Consultant Secret: Success Formulas Often Fail

I’ve been a marketing consultant since 2008 and worked with brands around the world. I’ve worked with large companies like Walmart and CoverGirl, and with luxury hotels like LeMeridian and St Regis, and numerous entrepreneurs, and startups. My passion is helping startup founders and small business owners to make it big. I created the Big Rich Money book and e-course to share some of the lessons I’ve learned over the years together with my friend Candice. I initially met my co-author Candice Kilpatrick Brathwaite, at a social media conference in Chicago in 2009. Since then we have worked together multiple times. Our work together has taken us from New York City to London, to Helsinki, Finland. We share our business secrets in our Big Rich Money book and e-course. This post is part of the series of Big Rich Money posts. We’ve held corporate social media marketing jobs, and we’ve been headhunted by some of the largest marketing agencies in the world. As marketing strategists, we’ve created large viral campaigns, managed social media for large brands, and seen our clients receive millions of dollars in funding or sales. I have even won multiple American Advertising Awards for the marketing strategies I’ve created and campaigns I’ve executed and helped to generate millions of dollars for my clients. Often our clients are asking for a foolproof success formula, and even in the marketing agency world, it is common to sell your services based on results and cases you have done before. We do it too. It’s as common to try to copy someone else’s marketing tactics and want to have your own “Oreo moment”. We’ve had numerous successful strategies and tactics that have skyrocketed our clients’ businesses, but we’ve also learned a lot about what causes companies to fail. We have seen what makes an established company lose a huge multi-million dollar contract. We have witnessed the dangers and pitfalls of overpricing or underpricing a service. We’ve also seen how a possible worst-case scenario or a PR nightmare can be turned into positive growth for a company. We have seen founders fired from their own companies. We have seen companies fail even with millions of dollars of initial funding. We have seen companies make millions without any initial funding. We have even seen someone be hired as a consultant, use the exact same process that we use, but shockingly charge 20 times more. All of these experiences made us realize that we are REALLY GOOD at creating and executing a strategy to make a business successful. We have done it countless times for all types of clients. But we admit: it wasn’t until we had a few failures that we understood which factors had been the most important in the cases that had succeeded, and the reasons were not as exciting as you’d think. So we decided to create Big Rich Money book and e-course together and teach you how to build your profitable business and share our consulting secrets with you. We identified the 7 most common mistakes founders do, and how to avoid making them. We have developed some of our own systems, and we’ve successfully used certain formulas, theories, and concepts. In fact, we love testing new theories and business tools.

But the biggest secret that most business consultants and coaches don’t want to tell you: there is no secret formula that works for every single person and every single business.

And yet, it is “the secret formula” that most business owners wish they could find and then crack for their own business.

How Big Rich Money Methods Works

Big Rich Money is built differently. We encourage you to open your eyes to multiple different paths and options and create your business in a way that works the best for you. We focus on building your entrepreneurial mindset and critical decision-making skills. The Big Rich Money method is more like the Goldilocks of business building. Looking at things from multiple different angles, finding a Smörgåsbord of options, creating a charcuterie board of opportunities for you, and then testing what brings you the most satisfaction and money. There is always a case of too little or too much, and your “just right” is different from someone else’s just right. We help you to learn to judge and find your right idea, your right business model and your right way to make it a profitable business. You are unique, and you don’t have to follow someone else’s path, you can create your own.

Story from the book Big Rich Money: How To Turn Your Business Intentions Into A Profitable Company

Katja’s Big Rich Money Tip:

“I recently grew my client’s social media presence by 600% in six months, and it was exactly what they needed – it grew their sales significantly too! Not quite by 600%, but still massive growth! I recommended they hire a social media manager who spends 3 hours a day just on Instagram, which is one of the best sales channels for the brand. I also recently had a client to whom I recommend not to worry about Instagram at all, and not wasting even 15 minutes a week posting there. There isn’t one success formula for everyone, it really depends on your goals and what your company does.”

Even when it comes to things like digital marketing strategy, there are many tactics and best practices to follow that work sort of like a formula, but when we are looking at creating a business from an idea or growing your business to the next level, most likely it is in your best interest to think of multiple different ways to get to your goals. You will get a much deeper understanding of what we mean by this by the end of our book.

A Big Rich Money Flow

The hustle culture also makes us feel that we have to work longer hours, whereas we could be just working smarter to make more money. And when we want to work smarter, we often look for shortcuts, formulas and the magic pill hoping that maybe this one thing will give your business the boost it deserves.

Let us explain why our tips in this book are universal: No matter the size of the company, businesses repeatedly make the same basic mistakes.

Existing companies might struggle with growth if the foundation has never been built right. Many just start “doing” without a long-term strategy or growth plan. Or they start with one strategy and never expand upon it as the business reaches new levels of growth. At some point, problems arise because of the lack of strategy. We will help you to look at your business strategy in a new way. Funding, investment or new resources are needed for growth, regardless how established your company is. We have seen companies blow through $10M of bad choices just as quickly as a small company can blow a small budget. Sometimes it means investing in your skills, hiring help, or buying new tools. We help you to think of ways to calculate which investments will give you a good return. Mindset is everything, it helps you to push through difficulties and be adaptable. Sometimes experience strengthens our growth mindset, but often, newer entrepreneurs can have fresher optimism and a winning mindset just because they have not hit any setbacks yet. Learn to build the right stepping stones to your success, and take the Big Rich Money e-course now.