E82: Multiply Your Revenue without Exhaustion with Samantha Hartley

And sometimes they're so slammed with work in the business that it's impossible for them to grow. So I help them to multiply their revenues without exhaustion, working with perfect clients on transformational engagements. Those are year long, multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars. So when they do that, they start to experience more profit and more joy in their businesses. Sounds

So we have a huge bustling tourist economy, but it's a tiny island, a proper island, no bridges, no anything like that. You get there by a boat or by an airplane. It's only 45 minutes off the coast of Cape Cod. So you can see the shore from The island. And, you may have a lot of people have not heard of Martha's Vineyard, but may have heard of Nantucket or Cape Cod. That's all the Cape and islands are all a thing.

and it's a wonderful place to live right now, though, it has a very long yucky spring. And so I'm actually in Arkansas where I grew up, Arkansas, I can tell you, and especially the town I'm in right now, Conway, Conway, Arkansas is a college town. There's three colleges here, including the university of central Arkansas.

So there's tons of wonderful things going on, and it's, has four seasons, also one of which is unbearable, so our friends that we live with right now come and visit us during the summertime, and we come to them in the spring, so we're having 66 degrees while they're having a snowstorm that's closing down the vineyard. Oh, that is great. So I recommend two locations. that's my empty nester suggestion is always have two locations where you can experience the best of both worlds.

And I will only go when I can fly there directly from Nashville because I, so I've never done the, ferry, although I think that would be an adventure. So I should try that sometime. So thank you for that. I wondered what it's like. They're, off season and I don't know why, but for some reason I thought because of the, whatever the currents, whatever that you didn't get snowstorms, but you do. Okay.

They also might be experiencing that they don't have revenue roller coaster. They just have all slammed all the time. And the owner is, this is usually a business that's, 500 to 750, and they can't imagine a way to grow. I can't imagine it. So those, particular consultants. Need me sometimes they're agency owners, but most often management consultants and they're working with sometimes businesses.

You've heard of like the, fortune 500, but a lot of times it's just kind of, midsize manufacturers or other kind of like mom and pops who are near them. And I think what happens for a lot of us, a lot of my clients are like me, ex corporate. So we came out of corporate and we have a set of skills that didn't necessarily include figuring out how to run a specifically consulting business. And so when they come to me, I'm like, well, there's just some stuff to know. And it's this, this, and this.

And so really quickly, we can turn their business around. So for example, one of my clients she's a fashion consultant. She works with high fashion brands to help them. do visual merchandising. And when she came to me, her business was doing really well, it was very much time based, so hourly business and went from month to month with those clients. And she didn't necessarily, again, it's like smart people, but there are certain things that just don't occur to them.

So she hadn't thought of like, Setting up contractual relationships with them where she works long term and there are certain commitments from her side and from their side. And so we just put a lot more structure and formality around her business, improved her selling ability, other, you basic skills like that. She doesn't actually even need marketing.

She has so many clients coming to her, but being able to enroll clients at higher value and for longer term, it just immediately took the bumps out of her business and out her revenues. And Just yesterday, we were talking about it and the kind of relief that she's feeling the ability to go away from the business and come back and just knowing that those revenues are stable. She finds she feels more passionate for her work, excited about the business.

And so that's been, really gratifying to see that result. And it's not an unusual result. Like so often I'll be talking with a client who's been working with me for a while, and they're, just have that peace that you have when you have stable revenues. Yeah,

And so they could, program things, they can do implementation, they can do strategy. They did all the things, for, their clients, whatever the clients asked, we can do that. Like, and they were very proud of the fact that they can do whatever it is that you need to do. And I'm like, I don't think you're quite ready for me because you need to figure out a way to kind of.

put your stake in the ground about doing something in particular what's the point of making you more efficient with intellectual property when you're building by the hour, like. That just means yes, you're gonna bill less , you know?

So interestingly, I've worked with it consultants who came to me with that situation and they were earning really well, but it was like, they would have like a. 50, 000 a month and then like a 20, 000 a month. So there's just these peaks and valleys in their billing. But the problem was when they have team members who are billing by the hour, they couldn't allocate those team members properly because they didn't know the fluctuations.

