Utilizing Social Media for Consulting

"Why Buy the Cow When You Can Get the Milk for Free?" is a horrible mindset... when it comes to building your business Too many worry that sharing too much insight upfront will eliminate clients’ need to hire them. But, in reality, holding back does more harm than good. Here’s why giving value freely brings clients to you. Building Trust, Not Dependence Clients pay for more than knowledge; they want unique insights and tailored guidance. Sharing valuable information builds trust, not dependence. By freely offering actionable insights, you establish yourself as a knowledgeable and generous expert—qualities clients remember. Action Step: Share part of your process, like a checklist or framework that solves a specific problem. This builds initial trust and allows you to filter in for your ideal client. 1) Information Isn’t Implementation Clients don’t just want information—they want your expertise in applying it to their unique challenges. They seek transformation. Offering valuable information lets clients experience your approach while highlighting their missing personalized support. -> Action Step: Host a webinar on a common issue, then share case studies that showcase your hands-on impact. 2) Free Value Creates Bridges to Paid Services When clients experience your expertise they are more likely to seek your deeper guidance. Giving valuable insights for free builds familiarity with your methods, making the transition to paid services natural. -> Action Step: End each piece of content with a call to action—invite clients to connect or share a success story. 3) “Free” Expands Your Reach and Credibility Freely sharing expertise increases your visibility. As your content circulates, it introduces you to new clients. This isn’t lost revenue—it’s marketing. -> Action Step: Encourage sharing in your posts to boost reach and credibility. 4) The More You Give, the Stronger Your Brand “Why buy the cow” suggests that giving devalues your work. The opposite is true in consulting: the more you share, the more clients see you as a go-to expert. People remember the problem-solvers. -> Action Step: Consistently publish content that answers questions and offers solutions. In Consulting, Giving is Selling By freely offering value, you aren’t “giving away the milk”—you’re showing potential clients why you’re the right partner. Clients aren’t buying your information; they’re investing in your ability to deliver tailored solutions and guide them through challenges. Generosity is your best brand-building tool.

Referrals are the gold standard of business growth, but asking for them directly can sometimes feel awkward. The good news? If you nurture your LinkedIn network the right way, referrals will come naturally – without you having to ask. Here’s how to make it happen: 1️⃣ Be top of mind through consistent content People refer professionals they remember. If you only show up on LinkedIn when you need something, you’re missing opportunities. Post valuable insights, client success stories, and behind-the-scenes looks at your work to stay visible and credible. 💡 Example: Share a post about how you helped a client overcome a challenge. This subtly signals what you do – so when someone in your network knows someone who needs your help, they think of you. 2️⃣ Engage with your network authentically Your best referrals won’t just come from clients – they’ll come from peers, former colleagues, and industry connections. But for that to happen, you need to engage, comment, and support their content too. 📌 Try this: Spend 10 minutes daily interacting with posts from people in your industry. Meaningful engagement strengthens relationships, making people more likely to think of you when a referral opportunity comes up. 3️⃣ Showcase your expertise in your profile Your LinkedIn profile should do the heavy lifting for you. A clear, optimized headline and “About” section should communicate who you help and how. ✅ Example: Instead of: “Founder at XYZ Consulting”, try: "I help small business owners streamline operations and increase revenue with customized growth strategies.” A well-crafted profile makes it easy for people to refer you because they instantly understand what you do. 4️⃣ Make giving referrals a habit Want to receive more referrals? Start giving them. When you introduce people in your network, they’ll naturally think of you when the time comes. 💡 Pro tip: If you see two people in your network who could benefit from knowing each other, introduce them in a quick message. Your generosity will often come back to you in unexpected ways. 5️⃣ Subtly signal that you’re open to referrals You don’t have to ask for referrals outright, but you can plant the idea. Mention client success stories in posts, thank people for referrals publicly, or share a case study that shows the kind of work you do. 📌 Example Post: "I’m incredibly grateful for a recent referral from my network that led to a fantastic collaboration. It’s amazing how connections on LinkedIn turn into real opportunities!" This reminds your audience that referrals happen – and that you welcome them. Your next big opportunity might already be in your network. By staying visible, engaging genuinely, and positioning yourself as the go-to expert, referrals will start coming your way – without you having to ask. #SocialSelling #LinkedInNetworking #Referrals #PersonalBranding

