66. Becoming a Business Consultant on your own terms - Interview with Grace LaConte

Becoming a Business Consultant on your own terms - Interview with Grace LaConte [Everything Business Consulting EP 66]

In this episode, we cover Grace LaConte's journey into business consulting.

Quotes:

"A business only has value if that value can be transferred."

"83% of companies that seek Merger & Acquisition help need to grow first."

- John Leonetti, Founder and CEO of the International Exit Planning Association

Grace's 3 recommended books:

The Essentials of Finance and Accounting for Nonfinancial Managers https://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Fin...

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Ne...

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited...

Transcript:

MC: Welcome to Everything Business Consulting, whether you are, or you want to become a successful and high-earning business consultant, coach, or advisor, this show is dedicated to help you. Here are our hosts, David Thexton and Julius Bloem. 

Julius: Today I am excited to interview Grace LeConte. She has started her career, or she started her career in the healthcare field first as a medical transcriptionist.

And she can describe exactly what that is because it's beyond me. And then as a compliance officer and a risk manager for surgical centers and long-term care facilities. Grace also has taken a dive in her career into consulting. And during that, she came across this very podcast and she's been working alongside us for the last couple of years now almost, as an ambassador for ConsultX and also as a network member.

So I'm going to hand over the mic to Grace, who's going to introduce herself and tell us a little bit about her background. 

Grace: Well, thanks Julius. It's a pleasure to be on the podcast. So I got into consulting originally, kind of as an aspect that came after a career in healthcare management. I, after college, when I was majoring in communications, I started working at a law firm.

So I have some understanding of legal processes and that was always interesting to me. But then I realized that, when I would become a mother, I wanted to have some flexibility in my schedule. So that led me to entering the world of healthcare management, with medical records. So transcription is actually, it's a field in the medical records department of most hospital systems and healthcare facilities of taking dictation from physicians and turning it into usable documentation.

So originally I sat behind a keyboard, sometimes even a typewriter. This is back in the late nineties, early two thousands.  And on, we had different technologies, but basically, the physician would dictate into a machine or a tape system. And I typed these notes up into a way that was, official.

So, that was actually combining a lot of my interests in language. I actually grew up in the country of Italy, I speak fluent Italian. I also have an interest in medical language, which is based on Latin Greek, French, a lot of different words that combine to be a language of medicine. So, I spent a lot of time perfecting that, I got certified in transcription and then the entire field changed. It became more electronic-based. So I went into management as a way to define myself and not get left behind basically as the field moved away from dictation and typing it and more into speech recognition technology. So since then, I got a lot more involved in the technology field.

I've worked in IT as well, marketing, and, most recently I was in data management. So once I finished with that, I decided to start my own business and to focus more on the aspect that I love the most, which was internal consulting projects.  And I realized that doing it as an external expert, I could actually provide a lot more value than what I could do as an employee within different organizations. So that's what I made of consulting. 

Julius: And Grace, that consulting is a little bit different to business consulting. Like we talk about here on the show and within our ConsultX community. Can you just very quickly describe the differences between those two? 

Grace: Sure, yeah. So the consulting that I did as a healthcare management expert with policies and procedures, it really had to do with looking at the full scope, what we call, I call now the holistic view, the 10,000 view of a system.

 So management-wise, you're looking at how people interact with each other. How data is communicated and transferred, where the gaps are in communication, and then where the risks could be in the problems that could become worse and lead to liabilities, to mistakes, to injuries, to the patient, you know, errors to patients that could harm them.

 And of course, to protecting the organization from legal liabilities, that was that's like I said, been my interest ever since the beginning. So when I took the parts of that processes that were most interesting to me. I always came back to profitability even in a non-profit organization, which some healthcare systems are.

There's still a very, very strong need to keep that organization running with money leftover. And it's just amazing to me, how many organizations even at the very high level, they don't think enough about profitability. So that became kind of a, an interest area. I did a lot of research into it. I learned a lot more about it.

I became more knowledgeable about financial information and, I ended up making that a lot more, a larger part of the work that I've did internally. And I actually I'm using it even today as a conversation piece with my clients. 

