A Brief Analysis of 3 Remarkable Consultants and What They Do Right
Some consultants are clearly successful - they have a big audience, lots of no BS knowledge and obviously a lot of money. What can we learn from them?
I’ve handpicked 3 consultants that I’ve come across over the last few years. Trust me, they are legit:
Ryan Stewart from The Blueprint Training & Webris
Dave Gerhardt from Exit Five
Jane Portman from UI Breakfast & Userlist
Let’s look at each in turn and draw some lessons.
Ryan Stewart from The Blueprint Training & Webris
Ryan’s bread and butter is his YouTube channel. He does deep-dives into agency processes, sales and marketing. If you’re running an SEO or content agency, you’ve probably come across his videos before, like this one:
He is known for running Webris, an SEO agency focused on personal injury attorneys. Based on this, he teaches other agency owners and entrepreneurs about building a successful SEO agency with the Blueprint Training program.
And he does marketing consulting himself as a fractional CMO, according to his LinkedIn. His consulting website shows prices from $10k/month to execute on his inbound marketing framework.
So, let’s look at the keys here: a cashflow business in the form of Webris, likely driving most of Ryan’s income. A semi-passive coaching business in the form of the Blueprint Training. A premium consulting service, with a pre-made methodology, that he likely does in his spare time to further drive income and stay close to the market.
I should add his latest initiative, the Traffic Projection Tool, which helps agencies highlight the value of their SEO services. Not sure how this is doing but it adds a fourth, SaaS-based, revenue stream to Ryan’s portfolio.
Again, I suspect a lot of this is driven by his YouTube channel where he helps marketers, founders and agencies improve their operations.
Now, let’s look at Dave Gerhardt.
Dave Gerhardt from Exit Five
I mostly associate Dave with his success at Drift, Privy and HubSpot. He now runs a community of marketers called Exit Five and is quite active on LinkedIn. He’s also advising a few B2B startups, likely involving cash or equity compensation.
Did he get a good boost from his successful career at big brands? Sure, he likely doesn’t have to work a day for the rest of his life. Currently, he is betting on community as the next stage of B2B marketing and charges members to get access to his content library and LinkedIn group.
Dave is using his site as a place to host/promote a range of initiatives:
Free newsletter (a gateway to the paid community)
Sponsorships (currently Zapier, Jasper and Demandwell)
Job board (charging companies for optional premium listings for $99)
Podcast
Marketing course ($198 cost)
So looking at Dave’s setup, he relies on a strong career background to support his credibility and utilizes LinkedIn to grow his audience. He’s now focused on building and monetizing a community via memberships, courses, a job board and sponsorships. He also has a free podcast and newsletter as prequels to the paid options. All hosted on one site, under the Exit Five brand.
Jane Portman from UI Breakfast & Userlist
While Jane is focused on growing Userlist (email automation platform) she still hosts the popular UI Breakfast podcast. Her blog was also a big deal, although it seems to have died recently with the latest post being in June 2022.
She built up a brand around UI Breakfast and created a productized consulting business, starting with a UI audit that leads into product strategy and other UI/UX deliverables. She also teaches other folks how to productize their consulting services.
She’s now available to speak at conferences but seems to have focused mostly on Userlist. So, a few things we can learn:
Jane used her blog and podcast to build an audience.
She productized her consulting services (and did it quite well).
She used to sell her info products - two eBooks that are currently free.
She used her audience and expertise in UI/UX to build Userlist, a SaaS company.
Summary & Conclusion
What do these consultants have in common, beyond a fat bank account?
They all built an audience via one or two dominant channels - YouTube, LinkedIn and (in the case of Jane) a combination of podcasting and blogging on her website.
They all developed multiple income streams that are related. In fact, consulting is currently, or used to be, a side-hustle more than a core offering.
They all sell information in the form of a book, coaching or membership. And, above all, they are full of no BS deep info on the things they are passionate about. Whether it’s SEO, B2B marketing or UI/UX.
So, in today’s consulting landscape, your best bet is developing and maintaining expertise, sharing it to build an audience and monetizing this attention via several income streams such as: services, information, software and premium-rate consulting.