The Corporate Hangover

Smart Gets Paid Podcast Transcript
Episode 18

Intro (00:02):
You're listening to the Smart Gets Paid podcast with me, Leah Neaderthal. I help women land higher paying clients in their B2B consulting and coaching 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 a thousand 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 a sales approach that feels comfortable, makes you feel confident, and it works consistently. And now I teach women how to land higher paying clients in their B2B consulting and coaching businesses. So whether your client contracts are $2,000 or $200,000, 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 imagined. Then you're in the right place. Let's do it together. Welcome to Smart Gets Paid.

Leah (00:54):
Hey, there, Leah here and welcome to this episode of the Smart Gets Paid podcast. So from 2011 to 2014, I lived in San Francisco, in The Mission for those of you who live there. San Francisco is amazing, there's so much to do there. The food is amazing, the weather, being close to nature like I knew that San Francisco is amazing on a rational level. My brain knows that the city is awesome, but for several years after I lived there, I actually had zero interest in going back, zero. And actually every time I thought about San Francisco, I just felt this knot in the pit of my stomach. And that's because all right, getting super real here. When I was living there, I was in the wrong relationship. We were just not meant to be. And after four years, including the time in San Francisco, we ended our engagement, which was the best thing for both of us.

Leah (01:52):
And so even a couple of years later, even though I had, by that time met the love of my life and we were engaged and I was so happy. When I thought about the city of San Francisco, it still didn't feel great. Like I didn't want to go back. And it actually wasn't until my then fiance, now wife, and I went back to attend a fundraiser that I finally went back to the city and we had a great weekend. We saw old friends, we walked in nearly the entire city and we spent time outside and, you know, ate all the things. And that weekend we joked that we kind of saged the city, you know, like removed the bad Juju from the city. And now I don't dread going back. I don't have those same feelings and I'm actually really excited for it. And I thought back to that time, to those lingering feelings of dread when I was listening to the call that you're going to listen in on today, it's with a woman who's a health and wellness consultant.

Leah (02:51):
And before she started her current business, she had a long career in the corporate world and she actually wants to start selling her services to companies, but something is holding her back. And it's what I call the corporate hangover. Listen in to this call to learn more and you're going to hear how we've tackled it for her. And along the way, we're also going to touch on how to start attracting the right clients on LinkedIn. How to think about structuring your services for companies and more. This is a one-on-one call from my Pack Your Pipeline Program. And I want to send a special thank you to this student for allowing me to share this call with you. So listen in and at the end, I'll come back and share a strategy that you can apply to your business. This episode is sponsored by the One-Hour LinkedIn Profile Power-Up, my free guide to help you turn your LinkedIn profile into a powerful tool, to get your ideal clients finding you on LinkedIn. You can get your copy at smartgetspaid.com/profile.

Leah (03:46):
So when you're running a B2B consulting coaching or service-based business, your clients are on LinkedIn, but the challenge is how do you actually get them to find you? Well, it starts with your LinkedIn profile, but most business owners, LinkedIn profiles just sort of sit there, not doing anything for their business. Fortunately, there are seven simple steps that you can take to turn your profile into a powerful tool, to get you in front of your ideal clients on LinkedIn and get them coming to you for your expertise. And they only take about an hour. So grab your copy of the One-Hour at LinkedIn Profile Power-Up today and start turning your LinkedIn profile into a powerful tool to get your ideal clients coming to you using LinkedIn. Get yours today at smartgetspaid.com/profile.

Leah (04:32):
So welcome to your Pack Your Pipeline 1:1 coaching call. Today's call is really to check in on your progress to make sure you have what you need with the system moving forward. And then also talk about sort of where this fits with the rest of your business development. So I guess the first question is how's it going?

Guest (04:53):
It's going really well. So it's been, I mean, I've written it previously, but it's been a really great program. I love the heart thorough and how practical it's been. It's really had an impact in terms of the profile views, I used to get about 97 views a month and I've got 250 in the last email that I received from LinkedIn. My posts, I used to have, you know, a hundred views, 120, and now they are somewhere between 600 and a half thousand. So it's been really incredible. I think it's one of the most impactful programs that I've done. And I think there are still pieces of the program that I haven't completely optimized. So, you know, there's more scope. It's been great. Thank you have a really great program.

Leah (05:39):
I'm so glad to hear that. So what do you think you could do today that can make it even more impactful, like you said, sort of optimizing some other parts of the program.

