Tips and Strategies to Help You Thrive As An Independent Consultant

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"I’m a consultant." We've said that sentence before and so have countless others. In theory, many solopreneurs can call themselves consultants, but that doesn’t mean they’re successful ones. Finding that success can be a challenge…unless you have the right tools, strategies, and systems in place.

And that’s where Amy Rasdal comes in. Amy traded her corporate job for consulting 15 years ago and makes more money than most executives. In addition to excellent pay, she has freedom, flexibility, control, and interesting work. And she can help you do the same.

As the founder of Billable at the Beach®, Amy has helped hundreds of people start their own successful consulting businesses through speaking, workshops and various programs.

We invited her on the show to discuss things like:

• What you need to get started as a consultant
• How to figure out how much to charge
• Whether or not you should ever work for free
• How to actually get clients
• The most common mistakes aspiring consultants make

Plus so much more! Be sure to tune in.

Like the show? We'd love it if you'd leave a 5-star review!

Connect with Amy Rasdal

• Visit Billable at the Beach®

Favorite Quote About Success:

"You never get the chance to be lucky unless you take risks."

Being a solopreneur is awesome but it’s not easy. It's hard to get noticed. Most business advice is for bigger companies, and you're all alone...until now. LifeStarr's SoloSuite Starter gives you free education, community, and tools to build a thriving one-person business. 

So, if you are lacking direction, having a hard time generating leads, or are having trouble keeping up with everything you have to do, or even just lonely running a company of one, click here to check out SoloSuite Starter!

About Amy Rasdal

Amy Rasdal traded her corporate job for consulting 15 years ago and makes more money than most executives. The advantages are freedom, flexibility, control, interesting work and excellent pay. She has been running her own multiple 6-figure consulting business for more than 15
years. As the founder of Billable at the Beach®, Amy has helped hundreds of people start their own successful consulting businesses through speaking, workshops and various programs over the past 10 years.

Billable at the Beach® liberates 6-figure earners by helping them build 6-figure consulting businesses. Amy is passionate about helping others find the freedom and flexibility to live the life of their dreams, without sacrificing the career they’ve spent so long building.

Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on Apple Podcasts Thanks!

Episode Transcript

Carly Ries: 00:00

I'm a consultant. I've said that sentence before and so have countless others. In theory, many solopreneurs can call themselves a consultant, but that doesn't mean they're a successful one. Finding that success can be a challenge unless you have the right tools, strategies, and systems in place, and that's where Amy Rasdal comes in. Amy treated her corporate job for consulting 15 years ago and makes more money than most executives.

Carly Ries: 00:23

In addition to excellent pay, she has freedom, flexibility, control, and interesting work, and she can help you do the same. As the founder of billable at the beach, Amy has helped hundreds of people start their own successful consulting business through speaking, workshops, and various programs. We invited her on the show to discuss things like what you need to get started as a consultant, how to figure out how much to charge, oh, that's such a big one, whether or not you should ever work for free, how to actually get clients, and the most common mistakes aspiring consultants make and how to mitigate them. We discussed this and so much more, so be sure to tune in. You're listening to The Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for those just taking the bold step or even just thinking about taking that step into the world of solo entrepreneurship.

Carly Ries: 01:11

My name is Carly Ries, and my co host Joe Rando and I are your guides to navigating this crazy, but awesome journey as a company of 1. We take pride in being part of LifeStarr, a digital hub dedicated to all aspects of solopreneurship that has empowered and educated countless solopreneurs looking to build a business that resonates with their life's ambitions. We help people work to live, not live to work. And if you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the show for you. So if you're eager to gain valuable insights from industry experts on running a business the right way the first time around, or want to learn from the missteps of solopreneurs who've paved the way before you, then stick around.

Carly Ries: 01:51

We've got your back because flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone. Okay. So before we jump into this episode, I just have to share this new free offer we have called the solo suite starter. Being a solopreneur is awesome, but it's not easy. It's hard to get noticed, and most business advice is for bigger companies, and you're all alone until now.

Carly Ries: 02:11

LifeStarr's SoloSuite gives you free education, community, and tools to build a thriving one person business. So if you're lacking direction, having a hard time generating leads, having trouble keeping up with everything you have to do, or even if you're just lonely running a company of 1. Be sure to check out SoloSuite Starter at lifestarr.com and click on products and pricing at the top menu. It's the first one in the drop down. Again, it's totally free, so check it out at lifestarr.com

Carly Ries: 02:41

Click on products and pricing, and it's the first one in the menu. Hope to see you there. Okay. Amy, you are billable at the beach. I am currently in Colorado looking at your background of the beach.

