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My work helps you with 4 problems. I’m primarily focused on current and aspiring independent consultants, but self-employed people in almost any services profession (freelancers, software developers, etc.) can benefit. Larger firms with >10 employees may find my approach too risky and iterative.
What question are you currently focused on?
- “I’m a generalist, and realize I’m all over and not good at any of the things, maybe I see my work being commoditized or my platform dying, or maybe COVID has cut my business in half; what do I do now?” Solutions for generalists.
- “I’ve specialized, and I’m trying to figure out lead generation but a lot of the advice seems wrong for expertise-driven services.” Lead generation solutions for specialists.
- “I’ve figured out lead generation and I’m working on increasing profitability, and I want to experiment with ways to de-couple my revenue from my time.” Profitability increasing solutions for specialists.
- “I’m focused on more advanced consulting challenges like developing intellectual property, and I want to learn about solo business owner-friendly ways of cultivating and monetizing intellectual property.” IP solutions for specialists.
Best Articles by Topic
Interested in something specific? Here are some of my best work on specific topics:
Specialize
- The Death of a Market Position
- How Permanent is a Specialization Decision?
- How Much Expertise do You Have to Have to Specialize?
- A can of beans over a hobo campfire
- “Anxiety-adjusted returns”
- How do I Craft a CLEAR Positioning Statement?
- What Does it Actually FEEL Like to be a Specialist?
- What Creates Credibility for a Specialist?
- How Much More Money Can Specialists Make?
- What Should a Specialist Website Look Like?
- Why Is Specialization Scary?
- Is The Market Big Enough? How Can I Be Sure?
- How Can I Get Hired With No Relevant Case Studies?
Read more about specialization for indie consultants ->
Generate Leads
- How do I start and grow a qualified email list?
- Grazing -> cowpaths -> roads
- Connecting the dots
- 6 models for sellin’ transformation
- Brand marketing for the niche expertise-driven business
- Sales pages, PDF, and trust
Increase Profitability
- Mental blocks to selling advisory services
- Do experts have to be right?
- How to provide value?
- A different sort of opportunity
- Resilience
Cultivate Intellectual Property
Long-Form Guides to Specialization
A comprehensive guide to specializing an indie consulting business
This detailed guide — aside from my book — is the most comprehensive description of how specialization works for indie consultants, how to specialize, and what to be prepared for along the way. It’s free (no opt-in required) and useful.
Read My Book
If you like what you’ve read, I recommend my book, The Positioning Manual for Indie Consultants.
Useful Services
Workshops And Courses
The Indie Experts courses & workshops offer experiential learning based on principles that work broadly and effectively within the context of a differentiated, profitable, expertise-driven services business.
The Expertise Incubator
In TEI, we learn by doing. As a group, we face a series of 3 challenges, spending 3 months focusing on a challenge before moving on to the next. The challenges produce both the substance and artifacts of economically valuable expertise.
A Few Useful Tools
Tool: Specialization Examples
I’ve profiled some dev shops (as well as agencies and other types of consultants) based on their web presence. Most are specialized in some way, and I hope these examples help you better understand how to market your specialized services. A few of these are clients of mine; most are not.
Tool: Dev Shop Marketing Briefings
For a while I ran monthly webinars that presented a brief educational presentation followed by Q&A. These are of varying up-to-date-ness, but I want you to have access to them because many of them are still useful.
Some Free Email Courses
Coder2Consultant Course
Want to know how to get paid for more than just your code? Take your understanding to the next level with a short email mini-course
Positioning Crash Course
Want to know how to increase your power with clients and transform your marketing? Take your understanding to the next level with a short email mini-course.