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Episode #245
Cynthia Mills

Mastering The Solo Consulting Business Model

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Summary

Elevating your consulting business involves more than having the right strategy, leadership, client, or customer approach. The best tool you can have is someone’s help to coach you with the critical resources in your business and guide your processes. Join your host Michael Zipursky as he dives deep into a conversation with Cynthia Mills on mastering the solo consulting business model. Cynthia is the President and CEO of The Leaders’ Haven, which aims to help leaders and teams go beyond business as usual and continuously transform, so they can fulfill their true calling and exceed the expectations of the people they serve. Tune in as we analyze fundamental growth strategies and build relationships with your clients.

Welcome back to another episode. I am very excited to have Cynthia Mills joining us. Cynthia, welcome.

Thank you so much, Michael. It is great to be with you.

Cynthia, you are an author, a speaker and the President and CEO of The Leaders Haven. Your clients include many local and statewide but also international brands in finance, energy, publishing, media and a whole bunch of other industries. Your insights on leadership have also been featured on A&E, Bravo and other media and publications. I am excited to have you with us to talk more about how you got to where you are, lessons learned along the way and best practices as you have been building your consulting business.

You are not new to consulting. You have been doing it for some time. Why do not we start and have you share because I am interested to hear where the nicknames of The Board Whisperer and The Chief Experience Weaver come from? I want to take us back to how you even got to where you are. First, if you could touch on those two nicknames that you have.

One of the things that I loved when I was sitting in the CEO seat was the dynamics of how you help people make great decisions. Part of that to me is spending the time to understand the dynamic that is already present and how they would like to have that evolve. Over time, I have had clients who labeled me The Board Whisperer because they felt that I was good at listening underneath the dynamics and helping them then to evolve in those ways that freed them into new ways of thinking.

The Chief Experience Weaver has come from being someone who designs. I design facilitation or leadership experiences. What is so important to me about that is you do not want to come into a space with everything predetermined. You want to design in a way that people are both co-learning together, as well as learning from a facilitator. Hopefully, that has been part of the reason why people have seen me as a Chief Experience Weaver.

You want to design in a way that people are both co-learning together as well as learning from a facilitator. Click To Tweet

You talked about the power of listening and asking great questions. Most consultants, if they had been around the block or in a consultant community for some time, have heard about that and hopefully, have embraced the idea of how important it is to be a good listener and ask great questions. For you, specifically, is there anything either related to listening or asking questions that is a go-to for you? Is it a way you do things that you have found to be powerful? Beyond that surface level, you could add any context or detail to offer to people.

For me, the key moment is when you are experiencing pushback in dialogue. What I want to do at that moment is listen underneath it for the why. Usually, what I have found is there is either an absence of information that is needed or there is fear. If there is fear, is it fear of loss of something, whether it is loss of face or position? What is the reason for the underneath? That is the go-to for me because I want to understand pushback so that it does not get labeled emotionally in conversations. That feedback can then be heard by others.

Let’s take the example of a CEO or an executive that you as a consultant might be dealing with. You are working together or maybe before working together, you propose something or say, “Here is what I think and recommend.” They push back and say, “No, we are not going to do that.” Where does your mind go? What do you start thinking about doing or asking at that moment?

I want to know at that moment what has led them to the construct of the how for them. What do they believe they are going to get as a result of how they have constructed it? That way, I will be able to understand better. Secondly, I will be able to then either respond with, “I understand where you are headed. I will adjust,” or, “Here are some other things that you might want to think about that if we add into the process might also expand it in these ways. What do you think about that?” I like to stay in a place of listening, inquiry and offering up as opposed to, “No, your construct is wrong.”

How would you engage and drill into identifying the construct or the way that they are thinking so that you can formulate how to best respond? What are some of the questions you might ask or how you structure that or set things up so that you could get to the heart of the matter?

