Professional Identity in Business: A Consultant vs Coach Dilemma?
Choosing the right professional identity in business is important. It drives the approaches we take when working with clients. Deciding to call yourself consultant vs. coach can significantly impact your success attracting the right clients to your business. Likewise,...
Selling to C-Suite Executives: A 10-Step Strategic Approach
As a business leader or sales professional, connecting into organisations and selling to C-suite executives can be a challenging task. It requires a strategic approach that goes beyond just pitching products and services. The C-Suite is a group of high-level...
Understanding the Revenue Rollercoaster in Business, and How To Ride It to Consistent Client Flow
As business owners, we are constantly challenged to balance getting clients with serving clients, and if you stop one to do the other, it keeps you on the revenue rollercoaster in business. Today we're going to talk about three scenarios that help you navigate the...
Setting Boundaries for Working from Home
For most small business owners, setting boundaries working from home feels like a challenge, right?!! All those distractions, people interrupting you because ‘well, you’re there’. Yet you’ll be amazed at how much more productive you are when you set boundaries. ARE...
Self Organisation for Business Owners to Reduce Stress Working from Home
Today we’re diving into part 2 of this three-part mini-series to help you develop your super powers for self organisation for business owners working from home. I want to share some simple routines that will help you reduce day-to-day stress. Doesn’t that sound...
Get Organised Working From Home For More Fun, Flow & Freedom in Your Business – Part 1 Decluttering Distractions
Kicking off another 3-part mini-series where we’re going deep into self-organisation and how to empower yourself and your business, especially if you’re feel so totally maxed out you just can’t focus on high level strategic leveraging stuff. From self-management to...
Sustainable Ways to Create Leverage for Business Growth & Scalability
The primary goal when you create leverage for business growth and scalability, is sustainability, both in terms of dependable revenue growth and ROI. In this article, we’ll explore a framework for next level business growth and go through some of the practical things...
Referral Marketing for Warm Lead Generation
Do you routinely record or check back on how clients are referred to you? And if so, are you using that information to guide your marketing interventions? With a shift in digital marketing, it's so much easier to leverage customer relationship systems and marketing...
B2B Sales Presentations – How to Pitch, Follow Up and Persist to Get Corporate Client Contracts
Continuing our three-part series and our journey navigating the B2B sales process. We’re now in the home straight – with the third and final part in our mini-series on how to get corporate clients consistently, and in this article I'm focusing on B2B sales...
How to Win Corporate Clients With Consultative Prospecting and Compelling Proposals
Hello, and welcome back – we’re continuing our three-part mini-series on 6 steps to B2B sales, how to find, engage and get corporate clients consistently.PREFER TO LISTEN?[fusebox_track_player...
Why Positioning and Pipeline Development are Critical First Steps for Successful B2B Selling
How do you position yourself to become one of the "fortunate" professionals who consistently get corporate clients and build lucrative businesses through B2B selling? Over three parts, I'm sharing how to find, engage and win contracts selling into organizations....
Simple Pricing Strategies for Consulting, Coaching and Other Expert Services
Simple pricing strategies for consulting, coaching and other expert service providers can feel like an impossible goal. For professionals, what to charge might just be the most stressful decision you ever have to make, especially if you’re new to business. There are a...
Effective CEO Succession Planning for Small Business Owners
Questions I hear about effective CEO succession planning for small business owners are in the main about what it is, why you should be thinking of it ahead of time, and what are the benefits. This article walks you through some of the key considerations. PREFER...
Successfully Marketing Online Courses to Earn What You’re Worth
If you're wondering how to marketing online courses, here's my take. Because no matter what business you’re in, we’re all in the business of marketing. Once you’ve landed on a great core concept, designed and created a great course, the next big step to tackle is to...
How to Design A Profitable Online Course that Delivers Real Value
To build a profitable online course around a core concept, you want to make sure it's performance boosting and people get the results that you promise. They go about course design all wrong, because there’s a huge distinction between information, knowledge and...
Why Having a Core Concept for Your Business Helps You Get Better Clients and Charge Higher Fees
A core concept for your business is the big idea that you wrap your products, programs or services around, that you create a demand narrative and story for, and that enables you to showcase your thought leadership and earn your worth. It’s something you can really...