Like how much are we going to build this month and how much are we going to build that month? And so what it required was saying to the client, between all the, Partners and team members. We're working for you 40 hours this month, and then 10 this month, and then 30, and then 20. Like, we can't schedule our people. We can't figure things out. So let's do this. We're going to chart out the work.

We'll schedule the work, and you'll know when we're going to be there, and we'll know what we're going to be doing. And we're just going to be doing it, with this kind of a schedule. So we give them like a project implementation plan of how we're going to work. And no matter how many hours that is, we'll levelize this building so that it's a flat. the number is, for example, 40 K each month that way, you'll know, how much it's going to be.

You won't have lumpy expenses because even big companies don't want lumpy expenses, and then we'll have the predictability of where our people will be and when. And so when they did that, they just charted it out. We think the project is going to take us this long. It was 12 months. We were going to do this. Now you may see us more one month and less another month. It'll all come out in the wash. We're just going to deliver on these specific deliverables. and so we put that plan together.

They went and sold it and it was immediately, that was a 40 K a month. So it's a 480, 000 engagement that immediately after we set it up, like within a week, they had sold that one in. And then they did that with their subsequent clients. And pushback is always, what if they're like, what, how much is by the hour? And what I taught them to say was, that's not how we work. That's not how we work. We don't work by the hour. we don't sell anything by the hour. And that is not how we work.

And if you can begin to transition your clients to where it's about outcomes and not about the hours, Then they'll come to you when they'll need you.

And then, okay, he was building the client X and then he was getting billed by his subcontractors Y. And then all he ever had was that differential. It could never get anywhere. It's like, I can't get anywhere. Well, because Yeah. one, because your business model's broken. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Alright, so, let's get to, becoming more efficient and effective with our delivery so that we can increase our profits. So you've already introduced the topic and so how do you.

Help people get comfortable with that transition. Cause that's it, you know, it's great to say, we don't build by the hour, but that's really scary. when you are there with the client and feeling comfortable with, I can actually scope this out in a way that I know is going to be profitable and that I'm not going to, cause the clients are going to come in with changes and they're going to want this. And then suddenly it's like a totally, you know, so how do we, get from

Well, then they can go to their client and say, listen, you we budgeted it for this and this, we're having these massive overruns. I mean, just because we said it was going to be this, it doesn't mean you know, we can, Allow for this kind of whatever to be out of control so you can have and I call those grown up conversations like you can have a conversation with a client.

I was about to say confrontational, but it doesn't have to feel confrontational, meaning you can just address the situation. But when you're mature enough in your work, and this is usually within the 2nd or 3rd year. You know, if I come in and I do this work, like my clients in the situation, we're going to have 14 members on this, they're going to be giving it, is time based for them. They're going to each be giving it five hours, or five days of their time. It's going to add up to this much.

so they could mix and match that according to their expertise from the client side, though, it can seem like, well, the client isn't interested in this. They don't want to overpay per hour, but it's anytime we pay anything. I've estimated what the hours are, and, , it doesn't really matter what the time is. What the client cares about are either deliverables or outcome or both. What they really want is like, just solve my problem.

And especially if you're doing complicated digital transformation, which I team might do or for a lot of my clients. A lot of my clients are leadership consultants or culture consultants, and they're going in and they're trying to make massive organizational change, transformational change. So figure out what are the specific changes that we want to achieve? Like, what's the goal of this initiative? And then, how will we know it's been accomplished? So what kind of behaviors do we want to see?

What kind of conditions in the work environment do we want to see? So you're teaching the client to measure according to that as opposed to the number of hours you put in. Now, one of the things that, I think is important for consultants in general is to know what outcomes you can promise.

So very often when we're doing hourly work, we're just saying, I'm just going to show up forgive me, but like run my you know, be in my genius, but you just show up and you like do your thing and then you get paid for that. It's a very different level of responsibility, but also level of fulfillment when you can say, No, actually, let me take the lead in this instead of like, we're going to do 30 hours. And at the end of it, you'll have 30 hours of access to me.

