How to Start Speaking the Consulting Language| For Current and Aspiring Public Health Consultants

Resources Mentioned:

Free Translation Guide — Translates your public health skills into consulting language for nonprofits, health systems, and private organizations. Free inside The Public Health Club: https://www.publichealthclub.com/

Public Health Consulting 101 — Free live workshop, June 16 + June 17. Register at https://www.publichealthclub.com/publ...

Subcontracting to Six Figures (S26F) — Dr. Des's six-week course for landing your first contract. Learn more at https://www.publichealthclub.com/course

The fastest way to lose a consulting contract before it starts? Walk in talking like you're applying for a job. In this episode — kicking off Public Health Consulting Week — Dr. Des breaks down the language shift every new public health consultant needs to make, why your grant-writing instincts will backfire with nonprofits, and how two S26F students translated their skills into a $67,000 contract for a library.
In This Episode, You'll Learn

Why switching from "I" to "we" is the first move you need to make as a consultant

How to translate public health terminology into language your clients actually use

Why writing proposals like a federal grant will get you rejected by smaller clients

The two paths to landing contracts — and which one Dr. Des shifted toward after burning out on RFPs

How public health skills like strategic planning and facilitation transfer to non-traditional sectors

What Dr. Des's first three contracts looked like — $40K, $7K, $85K — all while fully employed

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you start speaking the consulting language as a public health professional?

Shift from "I" to "we." Refer to your business by name — "Strickland Health Consulting provides..." — even as a solo consultant. It positions you as a business, not a job applicant. Exception: when a client specifically requests a solo contractor.

Why do public health consultants struggle to win contracts with nonprofits?

Most PH professionals are trained to write long federal grants. Smaller nonprofits can't absorb a 50-page proposal — and academic language signals a mismatch. Write shorter, outcome-focused proposals and translate your terminology. "Impact reporting" lands; "evaluation" often doesn't.

Do I need to leave my full-time job to start consulting?

No. Dr. Des's first contract — $40,000 — came while she was fully employed. Her second was $7,000, her third was $85,000, all alongside a full-time job. The best time to start is while your salary still covers the bills.

