ANDY SHERMAN FULL INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Introduction and Welcome
AJ: Welcome to this episode of the Thriving Through podcast. Today, my guest is Andy Sherman. Welcome to the podcast, Andy.
Andy: Well, thanks, AJ. Great to be here.
AJ: It's wonderful to have you. And you have a fascinating story about self-employment twice. So, the first question I'm going to ask you is, what was your path to self-employment, to being a consultant, specifically?
Three Times as a Self-Employed Consultant
Andy: I'll modify that, because I'm not sure you knew that I probably even had three times at it. So, over 20 years ago, I did consulting for about six months. And what I realized back then was I just had a real motivation to get back and get operational and work with a company, which is what I'd always done prior to that. So it was a taste of consulting and a taste of independence, but I wasn't ready for it.
And then, fast forward. I really started my practice five-plus years ago, and that's when I left corporate. I gladly embraced the whole self-employment and being an independent consultant, and started building a practice. And actually felt pretty good about what I was able to do in terms of building a practice, gaining clients, and providing a lot of service and value.
Building to $30,000 Monthly Revenue
AJ: You got your revenue up to quite a bit. I mean, you were around $30K a month, as I recall.
Andy: Yeah, $30K or so in billings, so that's certainly one measure of success. And I was about as busy being an independent and doing consulting, which is essentially trading time for money, as I could or wanted to handle at that time.
The Corporate Opportunity and Company Sale
Andy: But, coincidentally, I was working with one client, and they leaned on me, I'll say, very persuasively to join them full-time. And I resisted, because I liked what I was doing so much, but we kept having conversations, and I realized that I really liked the team, I really liked the company and what they were doing, and I believed in it, and ultimately decided to move into a full-time role. And so that was great, very rewarding on a number of levels.
And then we sold the company, and that was, in some regards, a goal or a known outcome, so not a huge surprise. And at that point of selling the company, it was bought by a much larger company, and I really did not want to be part of a billion-dollar kind of organization. That's way in my distant past. So I hung up the shingle again, and here I am now, again, with a nice practice, and doing the stuff I like, and working with the kind of people I like, too. And that's really my nirvana, I guess.
AJ: I love it. So, how long have you been back in self-employment?
Andy: Yeah, it's been three years.
Rebuilding the Practice After a Year Away
AJ: Now, from the period you were at the company, how long was your period that you were at the company?
Andy: I, all told, worked with the company for about a year. Start to when we sold it and wound down my interaction with the company.
AJ: How hard was it to get your consulting company back up and running after a year of hiatus, essentially?
Andy: It's funny. I took a while, I would say, and then all of a sudden it didn't. So I was exploring options of what I might do. I had some thoughts about re-envisioning my practice, and I did do some repositioning, but it's almost like I really made a decision to focus, refocus on what I'd been doing. And to stop kind of tweaking everything, and just getting back to what I knew and what I was good at.
And literally the day I made that decision, I got a call from one of my old clients, and I was back working with them, and then the business started building back again. So I had a couple months, I guess, of pause there, but then it picked up pretty quickly after that.
Transitioning from Sales Leadership to Self-Employment
AJ: Back the first time you went self-employed, tell me about your transition from... you were leading B2B sales teams, and then you become self-employed, and you're having to do your own business development. Tell me about the transition.
Andy: Yeah, sure. Well, in my career, a big chunk of my career, especially when I started, I was in sales. I got into sales leadership. Ultimately, I ran a couple of companies as CEO, so I had various experience, but I had a lot of sales experience.
So the idea of selling wasn't foreign to me, but how to build a consulting business really was. And I was very fortunate because when I went out on my own, I joined up with Sales Acceleration, which is a group of fractional VP of Sales or Fractional CROs. And as part of the ramp up with Sales Acceleration, they basically taught us, me and others who participated in the program, exactly how to build this kind of fractional sales leadership business.
The Sales Acceleration Education Program
Andy: And for me, that education was eye-opening, and it was also really impactful, and I feel that it shortened my cycle to getting clients by about six months. I think I could have gotten there, but it would have taken me a lot longer.
And for me, what I learned was doing a multi-pronged approach. And for me, what worked the most, the prong or the strategy that worked the most or the best, was referral partners and building a referral network. And so that's something I had never really had to do in my B2B sales experience or background, but it's something I enjoy doing. I did then, and I still do, and that's been far and away my best source of business and leads.