A Simple Online Learning Design for Your Course or Program (with a 5-Step Worksheet)
Today, we’re diving into the question of how we can deliver really worthwhile learning in a digital and virtual environment, how to map out your online learning design and how to measure it’s achieving the outcomes you promise for your participants. PREFER TO...
Building a Sustainable Business for Leveraged Living
If you want to build a sustainable business, you need to ensure you get your work and life in balance. Leverage hold the key to success in this regard, so you can run your business not have it running you! In this article, adapted from the preface of my book I set out...
How to Generate Buyer Leads When Webinars Aren’t Working
Businesses are increasingly focusing on how the design of the webinars can be improved, how content can be improved to create a more compelling bridge into making an offer, one that conversion into clients. But the problem is that webinars just aren’t working as well...
10 Steps to Successful Brand Positioning for Consultants
Successful brand positioning for consultants is all about your credibility as an expert and sharing something of yourself too. In the digital marketplace, both are the key to a growing business. Businesses stay afloat when they gain years of experience and...
Writing Consulting Proposals that Fit Clients’ Needs, Budget and Timeline
If you’ve ever been approached by a client and want to know what to consider when scoping, pricing and writing consulting proposals, this article and podcast episode is really going to help you out. Today, we’re continuing along the theme of consulting work, this time...
Creating Flexible Consulting Models of Delivery that Scale
Is it possible for consultants, coaches and specialists to achieve flexible consulting models of delivery that scale and feel bespoke to your client? Today, I’m tackling the impossible – how to achieve Scalable Delivery that Feels Bespoke to your client. We’ll look at...
How to Create a Velvet Rope Marketing Strategy to Increase Your Consulting Income Without Taking on More Clients
Finding ways to earn more, work less, grow faster are always the big goals for creating true freedom in your business and in your life. Here's part 2 on the topic of how to increase your consulting income without taking on more clients, where we turn to creating a...
3 Strategies to Increase Consulting Income Without Taking on More Clients – Part 1 The ‘More for Fewer’ Hard Line Strategy
How to increase your consulting income without taking on more clients can seem an impossible equation to solve. Yet, this is at the heart of what creates leveraged consulting, enabling you to work smarter not harder, to earn more, work less and still see revenue...
4 Ways to Fix a Leaky Sales Funnel
For any business owner, an online sales funnel is probably the most important marketing tool you have, but do you know how to fix a leaky sales funnel? Even if you’re B2B, you still need a watertight process to find leads and nurture the trust relationship towards a...
How to Create New Revenue Streams in a Consulting Business
For consultants, coaches and practitioners who are building a business around you, your expertise, your unique value proposition, it's important you have more than one 'offer'. Today we’re going to dive into ten new revenue streams in a consulting business that you...
Who Moved My Clients! Navigating Change to Reimagine, Energise & Streamline Business Growth
The pandemic has thrown a few businesses who are finding it hard to find the right routes to success in the new territory. So I wanted to explore the question of change, change in the world around us and change in how we might think and work differently. Our current...
A Program of Support for Leveraged Online Business Acceleration from Starting Up to Scaling Up
The pandemic has forced many businesses into substantial online business acceleration with little support. If you’re starting with a new online offer and need to get momentum, if you're shifting to an online mode of delivery or if you’ve a sellable offer but want to...
Reflecting on One Year Podcast Success Metrics, Myths and Magic
Today is special! It’s one year since we launched the Leveraged Business Podcast WOOHOO! 52 weeks of content about creating leverage in your business and achieving true freedom working smarter not harder. As we celebrate the show’s one year anniversary, I’m reflecting...
Planning High End Group Programs – Part 2 Creating a First-Rate Customer Experience
Today, we are continuing along our 5-step process for planning high end group programs. In part 1, we focused on designing a transformational journey for your clients. In part 2, we’re looking more at the delivery and creating a first-rate customer experience. Because...
How to Design & Deliver High Ticket Group Programs: Part 1 – Planning a Transformational Journey
Today, I’m kicking off a two-part series focused on designing and delivering high ticket group programs - and getting yours off the ground fast. So if you're ready to leverage what you do and scale up your business, then you’re in the right place! So in part 1 we’re...