If I only had 1 hr per week to create LinkedIn content for my business. Here’s what I would focus on: (for consultants, coaches & service-based businesses ⬇️) Firstly I’d take the pressure off & only plan to post 3x a week. I’d spend Mondays & Fridays moving through other high ROI LinkedIn activities. But for content, I’d post T, W, Th, in the following way: 1. Value post (1x a week) I recommend forgetting the phrase “but that’s what people pay me for”. Knowing my ideal decision maker inside & out I’d work on: Giving value Being helpful Sharing a framework Revealing insider tips Teaching something that can be applied right away. Ex: How to conduct an actually effective performance review, how to audit your current SEO strategy, 3 x to avoid when y. When someone is considering investing in you I promise they’re scrolling through your recent content to make sure you know your stuff. LinkedIn content is the new “blog” section on your website. 2. Personal post (1x a week with professional photo) Value content is important but all facts all the time will bore your audience. Let your audience develop a human connection with you by sharing your story. Pick an event or experience and turn it into a micro-story that shows your character. Ex: Moment you took a risk (started your biz, moved to a new place). Made it through a hard time and how. When you stepped up to the right thing. The kind of leadership you’ve experience and how you show up for your team now. Mom life. Founder life. Burned out and set boundaries. Priorities changed post pandemic. Before/after. Rose above criticism. Found your resiliency. Your personal content will likely outperform your value content every week (we’re interested in each other!). Do both. 3. Client results / transformation after someone hires you You need social proof to back up your knowledge & personality. How is someone’s life going to change after they invest in you? What is the burning problem you’re going to solve? Ex: Before/after story post of a paid client. How a client beat the odds. Unique strategy you implemented for them and the results. An unexpected extra ROI. How your unique knowledge solved their specific problem. What specifically they were stuck with and where they’re at now. Screen shots are great. The more #’s and data the better. Do this consistently and you’ll become an obvious choice. Now, if I wanted to grow faster, I’d up my posting to 5x a week & add in: - An extra value post - Additional personal post or an - Audience growth ‘wide net’ piece of content to expand my reach further Implement this for 30 days. Use month 1 data to inform month 2’s posts and create more of what worked. Month 3 start making direct sales & promotions to your audience. Lots here so any questions drop in the comments. Hope that helps!

Consultants and agency owners, are you terrified of putting your best content out there? You might think it'll scare off potential clients, but I'm here to tell you why that fear is holding you back. Let's dive into the counterintuitive world of content marketing for service professionals. First things first, sharing your expertise doesn't make you redundant - it makes you indispensable. The more value you provide upfront, the more clients will want to work with you directly. Here's my game plan for content domination: 👉 Turn every client interaction into content 👉 Shoot a 3-5 minute video for each new situation 👉 Repost your best stuff every 90 days 👉 Focus on edutainment, not just education Start by documenting every client interaction. Each question or challenge is a potential piece of content that demonstrates your expertise and solves real problems. Next, get comfortable on camera. Video content is what creates actual customers, not fancy graphics. Don't worry about perfect production - just start shooting and improve as you go. Now, here's the kicker - embrace repetition. Identify your top 10 consulting problems and create 10 pieces of content for each. That's 100 pieces of content right there. Repost your best performing stuff every 90 days to maximize reach. People don't buy from faceless agencies - they buy from people. By consistently putting out valuable content, you're building trust and showcasing your personality. This is especially crucial for founder-led businesses. So, consultants and agency owners, are you ready to overcome your content fears? Start sharing your expertise today, and watch your influence (and client list) grow. The only way to fail is by not starting at all. Action dictates the strategy.

B2B tech companies are addicted to getting you to subscribe to their corporate echo chamber newsletter graveyard, where they dump their latest self-love notes. It's a cesspool of "Look at us!" and "We're pleased to announce..." drivel that suffocates originality and murders interest. Each link, each event recap and each funding announcement is another shovel of dirt on the grave of what could have been engaging content. UNSUBSCRIBE What if, instead of serving up the same old reheated corporate leftovers, your content could slap your audience awake? Ego-stroking company updates are out. 1. The pain point deep dive: Start by mining the deepest anxieties, challenges and questions your audience faces. Use forums, social media, customer feedback and even direct interviews to uncover the raw nerve you're going to press. 2. The unconventional wisdom: Challenge the status quo of your industry. If everyone's zigging, you zag. This could mean debunking widely held beliefs, proposing counterintuitive strategies or sharing insights that only insiders know but don't talk about. Be the mythbuster of your domain. 3. The narrative hook: Every piece of content should tell a story, and every story needs a hook that grabs from the first sentence. Use vivid imagery, compelling questions or startling statements to make it impossible to scroll past. Your opening should be a rabbit hole inviting Alice to jump in. 4. The value payload: This is the core of your content. Each piece should deliver actionable insights, deep dives or transformative information. Give your audience something so valuable that they can't help but use, save and share it. Think tutorials, step-by-step guides or even entertaining content that delivers laughs or awe alongside insight. 5. The personal touch: Inject your personality or brand's voice into every piece. Share personal anecdotes, failures and successes. 6. The engagement spark: End with a call to action that encourages interaction. Ask a provocative question, encourage them to share their own stories or challenge them to apply what they've learned and share the results. Engagement breeds community, and community amplifies your reach. 7. The multi-platform siege: Repurpose your anchor content across platforms. Turn blog posts into podcast episodes, summaries into tweets or LinkedIn posts and key insights into Instagram stories. Each piece of content should work as a squad, covering different fronts but pushing the same message. Without impressive anchor content, you won't have anything worth a lick in your newsletter. 8. The audience dialogue: Engage directly with your audience's feedback. Respond to comments, ask for their input on future topics and even involve them in content creation through surveys or co-creation opportunities. Make your content worth spreading, and watch as your audience does the heavy lifting for you. And please stop with the corporate navel-gazing. #newsletters #b2btech #ThatAshleyAmber

