Grow Your Independent Consulting Business

275. How to Handle "Can I Pick Your Brain?" as an Independent Consultant

• Melisa Liberman

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0:00 | 34:39

You get asked some version of “can I pick your brain?” all the time.

Sometimes it’s direct. 

Sometimes it’s a networking meeting that becomes a free consulting advisory session. 

Sometimes it’s a discovery call that was never really a discovery call. 

Sometimes it’s a "quick question" text from a past client.

Sometimes it’s a former colleague who wants to become an independent consultant.

And you say yes. Because you want to be helpful. Because it feels rude not to. Because you think it could turn into something.

These yeses add up. And not just in time. But in unexpected ways too.

In this episode, Melisa Liberman 

- Breaks down the two types of pick-your-brain requests that cost independent consultants. 
- The important identity shift a successful business owner makes re: the “pick your brain” requests.
- The PYB Protocol for deciding in advance what you will say yes to, and what to do in the meetings when you decide to take them.
- Turning Pick Your Brain sessions into paid engagements.

If you have been saying yes by default and feeling the cost of it, this episode gives you a system for triaging all the pick your brain requests that come across your desk.

Timestamps for Key Moments:

[00:00] Why pick-your-brain requests cost more than you think

[00:03] Companion resource: Grow Your Consulting Business, Chapter 16

[00:04] The two “Pick Your Brain” buckets

[00:10] The less obvious cost of saying yes 

[00:15] How a successful business owner thinks about this differently

[00:19] The PYB Protocol: deciding in advance, not in the moment

[00:22] Filtering requests: the questions to ask before you say yes

[00:24] What yes looks like and how to structure the conversation

[00:26] How to say no without brushing people off

[00:28] If you take the meeting: go in expecting something real

[00:31] How to transition from pick-your-brain to a next step

[00:32] Three steps to put this into action

Resources Mentioned:

Grow Your Consulting Business Book and Toolkit, Chapter 16. www.melisaliberman.com/book

Full Show Notes: https://shownotes.melisaliberman.com/episode-275

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