Mike Koenigs and Ed Rush Top Gun Consulting loves the ...media.instantcustomer.com/10102/0/1465_topgunbook001.pdf · nutritional and alternative energy therapies with transcendental

Mike Koenigs and Ed Rush Top Gun Consulting

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About Mike And Ed

Mike Koenigs is a five-time number one bestselling author, “2009 Marketer of the Year” winner, serial entrepreneur, filmmaker, speaker and patented inventor. He is the CEO, “Chief Disruptasaurus” and founder of Instant Customer, and creator of “Author Expert Marketing Machines,” “Make, Market, Launch IT” and “The Top Gun Consulting Toolkit”. His products and services have simplified and automated marketing for over 30,000 small businesses, authors, experts, speakers, coaches and consultants in more than 60 countries.

Mike is a recent (2013) stage 3a cancer survivor, completing major surgery, four months of chemotherapy and 33 radiation treatments. He is combining integrative, nutritional and alternative energy therapies with transcendental meditation and zazen on his road to wellness.

His vision and goal is to create 1,000,000 entrepreneurs in his lifetime in both the developed and developing world. An active philanthropist, Mike has raised over $1.2 million for the Just Like My Child Foundation, a non-profit 501c3 organization that provides education, microfinance, microcredit, entrepreneurship, girls’ education and legal rights in Uganda and Senegal.

Mike’s companies have produced 11 consecutive online product launches, with the largest grossing over $9.1 million in one week. In a single, direct-to-camera webcast, Mike produced over $3.1 million in sales in one day. His celebrity and bestselling author clients include Paula Abdul, Tony Robbins, Peter Diamandis, Debbie Ford, John Assaraf from The Secret, Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street), Brian Tracy, Jorge Cruise, Dan Kennedy and Harvey MacKay.

Mike produced the award-winning feature film Bill’s Gun Shop, which was distributed by Warner Brothers, and the feature documentary Life With Tesla, about going all-solar and gasoline-free with an electric car. He’s appeared in magazines (Inc., Success and Fortune) and on TV networks (ABC, NBC, CNN and Fox).

Originally from Minnesota, Mike lives in San Diego, CA with his wife and son. He


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loves the ocean, is an avid boater, and plays the didgeridoo. ==

Ed Rush is a speaker, a consultant and a fighter pilot in the United States Marine Corps. A decorated F-18 pilot, Ed once served as one of the country's leading instructors on aerial dog fighting and recently worked as a key player in the development of the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. After two combat tours to Iraq, he left full-time active duty with the Marines to spend more time with his family and work on his business. He's a seven-figure veteran of over 250 consulting deals… and has achieved all of this despite possessing a below-average intelligence (case in point: Ed failed at his first attempt at kindergarten).


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Free Resources - Register This Book Now!

To get four FREE Consulting Training Videos, scripts, templates and free updates to this book (plus a chance to be featured on our next livecast or event), call or text your email to 858-223-1263 or go to: www.TopGunToolkit.com

http://www.TopGunToolkit.com


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CHAPTER ONE

Introduction - Consultants Make More Money

That, in a nutshell, is the premise of this book. And once you know that, you’ll be better equipped to use the tools, scripts and discussions in this book to either start or grow a successful (and profitable) consulting business.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a total beginner or you have been consulting for years. The information in this book is based on what’s working now… and you can use it now to make more; live more; give more.

Your job is simple. Read; take notes; implement the ideas found in this book. Then, be sure to send us your story so we can celebrate your success. The consulting lifestyle can be both fun and lucrative. You can live practically anywhere you want to and work whenever you want to.

In this chapter, we will first lay down some ground rules. Then, we will discuss why you should become a consultant. Then, we’ll talk a little bit about who we are and why you should listen to us. And then we’ll explain why this is a great time to consult and what’s been going on, because there are some great opportunities out there - in practically any niche, anywhere in the world.

Ground Rules

Ground Rule #1:Everything we are going to teach you has been proven to work in the real world. It has worked for thousands of our customers in over 60 countries… and it is designed to work for you too.

In other words, it’s not theory; it’s not fluff. The strategies we are going to show you have been used by us and/or our clients. They worked at a 87.5% success rate in our test group. And these secrets are classic and timeless because strategy and


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psychology don’t change. We’re going to share with you some of the most powerful tech tools available today that you can use in your business or for your clients. Ground Rule #2:You’ll hear real stories about real people.

You may have received emails from fake gurus telling you things like “If you can click a mouse, you can make money online”. That’s completely ridiculous, and it isn’t doing anyone any favors. Anything worth doing is worth learning the right way. And it takes time. Not a lot, but anyone selling you a bunch of hype doesn’t deserve your time. So our promise is this: the stories you hear will be from our real students who used our real strategies; and we verified the checks and the agreements they made. Ground Rule #3:This is more of a warning. For some people, the idea of being a consultant causes one of two reactions.

One reaction is pure fear. They ask themselves things like “How could I ever do that? No one wants my advice. I’m not good at getting leads, closing deals or selling anything for others, much less myself.”

If that’s you, we will solve that problem in a moment. You may be surprised at how much you already know, and you might even be surprised by the fact that people hire consultants like us just so they can have a second opinion; someone to listen to them.

The second negative reaction is against the word “consultant” as a whole. To be fair, there are a lot of cheesy consultants out there trying to make us all look bad. Now, as long as you don’t mind helping people (which is what consulting is all about), you’ll be fine. So don’t make this weird. It’s just a way to help people and to make a bunch of money in the process. Why You Should ConsultYou should consult if you are looking for a way to:

• start a business with zero risk and no capital• make some additional income and revenue• grow your existing business; or help someone else grow theirs• gain experience and knowledge in a business you’re interested in• earn money while you start or launch your own company• build a powerful network of business owners


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====How to Read This Book

Have you ever read a book that was written by two authors and then found yourself confused the whole way through as to who was speaking? Yeah… us too. Well, let’s make this easy then. This book was written as an informal, personal dialogue - between you, Ed and Mike. In some parts of this book, we are both talking to you… like right now. There are other times when we are sharing a specific strategy or tip and we think it is important to know who is speaking, which will solve that particular challenge as to who is speaking and who isn’t. If there is no name (as with below), then it’s both of us. If there is a name, it’s a dialogue. The next section is a dialogue… so we’ll tell you who is speaking. Enjoy!=====

Ed: If you're reading this book, you might already be a consultant or coach… and that’s great! Maybe you don’t call yourself a consultant, but you do help people with health, fitness, money, finances, business, marketing, dating or whatever.

The tendency is to think, “I don’t do consulting. I don’t even want to think about doing anything like that.” But there’s a really good chance that one way or another, you are a consultant.

You’re probably just a non-profit consultant.

In other words, you have the passion, expertise, knowledge, experience, authority, wisdom or even just a story that can help people - you just aren’t making any money.

As long as you have the desire and the willingness to charge for your time, and you have a desire and willingness to help people, you can make a really good income as a consultant.

Mike: We’ve had hundreds of people who have gone through our training and who are consulting now either using the consulting model in an existing business and charging two or three times more for their expertise. They are doing mobile marketing, book marketing, social media or video marketing for their clients.

We have people like Zemira Jones, who closed $128,500 worth of business in only 60 days, and Kendra Dixon, a wife of a college baseball coach, who went from scratch to a six-figure salary in just 12 months.

But before we get into the details, let us tell you who we are, where we came from,


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why we’ve been teaching and educating people on how to consult and why you should listen to us - and why you should take our advice.

Who We Are and why You Should Listen To Us

Ed: About two years ago, we did a little test. We didn’t call it an experiment or a test at that time, but we took a number of people through a consulting training program. We taught them software and systems on how to help people with their business, and then we taught them how to ask for the sale and how to close a deal. We gave them all the scripts, forms and all the manuals; everything that they would need to be successful.

We surveyed a total of 127 people who took our five classes and we asked them what kind of success they had. When we got the results back from the people that responded, 87.5% of the people said that they had closed a significant deal - anywhere from $2,000 to over $250,000 within two months of taking the training. Over half of those people that had closed deals did it within two weeks of the training.

It was right then we knew we had a successful system. The system flat-out works because it’s based on real-world principles that are both time- and battle-tested.

I will give you the brief version of my story. I left the Marine Corps in 2008 because I wanted to spend more time with my family. I actually told the colonel that was in charge of my squadron why I was leaving after serving for 11 years. My exact words were:

“I don’t want my home life being dominated by an empty chair at the dinner table.”

So I left and then consciously tried to create a career for myself that didn’t require me to check in and punch a clock like an airline job would have done if I had gone to fly for United or Delta.

In other words, I wanted to build a business around my life and not the other way around.

I started building two online training businesses. My first program taught people how to become fighter pilots. That turned into a six-figure business. Next, I started helping basketball referees and that also became a six-figure business. And as you probably know, when you start becoming successful at something, people start asking how you do it.


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And it was then that I started giving away free advice.

For years, I helped people with my ideas until I realized that they weren’t taking my advice. That’s because “if you don’t pay, you don’t pay attention.” I was dispensing free advice, but they just weren’t valuing that advice.

It was at that moment that I decided that I was going to stop giving away free advice and free lunches. I made a decision. If somebody wanted to pay me for those hours, they could do it. Otherwise, I’d be hanging out with my kids; because what I realized was that any time you say yes to something, you’ll always say no to something else.

In 2008, I started charging money for my time. My first consulting client paid me $2,500 for an eight-hour day.

They went out the very next weekend and sold $189,000-worth of a product that had never sold before… after just one day!

It was then that I realized what an incredible world we live in. I got something that I wanted, which was a consulting check. That was an incredible blessing. They got something they wanted, which was the solution to their business challenge. The audience that they were speaking to got something they wanted, which was a solution to their problem too.

And all of a sudden, I realized that everyone wins because you’ve created a value in the marketplace.

In the last five years, I’ve had over 300 one-on-one or group coaching and consulting clients. These are people who had built businesses and people that I know who have gone from zero to an incredibly thriving and sustainable business. I’ve got a big box of thank-you notes from clients just thanking me for the work that I’ve done in their lives.

