Last Updated on October 30, 2024 by Owen McGab Enaohwo
Being a CEO is rightfully tough. The responsibilities and struggles that come with trying to run and scale a business can be time-consuming.
That’s why on today’s episode of the Process Breakdown Podcast with John Corcoran, he features Mandi Ellefson. She is the founder of Hands-Off CEO, a company that helps CEOs double their revenue while freeing their time and reducing the load on their plates.
Mandi Ellefson speaks on how companies are stunting their growth and profits during a pandemic, plus how to solve it. She also discusses how she helped a company double their profits in three months, and how COVID has affected CEOs and the profits of their companies.
She also speaks on how you can gain more sales in a pandemic, and how to do so while freeing up time.
Listen to the audio:
Listen to more success stories:
Key Resource List
Show Notes
0:06 – Introduction
0:50 – Mr. Corcoran shares the best solution for documenting standard operating procedures, SweetProcess, highlighting a 14-day free trial.
1:31 – The guest speaker, Mandi Ellefson, is introduced.
2:40 – Ms. Ellefson shares what her company, Hands-Off CEO, does and how they help consulting, marketing, and sales companies.
4:15 – The guest speaks on how COVID has affected CEOs and their time, and also how it has affected consulting companies’ profits, and how to solve the issue.
7:20 – The guest shares how she helps CEOs and companies figure out the big pieces of value they offer to their clients.
10:32 – The guest answers this question: “What do you do when you have completely rendered all the service you can to a client?”
12:19 – Ms. Ellefson shares how she gains more buyers for the companies that hire her services—especially in a pandemic.
15:02 – Ms. Ellefson shares the problems most consulting agencies are doing, and a solution that helped her client double their profits in three months.
16:42 – The guest speaker talks about how to fire clients, especially in a global pandemic.
18:18 – Outro
Guest Profile
Mandi Ellefson is the founder of Hands-Off CEO and host of Hands-Off CEO Podcast. She and her team have helped consulting agencies scale to million-dollar companies while the CEO works less.
She has worked for more than seven years as a marketing manager/strategist.
She has also helped companies go from, for example, $600,000 in revenue to $2.1 million in a space of one year. She’s a queen at increasing the profit of consulting companies and reducing the stress of CEOs.
Transcript of the interview
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Process Breakdown Podcast, where we talk about streamlining and scaling operations of your company, getting rid of bottlenecks, and giving your employees all the information they need to be successful at their jobs. Now let’s get started with the show.
John Corcoran: John Corcoran here, host of the Process Breakdown Podcast, where we talk about streamlining and scaling operations of your company, getting rid of bottlenecks, and giving your staff everything they need to be successful at their job. Check out some of our past episodes where we featured David Allen of Getting Things Done and Michael Gerber of E Myth and many more.
John Corcoran: And this episode, of course, is brought to you by SweetProcess. Have you ever had a team member ask you the same question over and over again as the 10th time you spent explaining it? Well, there’s a better way and a better solution. Suite process is a software that makes it drop dead easy to train and onboard new staff and save time with existing staff. Not only do universities, banks, hospitals, and software companies use them, but first responder government agencies use them in life or death situations to run their operations. You can use SweetProcess to document all the repetitive tasks that eat up your precious time so you can focus on growing your team and empowering them to do their best work. Sign up for a free 14 day trial, no credit card required. Go to sweetprocess.com. Sweet like candy S-W-E-E-T process.com.
John Corcoran: And our guests on this episode is Mandi Ellefson. She is the founder of Hands-Off CEO. She and her team scale million dollar consulting agencies with less reliance on the CEO. She helps them first generate more cash to scale with an irresistible offer that’s easier to sell and attracts clients that pay 50% to 200% higher fees in 90 days or less. Then she helps to the CEO free up time to focus on half of their work week on accelerating profits. Her clients have added five figures of net profit every month, added millions of dollars in sales, and some have exited the day to day so they can scale growth or even sell the business. Mandi is also a published author and the host of the Hands-Off CEO podcast, which I’ve listened to many times before. Definitely go check it out. And in her free time, she loves to travel, mountain bike, and go on outdoor adventures with her husband and her two sweet girls.