Carly Ries: 02:51

I'm so jealous. Your your company name is so fitting, I just love that. well played.

Amy Rasdal: 02:59

Oh, thank you. I mean, don't we really all wanna be billable at the beach? Although I often say, your beach can be the mountains or, a lake or wherever it might be. So it's the concept of beach that's so appealing.

Carly Ries: 03:16

I love that and very relatable. Amy, you just have such a cool story. Can you just kind of tell us how you went from corporate to independent consultant and kind of built this whole business for yourself?

Amy Rasdal: 03:27

Sure. So I won't belabor the way back, but just to give a tiny bit of way back, I, refer to myself as a Silicon kid. So my dad was an early Silicon Valley Semiconductor guy. So I grew up in a world where I didn't really realize there was anything except technology. So there was before Silicon Valley was Silicon Valley, it was orchards.

Amy Rasdal: 03:51

Fruit trees covered the entire valley. So I thought either you do agriculture or you do technology, and I didn't really understand that there was any other type of business or industry. So I started out as a software engineer, then I went to business school. And, Joe and I were just talking before we jumped in to record about music. So I actually double majored in music and computer science as an undergrad, which was fantastic.

Amy Rasdal: 04:16

So I worked a few years as a software engineer. I went to business school. Out of business school, I fell into medical devices, but still always a heavy technology bent. And in addition to technology, all the dinner tables that I sort of sat around growing up, people were starting companies. And it sort of seemed like everyone's dad was a CEO because that's kind of what, you know, silly early Silicon Valley, that's what people were doing.

Amy Rasdal: 04:43

So my long term career goal was to be a CEO, probably of a startup company again because that's kind of the only thing I ever knew. So I built my corporate career post business school. I got all my cross functional rotations. I was really building that experience to run companies. I started doing startups and then one startup, man, it was like a rocket to the moon and then it crashed and burned hard and fast, which was a fantastic experience.

Amy Rasdal: 05:15

But I set about looking for my next at that point, I'm on the executive team. I set about looking for my next position, and I at this point, you know, I've done a lot of different things. I wanna be really picky, and I think, you know, I'm gonna really take my time. I'm gonna really dig into the company before I take the position. Well, while I'm doing that, consulting project falls into my lap, 20 hours a week for 3 months.

Amy Rasdal: 05:39

And I thought, this is perfect. It brings in somebody to pay the bills while I'm looking for that elusive perfect thing. I got 4 or 5 weeks into that, and I said, cancel the job search. This is the life. I'm now a consultant.

Amy Rasdal: 05:54

So freedom, flexibility, and control have always been really important values for me. One of the big reasons that I chose computer science, which was software engineering in high school, was my vision of what that meant is that I was gonna live in Aspen, which is so funny because you're in Colorado.

Amy Rasdal: 06:14

I was gonna live in Aspen. I was gonna ski all day and work at night, and that as a 16 or 17 year old seemed like the perfect life. So really the flexibility, I hated sitting in cubicles. I don't mind starting work at 8 in the morning, but I don't wanna do it starting in a cubicle. I really didn't like people telling me what to do.

Amy Rasdal: 06:39

You know? I had all this great corporate experience, and so being an independent consultant really seemed perfect because I got to use all that experience and I still was doing corporate projects and working with corporate people, but none of them really owned me. You know? It was a project, however big or small, but I didn't feel like I had sometimes in corporate, you kinda feel like you have to sell your soul a little bit and, like, they really sort of own your time and your paycheck and all that. And I really liked that freedom of flexibility.

Amy Rasdal: 07:14

So what started happening is as I started, you know, going about my life and being so excited about being an independent consultant, and I wanna say a lot of people think that if you have this solopreneur lifestyle and it's so great, then you must make less money. Right? I mean, that's just you can't have a better life, and I make more money now than I did as a corporate executive. So I just wanna tell everybody it's possible to have the lifestyle and the compensation at the same time. It's not easy.

Joe Rando: 07:47

So you talked about what and this is something that I mean, we've actually based our entire vision around solopreneurs that choose solopreneurship for the lifestyle first. So you got into this consulting thing, and then realized that this was the lifestyle that you liked. But did you know in advance that that was something you were seeking? Or did you just kind of go, woah. I never thought about having, you know, flexibility with my time.

Joe Rando: 08:15

I never thought about not having a boss, and this just hit me in the head. Or was it something where you always kind of knew you wanted to there, but it just came quicker?

