Episode Details

Guest David A. Fields shares a gold mine of practical advice on outreach, positioning, building authority, trust building, and more.

Talking Points

• How to maximize your impact as a consultant
• How to "fish where the fish are"
• How to identify ugent problems that your clients are dying to pay you to fix for them
• How to win business even when you're up against giant competitors
• How to build trust in a five minute conversation

Quotable Quotes

• "It's about the finding the right people, right problem, right solution, right time."—DAF
• "Winning business is easy when you're fishing where the fish are."—DAF
• "If you don't hear back from clients, you're operating where there's a lack of urgency."—DAF
• "If you're not winning as many clients as you'd like to, you have to make some changes."—DAF
• "You have to make your practice about the client, not about you."—DAF
• "Every time I have a conversation with someone who looks like my prospective clients, I learn something."—DAF
• "If you're smart and your willing to pick up something new, the sky's the limit."—DAF
• "Asking your client about hypotheticals will give you bad data. You have to ask them about the past."—DAF
• "What you differentiate yourself on are reliability and credibility."—DAF
• "Your whiz bang super unique process is likely to scare off clients."—DAF
• "Fees are the trickiest part of consulting."—DAF
• "There's more money to be had if you're solving a bigger problem for a bigger company."—DAF
• "You don't have to work with big companies to win big business."—DAF
• "You can build trust fairly quickly by living up to small promises."—DAF
• "Targeting aspirations is a longer sale than targeting problems."—DAF

Related Links

• David's website
• David's book Guide To Winning Clients
• Dale Carnegie quote about fishing with strawberries and cream
• Oren Klaff's power frame concept from his book Pitch Anything
• Gartner Hype Cycle

Transcript

Jonathan S:

00:00 Hello and welcome to Ditching Hourly. I'm Jonathan Stark. Today I am joined by David A. Fields. David is the co-founder of Ascendant Consulting, is a true consultants' consultant who works with selling boutique consulting firms worldwide, a best selling author, speaker, consultant and mentor. David also heads the Ascendant Consortium whose clients are who's who of the business world. David, welcome to the show.

David F:

00:22 Thank you so much, Jonathan. It is fabulous to be here.

Jonathan S:

00:25 It's really my pleasure. So for folks who maybe haven't come across you before, could you just give people a crash course and who you are and what you do?

David F:

00:33 Sure, and imagine that, there are people who are not aware of me. It happens every day. 95% of my business right now, Jonathan, is actually working with other consulting firms. So whether they are solo practitioners, or small boutiques up to, call it $25 million, I work with a few folks that are larger, but mostly 25 million and under, down to the folks that maybe have just started a practice and are just sort of cracking six figures. And so while I have corporate clients, most of my wor