B2B Strategy Selling High Ticket Offers – Contacts versus List Building
A good B2B prospecting strategy selling high ticket offers is much more focused on outreach and personal relationship building. But you do still need a list of contacts to work from – a pipeline. So I’m opening up the discussion about the difference approaches to...
5 Steps to Get Corporate Clients
One of the biggest questions I get asked all the time by consultants, coaches and service providers who work in the business-to-business or B2B space selling into organisations is how can I get corporate clients or corporate contracts. And it’s an interesting question...
How You Can Get The Leveraged Business Podcast Listener Bonus
As we approach the end of our first year of the Leveraged Business Podcast, I’d like to take a few minutes this week to talk about ways you as a podcast listener or article reader, and hopefully a subscriber, can help the show succeed going forward. If you’ve heard of...
Creating a Business Dashboard for Customer Journey Data Analytics
Do you have a clear view of how your clients go from first hearing about you to becoming loyal customers? This is a process we call customer journey, and understanding and getting good data insights across each step in the journey can help you attract more ideal...
Choosing Client Acquisition Systems That Work for Your Business
Today we dive deeper into examples of discovery, relationship and sales mechanisms to identify the best turnkey client acquisition systems that fit you and your business. We go through each of the three steps to attract, nurture and enrol clients and I share some...
3 Turnkey Business Systems to Create a 6 Figure Revenue
Turnkey business systems are a critical piece of the puzzle for a leveraged business. For consultants, coaches and other solo practitioners, there are really only three systems you need to get into play to be on your way to achieving a six figure revenue in your...
Attract More Clients with Irresistible Packaged Offers
Have you ever put a website or sales page together, even created a new service or program, that you thought was one of your best irresistible packaged offers in terms of visible value and got little engagement, and no sales whatsoever? That’s what we’re tackling in...
How to Create a Visible Value Proposition in the Marketplace
All businesses have some kind of value proposition. Sadly, many are not unique, visible or properly leveraged. As a consultant or coach, I’m sure you offer immense value in the knowledge, skills, experience you can use to help your clients. But how do you promote it...
How to Unblock Your Business Bottlenecks
*** CRASH *** Is that the sound of a business bottlenecks breakthrough? Or is it you hitting another brick wall? AGHHHH!!! Urggg!!!! Over and over … Til your head hurts…pfff And you lose the ability to think, run, hide! So, want to know the number one big question I...
How to Leverage Your Podcast Production Workflow, Promotion and Outsourcing
This week, we’re talking leveraged podcast production workflow, including promoting your show and outsourcing the heavy lifting of the whole end-to-end process for each episode. It's the third and final part of our series The Power of Podcasting to Build an Engaged...
4 Steps of a Successful Podcast Launch Plan
Today we continue the three-part series on the power of podcasting to build an engaged audience, and move from from the 'why start a podcast' topic of last week to the actual podcast launch plan. If you decided a podcast is something for you, or if you’re still...
Why Start a Podcast and What’s Involved
Are you ready to start a podcast? Whether you want to host a podcast or want to know more about the behind-the-scenes world of podcasts, this three-episode series will help you see why you might want to start a podcast. It reveals the why, what and how of podcasting...
How to Craft an Offer & Sell it Fast – Part 2, Building an Effective Sales Process
The trick for an effective sales process is to create a clear and engaging pathway for building trust with your target audience. This article is the second part of 'How to Craft an Offer and Sell It Fast'. So, if you haven’t yet read part 1 or listened to the podcast...
How to Craft an Offer & Sell It Fast – Part 1, Creating Online Group Programs
Working with clients 1:1 is great and can be very rewarding, but with more people working virtually and the ease of setting up online group programs, it doesn’t have to be your entire business model if you learn how to create online group programs. If you’re ready to...
How Leveraging Online Group Programs Helps Attract More Clients
The big question that comes up for many of you looking to attract more clients into their business is this: is creating a group program worth it? Quite often, when we’re looking at ways to create leverage in a business, it’s easy to jump to a group program as an...
