Salutations, friend! In today's episode, we will continue the discussion about the difference between corporate and online entrepreneurship that started in last week's episode. In Part 1, we touch-based about the 4 principles for success in serving corporate clients. So for today's Part 2 of the series, we will talk about some strategies you might use that are not for serving corporate clients.
Salutations, friend! Welcome back to another episode of The Profit Scale podcast. In today's discussion, we will talk about the  Part 2 of "The Difference Between Corporate and Online Entrepreneurship" series. In the last episode, we showed the difference of corporate and online entrepreneurship while covering the 4 principles that you need to consider in setting up your business for success. This week, we are discussing how your strategies need to change when you're serving corporate clients, vs when you're serving consumers in online entrepreneurship.
We dive into the 3 ways to know if you're using the wrong strategy for your business:
Links:
Episode 14 - The Difference Between Corporate and Online Entrepreneurship - Part 2
Salutations, friend! Welcome to an episode of The Profit Scale! It is the podcast for consultants, experts and service providers who are already serving corporate clients or transitioning towards it! Here is the place where you can find tailored solutions to help you close your first or next biggest client.
I’m your host and Income Strategist, RJ Connell. If you are looking for expert strategies to help you build on your existing success, then you, my friend, are in the right place! Turn up the volume and lean in because we are about to get started!
Salutations, friend! It’s your Income Strategist, RJ Connell. Today we will have an eye-opening conversation. Last week, we talked about the difference between serving corporate clients and online entrepreneurs, and we covered 4 principles that you need to cover to set your business up for success.Â
Today is part 2 of that conversation and we will discuss 3 ways to know if you are using strategies not meant for entrepreneurs who want to serve corporate clients.Â
Before we get started, I want to talk to you about why this is so important to me. As I have been building my business, taking courses online, working with coaches, and attending business conferences, it has become clear that there is a vast gap in the content that online entrepreneurs receive.
My natural inclination is towards research because, at heart, I am and will always be a science girl. In fact, my training in research and developing and testing strategies allowed me to create my pricing strategies and my signature program Systems That Scale.
As I have been diving deeper into communities, courses and conferences, I noticed that nearly 90% of all the content is geared towards new entrepreneurs, those who are at the beginning of their journey and who are still developing their expertise.
I also noticed that these same programs teach you how to teach other beginners, which means there is very little out there for the experts, so what about you, the entrepreneur who is further into your business?Â
What about you, the entrepreneur who is already an expert and is taking your 10+ years of corporate training, and applying those same skills from a new perspective and under your own business name?
What about you, the entrepreneur who does not want to serve other entrepreneurs or professionals are at the very beginning of their journey but want to serve those who are already at level 10 and help them get to level 15 or 20? How do you translate that material to meet where you are in your business right now?
In my research and through speaking to countless entrepreneurs, I found that they have also taken the courses, worked with the coaches, and bought all the things to help them level up their business, but when you are already at a level 10 and you purchased programs designed to take you from level 1 to 3, you will just end up spending a lot of money and time trying to make strategies not designed for your business.
Now, I really want you to think about this for a minute. I bet that off the top of your head, you can name 3 businesses that follow this same structure: A free lead magnet followed by an offer for a low-priced digital course or product, followed by another more expensive digital course, then by a mastermind or membership.Â
It is the staple business model that most online businesses follow. We often refer to it as an ascension model or a product funnel where you start with a low-cost offer and move people up to a higher-priced offer.Â
Maybe your business even follows a similar model. If it does, know that there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Many online business courses teach this model because it works. It gives you results; it gets your business in front of people. The problem is that this is not the right business model for you if your clients are corporations.
Online courses work so well because they are serving beginners who also want to serve beginners. They are modelling the same business structure and model that their students want to create. However, that business model does not translate at all when you’re working with corporate clients.Â
Corporations do not opt into freebies and lead magnets, sign up for free webinars, or purchase online courses on how to DIY graphic design, digital marketing or sales. They pay for experts who provide Done-For-You services. They are not novices and rarely pay for DIY services.Â
They want to know that they are hiring experts and professionals who can serve at the same level as them; you also have to look the part.
That is why providing this education to you is so important to me. There is a huge gap in the online market space, even in podcast content that does not speak to the entrepreneurs who are not beginners, and even less so we speak directly to entrepreneurs who serve corporate clients, and to provide them with the knowledge they need to do so.Â
There are a lot of business courses and coaches that take a general business model and dress it up differently for each client rather than create a specific approach to serve a very specific clientele.
It is part of the reason Systems That Scale is not a digital course; it is a consulting program. It teaches a very specific skillset designed for a very specific group of entrepreneurs at a very specific point in their journey. By default, it is not for everyone or for anyone who refers to themselves as an entrepreneur.
It is for entrepreneurs who already have proof of concept in their skill set, are already experts in their field, are already making money in their business, and want to transition to corporate clients or to have a regular flow of corporate clients.