I realized that all I really needed were two things:

1. The desire or the willingness to help people2. The moral fortitude or the willingness to ask for the sale

And when I put those two things together, it created a seven-figure business for me; an incredibly lucrative and fun business that has sustained me and my family.

Examples


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I’ll use three examples… and I’d like to use Mike as one of them. I do marketing consulting for Mike, and we’ve been working together two years at the time of writing this book. Arguably, he knows more about marketing than I do; although a lot of times, what he’s asking me for is simply a set of eyeballs that aren’t his to look into a problem from a different perspective.

Secondly, I do consulting for Pam Hendrickson, who’s probably one of the sharpest writers and content producers I know. More than 50% of what I do with Pam is to help her with copywriting. That’s another set of eyeballs helping her with something else - just spotting things she might overlook that can add an incremental change in her income by $10,000, $100,000 or even more.

The third example of a client is former NFL player Bo Eason. He is one of the best speakers I’ve ever seen on a stage. Interestingly, I help Bo with closing sales as a speaker.

So when you look at these people, you’ll see that I probably know less in all three of those categories than each of them, but I’m paid very nicely to come in there and provide a second opinion or another perspective. Sometimes, as a consultant, all you’re simply asked to do is come in and provide a point of view that the business doesn’t have.

In the first consulting class we offered, we had 28 people enrolled. Caroline Sampson was sitting in the back of the room and I remember thinking, “Yeah, she’s really nice, but I have no idea if she’s going to do well or not.”

Caroline walked out of the door after only two days and closed her very first deal for $74,500 using the tools and training we provided. Something happened in those two days in her mind that gave her the strength and the moral fortitude to be able to close that deal. And the doctor that she closed the deal with came back to her later and said, “I don’t even think I’m paying enough for the work that you’re doing.”

So, during the course of this book, what I hope to do is shed all of the misconceptions and the myths and the objections that you may have been told, such as “Well, you need to be an expert”, or “Well, I don’t like to charge money for my time”, or “Am I supposed to just be helping people?” With this book, we hope to be able to expand your horizons about what’s possible and show you that when you just follow some simple rules that we’re going to outline for you, you can be successful.

This book is designed to just pull a curtain back and show you step-by-step how to create a business by simply helping people. And that’s the thing you need to remember: consulting, no matter how scary that word might be, is nothing more


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than helping people solve their problems. And as long as you’re willing to do that, you will do great as a consultant. Mike: I think another interesting thing is that it’s so much easier to prescribe advice to other people than it is to implement it and do it yourself. And the great thing about being a consultant is that you’ll learn a variety of strategies that you can quickly implement, even if you have no experience or have never consulted before.

Consultants are sometimes maligned; but very often, it is so valuable for someone else to have an objective opinion, an objective viewer. And if you just have access to knowledge, it’s a way to implement knowledge, combined with experience… and it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be a great doer.

If you haven’t heard of me before, I'm a serial entrepreneur. I grew up in a small town in Minnesota. My dad’s a barber. I’m the oldest of four kids, and I started consulting when I was 16 years old, not because I had any real consulting skills but because when I was 14, I taught myself how to program computers. I wasn’t very good at school or sports, but I wanted to get out of the little town that I grew up in, Eagle Lake. There were only 763 people in it, and I felt it was infected with a small town mentality that I didn’t like.

I thought, “Well, if I learn how to program, if I could make a lot of money, I can get out of here.” But what did happen one day was this: because my dad is a barber, he was with one of his clients, Roger Elmquist, a Prudential Life Insurance agent. They were talking and my dad mentioned the fact that I loved computers and had taught myself how to program. And Roger said, “Well, I just got this new Apple II at our office, and we don’t know how to use it. It's just gathering dust. Do you think Mike could come in and teach my secretary how to use it?”

And my dad said, “Yeah, I think he could do that,”; so he called me and introduced me to Roger, and Roger said, “Well, how much are you going to charge me?”

Back then, the minimum wage was $3.35. I said, “$15”, and Roger said, “That sounds like a great deal, can you start tomorrow?”

That was my first consulting gig - at 16, I was getting paid almost FIVE TIMES what other kids my age were getting to flip burgers at McDonalds.

So I went in and made $15.00 an hour teaching his secretary how to use word processors, spreadsheets and databases, and I didn’t even know how to use them. I learned on the job on his dime; and I got to learn how to teach at the same time.

One thing led to another, and pretty soon, Roger had me as his secret weapon. His


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secretary was suddenly more productive and with my help, they started sending out mail-merge letters because I built a mailing database for them. It saved thousands of dollars per month they were spending at a print shop - and Roger increased his sales dramatically.

He told another insurance agent what I had done for him and I ended up getting referral business as a result of that one introduction from three other agents. This time, I charged $25.00 per hour.

That’s when I started to see the potential of consulting, but it wasn’t until years later that I started and built a couple of businesses… and that success I had had along the way constantly gave me additional positioning value.

A few months later, one of the agent’s clients heard about me and asked me if I could write a billing system for him. Again, I had absolutely no clue how to do it, but I said yes anyway. This time I charged $7,000 per month to write the system.

And I was soon writing code - I taught myself how to write business software - that later led to me to pursuing my big dream, which is writing video games. I used the money I earned consulting to buy better equipment and started going to conferences to network bigger players in larger cities.

Over the past 30 years (gawd, I can’t believe it’s been that long!) - I’ve built and sold a total of four businesses. Every one of them started out as a “consulting” gig and grew organically. I’ve never had to get a business loan or investor.

And better than that, after accumulating an enormous amount of concentrated expertise, I can command $25,000 per day as a consultant.

To me, consulting is freedom. With nothing more than a laptop and a mobile phone, you have everything you need to start a business, with no previous experience, and earn an extra $5,000, $10,000 or $25,000 per month without employees, overheads or an office.

We can’t promise you that we’re going to teach you how to make $25,000 a day by consulting, but what we will promise you is that in the course of this book, we’re going to give you some really useful hands-on, implementable advice and strategies that work in the real world. We’re going to show you where the big opportunities are; where we see trends in the marketplace that you can leverage.

We’re going to share with you what we call the “Six Pricing Models”. We’re going to talk about how you can present yourself; how you can pitch; how you can produce; and also where we believe the fastest, easiest money is even if you’re


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starting out with no real experience. It’s funny, but it’s so much easier to see other people’s problems because you’re an objective viewer - without an emotional connection to the “problems” that the client is associated with.

We’re going to pass on what our decades of experience and knowledge in the real world have taught us. And when you understand some of the basic principles that we’re going to share with you in the next few chapters, you can adopt and use them. In fact, just the mindset alone is going to:

• help catapult you to the next layer, the next level• help you multiply your value with your existing clients and contacts, no

matter what industry or business you’re in• help you reinvent yourself and become a high-paid consultant working with

and for other people. Why Now Is a Great Time to Consult

Let’s get straight to the point.

Consultants make more money when they learn the right skills to close deals.

What do I mean when I say the word “consultant”? A consultant leverages his knowledge, expertise or story to provide professional advice.

If you’ve spent five, 10, 15 or even more years as a contributor to an organization, then you have incredibly valuable experience, know-how and knowledge… and you can profit from it. If you’ve never considered becoming a consultant, then continue reading because we’ll show you how you can start making money helping businesses. Even if you feel unqualified, even if you’ve never closed a deal, or even if you don’t know the first thing about marketing, getting leads, or drumming up business, this book will help you transform yourself so that you can achieve your desired results.

Exhibit A: SueSue Ferraria, a client of ours, spent 40 years as a pediatric anesthesiologist. Sue went through a divorce and lost everything… and after she retired from the medical field, she rebuilt her life from scratch. Being a doctor, Sue never learned marketing,


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self-promotion, speaking, consulting or how to close deals. She went through our training programs and successfully produced a book and a product called Live Your Retirement Dream.

Now she is traveling and speaking all around the country; helping other retirees reinvent themselves, make money and recover from economic hardship after losing pensions; and inspiring them to reinvent themselves and do what she’s doing: living their retirement dream!

Sue is proof that no matter what your age or experience, it’s never too late to reinvent yourself, impact more people and live your own retirement dream.

Exhibit B: KarolKarol Clark, a former nurse with no marketing experience, went through our online video training on mobile marketing, publishing, and product creation and used these new skills in her husband’s surgical weight loss center. In only four months, she created a product, a book and marketing tools and resources to make a lot more money than they had done before. She is also consulting with other surgical weight loss clinics and licensing her content to them, which allows her to make even more money.

Karol is proof that learning consulting, deal-making, marketing and closing skills can grow and improve your existing business or start or grow a business with a spouse or friend.

Exhibit C: Pat


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Pat Ziemer is a household name in the horseracing industry. And even though he already had a successful business marketing a product that heals horses, he reinvented himself with a single word he heard at one of our trainings: certification. Pat came to the training to learn how to work with other businesses. He left with a new idea for his current business.

Pat used to spend days and weeks giving away his knowledge on a one-to-one basis. Once we taught him a single profitable concept that combined group coaching with certification, he started charging his customers for the same information, turned that into a product, and boosted his business past seven figures. Now he’s working with other business owners, showing them the system - profitably.

He is proof that sometimes, the most powerful consulting you can do is to reinvent your own business - to be your own consultant - and then get paid to do it for other people. Consultants Make More MoneyConsultants make more money, live more connected and more meaningful lives and impact more people. When you become a consultant, you will have more freedom to set your own schedules, not answer to “the man”, and, more importantly, you can be with your family whenever you like.

Consulting is a LIFESTYLE business! And you never know who you might meet along the way.

Consultants do make more money, but honestly, this isn’t about the money. This is about acquiring the skills you need to market and promote yourself, provide valuable services, close deals, grow your confidence and live a more meaningful life that impacts more people. Understand that what you know has value; and have faith in your ability to leverage your skills.

In a moment, we’ll discuss how you can break into this very lucrative market. But for just a minute, we want to pause and do something very important. A while ago, we made a bold claim: “consultants make more money”. Our goal with this book is to prove and back that claim up with some real-world numbers, and then show you how to break into the profitable coach and consultant market so you can make more, live more and give more.

Both of us grew our own businesses that started from consulting and business coaching. We also got a lot of inspiration to grow our future businesses from the ideas and strategies that we had learned as consultants.


