Behind the Scenes of My Consulting Team

One question that comes up lately is about how I use my team of virtual assistants and freelancers. Here is a little peak behind the scenes.

This year, I’ve already traveled to 12 countries for consulting gigs at a variety of companies. Most of what I’ve been doing is one-off trainings on five topics.

In Europe earlier this year, the company I was consulting for asked about access to my online courses. An entrepreneur in my mastermind group told me not to sell them the courses, but to make the company buy licenses for each employee. Dr. Tee Williams is a genius for that idea and I still owe him!

It made a HUGE difference. Instead of charging a company $10K for each course, they are now buying licenses at a rate of $2K per employee per course (I have six courses).

Here in Asia (I’m here on a five-country consulting tour), the next big change happened. I did a training on digital marketing at a company in Hong Kong, and a training on podcasting at a company in Bangkok. Both companies came to me after and said they wanted to hire me to set up what I had trained them on. Right now, I’m setting up a digital marketing plan for the company in Hong Kong. I’m setting up a podcast for the company in Bangkok.

I have never offered done-for-you services or taken on bigger projects like this in the past, so it meant hiring a team for all the work. I currently use four virtual assistants and two freelancers.

One virtual assistant handles all of my travel arrangements and coordinates details with the companies that hire me. Any changes or anything they want goes through her. Her official title is “company liaison facilitator.”

The second VA is my gatekeeper. He responds to email and social media messages from people asking if I can write about them, feature their business in a publication I write for, pick my brain on topics that clients pay to learn, collaborate on consulting gigs, and/or stuff like that. He sends them to resources and tells them that the specifics/Q&A access/collaborations are for paying clients.

Jacob (the second VA) also finds paid speaking gigs and consulting gigs at companies for my top-tier coaching clients. For those that have invested $20K or more with me, my team does the work of finding the paid gigs and sends off the pitches on the client’s behalf. He also helps arrange their travel and coordinates with my attorney to make sure the client is covered with every aspect of the consulting/speaking gigs.

The other two VA’s are working on the big projects. They’re helping me set up a company’s podcast, and doing the research for the digital marketing plan I’m putting together. The two freelancers do the actual work for the big projects. They do the design, graphics, code, put decks together, and 100 other things.

It took some time to train this team, but it was well worth it. They are amazing. The cost for this help is not bad either. It’s money well spent because now companies are sending me work/bigger projects because they know I have a team that can handle it.

You can book consulting gigs at companies. You can license your courses, you can sell higher-end programs, and travel the world. When you do, make sure you have the right people around you. Today’s tools and technology make all of this possible.