Skip Navigation
Episode #250
Chelsea C. Williams

Hiring Best Practices For Solo Consultants & Small Firms

Subscribe On
Summary

Everyone in the business knows you can only go as far as your people take you. That is why the talent piece is often the most challenging in terms of growing your business. Here to impart her expertise around talent development is Chelsea C. Williams. She is the founder and CEO of Reimagine Talent Co., a firm focusing on workforce and talent development. In this episode, she sits down with Michael Zipursky to share the best hiring practices for solo consultants and small firms. Chelsea also talks about how they rebranded their company and how hiring more talent helped them expand the business. What is more, Chelsea offers advice on getting referrals and highly qualified prospective clients. Tune in to this conversation and learn more talent development advice to take your business to the next level.

In this episode, I’m joined by Chelsea C. Williams. Chelsea, welcome.

Michael, it’s great to be here.

I’m excited about our conversation. You are the Founder and CEO of Reimagine Talent Co., a workforce and talent development firm offering DEI-informed retention strategies. Your clients include brands like Ben & Jerry’s, Gatorade, Cushman & Wakefield, and a whole bunch of others. You’re also a speaker on the topics of workplace inclusion and career navigation. Let’s get started by going back. Before you started your consulting business, what were you doing? What was the initial career and how did Chelsea emerge career path-wise?

I went to a historically black women’s college, Spelman and it’s a liberal arts college. I went and studied Economics. I always say, when you go to a liberal arts college and study Economics, you either end up on Wall Street or as an economist. I chose not to be an economist and I chose the Wall Street route. I started my career on Wall Street. I spent about a decade in financial services, always in the talent, and human capital space from large global organizations to investment firms.

I’m passionate about building and cultivating the pipeline. My experience on Wall Street was the founding block and what confirmed for me this passion for focusing on consulting. We work with consultants in talent development so I had an early bird’s eye view into the space and was able to make my pivot from my foundation.

I’m excited to dive into your experience around the whole talent side. You talked about the pipeline. When you say the pipeline, you’re referring to the pipeline of talent inside of an organization, not the sales pipeline. For you as well, you’ve grown. You’re now a company of twelve people in your firm. I want to explore how you got to where you are as you grow in the business and brought people on.

As anyone who has employees and team members knows that the talent piece of it is one of the most challenging in terms of growing the business. Take me back to that time. You’re working on Wall Street, whether it’s large organizations, hedge funds, or investment firms. How did you even become interested though in the talent piece? You were in university and then you got to Wall Street. Where did that passion and excitement come from to want to identify, hire, train, and develop people?

It was birthed in my high school years but cultivated in my college years. I found myself quite involved in student government and volunteering in our local community. I was an ambassador for our admissions department at Spelman. I was giving tours and meeting all people.

You are a people person.

I enjoy being around people. I care deeply about people’s development. I’m a person who learning is a value and a hobby. Naturally, the ability to be able to learn from people and work alongside people excites me.

In 2018, you started what is known now as Reimagine Talent Co. What made you leave Wall Street or the world of finance? For many, that’s their life ambition. As they’re developing themselves, they think about high-paying jobs, great benefits, all the fun, and the premium moral that finance can provide. Why did you decide to not continue down that path and just move up the ranks? Instead, you go off and build your own company, a consulting firm.

The truth is, I was doing quite well in my time in finance and I enjoyed my firm. At the last firm I was at before I took the leap out, it came down to seeing a pain point. At the time when I was working in financial services, one of my roles as vice president was overseeing human capital globally. I focused on the Americas, but we did a lot of global projects as well. One of my focuses was early talent. People could describe it as your intern, your graduate, and your first few years out of school.

Be honest about yourself and choose to do what feels natural because it's a lot of energy and prepping time. Click To Tweet

In this role, my colleagues and I were spending a lot of time at colleges and universities in the country. We are spending a lot of time around what is now Gen Z, understanding their experiences, their pain points, and why navigating through the early curve was difficult and challenging. It was at that time that I realized that there wasn’t an organization that was sorely focused on helping organizations engage, develop, and retain early talent.

On a campus recruiting tour, we were at Penn and I found myself in the hotel lobby writing all of my observations from conversations with students, professors, and colleagues. That turned into a business plan. That business plan was for College Code. We’ve since to Reimagine Talent, but originally, we started off in the early talent and development space, hence the name College Code. It was to help employers build and cultivate this pipeline of a new generation of talent that sees work in careers vastly different than before.

