Announcing my new book: The Consultants Path to Thought Leadership

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Announcing my new book: The Consultants Path to Thought Leadership

Being a thought leader is like cheating at business... everything is easier.

Entrepreneurs and consultants that I speak to are constantly struggling with sales and marketing.

For a moment, I would like you to consider that doing more of the same isn't going to help you.
I would like you to consider that there is a better path...

There is a path that will make any marketing you do perform better.
There is a path that will make any sales calls convert higher.
There is a path that will make all of your sales and marketing easier.

It is the path of becoming an industry thought leader…

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How to grow your audience and email list on Linkedin

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How to grow your audience and email list on Linkedin

1,258 new connections in 3 months
1,777 new connections in 4 months
2,852 new connections in 6 months

Those are real numbers from many of the campaigns we have run for our clients at Lead Cookie. 

Those are thousands of new connections that will now see their content in their newsfeed, and we have set up funnels to drive many of those new connections to email list subscriptions. 

But how do you do it? 
How do you actually grow your audience on Linkedin?
And how do you drive those people to sign up for your email list?

In this post, I will give you the exact frameworks and scripts we use to do this for our clients at Lead Cookie.

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Why you should steal your business ideas from others

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Why you should steal your business ideas from others

Since starting up Lead Cookie I have had multiple people tell me “This is such a brilliant idea for a business.”

I always laugh because I have to tell them, “I didn’t think up any of this. I literally stole the concepts from others.”

No joke, almost everything about Lead Cookie is stolen. 

But the truth is, that is why this business has succeeded while almost every business I have had before has failed. 

In this article, I am going to share what I mean by the “stolen ideas” and give you a framework on how you can steal effectively and ethically.

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How to test and validate your value proposition fast

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How to test and validate your value proposition fast

When I come across many agencies or consultants, they are stuck in this constant idea of “Do I niche down?” 

If you are asking yourself that question, then chances are the answer is Yes.

But that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. Finding an offer and value proposition that resonates with the market can be a challenge. 

Yet I have built a framework for building and testing value propositions at a rapid pace that I have used over and over for different clients and situations in the past.

In this article, I am going to share that framework with you and specific examples of value propositions that I have tested with this framework. I have both examples of failures and successes so you can see what worked and what didn’t.

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Why your marketing isn't working (Intro to the 3 M's)

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Why your marketing isn't working (Intro to the 3 M's)

It’s extremely common that agencies or consultants come to me sharing how their marketing simply isn’t working. They blame it on the tactics and seem to think that everyone who is teaching them tactics is a scam.

They try cold email… and fail.
They try Facebook ads… and fail.
They try content marketing… and fail.
They keep trying new things… and failing.

When your marketing is not producing results, there are 3 foundational elements that can be wrong with it. These are called the “Three M’s”.

In this article, I am going to share those Three M’s with you and give concrete examples of how to think about each one.

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The difference between inbound and outbound leads

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The difference between inbound and outbound leads

Many customers who come to Lead Cookie only have experience closing inbound leads and referrals. Most have never run a cold email campaign, cold calling or Linkedin outreach campaign. 

How you handle an inbound lead vs an outbound lead is different in two fundamental ways.

  • Trust
  • Buying cycle 

My goal with this article is to dive into those differences and help improve your closing rate from outbound leads. 

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The weekly sales habit essential to nurturing & closing more deals

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The weekly sales habit essential to nurturing & closing more deals

There is a trend that I see time and time again in nearly all of the agencies and consultants that I work with.

They often get leads in some form or another.

But, they struggle to nurture and close those leads…

The reason? 

They have no habit built to nurture and close those deals.

In this article, I am going to share with you a super simple weekly nurture habit that takes 30 minutes each week. This habit will help you nurture more customers through to a close.

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20 creative ideas on how to win consulting clients

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20 creative ideas on how to win consulting clients

Finding new clients and better clients is the ongoing challenge of almost any agency or consulting practice.  