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For example, Traffic Geyser started as a tool that Mike created to help his clients get more exposure with online video. Ed’s successful marketing company (which he sold) started when two of his coaching students came to him with the idea of starting a digital marketing firm to do marketing consulting for attorneys. Both were big business ideas that would not have been possible without a consulting or coaching base.

For Mike, his coaching even gave him access to celebrity clients, including Tony Robbins, Paula Abdul, Success magazine publisher Darren Hardy, John Assaraf, Dean Graziosi, XPrize founder Peter Diamandis, Harvey Mackay, Brian Tracy, Richard Dreyfuss, JJ Virgin and many more.

Growing up as the son of a barber in the small town of Eagle Lake, Minnesota, Mike never dreamed he’d have a chance to meet (much less work with) any of these people!

Many of our students first feel that they should have experience in an industry before being able to consult in that industry. While this may often be the case, what we found is that the reverse can be true as well. Someone might hire you for your experience and perspective in another industry. In other words, many times, you


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can consult before getting into a specific industry as a business owner. The Numbers Prove That the Consulting Market Is BoomingHere are some real-life data figures that will put a big smile on your face. There is a WIDE open door for you to start or grow a coaching or consulting business.

According to Plunkett Research, the consulting market has grown from $391 billion to $415 billion in the past year. Moreover, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that consulting is expected to grow by 83%, making it the fastest-growing industry.

“According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), employment in this industry is expected to grow by 83% - representing a gain of more than 800,000 jobs - over the 2008-18 decade. This represents both the fastest projected rate of growth and the largest expected job gain of all detailed industries. And even during the recent recession, this industry has proven resilient, recovering nearly all of the jobs it lost in the downturn.”

Both Forbes and Inc. magazines are saying that a consulting business (even if they’re home-based) is one of the top ten most profitable business types you can run or start this year. Lastly, according to eConsultancy, 71% of businesses plan to spend more on digital marketing technology, making it a no-brainer to get into consulting with digital marketing.

Right now, 73% of the human race is engaged with social media every month. There are billions of mobile devices in use worldwide. Imagine the kind profitable of opportunities this creates for you!

But what if you don’t feel qualified to consult?

Have no fear. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recently reported that 28% of consultants don't have a degree of any kind.

Mike doesn’t have a college degree; Ed failed kindergarten. In fact, having consulted virtually hundreds of clients over the years, rarely have any clients ever asked them about their degrees! Neither Mike nor Ed has ever lost a consulting opportunity due to a lack of education.

According to The Consulting Bible, there are about 400,000 people in the US who call themselves consultants. The US Small Business Association reports that there are 23 million small businesses in America and 150 million worldwide. And that doesn’t even count the sole proprietor start-ups, home-based businesses and a lot of speakers, authors and coaches which, according to a recent Forbes article, adds up to another 22 million.

http://www.plunkettresearch.com/consulting-market-research/industry-trends

http://www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/2011/spring/art02.pdf

http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/14/profitable-home-businesses-ent-fin-cx_mf_1014mostprofitablehomebiz.html

http://www.inc.com/ss/best-industries-for-starting-a-business?slide=1#10

http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/62095-71-of-businesses-plan-to-spend-more-on-digital-marketing-technology-in-2013

http://www.fabjob.com/businessconsultant.asp


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Now, let’s do some math.

Let’s just assume that half of the small businesses alone know they need help with their business in some way. That’s conservative. It’s probably more, but that puts us at right around 11.5 million, which means that there are 11.5 million spread out to about 400,000 consultants.

It follows that each business is fighting with 28 other businesses for the attention of a consultant like you who could help them do things, such as get more leads, close more sales, use social media, produce video, publish books, come up with a winning strategy… or anything on the list below.

Let’s also assume that 80% to 90% of the 400,000 consultants have no idea how to market themselves or close deals. And, to make things worse for them (better for you), they also don’t have the tools to deliver like you will after watching these training videos. That means that the number of businesses looking for the help that you can provide could be more like 100 to 200 in just a few mile radius around your town.

It’s HUGE.

• That’s 100 businesses that could possibly pay you $5,000 $10,000 or $15,000 a month.

• That’s 100 businesses that will gladly share a percentage of profits from the value you provide when you increase their income

• That’s 100 businesses that will send you thank-you cards, emails and messages when you simply deliver a service that can take you thirty minutes or less to set up.

It’s the ultimate win-win. Which is why now is a great time to start or grow a consulting or coaching business.

Consultants make more money. Sounds like a “hypey” marketing claim, right? Wrong. This is based on cold hard facts.

Below are just a few of the hundreds of possible consulting niches. On the left-hand column, you can see the consulting niche. You should use that to get an idea of what you can consult on. In fact, grab a pen and circle a few right now. The next two columns show how much you could make working in that industry vs. how much you can make consulting in that industry.


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See the difference? That’s where you come in.

(NOTE: If you want the source for all of the data, the link is listed at the end of this book.)

See? Even if you are a zookeeper, cement mason, welder, paralegal or shaman, we have got you covered! The opportunities are endless.

Note that the average person makes $37,906.49 more by consulting than working in an industry. And in some of these industries, the difference is literally six figures. And these are averages; with the right training and tools, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have an unfair advantage and do much better than the average!

Consultants make more money!

If you’re looking for ideas, here’s how you can start quickly. Search through this list and check off all the skills you have in this list of possible things you can do as a


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consultant. Circle the top three to five that you might be most passionate about.

Now imagine you could get paid for those at a rate of a $1,000 per day or more per project. How much would you make per year? Can you see what’s possible for you? This can work for you.

And the great news is that the “average” consultant doesn’t have two very valuable tools that will be at your disposal when you finish this book and watch the free video series:

• The average consultant doesn’t have access to the Six Pricing Models. You will receive all of those in this book.

• The average consultant doesn’t have the tools to deliver a great product, like you will learn about in this book too!

Are you getting excited about this opportunity? You should be. But if you are skeptical or you still don't know what you are going to consult on or about, don’t worry. We will hold you by the hand and show you the way in the rest of the book.

Now let’s discuss the common consulting mistakes. Avoid these, and you are on the way to your first sale… or to growing your current business with smart tools.

--

To meet Ed and Mike, watch an animated presentation that illustrates the size and growth of the consulting market, get access to four FREE Consulting Training Videos, scripts, templates and free updates to this book (plus a chance to be featured on our next livecast or event), call or text your email to 858-223-1263 or go to: www.TopGunToolkit.com

http://www.topguntoolkit.com/


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CHAPTER TWO

Common Marketing Mistakes

Here are the common mistakes people make. Mistake #1: Thinking You Can’t Be a Consultant Because You Feel You’re not an Expert

You see, most of us downplay the value of our knowledge, experience, expertise or story. We did too… until we understood the Erasmus quote that says:

“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

The point is that you don’t need to know everything about a specific topic to be a successful consultant. Waiting until you know everything means waiting forever, especially in this rapidly changing business world. All you need to know is just a little bit more to make an exponential difference in the life of a client. Heck, sometimes they just want to bounce their ideas off you!

Our friend Brian Tracy says that if you learn the content in the top three books in a business category and have gone through just one of the top training programs, you know more than 95% of all experts in an industry!

Plus, it’s been our experience that when you have the software tools to back you up, it significantly accelerates that “one-eyed man” principle and allows you to get more money out of every deal because you have real, tangible deliverables. We have both earned millions being the “one-eyed man”.


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Take for example Sandi Masori. She was a balloon artist who made balloon sets for trade shows until she came to our training. She heard the quote about being the “one-eyed man” (in this case, the “one-eyed woman”), walked into the hallway, called one of her previous balloon clients… and closed a $2,500 deal for digital marketing.

She came to our training and got the tools; but more importantly, she got the belief that she could ask for the sale. And she did. Mistake #2: Not Asking for the SaleZig Ziglar once said, “Timid salespeople have skinny kids”.

Now, being perfectly transparent, every time we quote a fee and ask for the sale, we get a little bit nervous too! It’s part of being human. But if you don’t mind just asking, then something really great might happen because they might just say “YES!”

Now, everyone gets all weird about this part of the process, but it’s not that hard. And most likely, the person you have been talking to has been waiting for you to ask them anyway. So, nearing the end of your conversation with a prospect, once their questions have been answered and once you have a general idea of how much they are going to pay, simply pause, look the prospective client in the eye, and say: “So, are you ready to get started working together?”

And then smile and do one of the hardest things to do: just be quiet and wait for them to say “YES!” Then they say yes, and you get to take a check to your bank. And your new client gets something they want and what they really need.

It’s a total win-win, and that makes consulting fun.

Going back to the original point, as long as you have the moral fortitude to ask for the sale, you’ll make money. Period. Just use the line:

“So, are you ready to start working together?”

In fact, when we teach asking for the sale in trainings, we usually say that the fastest


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thing you can do to be successful right now is to get a client. Now. Like NOW, NOW. We have had students in the past, such as Cliff Pelloni and Correy Janke, walk out into the hallway, call someone they already knew, and close a deal - right there on the spot. Mistake #3: Not Valuing Your TimeLet’s do some quick math. Assume you have 50 weeks of work per year at 40 hours a week. That means you have roughly 2,000 hours of productive work time per year. Now, just following the math, if you want to make an extra $100,000 this year, then each hour needs to be worth at least $50. If you want to make $1,000,000, each hour needs to be worth $500.

We cover pricing in a few chapters, but we’ll say this now: profitable consultants have the scripts to be able to ask for the kind of pay that gets them into the seven-figure range. That means getting comfortable charging four, five, maybe even six figures for your time, experience, expertise and story.

Now, we know that might sound like a lot, but you may be surprised at how much easier this will become when you have the tools that we’re going to show you in this book. So hang on.

The last mistake aspiring consultants make is… Mistake #4: Not Having the Tools and Systems to Back You UpFighter pilots have incredible tools, and while they may be some of the most skilled people on the planet, they are nothing without their planes, radars and systems. The same is true with consultants. You already have the knowledge you need to change the world, but you must also have the right tools and the know-how to use them.

It can take as little as thirty minutes to create a great marketing campaign using the pre-prepared emails, web pages and texts in the Instant Customer software that we recommend. Having great tools gives you the ability to deliver a great product in minimum time. That means you get to avoid mistake #3 and value your time, and avoid mistake #4 by having great systems.