The first thing I would want to know is has the CEO designed it themselves on their own or has the CEO has been working with a board or a group of leaders that have been designated in a task force around this? That will help me understand whether or not it is the CEO’s point of view or a collective. I want to know that first. What I would want to go to is the intended outcome but then underneath it is to find out. If they were to go back with adjustment to that construct, what is the political price they might pay? Is that political price worth it to them?

CSP 245 Cynthia | Solo Consulting Business Model

 

I would not necessarily say it exactly that way but I would want to be looking at that. You have to understand what the leader is being asked to risk in the process and whether or not this is the moment they choose to risk that or not. If not, then you take them as far as you can go. Hopefully, you get a chance to continue to work with them. That risk opportunity shows up later.

Are your process and approach to typically try and identify as much of that information as you can before you provide any recommendations? Do you still find that even after many years, you will provide recommendations and there is still pushback because maybe there are certain things that cannot be covered before you provide recommendations in terms of digging deep to understand what they are thinking and everything else going on? How do you approach or think about that?

I have found a lot that people are coming with preconceived notions. Some of this has to do with the speed of wanting to get something accomplished. I do try, if at all possible, to at least have a conversation. For instance, if it is a response to an RFP, it is helpful to have a conversation before that. You find out then how open they are and how much they are willing to divulge. Are you going to give it your best shot and hope that something resonates? My preference is to be in a co-generative design process where a client is open to utilizing your expertise to help them shape things along the way. To me, that is when you learn more. You can serve them better on the design on the front end but you can also listen differently in the actual engagement.

We went through a little bit of a hot seat there back and forth. It was not planned but you set it up so beautifully that I wanted to dig into some of your experiences and thoughts around that. People find that valuable. Let’s get back to the scheduled programming. I would like to understand how you got to where you are. What was your educational path before getting to the world of business?

My educational path was a dual BA degree which was in History and Psychology. I went from there to the University of York in England and earned an MA in Medieval Studies. How does that relate to business? Some fairly medieval ideas come out in business. Psychology is always useful but I had an opportunity to go to work for the National Association of College Auxiliary Services. That was the first national organization that I worked for and was hired as their number two after having done a few other business jobs before that.

That led me into my first CEO position three years after that. I stayed in that role then for the majority of my career in a variety of positions. One of the things that are wonderful about moving from organization to organization or company to company is learning where your sweet spot is and what you love. I found that while I was brought into many of those organizations and wound up playing the change agent role, I loved the people part of the work. I love the dynamics work and strategy work. I had done implementation. I could not do it well but I loved those components.

One of the things that's wonderful about moving from organization or company to company is learning where your sweet spot is and what you love. Click To Tweet

I decided that instead of working for boards one-on-one the rest of my career, I wanted to be able to help more people, companies and organizations. I went and earned my coaching designation. I started consulting on the side while I was still a CEO. I built my practice that way and also built my collateral during that period. I was able to step in full-time with a solid pipeline. I have never missed a beat as opposed to what many people do and have to have several years of building a business. I am very blessed and thankful for that. It proved to be the right thing for me because I love being able to help people exceed their expectations of themselves. That is what floats my boat.

I got two questions for you on that. The first is for other CEOs or people in the C-Suite or those that have had experience at the senior levels in your organization, is there anything that you did that you feel helped you to leverage that experience or that way of thinking into your consulting business? Is there anything that you feel gives you an advantage? Maybe you notice that not enough people shine a spotlight on that. Is there anything that is often overlooked?

Any opportunity that presented itself, I took advantage of the opportunity. I stayed in continuous learning. I made sure that my approach to the communities that I was going to serve was one of contribution and did everything that I could to remain visible in a way that was making that contribution. I did not do that with a Machiavellian approach or anything. That is who I am at the core. I want to be involved, give and participate.

