Run Your Consulting Business Like a Business?
- Susan Tatum
- May 7
- 26 min read
Wondering why your independent firm is taking more time than your old corporate job? You may not be running it like a true business. In this episode, Susan Tatum sits down with Marcia Riner, CEO of Infinite Profit, to talk strategy, profitability, and how to set your business up for long-term success. Marcia shares key insights and common pitfalls that can make — or break — your bottom line.
Notes from the Show
Don’t Let Consulting Become Just Another Job: You left corporate to gain freedom and make a bigger impact — not to work 24/7. Without structure and planning, consulting can quickly become another grind. Build your business with intention, not just effort.
Stop Doing What Others Can Do: Delegation is your unlock. Offload low-value tasks to others who can do them faster and cheaper. Focus your time where it matters most — strategy, growth, and client results.
Don’t Do Your Own Booking: You’re in business to build wealth. Let tools and services handle your scheduling, payments, and finances. They cut surprises, save time, and boost profits.
Avoid the One-Client Trap: No client should make up more than 50% of your income. Contracts end — be ready. A diverse client base protects your revenue and keeps you in control.
What Clients Really Want: Solve their problem — fast. Do it well and they’ll be back. Repeatable, reliable solutions win trust and ongoing business.
Quotes: “You don’t have to do it all.”
What’s Inside:
How to run your independent consulting firm as a REAL business
Mitigating risks and missed opportunities in consulting.
The risk of relying on one big client.
Optimizing your processes for a prosperous business.
Mentioned in this Episode:
Transcribed by AI Susan Tatum 0:37
Welcome back to stop the noise. I'm Susan Tatum, and today we're talking about how to actually run your consulting practice like a real business. The reason why that's important is because I think a lot of independent consultants, especially that those that are coming out of corporate and from the big firms, we tend to focus on delivering great work, but we don't always set ourselves up financially or operationally the way a business needs to be run, and that can lead to a lot of unnecessary risk and missed opportunities, which I have some examples from my own life, of mistakes that I have made. And my guest today is Marcia Riner, founder of Infinite Profit consulting. Marcia comes from a background in financial services. She built her own successful business. She is an author, a podcaster and an advisor who helps small businesses drive profitability and growth. So we're going to dig into why it's not enough just to be great at what you do and what it really takes to build a consulting practice that supports your goals, your income and your future. Welcome, Marcia.
Marcia Riner 1:42
Love it. Thanks, Susan, for having me on I'm really excited about our topic today.
Susan Tatum 1:45
It's really good to have you here, because I do think this is something that doesn't get talked about enough, at least in my world. And I'll just toss one out there for you. Why is it so important that we treat our consulting practice like a business?
Marcia Riner 2:01
You know, it's a great one, and that's, that's, that's right out of the bat, or right out of the cage there. So the reason why we all got into our practice right is because we wanted to leave corporate environment and start off and do our own thing, because we knew we could make a bigger impact. But what happens is, is when we're making that impact, it requires 100% of us, and therefore it becomes another like J, O, B, with the worst boss and the worst employee managing the tasks that you know we're doing everything and so why I always like to have that conversation of you know your practice, and it's your brain power and your ideas, and the people hire you, but they're hiring your business. They're hiring for your ideas and practice. You don't actually have to implement them all the time, and that's why I'm thinking you're just training time for money if you're doing everything yourself. And when you look at the hourly rate that you were getting in the corporate life, and your hourly rate that you're getting now, probably not the same if you're doing everything, and that's why I think it's so important to think of your practice and your profession as a business. And I know we're going to talk a lot more about what that means and how it goes, but it really, truly is, you didn't leave corporate to have a an 80 hour week, working weekends and nights and, you know, trying to fulfill and service your clients and trying to run your your practice at the same time. So that's why... business.
Susan Tatum 3:36
True, true. and I think that to your point, there's, you're not good at it necessarily. I mean, you're and that's the universal you. There's just things that are that are fun you fundamentally have to have and because it is a business, I guess that depends on the definition of a business. But you're invoicing people, you've got a bank account, you've but there and there are all these administrative things that that you don't want to do. You got beyond doing that sort of stuff a long time ago, and now it comes back to haunt you, but you can't ignore it. It won't go away.