Julius: And is that what attracted you to business consulting? 

Grace: You know, strangely it is. So I grew up in a family where math was really not appreciated. My parents didn't enjoy math. They thought that it was not easy to do so growing up, I just thought math was hard.  I never even really tried to get that good at, I just did enough to get through algebra one.  But once I was married and had children and my husband encouraged me to go back to school, I actually found that math and statistics were really interesting and really helpful.

 It business math is a special kind of math that uses basically two columns, you know, the profit of how much is coming in and the loss of how much is going out. Well, really the revenue in, the expenses out and the profit would be in the middle, but a profit and loss statement shows in columns how much money is flowing into and out of the business.

So, once I got past the hurdle of realizing that math is actually really fun and could be extremely applicable to making decisions. It just brought so much joy back. And as you can tell, I just really am enthusiastic about helping business owners to understand where their money is going and what they can do with it to improve, not just the bottom line, but also their own function inside the business, their enjoyment of running the business itself.

Julius: Well, that's very, I guess, insightful, in my own experiences, I've definitely found that a lot of business owners don't have that understanding of where money is going in their business. And even if they've got an accountant or they've got some understanding of profit and loss, they struggle to understand the bigger picture.

They struggled to understand cash flow, well they don't understand all of the smaller things that they need to put it all together and make the decisions that they should be doing in business. The next question I have for you Grace, is what happened in your first six months after you started?

Grace: So the first six months happened after a job transition. I decided that I didn't want to be an employee anymore, I wanted to be in business for myself. So I didn't know what consulting looked like. I'd never really seen it applied well, all I'd seen were large, massive consulting firms that have big names and are very expensive and have very elite level work, that I didn't know how to reach that level.

So I basically just try to a lot of different things. I asked a lot of people how their business was going and I had conversations that brought a lot of insight into how they might improve.  At the time I didn't have the structure that ConsultX provides. So I did make quite a lot of mistakes at first because I didn't really know what I was doing.

And my clients benefited, even though I was still new to the field, but that's one of the problems with consulting, it is not a regulated industry. There is no set definition of what a consultant does or how their outcomes would be, improve a business or not improve it. There's quite a lot of just open-ended definitions of what that entire type of work can do. So that is one of the problems that I run into even now that people have a predetermined idea of what a consultant will do. And usually, it's not very good. It's usually negative. So, in the first six months, I basically just kind of dipped my toe in the water and try to see what I could do to help people.

I ended up doing a lot of marketing projects at first. I did some coaching into how to present, how the business owner could present themselves more clearly in a discussion with a potential client, and to convert that into a sale. I did some other projects with profitability analysis and increasing actually their rate of what they were selling.

So it started from there. And over the last few years, since then, I've refined my process. I have niched into certain markets that I serve and have decided to not serve other areas. And in the last year, working with the ConsultX program, it's become even easier to really be clear about what I do and why.

Julius: And how did you acquire clients in the beginning? You sort of started to go into that process. Could you do a little bit deeper into that? 

Grace: Sure, yeah. I was really lucky to live in a part of the US, the United States that was very entrepreneurial centered. So I was living in the city of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which is right in the middle of the Heartland, the center of the US called the Midwest.

 And at the time that I was living there, they happened to be starting a new entrepreneurial group called 1 million cups. It was this once-a-week get-together where we would meet at 9:00 AM on Wednesdays. Every Wednesday and hear from one business center who would explain how their business worked and what they were doing.

And then they would get questions from the audience, which sometimes were kind of nerve-wracking. I did this as well, I presented my business.  But that led me to meeting a lot of really interesting people who were starting new things, technology companies, service companies, products, really interesting array.

So it was really amazing to be among people that we're talking in terms of entrepreneurial thinking, and we're willing to try experiments with how we would create business models. It was really fun. Once I moved from there to the West Coast, I had a lot of tools under my belt, and I used those to focus on acquiring clients in a different way.

But at first, I was just meeting people through these relationships, asking how their business was going, and just finding whether I'm creating a path for the future was something that they wanted to do. And invest that in service of hiring me to help them do that. 

Julius: And how does it differ from the way that you acquire clients now?