It’s what you need to open the door to a profitable consulting business.

--

To watch videos of the most common consulting mistakes most people make and to get access to four FREE Consulting Training Videos, scripts, templates and free updates to this book (plus a chance to be featured on our next livecast or event), call or text your email to 858-223-1263 or go to: www.TopGunToolkit.com



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CHAPTER THREE

The Consulting Opportunity

Mike: In this chapter, we’re going to talk about the industries and businesses that consulting will work in. We’ll talk about the education you might need, as well as income revenue and what sort of money you can make as a consultant.

And in the next chapter, we’re going to talk about the biggest and most valuable thing you’ll ever need to know about consulting and how to actually be noticed and be taken seriously.

Ed: So far, we haven’t found one industry or business that consulting hasn’t worked in. We’ve got folks in spiritual niches; we’ve got folks that do business and marketing technology consulting; everything from “woo-woo” to hardcore industrial. One of our clients, Jim Butts, works with schools and non-profit organizations.

Mike: I would only say the only kind of businesses to avoid are businesses that can’t afford you. Sure, you could go in and help; but you’re not going to make any money doing that.

I think it is important to look at certain business types and also businesses that will directly benefit from your involvement. You want a transaction level that’s big enough where you’d say, “Hi, Mr. Prospect, what is an extra deal every week worth to you?”

And if you can convince someone that, let’s say, a deal is worth $5,000 to them, and if they could produce an additional deal every week, that’s an extra $20,000 in monthly revenue for them… and if they are paying you $5,000 or $10,000, they’re getting a 200%-400% return on their investment.

Ed: Just about two-and-a-half years ago, I did a consulting day for a really


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prominent speaker and very well-known author who has written over 40 books. I was helping them put together a program where the admission fee for each person was $7,500. My fee for that day was also $7,500. That made my price super-easy to justify. All they needed was one person to enroll. That covered my fee and everything else was theirs to keep. That’s an example of the right kind of business to help.

Another example - companies are often finding it more profitable to slim down their workforce to go with the bare necessities, and then bring someone in when they need help.

Mike: They’re reducing fixed overheads. And by coming in as a consultant, they could charge and make twice as much money; but because of the way taxes and employment benefits and everything else work, in many countries, you are penalized for having employees. So there’s a benefit to the owners of the businesses for having a part-time consultant.

Do You Need a Degree or Experience?

Ed: One of the things that people might say is, “Well, I can’t possibly consult because I should have a degree.” And I’ll tell you this: First of all, I’ve had over 300 coaching members and clients, and not one of them asked me what degree I had when I graduated. The reason is that they don’t care. They don’t care because they don’t care about me; they care about themselves.

Mike: It’s funny because I only have a high school education, and people think it’s hilarious. It works to my advantage. And I’ve actually done paid consulting for five billionaires. The funny thing is that I only know what one out of the five did for a living. You hear of the Steve Jobs or the Bill Gates stories, but the fact of the matter is that what people pay consultants for are results, not the paper that they have. And they’re looking for someone who is resourceful and knows how to solve problems, someone that just flat-out delivers results and knows how to diagnose a problem. They want someone to find the fastest, quickest, easiest and cheapest cure to get from point A to point B.

How much Can You Make as a Consultant?

Mike: Now, let’s talk about the money because we know we’re going to go into pricing models in chapter six. In Ed’s experience, the typical ranges for what he calls “serious consulting” or the kind of consulting that we’ve been teaching people how to do (mobile and video marketing, social media marketing, book marketing,


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doing LiveCast or what we call multicasting, and using our tools like Instant Customer and Traffic Geyser) are anywhere from $500 to $10,000 a month. And then in package sizes where someone might say, “Hey, look, I’m going to produce a podcast and also a book with you,” those kind of deals are typically anywhere from the $6,000 to $12,000 to $15,000 per-month range.

An example of our clients who are fetching that is Zemira Jones. Zemira is charging commercial real estate developers in the neighborhood of $4,000 to $8,000 a month for doing podcasts and developing content like that.

Ed: He made $128,750 doing business as a consultant in the last three months. And you should be aware, regarding all these numbers, that we get them from all the agreements and we see all the scans of the checks. Before we mention someone’s name on our Livecast, shows or books, we do the verification.

Mike: We do the due diligence so we actually get their deposits, we get check copies, and we get contracts.

What’s important, again, is your ability to generate income and revenue. What we’ve found our consultants doing really comes down to the client because one client will struggle paying you $500 while another client will look at $20,000 a month and not think a thing of it because of itsvalue and being able to see how that’s going to affect their bottom line business.

For someone who’s struggling to make $5,000 or $10,000 a month for example, they might listen to that and go, “What? That’s three months’ worth of my income! How could that be?” But again, it’s just a matter of the bigger the client, the more money that they have to spend, and the bigger the deals. For them, just a tiny shift could make a multi-million-dollar shift in their business.

Ed: The tendency as a new consultant is to start small, to start with people that have barely any business at all. I’m going to take a percentage or something like that. Let me tell you: it’s easier to get a client on board that has a lot of revenue and a lot of customers coming in, even if you have no experience at all. The ones with no money are going to ask a million questions and nickel-and-dime everything. The big ones will say yes faster and pay you more. One idea, such as “Change x”, “Put this on your website”, “Add this payment plan”, or something like that, can add an extra $500,000 to a mature business. And when you can do that, you can easily justify your fees, and they’ll love you.

Mike: In both of our experience, consulting can work no matter what business or industry you’re in. Using the consulting approach really is tapping into the entrepreneur mindset of seeing additional opportunities. And if you can either see


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or find the additional opportunities that exist in your business or in someone else’s, or how you can leverage some tools or resources to make them more efficient, there’s an opportunity for consulting. And I would argue that any business is right for that.

The next thing is that there really is no limit to how much you can make. In fact, in chapter six of this book, we’re going to talk about the pricing models and where they apply. But the fact of the matter is that you can either get paid or get a piece of a company by being a consultant. What’s great about it is that there’s no risk. No hard investment, other than some time, which can be a calculated risk.

The other thing is that I believe the kind of education you have is irrelevant. Now, obviously, having more education and more relevant experience in an industry is generally better. No question about that. But when it comes to being a consultant, the biggest secret is understanding the principles of consulting and knowing how to ask great questions. And we are going to talk about the kinds of questions that matter most in another chapter.


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CHAPTER FOUR

The Five P's to Making more Money (and Having more Fun) as a

Consultant

“If I wasn’t an actor, I’d be a teacher, a history teach. After all, teaching is very much like performing. A teacher is an actor, in a way. It takes a great deal to get, and hold, a class.”Richard Dreyfuss

—

There are five “P”s and we’ll walk through each one step-by-step.

The great news is when you get all five lined up, you close a ton of deals, make a lot of money, help a lot of people… and get to live the life that you want.

Win for you. Win for your clients. Win for your family; your charity; even your family pet.

In this section, we’ll take a 30,000ft flight over the 5 P’s. You’ll get an overview. Then in the subsequent chapters, we’ll break them all down more thoroughly.

The first P is… PositionThis kind of positioning is about how you're perceived in the market so you're instantly valued and seen as the number one expert in your field. Positioning is nothing more than becoming the go-to person, who is at the top of someone’s mind when they have a problem they need solved.

It’s been said that no one waits in a long line to meet the guru at the bottom of the


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mountain. Your job is to position yourself as the guru at the top of the mountain. Now, here is the rub. You’re probably saying to yourself, “That’s nice, for you guys. But I’m not on any videos, haven’t written any books and no one knows who I am or what I do. I’ve never even consulted or closed a deal before.”

If you don’t have positioning, you create your own positioning. Everyone who is anyone has done this. Positioning can be created in less than a month. For example, one of our beta test students, Carlos Carrera, published a bestselling book and achieved expert positioning in a weekend. And then he went on to help another 27 clients publish their books and gain positioning too.

==Carlos CarerraBusiness CoachMexico City, Mexico“It’s easy!”It’s easy to close deals with this. My next deal is going to be worth $40,000, and this is amazing because they already trained with me and we’re super happy with their results.== To create positioning, you use tools like books, speaking and podcasts.

They’re all strategies designed to get clients to come to you and not the other way around.

We’ve had students go from obscurity to becoming number one best-selling authors in three weeks or less. In fact, Mike has helped over 100 business owners become published authors in the last 11 months. That’s a huge step toward positioning… and it means that they can charge a lot more.

If you’re saying, “I can’t write, I don’t speak, I don’t know any of this stuff”, don’t worry. One of the cool things we include in our system instantly positions you as an expert. I’ll tell you more about that in the last chapter.

This takes us to the second P, which is… Price

Most consultants undervalue themselves and their services, so they end up being underpaid. Listen, there is nothing wrong with giving a few good deals out in the beginning so you can get your feet wet and get some testimonials and referrals, but ultimately, you’re going to want to start charging what you are worth - and sooner


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than later.

What to charge as a consultant is, hands down, the number one question we get. And interestingly, what you’re worth has more to do with your client than you. Here’s what I mean by that. In the end, your client really doesn’t want or need to know how long and hard (or how short and not hard) you really worked for them. Especially when you are using a system like Instant Customer, the time to get fast results is minimal. So, the last thing you want to do is charge for your time.

Your consulting client doesn’t care about how long it took you to get a result. All he, she, or it cares about is the result. So charging based solely on your time is futile unless it’s something like a one-day coaching session and that’s it. You should price your services on the value they can provide for the end user. And the great news for you is that it means going from several hundred dollars to several thousands of dollars per deal...or more! The third P is…

Present

This is where you walk through the details of what you can offer… and even more importantly, you ask a lot of questions. In fact, we have a list of 12 and as many as 30 questions ready to ask a prospective client. We ask things like:

• What are you doing now to get customers?• What would you like to be doing to get customers?• What kind of budget do you have for marketing?• What are the three biggest challenges in your business right now?