What that does though is it also gives people an opportunity to experience you. It gave me a chance to be exposed to a lot of different ways of thinking strategically. I got a chance to see a lot of different organizations and companies in terms of how their approach is, how they played out, what was successful and what was not. Most importantly, I have learned how to develop people and set them free in their roles to be able to succeed. That has served me well in the CEO seat but it has also served me well as I continue to help develop people in a variety of ways.

As you were still in that CEO role, you made what we call the side transition. You did not jump to burn all the boats. You were still working and started taking some clients on the side. How do you get those first few clients? For those that are in a similar position, any tips that you might offer in terms of how to go out, leverage that capacity that you have to work with others, build up that client base while you are still engaged in a full-time role or doing something else?

Do not hide. It is important for people to begin to see you as a thought leader. Whether you are posting articles on LinkedIn or doing a podcast, begin to be seen in the community. As I earned my coaching designation, I did not hide that I was also a coach. People who trusted me already in that space felt like that was a safe space to come and be part of. People who had watched me help transform organizations began to say, “Would you come to the strategy for us?” Your work does have to speak for itself and you also have to make the efforts. Go ahead and build a website. Do things that allow you to begin to consolidate content so that people can come, see and go on that journey with you.

CSP 245 Cynthia | Solo Consulting Business Model

 

We all have to be careful about our employers and having them perceive that they are receiving 100% of what they are paying for. Be fully respectful of the current position that you have. I also found that being open about those things with my employers was important too. They knew that I had relationships with other consulting firms or I was speaking at XYZ. That is important. Be authentic and honest.

Let’s fast forward. You got your first few clients from being out there and telling people what you are doing. What about now? What is working for you best to bring in new leads, conversations and prospective business?

A huge part of it remains word of mouth. Not just with somebody who is at a meeting and says, “You ought to call Cynthia,” but people who are also willing to surprise me by posting things on social media or answering a question and somebody says, “You should call Cynthia about that.” When you have your clients who are being your advocates, it is so humbling to see that happen but it is also very important to have that backing.

Staying that thought leader and being consistent about that is also very important. It always surprises me the number of times somebody says they read an article or saw a posting and they are like, “That did not get 2,000 likes.” All of that is important. I have been down the path of having people talk about all the different ways that you can be intentional around marketing and social media. For me, that has not been something that I have chosen to do regularly. A lot of that is shifting over the last number of years too. For me, the clients within the pipelines that you are using are a big part of it.

I would love to drill a little bit deeper into that idea of having advocates. There is no better business than getting business through referral. There is trust already built there. People already feel more comfortable. That tends to be the most profitable. Deals require less effort and energy. With that being said, is it simple as doing great work and then having people talk about you? What I am looking for is if we were to look at the wall and inspect it, are there some cracks or opportunities in that wall that would lead us to something more? Is there something more that you are doing where you are being more practiced to try and create more of that referral business?

It is not going to be answered that you are thinking it might be. What I am finding is that it is the value on the back end of the engagement that is helping to set some things apart. That would be, first of all, trying to make sure that whatever is being delivered customized is important. The second thing is going beyond what your client thought they were going to get. Surprising them has been something that I am consistently seeing. The other thing that I would say is, stylistically, I am having repeated people talk about the experience they have in the room at the moment that they feel is different.

Help people exceed their expectations of themselves.v Click To Tweet

I have struggled with trying to put the legs on like, “What does that mean,” so that it becomes marketable to say what that is. “Chief Experience Weaver but what does that mean,” for someone who does not know. To me, it is the combination of the tangible and the intangible that is coming across as, “You need to have this experience. It is not what you are used to having in this setting.” That is what I am I feel like is driving some of it. The other thing is being in a relationship with your client is also a differentiator.

Can you explain what that means?

We can look at clients as clients A, B, C and D and how is the calendar filling up. If we become to them and they begin to experience us as part of their team, that is also a differentiator that has them say, “You want to engage this person because you are going to experience them as part of your team, not as the consultant who does a piece of work. Check when the piece of work is done.” That is another component, particularly, since how we used to be in a relationship stretched and challenged the last number of years.