Grace: Yes, it's quite a bit different now. My method now is really through warm leads, and relationships from existing clients.  As you know, like when you have client relationships with people that know you, trust you, and have seen tremendous benefit, it's so much easier to take that relationship and then ask them if they can refer you to other people, just like them who have the same kinds of problems and challenges. I have also change the types of clients that I work with, I've increased the revenue amount that I will serve because it is so much easier to convert and basically turn the dials up with clients that have at least a half a million dollar a year revenue business, or more than it is for smaller business clients. I do provide coaching to smaller clients. Less than half a million, but it's just not the same impact as a business that has the potential to grow so much bigger in a very short period of time.

If they just have some dials turn, that's how I'd describe it.  Just a few adjustments so we can see that profit just shoot right up. 

Julius: And how many clients do you have today and what type of businesses are they in? 

Grace: So currently I work with three different clients. I'm focusing a lot more on accounting firms, which kind of different aspects of the finance field.

So I'm working with three right now. One's an accountant. One is a bookkeeper and another one is in a related finance field. So financial services.  This is an area that I've been working in the last year because I've seen the potential for how accountants have a fantastic position within the market of a trusted advisor role.

That's what we call, most of you want to be called a trusted advisor.  But they also have their own challenges running their business. So there are two different ways that I help them. One is to help them identify leakage, profit leakage within their own firm.  And every single business has leakage, even if they don't want to admit it at first.

And then the second way that it helped them is once they get their business established, they can then use the same system that I use to help their own business clients and generate an additional source of revenue internally, which is making a huge difference. Once they realize that they can provide advisory services, it changes the way that accountants see their own business.

But, I'm also finding that it's very challenging to find accountants that want to do that. It's very scary for them to step into the world of advising clients about the future because all of their training is looking to the past. Everything they do is looking at historic data and also it's a role that requires them to ask open-ended questions.

So when they're used to having very strict rules about what numbers are supposed to do and what they will do in the future though, by analyzing them, this role is totally different. It's asking questions that they may not have a potential answer to and extracting information from a client or potential client that may be kind of uncomfortable talking about what they'd like to do in the future, how they may be struggling, what challenges they want to fix.

And yet these very questions are the ones that clients, business clients desperately want to solve already. So it's just a matter of accountants recognizing that they can actually step into that role. So there are so many other types of people, anyone who's listening to this podcast, if you have a business background or you have ever done any business work at all, and you understand even basic financial information, it's really quite easy to step into this role of a consultant, but it helps to have some financial knowledge beyond just the basics because then that just creates a better expertise than your current business clients will see as a very easy transition that the conversation is, I call it easy as pie in American English. It's so easy to just move that current relationship into the next step, which many business owners want to have.

They just don't know where to get that help. 

Julius: That seems like a very good time Grace, to talk about your role as an ambassador, a little bit, you've got three clients, which is probably on the lower end or definitely is on the lower end of the number of clients that we would typically see someone within our network have.

However, you're working as an ambassador, given your background in consulting and, your belief in the ConsultX system. So you're kind of multiplying yourself by working with accounting firms who have, they've got, I guess, hundreds, if not thousands of clients themselves who also need help, do you want to talk about your role and how you're sort of getting accountants to help their clients more?

Grace: Sure, yeah.  In the last year of researching the situation with accountants, I've had conversations, I just tallied it up, I've had 142 different conversations with accountants, financial planners, merger and acquisitions experts, CPAs, financial service providers of various types.  It's been a lot of conversations to learn about what's going on in the industry.

And although I've had clients work beyond that, I'm just really passionate about finding the most strategic way to reach the most people. So, one of the beautiful things about consulting about the industry. As a Business Success Partner, not as the evil consultant that people think of is just taking advantage of a business owner.

But the version that I like to explain as, investing in the future of that business, by partnering with them, one of the benefits of that is that you could really create whatever business you want. You can make it into whatever you want for your lifestyle. Personally, I do not serve as many clients, and I also don't spend quite as many hours doing this as possible because that's what works for my family's needs. I am a parent to three children, my husband travels quite a lot.  And because of that, the flexibility to be able to create whatever schedule I want. And still serve client needs is incredible.