And I don't know going to happen with that, but probably we'll accomplish your goals in this situation. You're saying over the course of a year or whatever, time duration, we're going to make these transformations in your organization or in your business. And again, like, to me, there's more responsibility with that, but I'm excited to do that. Most of my clients are like, they want that challenge. So it just changes the dialogue from showing up to not presence, but performance.

You don't know how to, you're just kind of going in there and turning in hours because otherwise you would. They have a pretty good idea about what needs to be done in order to get the result that they want. And then you could put a price on that. so that maturity thing, you know, and having, doing some figuring out either. a niche, type of client that you can have or specific problem that you solve so that you can kind of get really good at it and, develop a program around that.

So what I usually say is, spend a year or two in your work, see which things get repeated, see what kind of challenges you enjoy working on, and then you're going to develop solutions to that. So year two or three is when, what I noticed with my clients, they start to say, okay, I see what I'm doing. And then their signature system begins to emerge and sometimes we'll help them with that. And sometimes that's the thing that they do on their own.

Then that signature systems job is to get those outcomes. So efficiency and delivery comes when you're working according to that. It's not trial and error anymore. also, I feel like. consultants feel like they can't promise outcomes because they're like, I don't know. I mean, it Once you have a signature system, you can make bigger promises because, you know, that this is the way to get those results.

Inventory and tagging and I'm like, okay, well, what am I going to get from that? Like, well, I can't promise, you I have a pretty long sales cycle, you know, between people coming and hanging out, it just feels like a deliverable to me and not like a solution. So yeah, as consumers, we want to on, what we're paying for as well. So yeah.

The likeliest thing, like the biggest promise that can make to you is you're probably going to experience results like my clients have. and somewhere along the way, if we're not trending towards that, one of us will know and we'll course correct. But you can make big promises in those situations. So what your SEO person can say is what we found is when we've done this for people's websites in the past, here's what usually happens. That's what I would look for as a kind of comforting thing.

Because again, as a business owner, I know, I know can promise me results and who can't promise me results. but in that situation, I think. You still want to hear, like, what's the closest thing, what's the biggest promise you can make to me in integrity? Right,

Best practices, things to be worried about and what's the best we can hope from our partnership.

someone, a partner decides to just stop working in the business, but we still receive full salary because apparently that piece didn't get worked out. women in just rev share partnerships will go into business with men and give away their power to them. and I say this because an advocate for women.

And so who I was really, wanting to caution were women, because I think in a lot of cases I have noticed is I don't understand how all these big, powerful women get into, Working relationships with men and then become small in that situation and again, have seen it. And so I'm very much cautioning everyone in general against, any situation in which you feel like, well, I'm hoping that person will do sales. I'm hoping that person will do, the parts of the business that I don't want to do.

If you don't have that explicitly outlined, then you are inferred. Terrible surprise. they're going into committed relationships, working relationships before they've done dating. This is what I would say. So like, why don't we partner on a few short term projects as revenue share partners before, why don't we collaborate before we, form a legally binding agreement with one another?

and then one of the things that I urge them to do is think about all the things you don't want to have a conversation about. So, Aaron, what if I. Get sick of the whole thing. And I decide to go to Mexico for two years. will you do? What if you get sick of it and you decide what will I do?

what if we do this and the business really fails and we only make 50, 000 between us, then what are we going to like say all of the things that hope nobody says or asks or whatever, what if you're, cousin suddenly wants to get involved in the business and you. Decide that's a good idea. what if I don't want that? So how will we make decisions? How are we going to, choose clients? How are we going to divide up expenses?

And what if I want to, pursue, an angle in the business that you don't choose to? All of that, I think doesn't get discussed enough before someone goes into business with another person. And so that's what I really cautioned against, this week, the episodes antidote came out where I interviewed, a. Couple of partners who happen to be, Martha's Vineyard based business. There were also the first two partners that I reached out to.