That’s the origin story. Spending the time, being in the weeds on campuses, getting to understand the Gen Z experience, and saying, “There is not an organization that is solely focused on supporting, especially through a diversity lens this next-gen.” That was the business plan for College Code, which is now Reimagined Talent.

You decide there’s an opportunity in the market. You are well positioned with your background and expertise to add value to organizations or at least attempt to see what you can make of this. What’s your first step? How do you go from being in the finance world to getting your first client and turning this into a business?

I’m one of those people who’s a little type-A, so I said to myself, “Before you leave, you need to have some lead way and some stuff that you’re going to take to help you explore and dive into the consulting space. There is a program that’s called Education Pioneers. Its whole mission and vision are to take people from outside the world of education, so, business, legal, and medical, you name it. They position them to be management and leaders within the education space. They are not student and instructional focus, but management and admin-focused.

I applied to be a part of this fellowship. During my time in finance, I was always doing quite a bit of work with nonprofits and universities. Naturally, the education space was a passion and an interest. I had connections in the space. I hear this fellowship. I applied. It’s a three-month fellowship starting 3 or 4 weeks after I resigned. I left with this fellowship experience. They place you with an organization where you serve as a consultant.

You come in and you bring all your background experiences. For me, it was from finance and talent combined and your support. At the time, I was placed with Teach For America. Folks in the US will specifically know that this organization is focused on education reform, but they put me in the adult learning and leadership space. I got a chance, through that first project, to dive into consulting and to sit in this new space while also being a part of a broader network to build other relationships with organizations and people who were in the consulting space.

Were you paid for that work?

It was a paid opportunity. Again, you come in as a part of a cohort. I was also getting leadership development, coaching, and that network.

Were you doing this while you still had a full-time job in the finance world?

It was right when I resigned. Three weeks later, I started but I planned it.

Did you that you were going to start that and you timed the resignation to the start of this next program?

 

It was close. I was saying to myself that I need a little bit of a break because I’ve been working. When I left, I knew I was going to be a part of the fellowship class so I had something to look forward to.

That’s essentially “your first client” but done through this fellowship. The fellowship did your marketing for you and put you in front of the client. You have your first paid gig as a consultant. What happens after that? How do you leverage that experience to get the next client or the next 2 or 3 clients? How do you turn that into a business, as opposed to just delivering through this fellowship?

I was intentional in wanting to be a part of this fellowship because again, it was part of a broader network. I said to myself, “I go in. I do a great job with this particular client.” There’s a whole network of dozens of organizations across the country. For me, I was doing the work of consulting for this client, but building relationships after work hours, networking events and speaking with people at other organizations. In my experience in finance, especially in the role that I was in talent, I met dozens of people and had a strong network.

For me, once I made the step, I felt very comfortable reaching out to even colleagues. There were some colleagues who were tremendously helpful in making introductions to universities and to nonprofits. That step was what officiated stepping into consulting and my network college included and my network in New York City, I was only reaching out. I was going to the contracting fairs that they had. I was putting myself out there. It was so uncomfortable.

I want to make this to be tactical and tangible for everyone joining us. You have this Rolodex and your great network. You know lots of people. You’re getting introductions and referrals. What were you asking? When you were sending an email to somebody, what were you saying in that email that was then leading you to be able to have conversations with those people and turn that into business?

It’s much easier. There’s the cold call and then there’s cultivating the relationship that’s already there. I did do some cold-call, but for the most part, people knew me, my work, or someone who knew my work. It was an initial email. I transitioned out of my full-time role. I’m stepping into consulting through this organization called College Code. “Here’s our mission. Here are the 2 to 3 services that we offer organizations. You will learn more on the website. Would you be open to an introductory call?” It was, “Here’s the step I’ve taken. Here’s what we do and what we offer. I would love to move off of email into a meeting.”

What percentage of people will you say who you sent that email to responded and said, “I’m open to having a conversation?” Was it a large portion or was it quite small and it required you to do a lot of follow-up with people? Walk me through. I’m imagining that you have this database of hundreds of people and you send this email to a lot of them. How does it transpire? What were the next steps after that initial email goes out?

