Leo Sevigny Full Interview Transcript
Building a Consulting Practice Twice: Lessons from Failure and Success
AJ: Welcome to this episode of the Thriving Through Podcast. Today, I'm delighted to have Leo Sevigny as my guest. Leo, welcome to the Thriving Through podcast.
Leo: Thank you so much, I'm glad to be here.
AJ: Leo, tell us what your path was to becoming a self-employed consultant.
Leo: Sure, so this is sort of my phase two of being a self-employed consultant. Years ago, with the very fortunate publication of a book, The Personal Vision Workbook, two colleagues and I built Evergreen3, and we functioned for about a year and a half.
I was very young, so a lot of it was the publisher said, oh, we have these great gigs, you can go speak and train and do these exciting things, so I kind of had a guided journey through it. But the problem with having a guided journey is I became very dependent upon the publisher, and when the well went dry, the well went dry. So that was experience number one, very early in my career, before I had really done any work in consulting or in the business sector.
So, fast forward almost 20 years. And I've restarted the business, and I'm doing it with such a different lens, because now, number one, I don't have someone handing me things, which I don't know if I really want anyone handing me things, because then I lose a little bit of that control. I also have so much more perspective and context for what it is I'm trying to do.
In the early days, if someone said, we want you to do this, I'd just say yes. And now, of course, with more experience and more focus, I help to create boundaries around what I do and don't do. So it's been an exciting journey, and it's been really neat to think of it as bookends, and I'm hoping, and I believe this last weekend is going to go right to the end, whatever that means, but it's been very interesting what's filled that book. The experiences, the different work styles, the different companies, so it's been pretty exciting.
The Critical Shift: From Saying Yes to Everything to Setting Boundaries
AJ: How has that... Knowing what you know from then, when you start to kind of reinvigorate Evergreen3, what did you do differently, besides a lot of it that you were doing on your own this time? What did you do differently, knowing what you knew from before?
Leo: I think in speaking to other entrepreneurs and other individuals who've started consultancies, or are trying to do fractional work, or whatever it might be, I think there's this... In their core, in their heart, in their chest, in their gut, they feel like they need to be guided, because a lot of these folks work for a big company. I worked for Accenture. I spent many, many years being on the bench and looking for gigs, and navigating that world, and having a lot of things sort of preset and pre-prescribed.
And I think if I'm understanding the question, at this point, what I'm able to do is I'm able to be much more selective and much more connected to what it is I'm doing, and I think what a lot of people feel like they're supposed to do is literally just say yes to everything. And, you know what? I do motivational speaking, but today they want me to do data analysis, so now I'm a data analyst. And I think that's a real mistake, because people are good at what they're good at, and when we start stretching beyond that point, we become less good. And that wasn't some great philosophical statement, but it's really, really true.
It's almost like trying to do two things at once. Either gets done well, you take adapting and morphing into something that someone has requested. Your performance goes down, you spend so much more energy prepping for it. And honestly, you don't get out of it for yourself what you wanted, and the client certainly doesn't either.
So that's the big difference, is shifting from, I'll do anything anyone wants me to do, to, this is what I do, and I'm really not gonna bend from that, unless I have a chance to intentionally learn in that area.
Why Consultants Stay Broad (And Why That's a Problem)
AJ: And another area that I see a lot of self-employed consultants make a mistake in is that they not only will they do anything for anyone, but they also have, it's like, I'll take any project from any client. There is no niche definition, because they think I need to stay broad because I don't want to lose monetary opportunities.
Leo: I mean, you can't blame them, right? I mean, it's a scary world, and it's a scary place to put yourself in. And a lot of people, some people have the benefit of severance, where they have a few months to be able to build something. That's super helpful, and some people, most people just don't. So, I think it puts them in a position where there's this desperation.
And having listened to a lot of your programs here, people spend hours and hours and hours on their webpage, or they spend hours and hours and hours making sure everything's just so, but they're not making any calls to clients. And it's amazing how simple it can be, but actually, it's just super hard to do that, to get past that hump of, I'm just gonna call and start talking to someone and hope that they are not going to just shut the door in my face. And they hardly ever do, that's the weird thing.