Amy Rasdal: 08:22

So I knew that I really loved it because of that original concept in high school of I'm gonna ski all day and work at night, but I really wasn't. I had no awareness that it was possible to really use all that experience and make decent money. So the way I thought I was gonna get there, Joe, was I thought I was gonna be the CEO of my own startup and that would give me more control and flexibility. And it was a bit naive because at that point, I was just thinking about twenties. Yeah.

Amy Rasdal: 08:58

And that's what it looks like from there. And I'm not now looking the other direction and having worked with those people and having startup that startup that's raised $50,000,000 and stuff like that. You really don't have that much re you might be able to come in at 9, but, man, when the board calls you on Sunday night and tells you or you have a problem with the FDA, you're you gotta be on a plane within an hour, you know, all that kind of stuff. So I I didn't realize that I could achieve that as a corporate independent consultant, And that was really that 4 or 5 week going, oh my goodness. this really looks like I can have it all.

Carly Ries: 09:49

Interesting. So we have a lot of consultants slash want to be consultants in our community. Some of the people are still in their corporate positions and others are like, I have this knowledge. I can use this on my own and be a consultant. But they're kind of in the starting like, how do I actually turn this into a business?

Carly Ries: 10:06

So, , what are some things people might need when they're starting out and have this idea that haven't really implemented it yet?

Amy Rasdal: 10:12

Yeah. So I just listened to your 100th episode where you talk about how your your sweet spot really is more the beginning of the journey, which is very much in sync with me also. I'm not like 5 years in, this is how you get to 7 figures, which by t way, just in case you're wondering, that's not very, that's not super typical to get to 7 figures

Amy Rasdal: 10:34

as a solopreneur. I suppose there's examples, but, you know so, I really like to focus on one of the great things about being a consultant is there's no offices. There's almost no investment required. So you really can be sitting here today and generating revenue in 2 weeks. So what I like to tell people is there are so many distractions as they move forward in it and what I teach in my billable at the beach program now is land a project, get a check-in the bank, and there's really nothing else you need to do to start your business and you really can get in fast.

Amy Rasdal: 11:17

So I have kind of this magic formula that I hadn't realized I was doing this magic formula until I looked back, and I call it 3 action steps to generate revenue now. It's 3 simple steps that don't require any special equipment or software tools or knowledge that if you implement those, it's the fastest path to land a project, get a check-in the bank. So once you land your first project, you're generating revenue. And then I don't know if you guys can relate to this with the people that you serve, but once you actually put money in the bank, your confidence really goes up because now you're in business. And I sometimes talk to people and I have kind of this belief that until or unless you're actually making money and in some businesses that legitimately takes a while, but until you're you're making money or it's it's is it really a business or is it a hobby?

Amy Rasdal: 12:15

You know? So, for me, the goal of a business is to make money and I'm very clear. Are you able to share those three action steps? Oh, absolutely. Do you want me to do a quick rundown?

Amy Rasdal: 12:26

And then you guys are welcome. I have a free email course that that just does a short and quick intro in them, but takes you through in more detail. So Here it is. First, you define your value proposition.

Amy Rasdal: 12:41

Now that's a very fancy business school term. It's really just your pitch, your elevator pitch. What is it that you're selling? As consultants, we sell services. Right?

Amy Rasdal: 12:53

We don't have a product that we put in a box and ship. We're selling our services, our knowledge, our time, the combination of what we're really expert in. So it's just a little quick, kind of like one paragraph, a few bullet points, back to that idea of the elevator pitch. And, of course, that term comes because in theory, it's short enough that from the time you push door close on the elevator till the time it opens again, you're able to say it, short, sweet, as much punch and the best possible hook that you can have that gets people learning more. So what is it that you're gonna do?

Amy Rasdal: 13:32

Next is make a list of people that you're going to tell. So these are people that you already know to some degree. Now I'm an engineer by background, so I have a a weird combination of, I've done a lot of performing arts. So if you give me the stage and there's 10,000 people in the audience, I won't flinch, but I have an introvert side to my personality. So when I got through into those networking events and I didn't have the stage formally, it was really scary.

Amy Rasdal: 14:04

And because I'm a technical person, I attract a lot of very introverted engineers. And when I say make a list of a 100 people, they think there's no way I know a 100 people. But if you really start digging in all the people that you work with and you've worked with in the past, totally fair game to go back 20 years? Friends of your family, friends of your parents, friends of the kids at school. I mean, I've done business with, school parents, right?

Amy Rasdal: 14:32

I don't know if that's happened to you guys too. Soccer parents, whatever it might be, make a list of a 100 people. These are all people that know you, respect you, like you, they know you and they know that you do good work so you don't have to sell them from scratch. They already have a little bit of that. We call it the KLT factor, the know, like, and trust.

