Consultants never have a sales problem, they have this one

Thank you. Glad to be Nicolas.

I'm the founder and CEO of a professional services firm called Level Up. And this is quite meta actually, but we help solo and boutique founders, so folks with like two to seven partners, build and scale their own professional services firm with a purview of being quite niche and earning recurring revenue.

Yeah, I have a long history in professional services firms and I have consulted for a couple of a hundred of them at this point in my career. And I love empowering individuals with subject matter expertise and thought leadership to actually monetize their knowledge, their wisdom, their experience and their passion to kind of design the third the last third of their career is really, you know, the audience that we're focused on more like sandwich generation folks who have kids at home and are taking care of aging parents, where the Corporate model no longer honors their their expertise and wisdom. Often, you know, older people are ousted from their corporate roles and replaced by younger, less expensive resources. And I think that's honestly wildly disrespectful of brilliant people who have a lot to offer. And there's a lot of data to support the lack of mentoring that Gen Z in particular is getting and the impact that that's having on the workforce. So I'm quite honoring of these individuals. wisdom and expertise and knowledge and help them package it up and sell it to clients that they actually love in a way that is comfortable and that aligns with their lifestyle and brings quite purpose purposeful work to the the last third of their career.

Yeah, that's a great, that's a great question. There are a lot of them. So in business, and I I I left Silicon Valley at the end of 2022 from a fantastic boutique professional services firm there before I started Level Up. so really and truly have worked with hundreds of these types of firms, whether they're solo or a few partners or you know VC funded organizations. So the most common way to win in business, no matter what kind of a company that you are is grit and resilience. And so, you know, the road of entrepreneurship is definitely the narrow path. It is fraught with peril and unexpected hills and and valleys. And those who learn from their experiences take the time to reflect and learn upon their experiences and bring those learnings forward and are willing to get back on the horse and try again and again and again and again and again and again and again. before they run out of money, are the people who ultimately are successful. It is not, it is not the most talented people. it is not always, you know, the smartest people. you cannot think your way into the best go-to-market strategy. You have to be willing to put yourself out there. And so overcoming fear of visibility is a really, really big factor in success now, especially with founder-led brands being very, very popular. We like to buy from humans and not from Brands, unless you happen to be Apple or Nike or Patagonia. And so get back on the horse, take your licks and learn from your experiences and try again and be willing to get out in front. You know, when we work in corporate, we're part of almost like this multi-hundred person orchestra making beautiful music together, hopefully. but you know, if you're the third chair trumpet. You can kind of hide, like if you make a mistake, you can hide within the rest of the the orchestra players. But when you're out there in a boutique firm, it also it almost always feels like you're you're the soloist without the orchestra behind you, you know, and like a vocal soloist. so it's pretty, it's pretty raw. It's pretty it's pretty vulnerable. And so being willing to step into that discomfort every single day and even fail publicly is almost a required like prerequisite to success.

Yeah, it's it's a lot less tangible. whereas, you know, having a a revenue problem and not having enough money in your bank, that's a very, very tangible problem. And that ties in kind of with that fear of visibility. Sales is a vulnerable process. And if you have been in corporate and supported by a marketing team and a sales team and a technology team and accountants and a finance team, not only do you did you not have to perform all of those functions, but you know, you had work potentially come to you and you got to do your area of subject matter expertise. You got to play third chair in the trumpet in the big orchestra. And you didn't really have to step outside of your lane. And so doing business development is a mysterious process to the vast majority of professionals. And a lot of us, you know, associate sales with like used car salesman vibes, like super gross and icky and yucky tactics. And, you know, the internet is is Flooded with sharks and charlatans and people who are absolutely full of shit. And so if that that is your experience with salespeople and now you have to become one, that doesn't sit very well with most people. And that makes sense. But the interesting thing with business, and then in these niche professional services firms, you know, where I play, is that the more clarity you have around the real business problems that you solve, that we can map all the way to the profit and loss statement. I'm talking about. Increasing gross revenue, increasing gross margin, reducing operating expenses, and increasing net profit. If you can understand how your expertise maps all the way down to the profit and loss statement, we can reverse engineer a beautiful business that offers you the opportunity for generational wealth, legacy, impact, and lifestyle architecture. And the irony here that comes back to your question around the business model is that if you know What your skills are capable of helping your clients achieve, and you know who you want to work with, or perhaps more importantly, who you don't. We can select a specific niche vertical for you to work within and help you become the person who does this thing for these types of companies. And when you have that level of specificity in your business, you can have incredible clarity around your positioning, who you serve, who you do not serve, how you help them. You can create productized services that work for that niche. You can use value-based pricing. You can build a business based on predictable referrals and incoming business. And so it's actually these prerequisite steps of like foundational business stuff like positioning and defining your ICP and your methodology that enable business development and sales and revenue. And it's it's it's always you have missed on your positioning, who you're targeting, or how you help them. like all business problems in these kinds of firms come down to one of one or all of those three things.