The Fear of Rejection Is Out of Proportion to Reality
AJ: Right, right. Yes, absolutely. I remember when I was first starting out as a consultant, and I would call other consultants. I mean, I was just a sponge, and I would just want to pick their brains. You know, tell me about this thing called consulting, and only one person said, why should, what's in it for me? Why should I talk to you? Out of, you know, 10, 15 people I talk to. So you're absolutely right. I mean, the fear that we're going to get rejected is way out of proportion.
Leo: it's so deep. It's so deep, and it's what we're really trained to do, if you think from the perspective of whatever psychology or what branch you tend to believe in. They all really help us to understand that, you know, especially in Western cultures, but I think it's pretty global. If you're not winning, you're losing.
So every quote-unquote unsuccessful call is a fail. I don't think so, and I think you made the point. I can, you and I had a great conversation before this, and it did lead to something wonderful, but in all reality, the conversation itself was what was the real value. You gain something, I gain something. And that's, I think, something people can think about as they have these calls. It's not just you trying to sell what you do. Just have a conversation. How's it going? What's new in your world? What kinds of stuff are you dealing with? And then make something natural come out of that. And I think that's just a really nice way to think about it.
Serving Not Selling: The Mindset Shift That Changes Everything
AJ: Yes. We're not selling, we're serving. We have to find the people that we can serve. And we're doing them a service. We're not trying to sell them something they don't need. We're not used car salesmen, even though a lot of us in our minds have that image of, I don't want to be too salesy, I don't want to be too spammy. You know, in reality, if we're talking to the right people that we can serve, and asking questions, then it is not sales.
Speaking of, oh, go ahead.
Leo: I was gonna say, when I complete a call with a potential client, with a colleague, someone I haven't talked to for a very long time, when I hang up, I try to ask myself, what did they get out of this? But then I also ask myself, what did I get out of that conversation? If we are able to turn that lens back onto ourselves and recognize what we gained by talking to a client who we're hoping to get something out of, it changes your whole mindset, because now I'm realizing, wow, I learned 3 things I didn't even know, just in talking to that person.
And the best part about that is, the fact that you're listening in that way, chances are you're responding to them in that way, and they can feel that you're really interested in the conversation, instead of, oh, I think you're talking to me, but I'm really just thinking about how to pitch this. It's a whole different way of thinking, and it's very successful because they can sense that difference in listening level.
Battling Imposter Syndrome While Building a Practice
AJ: Very true. I'm gonna switch a little bit. Tell us a story or two about the biggest challenges you've faced this time around in relaunching your business. What have you faced, and how have you overcome those obstacles or challenges?
Leo: I think like a lot of people, although I'll really focus on myself, because this isn't about a lot of people, I still have that creature sitting on my shoulder telling me that I'm not good enough. The voice in the head, the devil on the shoulder, whatever you want to call it, inferiority complex, imposter syndrome.
I'm guessing that to the end of my days, I'll always have that a little bit, and I think that's a power. I think that's a superpower, because it keeps me sharp. But I definitely felt, even at this point, that I really found myself, at the end of the day, questioning: Am I, should I really be doing this? Should I just go find a job like I just had? It's so much easier to have work come at me. It's so much easier not to have to do the sales. It's so much easier not to have to do my own IT. That alone is mind-boggling, but we won't get into that.
AJ: That's a whole other conversation.
Leo: Not to mention HR and taxes and all that fun stuff, but I think it's that inferiority complex, whatever it is, you know what it is, I'm having a hard time saying it, is alive and well. And I sometimes spend a lot of time brooding about that. So that's a lot of lost time, so that's the first thing.
I think the second thing is it's really challenging with the infinite possibility of clients that exist. So, some people think, I don't even know who to start talking to for clients. My problem is the opposite, in that every person I meet, I just want to have that discussion about how this could potentially be beneficial for both of us. And that's maybe the founder's mindframe, or whatever it might be, but every single person I meet, every single contact that's possible is a possible gig.