Marcia Riner 4:09
Well, I like to call them hats. You have many hats that you wear when you're running a business or a practice, managing your your consulting firm. You have to deliver on your your offer, your service, right? You have to do bookkeeping and accounting. You better be doing some marketing. You're going to have to be a salesperson. You're going to have to plan and forecast and be a visionary of your company. Where do you want to go next month, next year? Five years from now, you probably the chief trash can emptier at the same time. So you're wearing all these hats, and when you take off one hat and put on the other hat, you have to act in that capacity while you're still juggling all the other things that you're doing. And that's why it's like it's really important to understand the structure. Of what it takes to run a business. And if you look at your consulting practice and you start to line it up like a business, it becomes easier, and it still allows you to shine and fulfill on your clients and do your sales presentations and the things that you're so good at, but it allows you to do all the other things without having them fall on the floor.
Susan Tatum 5:24
So tell us more about what that looks like. You said, like, like lining things up, like a business, and nobody but me could see you.
Marcia Riner 5:32
Oh, yeah, right, sorry. I talked about my head. It's where I'd be Italian if I could, just by the way I communicate. But so if you think of an org chart, right? And we're all familiar with what an org chart is. You've got the pecking order or a line, you've got the CEO or president at the top, then you've got the department heads in the next row, and then you've got the management team and the worker bees, right? If you think about that kind of a an org chart best way to describe it. So what you want to do in your own consulting practice is you want to draw out an org chart for yourself and think about, you know, what are the tasks and the roles that need to be completed in your business? And then put a name on it. Chances are, right now, your name's on every one of those. Once you look at that. You can step back and go, what do, what is it that only I can fulfill on and what do I enjoy? And what do I not enjoy? And where can I start to delegate or share responsibilities with the remaining tasks that need to be completed in the business each month with somebody else. And that doesn't necessarily mean employee, and all the comings with an employee. It could mean a consultant. It could mean another agency. It could mean a VA. It could be another business that does that for you. But soon as you start to look at that business, your business as as that org chart, you now start to see where you probably working at $300 an hour based on that's just a random number based on your mind and your skill set, and you're probably doing $15 an hour tasks, and therefore
Susan Tatum 7:23
a lot of it
Marcia Riner 7:24
Yeah, and we probably shouldn't be doing that. So those are those, those kind of tasks that you can delegate or give to somebody else to do on your behalf. And that's when your business starts to really allow you to step into the the amazing ability that you have and really shine in that role. Because you're not doing the $15 tasks that you shouldn't be doing.
Susan Tatum 7:44
You know, I think an interesting exercise with that is recording your or tracking your time. I use an application called toggle, and it's a really easy thing to do, and it's sometimes it's just sort of mouth dropping, how much time we actually spend doing the things that someone else could do a faster, better and a whole lot less expensively.
Marcia Riner 8:08
Yes, absolutely, absolutely. You know, there's many ways to track your time, right? You know, there's looking at your calendar and calendar blocking and that kind of stuff, or your your app that you use that says, Okay, what time did I really spend? But when you're thinking about working those 80 hours a week because you're having to do everything, wouldn't it be nice if it became the job that you wanted, or the career that you wanted, where you could take a Friday afternoon off because you had you've done all the things that were supposed to be done, that you had to do what somebody else was doing the other stuff? that's what we got into the business for, right? Is the freedom and the lifestyle that we wanted, not the 80 hours a week trying to do it all.
Susan Tatum 8:52
And a lot of people would say, or they certainly, they tell me that we didn't get they don't they didn't get into the business to have to do sales and marketing either they wanted to do
Marcia Riner 9:02
that be your strength. You know, is there? Yeah, there's, there's lots of there's lots of positions that can be filled by people, as you greatly said, that can do it better and faster and at a fraction of the cost. So if that, if you find that, you know, sales or marketing is just too daunting for you, because there's a lot, there's a lot that need to be done, but if you find that's too much, there's great companies that you can hire to do that for you.