So I was looking around and I was like, well, gosh, there's gotta be somebody who has a good partnership. not in any of my clients. And so I saw them and I thought, Oh, are they partners? And. They were like, yes. And I thought, Oh, well, this'll be a great chance to kind of show like, Oh, the good and the bad. And like, with a real life example, and there'll be really great. They don't have any negatives.

they're like the happiest couple you've ever seen in your entire life in terms of a business partnership, which is great because guess what healthy people make for happy partners. And you can hear the way they both have happy marriages. So what it says to me is. who are the healthiest people that you know that you work with? Like, you just don't get conflicts. They don't misunderstand you. They take responsibility, like self responsible. You trust them implicitly.

You can have any hard conversation about anything. It just shows you the extent to which having a healthy everything is going to make this financially based relationship work. Yeah, you know, it

And so the same applies there, thinking about tech startups, if I'm wanting and the kind of the common understanding is that, you kind of need, like, that finance guy and you, the tech guy. Right? And so they have, complimentary skills and I'm wondering with an expertise based business, what are the complimentary skills? Is it another. Expert. Is it someone who's like the operations person versus the, delivery? Like, how do the best partnerships work in that space?

the other two also were very strong in that area, but she was, significantly stronger. And then the two other partners. were equally good at rainmaking also had those big, kind of client facing personalities. So one wanted to travel and present this one didn't want to travel so much, but she was really great in client relationship, management. So it's kind of the thing that you're saying, where it's a lot of whole.

Partners, whole individuals, like any single one of them could have had a business. Although I think the one who was the deep subject matter expert probably would have belonged more in academia than in private business. But because she had the other two out in front, it really worked out for her. So, To me, the killer is when not everyone is rainmaking because then there starts to be resentments about like, well, I brought in all this business and how are we dividing this up?

The partners that I profile, , this week on the podcast, they have a 50, 50 partnership and they just don't even dig into things. they both are bringing in clients. They both are doing delivery and they're not kind of like nitpicking about, the money, which I think is as long as you're paying close attention to the money, you don't have to nitpick. I just want there to be kind of like transparency and, awareness of it.

but in the case of those three partners, they felt good about the divisions of things, what's interesting is when I first went in and, worked with them, they had an employee, there was only one actual, I mean, they may have all been employees, but there was a full time employee on their team, one team member full time, always got paid. Guess who didn't always get paid? The partners, right? this is why I'm like, gosh, you have to watch out for this stuff.

terms of like, women classically will want to make others whole before they make themselves whole. And here was a trio doing it, that kind of thing. So, it won't be surprising to hear that I, recommended and they did do, they did let him go because, that just was not the right thing for them. in general, I think successful partnerships have trust, they have complimentary skill sets that are, as you're saying, 1 plus 1 equals 3, not 3, 4, 3, and, everyone is dedicated to sales and

And then you're like, Ruh

So talking about intellectual property, I've been currently, uh, Starting to track ways that business coaches talk about intellectual property without saying intellectual property, And so like, now they, use, you know, kind of scaling and a scalable offer. Or they have different ways that they talk about, I should have my list here. And so I'm gonna, at some point I'm gonna write about that.

but at the end of the day, if we are going to decouple our income from our time, we have to be selling something other than our time, which has to be an asset of course, of course. And when we're experts that asset is intellectual property. So when you are working with your clients, like how are you talking to them about intellectual property? What kind of questions are they asking you about?

The second thing that I want is for them to bring in subcontractors so that they don't have to work as hard because the subcontractor doesn't need to, bring their own ideas and IP. They can merely the IP that my clients have. I can teach you to do it. the Acme Inc way or the Jane Smith consulting way that is. our proprietary approach to working with the clients. So my subcontractors can come in and do that.

And then I think a really good thing here too, is that you can, give this to the client and they then can also implement, according to your IP. You can turn that into e learning or e courses or whatever, which means that your work is accessible by clients who might not otherwise be able to afford you. It can scale where you cannot. So there's. I'm sure, I'm just repeating things that you're saying all the time. But those are the things that I'm teaching my clients to do with IP.

And specifically, they're very often with me at the stage where they have to kind of like extract. I always do this, motion as if they're like pulling the skeleton out of the body. Here's the structure, which I feel like I intuitively show up and do, but then I realized in a little while, Oh, hang on. I do have like a seven step system or my, five, part, whatever that piece is critical to them, experiencing leverage in their business.

