CONVERSATION
STARTERS
Ideas for finding and converting strangers to extraordinary clients and partners
Conversations Starters is written and edited for B2B consultants and coaches who want to build more and better business relationships, achieve visible thought leadership roles and serve more of the clients you deserve.
There are no hacks or gaming of the system here.. If you want sound ideas and advice about how to look good, sound good and fill your sales pipeline, you’ve come to the right place. Welcome!
Why One-to-One Outreach Should Be Your Top Priority as a New Consultant
The longer you wait to talk to people, the longer it will take to get clients.
When you’re starting to build your client base, it’s easy to focus on things like your website and content marketing tactics. But those won’t matter if you’re not having conversations with the people who could hire you.
Solve the Right Problem: Get More Clients
Over the past two years, I’ve asked over 300 independent consultants what you find most challenging about growing your business, and the answer is almost always some form of “getting clients”.
Rethinking Value: How to Truly Engage Prospects in a Content-Saturated World
Every day, your prospects are bombarded with content. Emails, LinkedIn messages, blog articles—it’s a never-ending stream of information. Amid this deluge, the advice to "provide value" in every interaction has become a mantra.
Macro Versus Micro Thought Leaders: A Strategic Choice for B2B Consultants
When you're navigating the transition from successful corporate executive to independent consulting, understanding the difference between being a micro thought leader and a macro thought leader is more than just academic—it's strategic.
Why 100 Meaningful LinkedIn Connections Matter More Than 10,000 Followers
Look, I get it. The moment you see someone on LinkedIn with tens of thousands of followers, there's this little voice that whispers, "That’s success!"
LinkedIn versus sales navigator
Is LinkedIn free/premium good enough for consultants and coaches or is Sales Navigator worth the price?
How to Make Time for Outreach in B2B Consulting / Coaching
A consulting or coaching business is nothing without new clients, and I’ve found that intentional outreach is the fastest path to consistently getting conversations with ideal prospects.
Revolutionize Your B2B Prospecting: The Secret Power of Non-searchable Criteria
For B2B consultants, it’s a familiar drill - you input your ideal client parameters into LinkedIn or Sales Navigator, sift through profiles based on typical criteria like company size, location, industry, and title, and voilà, you have your prospect list.
Why Consultants Need to Embrace Prospecting
Did the word "prospecting" in the headline of this article fill you with dread? Did you experience an instant negative reaction?
A Step-By-Step Guide for Daily LinkedIn Outreach
13 years and hundreds of pipeline generation programs have shown me the power of a finely tuned LinkedIn prospecting effort. You can quickly build a steady flow of new clients with minimum time away from the work you love.
To do this, you’ll need a good LinkedIn Profile, list of desirable prospects, and a series of message frameworks. WIth these in hand, follow this simple 4-step process to get as many prospects calls as you want in less than an hour a day.
Unlocking Client Acquisition: Five Key Elements of Selling Expert Services
When business development programs don’t result in a full pipeline and enough new clients, too many people just do more. Send more connection invitations; more messages; more email; more calls.
5 Strategies To Get New Clients In An Economic Downturn
In times of economic downturn, businesses pull back on “nice-to-have” investments.
But they continue to buy the “must-haves”.
So how can consultants and coaches become “must-haves’?
How to choose a lucrative target market without fear of being wrong
Good morning!
There are a bunch of great reasons why every consultant needs to choose a target market, but the most important one is this:
How To Overcome the Fear of Writing on LinkedIn Without Investing in Therapy
If your palms get sweaty and your heart beats faster when you think about posting something on LinkedIn, you’re not alone. It affects nearly every non-digital native at first.
But not posting is a lousy option. Your profile will be lonely and you won’t meet as many of those perfect prospects as you could.
How To Stop Shiny Object Syndrome (SOS) Forever, Even If You’re Tried Before
This article is for consultants who, like me, get easily distracted, start new projects without thinking them through and sometimes leave good ideas unfinished.
In search of a magic answer, I read a dozen articles on the topic and they all pretty much say the same thing - with two exceptions that made a huge difference for me.
Framework For Getting Clients Online When You’re Starting Out
Launching your own B2B consulting business is exciting, but it can also be overwhelming, especially when it comes to finding new clients. The key is networking, and here’s a framework that’s proven successful for myself and other consultants.
3 Reasons Consultants Should Specialize
Over the years I’ve worked with many consultants who would rather stick pins in their eyes than focus on a specific service for a specific target audience.
But being ultra-specific makes growing your business faster and much more lucrative.
Do New Consultants Really Need Marketing? Here’s My Honest Answer.
You start a consulting business and suddenly you’ve got people trying to sell you branding services, websites, SEO, appointment bookings, PR and a bunch of other “must have” marketing things to make you successful.
A Consultant's Framework for Finding Your Ideal Prospects on LinkedIn
Conducting a LinkedIn prospect search seems straight forward on the surface, but try to take too many shortcuts and you can end up with a very dirty list.
Over the past 12 years, I've conducted thousands of ideal prospect searches, for myself and for clients
Why Consultants Should Never Lead With a Sales Message
Experts tell us that the average response rate for a sales message is less than 10%.
This means for every 100 messages you send, only 10 people will respond. It also means that 90 people who might be ideal clients, will ignore you.