Amy Rasdal: 14:56

And so then what you're looking for is you're going to reach out to each of these 100 people, a short and sweet email just letting them know, here's what I'm doing. Do you have a project for me? What you're looking for, we've already established that these people know you and they know that you do good work. You're also looking for someone that has a project that's appropriate for your skills and the budget to pay for it. And what I've learned, this really made the foundation of my own business development program for years before I actually realized and like made it concrete into these 3, you know, punchy steps, out of those 100, because I know so many people now that have done it, odds are you'll get 3 to 5 people who will come back and they'll say, Carly, you know what?

Amy Rasdal: 15:47

I can't believe it, but I was just, we were just talking about this thing in the staff meeting this morning and I think I might have something for you. Can we talk? Out of those 3 to 5, odds are you will close 1 or 2 of those projects. And I have had so many people really start generating revenue, have their 1st billable client within 2 weeks. And the reason that I really focus people on land a project, get a check-in the bank, and I don't know if you guys see this too, I would find myself first and I have all these mistakes that I talk about and I learned about these mistakes because I made every single one more than once and I saw my people making the exact same mistakes.

Amy Rasdal: 16:39

So what would happen is it's scary. That outreach you're thinking, okay. I wanna be consulting. I'm gonna put myself out there for a 100 people. What if nobody even answers?

Amy Rasdal: 16:51

It's scary. Right? I promise you. I promise you that will not happen and you will be pleasantly surprised by the response. But what I would find myself doing is saying, well, okay.

Amy Rasdal: 17:02

I'll do that. But first, I have to build a website that I have to name my business and I need a logo and I need pictures and, well, should I incorporate and all of a sudden it's 6 months later and I still haven't generated any revenue. And really, it's kind of like the old joke of you can fly the airplane while you're building it is the idea. Once you get a project coming in, you need to do a few bare basics, then you really can get your logo and your photos and your website as you're working on that first project. So somebody says, well, I have a URL that I really wanna use.

Amy Rasdal: 17:41

Oh, I say, okay. Great. You know what? There's a thing in your hosting provider that's called a redirect, And you redirect www.amy.com to your LinkedIn profile, and there's your website to get started. And you trick tweak your description a little bit to be relevant to what you're doing as a consultant, and we're in business.

Amy Rasdal: 18:03

So there's so many simple solutions, and I a lot of what I do as a coach, once I get into that with helping people start their own consulting, is I call it the boot in the backside, kinda like booting them. Okay. What have you done for your outreach? Okay. That's great.

Amy Rasdal: 18:19

I love your logo ideas, but what how what how many outreaches have you made today or this week? You know? And every person, some people, the idea of doing 5 is paralyzing. So I say, you know what? This week, just do 1.

Amy Rasdal: 18:37

Just reach out to 1 person. And then I might have another person that's like, they can crank out 10 a day no sweat. So one of my superpowers is figuring out kind of how to get each individual unstuck from whatever might be blocking them, and it's a little bit different for everybody.

Carly Ries: 18:55

I was talking to a friend of mine who's trying to launch a business, and she was like, the way I see it, it's either somebody else saying no or you say no to yourself because you don't give somebody the opportunity to say no. And I was like, ruined that.

Amy Rasdal: 19:07

Oh, that's so good.

Carly Ries: 19:11

Yeah. it's funny because we recently have this guy Jonathan Price on the show and he now brings it. He's no longer a solopreneur, but he does bring in over 20,000,000 a year for his business. And we were like, what's the one thing you wish you would've done earlier in your business when you were just starting out?

Carly Ries: 19:27

And he was like, tell people what I did. he was so concerned and he was like, it's the most simple advice. It's basically weird. So like, tell your network what you do. But so we the the gal that had that really good quote, that was a great quote but she hadn't done that.

Carly Ries: 19:41

And she was like, that's why I tell myself that now because for the longest time, I couldn't figure out why I didn't have business and it's because nobody knew about it.

Joe Rando: 19:49

I don't wanna be sleazy. I don't wanna be sleazy as the the the watch Yes. Brings you to the show.

Amy Rasdal: 19:56

I am not a mindset coach, but I realized something that really helps, helps people, and that is, you know what? You have gifts and talents to offer the world and there are people who seriously need them and you are really doing a disservice if you don't get those out there. And in my kind of corporate type ish consulting, and it sounds like you have some people who still may be in corporate. Look. If you we've all been there, whether it's right before year end or right before we're presenting to executive staff or Friday afternoon where we're thinking I have too much to do and somebody says, well, why don't you get help?

