The Desert of Arizona
Clear 26 Degrees
In the interest of full disclosure, I don’t personally know Oprah. But I did spend a fair amount of time working around the area where she had her studios in Chicago. Still, we’re not best friends or anything 🙂
But… for just a moment, imagine if Oprah decided to go into the consulting business. What do you think her strategy would be for putting together a proposal for a prospective client?
Well, to be blunt, sometimes the best solution to a problem is to make sure the problem never exists.
So my hunch is that Oprah wouldn’t do proposals. They would pretty much be irrelevant. Why?
Because Oprah wouldn’t be pursued for her consulting skill, she would be pursued because of who she is!
You can do the work to get “great” at doing proposals. Or you can do the work required to make proposals irrelevant.
And a well executed media platform moves you towards the “proposals are irrelevant” part of the world.
How did Oprah get so famous?
She had a platform, dear Reader. She did it for 25 years and it was the #1 rated talk show… EVER. Did her platform ever turn into money? I believe the count was in the billions.
I used to work a long time on the proposals I created. I’d think really hard. It felt like I was auditioning for the lead role in a movie! Little did I know I was playing the vendor game. It doesn’t matter how many zeros are in your fee, you can get paid a lot and STILL be a vendor. It’s rare, but I’m sure it happens.
I prefer to go the “Oprah route…” And I really enjoy helping people who want to go the same way.
If you walk that path long enough, the path of the platform, you go from convincing someone to hire you to them convincing you to work with them.
It’s almost magic, except it’s not. It’s just work.
That’s what I have to sell you. Real work. Sorry if you were coming for silver bullets! I sell “work” because work gets results. So if you’re looking for fast and easy, you came to the wrong place.
I created the Platform Lab to help the people who want to take the “Oprah route” get on that journey as easily as possible.
At this moment, you have two options. There’s the full version with lots of help from me at every step of the way. The next class starts Tuesday. It’s not cheap.
And then there’s a significantly discounted “DIY version” that’s available. The DIY version is going to go away Friday night. I’ll be focusing on the small group, high-touch model from here on out.
The right way forward for you is up to the goals you have for you. Do you get good at selling yourself to prospective clients or do you do the work required to make your need to “sell” irrelevant?