Improve Workflow Efficiencies With Client Acquisition Process Mapping
Client acquisition process mapping is a great way to improve workflow efficiencies. It's a key route to creating leverage in your business. I absolutely LOVE creating workflows. I do it for my own business and I help my clients do it. And what I love most is that it’s...
How to Transition Client Work to a Group Program from 1-to-1 to 1-to-Many
In this article, I’m diving into how to transition client work to a group program using examples of how consultants, coaches and other solo practitioners are shifting 1:1 to 1: many business model to create fast growth and scalability for the business. PREFER TO...
Leveraged Strategies to Avoid Entrepreneurial Burnout & Achieve Work Life Balance
In this article, I want to revisit the big picture for creating a leveraged business that helps you avoid entrepreneurial burnout and achieve work life balance. I’m all about helping you with mindset, marketing & money model breakthroughs and building up the...
How to Set Yourself Up for Effective Sales Calls
In business today, effective sales calls are the cornerstone of success, especially in the high-end market. People often focus on marketing and building an audience, when the bottleneck is actually more a matter of converting these audiences into great clients. How...
Reinventing Your Professional Identity in a Competitive Marketplace
As a consultant, coach or other service provider selling your expertise directly to the marketplace, your professional identity is core to your success in business and reinventing yourself can be tricky. Marketing a high-end programme or service is closely linked to...
Busting Myths about Successful Program Launches
I just wrapped up a soft launch for our Leveraged Business Accelerator programme and I have to say, it was tough!!! So let's talk about successful program launches, are they necessary and is there really a product launch formula. I’m basing this short episode on...
The 5R’s for Dealing with Change in Business or Personal Circumstances
This article is part 2 of how to leverage the success mindset when you’re growing your business where I'm looking at dealing with change in business and sharing five Rs that help build your business resilience. This article is part 2 of a two-part focus on how to...
3Ps that Empower Your Business Success Mindset
If you're needing to strengthen your business success mindset, this article will help you to develop empowering mental habits that build business resilience and a greater sense of freedom in our work. In the next two articles, I'm going to be looking at how we can...
The Art & Science of High Converting Sales Pages – a Recipe for Success
High converting sales pages connect with the target audience, clearly say what's on offer and move your ideal buyer towards action & purchase. It’s amazing how many business websites, landing pages or sales pages don't convert because they miss the key ingredients...
14 Criteria for Improving Small Business Performance
If you want a way of improving small business performance, there's a diagnostic tool I use in my consulting and coaching work with clients that help you examine each part of your business and how they're working holistically as a whole engine. In last week's article,...
How to Find Your Critical Levers to Improve Business Performance
There are 7 critical dimensions I use in my client work for improving business performance. It helps with both strategy for innovation and improvement projects. Whatever your business ambition – and whatever level of income, influence and impact that you want to get...
7 Dimensions of Success in a Service Business
If you're planning for success in a service business in 2021, there are 7 dimensions you can use to identify your best moves for business growth. These are part of a framework I created called ‘iSuccess’ which is the engine in my core programme - the Leveraged...
How Consultants Thrive in Tough Times – Reflections on 2020
Last month, as 2020 closed in, I ran a webinar on how consultants thrive in tough times based around my own reflections on what's been an incredibly tough year in business. I hope it inspires you with insights and ideas for how you too can leverage your story and...
Don’t Sell Consulting Services, Enrol Consulting Clients
There are undoubtedly 1001 ways to enrol consulting clients online and offline. But you can't just grab a "tactic" off the shelf and run with it if the rest of your business isn't aligned to the ideal clients you're looking to attract. Looking at the goal...
How to Start a Consulting Business: a 14-Week Success Plan
If you're looking to start a consulting business, how ready are you for high-end clients? How clear is your unique offer to the marketplace? What will you do to get the message out that you’re in business? How will things run? In this article, you'll learn how to set...
Next Level Business Growth: Solving Your Most Common Frustrations
Everyone needs a strategic reset from time to time in order to take things to the next level. Leveraging your expertise, time and skillset within the context of growing a consulting practice, we explore your personal drivers and ambitions, common frustrations in...