And that's hard, because they're not all fitting, and they don't align to what I can do, and I have to keep pacing myself to remember, just talk about the Red Sox. You don't have to talk about your business right now, or talk about the weather, or talk about your chickens. But don't always have to put in that direction, because it's not always going to be a business outcome. I know that sounds contradictory, a lot of people say you should always focus on your business, but I think sometimes you need to let yourself go, and just have some human conversation.
Using Your Website to Clarify Your Message
AJ: I like that. So, another similar question, coming out a different way. What's been your biggest learning since you began your consulting business?
Leo: I'm gonna break one of your big rules, because I've seen this on many of your podcasts. And that is, I actually find fiddling around with my website to be kind of zen for me. And it's not because I'm worried that it doesn't look good enough, it's because every time I refine it, I feel like I'm learning my own message better. So I use it almost as a tool where I'm rethinking, rethinking, recalibrating, and it becomes this sort of amazing centerpiece where I can look at and say, now I actually understand what I do, and it helps me to create that message even better, so I wouldn't encourage anyone to worry about pixels or whitespace too much, but I do think, and it doesn't have to be a website, it might be a document, how are you able to go back and reinforce what you do to yourself?
Because I honestly think that most people, when they listen to us, they believe us. I think the real issue is we don't believe ourselves. So we say something, and you can see it on someone's face when someone says something to you, and they're questioning in their head whether they should have said that, and it kills the rapport, it kills the impact. So by having that confidence and that belief and those words coming naturally, it makes it so much easier to have those conversations. It makes things so much more genuine. I don't have to think about it all the time, because I've already been doing it on a daily basis. So, it's a bit of a twist on don't spend too much time doing that stuff, because I think I've turned it into part of what I need to do to be successful.
AJ: I like that. I mean, I teach, I train my clients. I have them do a very extensive, I call it the input requirements worksheet, because if we use AI as a copywriting tool, we have AI, we use AI prompts, but what it really is, is to gel our thinking about who we serve, the problem we solve, the desired outcomes our clients want, the benefits of working with us, our offer, all of that stuff. So you're doing that in the process of having, and you end up having a sort of a deliverable at the same time by working on your website.
So, you know, the challenge, I don't know if you have perfectionist tendencies, but the reason I often preach, don't worry about your website, worry about your LinkedIn profile, but not your website, is so many people get caught up in the trap of trying to get it perfect rather than getting 80%, putting a pin in it, and getting it out there so you can get feedback from the real world.
Perfection Versus Quality: What Clients Really Want
Leo: Yeah. Nothing's perfect. And nothing we'll ever do for a client is absolutely perfect. And even more importantly, most of our clients don't really want us to be perfect. They want us to be engaging. They want us to ask good questions. They want us to show that we're listening. If people wanted perfection, and I guess that happens a lot, right? People go to the big consultancies because they want a pre-baked, we're just going to plug this thing in, and you're not going to have to worry about it anymore.
But that's part of the reason why I could no longer be in that world, is I don't think that's how good consulting happens. Good consulting happens when we're not worried about perfection, but we're worried about quality. We're not worried about extreme confidence, we're worried about true engagement. I think those are just very different ways of being.
And one of my biggest frustrations, and I had great experiences, but there's a little bit of arrogance, and we all have to have a little bit of arrogance in any of this kind of work, but that level of arrogance of, oh, I know what you need, let me just tell you what we're going to do, this is gonna be easy. No, it's not easy. No, you're not going to tell me what to do. We need to co-create this thing. You're fired, whatever. Just saying.
The Opportunity for Boutique Consultants
AJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard that a number of times from consultants who've come out of the big consulting firms, and how the, sort of the, luckily, there's this immense role for self-employed consultants and boutique consulting companies because of the way the big firms do business. I mean, I...
