Hey, it's Samantha Hartley of the Profitable Joyful Consulting podcast. This is Season six. We're talking about management consulting. And today I have a management consultant who is going to be talking about her experience as a consultant and her experience of working with me to grow her business. So this is a case study that I'm bringing you because I well, for three reasons. One, I love case studies as a marketing technique. I refer to them as “I'll have what she's having,” because a lot of times when you read a case study, you think, oh, I want to get those results, so I'm going to go to that person.

Secondly, you'll hear in her own words what Cheryl is doing as a consultant, how she's growing her business. And I think you're going to find both ideas and inspiration in what you hear. Like it's fun to hear about things from the inside of somebody else's business, isn't it? I think so. And third, I teach on this podcast Profitable, Joyful Consulting Principles, and you've heard it for me week after week. And I think it's sometimes fun to hear what someone who also has worked with me and who has studied these principles, how they would describe them and how they are choosing to use them and incorporate them in their business.

So I think concepts like signature systems and transformational engagements and rules, when you hear about those and how someone is actually applying them in their business, you'll think, oh, I'd heard about that, but I hadn't thought about doing things that way. So that is why I'm bringing Cheryl to you today. Also, what you're going to hear today is her talking about her original path for her consulting business versus where she is now. And I think that's important because when consultants come to me so often, I can tell that the reason they're struggling is the way they've set the business up. So the very first thing that I do in many cases is restructure the business model and change the way they're doing things, what they're selling and to whom. And that's what we did.

You'll also hear where Cheryl finds her clients. I think that's always interesting how she structures her work. No surprise, long term transformational engagements, the biggest tangible result of working with me, which was that she hit $750,000 in her first year or actually her second year as a consultant. Now, you won't see that and we won't see it in the audio because we don't see anything in audio. But you'll see a graphic in the YouTube version of this on the video, which is the testimonial that she gave me a few years back, saying she went from $150,000 to $750,000 in the first year that she worked with me. So that is the tangible result she refers to. But you'll also hear about some other even better results in her as she describes how she works.

I think the profitability is fun. Yay! it's fun to make a lot of money, but a lot of us know that the joy of a consulting business is the fulfillment. And what she talks about in here is being able to finally implement her full model. Cheryl is a thought leader in the human resources industry. She's known as the mother of Lean H.R. Her book is called Lean Human Resources: Redesigning Our Processes for a Culture of Continuous Improvement. It's innovative work, groundbreaking work, and it's also amazingly simple in many ways. The concepts that she's bringing forward are like basics and principles that simply aren't being implemented. So when organizations would be doing lean and making sure that the processes and machinery were doing it, they were leaving out people. And so she's been a huge part of incorporating people into those processes in ways that make the most of their contribution.

So I think being able to implement her full model is the thing that's incredibly important to her, realizing the things that she wrote about in her book and her bringing those experiences that she'd had at corporate and actually bringing those to some of the most important companies in America today.

Lastly, you'll hear her three takeaways of her experience of working with me. And again, these ideas and insights that she has, I think are going to be very inspiring for you. So this is Cheryl Jekiel who is the CEO of the Lean Leadership Center. I will link to her LinkedIn, her website, her book and other places where you can learn more about her and her really amazing work in the world. She's an incredible person, which is why I've had the best time working with her for the past, I guess going on five years. We're still working on her growing her business strategically. So I look forward to your takeaways. You're welcome to get in touch with me about what you heard and what stood out to you in this episode. And if you'd like to get results like what Cheryl has gotten, then please do get in touch with me. This is Cheryl Jekiel. Enjoy.

If I hadn't worked with Samantha, I was going, I was really on the road to doing those kinds of things myself. It would not have occurred to me to hire a firm to do my blogs, my social media, handle the website. I wouldn't have thought that would have been one of the first, most important investments. And in addition there were many other things I worked with Samantha on, including my selling and my overall business strategy, but I was really set to go it alone. And I thought the whole thing was, I was actually going to eke out a fairly modest living just trying to replicate my salary and so that I was focused on how then I would not need to spend any money so I could do it all myself.

So I always tell people the part of working with Samantha that made the biggest difference, and it was a big one, was the day she said to me, one, that she had cut me off of any marketing support until I closed some accounts. And I remember this feeling like she doesn't know that I can't sell, and I'm not going to be able to do this. But I also remember feeling like it's time to quit putting something in the way. Everything was always like, we'll do it next week or we'll do it some other time. We'll do it some other way. And by the way, in the first month I closed four deals, but I didn't do it alone. Samantha was really at my side with helping me figure out who to talk to. Some of it is when I was ready, she helped me be ready so that when I was ready, the people opened the conversations with me. And as we had those conversations, we talked them through. And so I was able to close those contracts and actually a couple of them are still clients. Meaning, four years later I'm still working with them. And so that really came from us working together.

I found them really in my network, there were people that knew me, but one of the things that I've picked up from Samantha, it's not necessarily, you know, I've always been told it's a numbers game. So like, did you contact 100 people or 200 people? I actually sometimes just really went more, just kept out here. I would drop a note here and there. One of the people that has ended up to be a significant client for me is someone I used to work with. I dropped her a note through LinkedIn, just said, thinking of you, hope you're doing well. It's been a while. She wrote back, said she's been tracking my career the last several years and really wants me to work with her as she became CEO of a new company and from there. And I always think of that as, wonder if I wouldn't have just sent that quick little LinkedIn note? Yes, it's my relationship, but it's keeping up with my network and sending out notes so that I'm always active with people who do know me.