And the other part of that is as an ambassador, I do quite a lot of discussions with potential users of ConsultX, some of them become clients, some of them just learn more about it. It's kind of like a discussion that I continue to have with a lot of different types of people in a lot of different industries, not just in finance, but others too.

So kind of like two different roles that I have. 

Julius: You do now, that's really important that you brought up that aspect of lifestyle because that's the reason why I joined as well. I wanted to get out of working the horrendous hours I was previously. And I wanted to be able to help others and, also help myself. Cause that's quite important to be able to have room to breathe yourself. So you've got a clear head for when you're helping other people in business, other business owners, and managers and help them get the most out of what they're doing as well. Switching back to our conversation about your clients, have you had any losses and if you had your time again, would you do anything differently? 

Grace: I think client losses is an unfortunate reality that comes with serving client needs. I don't know of any business owner that hasn't lost a business transaction of, you know, a return I've never had anybody ask for a refund, but I've certainly had client relationships that didn't work out the way that we were both expecting.

 One of the great things about consulting is also the downside it's that you rely so much on your own strengths, your own personality type, your own communications style. And one of the things I've learned is to learn as much about myself and how I may be making mistakes in communication as possible.

So that's been one of, kind of my side projects is learning as much as possible about communication, about risk management for myself, because I don't want to make mistakes that I did in the past. So one client example, that didn't go so well was a physician, a doctor who had a practice and she was asking for help with some marketing and also for process improvement, which falls in kind of the category of what my work was at the time.

And I didn't know how to ask the questions that I do know. If I'd gone through the ConsultX process, we would have avoided so much aggravation later, but at the time I just did what most people do, which is to have some basic questions and then find out what her needs were and then discuss potential outcomes and how I would charge that.

And a yes or no, and that was kind of like a basic how you get into consulting.  But what I found out later was that there was so many problems behind the scenes that she did not explain to me, but she didn't, she wasn't asked. So really it was all my responsibility and at the end of the day, and it was always the consultant's responsibility to take whatever communication breakdown is happening. It's still your responsibility to make sure that that gets resolved. So I did take responsibility for what was later a pretty, a series of problems that she was experiencing that were just not going to be possible for us to get through with the understanding that we had before.

So we were looking at improving processes and creating better outcomes, improving AR accounts receivable of unpaid patient debt that she was owed. And unfortunately because of other factors in how she was running the business and it was a situation where she was basically borrowing money from personal accounts to keep its cash flowed and not charging patients for services rendered. So really, at the time, I didn't know how to help her to get past her own self. It was kind of like beyond the scope of what I was doing.  If I could go back, I would have used the structure that I use now, which is gather as much information as possible and ask in different ways.

How is your business doing in this way? What is the current financial situation? How is it impacting you personally? Because I found out later that there were a lot of interpersonal issues that I couldn't help her with. So I did help her to a point, and then I lost any further engagement, just because it was out of the scope of what I could do.

I've had other clients that had pretty short engagements because I didn't know how to create long-term benefits. And that is another difference that ConsultX just builds into the initial discussion. If you say, Hey, I'd love to start a project. How about let's try it for three months. See how it goes.

The three months is going to stick in that client's mind forever like there, they're just not going to say, oh yeah, let's keep going for three more years. So that was another mistake I have made. And it cost me because I would lose the client after the three months, you know, the trial period.  Now I have a much different way of presenting it where I'm a partner with them.

I want to go for the long haul and we just keep building that trust over time. So I don't have that problem anymore. 

Julius: What's your average lifetime of clients now then? 

Grace: I've had one for over a year because of the ConsultX system, and the rest just a few months because that's when I started with them. In the past, I had engagements between three months and a year. 

Julius: Oh, very good.  I just want to ask another question of you, Grace. How do you think your background has helped you as a consultant? 

Grace: My particular background is really kind of all over the place because I didn't really know who I was for many years.

 And that's, I'd really love to talk just about that for a second, as a mother, and a female.  I have a different experience in the workplace than male counterparts and I have worked in industries, the IT industry, where it was very male-dominated. So, I entered that because that's where my giftings are.