Leo: I think someone could create an amazing business by just being a consultant company whisperer. And it would cost more money, but I think there should be people out there that literally help businesses work with consultancies, because it's a different creature. They don't behave, because I worked within the corporate environment, then I went to consulting, so it was always a weird experience to be hiring a consultant and have them show up, and having to reorient them to everything. And as a consultant, it was always weird to go to a business where it felt like, why do they need to know all this information about us? It was just a fascinating, and that struggle is real. And, maybe that's a whole different business area. I'm sure someone does that, and I'm sure someone does that very successfully.
AJ: It's interesting that you say that, because the idea for my consultancy came out of my experiences with consulting companies. When I worked at Norelco in the housewares industry, I worked with marketing consultants who did mostly work with food and beverage and consumer packaged goods companies, in other words, consumables. Well, housewares is durable, and at that time, there was very little data. So we didn't have market data, we didn't know market sizes, it just wasn't available. And I felt like I spent so much of the time in the early engagement educating them on the housewares industry so that they could do the job that I'd hired them to do. And that's where I said, I wonder if there might be an opportunity for a consultant who already understands that industry really, really well and that's what I hung my hat on, was being able to specialize so that I wasn't having to, you know, I still had to learn the company, certainly, but not the industry.
The Power of Asking the Right Questions
Leo: Yeah, and I think that's where coaching sort of morphs into consulting. If you walk through the door and you have the 5 things you want to tell the client you're going to do, that's one thing, and I don't think that usually yields great results. But the coaching part of me would say, what are the 5 questions I need to ask to really understand what they need so I can apply what I know to something that aligns to their thinking?
And that just, I did a local bank, I went in and I met with a client yesterday. I thought it was just gonna be one of those, let's see what we might be able to do together, and they had a very specific thing they had in mind for me to help them with. I just asked that question: Is there one thing that you wish that I could fix for you in the next year? Oh my god, I'm so glad you asked that. Here it is. And I know that built instant rapport, and that's a great thing.
AJ: That's a great question. Say that question again, I love that.
Leo: Let's see if I can know it. What's the one thing that I, is there one thing that you would like completed in the next year, or is there one thing I could do for you in the next year? That kind of a thing.
AJ: Yeah, open the floodgates.
Leo: Yeah, it does. Yeah, and that's, it's all about inquiry, and it's all about proving to them that you're really there to hear where their brain is, and what they need.
Building Your Pipeline Beyond Existing Relationships
AJ: So, I have a question. When we talked earlier, you said that a lot of your traction right now is coming from people who already know you.
Leo: Oh, that's true, yeah.
AJ: Which is very normal for new consultants. So you're getting your former Accenture colleagues at Apple, GE, GM. So, how are you thinking about building your pipeline beyond these existing relationships?
Leo: It's a great question. So the first thing I've done, which has kept me very grounded. I live in a pretty rural area, but I've decided I'm going to spend some time and energy building a client base at home. And when I say rural, I mean rural. And, you know, when we think about the kinds of rates that I might be able to charge Exxon or Apple or Microsoft, my initial thought was, I'm gonna have to cut that by a third to do work here. That has not been true at all. So, what I've actually found, and a lot of times it's hospitals, banks, big local colleges that have some budget.
And being able to be very consistent with pricing structure, and also, opening up a lot of opportunity. And here's the thing, if I can book a great opportunity next Thursday, and I only have to drive 5 miles, and I don't have to get on an airplane, and it's not virtual, it's actually in front of people? That's the dream, right? So even if I did have to charge a little less, it would be worth it to me, because of the learning that it would bring me, but I'm not finding that's the case at all, which is wonderful. And that's at, like, the $200, $250 an hour range, the packaging and everything that shifts. I'd like to think at some point that can grow, but right now, that feels comfortable, pays the bills, pays the insurance, lowered the insurance, but anyway, and all those things kind of work out well. So for me, it's been going local.
And then the other thing is, I have not just been reaching out to people that I know who have managed me, or I've managed, or have positions now that I can leverage, those are all good things, but having been a recruiter at one point, my connections are, like, 4,000 deep. So what I've done is I, you can actually go to LinkedIn, I think most people know that you can download the whole list, you can see where they all work currently, and I've just started picking people that I kind of know, but I don't really know, and sending messaging, and hey, let's meet up, and we used to work together here, and that's been an amazing opportunity. Not work booked yet, but I feel that it's gonna turn into stuff when someone says to themselves, I need this. Oh, I've been talking to Leo, let me call him.