John Corcoran: And what we’re going to be talking about in this episode is what’s working right now to scale consulting services in this market without working more or hiring a massive team. And of course, we’re recording this in November of 2020, about seven months into the global pandemic, just to give you a touch point of what’s going on in the world. So Mandi, honored to have you. Let’s start with tell us a little bit more about what your company does and how you help companies.
Mandi Ellefson: Great. Thanks for having me, John, it’s such a pleasure. And what Hands-Off CEO does is what the title sounds like, right? Well we help CEOs be more hands off in their business so that they can scale and make more money working less. That’s in a nutshell. And the market that we primarily focus on are marketing and sales consulting agencies, companies where you have a direct ROI, or you can prove a direct ROI.
Mandi Ellefson: And those type of companies, it’s really easy for the CEO to get very stuck in the day to day because they grew the company from place of expertise. So when you have a consulting company, you start out yourself and then you add some people. And then before you know it, you have this business that is bustling busy, but you’re still really stuck in a lot of the pieces of the business because you’re the one who knows the most out of it. So what we do is we help the CEO remove themselves from the day-to-day pieces of the business, and really be able to scale a true consulting business that they can continue to grow with less and less of the owner’s time and be more profitable, too.
John Corcoran: Yeah. So for companies or CEOs of those types of companies where, as you said, they’re stuck in the day-to-day, they’re too busy, they know it all. What are some things that are working well now in this context of this global pandemic to help them to scale their services?
Mandi Ellefson: Great question, John. And here’s the thing is, is that since the pandemic we’ve seen buying patterns change. And this is nothing new. Buying patterns always change, but there are specific events that will happen, recessions can do this too, but that can change the way that our prospects buy and what they value. So really this is an opportunity for companies to really find the bigger pieces of value and be able to make it just a no-brainer for their clients to say yes. And not just say yes for like these tiny little short-term projects where they’re just testing you out and you really don’t have the budgets to be able to do your very best work, but really nice sized consulting retainers over a 12 month period of time so that you can really do your very best kind of work. So we do that in a way that allows them to at least double their retainers, the work of the clients that we work with who are able to double their average retainers.
Mandi Ellefson: And then building these long-term relationships with their clients so that they can really do their best work, and then eliminate all of the other clients that they’ve been working with that are kind of a pain in the butt and they’re not very profitable, but you have to keep them on just to keep the doors open. And that’s really the pathway to scale.
Mandi Ellefson: And one of the things that we look at is that we first focusing on that getting to $100,000 per month, right? That’s the first real phase, and then getting to a $100,000 a month in profit. But that first phase is all about getting the right offer. And back to your question for how are things changing right now, how are they different? What is different is, is that buyers are no longer willing to invest in a hope and a prayer type of type of services where they’re like, "Oh, well hopefully it works out for us," And that’s what a lot of consulting companies will sell. They’re selling their time, they’re selling their process. But if you don’t know if the process is right for your company, then if you do invest in it, it’s going to be a whole lot less than if they have that level of certainty that this is exactly going, almost to a point of them having that guarantee that it’s going to work for them and then it’s going to give them the level of growth that they’re looking for.
John Corcoran: All right. So you mentioned a couple of pieces there. You said helping the clients to find the bigger pieces of value, helping them figure out what the right offer is. So if I’m devil’s advocate here and you’re working with clients who maybe they’ve struggled for years to figure that out, to figure out what the bigger pieces of value are that they offer their clients and they haven’t quite cracked that nut, how do you help them to figure that out and in a relatively reasonable period of time?
