Don’t let the economy kill your business – do this instead

Speaker 1 0:02

One of our largest clients, they were very clear, like the political atmosphere, the tariffs, the again, like the current state of business right now is causing us to tighten our budget and our output and expenses. And we're a direct impact of that.

Leah Neaderthal 0:26

Welcome to the smart gets paid podcast with me. Leah Neaderthal, I help women land higher paying clients in their independent consulting businesses, but I've never been a salesperson. My background is in corporate marketing, and when I started my first consulting business, I learned pretty quickly that it's about 1000 times harder to sell your own stuff than it is to sell someone else's. So I taught myself how to do it, and I created the sales approach that I now share with my clients so they can feel more comfortable in the sales process, get more of the right clients and get paid way more for every client contract. So whether your client contracts are $5,000 $100,000 or more. If you want to work with more of the clients you love, do more of the work you love, and get paid more than you ever thought you could, then you're in the right place. Let's do it together. Thanks for tuning in, and don't forget to rate, review and share. Hey there, Leah here, and thanks for joining me in this episode. I hope that wherever you are, wherever you're listening to this, I hope you're having a great week, making some good progress in your business and taking some time for you. So let's just call it like it is. The economy right now is kind of a shit show. It's very much in flux between tariffs and budget cuts and hiring freezes and mass firings, or whatever the headlines are this week. I mean, whatever the headlines are just from this morning, the impact is real, and for many of us, clients are getting nervous. Budgets are getting tighter, and for a lot of women, consultants, work that used to come easily is suddenly a lot harder to get and to get a yes for and maybe you're feeling it too. I mean, if you're feeling this way and you're seeing this with your clients, then you are not alone. Because, you know, maybe proposals that felt like a sure thing are suddenly, you know, on hold, or a client who last month was all in maybe now they're saying, you know, we'd love to, but not right now, or maybe you're just getting a lot more silence than usual. That's exactly what's happening to the women you're about to hear from in this episode. They are co founders of a consulting business. Their experience, they're great at what they do, and their clients are large companies, and within the past few weeks, they lost three proposals that should have been a slam dunk, and the reason is because the way the economy is impacting their clients, which, again, are large companies. So the question they brought to me in our call was, what now? What do we do when clients are pulling back? You know, how do you keep winning work when maybe some decision makers are hesitant or budgets are shrinking, but really when the usual ways of getting business aren't working like they used to, and so that's what we're going to dive into today. You're going to listen in on my coaching session with these clients, where we're going to talk through exactly how to handle this moment, how to meet clients where they are, how to shift your approach, and how to make sure that your business doesn't just survive, but actually grows and continues to grow through all of this. So I want to send a huge thank you to my clients for allowing me to share this conversation with you. Take a listen, and at the end, I'll come back and share a lesson that you can apply to your business. Let's get into it. This is our first strategy call, and the purpose of this call is to talk about what might be on your plate or on your mind as you're coming into the program. So how can we make this a really valuable time for you?

Speaker 1 4:00

I mean, I think kind of going through everything, I feel like I've absorbed so much information from, like the onboarding and starting the building blocks and going through the value based selling component of it on top of, like trying to, you know, like you said, quiet the noise of the fear that is coming from the outside world. And you know, just this week, we've had three proposals that I would have thought were an automatic like given would never have thought twice, but they were postponed because of the current state of affairs, and so now that really I tend to spiral very quickly when things like that happen, because I just don't think about things like that happening. So I think finding a way. To balance pushing forward without that constant fear of like, oh my god, what is actually happening, and the fact that it's affecting our business, I think is super important to kind of talk out. I mean, I know we're doing the right thing, but it's still super scary, because our cushion and our, you know, we have these things in place, and we're financially, you know, set we have current projects, but we also were banking on certain things happening and now, and they were very transparent, so just one of our largest clients, and they were very clear, like the political atmosphere, the tariffs, the again, like the current state of business right Now is causing us to tighten our budget and our output and expenses and weird direct impact of that, and like, all of our eggs are in one basket right now, which is super scary. So yeah, if I don't talk about it, it's just gonna sit in the back of my mind, and I'm gonna do all of these things to stay positive, but it is gnawing at me nightly,