That last question is key. When a prospect answers that question, I am taking careful notes. Let’s say their their challenges are:

• getting more leads• using online video to close customers• becoming a recognized authority in their niche

The key to the present stage is to listen well, take good notes and not teach much. Then, when it’s your turn to talk, speak about benefits, not features. When it’s time to send your proposal, make sure you add the specific problems that you’ll solve based on what they mentioned. When you’re done, the prospect will probably look up and ask, “Can you do that for me?” That’s the question you want from your prospect. Once you hear them say that, the deal is almost closed.


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Pitch

Now, don’t get all weird about the word “pitch”. We’re not going to be cheesy and salesy, and we’re not going to become used car salesmen (or women).

Pitching is nothing more than asking for the sale in a way that grabs the prospect by their eyeballs and compels them to say yes to you on your terms.

You will “pitch” in one of two ways: either one-on-one or in front of groups while speaking.

There are several keys to the pitch, the most important one being asking for the sale. Once you do that, the check is almost yours. Usually, to get there, you need to answer just a few questions from your prospect. These are called objections.

The great thing is that there are easy answers to every objection, these ones included. You just need to be prepared for them ahead of time and speak with confidence, and the deal is yours because in just a moment, you’re going to get a check, which might be one of the most wonderful feelings in the world. The last P is… Produce

This is where it all comes together. The best part about this is that your new client gets something they really want, which is a solution to their problem. They’re thrilled, and so are you; and in the end, it’s not the business owner who pays your bill; it’s his or her new customers.

Producing results comes down to having the right tools. This means having a simple system that works, something you can rely on day-in, day-out to do things like:

• Mobile lead capture• Instant mobile text, email, voicemail follow-up• Delivering an audio or video message automatically• Sales and marketing automation• The automatic mobile site builder• And dozens more - for practically any industry or niche

With our software and our new snap-together marketing machines, you can do all of this for your new client… you can charge whatever you want… and you can keep all the money.


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Plus, they’ll be paying you every month and coming back to you for years.


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CHAPTER FIVE

How to Position Yourself to Get Deals as a Consultant

Positioning Tools - The Big 3

Mike: In this section, we are going to be talk about Positioning - being the guru on the mountain.

Ed: Yes, and it’s important to remember that no one waits in a long line to meet the guru at the bottom of the mountain.

This is so critical. Positioning is the difference between a $100 deal and a $1,000 deal. It’s the difference between $1,000 deal and $10,000 deal. It’s how you’re perceived. So, the first thing that you need to do as a consultant or a potential consultant is get out of whatever limitations you’ve laid upon yourself.

“I can’t do this.”

I believe that people who have not graduated from college, like half of the Forbes 400 billionaires, succeed so well in life and business because they don’t feel like they deserve anything and they just go for it.

Now, there are three different tools that we use to do what we call getting positioning in the marketplace, and I'm going to talk to you about tool number one by writing a book.

Books

About three years ago, I was asked by two friends of mine to help them create a business that marketed to attorneys. Now, we had a ton of marketing agencies operating at a high price point. We had a whole bunch of marketing agencies operating at a low price point. There were big firms like FindLaw, which is owned


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by Reuters.

And there were young internet marketer guys who said, “Hey, I’ll put your website on Google for 300 bucks.” We were trying to put ourselves right in the middle as a high-end boutique custom level website company.

Talk about competition!

Our goal was to speak at bar associations meetings so that we could speak in front of attorneys.

So we just started cold-calling bar associations only to be told “No!” (a lot).

Mike: So, the bottom line is that you have this business doing marketing for attorneys and you’ve figured out that the best way to get in to see the maximum number of attorneys was to go to the bar association meetings, but they wouldn’t let you in. Ed: Because there was no credibility there and they didn’t believe it, so instead we published a book called How to Turn Clicks into Clients. We put this book up on Amazon, and two weeks later, we were the number one bestseller.

Our previous phone conversations sounded like this:

“Hi, would you like to have us come and speak at your association?”

“No.”

As soon as we had the book done, the calls went something like this:

“Hi, my name is Ed Rush, number one bestselling law marketing author of How to Turn Clicks into Clients. We’re on a book tour, and as a part of our book tour, we’re on a speaking tour, educating attorneys on how to get online and how to protect their reputation online. Are you interested in having us come in and speak?”

And now that we had the book, the answer was decidedly different: “We would be really interested in that! When can you come?”

The previous year, we spoke at one bar association. The next year, we spoke at 48 bar associations. That fueled a business that became a six-figure business, which is now about to become a seven-figure business.

The book fueled it.


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The moment we were authors, people began to come to us, and they began to respect us. I used to have attorneys walk up to me and use this exact question: “Hey, I’ve got a contract right now with (some other company), but it sounds to me like we should cancel that contract and go with you guys. What do you think?”

When they ask a question like that, it means you have trust. It means they believe in you, and the reason why is because of the book.

Mike: People treat you differently when you’re a published author. The fact is that publishing a book is a very, very easy thing to do. In fact, we’ve got a shortcut in the Top Gun Toolkit.

Speaking

Ed: Let’s cover the second positioning tool: speaking. I don’t want you to freak out about this, especially if the last time you spoke was Mrs. Potter’s sixth grade English class. I'm going to show you how you can use speaking to get a whole bunch of clients even if you don’t like to speak. In fact, if you don’t like it and you’re not very good at it, you’ll be better than all of us who have been doing it for a while because you will sound natural and people will trust you.

When I say speaking, I'm not talking about standing in front of 1,000 people at the Marriott. What I'm talking about is that there are 20- or 30-person business groups that meet in your town. They’re called meetup groups, BNI groups, local rotary, Kiwanis, Lions Club or whatever.

There are people that get together that would love to know what you know about health, fitness, body, soul and spirit, marketing, internet marketing, digital marketing, podcasts, book publishing… or whatever your topic is.

When I was starting my business, I literally knew only what I just learned the week before from reading books and newsletters, but I took advice from an experienced speaker. What he said was, “If you want to be a speaker, you go and you do the small little events.”

I stood up there in front of those folks, and I was really bad. But you know what? I did it, and all of a sudden, I got clients. The first time I spoke, I was horrible. Two people came up and each paid me $300 to work with them.

I was so bad that I almost looked to them and said, “Are you sure you guys want to do this? Because I'm really bad. Okay.” The point is, I just went out and did it; and then I got better; and then I got better; and then I got better.


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You don’t have to speak, and I know that so many of us are afraid to speak. If you can just have the courage to push through that and remember that the talk is not about you, either. The consulting is not about you; it’s about you sharing and giving help to other people.

I’ve never met a person that got nervous about helping people. For example, recently, I helped a guy in my church who needed to move. I didn’t have any anxiety at all. I wasn’t thinking, “Oh, I'm so nervous about helping this person”, because we don’t get nervous about helping people.

Consulting is nothing more than helping people.

Speaking is nothing more than helping people.

So get out there and do it!

Podcasts

Something similar to speaking is doing a podcast. A podcast is nothing more than an audio recording into your phone or an interview recorded right onto your computer, so don’t get overwhelmed about doing a podcast. All it is, is uploading a file to a website… and that’s it.

There’s power in being able to say, “Hey, I’d love to interview you for my show.” You don’t even have to be a very good interviewer. We’ve got customers such as Dr. Lori Barr who’s a really successful radiologist who wants to create a marketing program for fellow radiologists. She’s created a podcast just for the purpose of being able to bring people that she wants to get to know onto her show so she can interview them.

Kimberly Maska, whose podcast is Mind Body Spirit Marketing, created a show just so that she could interview people in the Mind, Body, Spirit world and potentially work with them as a consultant.

Mike: If you want to get the attention of a strong potential client, what you could do is this: let’s say you were a marketer in the natural clothing industry, for example. You could identify people who’ve started businesses in that industry that you would like to be your clients. You can contact them and say, “Hey, I’d like to interview you for the natural clothing show as an expert, and you can talk about your business and your products, and I want to hear your story about why you started your company.”


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You’d interview them, you’d ask them some questions, and they’d be on your show, which could have 1 or 10,000 subscribers, it doesn’t matter; because no one refuses an interview (at least very rarely). You can get the attention of celebrities this way.

Ultimately, what that means then is that after the episode is done, you can say, “Hey, I have some ideas about how you can grow your business. Would you like to have a conversation about that?” No one says no to that! And that’s when you can actually pitch and present them a business idea. It’s a perfect foot-in-the-door strategy.

Ed: Here is the line I use. I ask them a bunch of questions after the call, and then I say, “Well, based on what you just told me, you seem like you’d be a good fit for my private client program”.

Then they say, “Please tell me more about your private client program”.

So when it comes to positioning, there are three places to start: books, speaking and podcasts.

The point is that with one or two of those - or, best case, all three of those - in place, you become the kind of person that people start coming to. When they start coming to you, your prices go up… and you start to be able to pick and choose your clients.


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CHAPTER SIX

How to Price Your Services

The Six Pricing Models

Ed: We’re going to talk about pricing and what they should get charged. I purposely used the phrase that way because here’s the thing. The number one question we get asked is, “How much should I charge as a consultant?” My answer to that is this: when you ask a question that way, you’re being self-centered instead of client-centered.

What I mean by that is everyone thinks about themselves. “What should I charge?” The point isn’t about you at all. As a consultant, everything is about your client, not you. Thus, the question is, “What should they be getting charged?” I’ve had clients where one idea I gave them was worth $500,000 or $600,000 to them.

Mike: Example: the manufacturing line guy calls up and says, “I'm losing $50,000 an hour because my manufacturing line isn’t up. I’ve got all these employees running around here, I’ve got raw goods, I’ve got the materials coming in… but we can’t make our stuff.”

The repair man says, “I can solve the problem. It’s $10,000.”

The guy says instantly, “No problem. That’s a great deal.”

So the repair man walks over, takes his wrench, and twists one bolt, and the guy says, “What? I'm not going to pay you $10,000 for that.”

Then the repair man gives him an itemized bill: $5 for twisting the bolt, $9,995 for knowing which bolt to twist. The point is that the value is in the wisdom, the experience and the expertise that it took to know what to do. It’s the leverage you gain from a consultant.


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Ed: So the thing to remember when you’re pricing is that pricing is a collaborative effort. We found the best success from our clients, not when the client says, “Well, here’s what I want you to do”, and then you go back and say, “Here’s my fee: $15,000. Take it or leave it”. It’s a collaborative discussion process.