How to Use 90-Day Business Plans to Grow Your Business in 2021
As we're about to enter quarter #1 for the new year, I thought it timely to focus on the power of 90-day business plans to grow your business. In this article, I'm showing you five key areas where you can create leverage to strategise, simplify and streamline how your...
How to Leverage Your Time for Sustainable Business Growth
Growth is one of the most challenging, daunting and oftentimes mystifying aspects of building a business, and sustainable business growth even more so. People get stuck at the start, in the middle and when they want to scale up. PREFER TO LISTEN?[fusebox_track_player...
The 5 Ps of Sustainable Success in a Consulting Business
When the market gets tough and client work is drying up, do you push through or pivot to achieve success in a consulting business? As consultants we're hired to help others, but who helps us address the key strategic questions of our own industry? PREFER TO...
Creating Freedom in your Business – 3 Myths and a Secret
Creating freedom in your business and your life is the holy grail for busy professionals and entrepreneurs. We want money to free us to do the things that are important to us, so it makes sense to design your business to fit your life aspirations, which may or may not...
Create a Low-Stress Consulting Business Working in Your Genius Zone
If you’re looking to create a low-stress consulting business where you can still earn well yet work less, discovering Your Zone of Genius is a great way to home in on the area of your business that you love the most and is the most profitable. Are you ready to make a...
How to Win High End Clients with Low End Offers – a 5-Step Strategy
Learning how to win high end clients for your business is the holy grail for consulting professionals and it's not as mega difficult or time-consuming as you're led to believe. Online we're seeing increasing focus on tactics for gaining superstar visibility or making...
How to Succeed with a Digital Business
2020 is the Year of Serving Digitally, yet how to succeed with a digital business isn't straightforward. Many consulting professionals and other ‘service’ providers have not made the jump to delivering our expertise online. What's holding back change? What’s happened...
7 Ways to Work Smarter Not Harder in a Service Business
How to work smarter not harder in a service business is a question that comes up time and again by busy independent professional service providers. So I put together this quick overview. It covers a few fundamentals on implementing leveraged strategies so that you can...
3 Leveraged Income Models for Repurposing Your Active Income Client Work
If you’re looking for leveraged income models that turn your active income client work into saleable products, this article shows you three leveraged business models you can use to get going right away repurposing your expert material from what you’re already doing....
How to Link Marketing with Sales and Get More Clients
To link marketing with sales and get more clients you need two key things working for you – mutual attraction and relationship building. In marketing yourself and what you do, you’re essentially dating your potential new client in order to seal the deal. A key reason...
How to Build an Automated Sales Force
Ever wish you could hire a team of savvy sales people to stay in touch with your prospective clients and encourage them to take up your offer? When you put a few simple systems in place, you can create more leverage in your marketing so no need for expensive sales...
3 Strategies to Create Consistent Income in a Consulting Business
Building a successful consulting business where you create consistent income does not happen by luck. It's by design. Consistency - in client acquisition, workload & income - is by far the biggest struggle in our industry. This article outlines a business building...
How to Achieve a Better Life from Your Business
I believe at the end of the day everyone wants to achieve a better life. But the idea of “success” is highly individualised. This article touches on ways we might define and work towards achieving a better life from your business. If we focus only on business...
How to Create Leverage in a Service Business with Online Programmes
There’s much talk in the consulting & coaching industries about leverage and the need to create leverage in a service business in order to grow. This article outlines what we mean by leverage and how online programmes can help increase your reach and revenue....
3 Steps to Find Your Business Sweet Spot
People often talk about the sweet spot in sports, usually golf, that place where you just seem to get everything right, but what steps can you take to find your business sweet spot? In this article, we'll go through three steps that can help you uncover the sweet...
Increase Service Business Revenue as an Educational Entrepreneur
Many consultants and coaches get stuck at one income level and come to me asking how you can increase service business revenue when you only have so many days in any given month for delivering client work. Over the years, I heard so many times the expression “taking...
4 Ways Perfectionism in Business Impacts Success
Let’s face it, perfectionism in business is primarily ego driven. Your success depends largely on whether you have a great idea and can bring it to market effectively and profitably. You want to be successful, you feel you need everything to be perfect, right? No-one...