This is where it becomes important to be organized. I learned it a year later, but the CRM system, starting with that is critical. That’s in your amazing book. Even if it’s an Excel sheet, starting in a place where you’re organized becomes incredibly critical for the follow-up. I would say 25% to 30% got back to me. That’s the truth of the matter. There were many who said, “I love what you’re doing. Let me make a connection for you,” but sometimes those connections didn’t materialize. Sometimes it was because we had a specific niche, early talent.

This is something I learned a few years later, the importance of being specific in the person within the organization who can help me who’s interested in the work that we do. Initially, it was about 25% to 30% who said, “Chelsea, let’s talk.” The conversation doesn’t mean that there’s an opportunity, but it was the door in and the opportunity to explain some of the ways that we can add value.

Do those conversations are what then turned into your 2nd or 3rd client?

Absolutely. I’m trying to think about my earlier days. It was that speaking if I can bring that up for you. I was already doing speaking when I was working in financial services, unpaid, but I was already doing the world of speaking. I had my list of organizations I’d spoken at. I’d had the variation of panel versus workshop versus keynote. I didn’t know at the time that those opportunities were helping me build that community through LinkedIn, as one example, of people who knew me from speaking on a panel. Some of my earlier consulting opportunities came from speaking and continue to be an option for us now.

Let’s contrast the early days. Network reactivation is an exercise we take a lot of clients through in our coaching programs because as yourself, it’s common to have this amazing asset of relationships that you’ve cultivated and developed over the years and how do you turn that into the initial conversation. It seems like you executed that well. If you compare and contrast that to now. Here we are years later, from a marketing lead generation perspective, what would you say is working best for you to be able to create conversations with highly qualified high-value prospective clients?

If you document your process, you can educate and coach someone else on it. Click To Tweet

It’s speaking and you know this. Dorie Clark talks a lot about this. You have to find your niche. What is the way that you get to people? Is it writing? Is it speaking? Is it one-on-one? I have identified that speaking is that way for me. It’s something I’m passionate about and a way that I feel that I can educate and inspire others. When I think about it, especially moving to the keynote space, as you can imagine depending on the conference or the summit, it puts you in this thought leader space.

Especially if it’s an industry conference or a multi-sector conference, people are going back to all these different cities, states, and sectors. That has been tremendously helpful for us. Finally, especially in the space of talent and diversity, it’s referrals. Seventy-five percent of our business last year was referral-based. We go and consult with the partner. They go and tell another partner because the community is small and they want trusted people.

Is there anything that you do on the referral side that you feel helps you to generate? A lot of people talk about referrals, but they’re reactive. They do great work. People tend to contend to get business. Not so many people are proactive or strategic. If you’re not, that’s fine. Is there something that you do when it comes to referrals that you feel, “This helps us to generate more of those?”

There are a few things that come to mind. Anytime we’re finishing a client engagement, we do what we call a post-mortem or our final call. That is where we talk through our journey and our experience together. We’ll share some new products or services we’re offering and listen to what’s next quarter or next year for the client. We’re intentional about making sure that it’s set up. That’s a big one.

The testimonials would even be one. That’s something that you discussed in your book, but the proactive nature of getting those testimonials because again, I didn’t know that people read them but some people care about those. There are people who have asked, “Can I get a few testimonials or is there someone I can speak with?” Us always having that ready and clear on a one-pager are little things that you might think, “I’ll get to it or it’s not a big deal, but they can make a huge difference in landing that next opportunity.”

I want to get into your team and how you’ve gone about building the business. Before you do that, I have two questions. One is around this idea of speaking. If somebody is saying to themselves, “Chelsea, that makes a lot of sense. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about the power of speaking, but I haven’t done a lot of that myself.”

Tactically, is it as simple as identifying an association, a professional group, or a conference that your ideal clients are attending? Finding who the person is that is in charge of getting speakers and reaching out to them with a hot topic or something that is relevant and timely. Is there anything else that you’d add that you feel is critical to be successful in landing speaking opportunities?

Absolutely. Before I get into my response, I will say, be honest about yourself if speaking is something that energizes you. This is something that you’ve spoken about. It might be writing for you. You might be more interested in an editorial. Choose what feels natural because it’s a lot of energy and prepping time. If you do say to yourself that speaking is what’s interesting to me or I’m interested, there are so many different places that you can speak to your point.