As a consultant, in the first hour or two you spend with your prospective client, you’re just going to be asking them questions. Pricing is a part that we get so nervous about as consultants, but even a part of that is collaborative. In fact, I would say, at least half of the time, you and your client will come to the same conclusion together about price.

The Six Pricing Models

When selling your consulting services, you will want to consider these pricing models:

1. Consulting FeeThis is a one-time payment for a delivery of a one-time service, be it a website, lead capture strategy, video marketing, podcasting package, you name it. You get paid; you do the work; and everyone’s happy.

2. Monthly RetainerThis is a spin-off from the consulting fee, with a big upside, because you get paid every month for a certain duration. Changing a single fee to a monthly fee is as simple as adding two words: “a month”.

When your potential clients ask, “How much is this going to cost me?”, you say, “Well, for a series of videos turned into podcasts, all the graphics, and maintenance, we’re looking at a ballpark of $2,000… a month”.

Now, the other way to structure a monthly fee is to do this like our coaching student Everett O’Keefe did. When he priced his consulting deal, he dropped the price on the monthly fee to something lower than the up-front payment. In his recent deal, he charged $2,000 for creating a series of videos and sending them out


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to the web, and then $150 dollars a month just to keep everything running.

And since you’re probably going to build all of this inside of your Instant Customer account and not your client’s, you really do have the on/off switch, which means they pay you every month. So if they quit paying, you can turn off their service until you get paid. That’s the real beauty of providing consulting with services.

3. PercentageThe third pricing strategy is the percentage model. It’s a percentage of either gross profit, net profit or growth. Now, we like this model because you get paid for performance, and we know the system will work; but if you’re going to do a percentage, what I like best is model number four, which is...

4. Up-Front Payment with a PercentageThis way, you get paid, whether or not your client implements what you give them. And there’s also a great upside for you. A member of our beta group and one of my one-on-one coaching students, Kendra Dixon, did this. She got $8,000 up-front on a project and 3% on the ongoing gross product sales. This means she gets paid $3,000 for every $100,000 her client generates. Now, THAT is the kind of continuity income you want to get. ==Kendra DixonColorado Springs, CO “These products have been worth their weight in gold!”I was the cynic. I was in internet marketing about 3 or 4 years ago and ran away screaming, saying I would never want to be a part of any kind of industry like this. Mike and Ed have given me a new faith in that there are people doing it for the right reasons and are there to help, and the community behind all of this has been absolutely amazing. These products have been worth their weight in gold!==

5. The TradeThis is a model that clients LOVE to offer consultants, but it rarely works to your advantage.The trade works something like this: your local dry cleaner comes to you and offers you three years of free dry cleaning in exchange for your consulting. Problem is, when the time comes to pay your mortgage, you can’t go down to the bank to cash in your three years of dry cleaning.

You see, the bank uses a simple system of cash: real-life money going in and out.

Sometimes trades work, especially when it’s something you really need in your


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business, but in general, just tell the dry cleaner that your price is $4,000 up-front and $400 a month; and that since you’ll be lifelong friends, you’ll be sure to bring your dry cleaning to him as well… and you’ll pay him his prices for that.

6. Ownership of the Company or ProductsI won’t say much about this model except this: those little tiny percentage points don’t mean much when the company is new, but they mean a ton when the enterprise matures and is worth millions of dollars. This is a more advanced strategy, but we’ve seen some of our students negotiate a % ownership of products they help create for a business in their first year as a consultant. That’s what I did, and when the business sold, I got a nice big check! Bonus: Charge Whatever You WantEd: Now, I'm going to add one more. This is probably the most important pricing model…

Charge Whatever You Want!

I learned this from one of our certification members. She stood up in the back and said, “I just want to tell everybody, you need to listen to what Ed says.” Then she told a story about how she heard something I said, did it and made a bunch of money. The only thing was that she completely misquoted me… and to her advantage, I might add.

Here’s how that went:

In the training, I tell our students to find a fee they’re comfortable with and then add 25%.

What she heard me say was, “Find a fee you’re comfortable with and add a zero.”

So she stood up in front of everybody and said, “Now, Ed’s going to tell you a pricing model which is: find where you are comfortable with and add a zero. I knew I was comfortable with $1,500, so I added a zero. I quoted $15,000, and the client said yes, and now I have got a client for $15,000.”

I said, “Hey, first of all, great job implementing. Secondly, that’s not what I said. But if you’re going to make a mistake, you might as well make it by charging more.”

Think about it: she multiplied her rate by 10 and the client said yes!

That’s when I decided to add a new pricing model: just charge whatever you want. Because when you do… the client might just say yes.


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Mike: So far, we’ve covered two of the 5 P’s and the six pricing models. Now is a good time to stop and say this: you don’t need to use all six pricing models. You only need to do one very well to close a lot of deals. In fact, in my experience, we’ve often taught 20 different ways to make money as a consultant, but our most successful consultants only need to learn two or three to be wildly successful. You don’t need to completely reinvent yourself to win. I’d say 80% of my coaching and consulting deals were a simple fee, plus a monthly stipend; something like $10,000 up-front and $500 a month.

Now let’s talk about how to present your services by asking good questions.


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CHAPTER SEVEN

How to Present Your Services

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.”Steve Jobs

—

Ed: Now we're on to the third P - Present.

This is the part where most consultants get a little bit nervous. You and the prospect both know you're moving towards a conclusion that will hopefully end up with them saying yes and you’re going to talk about signing a deal soon.

The present stage gets consultants nervous because you're just not sure what to say. What most consultants do when they are not sure what to say is they talk too much. You’d think it would be the opposite. You’d think, "Well, if I don't really know what to say, maybe I just would say less,"; but no, they end up doing all the talking. What I found is that the best deals and the best conversations actually are you and the consultant asking really great questions.

I will often start a conversation just by asking a few questions while taking notes on the answers. Things like:

• "So what are you doing right now to get leads?” • “What would you like to do to get leads?"• "What are you doing right now to get new customers?” • “What would you like to be doing to get new customers?" • "What would you like to be doing to get follow-on sales?” • “What are you currently doing to get follow-on sales?"


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• "What is your biggest challenge right now as a business entrepreneur?"

This last question is very important because when they tell me the challenge, I know that there's money there in me solving that problem, and as consultants, that's really what we do: we solve problems.

Mike: All those make sense. There's one other question that I was thinking about as you were going through this that I've asked for a long time which is:

• "Where do you believe or know you’re leaving a lot of money on the table?"

It's an opportunity question. What the prospect is hearing at that point, when they're hearing all these questions, is you saying, "I know the answer, and I can solve that problem for you". It really comes down to the secret to great consulting: asking (and answering) great questions. The other part of this is that you're in control over the conversation as long as you're asking questions as well, and most people feel they're being heard and understood when they're doing all the talking.

Ed: We had one of our students who said all he did was ask questions. And at the end of an hour and 15 minutes, the business owner looked at him and said, "This is the best meeting I've ever had with a consultant about my business." The guy never said anything! He never even gave him any solutions; all he did was ask questions.

Mike: Well, it also shows that if you have a well-prepared, well-scripted arsenal or list of questions, you’ll look and sound great… and you’ll also be setting the stage for a great deal.

Now, what do you do with all that information and knowledge that you gathered, and how do you make the transition then into actually doing the pitch and closing the deal and walking out with the check?

Ed: What they really want to know is how you're going to help them in their business. That's where the present questions have been going all along. What you're trying find are problems; the business owner, for the most part, knows about the problems that they have, and you're just trying to uncover them because then you can start solving them. Especially when you can create more income, more leads, more revenue, more freedom, and more fun - when you can help them with their leadership or their employees or with the problem they may be having for creating an IRA or maybe a pension plan for healthcare, dental plan, or anything - there's typically money that you can make, and they're glad to part with that money in exchange for a solution to their problem.

Then, running concurrent with that, you're trying to find out what kind of budget


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they might have to run through those problems as well.

In the past we've just simply asked questions like:

• "Do you have a budget for this?"• "Assuming we worked together, do you have a rough idea of a range that you

would be able to work with?" (I love the word “range”. It doesn't tie someone down to a number, but it gives you a general number to work with)

• "So give me a range, something that maybe you're comfortable with."

By the way, when somebody says to me, "My range for this project is some place $4,000 and $6,000", I heard one number. I didn't hear two numbers; I heard $6,000. The range question is very valuable for that purpose too.

Then I’ll ask the challenge question, "What's your biggest challenge?" and I'm writing that answer down. Then, at that point, what I would love to be able to do is come back in my proposal with something like, "Here's what we're going to do for you. We're going to solve this challenge by ... this, this, this, and this.”

We already discussed not talking too much about yourself. The second challenge is not talking too much about your technology, or "Here's how we're going to do all these things." It really doesn't matter, and in a lot of cases, it can very quickly put someone off from listening to you. They don't care about the technology. If they don't understand it, they'll feel stupid; and they'll not want to work with you.

What you're going to do is give them benefits, not a whole bunch of features. A feature would be (using the Instant Customer Software as an example), "I'm going to set up a crowd grabber campaign for you.”

Then they look at you like you just grew an asparagus out of your forehead because they don't know what a “crowd grabber campaign” is.

Well, what does a crowd grabber campaign do? It gives you more leads, gives you more exposure, gives you better branding and gets you noticed online. Those are benefits.

Mike: The key to any kind of negotiation, or getting to specifics, has to do with being broad at first. If someone is resistant when I ask them a dollar question, I say, "Well, I know it's somewhere between one dollar and one billion dollars, so can you give me an idea of where that falls approximately?"

Ed: Then they say, "Well, it's not a billion".


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Mike: Exactly, so I'll just say, "Well, why don't you guess?" The funny thing is that people, as soon as you go through that, really loosen up. So what I always do is ask the simple question, "What's one deal worth to you?" We start there. Let's just say, for example, it would be a dentist who does surgery.

He might say, "Well, it's $5,000."

Then I'll ask, "How many of those do you do right now per month on average?"

They might say, "Well, we might do 10." I know right there -

Ed: Now you know it’s a $50,000 per month practice.

Mike: Exactly. Then I’ll say, "How many more of those could you take on right now?" They might say, "You know, we could probably do another 10."