5 Good Habits for Implementing an Effective Marketing Strategy
Marketing is one of the biggest challenges small businesses face today and businesses seek advice all the time on implementing an effective marketing strategy to improve sales. Yet, they either take random action or take nothing forward, because they don’t know what...
3 Attributes You Can Shamelessly Borrow from Successful Business Brands
When we think about successful business brands, most often it's the logo that springs to mind - right? But what are the hidden attributes of successful business brands? This article explores three key attributes that you can shamelessly borrow for your own business...
How Online Marketing Design Helps You Get More Clients
An online marketing design is a powerful tool for consultants and coaches who want to learn how to get more clients. When you build a better understanding of your target audience, you can create highly proactive and effective messages that attract your ideal clients...
Maximising Business Revenue from Educational Products
Many consultants, coaches and small firms struggle to build a truly lucrative and fulfilling enterprise because they lack the right strategic plan and roadmap for maximising business revenue. This article discusses the limiting factors and offers a solution for...
Building a Digital Platform for Client Engagement
Building a digital platform can really help you to stand out in business. It's a way you can publish great content and add value to your marketplace. Even if you are in a competitive sector, you will have much higher lead generation and client engagement if you have a...
The Lucrative Game of Digital Entrepreneurship
Digital entrepreneurship is where a business embraces innovation and transformation by creating and using digital technologies. For the professional service provider, this is most likely to happen by using online tools to market their services and extend to...
6 Ways to Strengthen Business Brand Identity
How to strengthen business brand identity is a major dimension of my strategic marketing work with clients where we focus on aligning, targeting, positioning and branding. When I say brand identity, I mean how you present yourself to your target market. While one...
3 Key Tactics to Succeed with a Service Business
These days to succeed with a service business you need to go beyond what everyone else is doing. A consulting or coaching type service business is a great opportunity for people who have skills or expertise that provide something of value to people, but what makes you...
Evaluating Marketing Profitability in your Business
Evaluating your marketing profitability can be challenging - there seem so many unknowns and moving parts. One approach is performance management; used well it can strengthen your capacity for continuous improvement. The success of your marketing strategy hinges on...
Moving Forward on the Big Vision Business
My big vision business aim has always been to create a fully leveraged business and I've worked to align, brand and scale my business. But I've had more than my share of crazy plot twists along the way, suffered a professional identity crisis and ending up with a...
Accessing Digital Audiences in the Consulting Profession
Thinking about society today, technology has made our world both smaller and more interconnected, presenting opportunities and challenges personally, socially and professionally. What is an appropriate balance being online or off the radar and how does this influence...
4 Ways to Identify Your Ideal Client
If there’s one part of strategy that new and sometimes even established business owners miss, it’s this: failing to develop a clear and specific understanding of your target market and ideal client. Too often we think our service or product is “for everyone.” And...
Enrol More Clients with a Simple Laddering Conversation
If you're looking at how to enrol more clients, there’s a behavioural psychology technique called “laddering” that provides real value to your prospect and increases your consulting or coaching client conversions rate. You can use laddering as a natural part of your...
How to Gain Personal Awareness with Business Coaching
For anyone seeking to build a successful business, it's critical to learn how to gain personal awareness as well as clarity on your business idea. There are certain attributes and behaviours that are key to your success and the best success coaching should support you...
How to Start a Professional Services Business with the Right Footings
Having run my own successful consultancy for over 12 years - Belanda Consulting - I'm often approached by others who have aspirations to 'go it alone' and start a professional services business or grow an existing practice. This article offers some advice for avoiding...
How to Scale A Service Based Business
It's quite a quandary knowing how to scale a service based business that is based on trading time for money. Small businesses are the lifeblood of an economy and should be not only surviving but thriving. This article explores strategies can you use to scale a service...
The Road to Achieving Personal Success
For most entrepreneurs, achieving personal success is not about getting rich and having material possessions, it's about setting and achieving aims that matter to you. True success is about whether you met the goals you set for yourself - and whether those goals...
6 Key Success Factors in Business and for Life
Attending a private wealth group event, Wayne Allan Root gave us a life success coaching masterclass you can use as key success factors in business. Wayne shared a long list of amazing insights into daily habits of high achievers. Here's SIX that I've extracted as key...
