How do you actually get consulting clients if you hate selling?

I do not like sales. There, I said it.

Nobody in corporate ever asked me to sell anything. I worked in the back office. Then I went out on my own and, well, sales is the number one thing you need to get good at.

So outreach sat on my to-do list while I built other things. I love building things.

What changed it was writing down a real plan for lead generation, so it stopped being something I had to think about.

Zero cold outreach

I do zero cold outreach. Nobody hears from me unless they have engaged with a post, followed me or viewed my profile. The message is never the first move. It is a reply to something they already did.

The same four steps every time

1. Find out what they are trying to do.
2. Find out what is in the way of it.
3. Give one piece of advice that helps with that. The advice should position me as the helpful solution.
4. Invite them to a call, or to something I sell, but only if it is the right answer to what they just told me. Sometimes it really is not, and I will tell them that too.

It is still evolving. Being human helps.

But having a system takes the emotion out of the whole thing, at least for me. I am not deciding each morning whether I feel brave enough. I am doing step one.

The longer version, on where those people come from in the first place, is here: how to find your first advisory clients without cold outreach.