The Referral Partnership System
AJ: I'm interested. Tell me a little bit more about your referral system, the nitty-gritty of how it works.
Andy: All of this stuff is kind of common sense, and if I describe it, you might sit there saying kind of "duh," but again, I didn't really think about things this way, so for me, it was all enlightening. So the first thing is to figure out who in this ecosystem of potential referral partners has access and influence with the buyer that I'm going after.
And by the way, I will coach my customers or clients the same thing as they're building referral networks. So who has access, who has influence, and then systematically go after those folks. So go after them, meaning connect with them on LinkedIn, for example. Get meetings set up. Approach those meetings very much in a reciprocity or kind of a give-to-get mindset that, you know, I think you may be a resource for my clients, and oh, by the way, if I'm one for yours, that's great. Let's figure out how we can collaborate.
Identifying Strategic Referral Partners
Andy: And so I realized pretty early on that executive coaches, business coaches who were working with CEOs or owners of small businesses, they were my best referral source far and away. That's where I got the best quality leads. And then there are other people in the ecosystem that I found were also good contacts, so the fractional world. So there are a lot of us fractionals out there, and if there's a fractional CMO or a fractional CFO and they have access to that owner, then they could be a great lead source.
So kind of identifying these potential partners and then systematically doing outreach. And early in the early days, my goal was to have ten meetings with referral partners per week. So I was doing just heavy, heavy networking and outreach. And there are other approaches to the networking, networking groups and organizations, and any environment where you can get together face-to-face, ideally, with other people in this ecosystem. Those all produce those kind of referral partners.
Nurturing Referral Relationships Over Time
AJ: And then how do you keep the relationship going with them? Because it's one thing to be on a meeting, coffee or a Zoom call, and say, yeah, let's work together, but it's kind of a loose alignment of when an opportunity comes up. How do you keep those conversations going and kind of nurture them, remind them that you're here?
Andy: Well, and I think nurture is the right word. So I think that, again, there can be a systematic approach to it. There are folks who really clearly, where the alignment is great. The chemistry, the alignment with the potential clients, maybe complementary business interests, and so forth. So those kind of rise to the top as the people that need the most nurturing.
My sales background will show here, but when thinking about a referral network program, there are A's, B's, and C's. And A's you want to stay in contact with frequently, monthly, every other month, something like that. B's are maybe less frequent, but still pretty high potential, so every six months, something like that. And the C's are touch base annually, or newsletters, that kind of thing. So I think it is important to prioritize and to segment your time and work it appropriately.
Andy: Now what's interesting is my first run through this program or this system, the people I first thought might be my best referral partners didn't always prove to be. So over time, you met other people, you developed a deeper trust just based on interactions and conversations, so it can shift. And that's okay. But having a systematic approach to it, I think, is pretty important.
Scheduling and Maintaining Regular Contact
AJ: And then when you do say your tiers, do you typically have a scheduled meeting with them? Do you just call to touch base? Do you have... what do you say to them when you want to keep, when you follow up?
Andy: And this is almost like sales. It really is important, and it's also more productive for everybody if you are systematic, if you are having a meeting, schedule the next meeting. So that's the easiest way to do it, is when you know you want to talk to somebody and you don't want it to go too long, then you schedule the meeting on the spot, and then you've got your next meeting a month out, or something like that.
So I think that's pretty important, and especially as you're really getting to know everybody, it's hard to really build trust on a... for example, what most of us are doing these days are Zoom intro calls. And they're very efficient, and they're great, but they lack some of the contact and all that stuff, so it's important to have those follow-ups and kind of some frequency to build trust over time.
Strategic Partnerships with Whitman Transition Advisors
AJ: You were doing something... you have your own clients, but you have also partnered with another company. Tell me how that came about, and how you decided to partner.
Andy: Yeah. I have a couple of partnerships. One is with a company called Whitman, Whitman Advisory. And Whitman is basically a group of advisors, independent advisors, who have gotten together. The company started and really developed a lot of strength working with CPAs. So CPAs for staffing and for consulting services and for M&A.