In this post, I outline 20 different tactics that I have seen agencies and freelancers use to win new clients for their business. These tactics are all real-world examples that I have learned from hands-on experience or interviewing agency owners on my podcast.

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A simple trick to generate more leads on Linkedin

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A simple trick to generate more leads on Linkedin

About six months ago, an agency owner told me about this interesting Linkedin tactic that he used to win one of their best clients. 

At first, I was skeptical on if the approach would actually work. So before recommending it to any of my clients or readers, I decided to give it a shot myself. 

After 6 months, I can now cite closing more than $10,000 worth of consulting business from this passive tactic. And as I write this, I am in negotiations with one of my biggest clients to date which could take that closed number to $60k or more. 

All of that revenue came from a simple lead generation tactic on Linkedin.

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My system for streamlining my podcast workflow

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My system for streamlining my podcast workflow
“Starting a podcast sounds great, but it just seems like a ton of work.”

That is what nearly all of my clients say to me when I propose the idea of launching their own podcast. 

Yet when I bring up the idea of starting a podcast to others, they have a built in belief that creating and running a podcast is going to take at on of time and energy.

The truth is, that is not the case. 

In this post I share my entire workflow on streamlining my podcast process. 

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How to 10x the results from the next conference you attend

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How to 10x the results from the next conference you attend

When most people go to a conference or networking event, they tend to just show up and hope for the best.

Maybe they will bump into someone worthwhile at the bar.
Or perhaps one of the random people they approach to network with will be a potential customer.

Due to the nature of live events and the connections that can arise of meeting someone in person, these events still can often yield results when those lucky connections do arise.

But, relying on luck to bump into a worthwhile connection is not really the best approach.
Instead, you can 10x the results you get from your next conference or live event by planning ahead and doing outreach before the event.

In this post, I am going to share with you a simple 5 step process for maximizing the results you get from your next event.

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How to find almost anyone’s email address

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When you are doing outbound marketing, emails are essential.

Regardless of if you are running a cold email campaign, or following up on a direct mail piece, email addresses are essential to outreach.

In the course of my outbound marketing efforts, I have researched thousands of email addresses and tried out various tools for finding them.

In this post I have outlined the tools and methods I use to find email addresses. 

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The best sales advice I ever received

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The best sales advice I ever received

One of my sales mentors once shared a very simple piece of advice with me.

It’s so simple, it seems almost stupid when you first look at it. 

But yet, I can relate almost every gap of work in my history of consulting down to this simple concept. 

And time and time again, I find myself sharing this information with clients who seem to be struggling to keep their sales pipelines full. 

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Under promise, over deliver

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Under promise, over deliver

If there is one mistake that nearly all creative professionals are culprit of, it is this.

They make promises to clients, and then they don't deliver on them.

They tell a client "I will have that to you tomorrow."

Then tomorrow rolls around, and they break the promise.  They don't deliver. This broken promise upsets the client and it hurts the relationship. 

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The freelancer pitch framework - Stop overcomplicating what you do

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There is a recurring trend I see among nearly all creative professional who are considering starting their own business or are in the early phases. 

They overcomplicate what they do.

Learning to easily communicate what you do is one of the most important things every creative professional must learn.

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The price of creativity

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Creativity. There are few sellable goods or services that have such a wide range of pricing as creative work.

Why is it that one painting can cost millions of dollars, while another can't even be sold?

Why is that one designer can charge 10x what another designer charges for the exact same service?

My goal with this post is to share with you two examples of creative pricing in action, and then explain to you why they are priced the way they are.

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LEAN Marketing

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Several years ago Eric Ries published an popular business book called The Lean Startup. 

The core principle of the book is that you shouldn't invest large amounts of time, money and energy into a new business up front without knowing if it will work. 

That same principle is true for marketing your creative services. 

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How to make the jump to freelancing full time

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One of the biggest questions I regularly get through my site is from creatives who are wanting to quit their jobs and freelance full time.

They know they want to do it, but they are afraid to make the jump. 

In this post, I will share with you two strategies for making the jump and stories of freelancers who have done it. 

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