It is that specific. Because of the level of specificity, the right clients enter my program and experience exponential, not incremental results.
I want to help you evaluate whether you are applying strategies never designed to serve your specific business as a method to help you land corporate clients. To do that, I will highlight 3 ways to know if you are using the wrong strategies.Â
This will be a brilliant time to take notes, just a heads up.
#1 You are collecting more qualitative instead of quantitative (metrics)
It means that you have more testimonials than you do hard numbers that reflect the results you get for your clients.
Understand that when I say numbers, it is not only about revenue. No matter what type of service you provide, you must have a way of measuring the results of your work.
For example, if you provide executive coaching to Fortune 500 businesses and your results mean that those departments see less turnover, have a way to measure how much less turnover they are experiencing.
In the online world, testimonials are the metric of choice, which means you may be used to collecting testimonials from your clients online, but not measuring their results.Â
You likely never learned how to measure quantifiable results because that is not something you learn in the “How to start your business 101” courses.
When you are serving corporate clients, quantifiable metrics are huge. It is not impossible to land clients without them, but it lends to your credibility and expertise. If you’re already working with.
#2 You are posting instead of pitching
It means that you are more focused on letting clients come to you rather than you going to them.
If this was a sound and effective strategy, companies would not need or have entire sales departments or salespeople.
There is a reason you get calls from telemarketers; they are pitching for services. There is a reason customer service employees in retail stores ask, “Is there something I can help you find today?”
There is a reason people who are less talented than you are engaging in bigger opportunities than you, and it is because they are pitching for them.Â
Let me tell you that the entire sales department of corporate companies is a pitching department.Â
They learned who the decision-makers are. They prepared about whom to contact. They studied the questions to ask. They have quotas for new leads to enter a day. They have exclusionary criteria that identify the right fit for their service or product and who is not. I know this because I am a corporate sales trainer, so I am the one teaching them all these things.
In the online world, we expect that clients will come to us and that posting on social media is more important than pitching for clients. Imagine how much more revenue your business would experience if you pitched more than you posted. How much faster would your business grow?
If you want to serve corporate clients or keep a consistent flow instead of the spontaneous contract here and there, and you do not know where your next clients are coming from, make pitching a consistent part of your business.
Corporations rarely check your social media pages as credibility, and it is rarely where they look to find their next contractor or trainer. Take the responsibility to get in front of them.Â
When you are attracting online entrepreneurs or consumers, social media marketing is effective, because that is where they hang out, but the same is not true for corporations.
#3 You are focusing on volume instead of depth
It means that you are pouring your energy into being seen by many people, rather than by the right people.
High visibility does nothing for the bottom line of your business if you are still not visible to the right people. That is why it is important to understand who your decision-makers are, and what types of corporations you want to serve.
The better you understand them, the better you can direct your marketing and your pitching towards attracting the right people instead of anyone who will listen. Knowing who you serve helps you serve them better, and that is one fact that is true whether you serve online consumers or corporate clients.Â
So let’s recap what we talked about in today’s conversation.
First, we discussed the fact that most business programs online are for entrepreneurs who want to serve clients who are beginners. There are very few business programs that teach experts on how to serve other experts and corporate clients.
It may be the reason despite investing in program after program and coach after coach, it still leaves you just a few steps forward than you were before and shorts a few thousand dollars.
Next, we discussed that the prevailing online business ascension model does not apply if you are building a business to serve corporate clients.
To help you identify if you are applying strategies in your business that do not align with the corporate clients you want to serve, we covered 3 different identifiers.
I want to encourage you to take some time to think about how today’s discussion might apply to you and your business. Even if your target clients are not corporations, it is still worth asking yourself this question? “Am I applying strategies that were not designed for my particular business?”
Today’s conversation will give you a starting point to check-in and to make adjustments to your strategies to help support your business at your level and your expertise.
Friend, as you know, Systems That Scale is my signature consulting program that works with professionals, consultants and experts to help them land their first or next biggest corporate clients yet, and today is the official beginning of the program.
I’m excited to be welcoming and working with new clients in this program for the next 3 months, but I also want to let you know that we will open again one last time for 2020 later this year.
If you are ready to take your business seriously, to land corporate contracts consistently and to price your services properly for the corporate clients you want to serve, then Systems That Scale is the perfect program for you.
We will accept applications on a rolling basis for the last cohort of the year, so there IS an opportunity for you to be admitted to the program early.Â
Like I said earlier in today’s conversation, Systems That Scale is not for everyone, and applying does not guarantee you one of our limited 10 spots.
So if you are interested, head over to rjconnell.ca/sts to learn more about the program and to schedule a call. I would love to support you to make 5-figure months your norm.
Friend, thank you so much for spending this time with me today! I would love to know which part of today’s conversation resonated with you, so join the conversation on our Instagram page at @rjconnellconsulting.
I am so excited to see you here at the same time and place next week, friend. Until then, I wish you coins, confidence and all the bags, bye for now!