I did this activity. The first thing is to write your dream list. Where are the places that you want to speak? Think broadly like conferences, summits, business meetings, companies, organizations, schools, or churches. The list is so broad and that’s something that I learned early. You can be specific. A summit and a conference versus a business meeting versus a school can be different experiences. You can drill in on what is of interest to you.

Before you do that, what do you want to speak on? What are the topic and the value-add that you can bring? A few things have to be in order like your assets and your bio. If you have a speaking preview, even if it’s a podcast or something where you’re sharing your value-add, it’s important. Have that organized. Also, your headshot. What do you speak on? I’d say choose a few themes that are very specific that you speak on. Some people may say, “Entrepreneurship is broad. Is it social entrepreneurship? Is it marketing for entrepreneurship?”

Be specific because a conference organizer or an individual seeking to have you come and speak is looking for specificity. They want a person who is going to give you those pointed details. The more specific you can be, the better. Practically speaking and this could be its own session, you need a write-up of what are you going to talk about if you’re doing a workshop or a keynote. What outcomes or objectives will the audience takeaway? People care about this because putting yourself in the shoes of the conference organizer, they need to make sure that you’re going to deliver on why they’re bringing you in or that ends up impacting them and the broader organization. That’s the credibility piece.

Those are fantastic tips and recommendations. Specificity is so important in many aspects of business, but especially in this area of speaking and creating those opportunities. There’s one other thing I wanted to ask you about and that is the rebrand. You rebranded. Walk us through that thought process because you started off being very intentional with your branding and the company name targeting that earlier stage worker or talent. Why did you decide to rebrand? Give me the strategic thinking behind that and where you are with it.

CSP 250 | Hiring Practices

 

The rebranding truly came out of the point that we started as early talent leaders. We were doing coaching, training, and consulting. We then started getting pulled into support managers and leaders managing and leading early talent. My background and much of the team was talent development broadly, multi-generational. We were doing the work under the name College Code. You can imagine you’d go to a certain company and it’s like, “We’ve got these individuals who can support manager and leader development. Their name is College Code.” It’s like, “What?”

We still got plenty of opportunities with our name being as it was because people were going off of our impact but to your point about strategy, I said, “Long-term. it’s better to handle the traction and the momentum that we’re getting to go now versus many years later.” It was a business opportunity to expand the breadth of our opportunities and to make sure if someone heard Reimagine Talent or went to our website, they didn’t stop and say, “I don’t think this is for me because we’re not focused on early talent.” That was the intention.

You have twelve team members. Some are full-time, some are contractors, and so forth. Take me back to the early days when you decided to add your first team member. Who was that? What was that role?

It was an administrative assistant and it’s vital and critical. I hired my first person way too late. It was The Chelsea Show.

How long do you wait until you brought an assistant?

I waited two years.

Why did you wait?

A little bit of it was, “Is this something that I’m going to ride out? Am I doing it for a few years to see what it can become? Is this something that I’m fully wanting to commit to?” That’s one reason I was riding it out a little bit. It was a little bit of fear.

Who was the second hire after the assistant?

The second hire was helping with marketing like email, some social posting, branding, and documents for clients since we do so much of that. It’s things like that.

How far in were you before you hired somebody to help with the delivery of client projects and you got client engagements?

At the point at which we brought in the admin and the marketer, I started to notice a shift in that. It was around the same time it happened. That is when it happened quickly. Once I started to bring on those people on the team, I started to see the momentum. They started coming pretty quickly. From one of the times we rebranded, it’s so crazy because that has even doubled the team members that we need.

You always need people before you think you do. Click To Tweet

A lot of consultants have trouble with this as they’re building their team and creating more of a consulting firm model and not having everything around themselves. The feeling is that clients are hiring me. They want my expertise. It’s hard to find people of the same caliber or that have the same knowledge. How did you handle that? Any lessons learned and advice you’d have for others who do want to expand and grow? “I want to be able to create more impact, therefore there is the need to bring on someone else to start doing client communications, client management, and delivery of projects.”

First of all, you can’t grow without it. The fears are real. I’ve been there, but you have to confront them because it will be a hindrance to your business’ growth. I would say framework. You need a framework. What is your framework? It’s your thought process. It’s the way in which you deliver the work. It’s your sweet sauce. You talked about this. You need a framework.

