$16,000 in Just 4 Days

In a bad economy, would you rather be an employee or in business for yourself?

Sounds like a tough question, doesn’t it? Especially right now.

After all, thousands and thousands of hard working people are losing their jobs with little or no warning.

Doesn’t really matter who you are, what you do, what you make, or how long you’ve been there.

As an employee in this economy, tomorrow could be the day a pink slip shows up on your desk.

But then again….

Businesses are closing up shop left and right. A lot of business owners are finding their revenues shrinking… and their profits disappearing.

A lot of business owners lie awake at night wondering how they’re going to meet payroll or pay their suppliers. How they’re going to keep the ship afloat long enough till things turn around.

So let me ask you again:

Who’s in a better position here? The employee or the business owner?

The Difference Between Thinking Like an
Employee and Thinking Like a Business Owner

If you asked me this question, I’d take the role of the business owner EACH and EVERY time.

No questions asked.

And here’s the reason.

EMPLOYEES work within a world that is defined by someone ELSE. That’s the nature of an employee. You are needed as long as you are helping the business owner build THEIR dream.

THEIR dream is the focus… Yours has to fit within that.

The business owner mindset is completely different. (This is why so many employees struggle to start a business if they don’t have the right training. They don’t shift their mindset.)

Business owners create their own world.

They build their OWN dreams.

And they keep the rewards… unless they choose to share them.

If you think these generalizations are unfair, I understand. However, in my 43 years of business experience, I’ve witnessed this again and again.

Business owners have one thing that employees will never have:

CONTROL OVER WHAT TO DO NEXT

Sure they’re are exceptions. There always are.

But pointing them out doesn’t help you or me. Pointing out the exceptions just creates another excuse for NOT taking action to change your life.

My goal is not to be harsh here. But desperate times call for desperate measures. And THESE are certainly desperate times…

Because businesses are crashing down left and right. Businesses that YOU could be saving. Business owners who need to be shown how to double and triple their profits with little or no out of pocket expense.

Businesses that need to be shown how to get MORE customers in the door, to buy MORE things, MORE often.

What’s it worth to a business owner to have some help in steering their 5 million dollar business away from rough waters?

It’s worth a LOT to them. And they will pay dearly for that help.

And that’s why it’s so simple to make a significant income as a business consultant.

As a consultant, YOUR income is DIRECTLY tied to the amount of value you provide to the marketplace.

There IS no ceiling here…

You are in control of your future… for better or worse.

There’s just one problem:

The Buck Stops with You

In the business world, there IS no try. You either do it or you don’t.

You either make a million dollars or you don’t. You either get the contract or you don’t.

If it works out, you get 100% of the credit.

If it doesn’t, you hold 100% of the responsibility.

When you strip away all of the “start your own business” hype you see all over the place, that’s what you have left.

You have a person who stands up and says, “I’m going to MAKE this work, no matter what.”

“I’m going to take control of my life.”

Believe me, there’s a HUGE amount of freedom that comes when you’re willing to stand up and take full responsibility for your success.

Trust me…

Once you do, you’ll never look back.

$16,000 in Just 4 Days

Here’s a link to an interview I just completed with TopLine Consultant, Ian Marsh.

In the 48 minute interview, you’ll hear Ian talk about how he made $16,000 from one client… for about 4 days of work.

Get out your pen and be ready to take some notes. You don’t want to miss this one:

http://toplinebusinesssolutions.com/marsh

How Many Clients Do You Need?

In today’s issue, I want to focus on something that can truly make or break your success as a business consultant.

It’s something that can either limit your income, and keep you from ever hitting the six-figure mark, or something that can virtually remove all limits on your income… period.

It’s really THAT important.

But before I tell you what this “something” is, let me ask you a question:

“Just how many clients do you NEED to make six-figures as a consultant?”

Think about that for a moment.

Before you give me your answer, I have to confess…

This is a trick question. It’s not a bad question, it’s just the WRONG question to be asking if you’re trying to increase your income as a business consultant.

Here’s the reason:

Success in consulting is NOT about the NUMBER of clients you have, it’s about the amount of value each of your clients receives.

The more value you provide, the more you can charge.

There’s just one catch:

You Need to Be Working with Clients
Who Have the Cashflow to Pay You

This might sound like common sense. And it is. But in my experience, it’s hardly common.

One of the MOST common reasons that new consultants struggle is because they spend their valuable time working with clients who should never really be clients in the first place.

Here’s the recipe for a GOOD client:

1. A good client has a business problem (ideally a few of them) you can help solve.

2. A good client knows, likes and trusts you. In other words, it’s someone who perceives you as an expert, not a hired hand.

3. A good client has sufficient cashflow to pay you the fees you charge.

If you have those three ingredients, you’re going to have no trouble hitting six-figures.

Choosing the RIGHT clients is the “something” that can make or break your success.

So why do so many consultants get stuck working with clients who don’t qualify as “good” clients?

Confidence

It is a simple matter of CONFIDENCE. Confidence that you can provide value to your client.

The good news is this:

CONFIDENCE can be learned.

The funny part is, you usually build confidence by making mistakes and learning from those mistakes.

That’s really what makes the TopLine System (a system that’s been proven to work time and time again) so valuable.

You have a system that pretty much takes the guess work out of delivering VALUE to your clients. And it puts you light years ahead of most of the other consultants out there who are just “winging it” on their client’s dime.

But the system can’t ask for the money for you. That’s something that you have to do.

It gets easier the more you do it.

Just remember…

To charge monthly retainers of $4000, $8000 or even $10000 (which is simple to do when you are working with the RIGHT clients), you need to be working with clients for whom that amount of money is NO BIG DEAL.

Never forget that.

Six-Figure Questions
and Answers

Every week, I get many questions about what it really takes to succeed in the consulting business. And in each issue of this newsletter, I’ll tackle a new question.

Here’s the question for today:

“If the economy is so bad… if businesses are struggling so much, how could they possibly have the resources to pay ME high fees for consulting?”

The answer to this question goes right back to the focus of this issue:

It’s not how many clients you have, it’s WHICH clients you have that matters.

If you’re dealing with a business with revenues somewhere between $2-10 Million dollars, “struggling” can mean their profits are down 80%.

In that example, they’re not even losing money. So while they are technically “struggling,” they’re not about to close their doors.

Would a business like this invest $20-$50,000 for help in recovering those lost profits… profits which could easily be over a million dollars?

Of course they would. Wouldn’t you?