So I think there's a lot of opportunity there. So don't just focus on your top 20, because then what I think what we tend to do is we only talk to those 20. Go to 200, go to 2,000, and think about a way to scale it. So that's where GPTs are helpful. You can create a lot of that stuff in an automated way, you can hire firms to do that, but I think that's really critical.
AJ: Yeah, that makes sense. So you're plumbing, you're leveraging all of those connections, rather than going out, reaching out to cold outreach on LinkedIn.
Leo: Yeah, I haven't done a single cold. The only cold I've done is local. Because I think that's a different quality and a different kind of connection. The other benefit I do have is I grew up here. I left, and I came back, so there's a little of this weird mystique that can happen. So if anyone's listening, and they move to an area, and they move back where they went to high school, and they start to connect with people they used to know, there's something powerful about that connection of, I kind of get what it means to be here, but I also bring new stuff, and that's really powerful.
AJ: Yeah. You went away and came back with good stuff.
Leo: Yeah, exactly.
Preventing the Well from Running Dry Again
AJ: So, the first time you were consulting, you said the well ran dry. What are you doing differently this time to make sure that doesn't happen again?
Leo: Well, I think there's a lot more opportunity and resource out there to do little side hustles that can make a little bit of money while you're preparing for the other stuff, so GLG, Insights, there's a couple of these companies where you can be paid for an hour of consulting. It's usually on the other side of the planet. You make $200, $300 an hour. It's a great opportunity. It's not gonna sustain the business, but it sure is nice to have a little extra money for groceries this week. Not that anything's quite that desperate, but that really helps. Upwork is definitely, those kinds of services are great. There's a lot of good fractional resources out there where you can sign up and share your profile, and opportunities can happen, they're sporadic, but they can happen.
I do think that having that 20-plus years of experience helps with that sort of thing, because it's not like it's easy out there.
AJ: Right. Even getting on Upwork and filling out your profile, portfolio and all of that.
Leo: Yeah.
Balancing Short-Term Cash with Long-Term Business Building
AJ: So I'm curious, because, I mean, those are opportunities to bring cash in. But they also are time takers when you could be spending that time focusing on marketing and sales to your ideal client for big projects. How do you kind of manage that, how much time you spend on short-term, I mean, they're strictly short-term tactics to bring some money in, versus stuff that's going to build your business long-term.
Leo: Yeah, so what I try to do, I have in-house my wife, Heather, who's just amazing, is my best critic and my best supporter at the same time. And I've never been the most organized person on the planet, and she's hyper-organized. So what we've done is I've built up this plan where each day I'm able to say, here's the 7 things I'm going to do today, and usually, that gets picked apart a little bit, because am I really focusing the way I should? So, I'm doing it for myself, but I also have a trusted person that really knows me that can help pick that apart.
And I think about, is what I have planned for the day going to make money? Is it going to create a new connection? Is it going to build something that I don't currently have? And I need to make sure I'm not spinning my wheels and repeating stuff. And then at the end of the day, what I do is I look at what I did, and I decide whether or not I succeeded in what I had said I'd set out to do. That little exercise for me has really forced me to be more mentally organized.
Now I do that scheduled for about 6 or 7 hours a day. And then stuff like Upwork, or GLG, or those other things usually happen after everyone goes to bed at night. And that's when I typically work on the website, or tinker over there. So I use a core amount of time per day, really focused on the business. And then the other stuff is stuff that I think that could turn into the business development work, I might listen to a podcast or two, those kinds of things. Because that helps keep my brain fertile, and I do have a weird siesta syndrome, where I like to work early, I like to have afternoons off, and then I like to work at night.
