Great news, your AI Consulting persona is…

The Strategist

Your success moving up the ladder in your workplace (and building a network of colleagues) will help you get started much faster than you might expect – in fact, Strategists are the most likely to “accidentally” make big sales to their existing network.

We’ll help you level up your tech skills and ensure you have everything you need to run the business side of a thriving consultancy.

As a strategist, you’ve spent your career moving up the ladder into leadership roles, but now you’re diving into a new endeavor that’s more tech-focused than anything you’ve done before. You’re eager to rapidly improve your tech skills, and we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how smoothly your existing workplace skills translate into early success for your AI consultancy.

Your biggest challenge will be making the leap from a less-technical profession into an AI Consultancy where you’re always on the cutting edge. You’ll be leveraging the business skills you’ve developed over many years in your career (including lots of workplace “soft skills” you may not even fully realize you have), but also constantly exploring new things, and figuring out the proper balance between the three different project types we teach in the AI Consulting Service Menu. You’re likely ready to jump into delivering Trainings and Strategy/Discovery sessions right away, but may need to spend more time skilling up (or consider hiring help from a coder) to handle more advanced Implementation and Build projects for clients.

A fun tidbit about Strategists: We often see students who fit your profile “stumble into” large contracts early in the program, because their pre-existing network and business skills are so strong. So, don’t hesitate to get out there and Score Your First Gig even if you don’t feel 100% prepared on every detail yet. You’ll likely hear the folks in your existing personal and professional network sing your praises and be thrilled for the opportunity to work with you in new ways.

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Where to Start:

[ Note: When you enroll, you’ll get access to all the lessons we mention below. For now, we’ve removed the links from this section to avoid confusion for folks who haven’t yet enrolled. ]

Because you’re coming in with lots of workplace experience, we recommend diving right into Scoring Your First Gig, even if you feel some trepidation about not being quite “ready” yet. That’s natural and a common feeling among strategists, who are always self-aware enough to know they have room to grow. Still, we know from working closely with lots of strategists that you’re also ready to sell basic services on Day One.

To see what other consultants are doing (with far less business experience than you already have), start with our lesson on Real-World AI Consulting Businesses (that you can build right now). Then work through the lessons in the “Launch in 7 Days” projects until you get to Score Your First Gig.

You should try to sell AI 101 trainings to your existing network of personal and business associates right away, following the structure of the Score Your First Gig lessons. Also listen carefully for clients who ask for more — it is likely that one or two folks in your network will be ready for bigger projects in the near future.

If you struggle with your Exclusivity Statement, that’s OK. Start with something very general (just use location rather than industry and qualifier, for example) and try to make the early, low-cost sales to prove you can do it, as described in Score Your First Gig. We even have detailed example videos, slides and a proposal template for what your “First Gig” – usually an AI 101 training – will look like.

Then, take a peek at our lesson on Building Your Consulting Reputation, which is also designed to help you hone your credentials and give you permission to say lots of nice things about yourself, which you often hesitate to do ?.

And for a final note on building your reputation and beating Imposter Syndrome, check out our lessons on Building Your 1-Page Calling Card Website and Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile. You don’t have to take action on these right away, but since you’re likely to doubt yourself early on in your journey, seeing what’s coming will be especially valuable for you.

From there, you can take a short detour level up your AI skills a bit more. Dive into our lessons on Mastering the AI Economy and Tools and our AI Crash Course to help you skill up on AI. A great goal would be to Build Your First AI Workflow, even following This Step-By-Step Tutorial if you’d like!

Once you’ve done that, you’re off to the races. We recommend creating a first draft of your AI Consulting Service Menu, with the understanding that it will evolve as you gain more experience.

Now, it’s time to start reaching out to people outside your “warm” network. Follow the Meet 100 Solid Leads project to learn how to create your online presence, build a prospect list and reach out to them with gentle, powerful, human “cold outreach” that gets their attention and gets them excited to hop on Zoom with you to talk about how you can help them enhance their businesses with AI.

What to Focus On:

There is a likely a lot of of revenue waiting for you in your list of past business contacts. Before you do any “cold” outreach, work through your entire list of former associates and current business contacts and offer them basic AI training or strategy services.
Choose one to three items off the AI Consulting Service Menu and focus on pitching those for at least your first few months — then level up your AI skills to deliver a wider range of services.
Fight against Imposter Syndrome by getting yourself out there quickly (even if it feels a bit like leaping before you look). You will be pleasantly surprised to find that people in your network already view you as a trusted expert on many things and will be excited to engage with you in new ways.

Common Challenges:

You are probably underestimating your current level of tech and business/workplace skill. Even though you haven’t run your own solo business in the past, your experience from making your way up in the corporate world will pay big dividends as you strike out on your own.
Imposter Syndrome is real… but you are ready to rock today. Resist the urge to wait until everything is “perfect” or your skills are “just a little better,” and dive into making basic sales right away. There is plenty of time to grow and improve over the years, but you can start earning money from client projects now.

How to Win Big:

Start fast by making basic AI training sales to your existing “warm” network of workplace and personal associates. Then, level up your tech skills so you can expand to a wider range of projects.
Keep an eye out for clients who want to dive in to bigger jobs sooner than you might expect. Strategists often “stumble into” huge projects this way.
Over time, you’ll want to think about hiring coders to help with more technical projects, since your business skills will allow you to sell those pretty soon, and you may not want to spend the time to develop all those super-techie skills yourself.

Complementary Personas

Coming Soon ✨ — Learn which personas are a great complement to yours

Recommended Tech Stack

Coming Soon ✨ — Learn which tools are the ideal fit for your persona

Not a Strategist?

You might also be a Creator (less advanced business skills), an Executive (more advanced tech skills) or an Investor (less advanced tech skills). Or, you can retake the quiz.