Susan Tatum 9:28
Is there a universal first place that you look to replace yourself? That meaning that,
Marcia Riner 9:38
yes, what I found, the biggest mistake I've ever found is that when a company goes to make their first hire, they try to hire another C suite level, like the vice president of marketing or sales, or the CFO, or, you know, somebody at the top level, your first hire should be in the Mail room. The first hire should be the lowest tasks that you shouldn't be doing at your at your pay grade. So hire, hire worker bees at the bottom to get those things off your off your plate, so that you can focus on the things that are more important. And back to the accounting thing. Please don't do your own accounting. It's very, very inexpensive to hire somebody to do your books you deliver. There's, there's so much technology that can make it very inexpensive. And it's one of the biggest problems that occur with us trying to manage our own business as well as managing our own finances.
Susan Tatum 10:37
So what kind of problems would occur in that area if you're, if you're trying to manage your own finances there,
Marcia Riner 10:42
first of all, it becomes a really big headache and eye opener when tax season comes around, because you were having taxes paid in the corporate world, half of them were paid by the company, and now you're splitting the whole bill on your own. So that big surprise comes in, you know, once or twice a year or quarterly, if you pay quarterly, you know, but there are those are that's a big problem. There are also things that you can do financially that can improve your bottom line. I'm all about profitability, because I believe that a profitable business will allow you to do more for the community, but it also does more for your back pocket. And so if you can, and also, thirdly, it gives you an opportunity to eventually sell your practice, because you've got a profitable practice. But as I go down a rabbit hole, the challenge becomes, is that you're not you're busy spending, and you're looking at income, and there's a whole lot of other things that need to be done with your money before you can spend it right? You've got to calculate the taxes. You've got to calculate future costs that you have you want to earmark for investments that you need to make. You want to put away a little bit of money yourself, because, you know, you're probably not paying into your old 401K anymore. So, I mean, you have to, yeah, somebody is better with numbers. It's better to look at that kind of information and help you make better decisions. And when your books are clean, then the data that comes out of that will help you make better decisions. Oh, maybe I do want to invest in an employee this year, because I've been paying a consultant that's, you know, I could use that person more time, you know? I mean, there's, there's whether, whether my marketing is producing a return on its investment, whether the the pricing that I'm selling to my customers, right, I'm doing x for y, is y appropriately covering your bottom line for the amount of work and effort that you're doing, and that all is hidden in your numbers. So having those clean books that are easy to read and accurate can help you make really good decisions.
Susan Tatum 12:52
And so that requires, I mean, I know there's all kinds of software out there that will pull stuff from your bank and all that kind of thing
Marcia Riner 12:59
really easy,
Susan Tatum 13:00
and then it just gives you something to hand over to an accountant or who never,
Marcia Riner 13:06
yeah, bookkeepers, you know, those that run the the balance sheet right the money coming in and the money going out, they can print reports for you and help you analyze the reports to say that, Oh, well, I'm spending how much on internet, you know, I'm Spending how much on on catering for my clients, you know where these are things that you won't know, unless you look, you can make better decisions.
Susan Tatum 13:30
One thing that catches me all the time is subscriptions, monthly subscriptions for some that just adds up, adds up, adds up. And I'm like, I haven't used that thing in months.
Marcia Riner 13:40
I think the biggest hole financially or or a gap that people have in their in their numbers that they don't realize is that they're somebody told them somewhere along the way that it's tax efficient for them to run their lifestyle through their business. So what that lifestyle means is that they've got they're running, oh, I've got my dry cleaning, or I've got my car in my business, and, oh, I've got my my cell phone inside my business. Oh, I've got my my internet and I probably do a few other things that you know are good deductibles in my business, that you know are coming out of it, and it affects the bottom line, and if you've got family, somebody told you to hire your kids to clean up on the weekends and hire your spouse and don't forget to pay for your family's cell phones and credit cards and things that are processing through that becomes a lifestyle business, and it dramatically affects the bottom line and the profitability of your company. If you're running your lifestyle through your business, so you can get a tax deduction.