So that just happens to work for me. So I kind of split it in that way, and that's been really, really helpful, because I've forced myself to make sure that the 6 or 7 hours in the core of the day, the morning and through the early afternoon, are hyper-focused on the business, knowing full well that some of the stuff I've told myself is more fun, I can do later on. So it's all a game in my brain. I'm just making myself think that this is all good, because I leave myself that space later on.
The Danger of Procrasti-Working
AJ: I like that. Because, you know, there is a risk that our little crazy minds, well, there's a term that I absolutely love that I see a lot of people doing. It's called procrasti-working. It's when you're working on something that feels like it's productive, feels like work. You can kind of pat yourself on the back and say, oh, I'm busy, I'm working, but in reality, it's not a revenue-generating activity, or one that could turn into a revenue-generating activity, but it sounds like you've got the discipline not to go down that rabbit hole.
Leo: No, but yes, I mean, I tell myself I do, and I delude myself. We all delude ourselves, because, and what you said is super important. Because you can tell yourself that you've been working. But you let yourself sidetrack into reading a bunch of Reddit streams about consulting. Is that helpful? Maybe. But is it really? Probably not. And it can be as bad as, oh, there's a new song by so-and-so, I'm gonna go listen to that. So, it can be really extreme. It can be stuff that really does feel like work, and stuff that doesn't at all, and I actually think when we're in the hum of things, we don't always know the difference.
It takes so much discipline to understand and to track yourself in that way, and I'm not gonna say I've got that perfected at all, at all, but I do try to be real with myself, and having that thought partner at home that can say, yeah, that's nonsense. You know what I mean? Like, if I say I did something, it's like, okay, you're right, I didn't. Or, you know, I look at the spreadsheet of future contacts. Oh, I'm going to adjust this column, and it takes me 20 minutes to get the... so that's kind of like your website example. I just spent 20 minutes on the spreadsheet, so obviously that was really important. But what I should have done is made the 45 calls.
AJ: Yeah, yeah. In reality, what your mind said is, I don't want to make those phone calls, and this isn't the way I want it to be, and it, you know, I need to go down that rabbit hole. Our mind is crazy.
Leo: The phone call is more scary. But it's always so much more satisfying. And even, I think, people who are very established, very confident, and very successful, whatever we would want to use, maybe they still struggle getting over that hump of actually just dialing the numbers on the phone. I don't know. I need to talk to folks who've been doing this for 20 years.
AJ: Yeah. Well, I can attest to, you know, a focus group of one. I ran my consulting business for 35 years, and to the end, I didn't want to make those phone calls. And I still don't want to, I mean, I don't make phone calls now, because phone calls are not part of my cold outreach, or even warm outreach. But I could and should be using the phone as a tool more often than I do, because I just, you know, I have phone phobia, I guess it is.
Confidence in Building a Sustainable Practice
AJ: So, I have another question. So, you've got severance, which gives you the runway. When that cushion is gone, how confident are you that what you're building will fully sustain the business on its own?
Leo: So, I've done, I built 3 phases in my mind. The first phase was knowing I had the severance, bills are paid, the family's secure. I then, in talking to that great partner in the house that I have, we decided that it might take 6 more months to get to an equal income kind of situation. I don't think it's going to take that long, but what we've done is we've decided, how are we going to trim the budget, how are we going to pull some money from other resources to make that sustainable, and not to create that weird finish line, where if you don't have X by the finish line after 4 months, you need to stop all that stuff and throw it away and go find a regular job, or whatever that means.
So I think phase one is that intensity around building the offerings, building the website, doing all the core stuff that you have to do, and really engaging in those calls early on, but recognizing that, okay, well, if you're at a third or half of what you were making before, that's okay, let's keep on working forward, because I do find that the engine sustains itself. Once those pistons start firing. I'll give you a great example with the bank I met, just because it's very recent. I met with the bank yesterday. I know that once they book me to help them with their compliance training, I'm gonna go to the two other banks in town, and now I can say, I'm working with so-and-so bank, I'd love to do the same with you. The credibility that that brings is huge. So, if I have the one, and that's a success, and I have 2 more that I can go out, even if only 50% of those two work out.
