohoecoaching.com/independence

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Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com
Track: Urban Legend by Musical Bakery
https://tunetank.com/track/3362-urban-legend/

We all struggle with time management, procrastination, and burnout. Because there's so much pressure to constantly produce more. Work is demanding. Clients are demanding. And AI is only making it worse.

But you don't have to operate in chaos just because the rest of the world has decided to. The people who are most successful right now are the ones who learn how to slow down when the world speeds up. Calm, cool, collected, especially when there's a lot on your plate.

In this episode, Chris breaks down how to opt out of the rat race of "do, do, do" and opt into higher caliber decision-making and prioritization. This is Part 1 of the most useful, actionable breakdown he's ever recorded on time management, productivity, and getting better results.

PS. Don't miss my next workshop, the Independence Equation 2.0. Sign up today: https://chrisdonohoecoaching.com/independence

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Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com

Track: Urban Legend by Musical Bakery

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tunetank.com/track/3362-urban-legend/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

When you work for yourself, converting sales consultations into closed business is the most direct path to making money. You don't need a ton of leads, world class branding, a perfect elevator pitch, or a large following. You need a handful of high quality conversations and the ability to turn them into a "yes."

But you'll only get good at conversion if you know how to evaluate your consultations. Most of us don't spend enough time on this, because whether someone buys can feel completely out of our control. You can't force anyone to buy (and you shouldn't try). What you can do is look closely at what you said, what you didn't say, and how your own actions shaped the decision the client made.

In this episode, I'm walking you through exactly how to evaluate your sales consultations so you can tell what's working, what isn't, and why. You'll learn why blaming the market or writing someone off as "not the right buyer" keeps you stuck, how honest evaluation puts you in full control of your results, and what to change next time so you hear "yes" more often.

Get this right and you become the most valuable consultant or coach in the room, the one clients refer often and keep coming back to for years.

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Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com

Track: Urban Legend by Musical Bakery

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tunetank.com/track/3362-urban-legend/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

You've landed an initial meeting with a prospective client, and now you're wondering how to pitch them.

Spoiler alert: you're not going to pitch them.

Most of us walk into that first meeting having already decided how we'll work with the client. We guess at their needs, pre-build the solution, and rehearse how we'll create value for them. It feels like preparation. It's actually the fastest way to kill the opportunity before it's off the ground, because your best guess is almost always wrong, or at least wildly incomplete.

In this episode, I'm breaking down the 3 simple steps to giving the best pitch of your life. You'll learn why asking a million questions comes before pitching anything, how to walk in relaxed instead of over-prepared, and how to present something that matches the client's exact need so the yes feels obvious to both of you.

If you've ever felt nervous or uncertain walking into a meeting with a prospective client, this one's for you. We're taking that anxiety down, and the results speak for themselves.

In this episode:

• Why pitching in a first meeting sabotages the deal, and what to do instead
• The 3 steps to a pitch that lands every time
• How to prep less and still show up sharper
• What to ask so your offer matches exactly what the client needs

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Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com

Track: Urban Legend by Musical Bakery

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tunetank.com/track/3362-urban-legend/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

I made the majority of my money running a hybrid consulting and coaching business, doing exceptionally meaningful work for a wide range of clients.

And I never had to sell my time or give away my freedom to make it happen.

There were years I worked 3 or 4 days a week and still brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That's why I'm a huge believer in the hybrid model. I know firsthand how lucrative and fulfilling it can be.

From life coaching to business transformation consulting, I've done it all. And it can all work. You don't have to choose one narrow lane.

Too often I see people combining coaching and consulting as if they're the same thing. That lack of clarity doesn't just confuse you, it confuses your clients, and it makes it harder for them to say yes to working with you.

On this week's podcast, I'm breaking down the 3 essentials you need to know to start running a profitable hybrid business of your own.

If you've been blending the two without a clear structure underneath it, this is the episode to bookmark and come back to.