Amy Rasdal: 20:40

And you're thinking, that's easy to say, but it's very specific. Now imagine you're sitting there and somebody that you worked with a few years ago who you thought was so smart and you loved working with them. Out of the blue, their email comes across and they say, guess what? I just started a consulting business and here's what I do and it's like winning the lottery and I've had that response for people. I've also had some people.

Amy Rasdal: 21:10

So these three action steps, that's how you get started and then you do that every quarter. So I've had people, they've been getting my quarterly email for 5 years. I worked with them 10 years before and all of a sudden they go, Amy, I've been getting your emails for 5 years and guess what? I am on the hot seat, and I need exactly what you do. Can you meet tomorrow?

Joe Rando: 21:37

Yeah. I just wanna point out that this is exactly what happened with George B Thomas, who's a HubSpot expert. he works with us. He hosts some of our events. He does some of our office hours.

Joe Rando: 21:50

George worked for agencies and one day put on LinkedIn that he was going to go out on his own on a Friday. And I, first thing Monday, reached out. By the end of the week, he was fully booked. You know?

Amy Rasdal: 22:04

It's shockingly so, but here's a trick on that that I should point out because this is another really big pitfall that hits a couple of years in. I was the same way. And so here I am, I've come out of a startup that was a rocket ship and a painful crash and burn fast and hard, you know, laying off a bunch of people, no more money. And I put my I put the word out once, you know, I land that first project accidentally. I was fully booked for 2 or 3 years, but my biggest mistake, I should have started that outreach earlier because I'm sitting there thinking this is the life. it was before we had kids. I was water skiing every morning, then I was going to dance class, Then I come in and do some work and then I do something then I'd work at night. And I did no networking, marketing, business development, no outreach. And I thought this was the best life ever. Well, guess what?

Amy Rasdal: 23:05

Eventually, what I did is I worked off what I now call that pent up demand and that was all those people who already knew me and knew I did get good work that kept me busy for a few years. So my number one biggest mistake was not starting that networking marketing business development day 1.

Joe Rando: 23:25

This is so common. This is a pattern we see over and over.

Amy Rasdal: 23:28

Do you guys see that too?

Carly Ries: 23:30

Yeah. All the time. Well, and did did you only do it at work market? Like, once your list did run out and I know you had a like, you do this quarterly and so inevitably some people from your list may come back. But for the additional clients, was it just network marketing, or did you do any other lead gen tactics?

Joe Rando: 23:46

I just wanna clarify, can I clarify for a second? We're not talking network marketing. Network marketing is a very specific

Amy Rasdal: 23:51

It's like multilevel marketing.

Joe Rando: 23:53

Yeah. I just wanna be clear that when

Amy Rasdal: 23:55

It means ML Langham. Right? Network marketing. Yeah. No. But in terms of what I do as a consultant, I think this really holds true for consultants. People don't now I had my consulting business and then now I also have billable at the beach, which is a program that helps people start their own consulting business. So the the marketing piece of those 2 different businesses is totally different.

Amy Rasdal: 24:19

So let's focus on the consulting piece because I think that's what your folks are really interested in. It's about relationships. At the end of the day, honestly, all business is about relationships. Even if I need a new plumber, what do I do first? I call a friend and say, who's your plumber?

Amy Rasdal: 24:37

Who's your dentist? Who's your so it's really about relationships. So as a consultant because I'm looking for them to hire me for a pretty serious amount of money. So after that, what I what I needed to do was start expanding my network of people that I had relationships with. So it was a lot of, you know, this is way before the pandemic, the, like, networking events and all that stuff.

Amy Rasdal: 25:03

The landscape, at least in in San Diego, really changed post pandemic. A lot of groups went away. Some haven't come back yet, but just building relationships with people, expanding. So I started out with a smaller circle, making it bigger. So my list was first a 100 people.

Amy Rasdal: 25:21

Eventually, that grew to about 1500 people. I started doing speaking at a lot of groups on how to start your own successful consulting business. I would sponsor different network working groups. I had my emailing. Podcasting didn't really, exist in that era.

Amy Rasdal: 25:43

So I know for billable at the beach, the reason podcast guesting is such a successful visibility tactic for me is that people spend a half an hour and for you guys too, really, you're it's very intimate. You're in their homes and their cars, and they're listening while they're getting ready after their shower in the morning and cooking dinner for their kids. So it's a great way to build relationships that it that if it were if I were still building that business, that's what I would do. So expanding that circle of people who know, like, and trust me, and then also kinda striking out and finding some good satellites that then can build into kinda their own little doing all these hand gestures. Anyone who's on the podcast isn't gonna see me, but just growing all these other little, like, space colonies and just expanding so that more and more people know me enough to think, okay.

