$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?

The Best Time to Become a Business Consultant

Welcome to 2009… and the very FIRST issue of Six-Figure Consulting.

While this e-letter is being read by thousands of consultants around the world, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs considering entering the consulting business, the primary goal is the same:

To help you create a life with more time, less work and more money… as quickly as possible. And THAT’S what Six-Figure Consulting will help you do.

So with that said, let’s get started…

How to Time Your Success Right

In my experience, there is NO better time to be a business consultant than in an economy exactly like this one. You might think I’m joking. But I’m not. I really mean it. I really do. How can I be so serious? Because the consultants who understand and are using the TopLine system the way it was intended are making record incomes even in these tough economic times.

In an economy like this, businesses are in trouble. And even the largest, most established companies know that their very survival is on the line.

They’re concerned the customers will stop coming…

They’re concerned their prices will be undercut by competitors…

But most of all, they’re scared that the very life of their business is in jeopardy.

Believe it or not, THAT’S the good news… for YOU.

Why? Because companies that are in trouble will pay dearly for the right person with the right information that can help them survive and even thrive in an economy like this.

Now how do become that person? Moreover, how do you get that message in front of businesses that need and can use your help?

Believe it or not, actually helping the client isn’t the hard part. In my 42 years of experience as a consultant to some of the biggest names out there (including AT&T, Black & Decker, Nabisco, Coca Cola, Kellogg’s, Marriott and others…), I’ve pretty much seen it and done it all.

The only reason I mention this is so that when I tell you something, you KNOW it’s coming from years and years of my own personal experience as well as seeing first hand what hundreds of other consultants I’ve trained have done and are currently doing.

If you haven’t launched your consulting business yet, if you’re new and are looking for your first client, or if you’ve been through training for awhile and things just don’t seem to be “clicking” for one reason or another, understand that helping the client is the easy part.

GETTING the client is where most consultants run into trouble.

More about that in just a moment. But first, let’s talk about something I call…

The Secret to Consulting Success

Success as a business consultant is about a simple 6 letter word you’ve heard thousands of times:

ACTION

In my years of training over 950 consultants around the world to use a system that can help them earn six-figure incomes working on their own terms, the number one factor that causes new consultants (or even experienced ones) to struggle is a LACK of action.

You might think this next sentence sounds crazy, but it isn’t: ANY action is better than no action.

Trust me on that.

The reason I can say that with such confidence is because WITHOUT action, it is impossible for you to learn anything about how to succeed.

Take an action… if it fails, you’ve learned something (what doesn’t work and what not to do next time).

If it succeeds, you’ve learned something AND you’ve taken a step closer to success.

Either way, you’re better off than you were before.

Occasionally a new consultant will call me and say, “Martin, on some of the teleconferences I hear how some of the consultants are making such large incomes, but I just don’t understand why your system isn’t working for ME.”

My response is pretty much always the same, “Well, tell me what parts of the system you’ve put into action to create the results you want?”

At that point, there’s usually silence on the other end of the line.

Now I’m not telling you this to make light of anyone’s struggle, but here at the beginning of 2009, you must get clear about exactly what creates results in the consulting business.

Results are created by ACTION. Nothing else.

If you’re ready to take action this year to launch YOUR consulting business or to grow the one you already have, then you’re probably interested in what I’m about to reveal:

It’s my answer to the “#1 Most Frequently Asked Question EVER” from the consultants who go through the TopLine System and who are not making the kind of income they want.

Here it is:

“Martin, How Do I Get CLIENTS?”

TopLine consultants know that there are a LOT of answers to this question. In fact, the TopLine system includes almost 200 pages of “client getting” strategies.

But today, I want to talk about the ONE strategy that is probably more effective than anything else.

Here it is:

Position yourself as an EXPERT in the marketplace.

If that sounds complicated, don’t worry, it’s not. In fact, there are so few entrepreneurs out there willing to take ACTION to do this, that becoming the expert in your market is actually quite simple.

There is ALWAYS a lot of room at the top. Remember that.

So how do you go out and get clients when you’re the EXPERT in your market?

You don’t have to. Because the clients come to YOU! And when you master this step you’ll eliminate the need for prospecting once and for all.

So ask yourself today, what’s the ONE thing I could do THIS WEEK to position myself as THE expert in my market?

Here are just a few ideas:

-Publish a press release commenting on a current event in your local business community…

-Publish a “whitepaper” that focuses your expertise on solving a
business problem you KNOW business owners are experiencing. No need to start from scratch… any of the Special Reports that come with the TopLine system can be used as is, or easily converted to the format you want…

-Go to networking events with one focus ONLY: to add value to the businesses of those you meet. You are NOT there to sell or talk about yourself or your business. You are there for positioning yourself as the EXPERT. That means you must LISTEN first.

-Be sure you have your personal marketing materials in order, i.e., your book, Audio Business Card, Special Reports, etc.

Now as you can see, all of these strategies require action. Remember, that’s your key to success.

OK, that’s all for today. I’d love to hear your comments about this first issue, so please send them in.