Yeah. So in the tech world, they would call that trying to boil the ocean. And so if you're talking to everybody, if you're trying to help everybody, you're talking to nobody. Nobody's listening to you. whereas if you have a high degree of specificity and, you know, like incisive positioning, like I am for this person, I can do these specific things for these type of people when they have this problem, that will get your foot in the door. And it helps you become remarkable. It helps you become referrable. It gives you the opportunity. To become known for something. And when you are known for something, you can impress you can increase your prices. And sales becomes a lot easier because people will refer you in. Whereas if you are a generalist, you know, freelancer type and you say yes to everything that comes in the door, you have no control, you have no ability to earn consistent, predictable, much less recurring revenue. Business development is much, much, much, much harder. You are more commoditized. You're something that I can pick off the shelf at the grocery store if you do everything. But if you're a specialist, I'm gonna pay a lot more for your help because you've been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. You have a demonstrable track record of success in doing the thing that I'm hiring you to do. Therefore, my risk is reduced. You're gonna be able to get the result faster. So don't charge by the hour. And it just makes life a whole lot easier if you are known for something and people are coming to you for that. And that's not something you can that happens overnight, but there is a very specific well worn path in order to get there.

Yeah, I've I've never seen in my 25-year career more of an appetite. Maybe coming right out of COVID would be the only exception, but I've never seen such an appetite and and craving, yearning even for being together in person with peers in kind of an iron-sharpens iron environment. And so being the the the curator and the tastemaker and convener of people who are. similar values, but in completely different backgrounds and and you know, areas of expertise. if you can help gather people around solving a specific problem and lead them to solutions together, in person and in virtual, most of my programs are are hybrid, like we're, you know, I wish I could do everything in person. I think that would be so much more fun. that's my favorite, my favorite way to work. But unfortunately, that's not realistic with, you know, we live in a very global economy and you know, my my clients are all over the world, literally. So being able to come together in person is an absolute privilege. But back to your question about AI. Yeah, anything that you can do to increase and improve human connection while using AI responsibly with correct governance and, you know, in professional services firms, we are often dealing with very sensitive data. And so knowing your chops on like having chops on data privacy and cybersecurity and AI governance, and not letting your employees, no matter how small your team is, you know, go out and be Mavericks and do their own AI systems, but having more integrated. system internal policies and you know quality assurance around that is really, really, really important. And if you're not doing that, if you're a professional services firm and you're not using AI, you are already losing. You're already losing. And so I hope people's like ears perked up when you hear that. But I mean, and I'm not saying that to be dramatic or hyperbolic in any way, shape or form, just like you are going to get beat. by someone who is more nimble than you. They're probably maybe not as good as you, but if they are working faster and more efficiently in ways that are appropriate uses for AI in this kind of environment, you are already losing.

Yep. So we use workflows for all sorts of things that should be automated, right? Things just shortcuts. And that's kind of the lowest hanging fruit at this point. That's probably not the most useful information. But if you're not using, you know, Claude code or Claude co-work at this point to standardize and accelerate basic, basic stuff, that's problematic. And I'd start talking to somebody really quickly. But the Magical piece, I think, of where AI fits in really interestingly in professional services firms, including like coaching. Like if you're coaching individual clients, like you know, executives or leaders, having you know Claude project, for instance, where all of the context for every bit of context with that client is captured, all transcripts, all emails, all notes. So you have a, and with their permission, again, this goes back to like data privacy and governance. And like, I'm not joking about that at all. but if you've got, you know, a back-end repository that's like the single source of truth for your client and you odd onboard them properly and you're taking them through productive services to get specific, very valuable outcomes and to solve big problems, that data set is invaluable. You know, we're really big on don't ever ask a client the same question twice. Capture the context, make sure it gets, you know, documented in the correct place. and you know, provide a hyper-personalized experience for each of our clients. And then if you have productized services, you are again achieving very specific outcomes for a specific type of person. AI can perform a lot of that work for you, you know, to 80 or 90 percent effect, like of what you know used to maybe take 30, 40, 50, 200 hours for a human to do. We could do it much, much faster, much more efficiently, and produce consistently excellent results. If you know what good looks like, you can build an AI tool to create repeated results. If you know what the inputs need to be and you know what good outcomes look like, you can build tools to support processes that increase the efficiency and effectiveness and excellence of your work.

