Episode 153: Demand Decoded: Why Better Doesn't Win (Series Premiere)

If you’ve ever scrolled LinkedIn, seen a flood of “new contract signed” posts, and quietly wondered why demand seems to find everyone but you, we’re getting honest about what’s really happening and why it messes with your confidence.

Demand is often shaped by trust signals that sit outside your credentials: visibility, reputation, relationships, institutional credibility, and the kind of proximity that makes buyers feel safe choosing you. For women in consulting, especially women of color, those signals are not evenly accessible, which is why the market can feel confusing even when your expertise is solid and your client results are strong.

If you’re ready to stop internalizing the gap and start building demand with intention, listen through and take notes. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs the reminder, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts so more women consultants can find this series.

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Transcript

Social Media And The Comparison Trap

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today, there's really no way around being online. Unless you're living in some dark cave somewhere, which nine times out of ten, that's not the case. You are going online to either find information or to look for a new restaurant or you're going online to research. And many of us, the majority of us, also are going onto social media platforms, including platforms like LinkedIn to post or market our business, but then we're also consuming. So I'll know that there are times when people may say, I'm not a fan of social media, I don't do social media, but we're still impacted by it, either through our direct consumption or the consumption of others and the conversations we have as a result. With that being said, the one thing that social media introduces into our lives and into our business journey today that we didn't have before is a level of comparison that previously was not there. Before there wasn't the opportunity to see behind the scenes and get more intimate in terms of someone's business journey or what they may be doing, the clients they may be landing, or the successes they may be having. We didn't see that part. But now you are able to see it every time you log on, especially if you're logging on LinkedIn. You're gonna see people celebrating new speaking engagements, clients landed, contracts signed, and honestly, we all talk about this and we know that usually you're only seeing the successes, and you don't always see the disappointments because most people don't post those unless they're just a truly authentic content creator, or maybe they're making an extra effort to do that. So we're looking at a number of successes and we're taking that information. And although we don't want to admit it, most often we are comparing ourselves to that journey. And depending upon where we are in the season of our business or how things are beginning to move and navigate at the current time based upon whatever changes in our industry or the economy, we're playing a comparison game. And we may be wondering why is it that certain individuals or certain organizations or certain companies are having successes and wins than I'm not? That's a natural question to ask, especially when many times a lot of these comparisons stem around the fact that those who are seemingly winning may not have the same level of expertise or credentials behind their name. And you begin to wonder like, how am I more qualified? How have I developed my craft to a greater extent? How do I feel as if I can offer a better service? But this person is winning over me. Those are natural feelings. There's nothing to be ashamed about if you have that run through your mind. And how do I know that runs through people's minds often? It's because whenever I post around this topic, what I've noticed is that I get a lot more engagement and feedback, even if it's uh, you know, likes or comments or even direct DMs, that tends to spark conversation because the human nature is to feel as if things should be more of a meritocracy. But that's just not how the world works. It's not. And there's so many factors at play that I can talk about this endlessly and break down why these things are occurring and the beauty of why it does occur, because in some of those instances, the people that you may be observing and watching have other talents and skill sets that cannot be easily discerned, maybe by you, but they are valued by the clients and the people that work with them. So, long story short, this comparison game is something that we play that can cause problems if we're not careful. And it's often something that we have to begin to control. And what's at the heart of this is the fact that we want the same level of demand and uh interest in our services as we see them having in theirs.

Demand Is Not About Being Best

SPEAKER_00 4:26

The mistaken belief is that demand comes from being the best. And that's actually not typically what happens. When we're talking about generating demand or capturing demand or having demand for your business, which simply means that people want to work with you, they seek you out, they want to uh be your client. In order for that to happen, it takes a bit more. They're looking for more. And I think when we understand what they're looking for and we understand the disconnect, that helps us to navigate this phase more easily. So I want to spend some time in this series talking about why it is that so many brilliant consultants who are highly qualified and capable may struggle to attract clients while others seem to generate those opportunities effortlessly. So, if you're interested in how you can begin to capture demand or generate demand without having access maybe to the same social capital and network and shortcuts that others may have, then you're gonna love this series because we're diving deep and we're gonna start with why this happens. Because until you understand why this happens, it's gonna be hard to fix it. All right, let's get started.