In your business, you have worked with many different industries. I wonder, was it always that way or when you were earlier in the development of your consulting business, did you focus more on specific industries? How do you feel that has impacted how you think about marketing and your service offerings being a specialist or specializing in certain industries as opposed to working with a broader, more general diverse group of industries?

For the most part, it has always been diverse and diversity builds over time. What I found in the areas that I concentrate on like strategy, governance and leadership keep me on my toes. The work does not change depending upon the industry you are in. The acronyms and the things you have to learn change but having that broader knowledge of how the world works make me a better consultant myself. I believe I do a better job by being able to bring all of that in than if I was a specialist in an area. I am not saying that consultants who specialize in an area are not bringing significant value. I certainly do not want to come across that way.

I do think that, for me, what that has led to is that I can bring you this talent and skillset. You will not get less of an engagement because I have worked with a variety of industries. Some industries prefer to work with consultants that are dedicated to that. I applaud that and have no issues with that but what I have found is I also like having my fingers in a lot of pies. I do not market as a generalist. I market that I bring these skillsets to any organization or company that wants to engage in these ways.

CSP 245 Cynthia | Solo Consulting Business Model

 

Especially because so much of your business is coming from referrals, you do not necessarily have to be as laser-focused on marketing to a specific industry because a lot of your lead flow is coming to you as opposed to you having to go out and drum up that business. Looking at your service offerings, you engage with clients in many different ways. Do you find that overall clients tend to start with one specific service and then go to another one and another one or is it random in the way that they come in and engage with you?

The answer is yes. You are correct. Some clients come in and it will start with coaching the CEO. The next thing you know, you are doing a board orientation and then a strategy for the whole organization. Other times there is an engagement. It is around strategy like, “Well done. Thank you very much.” That happens to be a comeback when they want to refresh their strategy so both happen. I am open to both. I love it when I get to be a part of the team. I am also happy to provide the services when they want a singular approach.

Is there one service offering that you tend to put more of a focus or spotlight on as opposed to the others or is it spread across evenly and you cast it out there and see what comes?

I let the client decide that. It is more of a cast-it out there and I go where it is in the moment. It does wander but it is exciting to let that happen because it keeps you on your toes as well like, “We are going to do that again.”

Has your pricing strategy evolved? Is there anything that you do from how you price your services that is very different than the way that you maybe did it years ago? Is there anything that stands out that you have learned and applied?

The thing that strikes me the most and I say this to anyone who is reading who may be starting, is it’s natural to be careful about your pricing at the beginning because you are worried about overpricing yourself. However, you want to be careful that you do not necessarily put yourself out there as the low-priced option and have that be misinterpreted.

Your work has to speak for itself. Click To Tweet

The confidence that comes over time in pricing strategy is something that you need to be aware of early on and shorten that curve to get to pricing yourself appropriately for what your value is. Secondly, the thing that is an important consideration is do you want to do larger, high priced and fewer or do you want to be taking everything that comes down the pike?

Part of that depends on whether or not how much you want to work. Part of it also depends on your preference for larger projects or getting something done and moving on. For me, I have had to figure that out over time. I have a mix but the way that I address the mix and how the pricing impacts it is to make determinations about how much I want to work. That helped me a lot to get that sorted.

Can you offer us a bit of a look behind the curtain into how you think about that? In your case specifically, is there anything you can share around how much you want to work and then based on how you think about that, decisions that you have made around the offerings, services or pricing and so forth?

First of all, I love my work. I work a lot and I will be honest about that. What I realized was that I needed to pull some of the things back into the regular weekday that I was allowed to creep into the weekend. I was losing my quality of life. I try to keep my engagements to 5 days a week, which means on the 6th day, both business and personal business stuff is usually in play at some point to some degree. The seventh day is, “That is mine.” It impacts how much coaching I take on versus leaving the time to also do some of the big projects.

