Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Made in the UK for HR consultants worldwide. You're listening to the HR Marketing Guys podcast.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Hello James here and welcome to this week's podcast episode. In this week's main event, I'm going to talk you through the proactive growth system for HR consultants. So this system is awesome and it is the journey you need to take to stop relying on referrals and take back control and start proactively growing your consultancy with intent.
And in today's thought of the week, I'm going to ask you if you're holding yourself back in any way.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: So let's jump straight in this week's main event.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: In today's podcast episode, I want to introduce you to a drum roll the proactive growth system for HR consultants. So this system is the journey you need to take to stop relying on referrals, take back control and start proactively growing your consultanc with intent. Okay, so there are currently five steps to this system. The first step is to prepare for growth.
So 95% of consultants I know have grown through word of mouth and referrals. In other words, they've grown reactively. And because of this they haven't had to think about or put the essential business foundations they need in place to start proactively growing. For me, this includes four things. The first is defining target company types and identifying the segment of those company types that have the right employee numbers to target.
So most consultants think that doing this is restrictive thing because they can work with anyone. But for me, this is a huge marketing accelerator. And how you grow your consultancy proactively is a completely different ballgame to how you've grown to date via referrals. So you 100% need this focus.
The second is a standout brand, powerful USP and clear messaging that resonates with the business owners you're wanting to target.
So lots of consultants. Consultants struggle to articulate and demonstrate the awesome value that they provide. And for any type of lead generation activities to work, your messaging has to be highly relevant, powerful and compelling. The third is packages that focus on recurring revenue. When I speak to consultants, they tell me that they really need more recurring revenue. But they haven't created packages to focus on this type of income, nor have they thought about entry level packages either. How you package up and sell HR is your business and it's an essential part of getting new clients on board. And finally, the fourth foundation most consultants are missing is growth infrastructure. They don't have a CRM both for marketing and client delivery. Everything is managed via their inbox and it's completely unscalable. So to summarize, these are four essential foundations you need in place to start proactively growing on consultancy. So they are 1 target company types and segments, 2 compelling brand messaging, 3. Packages that focus on recurring revenue, and 4 growth infrastructure so you can scale without headaches. So to help you put these foundations in place and actually build the business behind your consultancy, I created the Prepare to Grow mastermind. So we're three weeks into the current cohort and I'm loving delivering it. The conversations we're having have been amazing and the consultants are really enjoying the process so far, which is fabulous. I'm running another cohort in September, so please let me know if you're interested and we can have a chat to see if it's right for you. Okay, so that's prepared to growth. That's the first step. The next step is to generate leads. So this is how you feed your funnel. To do this, you'll need to set up some sort of outreach campaign. The easiest thing to do would be to use software to connect with business owners that you're wanting to target on LinkedIn in an automated way and send a couple of DMS to them. The idea is to get them to opt into your email marketing list by giving them some sort of lead magnet or to start a consultancy style conversation to get an initial call booked in the diary. To help you do this step, I've created a lead generation, setup, training and managed service. So there's a package just for LinkedIn and there's another package for LinkedIn and cold email outreach. I can set up the campaign for you and train you on it so you can manage it yourself going forward. Or we have a managed for you option so we can look after it for you and book some lovely appointments in the diary.
The next step of the proactive growth system is to nurture leads. So now that they're in your funnel, it could be tomorrow, next week, next month or next year that they're going to be ready to buy. And it's your job to be consistently seen and heard so when they are ready to buy, you'll be the first people they come to. To do this, you just need to put as much content as you can out there and offer as much value as you can during this time. To help you do this, we have the HR Marketing box and VA service. As a member of the HR Marketing box, we'll help you set up and optimize all of your marketing channels. Then in the HR Marketing box. There's loads of content you can use, including newsletters, education guides and social media content to help you improve your SEO. We're also providing a weekly personalized SEO blog and Google Business post. So this is bespoke content just for you to help you increase your SEO. And the monthly price is incredibly affordable. So now you're feeding your funnel and keeping in touch with everyone that's in there. It's now time for our fourth step and that's to convert your leads into happy clients. So this is where your entry level packages come into play. And remember we spoke about them in the Prepare to Grow step.
The idea is to reach out to your hottest leads and ask them if there's anything you can help with. You can do this in lots of different ways, like webinars, campaigns, and by just getting in contact and saying, hey, is it time your contracts were updated? We can help to help you get everything set up and to become a competent sales whiz. I'm starting another new mastermind in September. We're going to go through each step of the sales process and make sure you have everything in place to support you. So we're talking pre discovery questionnaires, how to conduct a discovery call, how to educate business owners on the world of hate are, how to position your services in the right way, how to send a proposal so you don't get ghosted, and how to follow up and get them to say yes, and everything else that goes into converting hot leads into happy clients. So again, let me know if this is something you'd like to work on. And then the final step of the proactive growth system is to prepare to exit.
Now what this means to you will be very different to another consultant. And while you may have loosely thought about your exit plan, the actual how is very hazy. And there are loads of things to talk about here. Your life vision, financial plan, how much your business is worth and what you need to retire on. Maybe you want to exit in the next year, five or ten. Maybe you just want to step back and let someone else run it for you, whether that's an md, member of your team or member of your family. Or maybe you want to build something big, sell it for loads of money and go live in the Caribbean. How I want to help you here is by helping you know firstly what your options are.
Then help you clarify your life vision and financial plan. Then we can help you create a business vision and plan that supports your personal goals, whatever they may be and whatever that looks like. There's loads of things that I'm planning here in the pipeline and I'm very excited to share them with you in due course.
Okay, so that brings us to the end of this week's podcast episode, all about the proactive growth system for HR consultants. Step one is prepare for growth. Step two is to generate leads. Step three is to nurture those leads. Step four is to convert the leads and then step five is to prepare to exit. And you can use these steps to manage your own proactive growth journey. If you would like to speak with me about proactively growing your consultancy, please get in touch. We'll jump on a relaxed discovery call and have a good old chat.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: James Thought of the Week in today's.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: Thought of the Week, I want to ask you if you're holding yourself back. I speak to lots of consultants who haven't quite found their voice and confidence yet when it comes to running their consultancy. While this is more true for startups or consultants in their first couple of years, I also know very established consultants who feel this way too. Maybe you're worried to post on LinkedIn because of what people might think. Maybe you're worried about emailing people more than once a month in case people think you're annoying. Or maybe you're worried about messaging people on LinkedIn out of fear of being too salesy. If we put your business hats on, I'm sure that you know you should be doing all of these things to build your consultancy, but something is holding you back. Whether that's imposter syndrome, self limiting beliefs, or fear of failure. One of my missions is to help you fulfill your potential, and sometimes that means pushing you to move outside of your comfort zone to take steps to grow your consultancy. So if you feel like you're holding yourself back in any way, I'm here to give you a loving handhold or a loving kick up the bum to whatever works best for you. I think confidence comes from knowing you're doing the right thing. And that's why I'm here to help you create a plan that works for you so that you can grow your consultancy happily and confidently.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: You've been listening to the HR Marketing Guys podcast, helping you to get new clients and create a life you love.