Welcome And Series Kickoff

SPEAKER_00 5:45

They say the odds are stacked against us as women, especially women of color, trying to thrive in the consulting world. But rather than wait for a seat at the table that may never come, what if we build our own table? What if we challenged our talent into guiding each other towards the best we deserve? Welcome to the Black Girls Consultant 2 Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Andrewna Davis, and I've walked the path from healthcare consultant to a mentor for women like you, ambitious, unstoppable, and ready to make waves in the consulting world. This podcast is your go-to spot for all things entrepreneurial consulting. For us as women, especially women of color, think of it as your weekly coffee date with a friend who's here to ditch out real talk on building a solid business, elevating your thought leadership, and mastering that all-important mindset. And let's not forget, we're doing all of this while balancing day jobs, family life, and running teams. Yes, we can do it all. So if you're ready to dive into how you can grow a thriving consultancy or get strategies and insights that actually fit your busy lifestyle, then you're in the right place. Grab your coffee, tea, or hey, even a glass of wine. I won't judge. And let's get started.

What Demand Looks Like In Consulting

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Before we get started, let me just say hello. Welcome to the Black Girls Consult 2 Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Angelina Davis. I figured I needed to do that just in case it's your first time tuning in. Uh, and I wanted to start this series, like I said, because I do think that a big part of us being able to grow and build sustainable businesses is being able to have demand for the services that we provide. That means that someone wants to work with us, that we have the ability to create a consistent lead flow, that we have interest in our business and our expertise, that we have people following our ideas. Those are all elements of having demand for our service. And when we look at people in the market that are well established and we see them having the demand, meaning that they can post online that they are speaking at a particular conference and that conference is going to sell out. They have people attending, you know, conferences or meetings and they're rushing up to the stage trying to get the information to work with them. Or they have ads or the you know, other social media content as or organic that they are putting online and people are, you know, migrating to their sites and they are selling out their, you know, the offers, or they have calendars that calendars that are booked out for months to come. Those are all examples of demand that we see some people having in our industry. And the assumption is that if you have that level of demand, then that particular consultant must be better, that they must work harder, that they must have more expertise. But let me tell you, that explanation starts falling apart when you've been in this industry long enough. When you've been doing this for long enough, definitely like me for well over a decade. Let me tell you, that whole narrative begins to unravel. And then we're left to sit with this really uncomfortable reality that the consulting industry has never operated solely on expertise.

Why Expertise Alone Does Not Win

SPEAKER_00 9:24

And that's one of the reasons why when people are striving to show that they are better than the competition, that strategy or tactic rarely doesn't work. And that's because relationships matter, reputation matters, visibility matters, proximity matters, institutional credibility matters, the social capital people get matters. All of these things matter. And if we are very, very honest with ourselves, some of us as consultants, including myself, and I will argue, as including most women in this particular industry, especially women of color, start this race at a disadvantage while we watch our male counterparts, especially cisgender white male counterparts, start several laps ahead because they typically have access to things that create trust before they ever open their mouths. And they have long benefited from insider connections and access that many of us have not had. Now, this is not a pity party. We're not gonna worry about that because one of the things that I always do and remind my clients of is that we need to acknowledge the obstacles that exist, but we are all about being solution-oriented and finding ways to navigate that. So I'm just saying that there are a lot of things that really do make it difficult to generate the level of demand that you may see others having. And so if we understand that and we and we know that it's not us, it's not our expertise, it's not that we are not providing top-notch service. And if we are questioning that, we need to solidify it and kind of get it together. But if we know that we're doing what we need to do, then this conversation hopefully will allow you to not internalize some of what you're seeing. So knowing that the lack of demand does not mean that there is a lack of value for what you do. And it does not mean that it should cause a lack of confidence because you see that lack of demand. It just is a signal that we need to focus on how to fix this. And typically the fix for us is going to be different from the fix that you typically see implemented on a larger scale uh in our industry because usually we are not part of that majority.

Crowded Markets And AI Skepticism

SPEAKER_00 11:57

So when you think about why this matters now, you have to put on the economic hat and just really realize that we're in a weird place right now. You know, there's a lot of competition in the market. There are a lot of people who have consulting services. The demand is becoming harder to create because there's just a lot of options out there for clients. The markets are really, really crowded. And because of it being crowded with good and bad offers, buyers are very skeptical. Another uh point that I want to, I guess, highlight is the fact that AI is also changing the perception of expertise because there's so much that people can do or generate with the help of AI tools that they're unsure as to what is actually valuable for them to invest in when it comes to consulting. Uh, more people can appear capable than ever before, even if they don't have the experience or qualifications with a little bit of AI help. Guess what? They can look like it. So all of this to say that demand, if it was difficult before, is even more difficult now. So when we're talking about demand, I think it's important for us to understand that there are two ways that you can uh have demand for your business.