Mandi Ellefson: Right. Well, it comes right down to the actual value, the actual outcome, the actual outcome that they can deliver. So we’re looking at when a prospect asks you the question, "What can we expect to see in our business in 12 months?" The answer that most consulting agencies will give is, "It depends." And really what they’re saying is that we’re not really going to be on the hook for anything here. And the thing is, is that if you are really clear on three different things, the power of ones, and I’ll share that in a moment, if you’re really clear on what those three things are, you should be able to, to answer with a very specific outcome and that you should be able to understand what… They should be able to expect when they’re working with you for 12 months.
Mandi Ellefson: So what those through those three power of ones are, is one specific client type, one specific painful problem, or painful problem… The painful problem is one of the things that is going to be changing the buying patterns right now, actually. And then the third one is the outcome. So here’s the thing is, is like in this market right now, the outcome of what you can deliver for your clients might not change much, but the client type might.
Mandi Ellefson: So for example, one of our clients, he’s serving a niche, him and his business are serving a niche that now all of a sudden this niche, they’re just overwhelmed with new business. So now they no longer need marketing services. So to be relevant, he has a few options there. They could change the client type and keep the problem and the outcome, or they could keep the client type and change the problem they’re solving and the outcome, but that’s changing too many pieces. So really the best thing to do is to look at, what is this client type? What is an aligned, a client type that’s going to be in this in a little bit different industry that it’s going to have a similar problem that our whole business is designed to solve?
Mandi Ellefson: So kind of like an algebra problem when you’re where you’re solving for X. And I wish I could tell you is it was easy. It’s not easy. That’s why most companies don’t do this work. But when you get these three aligned, that’s when you are able to easily double your fees. And the more specific the outcome, and the more painful the problem and really the bigger outcome that they can expect to work with you over the course of 12 months, 18 months, whatever period of time you’re choosing to work with them, the more that they are willing to pay. And the easier it’s going to be to actually make that sale.
John Corcoran: What about clients that you work with, that the outcomes that they provide means that they’re done working with that person?
Mandi Ellefson: Well, you know what, actually, that that can be great. And one of the things that we do is we put together this, what we call a client success map, and it’s this visual sales tool that our clients will use to be able to help them go from sometimes selling like $15,000 $20,000, like their average client value, up to selling like a $100,000 package. So when you’re making that big of a jump, you need a little bit of a crutch to help you be able to make those sales.
Mandi Ellefson: So that’s where we came up with this visual client success map. I used to be a designer. This is where it came from, actually. It was my own crutch. Having a visual tool for me has been that crutch earlier on in my career when I was learning how to sell. And I wasn’t so good at it. So that’s what we use for our clients. And what we find is is that the offer itself, that client success map, it really sells the service. And we’ve seen people even with not very good sales skills go and make like a $120,000 sale because the offer was just so hot.
John Corcoran: And because they can, they map out…. And they map it out.
Mandi Ellefson: Map it out.
John Corcoran: It kind of shows clarity and understanding of what they’re delivering.
Mandi Ellefson: Right, and that’s really at the core of what good solid sales skills are. And then you don’t have to have any of that nasty, slimy stuff that that your traditional trained salespeople will use because they lack that strong offer.
John Corcoran: I want to ask you about… You mentioned that helping to convince clients to take on larger projects. So it kind of, at the core of what you’re talking about here, is increasing the value of the projects that people sell to people. But as we record this, we’re in the midst of a global pandemic. So the obvious question is, how is that possible in the midst of a global pandemic where there’s a higher unemployment rate, there’s a lot of companies that are going out of business. I’m sure you have your clients who say, "How can I possibly do that in this economy?"
Mandi Ellefson: Right. Well, your client’s selection is really important, and this is why it’s really critical to understand where buying patterns are changing. And this is one of the things that we do when we look and we walk our clients through, is really understanding what that power of ones is for their business. And understanding for their specific service that they provide, who is the client type that has money right now that, or they could get access to money? Who has a painful enough problem that they’re willing to part with cash and align with your process and your systems? Who could you get an outcome for that all three of these things are aligned?