Guest (05:50):
You know, beyond the actual LinkedIn piece, it's just generating more clients and then taking these clients through a pipeline. So I think that's really it. And for me, it's a bit trickier. I work in the well-being space. I'm an emotional resilience coach and I've been working with B2C. My background is in the corporate world. I was there for 20 years. And to start with that, I purposefully resisted going there because I'd had enough of that world. In considering recently, whether that would be a good move, you know, particularly because it's exhausting looking for B2C clients. And it's a small-scale piece often, or maybe that's my experience as in, you know, the sort of the value of the packages aren't going to be the same as what you will be charging in the corporate world, very different game. But I'm not really at a point where I'm clear in my mind as to going out and offering a package to corporates, which would probably be around wellbeing, mental health, emotional wellbeing, resilience, those kinds of things.

Guest (06:58):
So I'm pulled and pushed. So on the one hand, I think of all the times, this is probably a good time to do that, given what's happening in the world and people needing more emotional resilience. On the other hand, I think there's still some resistance within me and I haven't spent enough time thinking about what that would look like. And so that's kind of where I am, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on, you know, I'm not quite sure what shape it would take that, corporate or B2B piece. So that's where I'm at.

Leah (07:29):
Well, I think that you're right. That what other time can you remember in the past couple of years where people have made this much help for their own emotional wellbeing. But I think you can't sort of overlook that, I dunno the residual feelings you have about it, you know, if you feel like you're sort of haven't worked through yet all of your feelings around coming out of corporate, then I can certainly understand why you wouldn't want to rush back into corporate. You know, so I just want to sort of hold space for that. And I dunno, what comes up for you when I say that?

Guest (08:04):
Well, I hadn't thought about it, which is ironic given what I do, but it's fun.

Guest (08:10):
Yeah. I think to be honest with you, what comes up is a sense of fear and I'm just thinking, you know, it's a harsh world, the judgment and people, particularly because of what I do. So maybe that's my excuse, but if I were to sell marketing products, or doing a piece of strategy, it's one thing, but really coming and talking about emotional wellbeing in the corporate environment is something that's a bit different. And then you need to have people who are open-minded and willing to go there. And so there's a part of me that is hesitant around that because the last thing that I would want working with a corporate client is for them to stuff, a bunch of people in a room to get delivered a presentation that they have zero interest in to just to tick a box on we've kind of done the mental health thing we can move on now. So I think fear is probably the most prominent vestigial feeling is as you say, not just the harshness.

Leah (09:18):
Tell me about some of the experiences you had before you went out on your own.

Guest (09:22):
In the corporate world do you mean? Well, I had lots because I was there for a very long time, but yeah. And they were great experiences, I love the kind of, I'm quite a rational person. I love the whole strategy piece, I like numbers. And so that was really quite fulfilling for me. However, what I really struggled with was the politics, the inauthenticity, just the harshness of it, I suppose. And you know, sometimes the lack of trust and it is what it is, and it's almost inevitable.

Leah (09:57):
Right. And having experienced that, you know, as so many of us have, I can certainly understand that you'd want to play in a safer space, right? B2C being a little bit safer. People come to you, they have a need, you're not dealing with all these political things or whatever. And so, you know, one of the things to think about is while I think that politics is going to be in every company, but to some degree in the same way that you're trying to signal the people you really want to work with on the B2C side, you can start to do that for the B2B clients as well. One of my assigned students who was like, I just don't want to work with any assholes. And it was like, great. That became part of her ideal client, you know? And it's okay to say that. So when you're thinking about the B2B clients that you want to work with, you don't have to work with the ones that are like super corporate, you know, tens of thousands of people, very bureaucratic, and those might not even be your client anyway. You know what I'm saying?

Guest (11:00):
I think my hair is going all up on my arms, that is not the client I want to be working with.

Leah (11:05):
Exactly, exactly. But if you could talk through the type of company or the type of team, you know, talk to me about what would make that a great client for you.

Guest (11:14):
Yeah, I think I've thought about it a little bit before and I landed on, you know, I think it's smaller companies, probably more startup-y with a, you know, sort of a more fluid and open-minded culture. I thought that B Corps. Smaller B corps would be great for me because they have, you know, they're already in a framework of having a positive impact across and the environment, as well as the employee’s mental health and the suppliers they work with, etc. There's much in the philosophy already, somewhere along the lines. And so for me, I think it would have to be these smaller companies that care about the impact generally and genuinely care about the wellbeing of the employees. And I think that's more likely to be smaller well-funded startups or younger companies. Let's say maybe a few hundred people, not the thousands, right. People opt in to come and it's offered to them, but it isn't really a forced experience to have, or it might be that it's not even one too many, but it's more coming into delivering individual coaching to people who are in need of it, which is another model that I've seen adopted by some organizations, the coach will, whether it's scalable or not. That's another question, but offering a coach, a resident coach almost who's there for X hours and can offer support and coaching to people who are interested.