I love to analyze, I love to kind of tear apart big problems to see it from a big point of view, strategic planning, usually pretty male-dominated. So I've really enjoyed the process of learning more about myself through my career. It's been really fantastic to keep pushing myself professionally, gets more certifications, and just learn more information.

But I don't think that it's necessarily one path that will ever lead to a great consultant. There's so many different types of people who will be able to take all of the things they've learned, even if it was in a completely unrelated industry to finance. For example, really, there's so many other places that you could get information that would be extremely valuable to apply then as a consultant, to helping a business client make better decisions and you don't have to have all the answers, which is another thing I've learned so much. 

In fact, when a consultant has the answers, they end up becoming so arrogant that the clients don't trust them. And that's what I believe is one of the big problems with large colossal consulting firms that charge the six to seven figures per project.

In some ways, the arrogance that comes from thinking you know everything will keep you from learning the problems that that client is facing. So I've learned, especially again, I keep talking about it, but the ConsultX system helps to break it down into such a seeker, kind of like a learning process where I'm gathering information, I am not ever applying my own thoughts to what the problem is or how to solve it. 

In fact, we don't solve any problems. For a long time, we don't try to put a bandaid approach on anything. We just get to know the person and kind of pull out of them, all of the potential problems that exists. And we can put them into a framework where that is then used to develop their business plan.

It's just such a beautiful and very it's so simple. It's simple, but it is extremely effective. And I have tried many other models, many other frameworks, some of which I came up with myself, none of them hold a candle to what the ConsultX processes, because it starts with just building a very, very easy relationship and moving that then into developing a business plan. 

Julius: I think I'm a little bit like you, Grace. And the fact that my background is a little bit all over the place, it's quite varied. I've read a very good book on this by a man named David Epstein. And it's called The Generalist I believe. I'll put it in the show notes, but it talks about how, and I think this was quite applicable to business consulting has, how having a wide range of experiences and knowledge and being able to kind of draw upon that wide-ranging knowledge, can help you in problem-solving and help you to come up with solutions. And I think that's particularly applicable because businesses are such big beasts with so many things going on and it's quite common to have clients in all sorts of different industries.

So like you talked about being able to continuously learn and apply these learnings and not having to know everything at the time is very valuable to you. And you've also talked about the value that you've got out of ConsultX. You've been a member. For I think about a year, I mentioned two years at the start that might've been a little bit long.

Grace: It feels like longer, but yeah, I think it's been exactly a year this month. Yeah. 

Julius: How have you benefited from ConsultX?

Grace:  It's been an incredible journey of learning, that sounds like such a trope. Doesn't it? I'm on a journey, it really does feel that way. I entered the, I first found out about ConsultX because I was looking for more tools to be a better consultant.

So I was searching through the podcast library for business consulting, how-to podcasts. Part of that's because I am always wanting to learn, but part of it's because I was really stagnating as a consultant, I didn't feel like I was really being as effective with some of my projects as I could have been.

And now that I look back, I mean, it's so obvious to me what I was missing, but I didn't know how to make it at the time. The process is the three stages that we use in ConsultX, is starting with discovery. It's really it's even before that there's even a pre-discovery discussion that I have with my clients, with potential clients of just really just caring enough to ask them how they're doing. I cannot emphasize enough how life-changing that question is to a business owner who is out there in the world, working so hard without anyone to talk to about it. It is so lonely. And I've heard this so many times from not only my clients, but also from accounting firms who tell me that their current business clients are saying the same things to them, but they don't feel qualified to help them. 

So there is just a tremendous amount of pressure, especially in the last year and a half with all these restrictions and changes that have alter the way of doing business or adjust the outcomes that they were expecting, the profitability level, even business decisions have had to change. Client relationships have shifted. You know, there just so many changes that have impacted just about every business on the planet.  And I'm just, I have so much empathy for what business owners are going through.

So, like I said, that's the first step that I have is just to have a very open discussion how's business going. Tell me more about it. What's happening, you know, what is it like? Has it been a difficult year? Oh, it's been a great year. Tell me more about that. That's fantastic. Or it's been a rough year. Tell me what, what made it rough?

