Episode 133: Why Smart Consultants Still Get Undervalued (And What to Do About It)

Why does brilliance sometimes fail to sell? In this thought-provoking exploration of "The Expert's Dilemma," we unpack the frustrating reality that many consultants face: despite impressive credentials, extensive experience, and exceptional expertise, they struggle to attract premium clients willing to pay what they're worth.

The problem isn't your capabilities. It's how the market perceives your value. While many consultants respond by doubling down on visibility (more social media, networking events, and marketing), this approach misses the fundamental issue. Visibility alone doesn't convert prospects who see you as just another vendor offering similar services to everyone else.

Ready to stop being the best-kept secret in your industry? Tune in, and I will show you how. Your expertise deserves recognition. Let's make sure it gets it.

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For more information, visit https://excelatconsulting.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Podcast Format Introduction
• 3:04 ] The Old vs. New Consulting Landscape
• 7:07 ] Building Authority as Your Asset
• 8:37 ] Shifting from Expert to Authority
• 11:53 4] Closing Thoughts and Call to Action
• 40:05 The Expert's Dilemma Explained

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Black Girls Consult 2 podcast. I'm your host, dr Angelina Davis, and this episode is a little bit different because it is the audio version of the video podcast that we are now launching on YouTube. It is a growth process, so I want you to bear with me as we figure out all the kinks and try to figure out the best way to bring this content to you so you can have the full experience. This is a expansion period and we're going to test it out, see how it goes. But, with that being said, don't worry, because the audio version will always be here. And with that being said, let's get started.

Speaker 1: 0:40

Today we're going to talk about why a lot of consultants struggle to land premium clients. Not only why we struggle, but also how we fix it. This often comes up because many times, we find that our brilliance is not selling, it's not moving the needle, it's not gaining traction in our marketplace and because of that, it can be rather defeating and sometimes feel almost embarrassing, because we're thinking we have been through the fire right, we have had established and very successful careers, we have lived through a number of different experiences, we have the knowledge, we have the degrees, but, for whatever reason. We're watching so many other people that don't have all of those things seemingly win, so it can be frustrating to even think about going through this, but most of us, including myself, have actually been there, and one of the reasons why brilliance doesn't sell is because most people really don't know what you do. They don't know the value you bring, and so you really can't blame people for not wanting to invest in something they're not familiar with. When we are stuck in this situation, we find ourselves chasing leads justifying our fees every time we turn around, and then, like I said before, we're being compared to less experienced consultants, and when you look at it, it's not our expertise, it's not our knowledge that's the problem, or our capabilities. It is honestly how we have positioned ourselves and the fact that we have not communicated what we do effectively to the right people. So a lot of what we're going to talk about today centers around how we navigate what I like to call the expert's dilemma.

Speaker 1: 2:34

Now, the expert's dilemma is the fact that you're great at what you do, but the hard truth that it doesn't guarantee the recognition and demand you deserve. That is our dilemma. People are not going to hire you just because you went to a certain school or you have a particular certification, or you're someone that says that they are the best in the industry. They're going to hire you because they believe in what you do and they see you as being someone different, not just another option. When you are someone that is seen as a commodity, well, look, people are going to price shop. They're going to shop around trying to figure out who can do the work for the cheapest. That's just the reality, and oftentimes that leaves us as the person passed over, because you know that you deserve to command premium pricing and the appropriate value for the work that you do. So the core problem really is not the fact that you're not equipped to do the job, it's not your expertise. It's, honestly, the market's perception of what you can do, and so it's their perception that we actually have to begin to influence.

Speaker 1: 3:50

Now, what many people think is that, in order to influence the market, we need to be more visible. We need to show up in all of the spaces. We need to be on LinkedIn and Instagram and we need to be speaking on stages and we need to be on podcasts. We need to just show up everywhere. So the more that people see us, the more that they are going to know that we can actually serve them. And while there is some truth to you being visible, visibility always helps as part of marketing, it does not fix this problem, because being visible just lets somebody know that you have a service that's available, that you're somebody that has a business, but it doesn't help you land the client. And so the posting more, the networking more, the marketing more that's not the answer. We have to start thinking about this differently, because visibility is not the same as you being able to effectively position yourself. Decision makers, when they go to hire you for a service, as a consultant, they need to know that they are hiring you to do something that is different, that's of a higher level, and you don't want to be seen as someone who is just an average vendor. And if your messaging doesn't convey that difference, then they're not going to know and it's not going to convert. So marketing and being more visible is part of the game, but it's not the answer. It's not the solution.

Speaker 1: 5:22

What we have to actually do is start to help our expertise to make sense. It needs to make sense to the person who has no idea what we do. They don't know all of the years and the decades that went into building the knowledge that you have and, in all honesty, the better you are at your job, the better you are at the work that you do. You're going to do it faster. That's actually part of the value that you offer. But when we're used to always focusing on the task and time and these other measures of performance, it's hard for people to see the value because you're making it a little easy. It should be easier for you because you're the expert, but they have to understand why it's easy, how you have spent so much time and dedicated so much into the ability to make it easy, and that's what they're investing in. So we have to begin to shift how they see us and move from being seen as a vendor, someone that's providing a service to an actual partner, someone that they are going to collaborate with, and when they begin to see you that way, it becomes more of an investment, not just something that they can delegate.