I have been consistently posting 1x per week on LinkedIn since 2017. I shared my full playbook with Brad Zomick on his podcast, but here is the quick summary of my "strategy" and the results: 1. No gimmicks. No copywriting formulas. No reusable hooks. No tricks to force people to engage e.g. comment "pizza" to get the secret guide. 2. No content calendar. No monthly themes. No special content framework. Sometimes the posting style seems "random" but it's not aimless. Adam Goyette has a similar style that I appreciate. 3. No pressure. There are times where I feel that I have nothing interesting to say or share. And during those dry spells, I just focus on commenting and engaging with other people's posts. 4. Share specialized knowledge, learnings and outcomes from working with clients and SaaS companies. People love hearing "stories from the trenches" and what it's like to be a B2B marketing consultant. 5. Celebrate the wins. Sharing case studies and successes from working with clients attracts inbound demand organically. It's a beautiful thing. 6. Schedule posts. Why? Because great ideas can strike at random, but posting at 11PM is not ideal. So whenever a cool idea hits me, I just schedule it out. 7. Avoid jumping on bandwagons and trends. Rarely will I amplify the echo chamber. If there's a hot topic that everyone is posting about, I almost always avoid it and go in a different direction. I'm not intentionally contrarian, but I do not conform to any type of herd mentality. 8. Lean into my strengths. I write how I speak, so "quick hit" posts have always worked well for me. If it's not broken, don't fix it. Sometimes I post videos, but I don't really enjoy being on camera. I find it draining and exhausting. 9. Prioritize engagement over "going viral" because shallow content like memes and dumb humor does not attract the type of people that I want to connect with. It's also a disconnect from who I am personally. 10. Selectively choose my first degree connections. I don't allow random people to connect with me. You must know my email address to send a connection request. This filters out 99% of garbage. And the results? Well, 50K followers and never having to apply for a job again. Pretty ridiculous ROI. If you want to check out the full interview, the YouTube link is in the comments.

Most lenders and execs I work with treat LinkedIn like a box they’re supposed to check. Post a few times. Hope something happens. Then complain when nothing does. Here's five simple fixes that take you from shouting into the void to generating results. 1. Engage with precision. Comments are free billboards. Place them where your future customers actually drive by. Making an insightful comment that gets bumped to the top on a popular post can get 10,000+ impressions and add a bunch of followers. 2. Watch your profile viewers. If someone walks into your office lobby, you’d say hello. LinkedIn literally tells you who’s peeking in. Send them a DM a couple of days later to connect. I've got over 50 coaching & business consulting clients. 100% of them came from LinkedIn. Good Content --> Likes --> Eventual Profile Viewer --> Send DM 2 days later --> Schedule Zoom --> Land Client. 3. Start conversations. Not spam blasts. Actual conversations. A quick DM when someone engages with your content is often all it takes to move URL to IRL. I tell clients all the time ... producing content valuable to others fills your LinkedIn pond with fish. But DM's are the lines that extract the fish from the water so you can EAT. 4. Post more often. It's like exercise for your physical health. If you jog 2x a week, it will yield results over time. If you jog 6x a week, it will produce the results you want much faster. No different with posting. I post 12-18x a week because that's the level that produces the most impressions for me. 5. Make the next step obvious. Most people post and pray. Instead, set your profile up like a funnel. If you want calls, make the path to “book a call” obvious. Every post, every click, every message compounds your brand gravity. That gravity is what makes LinkedIn the best growth engine I’ve seen in 20 years of business. To understand the power ... 2.5 years ago I quit a well-paying job I loved to start my own thing. And built a thriving consultancy on LinkedIn without spending one penny. Onward & Upward Consulting