Amy Rasdal: 26:40

Well, I like her. She's smart. And I think once people meet you, they come to that conclusion or not relatively quickly. So just kind of all those all those kind of touch point opportunities because I don't think it's a business where someone's gonna just search for me online and call me out of the blue. Sure.

Carly Ries: 27:01

Yeah. And that I think that's common with consultants. Well, I wanna circle back really quick because you were talking about some of the hangouts people have before they start their business, getting their website up. They had to have their business name. They need all these things when really they can just get started.

Carly Ries: 27:14

But I think the one other thing that people get hung up on is their price, and and I think it gets harder and harder with the remote world because it's like, well, I live in Colorado but if I have a client in the Bay area, can I charge Bay area prices? You know, like, it just it's kind of all mixed together now. So how would you advise somebody to come up with the right pricing structure?

Amy Rasdal: 27:38

So I have so much to say about pricing. I'll try not to digress on too many tangents, but at the core, what I see is people not charging what they're worth because that's scary. It's scary to really charge what you're worth. And I hear all these conversations about, well, I'm working from home or I'm work working from here or I'm they they think that just because they have this great lifestyle, they should charge less money. So what I like to say about that is as long as you're delivering results, it doesn't matter whether you're working from a corporate office or a spaceship orbiting the moon.

Amy Rasdal: 28:18

It really doesn't matter where you are. You need to charge what the market will bear. So at the end of the day, it really was it is at what the market were will bear. So as far as can I charge different prices, different places, what I like to say there is market information is kind of everywhere these days, and I know, I have a daughter who's 20 and a little boy who's 10? So I told my high school daughter, like, nothing goes on Instagram unless you would put it up on the the quad at high school.

Amy Rasdal: 28:51

Nothing that that can't be shared. So that don't think that everyone's not gonna know your price. So if you're gonna charge 1 person 200 and somebody else a 100, it's totally fine, but assume that they both know they're getting charged different prices and be ready to talk about it with a straight face. If you think people aren't gonna find out, then I think you're fooling yourself. So I generally think it's better to have one price or it starts to get complicated pretty quickly to kinda manage that.

Amy Rasdal: 29:22

And, again, don't fool yourself into thinking there's any secrets in today's world. Right? And it's the same I don't care if you're in the bathroom at a friend's house. I think you kinda have to assume that there there might a lot of people have video cameras all over their houses right now as security systems. They're not meaning to invade your privacy, but I just think you have to assume that everybody sort of knows everything these days.

Amy Rasdal: 29:45

And the biggest thing I see is not charging what you're worth. So you do a little benchmarking, reaching out. Now, the people that I work with are mostly people who came from corporate and generally speaking earning 6 figures. That doesn't mean you have to or it's everybody, but I just wanna give you some context. So most of the people that I work with should be charging at least $150 an hour.

Amy Rasdal: 30:11

So what I do is if they come to me and they don't wanna charge that because they're afraid that someone's gonna laugh in their face, that I'm gonna say, well, so see. Well, Amy, what's your hourly rate? And I say, 150. And they go, oh my gosh, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. That doesn't happen.

Amy Rasdal: 30:32

I will have them kind of like just, I will make them prove it to me. What are you really worth? Now, if they can come back and they say, well, I'm an IT consultant and I implement great planes and I've done my market research and those people are getting paid $135 an hour, I'll say, okay, good. And there's some people that should make a lot more, but for reasons that I don't understand, 80% of the independent consultants out there that are kind of in in the realm of what I do sort of corp formerly corporate types charge a $150 an hour. So I tell people if you have no idea where to start, you've got an 80 percent 80% chance of being correct if you start there.

Joe Rando: 31:14

So just, one question on the pricing. I totally agree with you. The idea of of pricing differently for different people gets complicated. It gets hard to explain. This, you made a point about keeping a straight face, which isn't always easy, you know, but just two things.

Joe Rando: 31:30

So that hourly rate, is it not unreasonable? If somebody came to you and said, look. I need 10 hours. You say, I'm $150 an hour. Somebody else says, you know what?

Joe Rando: 31:39

I need 500 hours of your time. You'd be, okay, you know what? We can knock that down a little bit. I mean, that doesn't seem to me to be problematic as long as you're talking about volume discounts. Would you agree with that

Amy Rasdal: 31:52

No.

Amy Rasdal: 31:54

Okay. Oh. But So, yeah, it makes it more fun when I disagree. Right?

Joe Rando: 31:59

No. That's good.

Amy Rasdal: 32:01

So if you want FedEx overnight, do you pay less or do you pay more?

