¶ Marketing Technology Consulting Podcast Launch
Hello , I'm Courtney Makara and this is the Society of Marketing Technology Consulting Podcast . Smtc has joined forces with the MarketingOpscom community , but our mission is still the same to educate and support anyone involved in the MarTech world as a consultant .
Hey , this is Mike from MarketingOpscom . If you're thinking about going into consulting , or you're already a successful consultant , join us online by becoming a member . As a pro member , you can join the SMTC and other private networks at marketingopscom .
In this podcast series , grant Gregorian and I interviewed guests on their journeys as consultants . We discussed all that it means to be a great MarTech consultant , from setting up their business or joining an agency , and how to find new clients and keep their existing clients happy . I hope you enjoy the interview . So , grant , what is on your mind today ?
Hey , courtney . Well , it's our first podcast , so I wanted to let all the listeners know what this podcast is going to be about . So this first episode will be more .
You know , it's kind of going to be meta , meta where we wanted to kind of introduce ourselves and talk about you know what the purpose of this podcast is , what we were thinking about and what to expect going forward , so you can decide if this is for you or not . So you know , courtney , why would you , why did you agree to do this podcast with me ?
I love the idea . I have now been a consultant for a whopping 13 months , um , and it's still . It's still a strange experience . You know , I'm um , some days I'm super confident and sometimes I feel really alone .
And you reached out and wanted to just talk about what it means to be a consultant and kind of support each other , and it's been a huge benefit to me . There's been a couple other people in the consulting world that have been really kind and supportive and I thought , well , why not ?
Why not support each other and we can share best practices and kind of lift each other up . So I mean , really , I feel like the original brainchild was your inspiration . So why did you even think of this ? What was your motivation ?
Yeah , I mean , I'm on the same boat . So I've been a freelance consultant for a few years and then I went and got a job again and then recently I've become a freelance consultant again and I was just thinking about you know how hard it was for me the first time .
You know , when I was , when I had a job in a cubicle , I was like you know , why did you decide to jump ?
And I was thinking back to myself of those years and it was pretty scary , like I remember really wanting to do it , really wanting to experience , you know , some of the freedom that comes with it , some of the , you know , independence in terms of what type of work you do , who you work with .
We'll kind of explore all the different reasons you might want to become a consultant .
For me I did want to be location independent and I didn't want to have more control over my work and , um , and I thought I could also make more money , honestly , cause I saw how much my consultants we were hiring were making and I was like , oh boy , maybe , maybe that's for me .
You know , I wanted to try it out , but it was really scary and so I , um , I was lucky enough that I I was able to reach out to some friends and kind of ask them about what it was going to be like , but I thought how great would it be if there was a resource online where we could share resources , maybe even template contracts .
We could share how to find clients , how we're finding clients , how to do marketing for yourself , what it means to work in an agency versus being on your own and the truth is I'm no expert right , but we wanted to use this podcast as a way to learn ourselves .
So we'll have guests on , we'll do our own little research and then just share everything we learn with you .
Yeah , I think it sounds wonderful . I definitely have had people reach out to me and ask questions about well , how did you decide and what did you do , and how do you set up an LLC , and who does your taxes ? And again , I'm shocked that people are asking me because I figure I'm new at this . I'm not perfect , but why don't we all help each other out ?
So yeah , I'll tell you a story . So when I was first um starting out , I remember I wanted to be a Marketo consultant . That was my thing and I had a job and so I I just put in Google I said freelance consultant , marketo and because I wanted to see , like , are there people out there who do this ? And I found one .
It was I'm going to name drop here . It was Inga Romanoff , who was in New York and she's like an amazing Marketo consultant , has had a consultancy for many years and at the time she was a freelance Marketo consultant . And I just reached out to a freelance Marketo consultant .
And I just reached out to her , uh , just cold on LinkedIn , and I said like hey , you're , you seem to exist and like I want to be like you , I want to be a freelance person . And she got back to me so quickly . I was so amazed because I was like I'm this guy in Colorado . You know I have a job , but I want to quit one day .
And she was so helpful . She was like okay , you know here's what you're going to do and like here's how much money you're going to ask for . And she told me basically to like not quit my job right away and to just kind of do it on the side , first to kind of build up , you know , the first of all , try it out .
And also it's kind of build up my muscle , build up my clients . And that's exactly what I did . I didn't quit , I was just kind of working nights and weekends and then , to be honest , also days and , and then after a while , after six months , I was making as much working nights and weekends , consulting as I was with my job .
And that's when I was like , okay , if I quit , now it's a , it's a complete replacement of revenue , so like I can still pay my rent and I can survive and then so it's time for me to jump . And that's what helped .
So it really was a community and like other people giving me the confidence to do it , community and like other people giving me the confidence to do it . So I think that's super important .
I think that's so brave of you to just reach out to Inga . Cold like that , inga is not scary .
It's not scary , she's super nice .
She is super nice , but you just never know . But I feel the same way . There was plenty of people that would encourage me and support me and say why aren't you doing it ? You know , you talk about it and you you waffle back and forth you and it was terrifying . But I've done it and , like I said , I've kept my doors open now for 13 months .
So I feel like I can get a little bit of a successful , you know checkbox in that column and I just love to help other people that are debating about if it's the right fit for them and what are the pros and what are the cons .
So yeah , I mean there's , there's . We have a lot of support structure for the content of the work itself . You know , like there's a lot of information about mops , about our tech itself , like here's how you do this or that in this system , or and so on . You know what I mean Like the actual work itself .
Here's how you build something . Here's how you troubleshoot . You know this issue , yeah .