How I used social media to grow my finance firm from $100k to $2M/year. I started posting content in 2021. At the time, I had no strategy or grand plan. I simply wanted to share what I was learning and build in public. Looking back, it was the most important decision I’ve made in my career. Today, 70% of my clients come from social. I’ve met incredible team members and business partners. I’ve had doors open that never would’ve opened otherwise. Sharing my thoughts with the world has accelerated my career in ways I couldn’t have imagined. If you’re thinking about doing the same, here’s what worked for me: 1. Say what clients are thinking. I posted about cash flow stress, messy books, and broken pricing models. The stuff founders deal with but rarely talk about. You only get this insight by actually listening to your prospects. 2. Make finance feel accessible. Finance pros love complexity: fancy dashboards, nested Excel formulas, niche acronyms. But founders don’t care about any of that. They care about growing their business. Drop the jargon. Skip the corporate lingo. Give them explanations they can actually use. 3. Position yourself clearly. When I started, I was just a Fractional CFO. As I grew and built trust, I added new services. Today, our bookkeeping arm is growing even faster than the CFO work. But in the beginning, focus was everything. If you try to appeal to everyone, you’ll be ignored. And most importantly: I stayed consistent. Some posts flopped. Some went viral. But I showed up every week, and the compound effect was real. Social media isn’t a magic bullet. But it's leverage. If you're in the space and want more leads, don’t overthink it. Just show up, be useful, and focus on serving the right people. It will change your business.

Scrolling through LinkedIn, it seems like everyone else has it figured out. I often wonder, How do people have time to do their jobs AND post about it on LinkedIn?! But after an honest conversation with The Growth Tribe members, I realized that this struggle is much more common than it seems. To help each other overcome it, we shared strategies for posting consistently. Here are some tips we shared — in case they help you, too! → Batch write posts every 2-3 weeks, when you can dedicate focused time → Take advantage of your creative bursts, like after exercise → Jot down thoughts on your phone right when they strike, even during walks or client calls → Record calls to revisit insights that you can expand on (Fathom is our favorite tool) → Partner with an accountability buddy to motivate you to post consistently And most importantly — remember that LinkedIn presences that seem effortless, Typically come with behind-the-scenes effort and struggles. So if you’re experiencing them too, Remember that you’re not alone!

In the past 6 months, I have: • 7x'd my email list (from 1k to 7k) • 8x'd my LI following (from 2k to 16k) • And started to get 2-4 inbound leads per week The crazy part? 80% of this growth has come from one tactic: Viral giveaway lead magnets. Here are my 4 go-to techniques to come up with banger lead magnet ideas: 1/ Expand Start by looking at your best-performing social media posts and *expand* them into a lead magnet. Why this works: If a post resonated with your audience, the idea has already been pre-validated. For example: One of my most successful lead magnets actually began as a LinkedIn post. After noticing the post had 4x my average engagement, I decided to expand it. How? By: • Adding actionable ChatGPT prompts • Including visuals (to make it digestible) • Sharing examples (to make implementation easier) If a post has already proven its value, don’t let it collect dust - turn it into a lead magnet! 2/ Compress Next, find an in-depth resource you’ve already created: • A course • A presentation • An internal document or SOP And *compress* it down into an actionable lead magnet. Why this works: Usually the more time you’ve spent creating something, the more valuable it is. For example: A few months ago, I delivered a keynote presentation at a private mastermind event. But after I was done, I realized the presentation was jam-packed. So, I found the transcript & then created a compressed (but still in-depth) guide breaking down the same frameworks. The bottom line: You’re probably sitting on a TON of valuable assets you could repurpose as lead magnets. 3/ Replicate Next, you can study lead magnets working well in other niches… And *replicate* them for your niche. For example: Last year, I studied Tori Dunlap’s quiz funnel. (Which helped her build a 700,000 email list.) And by reverse engineering her framework, I realized I could build a similar lead magnet for myself. If a strategy is proven to work, adapt it to your niche and make it your own. No need to reinvent the wheel. 4/ Unbundle Finally, my favorite way to create a banger lead magnet: Unbundle your paid offer. Ask yourself: What’s a *small* problem your audience needs to solve before tackling the *bigger* problem your core offer solves? Then, create a lead magnet that offers a complete solution to that narrow problem. For example: If you help clients sell homes (big problem), create a lead magnet that helps them write compelling listings (smaller problem). This approach not only builds trust but also positions your paid offer as the natural next step. And that’s it! Now, the question is: Which approach will you try first? Let me know in the comments!