Speaker 2 6:25

anything that you'd like to add. So I agree with all that. I think I've been trying to find my little silver threads of positivity in thinking. I actually, I think this was a really good week for us to do the value based pricing and everything, because it helped me to kind of look at the services that we do and think about that global climate right now. And one of the things that happens in our industry is that gets cut because there is no financial gain to there's no, you know, you're not making money. There's no revenue for businesses. So gets cut. And then, of course, they go through the vicious cycle of, then, you know, things fall apart because there's no ongoing performance improvement and everything. So kind of, what I've been thinking a lot about is, how can we use this? So this sounds so horrible, but I mean, the pandemic really helped us with our business. And now I'm kind of like, well, how can this disaster help us with our business? And so I'm trying to find ways that we can do that. One of the things that we do really well is come in and help businesses figure out how to so we'll do, like, a needs based analysis to figure out where the issues happening. And so what I was thinking, when I was doing the the rest of the value based pricing this morning, I was just thinking that it would be a good idea to kind of target, like, really start thinking about what, you know, maybe it's an Etsy you know, what it could be. And so one of the things I was thinking is that, you know, as budgets start to crunch, and departments are told no, they need to prove their ROI so they don't lose their jobs. And so what I could offer, or we could offer, is to come in and help them set up a strategic plan to improve performance or maintain performance without so basically leveraging those resources in a different way that they may not be used to doing it. So I've just been kind of like brainstorming, and I'm just trying to like, that's how I don't it's like, because otherwise I will fall down that hole and I'm like, but how can we take this and spin it so that it's going to work for us. And then I started really thinking, you know, this actually may be something good. So, I mean, I'd love thoughts on that, and, you know, and then there's because, to me, that's something that's tangible, and I feel like I can understand the process. I've also well, went over the CRM with me yesterday, because I just went in and thinking in that context of what who would, who would benefit from this? So I've gone back to Leah, our older folks and people that work in kind of that industry where I know their budgets get cut, but they still have to turn a profit, or their companies lose their business with these right businesses. Yeah.

Leah Neaderthal 9:19

So it's really interesting that I've been taking notes, you know, as you've seen, I think that it's like you're in like, feelings mode and you're in problem solving mode. And I think we have to do both, right? So that, you know, because if, if you just go to the problem solving and intellectualizing or whatever, then it's like, but wait a minute, you're not like, honoring. We can't just do this because this is still so bad. But if you stay in sort of doom and gloom mode, then you also can't get out of that, right? And so anyway, it's very how you guys are thinking about this. Both of you are. We're doing, how you process, right? So let's, let's talk about both of them, if it's all right. Let's talk about sort of the mindset stuff, and then we'll talk about the, how do we sort of problem solve this? Because I think that a lot of things you said were sort of spot on, right? Like, on the one hand, companies are impacted by this. And you know, of course, you can't be all like Pollyanna, like it's going to be fine, or whatever, but because it, you know, you're, you're really seeing some of these impacts. But the other thing is, like, what else are you going to do besides move forward? You know, like, there's really nothing. There's literally nothing else to do besides move forward in some way, right? Because, like, where this sort of falls down is like, and I've had people come into this program even at different times, and they're like, the economy, the economy, I'm not getting clients because of the economy, and it becomes this, like, self fulfilling prophecy. They stop doing business development, or they do it sort of half ass, or they don't really believe that it's going to work and it becomes real. They don't get the clients, you know, but it becomes this self fulfilling prophecy. And so what else are you I mean, I like, sort of rhetorical question, but not like, what else would you do?

Speaker 1 11:17

Yeah, option, right, so that's why, and so I kind of went through that I did all of my homework and kind of prep super early, because that's my golden hour. But I do think that it's fair and valid to be like we do. We do have to try and make these things tangible. So I started really thinking about, what is our value after, you know, 17 plus years in this industry, and it really is, I was able. I was like, let me try and see if I can put it into a program. So I played with it and played with it. And it's so funny, because it's very similar to what came up with a little bit of a different spin, but I have a title and everything, right?