So far at the end of five years, I've had a successful, every year has been successful. I would have to say that I learned some lessons about how, what it's going to take to scale it further, but I always feel quite fortunate. And even in this year of COVID, a lot of people in consulting ended up kind of flat-footed. The other thing I learned from Samantha that I would have never done myself, is when she was working with me, put me on a retainer from the very beginning, which I've come to realize is a common style. From there, I modeled my business the same way, so I never designed it to be project oriented. And so in COVID a lot of people who were purely project oriented didn't have their business lined up. The other thing that's been great all these years, usually the business of the upcoming year is all situated at the end of the current year. So I've really never had to worry about where the next piece of business is coming. It's been quite stable for me and, in working with her, I created all long-term ongoing contracts with people. So I've really liked the way the business is structured.

So my original was two things. My original model was probably a day rate, because the only other people I know in consulting work by the day. And I remember one of them saying like, you know, she earns 3,000 a day and I was like, man, if I ever really make it out, I'll have $3,000 days in a month's time. So I might have five of them or six of them. I was assuming I would have to have different clients to get that day rate. And so that's how I was looking at it. The other thing is I noticed what I was originally thinking is I took my salary as an executive and I was always using that framework, that that's what the client would be thinking: That "here, I got this executive for a day, so I certainly would pay somewhat of a premium, but not much more." And she really taught me to dump all that out. That's not how clients think. They're not wondering whether they've hired an executive for the day. It was much more about the value I create. And so that made it so that my income potential expanded to what it really is instead of somehow some connection to what I ever made when I was an employee executive.

My biggest tangible outcome was certainly probably my level of income from the beginning. I mean, I think in the first year I earned three times what I ever made as an executive. So that helped me see, I remember also the first retainer that I signed with Samantha was my first largest expense as a self-employed person. And I had to think to myself, I either believed that I could create this business or I didn't. And so it was a leap of faith and it certainly ended up to prove out to be true that only by investing in that way, was I able to create the business in the framework in my mind. So I guess my biggest takeaway was partly a mindset that created me to be in no way, really the type of consultant I originally thought I would be.

So now I have long-term clients and I'm able to implement my full model. And I'm coming up with these clients are really worth closer to a million dollars to me. Now that may take four years before I get it, but that doesn't mean it's not a million dollars in the end. So I've been successful at, one, implementing signature systems, which was another concept Samantha taught me early on, was getting clear. She also said that my signature systems would become clearer and clearer as I did my work, which was quite true. And now as I'm implementing them, I'm realizing the value of each client is much greater. And as I build the team that can support those clients I could have tremendous growth with company, clients that I work with over several years and will continue to be able to generate that kind of business.

The best part of that is I love working with them over a longer term. I think it makes sense to them that there is no such thing as a 6 or 12 month solution to the kinds of things. We overhaul how their workforces are operating, how their leaders lead and how the rest of their companies operate the rest of the employees, the skills they use and how they operate. That's at least a three to five-year process. And so it's actually ended up to be a real win-win and it's really the work I was born to do. And now I'm able to provide that full value in the market.

So I have three, my three takeaways in working with Samantha from the last few years have been 1, make sure that I know how to sell and I use the word sell kind of, it's as a catch all phrase, meaning I know how to construct a client engagement, in a productive way. And so there's a very clear process to that. And so that's been one of my major takeaways. In fact, I teach it to other people all the time. Number 2 not to do things myself. When I look at other people running companies and they're trying to do their own marketing or their own social media, or even their own anything in fields they don't know anything about, one of my biggest takeaways has been focusing on doing the things I know how to do and make sure that I hire the rest done.

And then that way I'm running a business that there's more than enough revenue to cover that. And I'm not spending time like learning to do things that I really even have no interest in. And the 3rd one is as I said, it's a bit what makes Samantha her. She'd always reminded me at times that I needed to just let things come to me. Like whatever would be happening is really reflecting where I'm at. If I want more business, it'll come in. So even the direct outreach, it's not this kind of just, you know, get out the list, call everyone, make the calls, leave messages. It's more interacting with my network in the ways that feel good to me. So the other takeaways always work from what inspires me, make connections with others in a way that inspires me. It's not all about tasks. It's "let" - let the business come my direction.

So in hindsight, I would say don't be so slow to get even more help in. If what you're bringing to market has value, there'll be enough resource to cover the team that it takes to deliberate rather than keep trying to do it myself. And the other thing that Samantha talks about a lot And I would say in hindsight, I've learned I should, could have done better and would want to still do better, is creating rules for myself. So I'll have an outline, make sure whether you don't start work till nine, or you don't work on Saturdays. Or one of my rules got to be don’t work with two clients in the same day, cause I would be literally on break with one client trying to work with another. And I have found over time, those rules really matter. And it doesn't mean I would never violate them, but it helps me lay out what a good week looks like, what a good day looks like. And that's really up to me.