Susan Tatum 14:45
So is that I can see why that would be very important. If you were to sell it, you wanted to sell the business, or if, for any reason, you had to take a loan,
Marcia Riner 14:53
or if you wanted to, you know, get a personal loan, they're going to look at your business's profitability and state whether you can. And afford to pay the mortgage on the house you want to buy, right? There's a lot of reasons. There's a fine line, yes, take advantage of the tax deductions that are available to you, but do it from a perspective of I understand what I'm doing, and if I am running a lot of my lifestyle expenses through my company, then maybe I want to take a little bit of a lower w2 payroll, depending on how your corporate, corporately structured. Maybe I want to take a little bit less in pay so that it the company still looks profitable, but yet I'm running my my lifestyle expenses out of my payroll. If that makes sense,
Susan Tatum 15:42
kind of went over my head, but that's okay.
Marcia Riner 15:43
So there's little tricks in in things that you can do. But if you're running your consulting practice as a solopreneur, and you're running all your expenses through your through your business, then you're kind of hurting yourself. So you want to have that, that extra party on the outside to say, Oh, that's a good decision. Oh, that's not, not the best decision for you. You could do it this way, and it still works, but it looks better on the on the books.
Susan Tatum 16:10
So would you say that the first place? And I, from all my conversations with hundreds of consultants, I would say that the vast majority of them have accountants, maybe not bookkeepers, but they are. They're not trying to do their own finance.
Marcia Riner 16:28
Thank goodness. Thank goodness. Highly recommend that.So good for them.
Susan Tatum 16:32
I can see that that that could be, yeah,
Marcia Riner 16:35
I love the accountants. I they they do. They do tremendous work for us. It's finding the right one for the right direction you want to take your practice in. Are they forward looking, or are they backward looking? Are they facilitative, or are they just looking at the numbers trying to get the tax thing? So you want to, you want to look at, look at that person for the for the advice and information that you need from them, and the support you need from them, because there's many
Susan Tatum 17:00
so you when we stopped previously, I think that you mentioned that consultants can can afford to think about outsourcing stuff or handing off stuff sooner than we really think we can remember saying that. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Marcia Riner 17:15
Yeah, exactly. It kind of goes back to what we we spoke about in the in the beginning of the conversation is, looking at that org chart, and what can you get off of your desk and and I know that many, many consultants worry about, if I have to pay somebody, then they're taking money out of my pocket. But if you paid somebody to do something for you, then it frees up time where you can go get another client, so therefore, you're also not having to weigh heavily on trading your time for money, or worse, kind of having one client that you know is carrying you on their back, which is another kind of scary concept as well, too. But yeah, hire early. Get those higher meaning. Get a VA get get somebody to delegate some of the the lower end tasks off to not necessarily hire an official employee, but yeah,
Susan Tatum 18:07
and would you say that doing that on a contract basis? I mean, when does actually having employees other than yourself come in handy?
Marcia Riner 18:15
Depending on where you I'm not an attorney. I don't play one on TV, but depending where you live, there are rules that say, if you have someone that you're telling you have to work between eight and five or eight and eight and two, or whatever the time is, you have to do these tasks, and you have to get this done at this time, they're considered an employee. And therefore, if the laws say their employee, you have to pay their taxes and cover their Social Security portion, and and workers comp and all that kind of headaches that come with employees. Same goes for you. If you have one client and you're doing all the consulting work for one client, again, depending what state you live in, you're probably an employee of that company, and not a 1099 contracted worker. So those are laws that we all need to abide by so we don't get in trouble from from the state agencies. And I know California is incredibly strict on that. So again, I'm not an attorney. I don't play one on TV. I don't know enough to go, whoa. Wait a minute. Let's double check on that, and let's go ask the expert.
Susan Tatum 19:20
So is there? So I'm sure you know what I'm thinking about, as you're saying, this is all of this fractional stuff that's going on now, but I know fractional C level people that are working full time for one client, maybe it's just for a short period of time. I mean, when? When should I guess 90%
Marcia Riner 19:38
even though they're fractional, that person, you know there are, again, I'm not an attorney, but there are regulations on on how that person is paid and who pays so, you know, that's something you want to consult with a business, a business attorney in your location, to make sure that you're practicing ethically and correctly and therefore, so as a Business Owner. As a solopreneur, the biggest portion is taxes, right? So as a solopreneur, I pay 100% of my taxes based on self employment. That's a lot if I work for somebody, the corporation pays 50% of my taxes, and I pay the other 50% so, so there are those rules and and so that's where the laws came in. Just before COVID hit, in the in the in the I think it was 2018 2017 2019 don't quote me on any of those, but they started saying, wait a minute, the corporations getting out of paying Social Security and and Medicare taxes and all these other taxes on this employee and calling them a contractor. And so that's where California came down and made some big laws. If you're working for one company, and that company tells you exactly what to do, even though you have your own corporation, and they pay the corporation you know you are, you might be considered an employee, and you want to check that out. Therefore, when we're looking there's also a negative, a huge negative, to having one client. That's the risk that if that one client decides to finish the contract, where's your next meal coming from?