Leah Neaderthal 12:09

So I like, it's so funny that you sort of both came to a similar place, because it's true that it's true that, like these companies, who are, you know, holding on to cash, or, you know, having repercussions because of global chit show we're in, they still have goals, and at the level that you're working in, they still have shareholders, you know, so like, yes, they may not be able to spend the money that they were thinking of spending, but they do have to hit their marks. So then it becomes, what do we offer them that meets them where they are now, which is exactly where you're, where you're thinking, right? I was talking with a woman who helps a certain type of product go international. That's her business. And we were talking like around the election. This is like before, maybe before the election, like end of the summer, and she was like, global economy, blah, blah, blah, because her stuff is so international, and nobody's spending money, right? Which, again, is another self fulfilling prophecy. People are spending money. You guys, everybody in the pandemic discovered that everyone in the pandemic was like, nobody's spending money. But guess what? Do you know? How many consulting businesses started in the pandemic and took off right away because people were actually spending money. So she's like, people aren't spending money and so, so I'm like, Well, you have to meet them where they are. So what are they thinking about now? Well, they're don't know what's going to happen with the election. So they don't know how to plan for that. It's like, well, that because that we talked that through, and that actually became an offer similar to what you're describing, and it was very lightweight. You know, doesn't sound a 10 week engagement or a year long program, or whatever it's like, as it related to, like a shoulder tap, or how you would talk about it. It's like, you know, I'm talking to a lot of companies who are actually making two plans right now, one, if he wins, and one, if she wins, right? And so if that's something on your mind, or your team's mind or whatever, like, let's that's something I can help with, like, let's chat, right? And so again, it's like, create something for the moment. It's not that you guys are changing your services entirely, it's that you're putting them in a wrapper that needs this moment, right? Another thing to maybe think about is this is just a thought you you know your companies and sort of the you know your clients and the infrastructure inside of them. But like, I wonder if, instead of something that spans multiple divisions and, you know, it loops people in and whatnot, I wonder if you need to think about this offer as something that one person can say yes to. Do you know what I mean, without trying to gain alignment from a lot of people? Does that make sense? Even though maybe they're, you know, in the best of all worlds, right? Like you, Yes, you. You, this would be a big project, and you would loop in operations and HR and IT, and, you know, whoever needs to be involved in this, because, yes, in the best of all worlds, that is how we would solve the problem, the best. But I wonder if there's a there's a version of this that it's like, if you can sign off for X amount of money, I we will give you something for X amount of money. That makes sense. It

Speaker 1 15:26

does, you know. And one of the things that I kept circling back to thinking, to your point about one, it can't just be us, but on a bigger scale, thinking from our clients perspective, is, you know, the organizational change that's potentially going to take place, right? So if you're not spending more, what you're doing isn't going to change, right? You still have to perform, you have to provide, you have to do all of those things. So it's funny, we immediately, I know I do. I'm like, my target person is, you know, most likely maybe it's really not, maybe it's operational, and they bring us in for a completely different perspective, because operations is always going to have the ability to say yes, because they are the money makers more so than so. Getting the yes from someone in operations is an easier Yes, and is totally singular, right? Yeah,