And this is weird consulting math, but I don't know, I just believe it's gonna work out. And that's part of it, too, I think, is just believing it's gonna work out. Being fortunate enough to have the money in the bank to do it.
AJ: You've got some great things. You've got the money in the bank to do it initially. You've got that supportive spouse. But your mindset is an incredible tool, resource for you, because you believe it's gonna work out, and you're not afraid to pick up the phone, and build on the successes. So I can tell, just from what you're saying, that you're starting to build that momentum. You know, and once we, it's that flywheel, it's developing that marketing flywheel, that the flywheel is really hard to get going initially, but once it starts spinning, it keeps going.
Leo: Yeah, it does, it churns itself.
AJ: Yeah, so you're still having to put in the effort to get that wheel going, but it's coming.
Leo: It's coming.
Progress and Future Vision
AJ: So, I want to ask you a couple future-focused questions. Are you ahead or behind of where you wanted to be by now?
Leo: Ahead. Just because the momentum is there. And when I do allow myself to just have the conversations, it usually turns into something. What I may need to get a little bit better with in the future is really deeply understanding whether the something that I'm feeling is something really worth pursuing, or whether it's just coffee.
And that's one of the hard things, because there is that temptation, as I said before, to make every conversation about the business, but that's not always beneficial. Someone much more deep in sales success than I'll ever be, said something like, you need to have an engagement 4-6 times before someone will actually turn that around into something profitable. It makes sense to me, because we have to be very, very good at just having the conversation and letting them make the decision that they want you.
Sometimes that works really, really well, and you have to have patience for that, and you have to have confidence. It's like blood in the water. If someone sniffs out that you're really nervous in the conversation, they're just gonna go find somebody else. Yeah. It's that easy. They haven't spent any money yet.
AJ: Yeah, exactly. Where do you see your practice in 3-5 years?
Leo: In 3 to 5 years, totally sustainable.
AJ: What does totally sustainable mean?
Leo: What it means is the money my family and I need to be happy and successful and go on far too many vacations is there. We love to travel. I want, I also consider success to be a piece of flexibility. I don't want, I do not desire to have the 8 to 7:30 grind. I'd much rather be able to work a bit more on my schedule, so if I feel like I can do 3 or 4 hours in the morning, 4 or 5 hours at night, and that's working, that'll feel very sustainable to me.
I also think that I'm working on some additional writing, hoping to publish, and I'm hoping that will turn into more of the core of the business that I do so that I have the connection of some IP with what I do. And it's all connected. So I think that cohesiveness is going to be critical.
And then I think another issue of sustainability will be, I'm probably calling 40% of the time, but I'm being called 60% of the time. I think there has to be a point to call it a success where the service I can provide is desirable enough for me not to always have to sell it. And that's a pretty dreamy state, right? That's a big deal. And if that happens, then, and I don't see this as the key thing to sustainable success, but you know, I'm probably gonna need some people who I can bring in to do some of the work that I'm finding. I can't always do it all. There's gonna be some way of having to split that off. Analysts, consultants, people that can do some of that work, and then I can leverage more engagements.
AJ: Right, so your vision is boutique consulting firm, so that you can take on more projects.
Leo: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's very fair.
Navigating Uncertainty and Economic Challenges
AJ: What do you think the biggest challenges you're going to face are in achieving that vision, that 3-5 year vision?
Leo: Well, I think, I don't want to get too meta on you, but I think, our current, in the United States, our current culture, in the way the world views us, in the way we view the world, I think makes it very challenging to know what's going to happen at any point. I don't have a good feel for what's gonna happen in 6 months. I don't have a good feel for what's gonna happen next week. I live on the Canadian border, went to Montreal this past weekend. Going through the border when I grew up was just something we did. Now it feels formalized, and it feels a little icky and weird, just because the world has shifted, and I think a lot of businesses are dealing with this. We don't know what's going to happen in the next 10, 12, 15, 30 weeks.