And I spent a lot of time in my corporate life in the MSP world, the managed service provider world of the tech sector, and I have a focus on MSP customers. You know, it makes sense given my background. And so Whitman found me, basically, as they were looking to expand this model from CPA into other sectors like MSP.
So that is what led to a partnership with Whitman, where we're really mirroring the same kind of services. Staffing, where there's a strategic lending arm, there's a piece that does the fractional CFO business, and then the M&A and consulting. So I'm really the consulting lead for the MSPs at Whitman. So that's been a great partnership with a real good collection of people.
Partnership with Strategic Impact Partners
Andy: I developed another partnership with Strategic Impact Partners, the principal there, Art Stewart. And Art and I are kind of kindred spirits in that we both have a real focus on go-to-market, and mine comes from really my sales background, so energizing and accelerating growth through sales go-to-market.
Art has very much a marketing background, and we have a lot of kind of overlap and common interests. So we have been teaming up and developing some go-to-market accelerators for clients. And this is not an industry-specific thing, but we are working with small and mid-sized companies who are stuck in their go-to-market and need this acceleration package, and we're going in and providing services, many of which are based around AI. So incorporating AI into this go-to-market.
And AI is the buzzword, everybody's doing AI, AI this, AI that. Our approach is AI is a phenomenal tool, but we're not doing it just for a science experiment or even a... we're beyond the proof of concept or experimentation. We're using AI to drive revenue. So that's some of the unique pieces that we offer there. So two strategic partnerships.
Defining Success Beyond Revenue
AJ: I want to switch gears. Actually, before we talk about the future, when we were talking, I talked a little bit about your revenue your first time around, and you said that revenue is one measure of success. How do you define success?
Andy: Well, I think that because it's all dependent on clients, it's really a lot of it is how the client defines it. But what I... So I really like helping clients, especially with strategy. I find a lot of my clients are owners of the small, medium-sized business. That tends to be my primary contact. So I work with a lot of owner-operated businesses.
And the typical scenario there is the owner's wearing all the hats. It's owner-led sales, it's owner-led operation, owner-led everything. Owner-led to the point that the owner may not have a life and could be struggling. So part of my success is helping them really lessen that dependence on themselves, and that is a path to their own independence or their own potentially exit. You know, that's a lot of where these companies are going.
So I feel like I help, yes, revenue, but what we're really doing is building sales teams, building go-to-market strategies that are scalable, repeatable, predictable, and that don't all depend on that owner. And so we're improving all the financials, but we're making the company more valuable, and we're hopefully even having an impact on quality of life.
AJ: Bigger, a bigger vision then, just helping them accelerate their revenue.
Andy: Yeah.
Future Plans and Retirement Perspective
AJ: Are you where you're expected to be?
Andy: It's not that I'm not a planner or anything, but I don't think I ever had an expectation. Or if I go back even ten years ago, I don't think I had this expectation. I had that taste over 20 years ago of this independent thing could be good, but at that time, it wasn't for me. Now it is.
And so I guess I had a little inkling, but I don't think I'd really ever planned out, so I can't say that this was like part of a master plan. This is just something that I don't know if I fell into or I evolved into, but I will say that I'm very happy to have gotten here.
AJ: Where do you see yourself in three to five years, yourself and your company?
Andy: Well, I think that I will be retired. Parts of the company, so I think in three to five years, I'll be retired. And I haven't actually pinned the date down on retirement, and I am by many measures, I could retire, but I like what I'm doing, and so I don't feel compelled to retire.
What I do feel compelled to do is keep... I don't have to grow the company, but I have to grow the business, if you will, and the depth of the business. So this year, I've invested a lot of my time into AI. So I'm not just doing it, I'm learning it, and I've done a couple of classes. I now can build AI tools for my clients.
So I'm doing stuff that I had no idea I would be doing, but I like doing it, and it's the kind of stuff I can see doing for a while. So on the one hand, there's retirement, and the other is just like keep growing, keep learning, and enjoy doing it on the way.
AI's Impact on Consulting and Business
AJ: I feel like AI really kind of hit critical mass in the last year or two. I mean, it's been around, and people have been saying AI's coming, and all of a sudden, it's like it's here. And you've got to jump on it, because you're going to be left behind.
Andy: Yeah, yeah, well, you're right, it has been around. I, in the 90s, I was in the software business, and I worked with a guy who, I'll never forget this, because he worked for an AI company in the early 90s.
