I had the expertise and I also had clients. Yet my best year as a consultant still paid less than my old job as a global head of wellness.
If you’ve reached the top of your game and can’t understand why consulting isn’t paying off, this episode is for you.
I set up my consultancy in 2008, sure I’d be a brilliant consultant. I’d worked with the best brands, opened the grandest spas and been promoted all the way to global head.
Oh boy, how wrong was I.
Twice, I was forced to crawl back into full-time employment: once for two years, the next for one. For five or six years, I even taught English on the side to make ends meet. I lived in feast and famine, exhausted with just one or two clients. And I signed clients I knew weren’t right for me, because I needed the money.
I did everything I was told. I chased hotel chains and openings, taught in hospitality schools, spoke at conferences, posted on LinkedIn and published an e-book. Then I looked outside the industry: masterminds, business coaches, every business book I could find. None of it was built for hospitality wellness. My business coaches’ advice? “Change your niche.”
I didn’t. I became obsessed with cracking the code instead. Today, I can have up to 15 clients on the go, and I’m less tired than when I had one or two.
In this episode, we cover three things:
1.- Why we were all guessing.Everyone who reached the top of the corporate ladder was chasing the same one or two big projects and the same teaching positions. We weren’t building businesses. We were copying each other.
2.- Why generic business advice doesn’t work for hospitality wellness.What happened when I took my problem outside the industry, and why “change your niche” was the wrong answer.
3.- The five questions that changed my business.Which path is right for me? What exactly do I sell, when I can do so much? How do I become the obvious choice? How do I sign clients, deliver and get referrals? And how do I build it all without draining my savings?
By the end of this episode, you’ll understand why being brilliant at your craft isn’t enough to make money as a consultant, and the five questions you need to answer to turn your expertise into a business.