What's been hard, finding clients, you know, expenses going up, whatever that is. We then lead into why I'd love to hear more about this. Can, would you be interested in having a discovery meeting where we talk more about this? Get more information. You can hear more about what I do. Super easy conversation.

And then we move into scheduling a discovery session.  Somewhere in there, I ask about their revenue level, which is important because it's possible to coach someone who makes under 500,000 US a year, but it's just, it's really difficult to provide full consulting services because of the cost involved. So when they makeover that they are more capable of being able to pay for something that will make sense for them.

So under that amount, I provide coaching, but over that amount, I can do the full consulting service, which is really what will make a tremendous difference and turn those levers, you know, make a long-term impact on their profitability. 

Julius: Well, I find, or I have found the same thing as you Grace.

Business owners are so emotionally attached to their business, whether it's positive or negative, it's always such a good talking point. If you can ask them with genuine intrigue and without judgment like they'll just open up to you. Whether it's really tough at the moment and they give you all of their problems or whether it's, they're so proud of their business and how well they're doing or how well they think they're doing.

That it's just the most amazing opener of a conversation. Now I used to, some of you will know this, I used to work in a shop that modified performance vehicles. And it was the exact same thing with that, where someone would own a car and it was their absolute pride and joy when it was going well. So they'd have these great emotions of Alation or on the other hand, if it was broken, they were just in a terrible place because they couldn't drive their car and owning a business is exactly like that, where you just have to just have to ask a few very simple questions. With great honesty and, you're gonna get a really honest conversation happening right back at you. So, Grace, I'm going to ask you about your consulting now a little bit because people join, ConsultX and become consultants for different reasons.

And often the lifestyle drawcard is very important. As you've already started to discuss, how has the freedom of being a consultant help you to live the life that you want? 

Grace: It's been really wonderful to have the option to work as much or as little as I want. And that sounds a little bit trite and honestly, it sounds almost like it's made up.

There's so many different companies out there that try to present that as an option when it really is not possible with the business model that they may say makes it possible. I have a lot of friends that are involved in different opportunities that end up being actually a sales job, through schemes that aren't going to actually result in them owning an actual business.

 But for me personally, the changes that have happened are that for one thing, the money is great and that's one thing that creates freedom. But to me, it's also the joy of watching other people succeed. I am. So, I mean, even if I weren't paid to do this, that's what I would want to do.

I'm at heart, I'm really a teacher. I love to explain how things work. I love to guide people into thinking better in more intricate ways about how their business runs.  Done projects, pro bono quite a bit, where I suppose I could have charged, but I just saw a need that they weren't able to afford a service.

So I zeroed out the amount that I would normally charge and would do it for no charge.  The benefit for me is watching business owners, whether it's for-profit or non-profit, recognize their own barriers. So the things that they do that stand in the way of their own success. And this is so common that I've actually written quite a lot of blog posts about it.

I call it a risk intelligence. So risk is the potential problems that are out there. And intelligence would be, creating a mindset where you're constantly becoming more aware of those barriers, those problems that could lead to bad outcomes. So I really enjoy using tools that I can apply even with my kids, even with my friends, sometimes I'm sure it gets annoying, but, how do we recognize what's going wrong before it turns into a bad outcome?

 So obviously being able to charge, an amount. Money that changes my life. That's fantastic too.  But the money is not everything to me. It's also just the joy of seeing that my clients have the capacity to be able to continue serving their communities, adding more employees, growing their business to a point where it has value.

And that's another thing I talked to quite a few mergers and acquisitions experts who told me that a business doesn't have value unless the value can be transferred. That's a quote that I heard from a presenter from an M and A conference. And it makes so much sense to me, business owners, for the most part, do not have transferable business, the vast majority, even when they want to sell, when they approach a merger and acquisition expert, 83% of those individuals will be rejected.

So of the 17 18% of businesses that want to sell, 83% of those will not be able to use a service that could position them for a sale. So basically very few businesses are capable of going to that final level of having high valuation and being sale ready, which means that there's a gap. There's a gap between where business owners need to be, to be sold at the highest level, and where they are right now.