But I don't think there is as much about the , the , the work itself , or the the format of the work . So , um , are you a consultant ? How are you keeping your calendar , how are you billing stuff ? How are you structuring your contracts ?
Um , I think especially for consultants , because , uh , when you're an employee , it's all kind of taken care of for you and all you have to think about are the work things , hopefully . But when you're going off and doing your own consulting , you have to think about all these other things . So those are the things that we're going to cover in this podcast .
So , courtney , what type of people are we going to have as guests ?
We want to talk to other consultants who are independent , like , you know , you and I , but I also love to talk to people like Inga who have started agencies and have kind of built a community for themselves and an army and deciding you know , I have not ventured out yet to bring an employee into my business because that's another intimidating step that I haven't
decided to breach . But I'm curious , how did other people decide to do that ? At what point , you know , of revenue , did they feel comfortable bringing on more headcount ? So I'd love to talk to them as well .
¶ Starting a Consulting Business Tips
And then also people who you know are just asking the questions of well , I want to be a consultant , I want to do nights and weekends on side projects , but how do I get started ? Or , you know , what do I have to do legally ? Do I have to become a business ? How do I do taxes ?
so I've I've jumped through some of those hoops , obviously , and I'm in the state of oregon , so there's certain rules there and I'm not going to have all the answers , but I can at least help you know what questions to ask when you do find your business attorney or your CPA in your state .
Do you think we can find an attorney or a CPA or both to come on the podcast ?
Oh , yeah , absolutely .
That would be so cool . We should get some free advice .
Yeah , I think so . Of course they're going to , you know , have their consent . Language of .
Sure Ask your doctor about .
Yeah , exactly , exactly .
Yeah .
But yeah , I just think a resource to kind of help each other . Oh , marketo , consultants cost you know X dollars an hour . I haven't really done things that way . It didn't really work for me and I have been really lucky with clients that we have been on the same page .
I prefer like project-based or , you know , retainer-based , but everyone's a little bit different and it's just kind of interesting to figure out how those conversations go . And do you do that when you're pitching yourself in that part of the conversation , or does that come , you know , later down the line of the relationship ?
Totally yeah , I'll share a story . Another story from Grant .
Stories with Grant . I love it .
So when I was first starting , I remember that time when I was kind of getting ready to jump but I didn't have any clients yet . No paying clients . This was before I had a chance to talk to Inga yet .
And I was like I know what I'll do go to the Marketo community back in the day and I will post on it that I am available and willing to work for free for a nonprofit . And I was like , if you're a nonprofit and you're a Marketo user , I'm here for you and I will support you .
And I heard from zero nonprofits and instead I heard from a bunch of people who were like , hey , I don't know about this nonprofit business . We're a for-profit company but like , I want a consultant , I'll pay you to come do stuff . And I was so amazed I was like wow .
And I remember I said I , my services are $35 an hour because I I took my salary at the time and I just divided the number of hours there are in a year . Boom , 35 bucks an hour was how much I was going to spend . And they were probably like , okay , let's do it . And so that was my .
That was my first project and , needless to say , I mean it was wonderful because it got me practicing being a consultant , um , but it but obviously I had underpriced myself significantly , um , and I had to learn really quickly . You know kind of adjust , so we'll definitely talk about stuff like that as well .
So what other topics anything else we're going to cover ? We , you know legal stuff contracting , pricing , pricing , pitching yourself , what else .
Yeah , I mean , I think , the culture of being disciplined a lot of people have mentioned to me oh , I could never do what you do . You work from home all the time . I like to have an office and so I think that there's some benefits and it fits certain people's personalities .
But when you are a consultant , it's a different kind of like accountability practice of meetings on your calendar , you know clients are expecting you and it's just your name on the line . I actually feel much more accountable . Um , and working from home has not .
It's not like I'm running around , you know , doing laundry and cleaning the house all the time or sitting around watching TV . There's a lot more pressure , I think , to be there . But Everyone kind of has to figure out their own way to work from home and how to be successful and set up their own structure .
Or just not work from home and work from the beach or , you know , outside of coronavirus timeframe , work from Europe .
Yeah , no , we should mention that we are recording this exactly during the coronavirus time , so I think a lot of people have not had a chance to practice working from home .
So I think a lot of people have not had a chance to practice working from home and hopefully they see that you know it's possible and it's very doable , but you do have to take care of that discipline problem and take care of some of the other things . We will talk about the remote work idea .
I will share lots of stories about taking my family and moving to Costa Rica while I was a freelance consultant . Maybe we'll do an episode on that . Share the mistakes and the learnings from that Really fun . And we'd love to hear from you guys . We'd love to hear about your stories of consulting or working remote .
What else , courtney , do we explain , I think , decently enough , what the podcast will be about .
Well , I sure hope so , and if we didn't , you can reach out to us at joinSMTCcom and tell us what you want to hear . Have we clarified the community Again ? It is free . We just want a place for everyone to to get together and share ideas , and if you're stuck and need a helping hand , you know we can all lift each other up .
Yeah , and we haven't figured out exactly what the format will be , whether it's like a forum or an email thing or what is . What is it exactly ? But we'll we'll figure it out as this podcast kind of progresses , as we hear from you , and set something up in a way that is truly society and community-like . I think that's it . I think that's a wrap , Courtney .
I think that sounds good , episode number one in the bag .
All right . Well , thank you for listening to this episode of SMTC Podcast . If you like this episode , please rate us on whatever platform you're listening us on . The ratings make the podcast better because of the algorithms . The podcast algorithms will make it easier for other people to discover it as well .
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Thanks for listening everybody and have a great day , bye , bye .