I try to then think about how many big projects I want to take on in any quarter. I try to look at it from a quarterly perspective because I have noticed a rhythm over the years. I know that, for sure, the 4th quarter and the 1st quarter are going to be crazy. When you got people who are going on vacation and doing all that stuff, that changes in the big projects in the summer. I stay busy. I can also potentially write a book. I can pull some hours in there but I also have to figure out how much content creation time I want in a year. That is very important to me as well because I like to create new content that is not client-driven.

I find it interesting and it connects directly to another question I wanted to ask you about. You have partners that you work with different firms you might refer business to or support each other. Correct me if I am wrong but it seems like your business is mainly you. I would love to know why that decision? Did you ever think about building a team? How intentional are you in keeping the business just you? How do you handle business, trying to grow and taking on everything that you do if it mainly is yourself?

CSP 245 Cynthia | Solo Consulting Business Model

 

The intentionality question is an important piece. I do have consulting firms where if there is a piece of work, yes, I could do it but if I believe this firm will do it better, I will refer them to those firms and certainly have done that. If there is an opportunity to partner with another firm where I know we have synergies and want to do that, I will reach out to some that do that. Both of those things are in play. The intentionality part, I love that you asked that question. I did make an intentional decision to primarily be a solopreneur. I went through that formulation of, “What work did I want to do? What was my sweet spot?”

I had run businesses for decades. I did not need to run another business. I wanted to do the work I wanted to do. I did not want to worry about, “What is the HR policy?” I had done that. I wanted to do the work, be able to write books and do other things that were going to be part of a legacy that I wanted to be able to leave. If I had started the firm when I was 35, I probably would have made a different decision but I did not do that.

What I did was intentionally built my career so that by the time I was 50, I had options. That option could be sitting in a CEO seat until you retire. The option could be to quit or start something else. For me, the intentionality started early with creating options but I did not have to put the option in play until I was ready to make that decision. When I made the decision, I was like, “I want to spend my time doing the work, not running a business.”

Do you consider yourself to be in your role and form a business builder or do you view yourself more like an artist? You referred to doing the work. You have not necessarily talked as much about actively building the business. I do not mean in a way that you are not building this. Some people get into this. They start off doing the work but over time, they feel like, “I want to make a bigger impact, be able to take on more projects and grow revenue. I cannot do all of that myself and implement it. Therefore, I need a team, better systems, processes or productization to scale and grow.” What do you think about that?

I had a baseline number but I always wanted to know that I was hitting. I did not spend a lot of time on, “I am going to grow the business by X every year.” I have been very blessed that it has and I am very thankful for that but my intentionality was not around building a business that when I hit X age, I was then going to sell the content or sell a business to another consulting firm. That was never my intention. It was about doing the work.

In light of that, what is funny is that I help other people build businesses all the time. I have helped other consultants start their businesses but that was not the driver for me. It was more about walking beside those who were doing that. Whatever came of that, in the end, was whatever came at. That is the blessing of living my life in a way that I can have choices.

Being in a relationship with your clients is also a differentiator. Click To Tweet

It is such a gift to have options. It does not mean that it is just about luck. It requires hard work, dedication and commitment. To have options is such a wonderful thing. I have a few more questions and one that I am thinking about. You have talked a lot about how you have accomplished a lot. You have made that transition from being in the CEO role to consulting and doing coaching. It all paints a pretty rosy picture. Take me to challenges, something that either you are still working to overcome or something that you did overcome but either hold you back or is a tough nut to crack. What stands out for you in that challenge realm?

I had run so hard and fast in the beginning years of the business and was generating content constantly in the creation and all of that. I realized one day that not only had I not pulled all of that together but I did not know for myself how I wanted to express my work and what that work was becoming. I was doing what people were satisfied with but I could not speak for my work myself.

