I currently charge US$600 for a 60-90min consulting session. I’m happy to do discounts for individuals and interesting clients. DM me on Twitter or email me (visakanv @ gmail dot com) and let’s chat!
“What happens in a typical consulting session?”
First we do a short exchange of texts or emails. I get them to tell me the basics about what they’re working on, what they’d like help with, and I figure out whether I can be useful to them. If I can’t, I’ll let them know + maybe even refer them to someone else.
If I do feel like I can be useful, I go off on my own for a bit to do some research and prep.
I list out my pre-existing assumptions and beliefs about the space, what I know, what I think I know, etc. David Ogilvy mentioned doing something like this with his team – your ignorance as a layperson, before digging into the details, is very valuable.
Then I study the product, read/watch everything I can find about it.
Then I put that aside, and we have the call. first 50% of the call is me getting them to talk. I want to hear their personal story, their approach, their thinking, and what they wish someone would do.
Because I’ve done my research, I already mostly know the content of what they’re going to say. this part is really (1) to guide them to articulate what they want, in their own words, and (2) to pay careful attention for any clues, cues, blockers.
Then once I have a pretty clear sense of what they want, what their feelings, worries, anxieties, concerns etc are, I start connecting the dots from that to my ideas. I bring up relevant stories, experiences. I suggest options, make recommendations, paying careful attention always.
As I do more sessions with more clients, I’ve started to think of myself as a “smart mirror”.
— 1 —
Sometimes my job as a marketing consultant is really just to go into people’s stuff and say “look at all this good stuff you already have! Why is this good stuff buried so deep where no one will see it? Just take it and put it on the front page!”
and people are like oh shitttt
common assumption is that marketing is about putting a false veneer onto lousy things. some people *do* do that, and it leads to ugly, highly visible failures far more interesting and satisfying to look for good things that have lousy veneers, and just remove the veneer
— 2 —
I used to think that personal productivity coaches seemed like grifters, but having talked to a bunch of people about their personal goals etc, they should totally pay people to tell them “obvious” things. People really do miss obvious things in plain sight & it costs them A LOT.
I’ve definitely helped get people unstuck on things that could potentially help them with things that I’d be comfortable describing as “$20,000 problems”.
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