Ssan Tatum 21:15
Yeah,
Marcia Riner 21:16
it would be better if you had at least a second client that you did some work for. So if you have your big client, right, that you're doing 90% of your work, but you have another sub client that you're doing 10% of work, then yours, then you're saying, I'm not an employee of that company. I have my own corporation, and I have two different clients, so therefore I can contract but you also, if you put all your eggs in one basket with one big company, and you're working as a CEO fractional, that doesn't mean you're working you know, fractional means that you're working part time, more, not full time. And if you are working full time, you probably want to get on a contract with them, and they're still paying the taxes because they're following the rules and regulations, but you're, you're on a contract with them, so you're not a tenured employee. You're a contracted employee, but the employee word is still there.
Susan Tatum 22:12
Oh, okay, I didn't realize there was a difference in those. In those two
Marcia Riner 22:14
again, I'm not an attorney, nor do I 90 there's no enough not to get in trouble
Susan Tatum 22:21
Yeah, I apologize.
Marcia Riner 22:22
The fines are ridiculous on both parties. So,
Susan Tatum 22:25
yeah, so. But to go back to the topic of one big client,
Marcia Riner 22:29
yeah,
Susan Tatum 22:30
that I think, well, that's, that's something that I was taught as far back as school, you know. I mean, in college, when you're going into in it, running any kind of business that you don't ever want to have one client. That is, I want to say it was like less than 50% of your business to be one client
Marcia Riner 22:48
exactly. And the reason why is because you're risking the the chance that that client, A CANS you, or B, you know, you're putting your they're they're paying you, they're paying, you know, all of all of your salary, or all of your income, is reliant upon them and and if something were to happen, you know you're now out. So you go from 100 to zero rather than going look, clients come and go. We all know that we go through cycles or seasons with those clients, where we work with them for a period of time, and then they've graduated from us and and by doing that, if you have many that are coming in, and you have many that you're juggling, many could be three, whatever your your your capabilities are, but when you have that, then you're de risking yourself, because if one left, I still have two. If two left, then I got one, but I still got one. And thinking on having that consistent flow of new opportunities coming, if you're putting all your eggs in one basket, then you're not looking for your next opportunity either. And those opportunities should be coming and going, because seasons occur,
Susan Tatum 23:58
right? It does take out the cyclical ness of the roller coaster ride. But I do see, I do see consultants that want the bigger pay days and the more complex projects do end up having a full time client, basically, not forever. You know, maybe it's a three month project or something like that.
Marcia Riner 24:19
But then how do you if you're working. If you're working, we'll call it 40 hours for client A, and you're doing the project, and you're getting close to that project completion, you're still required to work 40 hours for them. So then when do you go out and find your backup,
Susan Tatum 24:33
find the replacement,
Marcia Riner 24:34
client B, that's going to come and back fill client A when he leaves. So that's another reason, too, to have that control of we didn't leave corporate to go get another J, O, B, we left corporate to do our thing. And if we're leaving corporate, we're doing our thing. You now have the control to say, look, client, client A, I know you need 40 hours of of work each week. If I can get that done in 30 we still have an agreement, right? You know. And now it becomes, how do you systematize and and improve your own processes so that you can still have time to network and build those relationships? Do your marketing, do your sales calls, you know, do the other partners that are required to do in a real business, right? Um, I hope I'm not stressing everybody out. I feel like it's like, it's like, oh my god, I get too many things to do, and I'm not doing them all. What do I do?
Susan Tatum 25:26
I think the, I think the bottom line with that is, yeah, you do get help. And and look at the the amount of time that you're spending doing things that someone else could do for you at a much lower price. And and just realize that it's way better to spend them, to spend, to spend $15 an hour on someone like that than to try to do it yourself.