I intentionally engaged. I set a timeframe in which I wanted to assess all of that. I engaged a consultant who happens to be a friend of mine. He is a futurist. He is always about 3 or 4 years ahead of me and how his business has unfolded. He had developed a process to take you through your paces of getting all of that sorted out.

We did that over some time. He subsequently refined that process even further. What that did was it gave me a language that was authentic to me about how I do my work. It allowed me to then start weaving that into my work. It is not like I say, “Here are the ten top principles,” and everybody has to do those. It is more of how I speak my work and how I help people understand what we do. I am writing a book about it as well. I had lost the core thread that mapped who I was, how I saw my work and how I wanted to iterate my work in that process. That was something I could not keep working on anymore and not get that sorted.

I want to ask you about your habits. You have got a lot going on. You do like to work a lot and get stuff done. What are 1 or 2 things that you do daily that you feel contribute to higher levels of performance or mental clarity, focus and productivity? Is there anything you have that is key to that?

One of those things is sleep. As simple and basic as that sounds, it does impact my productivity and energy level. The second thing is I am a faith-based person. I start with that at the beginning of my day to ground me and where I was going. The third thing, for me, is I do a reassessment at the beginning of the day about how I have mapped out the day. I have always done that at the end of the day like, “Here is how we are headed.”

Sleep and as simple and basic as that sounds it really does impact my productivity. Click To Tweet

When I get up at the beginning of the day, I give myself an opportunity to look at the calendar and say, “What is reasonable? What is possible? Where can I make an adjustment that will make this a better day for the people I am serving and for me?” I found if I give myself that little moment of grace, it is amazing how the calendar shifts. It all gets done but in a more productive way.

That is a great example of the power of focus, being intentional and prioritization. It is very easy to be stressed and be so busy in our day with everything else going around us, whether it is kids, family members or the distractions and chaos of life. Being able to get clear on, “What should I focus on? What is urgent and most important,” is great advice. Here are two more questions before we wrap up. The first one is what is a book that you have either read or listened to, it can be fiction or nonfiction, that you would recommend or you feel like, “I enjoyed reading this or listening to it?”

This is going to sound strange. I grew up in the town of Staunton, Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley. The Statler Brothers came from my town. They were very popular country music and awarded group. I grew up with their kids. They have done an amazing job of memorializing a period in history and their experiences.

It had shown me what it means when a group of people commit to goals do not lose their values in that process and know when it is time to step back. Reading that and having known them makes it special but it is also very inspirational to watch the entire journey of a career and the faithfulness that they had to each other, as well as the vision that they had that they continued to expand. That was very meaningful to me.

I have no knowledge at all of their world and stories. Did you know the name of that book?

Not right at the top of my head. They have written several. I am sorry.

People can do a Google search and look that up. Finally, for those that want to learn more about you, your work and everything you have going on, you have a bunch of books as well and you are working on another one, where is the best place for them to go to learn more?

The website is TheLeadersHaven.com or they can always find me on LinkedIn, @CynthiaMills. That is also The Leaders Haven CEO.

Cynthia, thanks so much for coming on here, spending some time with us and sharing some of your journey and a look inside at how you got to where you are.

It’s my pleasure. Thank you for the opportunity.

 

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About Cynthia Mills

CSP 245 Cynthia | Solo Consulting Business ModelCynthia Mills is the President & CEO of The Leaders’ Haven™, a consultancy serving clients as business strategist, board consultant, business and executive coach, succession planning and change management guide, leadership development catalyst, speaker, and facilitator for small privately held and family-owned businesses, corporations, associations, not-for-profits, NGOs, and faith-based communities.

Cynthia founded The Leaders’ Haven to help leaders & teams go beyond business as usual & continuously transform, so they can fulfill their true calling & exceed the expectations of the people they serve. Nicknamed “The Board Whisperer™” and “The Chief Experience Weaver™” by clients, Cynthia relishes transformational journeys and that moment when everyone sees potential and commits to going after it!

 

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