Leah Neaderthal 16:36

exactly. I mean thinking about like, is your ideal client in this moment? Is it other profit centers? Is it sales teams? Is it, you know, product management, or, like, manufacturing or whatever, like, what are the profit centers? It's so interesting. A lot of people come to me and they're like, I want to my client is HR, you know, for my service, or, like, leadership development, or whatever, like, my client is HR, and I'm like, it is not HR, right? And like, HR on that you will exactly, you will, you will go broke waiting for HR to say yes. They can't say yes, but they can usually say No, right? And so anyway, I think that you're, you know, thinking about profit centers is the right move. So it's like, number one, what you know, you have to sort of move forward regardless. Number two, you have to create something that meets this moment, and then you have to get it in front of more people, you know, like, we just have to start marketing your business, which is, you know, one thing that I think that you'd have some fits and starts on that, and you would maybe started some things or whatever, but now it's about getting more visibility, just more eyeballs. And that's not to say that, like, do you get seen by 500 people on, you know, if you're the ideal client on LinkedIn, then you're gonna get 500 emails the next day, right? But, like, we have to have more at bats and give more people a chance to see us, you know. And I think also we have to think about, you know, I think the best clients are what I call just the unsexy companies, you know, you talked about, like, and some other companies that, like you and I could name everyone wants to work with, like Google or, you know, Airbnb or whatever it is, right? Like, names of companies. But the truth is that, like, the company that makes the ball bearings that are in the wheels of my chair probably made a billion dollars last year. Yeah, and I will never know their name. I will never, I will never know their name, right? What was that

Speaker 1 18:46

like? Fastenal, they make fasteners for it is a billion dollar company. No one knows who they are, you know. So I agree

Leah Neaderthal 18:56

totally well. So I think that the mindset is like, let's go get seen by the and the unsexy companies, you know. Okay, so that's another thing. And then it's this idea. I don't know if you listened to the podcast episode I did about the pep talk that every client, that every consultant needs right now. It was, it came out in January, and it basically said, it's like the things I would tell you if we were having drinks? Yeah,

Speaker 2 19:21

I think so it was, it was calming,

Leah Neaderthal 19:26

good. Um, well, one of the things I talk about in that episode, and you know, just in the program, is like, if you are being chased by a bear, so if you, if you're walking through the woods, you know, like hiking through the woods or whatever, and you're, you know, trying to step here and step there. You're sort of like, you don't want to twist your ankle. You're looking out for the roots or whatever. And you are sort of gingerly walking through the woods, right? But if you are being chased by a bear, then you are going to fucking run away from a bear, right? You're not going to be like, Should I step here or. Or is there a route or whatever, right, as it relates, I think, I think of sort of marketing your business and doing business development in the same way a lot of times, even when, you know, women are like, Okay, I'm gonna, like, do it, you know, and but it's becomes like, can I say this thing in this post, or, you know, can I write this in an email or whatever it's like, you need to be chased by a bear. You are being if you if your pipeline is drying up, if the things that you thought would say yes aren't saying yes, if you are feeling this anxiety, you do not need to walk gingerly through the woods. You need to be chased by a bear, right? It's sort of tricking yourself into being, like, just do the things, yeah, you know. And so you're in a really good spot right now because you're you're in building blocks. You're like, learning, okay, let's learn the things we need to learn so we don't spin our wheels doing stuff, you know, for the wrong target, or with the wrong offer, or whatever, and then after that, you know, let's get into the marketing and like pretend to be we're being chased by a bear. That makes sense.

Speaker 2 21:13

That's kind of how I approach this week, because I feel like that was you get so caught up, and it's that analysis paralysis of, where do I even start? And so I just made a choice that I was going to just forge through. And even though I don't want to sit back down in my chair, or I don't want to do this, it's like, I went and got my hair done yesterday, and I got back and I was like, it was 330 so it was, you know, I'm like, But I sat down and I did another hour and a half of work and just put in the time. And it's like, it's kind of like I have that, my husband and I have this weird thing where you could walk past the same like something, like a wrapper that's on the floor, like, 50 times and not pick it up and go, Oh, I'll pick that up the next time. And so I've gotten into the mindset set of if I see it, I need to do it. And so I'm trying to, like, apply that in my business, like professional world as well, to where it's like, I'm not going to just go, Oh, I'll get to that later. I'm going to commit to myself and to our business that we're just going to get it done. We're just going to go and we're going to forge ahead and we're going to create the draft of whatever it is, because that's where I'm going to hear about this, some of the stuff that we're working on. And I'm just like, maybe we should do this, or we should do that. And it's like, we just need to pick one. We just need to go right out there. And we both talked about that earlier in the week too. So and it's, yeah, I think having that focus and having a lot of things to get done is helping me keep the scary world at bay and just being able to focus in. And I've also put parameters on myself to not look at, like, certain sites and things during the day, because I feel like then it just traps my ADHD brain into, like, going down a spiral I don't want to go into. So, yeah, but yeah, no, I love, I love that. I love that. Like,