Ed: Great. You're taking a $600,000 per year practice to $1.2 million.

Mike: $1.2 million, okay. Then I will say, "How much is that custom worth to you over time?" They might say, "Well, probably about $12,000." Okay, now I know it's $5,000 up-front and another $12,000 per customer.

Now that I know that that client is worth $17,000.

I'll say, "If someone came to you right now and would just give you new customers who are guaranteed ready to sign up and buy, how much would you give that person for giving you a new customer?"

The dentist might say, "Well, what's your hard cost in delivering the service?"

I might say, "About $1,000."

“That means you've got about $4,000 worth of profit per customer.”

And then I would say, "How much would it be worth to you to get that new client? Would you pay half?"

What you're saying is you would pay $2,000 per client, okay? At that point, I know that if he wants 10 extra customers and he'd pay $2,000 for each, just for a month, that could be $20,000 on retainer. I've got at least a frame, and I can start asking other questions. Once I've got that, it becomes pretty easy to learn more through the other questions that we ask: where they're getting leads, what's working, and also where their problem is or where the big opportunity is. It's easy to actually


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start narrowing it down. I know that I could probably walk into that dentist, and if I had a means of giving him leads right away, he'd easily pay me 20 grand a month. If he doesn't have a way, I could probably get a retainer arrangement for about half that, for 10 grand a month. That's, in my experience, pretty safe to assume.

Ed: They wouldn't have told you right off the bat if you had said, "How much revenue do you make per year?"

Mike: No way! "How much money do you make per year?" Then they'll say, "Get the hell out of here!"

Ed: The interesting thing too, now that we've asked all of these questions and we have an idea of their budget, is that you're now ready to move into what we call a pitch. And we're going to cover that in our next chapter. What I will tell you is that now's a great time to ask what we could call a test close question, where you're feeling the water. You might say something like, "So, assuming we did something that met the budget we just discussed, I'm assuming you would be excited to move forward?"

When they say “Yes” they’re not signing on an agreement. You're just getting an intermediate step that gets them to acknowledge that they're moving forward with you.

Mike: The bottom line of what presenting really is, is question asking. It sounds like it's actually going to be work, you have to do a bunch of preparation, you're going to get nervous, and you've got a whole bunch of stuff you have to do and mind read ahead of time. But it has nothing to do with that. It is literally walking in with a list of questions, asking them, and that prospect walks out of there feeling as though they're understood and, like you had said, as one of our clients said, "This is the best meeting I've ever had." By not saying anything, you make people really feel connected when they get to do all the talking.

Ed: They really do. They feel like you care about them, which would be true. Mike: Exactly. What's also awesome is that now you are armed with all of the information you need to essentially reflect back to them the questions to close the deal. That's what we're going to do in the next steps.

Ed: It's the next thing, and it leads us nicely onto a really useful sentence, which is the term, "Based on what you've told me." We'll talk about that in the pitch stage, but when you can start a sentence with that and you've asked good questions in this stage, you're ready to do that. We're going to move on into the next segment, which is pitch; and this is the fun one because this is where you get paid.


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CHAPTER EIGHT

How to Pitch and Close Consulting Deals

Countering Objections and Getting the Deal Ed: We're going to go back to the beginning of this entire book where I said something really important, which is, "Consulting is nothing more than helping people." What you're doing in the pitch phase is you're giving them an opportunity to make the best decision they could possibly make in their business, which is to say “yes” to you to get the help that they need from you.

I'll tell you, I could go from client to client to client who have told me that they got much more back from what they invested in me, and they would do it again, and again, and again. The reason why is that you're simply helping people.

Pitching is a really great thing. In other words, if you can provide a great service and you can ask for the sale, you deserve to get paid. Pitching is simply asking for the sale.

There is a single line you can use to ask for the sale. Simply look your prospect in the eye and say this sentence…

"So, are you ready to get started working together?"

Then you pause; you say absolutely nothing. This is probably the hardest part.

We've asked the question, we’ve got that out. Now, if you're like most consultants, what you're going to do is start talking yourself down in price, you're going to start adding a bunch of stuff into your package; while what you really need to do is...

Say Nothing!


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There's actually a really good chance that, if you've done well so far, they're going to look at you and say, "Yes".

They’re either they're going to say, "Yes", or they're going to ask you a clarifying question.

They will not say, "No", by the way. They won't say, "Nope. I'm not ready". They will ask something or they'll have some reason as to why they want to clarify something.

For example…

• They might ask you a question about the price. • They might ask you if you've got a guarantee. • They might say something like, "Well, I've done a lot of this internet stuff

before, but it never really worked for me."• They might say, "I have a website, but my website doesn't work; that's not

how I get my customers. Maybe you will help me with my website, but there's nothing that you're going to be able to do to change that."

• Maybe they'll say, "Hey, I'm interested. I just have to talk to my business partner."

Those are called are objections.

The great news is that when they're asking those questions, the more and more of those you answer, the closer and closer you get to the deal.

Now, there are a couple things to know with objections. The first thing with objections is that you should probably be able to accurately predict about 80% to 90% of the objections that you're going to receive before you go into that meeting.

You should have an idea of how you're going to answer some of those ahead of time. In fact, I just gave you some that are likely to come up: “I've done this before”, “I don't have a website”, maybe “The price is a little bit too high”, or “Do you have a guarantee?”

Will you occasionally get a question that you're not prepared for? Absolutely. Just do your best and chalk it up as a learning experience. You’ll be ready for it next time. Just don't be nervous about the objections. By being prepared for them ahead of time, you can be sure that it will absolutely work. The Price Objection


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Ed: The one objection that I would really like to talk about specifically is the price objection because that is the one that you almost always will get. If a business owner is a savvy business owner, they're going to ask you price questions. Oftentimes, they'll try to work you down on your price.

This one spot right here is the spot that you should be not only ready for but also excited for, because when you hit that price objection, it's almost always the last objection that that person has.

In other words, they're ready.

Now, they're going to ask something like…

• "The price seems a little high."• "Isn't there any way that we could work this out to make it a little lower?"• "You know, that might be just a little bit outside my budget." • "I'll ask my business partner, but, man, I'm not sure we can afford that."

Those are price objections.

You now have options. You could drop your price; you could pull something out of your package and offer them two separate package options; or you could simply say, "This is the price and it’s a good one. I've got another business in town that's already looking for this kind of service, so it's either you or them. It's fine if you don't want to do it, but you know, this is a really good price for a really good package."

Mike: After going through this many, many times, I've learned that once you've done some pitches and you've heard all the objections, what you become very skilled at doing is integrating and overcoming objections while you are presenting and while you're pitching.

When it comes around, you'll actually reduce the number of objections that ever come back dealing with any of these because you'll make a point. For example, when you brought up the pricing objection.

You'd say, "You know what this is like, right? How many times have you been selling to a customer who wants you to drop your price and you just have to tell them, ‘Look, there are three different ways you can have it. It's fast, it’s good or it’s cheap; and you get to pick two.’ We know what that's like, don't we?”

You'll get them to agree, and if they're agreeing with you, they're not going to bring that up because now both of you are in on it, and he's not going to ask you to


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come down in price because he knows what’s like. Alternatively, you can come back and be like, "You know what we were just talking about, right?" You'll say, "Yeah. Look, I don't want to compromise on the quality, and I know you need it done quickly. There isn't any pricing flexibility here. I can only spend so much time working with each one of my clients. I want to make sure I'm giving you all my attention." That's very, very effective.

Ed: What I found is that this gets way easier the more you do it. It's just a conversation; it really is nothing more than that. It's just me talking to someone that I know. It's not that hard. But you've got to get through the first or second one and you'll find out.

We've got more emails and agreements and check scans from members of ours who've said, "I thank you for the motivation because I just went out there and did it, and I didn't realize how easy it was." They had people who, instead of giving them price objections, were giving them way more than they were expecting in price.

Mike: That's great. What I really heard then is the way you end that conversation by saying, “What else, what else, what else?” Is there anything else? Eventually, they're going to stop and say, "No, I don't think there's anything else". That's when you can ask them one more time, so now is the time -

Ed: You’ll just say...

“So… are you ready to get started working together?”

Then you’ll get a deal, agreement, and best of all… a check!

Resource!

The Top Gun Consulting Toolkit is a full series of DVDs, scripts, forms and presentations that serves as a one-stop shop for everything you need as a consultant. It also comes with the powerful Instant Customer software that can close deals for you. To find out more,call or text your email to 858-223-1263 or go to: www.TopGunToolkit.com



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CHAPTER NINE

How to Produce Results and Get Paid

Ed: Here is what you have done so far: you've positioned yourself, you've priced, you've presented and you’ve pitched. You got a deal and a signed agreement with your new client. Now is the time for you to start doing the work that you're getting paid for. This is the spot where most consultants completely drop the ball.

Not because they don't produce a great product for their client, because most do; but because they fail to realize that this is still a marketing step.

There are a number of things that you want to happen right now. First of all, you want to do a great job. You want your client to be absolutely blown away and to be thankful that they hired you. You want them to refer you. You want to get a great testimonial from them, and then if possible, you'd love for them to hire you again, keep you on a monthly retainer, bring you back, pay you more, or cut you into the company.

One client is paying you $5,000… and then they refer you to another client that's paying you $5,000 a month… and now you've got $10,000 a month; which, for most of our friends and members, would be exactly what they're looking for to cover all their bills and have a nice vacation to Europe if they want to.

Mike: It also quickly turns into the bigger things.

Some of our existing clients and consultants find that they are able to multiply their income and revenue because they've got a system that they can follow that produces predictable results consistently. That's really what we're all looking for. Sending Thank-You Notes

Ed: Sitting in my office right now, I have a stack of little thank-you notes. For me,


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it's just a little card. It takes about three sentences to fill up half of that card, and it takes less than a minute for me to write the card, write on the outside of the card the person's address, and to put a stamp on it.

I'd say probably 95% of the almost 300 clients I've worked with personally received a little note from me in the mail, the very moment we started working together: "Hey, I think you made a great decision for us to start working together. I'm super fired-up, and you're about to find out how committed I am to your success.”

That's the first thing I do.

I have had people who brought that card back into a consulting day with me and told me that they held it up to the light and looked at it… and they couldn't believe that I actually wrote on it with a real pen.