Leah (12:48):
Yeah. I think that you know, staying on the profile of the, I guess the ethos of a company that you would want to work with, you can start to signal that in, in what you're doing. You know, right now you're doing a lot of stuff on LinkedIn. And if you wanted to make the shift, you can start to talk about not just emotional wellbeing, which is, you know, what your focus is, but really start to apply that to companies. So it becomes something like, instead of saying, you know, when you're really stressed out, blah, blah, blah, right, that as the opener, you could start to say, it's frustrating when you see your team so stressed out, but you don't know how to blah, blah, blah. You have the tools in terms of how do you do this on, you know, on LinkedIn, but now you just start to turn the marketing on or turn the messaging on rather to the type of people that you want to reach out to.

Leah (13:42):
And, you know, in terms of using our strategy, think about you've mentioned the B Corp, right? And I think that's a really good place to start because it is a finite universe of companies. What if you just connected with all of the C-suite leaders at all of the B Corps. And that becomes the people that set, it comes to people who you want to get in front of and want to see, right. And so when you start posting about what it's like to really focus on your team's wellbeing, and those are the people that are seeing you and reading that about your team's wellbeing. Well, now you have a marketing channel that really gets your message in front of the right people. It's just a different way of looking at the tools that you already have. Does that make sense?

Guest (14:27):
Yes, it does. Yes. No, that's helpful. Thank you. Yeah. Start to have them see my content and then tweak so that it speaks to them rather than necessarily always to individuals in the way that they've been doing it. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Leah (14:45):
And then it becomes your other question of what is it that I'm selling them and how do I sell it to them? Right. Because even after these people see your content, they build that trust factor, they know that their team has the problem. They know that you're the one to solve the problem. Then that's when the sales process actually starts, right. So how do you conduct these sales conversations? How do you moving forward? And then, you know, of course, what are you offering and where I would start is with your understanding of the problem that teens are facing, the digitals and those teams are facing, leaders are facing, what would it take to solve the problem? Let's just sort of spitball. How would you want to solve the problem?

Guest (15:27):
Well, I think really it's maybe two pieces. And so one is helping leaders to cope with the teams having mental health issues or emotional issues that is sort of top-down and then bottom-up is helping people within those teams to be more emotionally resilient. And probably, yeah, I suppose that the top-down approaches, you know, these leaders being mindful, compassionate leaders and having some tools to be able to support the team members, whereas the bottom- up is really helping those people to develop the emotional resilience. Yeah, I guess I'm more drawn to the bottom-up approach, but that's maybe because it's more in my comfort zone right now. So yeah.

Leah (16:15):
So I like the way you're thinking about it. I mean, I think that this is a little bit where, you know, you really bring the expertise here. In what way does this problem take shape? And I think that you know, whether it's top-down or bottom-up or even the set of delivery mechanisms is a workshop and follow-on coaching. What I would think about is making a list of almost every way that this could be delivered. You know, every asset, every tool you have in your toolbox, and then you can put together a program and it doesn't have to be like a hard and fast program, you know, because I think a lot of this is going to be formed by the conversations and what people share with you. But going through the exercise of saying, well, how could I deliver this?

Leah (17:00):
Let's just sketch out a couple of different programs. It gives you enough to be able to sort of think on the fly. And now, instead of saying, you know, somebody says, we need this problem solved and whatever. And instead of saying, okay, fine, I'm going to go around and think about it and then put together your proposal and all of that. You have already done the thinking, you know. So you can say, all right, well, here are two ways we can move forward. What do you think about these? And you just give something to start with and get feedback on, not like a sense that they should sort of design your own program. You know, I'm really not a fan of this menu-based approach. You know you tell me of all the things you just pick from the menu, right. I think it's, here's a program that I've put together. How do you think this will resonate with your team? Does that make sense?

Guest (17:45):
Yes, it does. Yeah. Why do you think this, I'm interested? Because it's often I've heard the contrary quite a lot that the menu approaches and isn't suitable or isn't great. I'm curious about your thoughts.

Leah (18:00):
Well, for a couple of reasons, the first is clients often don't know how to solve their own problems. And so imagine if you went to the doctor and you said, I have this pain in my knee and it won't go away and let me tell you all about it. Here's where it hurts and all that stuff. And the doctor says, okay, great. Well, we could either do this test or this other test or this surgery or this program, which one do you want? You’re like, you’re the doctor. You tell me what to do, you know? So it's really up to us to recommend the right approach and we can recommend multiple programs, but at least we put the program together, you know, and this is the other point. You are the expert at solving your client's problems. So if somebody comes up to you or somebody reaches out and starts this process, and you're like, great, well, how do you want to solve the problem that doesn't put you in the expert role that puts you in the executer role?

Guest (18:54):
Yeah. Yeah. That's such a great point.

Leah (18:57):
That's why, you know, with some flexibility, with a little bit of ability to be open and adjust the scope, for example, if the budget's not right, or what have you, or if they identify a different problem, you know, it's a different set of problems and you know the tools to do it. At least you are fluent enough to sort of do it on the fly. Yeah.