Because the hybrid model isn't the problem. Running it without clarity is.

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Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com

Track: Urban Legend by Musical Bakery

⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tunetank.com/track/3362-urban-legend/⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

This one started as a love letter to a friend going through a hard time.

Real desperation is doing something purely out of need. Stealing food because you're starving. Jumping from a burning building because staying is worse. That's a desperate act — a risky choice made in an actual crisis.

Most of us aren't there. We just feel like we are.

And that's the problem. Desperation distorts your thinking when you're not actually in a desperate situation. It quietly rewrites the rules of your business and convinces you those rules were always true.

You start building what you think people will buy instead of what you're great at. You decide the market is fixed. That it has to look corporate. That people won't pay for that. That you couldn't possibly charge for this.

None of that is fact. Most of it is inherited.

In this episode, I'm breaking down where those rules actually come from — and how to get out from under them.

We talk about:

• The difference between a genuinely desperate situation and the feeling of desperation, and why confusing the two costs you money
• Factoids: unverified information that becomes accepted as fact because it gets repeated often enough
• How conformity turns "everyone says this" into a truism you never think to question
• The conventional wisdom you inherited about what sells, who buys, and what you're allowed to charge for
• The 4 steps back to inspiration: noticing what you don't like and distancing yourself from it, noticing what you're naturally great at, giving yourself permission to lead with that, and getting good at selling it

And that last step is where most people stall. Because being great at something and being able to talk about its value are two different skills — and only one of them ever got taught to you.

If you've been quietly shrinking your offer to match what you assume the market wants, this is the episode to bookmark and come back to.

Because you might not have a market problem. You might not have a pricing problem. You might be building from desperation and calling it strategy.

Ready to build from inspiration instead?

I'm hosting The Independence Equation workshop on August 20 at 1 PM Eastern.

Sign up here: https://chrisdonohoecoaching.com/independence

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Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com

Track: Urban Legend by Musical Bakery

⁠⁠⁠https://tunetank.com/track/3362-urban-legend/⁠⁠⁠ 

Look around… who is the highest paid person in the room?

What do you notice about them? When and how do they speak? And how do they convey authority without seeming arrogant or self-promoting?

I've been OBSESSED with these questions since I was a child. And after years of watching closely, I've learned that the highest paid people all share one characteristic: they're able to take abstract ideas and communicate them in very concrete ways — and take concrete information and identify unseen or unspoken patterns.

That combination makes them EXTREMELY compelling and useful to other people. And here's the good news: it's a learnable skill.

In this episode, I'm breaking this concept down into 3 simple, actionable steps you can take to position yourself above your competitors — so you stand out and always get paid like the smartest person in the room.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The one characteristic the highest paid people all share (and why it makes them so compelling)
• How to master both concrete and abstract reasoning — the skill that commands top dollar as a consultant or coach
• 3 simple steps to position yourself above your competitors and stand out in any room

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Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com

Track: Urban Legend by Musical Bakery

⁠⁠https://tunetank.com/track/3362-urban-legend/⁠⁠ 

You have the right to be FULLY alive in your life and business. But "fully alive" doesn't mean "fake happy"—it means awake, present, and making the most of every day, even when it's hard.

There's a flame inside every person, and as entrepreneurs, our job is to keep it burning. That doesn't happen by accident—it's a skill you can practice and master.

In this episode, I'm sharing 3 ways I've learned to keep that inner fire alive. One of them has nothing to do with mindset or motivation—it's a physical practice you can do anytime, anywhere.

Because it's not enough to "think positively." You've got to learn how to dig deep and focus on what really matters.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What being "fully alive" actually means (and what it doesn't)
• 3 practical ways to feed your inner flame and help it grow
• A physical practice you can use anytime to reignite your energy—no mindset work required

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Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com

Track: Urban Legend by Musical Bakery

⁠https://tunetank.com/track/3362-urban-legend/⁠