Now, will a thank-you card make you another million dollars? No, but, that might open up the door to millions of dollars of income down the road by setting the right tone for a long-term relationship.

Setting Expectations

Ed: The second thing that I will do typically is I will send my client an email or I will follow-up with them on the phone, and I will walk through their expectations and what they can expect in terms of delivery.

For example, maybe we said something like:• "Okay, the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to create an

outline for the 10 videos that we're going to do together; you should receive that from me by Friday."

• "The second thing that we're going to do is film those. The dry-run is next Tuesday."

• "Then, we're going to do the filming. My plan for that is next Thursday."

Now, here’s a little secret. The first one I just said, "Okay, I'm going to script out the first 10 videos for you, and you should receive that from me by Friday." I already know I'm going to send that to them on Thursday or Wednesday.

So, I say, "You'll have that from me Friday"; then I'm going to deliver it on Thursday because I want to start setting a precedent of early delivery. I want them to know that I'm not the guy they have to wait around for. If I say I'm going to be there by 10:00, I'll be there at 9:45. If it says it's going to be done by Friday, it's going to be done by Thursday. That way, they start to see that I'm reliable; they can start to bring


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me more things.

That expectation setting is really important as well because in about one out of every four or five deals you will have a client that somehow got an expectation in their mind that you were going to do something that you never, ever said.

I had one clients who, for some reason was under the impression that my agency was going to do Google AdWords for him.

He had mentioned it before our deal and I said, "Just so you know, we don't do that, and so it’s not included in this proposal."

He read through the proposal, signed it, and we got started.

On the very next call, he said, “Okay, I'm ready to get my Google AdWords going.”

I just said, "Remember a week ago, we talked about that. That's not something that our firm does. We could refer you to people who do that. But if you take a look at the agreement, you'll notice it’s not there at all."

What I didn't want him to do three months later is to go, "Hey, where's my Google AdWords? You guys promised that." Now, we got a whole discussion about what was promised. Expectation setting right in the beginning is really important.

Here is the other little secret thing that I have in my arsenal.

I usually hold something back and use it as a bonus later.

For example, I might say, "Have you guys thought about maybe doing text message follow-up for your patients to remind them of their appointment time?"

They’ll say, "We have thought about it, we just don’t know how."

Then I’ll say, "Why don't I create a fully integrated text campaign that will work completely with the account that we've already created for you? I'll do all of the work and it won't cost you a dime. It’s a way to say thank you and to show you that we're really interested in over-delivering for you."

Now, I already knew I was going to give it to them. What I'm trying to do is try to show them that I'm the opposite of every consultant out there; most people over-promise and under-deliver. I'm going to under-promise and over-deliver. It's little steps like that which start to build an incredible consulting relationship.


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Mike: That's really powerful. It's about expectation management.

Inside Top Gun Consulting Toolkit, we do have some strategies, tips and training for the simple “doing” part. When you get your deal, your first stage is going to be expectation management, clarity of what gets delivered, and making certain that, like you said, you get into a habit of over-delivering, under-promising, and being able to time and pace that client and also get them in a space where they're looking at you, saying, "Gosh, based on what experience I'm having now, I can give them more work."

Oftentimes, when you start things off with that level of commitment and clarity, your client is asking you to do more work before your first project's even done.

Ed: So that gives you a start on what it’s like to Produce a great service for your client. Overall, as long as you do what’s in the client’s best interest you will be fine.

Now, let’s wrap up our discussion with how you can systematize all of this to make it easy, lucrative and fun.


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CHAPTER TEN

Whats Next?

Ed: Let’s review: we gave an overview of the consulting opportunity and the growth of this incredible, incredible world that I am so thankful to be a part of. I could not be where my family and I are at financially - the ability to enjoy life, to take time off, to spend time with my kids and the revenue, and to create an incredible product for the people I work with - if it wasn't for consulting.

We talked about common myths, things like, “I need money now” or “I've never done this before” or “I'm not an expert”. We countered all those myths and just showed you that really, whoever you are in whatever industry, there's an opportunity for you in consulting. Then, we started the P’s. We started talking about positioning, pricing, presenting, pitching (or asking for the sale), and then producing.

Most people at this stage would go, “OK, great, what I'm going to do is study for a few more years and be an expert. And then at that point, I'll be qualified to close us some sales.”

During that period of time, a hundred other consultants will have come in behind you and taken all the deals that should be yours. I'm going to encourage you to do what our good friend Caroline Sampson did. She walked out of the our training and closed a $74,500 deal with a doctor, and then she came back to the training again to learn how to deliver the service to the doctor. Her inability to implement the software was not a barrier to her closing the deal.

The second thing - on your phone right now you have a whole database of names and numbers. My guess is that if you started scrolling through those with a little notepad, you would probably find five to ten people who you know almost right off the bat you could help.


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They may be family members, but more likely, they're friends or colleagues or people that you've met who own businesses. You know that you can help them solve their problems, and all you need to do is start a discussion with them.

If I have that person on my phone, I'm going to text them these 11 words: “I have an idea about how you can grow your business.”

You know why this works? Because you’re talking about them, and not about you. Now all you do is starting to ask them good questions and start solving problems. The rest of the process, will be a lot easier when you start it that way.

Now, we gave you both the 30,000ft view and the more detailed discussion of consulting.

Having said that, I know you want to go deeper; and if you want to learn more, we have a resource for you called the Top Gun Consulting Toolkit. ==Joe IppolitoNewport Beach, CAFormer IBM Executive I have been in software sales for over thirty-five years with companies including IBM and Xerox and have taken every sales course that you can think of and this particular course here takes it to the next level and incorporates all of the latest and greatest techniques in sales!== What will it do for you?

Ed: First of all: of all the things that I've helped create, this is the proudest I've ever been of a product. It is, I think, the consummate guide to help you help other people as a consultant. It's based on the five P’s: position, price, present, pitch, and produce.

You get full scripting, training, agreements and templates. It comes with the most powerful system on the planet. It gives you the ability to create marketing programs for people in half an hour to 45 minutes - things that would normally take weeks, if not months, and tens of thousands of dollars to produce.

==Doug AllenSan Diego, CAGoing through this experience, the Top Gun Consulting Toolkit, totally changed my


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mindset.==

Mike: We have a system in here for actually getting clients who start paying you month-in and month-out. We deconstructed after helping people start their own consulting businesses for almost 10 years. We found that every business has the exact same problems. They're trying to find some way to create marketing content, to do lead capture, and to follow up and delivery more effectively. How to make sure no lead ever falls through the cracks. How to manage capturing leads at trade shows or live events or how to sell their products and services. How to reduce the amount of time they spend following up or closing deals.

We've packaged all of these into easy step-by-step, fill-in-the-blanks wizards along with all the scripts, all the questions, all the tools and all the training you need in one place. What's cool about this is that you can use the content in the box; there are manuals and step-by-step instructions and DVDs in there.

There's also a membership site with all the software tools where you can log in and access all of the content digitally so you can watch it on your tablet, your computer or your desktop. You can even project it up on your TV set if you want to and if you've got the right equipment. That way, you can learn this step by step, watch it as often as you want, and just get started doing this, either in your own business or getting paid as a high-paid consultant doing it for others.

The bottom line is that you're not only going to learn some great skills, but you're also going to learn how to close deals and multiply your income. If all you do is use one of the tools for one of the marketing machines, you can succeed. If all you do is use a couple of the strategies to help you close more deals, even if you never were to use the tools again, this thing can pay for itself with the first deal easily. When you look at some of our past customers who have gone through a certification program, they've even taken it a lot further and done it faster; because in two days, you can learn so much about how to implement, how to close and how to consult.


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Where do you go to get it?

Mike: The place to begin is by heading over to www.TopGunToolkit.com/GetItNow right now.

There is a video right on that page that explains the entire system so you can see how much you’ll receive.

Ed: I'll close with this - in the 18 months preceding this particular course, Mike and I conducted a beta test. We took people into our office here in groups of 30. We taught them the system that you'll find in Top Gun Consulting Toolkit.

We sent them off into the world and said, “Go. Do great.” We knew that they were going to be successful. Frankly, how successful they became just completely blew us away. We did a survey about 12 to 13 months into this process, and we asked the students (127 people), “Have you closed a deal? How much was your deal? How much have you made?”

The response that we got back absolutely blew us away. Of the people who responded, 87.5% of them told us that they had closed a significant deal within two months of taking the training. Half of the 87.5% told us that they did it within two weeks of the training. Many of them actually closed deals at the training.

Mike: Which blows your mind. That's how transformational the content in this box really is for you. And again, it's not just in the box; you can get access to it immediately when you go through the program.

Ed: Just to wrap up, like I said, the thing that you're going to do first is to not wait for yourself to be an expert. You're going to start the discussion and really get going. You're going to go and hopefully invest in a Top Gun Consulting Toolkit. I will tell

http://www.TopGunToolkit.com/GetItNow


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you that it's our strong belief that you'll have your investment back for this program in no time. Their courses are guaranteed. That always comes with every program.

Mike: No questions asked, 30-day money back guarantee. You can try it out, and if for any reason you're not satisfied or happy, send it back; our risk.

Ed: If it doesn't work for you, which is rare, you can always send it back. But we think you're going to love it, and we would love to work with you. You'll find that we love to come alongside you and help you as well. I think that's it for now. Anything else to add?

Mike: I think the key is, again, you can either watch the videos at TopGunToolkit.com and learn more. Or if you want to actually see exactly what's in the program, all the features and all the benefits, just head to www.TopGunToolkit.com/GetItNow.

http://www.TopGunToolkit.com/GetItNow


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We and/or our suppliers make no representations about the suitability, reliability, availability, timeliness and accuracy of the information, software, products, services and related graphics contained on the site for any purpose. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, all such information, software, products, services and related graphics are provided "as is", without warranty or condition of any kind. We and/or our suppliers hereby disclaim all warranties and conditions with regard to this information, software, products, services and related graphics, including all implied warranties or conditions of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement.

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Mike Koenigs and Ed Rush Top Gun Consulting loves the ...media.instantcustomer.com/10102/0/1465_topgunbook001.pdf · nutritional and alternative energy therapies with transcendental