AJ: And everybody's saying, what's AI?
Andy: Yeah, and the hardware wasn't powerful enough at the time, and all this AI technology and everything else had to develop, so it didn't really... the company didn't make it. But that's how long this concept's been around, and now it's being realized.
And it has, I think, as you said, it's hit the inflection point, and it's hit it faster than any technology that's ever been here. But that's what we've seen, right? Every new wave of technology, it hits faster and bigger than the one before it. So the last one was internet, which was huge in terms of its impact, and the AI impact is going faster and bigger.
AJ: Bigger and more pervasive.
Andy: Yeah. For much good, and some concerns out there, too, for sure.
AJ: Yeah, well, like every new technology. There were a lot of doomsayers with the internet when it first came out. And there are a lot of positives to it, but I can't imagine... I mean, when I'm traveling and don't have internet access, it's tough.
Andy: Yeah, it's true. Yeah, we're going out of the country to Guatemala next month, and my wife and I and her family have been doing this for a while, and there was no internet or any... there were no cell phones. Now, everybody in Guatemala... I don't know if it still is, but it was just a few years ago, the third poorest country in the world. But they have internet in our hotel and everything else. So you depend on it today.
Rapid-Fire Wrap-Up: Resources and Books
AJ: As we start to come to the end of the podcast, I have a couple, I call them the rapid-fire wrap-up questions.
Andy: Okay? I'll try to be rapid.
AJ: The first one is, what book, podcast, or other resource has been most valuable to you in your consulting practice?
Andy: Well, in my consulting practice, actually, I'll give you a podcast. I wish this was still around. The Marketing Book Podcast was just phenomenal. And the guy who did it, he just shut it down last year, but he would read and review marketing and sales books, so all the stuff that was kind of near and dear to my heart, and have interviews with the authors.
And so I would listen to it and always learn something, and many times said, I've got to read that book. So that podcast led to a lot of other books, and that's had a big impact, because I've been able to incorporate a lot of that into my practice.
AJ: What book has had the most impact of all of those, or others?
Andy: I'll... The Delta Model, which I'm not sure is even in print anymore, but it was written by an MIT professor, and it's a whole treatise on strategy. But it relates very much to what I do, and I learned a tremendous amount from that, and I have been able to apply that to my practice as well.
And Arnaldo Hax is the author, and his notion is the purpose of business and the purpose of strategy is to bond with customers, and everything flows out of that. And I love it. I love it.
AJ: I like the concept of bonding that goes beyond just being transactional.
Andy: Exactly.
The Most Important Advice: Qualifying Clients Properly
AJ: Another question, what is one piece of advice you wish someone had given you when you were first starting out as a self-employed consultant?
Andy: Well, I think people may have been giving me this advice, but I... you don't always hear it. I think that it really is important to qualify your clients properly, and not just in terms of whether they can do business with you, but whether you want to do business with them.
And I think we all, when we're starting out, we kind of take whatever is out there, and that's not always the best strategy. So I've been fortunate. I've had great client experiences, but I think that that doesn't mean that it was always a perfect match in terms of what I offered and what the client needed. So being selective is good for everybody.
AJ: It's important. I, when I was a consultant, I specialized in a very narrow niche of the housewares industry, and early on, somebody approached me to do a project in a different industry than I was familiar with, and I thought, you know, market research is market research. It was a failure. I mean, he was not happy, I was not happy. It was really a miserable experience, because it was outside my specialty, but I'm going to try it anyway. And I think that if we do that, we end up having a story to tell of a mistake we made when we did that.
Andy: Yeah, and that very parallel experience for me, so yes, yeah.
Connecting with Andy
AJ: And now the final question, and the most important question. How do listeners, if they want to find out more about you and your business, how do they find you?
Andy: Well, my website is apexgrowthadvisors.net. And that has all my contact info, so that's a good way to find me and start.
AJ: Okay, apexgrowthadvisors.net. And we will also put that in the show notes.
Andy: Okay, and Andy Sherman on LinkedIn, so that's another good way.
Closing
AJ: All right. Well, Andy, it has been wonderful talking to you today. Thank you for coming on the podcast.
Andy: Wow, thank you, AJ. I enjoyed it.
AJ: And for all you listeners out there, until next time, keep thriving through.