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You’re doing some—or maybe even MANY—of the right things to grow your consultancy or advisory business.
And yet your progress feels ever so s-l-o-w. Sluggish compared to what you know, deep in your bones, is possible.
If you could just turn up your velocity—crank it up a notch or two—you’d be unstoppable.
The trick is to find the right lever.
For me, it was doubling down on the group I think of as “true fans”. When I changed the tilt of my writing for that cadre, I discovered that my unsubscribe rate INCREASED. And my flow of new readers slowed down—my 20% or so growth in new subscribers trickled down to 10%.
Let me be clear: seeing those unsubscribes announced in my email box made me feel like the girl standing alone hoping someone would ask her to dance. Wasn’t I good enough to grace their inbox?
Intellectually I knew I was making the right decision based on clear evidence that my real client and audience base would deeply value that tilt. But watching that readership slide for almost three months was excruciating.
Writing—which is normally a joy for me—became a chore. Because I dreaded seeing the Monday unsubscribes. I had to face the not-so-attractive idea that I was writing for “attagirls” vs what I believed consultants and advisors needed to hear.
But here’s the thing.
While I was busy wringing my hands over the three-month fall in my subscriber numbers, my client inquiries from that list DOUBLED. And every single one of them became a client—a 100% close rate. Seriously. I don’t know about you, but that’s a number I don’t see often.
Sometimes, the trick to speeding up is having patience with a temporary slow down.
Meanwhile, sales of my digital kit took off also. Without a single new push or “sell”.
Velocity.
How it plays out for you will surely be different: you’ve got a unique combination of business model, personal talents and current platform.
But you DO have a lever—you just have to find it.