So, signature systems are under, in my world, that's under the, heading of leverage, like ways that we make more of our time and, pulling that IP out working with it independently is one of them. Now, my favorite example of clients who did this were these, consultants who just believed so strongly that their clients wanted to co create, they co created the workshops or the.

If they were going to come in and work with a client for six months on something, they would co create that approach of what they were going to do. And at point I said to them, why are you co creating this with the clients? Like, they don't know anything about how to achieve, let's say it was culture. They don't anything about how to achieve culture change. Like, why are you co creating this with them? Now they really like to do it. I was like, do they really?

And they were like, yeah, we feel like, oh, well, maybe not. And do you believe that there's like a, right way to do this? And they said, Oh, yes, definitely. I was like, well, then why did you let the clients get in here and muddy that up? It turned out it was because they were billing by the hour and they wanted to, pack in the hours that they worked on the IP, because if they didn't have all of that time that they spent co creating their approach, then they weren't charging enough.

And I said, here's the deal is if you're charging 138, 000 for this. That's what it's worth. The client doesn't want to do all that nonsense and you don't want to recreate your thing. Just charge 138, 000 for the engagement. And they were like, mind blown. and it's just not obvious people that like, they're saying it's this valuable. So that is, I think the way that you can get to IP that is separate from your own value.

And one of first things that I'll do with my clients to help them double their is to say, if you come in and you're like, well, it's a, whatever long engagement, and it's usually, 50, charged separately for the IP and my signature program, the Jane Smith approach to getting whatever benefit is 25, 000. And so that's. 000 engagement so that we as consultants learn to charge for the IP and clients learn to go like, Oh, the system itself has inherent value. I love

And I was really I'm like. Wait a minute. I just saw their entire problem for two hours worth of billables because I knew the answer already, I'm like, okay, I know,

Like that's speaking of So, I just think in those terms and any of those could easily stand alone as a program, and it's possible that in someday in the near future, they will and I'll either market or sell those individually and right now. I haven't done that yet. So I don't know if those want to be books or what those want to be, or if the whole business wants to be sold, but I feel like I'm such a place of enjoying where I am in the business and that I love it.

And I really like a high intimacy business. So I have private clients. and then I have group coaching clients and. It's just really so fulfilling that it's not that I don't think about that kind of time horizon and sometime in the future, but it's not an urgent thing for me yet. All

And is there someone that you'd like to share?

Who's, I usually have like an equal amount of ones that are like North America based and then ones that are in exotic countries doing things because I, so completely agree with you and what I can tell you is in my international travels and having lived overseas that when women are thriving, everybody's thriving and it's very often the women who are the backbone of the economy and when I've lived in places where I've Oh my gosh, it didn't seem like this country had its act together.

There were women who were like, getting up, making things happen, before everybody got up and after everybody went to bed. And if she just had a little bit of money to invest, then she could make wonderful things happen. And, for other users of Kiva, you know that Occasionally someone will default on a but it's like so almost never that I feel like their stats are really incredible. And , it's just a great investment to me.

Now, the other argument that we hear is like, well, they'll probably just spend it on, and I'm like, what they're spending it on their bills. And when we look at what people actually spend it on, it's just like I was saying, but the default rate, the people who abuse that program are. Almost none ever, even though we might imagine that they would and it, just funny things happen like suddenly all of the basic conditions and quality of life increase and it's for such small amounts of money.

So the experiments I've seen have been like 500 a month or up to 2, 000 a month and it's like you can lift people out of poverty for such a small amount of money. And I feel like. If we can, why not? Yes, exactly.

So you see a lot of different kinds of businesses where they're doing it. And then it's. Actually, just a how to step by step guide of how to make these transformational offers that are, based on having, a specific outcome, charging a specific amount of money for that. And so that you as the individual consultant, you have money coming in on the books for months in advance, as far as you can see into the future. That sounds fan. Oh, and you can get it at, yeah, you can get it at six figure com.

So it's six, the numeral six figure clients. com.