Momentum Podcast: 281

Dont Leave The Consultants In the Dark

by Alex Charfen

Episode Description

Working with the right consultants can provide valuable shortcuts within life and business. When you find the right person, you'd be surprised with just how fast things can move. 

It make's it much more difficult for someone to help you when you aren't fully transparent. Are you telling your consultants what's really going on?

Full Audio Transcript

I'm Alex Charfen, and this is the Momentum Podcast made for empire builders, game changers, trail blazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers, and creators of all kinds. Those among us who can't turn it off, and don't know why anyone would want to.

We challenge complacency, destroy apathy, and we are obsessed with creating momentum so we can roll over bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution.

Sure we pay attention to their rules, but only so that we can bend them, break them, then rewrite them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny we define it. We don't understand defeat because you only lose if you stop and we don't know how. While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to that status quo, we're the minority, the few who are willing to hallucinate there could be a better future, and instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real.

We are the evolutionary hunters, clearly the most important people in the world because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive human evolution, and we always will be.

Don't leave consultants in the dark. In my career, one of the accelerators that I've used over and over and over again is consulting and coaching, and finding people with high levels of expertise, and getting that expertise transferred to me and I've been crazy fortunate that I've either had the money or the status to get very close to the best people in any industry when I needed to.

And so I'm surrounded by consultants at any given time. I work with [Taki 00:01:43] [Moore 00:01:44] for an understanding of coaching frameworks and models and systems. He's got 12 years that I can get transmitted to me two days at a time, or through his platform where I can get 12 years of expertise, 12 years of shortcuts, 12 years of speed to delivery all at once.

And I work with Russel Brunson where same thing, Russel's been an online marketer since I think pretty much they opened the internet, or around then. And he was one of the first guys to start selling through what we call funnels, and sales pages, and he's just incredible. Whenever I'm around him I feel like he's innovating not online marketing, he's innovating marketing in the highest sense of the term.

It's a brave new world. He's creating this economy where people who are good at what Russel does, and literally do what Russel says, that's a hashtag we joke about in the inner circle that he's creating this economy of multi-millionaires where in the past that just wouldn't have existed. There wasn't shortcuts as big as Russel can give you through click funnels.

And so that's why I get consulting from Russel, so I'm always getting as much consulting as we possibly can in the places that I think are gonna be the accelerators for us, and clearly because we are a coaching company and because we are online, those are two massive accelerators for us. But I also recently signed a contract with Marley Baird to do all of our YouTube, and she put together a proposal for us, and we do a lot of video, and we have a lot of content, and she convinced us that it was gonna be a strategy that would pay us, so I have her doing everything for YouTube.

So I'm always out looking for expertise as an accelerator. That's what I hacked as for entrepreneurs. When you come into one of our coaching programs, we'll show you how to set up the internal infrastructure of a business faster than you'll ever do on your own, and we'll show you how to do it in a minimum effective dose incredibly simple way that you can start using within days not months or years.

And you'll be expert at in months and years, and you'll be able to grow whatever size business you want, and we'll show you how to do it so fast that you'll be shocked at the growth you can have. And that is an accelerator that is priceless to entrepreneurs.

So I always encourage people to go out and get consulting, but here's one of the biggest issues when people do, is that we leave consultants in the dark. We don't tell consultants what's really going on, what we're really doing, what's really been happening. We're not completely transparent, we don't put it out there, and instead we hire consultants, and it's almost like, "Hey, you're gonna come fix it for me."

And I see this all the time. I'll give you just a theoretical example, and this is one that I've seen so often recently that it's dizzying how often this has happened. So online marketer is running Facebook ads to a funnel, or to a webinar, or to a funnel that is a webinar, or to an ad of some sort, or something. Sometimes it's been a Shopify store, sometimes it's been to a funnel, sometimes it's been to a funnel to a live event, or a funnel to a webinar, or a funnel to a product.

But this is repeated itself over and over. I've seen it so many times now, there's this pattern that consultants are left in the dark in this scenario because here's what happens. The entrepreneur's running Facebook ads, and they're successfully running them all, and then they get to this place in the business where they no longer want to do all of it, or they no longer want to run Facebook or it becomes overwhelming, or they want to scale the business, and they have to choose what they can do, and so they hire someone to take over their Facebook advertising, and that person comes in, and they don't pass on all the information they have.

Because if you've been successfully running Facebook ads, you have knowledge that you should be passing on to a consultant. Now here's a huge red flag for you, massive red flag. If you hire a consultant and you tell them you've been successfully doing something and they don't ask you for detailed information how, because they should want to know exactly how you're doing it if you're successful because they're going to want to help scale that success.

But one of the challenges that I see is that a lot of times as entrepreneurs, we don't share everything we possibly could, and here's the issue. A lot of times it's just we're not being intentional. So when you hire a consultant, one of the things you should be doing, a lot of times we hire consultants in advertising or in running ads, or in marketing, or in sales, and one of the things you should always try to do is to convey as much of what's been going on that's made you successful as possible, and as much as where you feel your challenges are as possible.

