What Executives Want You to Know BEFORE Pitching Your Consulting or Coaching to Them

 Want to consult to executives? Ready to be the coach and advisor to senior leaders?

This is goal that many of my clients have when they sign up to work with me one-on-one on their brand positioning and messaging strategy. They have the vision for working with leaders in organizations, but struggle with figuring out how to describe their expertise or methodology in a way that will get these leaders want to buy it.

And what I tell them is that if you’re approaching your branding, messaging and offers in this way... you are doing it all wrong.

The main problem is your spotlight of your business is on you and not on your clients, which you think makes you sound smart and credible, but works in opposite. It makes your clients feel dumb and more importantly you don’t get them.

I learned this lesson very early on in my consulting career when I was an internal organization development consultant to the leaders at Disney’s Animal Kingdom – my first major assignment as an internal consultant at Disney.  The first thing I did when I was assigned to the park was do meet and greets with all the executives and every single one of them told me the same thing – if you try to talk to us in your OD lingo we’ll shut you out. We won’t include you. You have to learn how to speak OUR language and do the hard work of translating what you do to us and not the other way around. If you want to be credible here, you’re going to have the learn the business and what’s important to us, not try to impress us with your methodology, frameworks or tools.

That’s when I started to learn how to “trojan horse” what I did in language that resonates with my clients and met them at their point of departure. This skill when I went out on my own and started my own consulting business and had to learn how to convey what I did in words that clients got on my website and in how I pitched and landed work. And this is the skill I help my clients master now.

For this blog post, what I want to jump start the process by helping you cultivate the real messaging and positioning gamechanger – getting out of your head and into the head of your client’s and seeing the world from their perspective in the form of an “open letter” from these executives. While I made up the letter, it reflects what I have heard from executives for nearly three decades on what they want consultants and coaches to know about them.

Dear Consultants and Coaches,

Thank you so much for your passion to serve us. We appreciate it. We really do. But there’s so many things that you’re not getting about who we are, why we would hire a consultant or coach, what you do that turns us off and what you need to do instead. So, in this letter, we want to make this clear to you because we really do need strategic partners and guides, even if we don’t see it at the onset and demand for you to deliver on a specific request.

First off, we want you to see the world from our vantage point and want to work with us because you care about our challenges if you want to work with us directly (vs. as a contractor or freelancer that we bring in when it’s more cost-effective to outsource.) We want you to get the complexity of what we’re dealing with and what it’s like to try to balance it all. We’re running our organizations, driving teams to performs, making big decisions in the context of complex market conditions…all while trying to stay sane in the process.

For this reason, the #1 thing we want and need (even if we don’t ask for it right away) is someone who can help us find clarity in the midst of the complexity to make better decisions that we can ALL our stakeholders to get on board with.

That’s why when you focus on your process, methodology or frameworks, especially when we’re having our initial intro call with you, you leave us cold. We don’t see ourselves in YOUR solutions. You are asking us to buy your pre-packaged solution without taking the time to get MY unique complexity. If we wanted a pre-packaged solution that would give us credibility with the board, we’d be talking to the big box firms, not you. We’re talking to you because we assume because you’re a boutique provider, you’d take the time to really listen to us.

The consultants or coaches who are able to help me frame up what I really want, especially in that first discovery meeting, are the ones that I know will be able to handle all the complexity that come with the work and will be the person I didn’t even know I was looking for – a trusted advisor and sounding board.

We beg of you – please STOP trying to sell us your methodology unless you want to get hired as a subcontractor for implementation purposes. If you want to work with my team and I on strategic issues, you have to meet us at our point of departure and focus on what will be the right solution for us to achieve our goals – in such a way that the organization is aligned.

If we sign up to work with a consultant or coach, it’s not because they have a cool fictitious business name that inspires us, or a four-part methodology with an alliteration or a specific credential (that might get you on a preferred provider list but not a seat at the C-Suite table.) We hire YOU. Your ability to bring clarity to chaos, your objective point of view, your ability to pinpoint root causes to our challenges and create OUR roadmap (not your pre-packaged one) to OUR goals, in a way that satisfies OUR stakeholders. And the consultant or coach that will turn my specific head and make me advocate for you is your ability to be my sounding board.