And I see Business Success Partners. I wouldn't say consultants, but really we're Business Success Partners. We can fill that gap, we can be the expert in the field. That's able to walk alongside business owners and create more profitability, more better processes so that they can have a high valuation at sale, which will then benefit their own family.

 Make them happy in retirement and honestly keep them from failing. So that's kind of how I see the more like a mission to me.  It's fantastic that it also pays well, but, it's kind of a dual thing for me of educating and also encouraging people to make good choices.

Julius: Well Grace, it was a lot of value in that little sentence, not sentence, that little segment that you just offered there, I guess I'm the same as you in the fact that it's my mission to help other people. And I've actually got a list of goals and affirmations that I start every day with. And I've recently added to help others and create significance where I can significantly help other people to achieve their goals. And that's kind of been with me for many years.

It's one of the reasons why I decided to start as a business consultant because that's really one of the reasons that drove me to get into the field. You also mentioned that quote, a business doesn't have value unless the value can be transferred. Now as a business consultant and one of our missions, whereas a Business Success Partner as you said, Grace.

One of our missions is to increase the profit. What is it Grace? Profit growth and business value. And that's so important that you're looking towards the long-term when you're working with a business and trying to grow that value because ultimately most people are going to retire one day and this is their retirement nest egg.

So helping them grow that value over the long term. And it's not the only reason that people would choose to work with you as a Business Success Partner, but it can be a very motivating thing if they can see the finish line in the distant future. And they know they going to get a really decent sum of money to retire on, and that can be quite motivating to pick you up and to work with you as a business consultant. So thank you for bringing that up. 

Grace: Sure. Julius just one last thing, a lot of the business owners that I talked to do not have money as their number one priority, which might surprise people listening to this podcast. If you're surprised that business owners actually don't really think about money a whole lot. Then I can tell you that quite a lot of people I talk to do not see it as the main goal money, money is a tool that is used to get freedom, to have flexibility, to see improvement, to make a difference, to create security. I mean it really isn't about having tons in the bank.

That could be one goal, but for most people, it's about what that money can do to improve their lives and to give them security for the future when they retire if they retire. A lot of people aren't even sure if they can. And unfortunately, a lot of business owners don't have a clue what their financial situation is, which is why measuring that and finding specific ways that they can improve that is hugely, emotionally, satisfying.  Because without knowing exactly what, say again, risk management without knowing exactly where those problems are, they can't sleep at night. They have nightmares about how their business is going to just crumble and fail and they will have nothing to show for it. So rather than keeping them in that horrific state of panic, it's just so incredibly wonderful to position this discussion as a way to potentially bring relief to that very, very real problem that most business owners have, even if they don't want to talk about it. 

And most of the time they do, when do you, when you start the conversation with true engagement and wanting to actually hear their story, most of them open up and talk, and then we can have a discussion about whether this is right for them.

Julius: Many of our listeners Grace are considering becoming consultants. What do you suggest would be the best way for them to get started? 

Grace: Best way to get started, I would say, first of all, listen to every single podcast episode you can.  That's what, that's what helped me. Honestly, I listened to every single one.

Maybe even twice or three times, I really liked the one about the I think it was 11 different ways to increase profit, absolutely fantastic episode.  The other way would be to 

Julius: I'll put that in the show notes.

Grace: Yeah, it's fantastic.  Then I honestly keep listening to it again and again because David just goes through a machine gun approach to just all these different ideas that even when I'm working with a client, I'm like, oh, that's right, there's one more way to squeeze profit. 

There's so many different ways to do it.  So that's one, another would be to listen to a demonstration or request a demonstration from someone on the ConsultX team because seeing how we go through this process is really helpful. Actually do a demonstration with individuals who I may not see as a potential client, but who may have network-like relationships with people that I do want to serve.

So I demonstrate the power of this, and a lot of times they end up becoming a client of mine. So that's kind of funny how that works. The other thing I would suggest is to actually have some books that I would really, really suggest. One of them is the basic information about finance. So if you're not already in a CPA role, or even if you are, but you don't know how to communicate that more clearly, this book has been fantastic.