https://www.drdesshow.com/

https://www.publichealthclub.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Public Health Consulting Week. This is day one of five, where I'm going to be giving you some in-depth strategies. If you are trying to get into public health entrepreneurship, public health consulting, and you don't know where to start, or maybe you dipped your toe in a little bit and you're like, Dante Dez, I need some strategies. I need to get more consistent clients. I need to figure out how to really make this thing shake, right? I got you. Okay. This is all leading up to our free public health consulting one-on-one workshop on June 16th and 17th. There are two days now. So if you miss day one, you can come day two. If you can't make day two, you can come day one. Okay. Same content, two different days. Make sure you show up live. All right. Because I got a little special sum for my people who show up live. Okay. Now, this intern is also leading up to the launch of our subcontracting the six figures course. If you have never heard of subcontracting the six figures, then that is my course. That is my baby, where I have trained and taught public health professionals how to land five and six-figure contracts. Okay. And listen, if you don't know if it works, it works because my friends, they have landed five and six-figure contracts, okay? You're gonna be hearing from them soon too. But if you want to just scroll through my podcast, there's some videos of them on there talking about it. But they have landed five and six-figure contracts in public health, y'all. There is money in public health, and stop letting people tell y'all any different, okay? If you stick with me, you stick with the public health club, then we got you. All right. For my members in here, make sure y'all show up live to public health consultant one-on-one, especially my people who are like, you know, you see those RF lists and you've been trying, you've been applying, it just hasn't been working for you. Show up live. Let's talk about it, okay? So, without further ado, our first strategy today is really going to be talking about how do you actually start speaking the consulting language? Because so many times I see, you know, you go into this and you go into it like you're trying to apply for a job. And this is not a job, friend. This is not a job, baby. Like, this is consulting, this is entrepreneurship, this is you have a business, okay? And it can be a little bit intimidating, but don't let it intimidate you. Don't let it be something that's like, oh my god, that it is, I'm so scared. It's not scary, y'all. You just need somebody to walk you through and hold your hand. And that's what I do in subcontracting the six figures, and that's what I'm about to do here for you today. Number one thing that I want you to think about, okay? As you are applying for contracts or you're even talking with clients, use we, okay. This is a business, it is no longer, hey, yeah, I can provide you with this or I can do this. No, we strickly health consulting provides this, right? If I'm thinking about talking with a client, I'm writing an RFP, I'm writing a proposal, Strickland Health Consulting can provide this, okay? That's a simple language tweak, all right? Simple overarching language tweak, but so important, okay. If you want to position yourself and establish yourself in this, now there are some contracts who say up front, we want a contractor, we want a solo contractor, right? We want a person to come in and the one person. If that's the case, then of course cater to them. But majority of the time, we over me. All right. Now, next thing when you're thinking about your language, we gotta think about how we're talking with potential clients, right? Because one of the things I've noticed about us in public health, we are so used to writing these long grants, right? We are used to writing grants, federal grants, and you know, getting stuff in, and that is great for federal. But in the public health club, one of the things that we do all the time, like I post, is opportunities that you can do as a solo consultant or you can do with a small team. Those are not organizations, nine times out of 10, those are not organizations that's about to read a 50-page proposal. They're not. And if you're doing all this academic language and academic jargon, you know what they're gonna do? Throw it out because they're not reading that, right? Now, if you're thinking about like a smaller nonprofit and you want to partner with them, you have to think about this. Okay, what capacity do they actually have to read a 50-page proposal? A lot of times proposals will give you, like, oh, we only want three pages or five pages, but sometimes they don't, and that's left up to you. But if you go into it writing it like you would tackle a grant that you have done in public health, then my friend, you are gonna get rejected, okay? I need you to make sure that your language translates to the funder, the actual organization that is trying to hire you, okay? And what that looks like is if you're trying to apply for a nonprofit, a lot of nonprofits they are very heavily dependent on funders, right? On funding, you know, funding streams, on whatever coming in to fund their organizations, right? So you may talk in the terms of, you know, making things funder ready, right? Um, are deliverables to funders, right? So, or you may say, you know, impact reporting instead of evaluation. That's one big thing. They focus in on impact reports, right? We we talk evaluation. You talk evaluation to them, they're gonna be like, what's that? Application thrown out, right? We talk their language, okay? Same when you're thinking about hospital systems and health systems, and we're thinking about um departments of health, like departments of health, they speak our language, they know what we're talking about, right? But you know, we're thinking about applying to other areas. One of my or actually two of my students, they ended up partnering together and they won a $67,000 contract to do a strategic plan for a library. If you have like facilitation skills or you've done strategic planning before, for my people who know, you know, right? I got thrown into strategic planning when I was at the De Florida Department of Health and they put me on strategic planning team and I was leading part of it. And I said, I don't know what this