Joe Rando: 32:07

Well, I do pay less when I do a lot of business with them.

Amy Rasdal: 32:11

I know.

Amy Rasdal: 32:12

Not a perfect analogy, but No. It's a good analogy. I think for me, what it boils down to specific, especially as a solopreneur, if I let somebody buy out all my capacity, then is it because and and this is another kind of like pitfall that I see with people. They jump out on their own. They want freedom, flexibility, and control, and the first thing they do is sell 40 hours a week for the next 10 months to one person.

Amy Rasdal: 32:42

You have just ruined everything that you set out to do because now you have become a de facto employee. So I always tell people, never sell all your capacity to 1 person. And the only reason to do a volume discount is the belief that you can't otherwise sell that capacity because once an hour is gone, you can never sell it again. So I can't put 500 hours in a warehouse and ship them whenever I want. So I really, really encourage my people to sell all of their hours at full rate and not to volume discount, which is a different tack and it's very counterintuitive for many people.

Joe Rando: 33:26

I wish my lawyer Felt like that.

Amy Rasdal: 33:29

I well, my attorney doesn't give me volume discounts, does yours?

Joe Rando: 33:33

No. That's what I'm saying.

Amy Rasdal: 33:34

Well, so they believe if you don't buy their capacity, they're gonna sell it to somebody else.

Joe Rando: 33:40

Oh, yeah.

Amy Rasdal: 33:41

So that takes me to, you really have to allocate a lot of time to your pipeline, and you have to make sure that it's healthy. So what I also tell people, this assumes that someone is trying to work full time and not all solopreneurs wanna work full time. So you can, like, scale this back the ratio. But if you're thinking, okay, I'm working full time. So let's say 50 hours a week.

Amy Rasdal: 34:06

You're not gonna bill more than 30 hours a week on average. It's there's gonna be a little up and down to it because you're gonna spend 5, 10, 15 hours a week doing networking marketing and business development. And if you don't spend that time consistently, 9 months down the road, your pipeline is gonna dry up. But if you really invest that time, start your 3 action steps as the foundation every quarter and really figure out what works for your sector and continue to feed it. You'd, I call it my business development engine and you can never take your foot off the gas.

Amy Rasdal: 34:47

Sure. You take a weekend off. You can go on vacation for a few weeks, but you really just because you're busy on billable work doesn't mean you you always that's it's a really hard piece of the discipline to keep the foot on the gas of the business development engine. So if you're doing that and all your things are firing, now this doesn't happen day 1. Right?

Amy Rasdal: 35:09

This takes some time. This is while you're doing while you're working off that pent up demand, those 2 or 3 years, you're spending some time building these systems so that when you get to the end of the pent up demand, they're kind of like really humming. And that way you have confidence that, okay, I might have a week or 2 dry spell. I finally learned to just accept that once in a while I'm gonna have a dry spell. Am I gonna take it easily?

Amy Rasdal: 35:42

No. I'm still gonna sweat and wake up in the middle of the night. That's just part of it that I'm going to accept. Right? Even though it's always worked out, I'm still gonna have a couple of sleepless nights.

Amy Rasdal: 35:53

But because I do the work, I have confidence that someone will buy those those hours at my full rate

Carly Ries: 36:01

Sure. So so let's say people take their foot off the gas. They don't charge a high enough rate. They wait to start their business until all of their ducks are in her own, everything is perfect.

Carly Ries: 36:11

Any other things you see people do that you like as a cautionary tale to avoid when they're getting started or does that basically cover it?

Amy Rasdal: 36:18

We kind of covered it, but I'm

Amy Rasdal: 36:20

gonna be very explicit, not charging enough, not charging what you're worth. Thinking even though I just said that so many of at least the people that I serve are worth 150, They think, well, I haven't done this before. You know, I'm gonna go ahead and sell it at 75 or 95 or whatever that might be. So, not charging what you're worth, networking, marketing, business development. And I just said, I always tell people this was what somebody told me once upon a time.

Amy Rasdal: 36:50

When I hit that 2 or 3 years in, things are starting to dry up and hello, we're expecting our first child on top of it just to make things super fun and add some pressure. And I remember I sat across from this colleague of mine, and she said, well, what are you doing for networking marketing development? I had been director of marketing inside a company. I had no excuses. And I said, well and she said, look, can can you spend an hour a day?

Amy Rasdal: 37:19

And I said, sure. I work out. you know, I'd go to the gym an hour a day. Anyone could do that. She said, just spend an hour a day.