And I also don't know that, so that weighs on my mind. It's probably something I need to let go more, because we're not going to control it. But to be honest, that's the thing that, it's really hard to predict. You know, are the markets gonna crash? Are corporations gonna tighten their belts even more? I do think in the small footprint consultancies, there's a lot of opportunity, because we can charge a little bit less, provide a lot more value, and we don't have the overhead. So I do think many companies are going to figure it out, especially in a tighter environment. That, well, I can hire XYZ consultancy and pay $500 an hour for a person, or I can hire someone who's boutique, who has all the experience I need, for $250 or $300. It's a huge difference.
I didn't answer your question well. I think the main thing is I'm seeing a lot of meta themes that are making it very hard to predict what's gonna happen, and how that's gonna impact success.
AJ: Makes sense. It's a very, there's a whole lot of uncertainty. It is a very uncertain time, very disconcerting time, because it is difficult to plan.
Leo: And it's that, and then you could even look at something like AI and GPT as another whole disruptor. Probably the biggest disruptor in my lifetime, in just the last 18 months or so.
AJ: Absolutely. Is it fun to be pioneering? I mean.
Leo: It's great fun.
AJ: Yeah, and it's probably not the second, it's the second disruptor, because the internet.
Leo: Yes.
AJ: Big disruptor in our lifetimes.
Leo: That's very, very true.
AJ: You're younger than I am, but we both, you know, we're both going through great times.
AI as a Creative Partner
Leo: It is great, as long as we could, I mean, if we could get people to understand how to really use the tools. And I know you've done a lot of conversations about this, but the misunderstanding about what AI can bring and in particular, GPTs, which are a tool that everyone should be using every single day. But people fear it, people worry about it, and people get into the trap of, you know, perfecting their prompts. Not what you want to be doing.
AJ: Right.
Leo: It's all the same, yeah.
AJ: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I use Claude, not ChatGPT, but Claude is my copywriter. Claude is also my, he's my co-creator. I mean, yesterday I spent a lot of time optimizing my profile, my About section again, and I did it with Claude back and forth.
Leo: But the difference, here's my snippet, make it better. You engaged Claude. You asked questions. You asked it to analyze certain aspects. You asked it to take on a different voice. You wanted to make it more human, or you wanted to make it more formal. You interacted with these creatures in a way that's a lot like how we interact with other humans, as long as we're doing it well. That's the magic in Claude or Perplexity or ChatGPT, is that it's a creative partner.
AJ: Yes.
Leo: Such a different way than what most people think about it as.
AJ: You nailed it. It's a creative partner. I mean, I have a creative partner that I pay $20 a month. I mean, come on! Even going to, you know, the Philippines, I wouldn't get that kind of value in a creative partner for $20 a month.
Leo: Exactly.
Resources and Closing
AJ: Well, we're coming to the end of the podcast, so I have a couple final questions that I always like to ask. What is one book, podcast, or resource that's been invaluable to your consulting practice?
Leo: The one book I always mention when I'm asked a question like this, is the Dao De Ching by Lao Tzu. So, basically, it's a Far East, it's a Chinese book of philosophy written many, many, many years ago that I always go back to as my source of inspiration and my source to help make the kinds of decisions that are in tune with who I really am.
Beyond that, many, many books that I read through the years, but I actually find that a lot of them just repeat the same messages over and over again, and I find all those messages in that book. So that's why I always go back to it, yeah.
AJ: Okay, good, I'll have to look it up. And the final and single most important question that I can ask you is, how can listeners connect with you if they want to learn more about you and your work?
Leo: I would say the best thing to do is to go to my website. Actually, the best thing to do is just call me. 702-204-2204. Beyond that, www.evergreen3, with a 3, not spelled out 3 dot com, talks about what I do, but I'm never one to shy away from getting on the phone or whatever it takes. So, those are the best ways.
AJ: Wonderful, and I will put those in the show notes for those of you listening, if you didn't have a pencil handy. And Leo, thank you so much. This has been a really wonderful conversation with you today.
Leo: Likewise.
AJ: And for those of you listening or watching, until next time, keep thriving through.