is, but hey, this is this is interesting. Okay, I can do this. And now that's one of the most areas that I see that people need contractors for um in the public health club. Is if you ever done strategic planning and you're not in there trying to get them contracts, my friend, do it. But Jamie and Probnee, they won a $67,000 contract to do a strategic plan for a library. Why? Because our public health skills translate, and they were able to really lock in and translate their public health skills to fit a library and what they needed. Y'all, I can't make this stuff up. Um, I'm gonna make sure I put the link below. Um, but it's on my podcast that we did. I did an episode with them, and they talked all about it in their strategy and how they found each other through subcontract in the six figures course. So that's the thing, y'all. Like this consulting can be a game changer for you, but I need you to know how to talk to potential funders, okay? And because of that, of course, a free resource. Y'all know I love my resources, right? So I have developed a um translation guide for you, right? To figure out how to translate your skills into consulting language, okay? This is a free guide, it is in-depth, it's gonna talk about different areas, you're gonna talk about nonprofits, health systems, departments of health, private organizations that may even contract with like CDC or whoever, and you're trying to go get funding from there. Um, it's gonna talk about how to translate your language. Now, this is free for public health club members. If you have not joined the public health club, I know some of my club members, you're watching this inside the club. So, hey, the guide is right there. So download the guide, it's right here. But if you are not inside the public health club, this is your sign to get in there today. We have a free resource right now for you to start, okay? Every day this week, this is day one. Every day this week, we're gonna give you a new free resource. It's consulting week, y'all. And I'm excited. Y'all see I got my public health hustler shirt on. Y'all might see this a couple times in in these different videos. Okay, I got I got a hundred of them. So, but you know, I say all that to say my number one goal is to help you get to that next level and help you to know that this is possible. Um, the number one time to really start consulting is while you're employed. So if you have a current public health job and you're in you're in your job right now and you know there's more I could be doing, there are other things that I could be I could be going through and doing. This is your sign to get inside the public health club to come to public health consulting one-on-one on June 16th or 17th and start, right? And this is even your sign to get into subcontract in the sixth figure. So, with subcontract in the six figures, that is my course. We are going through five, and I'm actually extending it to six weeks this time. So we are going through six weeks because we're ending on actually a live training that we're gonna do with me, right? Um, and we are going through six weeks to help you build from zero to landing your first contract, right? That is my major goal to help you land that first contract, even if it's only a four thousand dollar or five thousand dollar contract, and some of y'all might be like, that it is only. That's that's only that's minimum. That's low end. That is very low end, right? Because these contracts, when I'm telling you $50,000, $70,000. And yes, there are things that you can do on the side of your full-time job. When I first started consulting, my first contract was $40,000. That was on the side of my full-time job. My second one was $7,000. My third one was $85,000. Next one, $20 something,000. Like doing this on the side, right? And in my head, when I was doing it, I said, why is everyone in public health not doing this? Why do I not see people that look like me, people that are young, people that you know have all of this passion and love what we do? Why are we not doing this? And I will tell you this too. This wasn't even part of this, this um this strategy for today. But there are two ways for you to land contracts. Number one is applying to RFPs, number two is building relationships. Applying to RFPs can be hard, it can be a lot of work, and you can get burnt out. I've gotten burnt out applying to RFPs, and that's when I really start switching. I say, all right, I don't know if I want to apply to RFPs anymore. I want to just do relationship building. So every now and again, if I see an RFP and it aligns and I have the capacity, I'll apply for it. And I have a team that works on it, right? Like I more so now act as like a project manager, and even then eventually I'm gonna get out of that role and I'm just gonna have a project manager to oversee my contracts, right? But I say that to say, like, this business can look like so much and it can grow unexpectedly. I never thought that my business could grow to where I'm hiring someone to do work, right? Where I'm hiring other people to come in and do parts of the business for me, right? It grew into that and I didn't even know. When I started my consulting business in 2022, I never knew. Never knew, y'all. Never knew. But this can grow into something beautiful for you too. And I'm praying and I'm hoping that it does. And I'm super excited to have you come to public health consulting one-on-one so we can really talk in-depth. We got an hour and a half, and we are talking in depth, like we starting on time too. I might give y'all a minute or two to get in the door and get settled in, but we're taking off as soon as we get in. So make sure you come on time, make sure you're ready, make sure you can stay the whole time too, because you will have a chance for QA at the end. I got y'all. All your questions are gonna get answered, okay? And also, I'm gonna invite you to subcontract in the six figures because if you're serious and you want me to help you get there and land that contract, that is where it starts for you. But all right, y'all. This was day one. This was only like what, we 11 minutes in. This was day one. Day two, three, four, five. Let's go. Don't forget the free guide is inside the public health club right now. Okay, download it, use it, and let's freaking go, my friends. All right, I'll see you next week. Oh, actually, I'll see you tomorrow. Bye y'all.