Amy Rasdal: 37:26

Don't get all overwhelmed, all this stuff. Just do something every day to keep it going. So networking networking business development, don't do all this other stuff and hide behind it. Charge what you're worth. Don't sell all your capacity to one client right off the bat.

Amy Rasdal: 37:42

Or you find yourself 40 hours a week for x y z corporation when they call on Friday and you just found out your kindergartner is going on a field trip that you wanna go along with. They kind of know they own your time. You can't really say, oh, I'm so sorry. I'm not available on Friday afternoon with no excuses.

Carly Ries: 38:02

So don't you know, don't do that. Yeah. Well okay. So you had this process and that you make it sound like once you have this figured out, it's like, oh, we'll build at the beach. You could be on the beach.

Carly Ries: 38:14

You can go ski in Aspen and work in the afternoon and do whatever you want. But every day you I I just wanted like to put everything in perspective. What is the hardest thing you would say you do now during the day now that it's a well oiled machine? What is something that you need to let people know? Like, you still you will always have to do this no matter how flexible your time.

Amy Rasdal: 38:33

For me, the hardest thing is still networking, marketing, business development. I love doing the work. I really am an implementation operations kind of person. I love doing the work, getting it done, having the satisfaction. So I tell people the hardest part is the networking, marketing, business development.

Amy Rasdal: 38:55

I think that holds true for almost every business owner I've even met. Even someone who opens a new retail shop, it's really making sure that you do the outreach to keep the business coming in. And it's really interesting. There was a point where I have a stepsister who's like 10 years younger than me. And after she had her first baby, she said, you know, I think I'm gonna do independent consulting.

Amy Rasdal: 39:18

And she's she says, you know, you've been in this for 10 or 15 years. You probably don't have to do all this networking stuff anymore. And I said, I'm so sorry to tell you if you have your own business. And again for sure in consulting, I think it holds true, except in very rare occasions, you really are making a business long commitment to doing the networking marketing business development. It really never goes away.

Amy Rasdal: 39:44

And I really don't know any consultants who just magically stay booked. They just sit in their office and crank out work and they don't ever get out and interact or or speak or join groups or whatever and just it magically all comes in. That's extremely rare.

Carly Ries: 40:03

Have you read the E Myth? Is that what you're referencing?

Amy Rasdal: 40:07

I know of the book. I haven't read it. I need to. Right?

Carly Ries: 40:10

Felt like figuring out are you the implementer? Are you the owner? I'm not saying the right terminology. But what but it basically says, like, you are you usually fall into one of these categories and figure out what you, like, are good at and hone in on it. So I didn't know if you would read that.

Carly Ries: 40:26

But, Amy, this has been so great. I think this is gonna be so helpful for our audience because Good. Well, many of them are consultants and want to be consultants. And I feel like it's kinda the kick in the pants to be like, go do this. You got this. it's just been wonderful. Thank you. You help people find success becoming a consultant. So we ask all of our guests this. What is your favorite quote about success?

Amy Rasdal: 40:52

My favorite quote is you never get the chance to

Amy Rasdal: 40:55

be lucky unless you take risks.

Carly Ries: 40:58

That is a great quote. I keep telling Joe we need to make a bumper sticker business or something that takes all of our guests' clothes and just puts them out there, because that's wonderful. But, Amy, we you were talking about building your pipeline. Where can people find you if they want to learn more?

Amy Rasdal: 41:15

Yes. So my business is billable at the beach. I have a website that's billableatthebeach.com And if you go there, you will find the course that I talked

Amy Rasdal: 41:26

about, 3 action steps to generate revenue now. I have a lot of really great free resources.

Amy Rasdal: 41:33

I have a book. I have a webinar. So you really should find a lot of ideas about how to get started. And then if you decide that you really do wanna dive in, I have a program that helps people kind of a to z. The first thing we focus on is that land a project, get a check-in the bank, but it really will ultimately walk you through everything you need to do a to z to have a successful consulting business.

Carly Ries: 42:01

Love that. Well, this has been so helpful. Thank you so much for coming on the show today and

Joe Rando: 42:06

Thanks, Amy.

Amy Rasdal: 42:08

Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

Carly Ries: 42:10

Yeah. And listeners, we hope you find value in it as well. I don't know how you could not, but as always, we love providing this kind of information for you. We love helping your business grow. But we would love you to help ours as well.

Carly Ries: 42:24

So if you could leave that 5 star review, subscribe to your the podcast, subscribe on YouTube, do all the things, we would certainly love that. Otherwise, we will see you next week on another episode of The Aspiring Solopreneur.

Joe Rando: 42:36

Bye bye.

Carly Ries: 42:40

You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go.