Guest (19:18):
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Now, I think that's great just to spend some time doing that, just thinking about what it could look like. And I think even just to give myself a sense for what it could look like and having something tangible to then make a decision rather than kind of having floating ideas in my head that I haven't really tangibly put down and explored previously. Yeah. That would be really helpful.

Leah (19:46):
Yeah. Well, I want to caution you, don't think about it forever, right. Because what I've also seen is that people spend so much time thinking and writing and, you know, putting things together and the thinking about it isn't the part that's going to get you quiet. So think about it and sketch it out and put it in a Google doc or whatever, just enough so that, you know, maybe you're not fluent, but you know, the nouns and verbs, you can put some sentences together.

Guest (20:18):
Yeah. It's funny. Actually, you said that because my post to LinkedIn was almost going to be about polishing diamonds, which is feedback I've received when I was in the corporate world, you know, stop polishing diamonds. So yes, I'm quite fluent at overthinking.

Leah (20:34):
You're talking to a recovering perfectionist, so I really understand that. But the truth is that getting to a level of just enough confidence to be able to speak well about it, you know, have some points and that gives you a chance to not just sort of come a little bit prepared, but really be able to listen and really hear what your clients are saying and be able to speak more confidently, speak on the fly and respond in the moment instead of maybe losing an opportunity.

Guest (21:05):
Yeah. That makes sense. Definitely. Yeah. And I do like what you said about, you know, being the expert rather than the executor. And I think having done consulting work in the corporate world, the moment you become an executor, you've lost it. You've lost your credibility. You've lost it. You become a sort of secondary employee and that's not a good place to be.

Leah (21:26):
You're so right.

Guest (21:27):
So that's great advice. Thank you.

Leah (21:29):
Yeah. You're welcome. Well, so how are you feeling now about the prospect at least going and offering your services to corporate?

Guest (21:38):
I think I can see it as more of a possibility now than I did before. To be honest, it's been on my mind for months and it was really insightful. The question you asked me about the residual feelings because I think that's what's in the way. And I do think knowing myself, which is also why the Pack Your Pipeline System worked well for me, when you've got a tangible action plan, when you've got to, you know, like something solid behind you that alleviates that sense of doubt or fear. So that's creating something, listing all the things that it could be creating a couple of things and having that to start with would be helpful. I think so that's given me more confidence.

Leah (22:22):
All right, so there is a lot to unpack here about putting programs together, being in the expert role instead of the executor role. But I want to just talk a little bit more about the corporate hangover. It's something that a lot of us experience because we spend the first part of our careers working for someone else, and we see some things and we experienced some things. And not all of that gives us warm fuzzy feelings about going back into the corporate world as a business owner. But I want to offer up just a few thoughts as you think about working with companies as a consultant or a coach or any type of service provider. Two quick thoughts, first, now you aren't an employee, you run your own business. And more than that, you're in charge of your business. And because you're in charge, you can choose the clients you take on.

Leah (23:11):
Clients are not assigned to you. It's like what I mentioned in the call, you just heard my client who said she didn't want to work with assholes anymore. And I support that a thousand percent. So you can attract, and you can work with clients who work the way you work, who value you and who you'll actually love working with. You can choose those clients. And second, and this actually might be even more important. You aren’t an employee, so you don't have to be treated like an employee. You don't have to automatically say yes or do whatever's put on your plate or jump. When they say how high and you don't have to put up with the BS that happens in some companies, you can teach clients how to treat you. I mentioned that in the episode, just before this one, because remember you are a grown-ass woman running your own business. But here's the thing, like I said, in the last episode, teaching your clients how to treat you starts well before you start working with them, it starts in the sales process because you can't, for example, talk about your work in tactical terms and feel weird selling, which of course always comes through in some way.

Leah (24:20):
And you can't undercharge for your work and you can't say yes to every request and then wonder why your clients see you as an executor and not a strategic partner. So if you have a corporate hangover, the way to get over it is to remember who you are. You are a business owner and you are in charge of you. So decide who you want to help and what you won't put up with anymore and teach your clients how to treat you.

Leah (24:48):
Hey, thanks for hanging out with me. If you liked this episode, take a second and click the subscribe button wherever you're listening to your podcasts and you'll be notified as soon as I release a new episode. And if you're listening on Apple podcasts I’d so appreciate it if you took two seconds and left a rating or review, this tells Apple podcasts hey, there's good stuff in here, and they'll recommend it to other listeners who might benefit from these lessons for their business. So please take a second and add a rating or review, thanks! So that's it for now. I'll see you next time on the Smart Gets Paid podcast. Learn more about Smart Gets Paid programs and coaching at smartgetspaid.com.