Creating Demand Versus Capturing Demand

SPEAKER_00 13:17

You can either create it, which is the vast majority, at least in terms of marketing literature, that they would say um, you know, your audience exists in. Because in this instance, this is where you want to build and create the interest in what you do. And so you do that through educating your target market, you are uh you know creating value for them, you're trying to create an attraction to your brand and your and for us, your ideas. Uh, you are thinking about the marketing piece in terms of visibility and all of those things when we're trying to create demand because they have to know what we do, they have to have interest in what we do in order to have demand for the services that we provide. Now, second to that is capturing demand. Now, capturing demand is a much smaller segment of your audience. And these are people who are already interested in the solution that you offer. And so what you are focused more so on is being in greater alignment with them and what they're looking for, and then being able to capture them in order to draw them in. So that is what we're often talking about with demand. But for our conversation, the thing that I want us to focus on is this is all about getting more people interested in working with us. And I want to keep it as simple as that because I think if we keep it very simplistic in concept, it's going to make it a lot easier for us to figure out how to navigate this and what we need to do in order to increase the number of people who are interested in working with us. So we don't have to pile on the pavement endlessly networking and uh trying to, you know, drum up referrals and doing all of these things that we can have more people who are coming in search of what we do because they um have knowledge of our business, that they understand and know what we offer. This is a type of demand that can completely change a business almost overnight.

Corporate Conditioning And The Merit Myth

SPEAKER_00 15:26

One of the reasons why a lot of professional women, especially, struggle with this is because if you think about our career journeys, we went to school, got degrees, uh, excelled in classes, got certifications, did all of those things that brought us uh, you know, recognition and allowed us to uh move through the hierarchy of academics and then also into our careers. And if you climb that corporate ladder or you went through any type of promotional process, then you know that the more you work, the more and the better results that you got, that helped you climb that ladder. And that's because there was already a system in place that told you what you needed to do, what you needed to accomplish, what was going to be required at that next level. And that was a consistent factor, at least it should have been. A consistent factor that everybody had to uh own up to and had to meet. Um, that's not the case when it comes to entrepreneurship. And this is one of the reasons why we often struggle so much. Because when you remove this uh hierarchy and you remove the requirements, then you're leaving it up to an individual to determine, and this is a subjective determination, why or if they want to work with you. And so that means that for you to grow, you are no longer able to rely on the same process that you relied on in your career. And when you've been doing something for years and decades, that's hard to rewire. It is hard, extremely hard to think about this in a different way. And even if you think about it and understand it differently, it's hard to actually implement that and act that out day to day. And that's why it creates these feelings of, I know I'm better than them. Like, why in the world did they get that particular contract and I didn't? I had better credentials, I had more to offer, but they still got the work. And yes, there's a component of that that may be relationship-driven, but there's also a lot of other factors at play that could have influenced the buyer to make that decision. And if we understand this dynamic is going to help us out a lot. So, one of the first things is that we are already conditioned to see this um journey or see the buyer selection process differently because we're basing that on what we know from our corporate background, and we're not thinking about it uh from the entrepreneurial standpoint. And so that is some of what causes that initial disconnect. So that is not just in your mind. You're not imagining this and you're not wrong for thinking this way. You have been conditioned and trained to think of it that way. And that is something that is very difficult initially when you're starting. When I say initially, I don't mean just the first month or the first year. I just mean the first leg of your journey, however long that may be. It is just something we have to constantly remind ourselves of. And having the belief that the demand that we want will come with us getting more, having more, doing more is just a misconception. It's a myth. Once we release that, that is going to free you so much. Uh, and it's going to help you understand why oftentimes the demand may even feel very, very unpredictable. Even if there are times where you may have more demand for your services than others, I'm sure if you listen to this episode and you're continuing continuing to tune in, it has not always been consistent. And that is something that uh just tells you that it's not because of uh what you know or what you're able to offer. Oftentimes I have seen with clients they offer far more than their competition. Far more. But because the buyer is not or does not have the information to make uh the decisions that they need to make readily, then it causes problems. It causes you not to uh be considered in many cases. And so that does really, you know, reduce and block the demand that you want and that you desire. So it's not that you're doing anything wrong, you're not doing anything wrong. The tactics, the strategies that you're using, they work. But I always like to tell people that you have to put everything in proper context. And so if the the scenario is different, meaning that if you are a a woman in this industry that does not have the same level of access and um, you know, close connection, high-level networking connections, inner circle connections, if you if you don't have the the money to do the level of marketing that some competitors may be maybe able to do in order to get themselves out there and be more visible and uh be known and seen and to share information, uh if all these factors are present, then it is going to be hard for you to generate the same level of demand. So that is the realization that I want us to have as we're beginning this conversation. And this leads me to really the first concept that I want to introduce and talk