If you document your process, your style, and all that stuff, that’s the stuff you can educate and coach someone else on. They’ll bring their own flavor, which is healthy in a spirit of diversity but again, you get the opportunity to say, “Here’s how we do things. Here are our values. Here’s our process map.” It’s the accountability piece, but then they get to bring their flavor. That’s been huge for me

I think about our work. We’ve got our workforce development side of the house that’s supporting. It’s College Code. It’s what we were doing in College Code under workforce. We’ve got our talent development and retention and diversity work with employers. Especially for the workforce piece, we’ve had our model that’s worked for our curriculum. We had to make sure that we created our facilitator guides or trainer guides. Our operations manager and I do that onboarding with them when they start. They’ve got everything that Chelsea built from the beginning that’s been successful but still allows people to bring their own personality to it.

Did you ever feel the chicken and egg situation when you were hiring? I’m wondering with a finance background, how do you manage that? Oftentimes people are wondering or saying to themselves, “I’m going to hire somebody when I reach this next level of revenue. Should I hire somebody now so that I can take on and have the capacity to accept new work? Should I wait until I find the project?” I’m wondering how you handled planning for and hiring people, given your growth.

You always need people before you think you do. There are a number of summits and conferences I’ve been to where that has been shared. Any big pivot or movement, you won’t even know where it’s coming from. For me, rebranding was huge and there were some speaking opportunities that provided more visibility than I thought. It’s the same thing for people who were reading. You never know that client opportunity, that speaking opportunity or that editorial article that you contribute to that’s going to open up the flood gates of opportunity for you.

You don’t want to be in a situation where you have to turn someone down because you don’t have the capacity unless you make your own determination around how many clients. For most people, it’s thinking proactively and having that person ready. A lot of people are stepping into the gig economy. There are so many people who want to be a 1099 contractor. They want that in a way that I don’t think we’ve seen in a while. There’s a huge benefit for people who are looking for flexibility and the opportunity to be a part of a team but also do other things. The talent market for this type of work is pretty fruitful so those are helpful pieces.

Were you ever in a situation where you decided to go ahead and hire somebody, but it didn’t necessarily have a product to put them on right away? You then start to feel like, “How does this impact cashflow in the business?”

That is a contract situation. To your good point, there’s a person who has signed on and she will join. Upon communication, I told her, “We’ll have you start to work in Q3,” because I am hearing from my partners that there are going to be some additional things. I know and believe it. I also believe that I have the ability to pay her. That’s important. Sometimes it’s for the contractor who will say, “I FreeUp. I’m busy the first few quarters. Can I work with you in the second half of the year?”

It’s a fluid conversation that you can have with people. More people are interested in flexibility than not. I have also said, “How can you use your team in different ways?” One of our consultants supports diversity work. We didn’t start the projects that I wanted to put her on, given her background and experiences, until about March, but I had her start with us in January or February. She was doing blog articles for us and helping us with some content and curriculum. What are the other ways you can flex the team for some of the things that they can do well and help your business? It’s thinking creatively.

How about your margin? A lot of people see that as they start building their team if they are even tracking their margins of a percentage of revenue minus expenses. You get what your profit margin is. They start to see that dip a little bit as a percentage. For you with a finance background, has that ever been a factor? What did you see? Did you see that your margin as a percentage dipped as you start to build the team and bring more people on or was that offset by revenue growth? Talk me through what you experienced.

When you start to go from contract to full-time, you’ll notice. The W-9 to W-2 is a big one that I did notice. To your point though, there’s the value-add of bringing a person in who is passionate, competent, excited, and can take on much of what you or others were doing so you can show up in other ways that are value additive. I noticed it at first especially when I think about this rebrand that we did. We have been able to expand revenue in other areas. It’s less of a worry and concern because I’m seeing the benefit of the investment.

CSP 250 | Hiring Practices

 

What’s been the reason for you to go from contractor to full-time employee? Why make that shift? What’s the best practice or mindset there?

It’s volume. It is huge because we have nearly doubled our partners since 2021 for the workforce, talent dev, and DE&I. That was huge.

When you say volume, do you mean you need to be able to have more of that person’s time, their dedicated full-time capacity to be able to deliver for clients?