It's the essentials of finance and accounting for non-financial managers. It breaks down different aspects of how business ratios work. Liabilities equity. It's been a great way to educate myself since I don't have a strict finance background.  I also really liked the book, The Millionaire Next Door. Which helps to position your mindset about what people are looking for. It's not all about money. It's also about lifestyle. 

And then the E-Myth Revisited is fantastic. This book has been a great source of information that I use with my clients to help them understand that they may be in the business, working on the transaction level.  But they need to think more of as a manager and then ultimately as an entrepreneur, to be able to create more value over time, rather than just being in that lower level of technician. So those three books are fantastic. 

Julius: We'll put them in the show notes as well. I actually think I have that first book you mentioned. I definitely the E-Myth Revisited, and I also think I have Financial Accounting for Nonfinancial Managers. 

Grace: Yeah, it breaks it up into a way that those of us who may not naturally feel inclined toward numbers, which I actually, I do, the more I read it I was like, oh, this is not that hard.  It helps to create good discussion points too because I think one reason, a lot of people don't want to become a consultant, especially business consulting is because there are a lot of numbers.

I mean, business is a numbers game. So you do have to understand at least the basics of what numbers are causing revenue, what numbers are leading to spending, and then how to calculate what's leftover and whether that's reinvested in the business or paid out, or you know, if there are other funds coming in or out, you have to know where those numbers are coming and going.

So having at least some basic financial knowledge is extremely important, if you're getting started in the field.

Julius:  I know Grace, already you've riddled this interview with many golden nuggets of advice. Do you have a couple parting nuggets of advice that you can deliver to our listeners? 

Grace: Parting nuggets, okay. So I've mentioned that listening is very important, and that's something that I continue to work on, but it's been such a great lesson. By doing it the wrong way, having clients that I didn't hear their initial discussions nearly as well as I maybe could have. I've learned that the discussion really needs to be where you're a student as a Business Success Partner or consultant.

You need to be a student of their business and learn as much as possible. 

Julius: We have two ears and one mouth for a reason, Grace. 

Grace: Exactly, the other thing that I would suggest when getting started is that consistent activity. David talks about this a lot and you do too Julius in the other podcasts and other videos, consistent activity is really what makes a difference in serving client needs.

So, and in acquiring clients in the first place, I know a lot of people that start off with good intentions, but they don't put the time and effort into actually doing the real job. They spend time researching or reading things or, being a student, or trying things that are fun. Making videos, whatever, but they don't actually call the prospects.

 And in the last few months, I've actually done more of that. I've actually cold-called, I'm trying out a new industry right now where I'm trying out a relationship-building strategy. That's led to some new clients and some new prospects it's been fantastic. But I did that with cold calling, which most people will say is outdated.

It's not, it's so not. A lot of people that I'm reaching do not have any interest in going online to find me or anyone who does what I do. So the only way they're going to hear about me is from a cold call where I do research beforehand, I know of people through our mutual friends and then I connect with them and just ask them about their business.

 So that's another nugget and the third one would be to mentally prepare, to visualize what success means to you. And basically go through the entire ConsultX three stages for yourself. So whether you have a business that's functioning right now, or whether you are starting out fresh, the answer to those questions for yourself, plug in some numbers for yourself and see how you would present it to yourself.

If you were the one receiving it, it really puts you in a very empathetic relationship with who you're going to serve as a client later, because then you're the one that's actually on hot seat. It actually helps even more, if you have another connection from ConsultX who will do this for you. So I have, I've done that as well, where we reversed roles and we both did this process for each other.

It's incredibly helpful. And it's kind of humbling because when you're the one that's answering these tough questions in kind of embarrassing situations that you may not have done the best in your business, you have more empathy for how your client is going to feel when you ask those same questions of them.

Julius: Well, Grace you are absolutely oozing value, and passion, and information about this, so I think we're going to have to continue this conversation on another time, but thank you very much for your time today. I'm sure our listeners will have gained a lot from it. 

Grace: Excellent, it's been such a pleasure to be on the podcast after listening for over a year.

Julius: Great to have you here. 

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