Buyer Friction And Trust Signals

SPEAKER_00 21:05

about. And that's this whole concept of buyer friction. So one of the reasons why you don't have the level of demand that you desire right now for the services that you provide is the fact that there's a lot of friction that's interfering with the buyer's decision to work with you. There are external factors, and then there are also internal factors. Now, when I talk about external factors, these are factors that we oftentimes cannot change or influence. These are factors like innovation. And when we think about innovation, of course, we're thinking about the biggest uh innovative breakthrough that we've had, at least in our lifetimes, which is uh the use of artificial intelligence and all of the resources and tools that we have now that it many times can do. A lot of the work that maybe consultants have done in the past, uh, other factors include things such as like budgets. You can't Control what a particular client has budgeted for work. Uh, the procurement process or policies that are established, we can't change those factors. Legal and the friction that legal causes will make you pull out your hair. But we can't change that if legal is a part of the decision making, as well as things such as like market shifts. The industry will change and continue to change. We cannot change any of those external factors. What we have to instead do is account for them. So I do think that we have to think long and hard about what we are seeing in our industry in the present moment and being able to account for those factors that cause friction in the buying process. But what we can have a lot more influence on are some of these internal factors. And what I mean by internal factors, I mean that buyers often have preferences and how they develop these preferences centers around a few things. It centers around their clarity around what you do. So if a buyer doesn't understand what you do, then it's going to be hard for them to determine that you are a viable option. And so therefore, that is going to cause friction in you being able to generate demand. The relevance of your services to them in their business and their lives is another thing that we have to consider. That's an internal factor. Credibility. Are you deemed this credible? Do they believe that you can do the job? That is something that's always going to be playing in their mind as an internal factor. Differentiation. Do they know that you're different from the competition? Can they easily see that and explain that? Because that's going to matter with the next internal factor that definitely is a huge one is justifiability. Can they justify working with you? Can they defend that decision? That becomes even more important when you're working in the B2B and corporate space. So these are internal factors that exist. And our job is to try and reduce friction altogether, both external and internal. Now remember, I said external, you can't typically uh influence or change directly. So those are things that we have to account for. But internal, those internal factors and that internal friction that exists, those are things that we have the ability to influence. And this is what I want us to understand because I think when we see it this way, it's going to be a lot easier of us, easier for us to determine ways to uh begin to generate more demand for the services that we provide. And that is our goal because if we have more demand, then we're going to have, you know, more lead flow. We're going to have more conversations and interests in our services. And if we do a good job in terms of navigating that process and nurturing and closing, you're going to have more clients. So this is a, you know, a factor that is very important when you're thinking about the growth, success, and the sustainability of your consulting business. That's why we're going to dive all into this in this series. So you have to tune in to the next episode because we're going to go deeper and deeper, each time. But my goal and my hope is that you walk away from this conversation today, just knowing that if you are finding it very frustrating that you have not been able to generate the level of demand for your services in your business right now after all the work you put in, it is not your fault. You're not doing anything wrong. There is just information or ways of approaching this process that you probably haven't thought about in the past. And that's why we're going to peel back the layers on this. And every episode, I want to just get you closer and closer to being able to generate the level of demand that you desire.

Next Steps And How To Connect

SPEAKER_00 25:57

So stick with me, tune back in, share this with a friend, and I will talk to you soon. All right, bye. Thank you for tuning in to the Black Girls Council 2 Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to leave your review on Apple Podcasts, subscribe, and share it with a friend. We're on a mission to increase the success and longevity of women in consulting. And you can help us do just that. Also, I'd love to hear from you. So let's connect at Dr. Angelina Davis on Instagram or LinkedIn. And don't forget to visit excel at consulting.com for more information to support your consulting journey. Until next time, keep breaking glass silly. All right, take care of that.