Leah Neaderthal 23:04

it's, it's funny. And, you know, if you your whole like rapper thing, if you take the New York City Subway, there's this campaign that says, if you see something, say something right? Yeah. And I always think about that in our house, you know, I'm always like, if you see something, do something right? And so it's, it's very much, you know, you know. So, okay, the way that you can apply this right now is, I do not want you to skip ahead, but I do want you to make decisions and move on. So like this, this new value based, scope and price offer right of like, what you can or service of what you can do you plus a Google Doc with a bunch of bullets, that is the service. It doesn't need to be pretty doesn't need to be on your website. It doesn't mean you know what I'm saying. I think that definitely, like, throw it into the feedback forum and let, let us finesse it, you know, and then be like, Okay, great. It's at 85% Let's go next, you know, next on the on the list. I mean, I think that, like, you know, it doesn't do anybody any I probably sound like my mother in law, but it's like, it doesn't do anybody any good to just let you know the fear drive the business, right? It's like, you know, and you can't take yourself out of the race either, you

Speaker 1 24:29

know, we can. We cannot fail. We won't, uh, neither one of us,

Speaker 2 24:33

we don't let ourselves. It's not a choice.

Leah Neaderthal 24:39

Wow. So again, I just want to thank my clients for allowing me to share this honest and vulnerable conversation with you, because it's a really important one. So just to sort of bring it into focus here, these are the steps I shared with them. We have to meet our clients where they are in this moment, and we do that in a few ways, one by. Positioning your work to solve the problems they're facing in this moment and crafting a service that allows them to solve those problems. Two, by understanding how your clients make decisions and getting creative about giving them something they can say yes to. And three, by thinking creatively about who might benefit from your work, because your ideal client in this moment may be a little different than the people that you've worked with or people that have found you in the past and four we have to get in front of more clients who could use what you do. You need to get out of your inner circle of people who know you or people who have worked with you in the past, and get a lot more visibility. And the women that you heard me talk to today, I mean, they're actually in a great position to do this, because we have tools to do these exact things in the academy. Because what we're talking about hinges on three core strategies that our clients are learning to meet clients in the moment, we have the Etsy offer. Etsy stands for easy to say, yes, where we put together a service and position our offering to solve a need that our clients have right now, to help clients get the Work Sold in. We use strategies called navigating the jungle to actually help our clients understand and navigate their own organization, to actually get approval and get the Work Sold in, and to get in front of more potential clients and get outside of your network, we have the pack your pipeline LinkedIn strategy to help you use LinkedIn to get in front of the right potential clients and bring them into your orbit without sending pitch messages or cold outreach. And you know, of course, it goes without saying, if you'd like to work with us to implement these strategies, check out the academy at smart kids paid.com/academy and this actually isn't the first time I've talked about this in my business or even on this podcast. You know, getting clients in difficult times. I talked a lot about how to get consulting clients in uncertain times back during the pandemic. And those sessions, I actually turned them into episodes on this podcast. They're episodes 54 and 55 about how to secure consulting clients in a recession. So if you haven't listened to those episodes yet, check those out. It's episode 54 and 55 but I really think the most important thing to come out of this conversation isn't really a specific strategy at all. It's a mindset and a decision that you and really, every woman consultant has to make right now, because here's the thing, what's going on in the economy this is happening. We don't know what shape it's going to take or how long it'll go on, and it's easy to read the headlines. And, you know, think to yourself, I'm not going to be able to get clients. Or clients aren't going to say yes, or clients have no money, or whatever, and you can, you know, wring your hands about it and let that become a self fulfilling prophecy. Or you can decide that you're going to keep going despite the economy, and you're going to be proactive and do something. And you know, this is where the rubber really meets the road for a lot of women business owners, because a lot of women consultants spend a lot of time, years even, just sort of going along in their business and not being proactive about it. They're not driving they're sort of taking what comes their way, the referrals that come in here and there, but essentially being very reactive, not proactive. And you know, when the economy is good, you can get by like that. You can have a business that