Mandi Ellefson: Now it’s a really good point that you make about that people are just not willing to pay more right now. That’s just not true. What they’re not willing to do is they’re not willing to gamble. So if they see if they see a, and this is something that we’ve seen that has just blown us away too in our own market, too. Because we used to focus more on businesses in the seven figure range. And we still do. And we have a number of our clients who are at seven figures, and some of them we’ve grown to that level. But what we have found is the buying patterns within our market has changed such that the company’s in the six figure range for the marketing and sales consulting agencies, they’re at a point where they’re much more willing to part with cash, get funding, get SBA loans, whatever they have to do in order to scale up their companies. And it’s a very different perspective because in the past, they just were not in that same frame of mind.
Mandi Ellefson: So that’s one of the things that we’ve shifted in our own marketing. And we have seen that some of our prospects that actually have more cash, they have the money sitting right there, they are less willing to part with it because they’re scared. And so you have to really watch in your market for those buying trends and also even understand, is it even the right market? Most of the consulting agencies that I talk with, most of them are targeting the wrong buyer, the wrong niche. And even if they have the right niche. For example, one of our clients, they were going after SaaS businesses. That’s not a bad niche, but they weren’t focusing within that niche. So what was going on is they’d have 20 calls with prospects and only one of them would close. Once we help them fine tune which part of the SaaS world that they were uniquely positioned to solve a really painful problem for, they were able to put together an offer that was just so killer. And I wish I could share it, but I’m going to respect their own IP on this.
Mandi Ellefson: But what has happened is that their sales conversions has gone up over 20%. And they went from their average client being about 15,000 to now they’re selling a $100,000 packages. And right off the bat, they’ve been able to double their fees. And it doubled their income in three months. It was a little under three months actually.
John Corcoran: Wow.
Mandi Ellefson: They were struggling to be able to make sales for more than $5,000 a month for a three month period of time. Clients would only be investing in for these little tiny projects, but now what’s happening is every prospect they’re getting on the phone with is saying, "I love this. I want this." And even if they are not going for the whole $120,000 package, they’re saying, "Well, you know what, let’s start with the first piece." So now they’re looking at at $30,000 or $40,000 package instead of these tiny things that they were, they were going after before. Does that make a little more sense?
John Corcoran: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right. We’re running a little short on time, but the one thing I have to ask you about, because I know that anyone listening to this is going to be curious about it, is firing clients. That’s kind of this idea that a lot of businesses really struggle with is, is how can you possibly, especially in a global pandemic, get rid of some clients? So many businesses are just unable to do that.
Mandi Ellefson: Well, that’s a great question. And I don’t know that you go out and say… It shouldn’t have to be a painful one. And really what happens is you go and focus on the part of the business that you want to grow. And then what will happen is you start getting so busy and successful focusing on that part, that all this business over here is like, we’re no longer willing to do this work. So it will become more painful for you to continue keeping those clients on than keeping them to stay. So it’s just a natural transition. You don’t want to go and fire all your clients at once. That’s a terrible idea. It’s nuts, you’re not going to have the cash flow to actually invest in the growth if you do that.
John Corcoran: Okay. Good advice. All right, Mandi, where can people go to learn more about you and the work that you do?
Mandi Ellefson: Yeah. If you go to handsoffffceo.com, you can download our roadmap, our scalability roadmap. And John, like you’re saying, we have a Hands-Off CEO podcast that you can check out on iTunes or whatever podcast platform you like to listen to. But yeah, so that’s where you can find us.
John Corcoran: All right. Great, Mandy. Thanks so much.
Mandi Ellefson: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Process Breakdown Podcast. Before you go, quick question. Do you want a tool that makes it easy to document processes, procedures, and or policies for your company so that your employees have all the information they need to be successful at their job? If yes, sign up for a free 14 day trial of SweetProcess. No credit card is required to sign up. Go to sweetprocess.com, sweet like candy, and process like process.com. Go now to sweetprocess.com and sign up for your risk-free 14 day trial.