Yeah, so we're kind of in an interesting period of transition actually right now as an organization. and if you are, again, like if you're not using AI, you're already dying and falling behind for sure. I have never seen business move this fast ever. And so if you are not listening deeply to your customers and the market, macro and microeconomic factors, geopolitical factors, like these are all different ingredients that results in what whatever is going to happen to our business. both good and bad. And so if you are not listening and then reflecting, learning, and taking those learnings forward and designing low-risk experiments in your like product development, you're screwed at this point. And so in listening to the market, I'm actually we have this $175,000 product where we basically build and optimize your boutique firm. and we're sunsetting it at the end of this year. And so in in place of it, we are using a small group intimate coaching program that includes both online and in-person environments. And it is very practice and iterations driven. It aligns with like learning psychology. And I've done a couple of test programs this summer to great effect and like immediate results for our clients. So I have basically rebuilt our consulting firm around being able to serve more people and what I believe to be a better, a better and more effective way to get faster results.

Human connection, relationships, warmth, a lot of you know, nuance. yeah, it's it feels a lot more sacred and and magical almost to be in a group of people and brainstorming in more of an analog environment. I think there's an incredible value, there's absolutely incredible value to that when you get the right people in the room. I'm a firm believer that you know a rising tide lifts all boats or the pie can only get bigger. and that we are here to be human and to help one another. and that is I think ultimately our highest and best use as humans is to help other people. I don't know if that answers your question, but it's the the the human connection piece is so vital.

Yeah, right now I work a lot. we do love traveling. We do international travel a couple times a year. we live like ride on the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, so it's incredibly beautiful. And I love hiking, cycling, mountain biking, paddle boarding, skiing, and got husband, son, two dogs, and basketball. I play basketball pretty much every day and just in my driveway. And that is very cathartic and meditative. stress relieving experience for me. I love being outside. I wish I could just be outside all the time. That would be great. Like a kid. I don't

I think, yeah, a couple of things come to mind there. One is being able to get quiet and away from technology. And that's where my most expansive and creative thinking comes from. My best ideas. That's why we think of great ideas in the shower, because we're not hopefully standing there in the shower with our phone in our hand. And so for me, that is going outside and being in nature. And that allows my brain to relax and do crazy pattern map matching. And all my best ideas have come from that. And then in sports, Grit and resilience, coming back to your question, you know, a while ago about what differentiates people who are successful and those who are not. In sports, you know, you get your ass kicked all the time. And so, yeah, those are lessons I've I've learned my entire life as an athlete and have served me very, very well in business. Get comfortable with failure.

Yeah, that's a great question. Thanks for asking. my intention is to elevate brilliant, wonderful, values-aligned individuals to their full capability and to design the last thirds of their career around legacy impact, lifestyle architecture, and generational wealth. So I want to help smart, amazing people who are doing good things in the world actually get paid what they're worth, derive meaning from their work, and be able to, you know, architect their lifestyle to. Finish up raising the kids and take care of aging parents and set up structures for their lives that, you know, corporate America certainly, certainly does not allow for or offer.

you know, I don't know that I would change anything because I'm sure you hear hear this, but you know, I wouldn't be where I am now or have learned the lessons that I needed. Like there's a I I don't remember who I heard this from, but there's a phrase that's kind of like, it's all part of my curriculum, my life curriculum, right? And so I'm right in the middle of my life and career curriculum. And so, you know. If I could go back and change some things, maybe, maybe I would make different decisions here or there. But ultimately, you know, where you've been is what got you to where you are. And I strive to do the best and make the best decisions I can with the information I have at every turn and try and minimize regret and and risk, always with a long term goal in mind. So, you know.

Yeah. Yeah, thanks. You can find me on LinkedIn for sure. And then meetlevelup dot com slash newsletter. I do publish a newsletter every week. It's very, very actionable and it is around sales and business development. So if that is a pain point for you or any of your partners at your firm, I would subscribe to that for sure.

Thank you so much.