The Big Question
Questions I get from consultants. And my answers.
One of the most asked questions during my work with consultants in the past year is about the topic of building an email list as a consultant. Let me tell you my very own experience.
Trust, trust, trust,...
Have a look at ‘The Inconvenient Number’ section below in this newsletter. Source Global Research found that the global pandemic has accelerated the focus on trust in professional services. They found that 87% of professional service clients feel that trust has become a more important part of their purchasing decisions due to COVID. That’s an amazing evolution!
When we lose a pitch, we tend to look at the competition. That’s OK. We should be fully aware of our competitors and why they win pitches. However, competition in consulting is not always what you think. What I’ve learned, more often than we assume, it’s about the buyer who’s not willing to change to another consultant. Why? Because of a too low trust level and/or lack of transformative case studies from other clients in similar shoes. It’s about you. It's not (always) about the competition. And the Source Global research is confirming this. Think about that.
Your ultimate trust weapon: building an email list
Authority-led business development in consulting is about building visibility and growing the trust in your expertise in your market(s). To help me with that, my email list of my target audience has always been my secret trust weapon for almost a decade (and still is today). I didn’t even use email software during my people analytics years as my target audience was only approx. 100 CHRO’s in the Benelux. I was connected with 95% of them via a simple outlook email list.
These were the 3 thought leadership principles I used for myself all those years:
● Learnings: what did I learn in the project trenches about the biggest client pains that others could learn from?
● Value for others: which experiences did I acquire that could be valuable for others?
● Client stories: what were the unique client stories (with successes and struggles) that could inspire others to pursue better outcomes?
Here are just a few examples of what I shared via email:
● I wrote a monthly column in 2 HR magazines in Belgium and the Netherlands. My network received a copy of the text (2 weeks after publication);
● I presented a lot at international conferences, I always negotiated participation discounts from the organizers and emailed it to my network, including a friendly invitation to join the conference and a short introduction of my presentation topic;
● I presented case studies at international conferences. I’ve always emailed my network a summary after the conference (you would be surprised how much positive reaction I always received)
● At the end of new projects (with new learnings), I always informed my network about my most recent learnings from yet another project (confidential, no company name, of course)
● Each month I gathered interesting articles from around the world (relevant to my audience, of course), and I emailed them to my network (also shared via social media)
● I was interviewed many times for several media. I always forwarded those interviews to my network (most interviews were in print magazines, I emailed PDF’s)
● And many more small things in between, such as events, new research, new experts in the team, etc.
Here’s the thing: through my (low profile) email activity, my target audience in the BeNeLux (with very few exceptions) knew me quite well, learned to understand what I was doing as a consultant, and received lots of ‘trust stuff’ about the expertise of our consulting business. HR people from those days occasionally still talk to me about the educational emails they received from me.
My takeaways after a decade of sending emails to my target audience as a consultant
● building an active email list of your target audience is crucial to long term success in consulting;
● the ROI of Authority-led thought leadership is (amongst other things) in the growth of your email list (with loyal subscribers/followers) to start sharing your expertise;
● your network and relationships as a consultant don’t mean anything if you haven’t ‘systemized’ it into an email list;
● growing visibility in your market and building trust in your expertise is barely possible without building an email list and nurturing your audience with high-value learnings, experiences, content,...;
● nurturing your prospects and clients with YOUR latest learnings (as an expert) is an indispensable part of the marketing and sales mix in consulting (and incredibly underutilized).
Who said that thought leadership in consulting was difficult? See Robert Buday’s book below: ‘Competing on Thought Leadership’.
A great quote from author Jonathan Stark: “All you have to do is be meaningfully different to your ideal buyers. If you can do that, they’ll pay a premium. Figure out how you are different, and lean into it hard”. (He’s a big fan of building an email list)
What are you waiting for if you are not yet structurally sharing your expertise via email to your target audience?