Second, you have to know if we bring you into our organization, we are staking our reputation on you. So, we need to know that you’re going to make us look good. Therefore, if you don’t have a website or one that isn’t attractive or credible, we are going to hesitate hiring you. A strong referral might overcome that hesitation but there will be hesitation which will affect how excited we are to work with you and how much we’re willing to pay you. So, make this easy for me. You may not realize that even if I have the power to hire you, I will still make sure others on my senior team buy into the choice and will be forwarding your website to them for their input. Make sure your website shows that you work at an executive level. You need professional images of you that demonstrate visually that you work at our level. Make your copy clear, strong and powerful that makes it easy for me and everyone on my senior team (and then later on others in the organization who will be checking out your website as you start doing the work) to see that you’re the right person to help us with our unique problems. Include social proof that gives everyone confidence that you are someone who delivers results. And if you have content that speaks to us, in our industry and our unique challenges – that’s the ballgame. You will win the work over others who don’t have that content. All things being equal in terms of the strength of a referral, the one with a credible website and content, along with an approach to landing clients that is centered on us vs. the one without a generic website and a methodology centric website will be the one we choose because it makes us feel safer. It makes us confident that bringing you in will enhance our reputation and take away any fears that you’ll damage it.

Third, we don’t only hire consultants and coaches by referral. We actively seek out experts – again because that enhances our reputation in the organization and establishes trust that our challenges are in good hands.

We look for speakers, authors and content creators who show with their actions that they have taken the time to deeply understand our unique issues and challenges and develop a specific expertise around it.  If we go to an industry networking event – we may meet a lot of great people who spark our interest. But the main person we will prioritize meeting with is the speaker at that event if they are sharing insights that are relevant to us. We will do google searches for content and if yours pops up into our feeds and your content speaks to us, we’ll follow you. Sometimes for a long while until it’s the right time to bring you in.

We’re not typically responsive to cold call sales, especially on LinkedIn or even ads for consultants or coaches in our local area as the proximity doesn’t play a role in our hiring decision. We also don’t have the time or the inclination for webinar pipelines, but we do like podcasts. We do like articles that we can read in places we go to naturally like Forbes. We do like provocative content that makes us think differently.

Bottom-line if you want to work with us, you need to show us that you have both the relevant expertise/experience and passion for working with us. We don’t want to be targeted because you think we have more money to invest. Even if we did have more money to invest, we didn’t get to where we are if we weren’t thoughtful investors of what money and only invest in what we think will generate a return. We need to know that you want to work with ME and my team because you genuinely care about me and what I want.

And if you want to work with executives, you have to show up in a way that holds your own with us. We are not going to look to a subcontractor in our organization or freelancer, who has no website or a placeholder and think, “I really want to get their insight on my strategic issues.” If you want to be in the so-called “rooms where it happen” you have to show up at every single touchpoint that shapes my thinking about who you are and what you do as someone who belongs in that room. Not just belongs but can command it as again the biggest reason why we bring you in is to sort through our complexity and that means often times “herding the cats” across my senior team and organization.

If you are destined to work with an executive like me and my team, show me. Prove it to me and then let’s talk.

Sincerely,

Your Ideal Executive Clients

Ready build a consulting or coaching that gets your ideal executive client to say, “Where have you been? I need you!" and an approach to landing them that gets them to say, “When can we start?” I’m here to help.

Learn more https://www.betsyjordyn.com/services 

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Other blog posts you may enjoy:

• How to Build a Site That Attracts, Converts, and Builds Credibility
• How Your Discovery Meetings Propel Your Income and Influence
• Karen Laos Shows Consultants and Coaches How to Confidently Charge Their Worth

About me: Betsy Jordyn is a brand messaging strategist and business mentor for purpose-driven consultants and coaches. With a background in organizational development—including a consulting career with Disney—she helps experts clarify their unique value, position themselves strategically, and build businesses that deliver impact, income, and personal fulfillment. Connect with Betsy Jordyn to clarify your message, elevate your brand, and attract the clients you're meant to serve. Start here → https://www.betsyjordyn.com/services