Exactly, because much of the work, for example, was on me or our operations manager if we’re talking about client experience or business development. Bringing on a person full-time allows us to free up those spaces so that I can focus on other things that are revenue-producing. Honestly, allow people to do what they do better than me. I am more marketing sales client work. There are people on our team who are operational gurus. They run laps over me. I had to be in a place of humility and say, “I can do this, but I’m not doing this so well. It’s also frustrating so let’s get somebody who’s excited about it.”

You’ve had a lot of experience in hiring and talent workforce development. In your own experience and especially maybe in the consulting world, although it could certainly be connected to your experience when you worked on Wall Street. What would you say is the biggest mistake you’ve made when it comes to hiring that might be relevant for consultants?

Trusting others on my team to make hiring decisions and me coming in at the very tail-end and not doing the due diligence I need to do to make sure it’s the right person for me. I learned it quickly and I will never do it again.

What’s the flip side to that? What’s the better approach? How do you handle that now?

A fantastic member of our team does operations and HR. She will lead the sourcing, the posting of the job, and the reaching out to our network. She’ll do that first round and screening. Even if it’s a trusted assistant, they could do that. When it comes down to a final interview, narrowing down 2 or 3 candidates, I’ll then come in.

I trust my operational lead, my admin, or whoever it is for you, to do that well. I trust that we’ve spoken through the pain points and the opportunities. I know that when I’m going into these finalists’ interviews, they are the top candidates from the pack. That’s the team dynamic that’s necessary, but still making sure at the end of the day, the decision is one that I’m comfortable with because it’s going to impact much of my experience.

You’ve also talked that with the rebrand, there have been additional revenue and service opportunities to serve clients. Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like? You have three core offers, workforce development, talent development and retention, and DE&I capacity building. I’m wondering, were these the three offers when you initially started the business, or are these new offerings you put out there? Walk us through how the offers have changed. When you said that with the rebrand, there’s been a whole bunch of new opportunities, can you explain a little bit more in detail what that is?

When College Code first started before Reimagine Talent, we were offering workforce development. Basically, our workforce development umbrella was where we started. Most of the clients that we had from the beginning are still with us under this rebrand. That’s the expansion of our original brand. The talent development and retention were starting to bubble up as we started to do the workforce. People would say, “Can you work with our leaders? Can you work with our managers? Can you work with adults?” I’m like, “Of course.”

It’s building off of the momentum that was there. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are interesting. We see Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion important in everything that we offer. As you can imagine, when you think through the past few years and so many of the social justice and racial inequity conversations that have taken place, many organizations are saying, “We want to be a part of the solution. We want to diversify our workplaces.”

There's the value add of bringing a person who is passionate, competent, excited, and can take on much of what you or others were doing so you can show up in other ways that are of value. Click To Tweet

We thought it’s important to call out specifically this capacity and this support that we can offer to organizations and not imply that people think talent development and retention is necessarily this focus on diversity. That is our newest clearly stated service, even though we’ve been doing the work. That’s one of the places where we’ve seen a lot of growth.

As you can imagine thinking about the last few years, especially in the States, there’s huge focus and attention on this area. How do we recruit to make sure that we are broadening our pool of candidates? How do we make sure we’re being inclusive and equitable in our process? When people come to our workplaces, do we have a culture that fosters belonging where people feel that they can bring their best selves to work? We work with organizations to identify pain points that are happening around culture and to help leaders and managers foster belonging for their people.

You said something that I want to go back to. You mentioned that in this service offering, you already essentially were providing as part of your other programs or packages, but you identified that there’s maybe even more opportunity for this. You then went in and you extracted it as its own. You put a spotlight on it, then started to talk with your existing and prospective clients and say, “We have this new offering.” Even though it existed before, you saw the opportunity.

Is there anything else that I missed? Most consultants that have been consulting for any period of time likely have the same opportunity inside of their own business, but they’re not actively looking for it? They’re going, “This is the way I do things. This is the way I have always done them,” but they’re not necessarily breaking down the profitability, the impact, or the opportunity inside of their existing offerings to think, “Is there something that I’m doing that can focus on and do a lot more of and therefore be more successful? Is there anything you can add to that or that I missed?”