Speaker 1: 6:38

Now we have to accept some responsibility for this right, because part of what causes this problem is the fact that we often talk about what we're going to do. We're running through services and tasks and deliverables. And we do that because many times being able to communicate and sell our expertise seems very difficult because it's intangible, it's something that you can't really touch or feel, it's not like a product, and we get stuck in trying to communicate how that's valuable. So we rely on the things that people are most familiar with. They're familiar with receiving some type of document or an audit or something that they can actually hold. We're used to doing that. It's what makes sense to most people. But the challenge in that and the dilemma is that when we're communicating always based upon these tasks and these things that we're doing and the deliverables that's how they're going to see us they're not thinking about the value we provide based upon our thinking, the way that we're thinking through the process, how we're coming up with the strategy, the fact that what we are able to share is the most valuable. They're not considering those things because we haven't talked about them, we haven't made it a priority, and so if we haven't made it a priority, how can we expect them to understand the value of our expertise and our brilliance? It's difficult for them to actually do that.

Speaker 1: 8:09

So you may think that this is very benign. Maybe it's costing a client or two here and there, but it's really not. There is a huge hidden cost associated with this. The fact that you are under positioning yourself means that you're going to attract clients that are lower tier clients or misaligned clients, not the ones that you truly want to work with. You're going to spend so much time trying to explain what you do that's going to eat away at your capacity to do more work to serve more. You're going to spend so much time just trying to land a sale that is going to lead to these sale cycles being longer. That means it takes more time for money to come in the door. You want to be able to do these things more effectively so you can close deals faster, so you can command higher fees from better clients and get invited into those rooms where even more lucrative opportunities lie. So that is what's really the thing that you're losing. That's the cost, all of those things that are hidden, and that's huge while we're trying to build a profitable business that is sustainable over time.

Speaker 1: 9:24

Now it makes sense that we have fallen into this dilemma, because the old way of doing this is to compete based upon credentials. Back in the day, if you were a consultant, you have been in practice for a long time. You typically may have been close to retirement. You had decrees and certifications and everything under your name, and people knew who you were, and so it was rather easy to build credibility that way, because you relied on what you had accomplished over time and because people have not accomplished all of that and they weren't able to effectively show and build those relationships, then, hey, it wasn't as competitive. But the market and the landscape has completely changed. Marketing plays more of a factor now and people are able to build credibility in different ways. So now you can't rely on just your degrees and credentials to get you the business.

Speaker 1: 10:24

Also, we're now used to thinking about things based upon value, and especially in terms of large investments, corporations and companies and businesses they can easily figure out whether or not they are getting a return on their investment. They can do those things that are necessary to figure out whether or not you are worth the investment in the cost. So we have to do a better job of being able to explain that up front. This comes from owning your distinct point of view. That's the newer way of being able to get people to recognize your value. You first have to stand out, you have to show that you are different, and you can do that by showing how you think differently, how your strategy is different, how you have a different philosophy about how to approach things in your industry. Those are the things that people are going to value, and then clients come to you pre-sold. They don't have to have these long sales cycles and conversations, because they already know where you're coming from. They understand who you are, they know what you've done in the past. You've talked about your approach to the work. You have laid out your philosophy and your perspective and your way of thinking. They understand you and they know what you do, and that works for you.

Speaker 1: 11:47

It is literally an authority asset. You have things out there in the marketplace, online that they can actually tap into and learn more about you on their own time. Most decision makers, they're going to do their research first. They're going to go online and they're going to Google you. They're going to look on LinkedIn, they're going to look in all these different places to figure out whether or not you offer the help that they need, and you have to show that you have to be able to speak to that in a way that is different than just task and to-do items that they can delegate out to somebody else. They have to see you as being an authority.

Speaker 1: 12:29

So that's the shift we have to make. We have to shift from expert to authority and that's the shift in our mindset, in our beliefs. We have to change the way that we think about this process, the way that we think about becoming an authority in our space, and then we have to communicate that. That's the part of messaging that has to change and our behaviors have to change. So we're not focused on just being visible and being louder or having the best content online. That's not the focus. That's not our goal. Our goal is to share how we think, to allow them to actually feel the impact of our expertise ahead of time. That helps to humanize it a bit.

Speaker 1: 13:14

People begin to understand what you do because it begins to change their lives. It changes their business when they take your insights that you shared and they implement it. That's what is actually going to drive yourselves. That's what's going to lead you to claim the title of go-to expert or authority in your space. You want to be seen as a strategic asset so that everything else changes. The sales cycle shortened, clients come to you and you literally stop chasing clients and being frustrated by the fact that other people, seemingly, are winning out and you aren't. That will be a thing of the past.

Speaker 1: 13:57

And so this is just to let you know that it's not your expertise that needs to change. It's not a pivot in what you do. That needs to occur in most cases, it is honestly just understanding your value and how to better articulate that so that it makes sense to the everyday person. Because the person who is hiring you to do the consulting services they're not hiring you for consulting, they're hiring you to solve a problem and you have to help them understand why you are the best person to help them get to their next step, to solve that problem, to achieve their goal. And when you do that effectively, that's what actually changed the game.

Speaker 1: 14:44

This aspect of messaging and positioning is all fixable. It's not hard. It's just a matter of shifting the way that we're thinking about this process and stop focusing so much on the marketing aspect in terms of tactics, but think about how we are actually sharing our thought leadership, our thoughts, our philosophies, our perspectives more openly. That makes the difference in the consulting world. So if you're finding that you feel undervalued, underpaid and like you're the best kept secret. This is the change that you have to make. All right guys, I hope this opened up a new way of thinking about how you're showing up in our industry. Let me know. Drop your comments below. Also, make sure that you subscribe to this YouTube channel for more and more episodes. I promise that if you make this shift, it's going to change everything in your business, because you deserve to be the authority, the leading authority, in your space, and once you communicate that, it's going to be easy for you to do. All right guys, take care.