just sort of like plods along just by reacting to the things that happen to come into your inbox, or the introductions you happen to get, or the referrals that just sort of swim right into your net. That's when things are good. But when things are not great, you have to get proactive. And when I say proactive, I don't mean cold emailing. You know, it's funny a lot of women I talk to That's right, where their mind goes. But I want to just be clear, proactive does not mean cold outreach. Proactive does mean being intentional. It means positioning yourself as a painkiller, not a vitamin. It means nurturing relationships with intention. It means showing up where your clients are, whether that's on LinkedIn or events or you know, wherever your clients are. It means doing that and sharing valuable insights by publishing, by posting content, hosting workshops or sharing your insights on LinkedIn. It means being consistent. It means, like we talked about earlier, focusing on the services that meet your clients in this moment. It means actually asking for the business, and it means not relying on word of mouth by building a repeatable sales process. Being proactive means not just waiting for clients to come to you. It's about consistently engaging, positioning yourself as indispensable, and maintaining steady momentum, even when the economy is shaky. And the difference between the consulting businesses. That are going to stick around and continue to grow through this, and the ones where, you know, you just sort of stall out and have to decide to go back and get a job, the difference is who decides to be proactive and who stays reactive. I actually wanted to share with you how I'm approaching this in my business this year, just to give you a glimpse of how I'm practicing what I preach, and just to show you a little bit behind the scenes, I guess so as background. A couple months ago, I went to a dinner hosted by another coach I admire, and at the dinner, he led us through an exercise that was around sort of based in his framework. We had done some pre work beforehand to identify, you know, what are your goals for this year? And I set some pretty big goals for my business this year. And just to clarify, this, dinner was after the inauguration and after the first few weeks of this, you know, political shit show. And so while we were at dinner, he went through, okay, you know, what is your goal? How will it feel, or how will it look to, you know, reach your goals, etc, right? And part of his framework is about this concept of persistence. And so after he shared, you know what he means by persistence, and you know some examples, he asked us to grab our worksheet, and he posed this question to us. He said, what would be required of you in the area of persistence for that goal, your goal, to become real. And the first thing I thought, I swear it was like a voice from beyond, right voice from somewhere else. And I heard it so clearly. It said, be relentless. What's required of you is to be relentless in pursuit of your goals. And I thought to myself, you know, I was like, I've always sort of trusted that I would reach my goals. I've been consistent in showing up for my business, which is now in its 10th year. You know, I just had my 10 year anniversary recently, and I've always, like, believed that I would reach my goals, and, you know, like, visualize them and felt gratitude for reaching them, and all this sort of personal development work I've done, but I wouldn't say that I've been relentless in pursuit of my goals. And so this year, I decided, like, we will be relentless in pursuit of our goals. And when I came back to work on Monday, I shared that with my team, and they were really excited. And we've made some shifts to allow us, and really to enable us, to be relentless. And so, you know, hashtag relentless 2025 is like our watch word for this year. And maybe it's not just this year, you know, maybe this is sort of a sea change for my business and my team and how we're going to work moving forward. You know, we'll see. And you know what the best part about this is, it feels empowering, not scary. It feels empowering to have this as our watch word and to really guide how we work. And so that's how we're approaching the business right now, being relentless in pursuit of our goals. So that's the choice in front of you. Do you let the economy dictate your business, or do you decide that no matter what's happening out there, you're in control of what happens in here? Will you reluctantly pursue your goals, or will you be relentless in pursuing your goals. Because here's the truth, the women who stay in the game, who keep showing up, who decide to be proactive, those are the ones who don't just survive uncertain times. They grow through them, both in their business and they grow in their own development as business owners and leaders. So if you take one thing from this conversation. Let it be this. You have more power than you think. Clients still need your work. There's still business to be won, and the consultants who step up, get visible and lean into their value will be the ones who come out stronger on the other side, the question is, Which one will you be? I can't wait to see what you do next. All right, see you next time .

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