I’m glad that you brought that up because, in my mind, I’m thinking, “We’re doing the work of diversity and inclusion, workforce, and talent. People should know that.” The more I spoke with people, even with having the website, “Do you do Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion?” I’m like, “Yes.” Spelling it out and being specific especially if we’re talking about SEO and Googling. If people are searching, they’re looking for keywords. The more specific we can be the better when it comes to drilling in.

I’ll give you this one example that I was talking about with a fellow entrepreneur. She focuses on the career coaching space. She was primarily working one-to-one and does some small group coaching as well. She was like, “I want to start doing more with B2B and with associations.” I said, “You might want to consider on your website creating a page specifically that’s career coaching for organizations and associations. Calling out that you do offer this B2B opportunity because someone could think it’s just B2C. They might brush you off as a particular client.” When we can take a moment even audience-wise and be specific for certain audiences if it’s an insular industry or sector, that can be tremendously helpful.

Chelsea, talk to me about how your pricing strategy has changed over the years, if at all. What does your pricing structure look like now compared to the earlier years?

Every single time I work with a client, I become wiser in this area. You’re always wondering, “Am I doing this the right way?” For us, mainly what we will do is track our hours. As we’re going through consulting and even training, we make sure that we are pricing based on the time that it’s going to take. I’ll be honest, especially in the space of talent development and retention, about the impact. What is this training or this series of programs for managers or leaders? What’s the opportunity for the organization, if this is helpful?

There’s a part of this where we will look at the value-add and impact of the work. It’s a little bit of those two things. When I think people start to think about a team, I may go in and say, “In this particular consulting project we’re working on, there’s a project fee for some of our partners depending on what they’re looking for.” If they’re looking for an access retainer to us as their partner, it’s a retainer model. We do have a few different models here. When you start to think about bringing on team members, that’s where if I have a project fee or a retainer fee, my contractors are hourly.

Just to clarify this because you’re talking about the balance between two sides. You are tracking your hours and you’re conscious of how many hours you are spending, and your involvement in time in a project, and that needs to be covered. That’s the base of, “If we want to be charging an average of $200 an hour, I want to make sure that’s actual work.” We’re receiving at least that, but then we’re looking at, on top of that, what is the value contribution or the impact contribution?

If there is significant value and impact, it will be delivered in this project and created for the client. That goes in above what that base hourly component is, then you’re adding that on to the project. You’re figuring out, what’s the win-win both for you and for the client, but you want to ensure that your base is completely covered, especially because you have team members that are delivering this. You’re also not just leaving it at that. You’re going, “What is the additional value being created?” That’s the part that goes on top. The two are working together.

I learned this in the early days. You always underestimate how much time it’s going to take. Especially in consulting, there are so many times when something will pop up or there’s a request that’s made. There’s the conversation around scope creep. For the most part, if I can manage around scope creep and a new contract, I try to. From the beginning, I want to make sure there are clear expectations. That’s where I started saying, “Let me add on this extra value based off of what’s happened XYZ.” It’s been pretty helpful.

CSP 250 | Hiring Practices

 

Your company is growing. You’ve done this rebrand and more team members. What does scaling or scale and growth mean to you? What are you thinking? When you are spending time thinking of the next several months, what does that look like for your company?

We have been thinking about the focus of working across generations. Our workforce work is Gen Z-focused and it will be off the generation soon and the technology opportunity that’s available for that generation. For our workforce development, which was our College Code umbrella, we’re starting to get into the product. We’re starting to think about how we can take what we’ve been offering and put things together that are on demand. That’s our big focal piece because we’re hearing the interest from the organizations and students we work with within the space. We feel that’s low-hanging fruit.

That makes a lot of sense. We have a lot of clients that we’re working with who are doing exactly that because they’re hearing that from their clients. They want access to this and a whole wide opportunity to productize the takeaway you’re delivering as one-to-one and customized. You make it more standardized. That can scale and there’s a lot of leverage baked into that. That’s fantastic that you’re going down that path.

I want to ask you as well and I’m especially interested because of your background in the world of finance. As your company is growing, it is generating more revenue or profits. Where are you investing outside of the business? I know you’re investing in your team and in developing products and so forth. Where do you invest outside in terms of wealth building? What do you think about that as an entrepreneur and business owner?