And again, good consultants will do this up front. A good consultant before they ever tell you they can get you a result will find out where you are, and what you've been doing, and what you have in place. When I talk to a business owner, the first time that I ever qualify somebody for one of our groups, when I'm standing in front of them I can very quickly start asking questions and understanding where they are, and I want to see if somebody's gonna be really transparent because I can't work with somebody who's gonna leave me in the dark.

I want to know what's going on, I want to know what's really happening for someone. And so when you hire a consultant, be intentional. Because here's what's happening, you're hiring someone for their expertise, you're hiring someone to help you accelerate. You're hiring someone usually to fix something, or to amplify something or to make it better, or to make it bigger, or to scale it, or to grow it, or to help you do one of those things, and so they should know where you are. They should understand where you've been, they should have clarity on what you've tried, and what hasn't worked.

So before you hire a consultant, sit down and get really clear. Write out what's worked, write out what hasn't, ask yourself questions like, where do you specifically feel like you need help? What do you want to continue being done? What are the things that are happening right now that you'd like to see continue? What are the things that are happening right now that you'd like a solution for?

And here's what will happen. In creating that document, in asking yourself those questions, you will have exactly the outline for the consultant that you should go hire, and then when you've created those ... Not created the questions, when you've create those answers, that document, when you've written those things down, that series or questions is something that you can actually interview consultants with. You can qualify them with, you'll know whether it's the right person because you have clarity around what you're actually looking for and then you can share all of that with them, and have them talk to you.

Because what you're doing is you're changing strategy, you're not calling someone in for a rescue, you're changing strategy, you're going from internally completed to externally completed, or you're going from doing it yourself to getting advice how to do it yourself, or you're going from doing it yourself to having someone do it with you. So regardless of what process you're using in consulting, if someone's good, they will ask you, and if they don't, and you trust them to know their stuff, then you better tell them.

And one of the things that impressed me about Marley and why we signed up to work with her with YouTube was one, she edited a video for us that she gave me as a gift that absolutely showed how much she cared about who I am and what we do, and she understood my voice and how to edit me, which means a lot to me. That means she knows me at a different level than most people.

And also because when she created her proposal, in the proposal she showed us that she went and did incredible amounts of research to understand exactly where we are. In fact, she explained to us where we were on YouTube better than we really understood where we were on YouTube.

The sales process was enlightening. And so I knew that she was gonna ask the right questions, and that we would share everything with her, and we did. And so that's why we're working with her because she came in and asked the questions. She did the research, she wanted to know what was happening, and we told her everything we could. She was the right person because she asked the questions.

If a consultant doesn't ask me what we've been doing or where we are, and they just start talking about their solution, it is a massive red flag for me. If I'm in a conversation with somebody who sells some type of service and they're trying to convince me and they don't know what's really happening for me, I don't trust anything they say because they'll sell anyone. They're proving it to you, and I won't sell anyone, man I go to a mixed group of people in a room, and it's an exchange to see who can do business with who, and I usually have a few, not a bunch.

When it's not a room of specifically entrepreneurs, man my numbers are limited. So if somebody hasn't asked you where you are, and what you do, and what's going on, and what's happening, and what you're doing right now, and what the issues are, you should be scared of them. And when they do, tell them everything you can.

And again, if you find someone who you think can help you, if you have someone who is a consultant who doesn't ask these questions, then you intentionally share with them so that they know. Because the more information you convey, the more they know about where you've been, the more they can help you move forward in what you're trying to do, and if it's someone who is helping you with something you haven't done before, it's not a process you're handing off, it's something you're bringing to have started, then share as much about what's going on for you as you can and where you are, and what the intention of the contract together is.

And in that conversation, you'll either convince yourself or prove to yourself ... You'll either convince yourself you're hiring the right person or show yourself that if they weren't asking the questions, that they should've been. And so don't leave your consultants in the dark, share as much as you can because what you're doing is an internal to external transfer, and pass on knowledge.

And again, if your consultant or someone who's gonna help you doesn't ask you where you've been, it is a major red flag, you might want to reconsider what you're doing. And if you're ready to grow and scale your business, and do it fast, go to BillionaireCode.com/Team. I'm going to be doing a presentation next week on how to build a world changing, game changing team without ever having to manage people. BillionaireCode.com/Team.

If you're ready to grow and scale a business, that happens through people, process, and projects. Let us help you understand how to grow a game changing team without ever having to manage people. I look forward to seeing you in a couple weeks.

Thank You For Listening!

I am truly grateful that you have chosen to spend your time listening to me and my podcast.

Please feel free to reach out if you have a question or feedback via our Contact Us page.

Please leave me a review on iTunes and share my podcast with your friends and family.

With gratitude,

Alex

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