For me, a home is a big thing now that I’m out in New York City and thinking about the next steps. This is a big one that I have started doing more of. I’ve been investing in myself as a leader. I made some pretty significant investments in some mastermind communities that I’m a part of. Some conferences where normally I would have been like, “I don’t know if I should spend $2,000 on this.” I’m saying, “I need to show up and be my best self.” That is honestly like a 6 to 12 months shift that’s happened for me. Mindset is so important. I do therapy. All things that make me a better person and leader are all a part of my investment book.

Investing in yourself is the best investment that you can make. I always say, “We don’t know what’s going to happen in the world. No one can be 100% accurate in predicting the future. Many things that are happening around us we have no control over, but the only thing that we can control is ourselves.” It’s a wise investment to make whether it’s your health or your mind or your whatever. It’s a good thing.

I have a few more questions before we wrap up here for this episode, Chelsea. You have a lot going on. You’re managing your team. You’re investing in yourself and building yourself as a leader in addition to working with all your clients. What are 1 or 2 things that you do every day that you feel lead to your higher levels of productivity, performance, focus, and being great at being you? What are some of those habits you might have?

It’s starting my morning with gratitude and prayer. I’m a big mindfulness person. That’s how I spend my mornings and it’s been transformational.

What time in the morning do you do that? You roll out of bed and do it first thing with a coffee?

As soon as my eyes open on a good day, I have my little journal right next to my bed stand. I have my Bible right next to my bed stand and I go right in. That’s what I do. That’s how I clear my mind and set an intention for the day.

How long do you spend doing that each morning?

On a good day, 25 to 30 minutes. I’m pretty serious about that. That’s one. I stand by that. Two is getting out and getting some exercise. The time for this varies. Sometimes it’s during lunch. During a lunch break, I’ll take 45 minutes to 1 hour and go for walks. Sometimes it’s afterward when it’s daylight savings. This is huge for me. I’ve fallen off in this area at certain times, but it has been a huge mindset game-changer for me to sit here and do this, to your point about wellness. I noticed a difference in how I show up when I’m getting physically active.

It's so important to make sure we stay connected to the people we love. Click To Tweet

Consulting in business is so challenging. It’s so important to make sure we stay connected to the people we love. I have a little reminder on my phone to check in with a family member, a friend, or a partner every day and have an intentional conversation with them, even if it’s over text so that I can make sure that I’m keeping those relationships top of mind.

Finally, a book, fiction or nonfiction, over the last few months that you’ve read or listened to that you’ve enjoyed.

There’s a great book that I read called Professional Troublemaker. It’s an awesome book. Luvvie Ajayi is the author of the book. It talks about going beyond the grain and professional spaces and not being afraid to speak our minds, not being afraid to go against the grain. As someone who’s doing the work of inclusion and equity, I want people to show up to work in any form as themselves. It was giving me permission even as an entrepreneur and a woman who considers herself to be an advocate for diversity to show up confidently in who I am. I love that book.

In addition to that, where should people go? What’s the website address for the new website that you have so that people can go and check you out and your work?

First of all, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here. It’s been such a joy. Our website is ReimagineTalentCo.com. I am also a huge LinkedIn person at Chelsea C. Williams.

Chelsea, it has been a real pleasure. Thanks for coming on and sharing a bit of your journey with us. Have a great day.

Take care, everybody. Best wishes.

 

Important Links

 

About Chelsea C. Williams

CSP 250 | Hiring PracticesTrailblazing social entrepreneur Chelsea C. Williams is the founder and CEO of Reimagine Talent Co., a company offering uniquely comprehensive workforce & talent development, DE&I (diversity, equity, and inclusion) solutions, and education for employers, non-profits, and educational institutions.

As a 2021 Forbes Next 1000 Entrepreneur of the Year, Chelsea is leading national efforts to reimagine career and work by using her expertise to support organizations and multi-generational leaders in building more inclusive, equitable and connected workplaces.

She’s earned an international reputation as a compelling, highly effective public speaker, engaging audiences worldwide on topics ranging from developing & retaining early talent, to activating allyship in the workplace.

Prior to her role as an entrepreneur, Chelsea spent nearly a decade on Wall Street managing human capital across the U.S., Europe, and Asia at global investment firms, Barclays and Lazard.

Chelsea earned her BA in Economics from Spelman College as a Jackie Robinson Scholar. She currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia.

 

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! https://www.consultingsuccess.com/podcast

 

Leave a Comment, Join the Conversation!