Marcia Riner 25:53
And it again. It goes back to the the topic of our conversation is think about your practice, your consulting practice, as a real business. And if you had five clients that you were servicing, which would be fantastic, right? You have five big time clients that required this project and that task and these things on there, how could you lead your company and have partners or people or minions or outsource or whatever you're going to do to help you deliver on the consulting and the work that you're doing, because your brain is the idea. That doesn't mean you have to be the implementer, right, right? And we've had this conversation a couple times about the implementation that can be done either by their team. Let me train your team to implement it, or let me bring in my people, and they don't have to be your people. They can be partners. They can help implement it. And then, when you're factoring your cost, here's my bid for Project A I'm going to include my vendors and my people and my man and people that are going to help me execute on it. Because I've looked at the data and I said, Oh, I can do it like this, and I have these people to help execute it now, as far as the can the client, the client just wants it done. Does it fix it?
Susan Tatum 27:13
Yeah.
Marcia Riner 27:14
So if you're in there swinging the hammer and writing on the board and coming up with the grand ideas, and then you go back home and you're doing your accounting, and you're doing your sales and your marketing, it's like you don't have to do it all.
Susan Tatum 27:26
That's probably the you don't have to do it all. That's probably the big aha moment when someone can get to the point of realizing that, yeah, it doesn't have to be that way.
Marcia Riner 27:35
It doesn't even need to be a point, right? Your first client, yeah, do it all. But when you bring on a second client, then you want to make sure that, okay, I've got a two I've got two clients. I've priced my offer in knowing I'm gonna hire somebody to do this stuff on the bottom. So then I factor that into my my pitch, you know, instead of, instead of a $10,000 a month job, I'm thinking, okay, out of that $10,000 I'm either going to charge 11,000 so I can pay $1,000 to somebody else, or I'm going to say I'm going to make 9000 so I can go get client number three,
Susan Tatum 28:11
yeah, that makes that makes sense. So in in your work, Marcia, with folks, do you get involved with systems? You're helping them to establish systems.
Marcia Riner 28:22
There are, you know, in today's, today's world of AI, you know, and all the software and functionality, it is so easy to create systems, and it's so easy to automate a lot of your business. So do I do it? I can help guide and give you the direction to do it. But these are things that you do repetitively, and if they are repetitive, then how can we? How can we document that in a way you know you on your on your cell phone, or your your smartphone, I assure you, there's a voice recorder. You can do a quick something along those lines. Or there's tons of software. I just found last week that if you're doing a task online, it'll actually document the whole system for you. So if you're doing a marketing piece and, you know, you go, step 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10, it'll document it for you. So in today's, today's age, there's, it's so easy to document what you're doing, and when you do then you can go, Oh, I like this part, and I don't like those parts, so I'm gonna give those off.
Susan Tatum 29:21
Oh, that's a good point. Yeah, you know. And what I see a lot of is people automating a bad process.
Marcia Riner 29:30
Oh, isn't that funny? Yes.
Susan Tatum 29:31
So there has to be some testing involved in and you, you said, document what you are doing, yeah?
Marcia Riner 29:39
So you've actually tried it. So, so here's the flip side, here's I hear the other side that they're that, not that they're documenting bad processes, but that the person that I'm talking to says, oh, everything I do is custom, okay, everything I do is is specifically designed for this company. I'm like, come on, I can guarantee you out of your custom process that 80% of that is a repetitive process that is the same, but the outcomes might be different, right? So if I'm working for, if I'm working for a company that produces widgets, it might be a little different than if I'm producing something for a company that does a service, right? Yeah, but the process is there, and custom mark, you better be charging for custom work, because everything can be a every most of it can be a repetitive process with some tweaks on it for the individuality,
Susan Tatum 30:35
I think what I'm seeing and hearing from people that are far more expert than I am in consulting business. Selling consulting businesses is a move towards not complete productization, but having that, it seems that buyers don't want as much customization as they used to, except maybe at the high, high enterprise level. What buyers want is an easy decision, like, what do I which one of these should I pick? You know, which which one is the right one and not have to have everything customized.
Marcia Riner 31:05
I agree. You know, I think, I think we get into our own ego and saying, I'm so good that it's, they're buying me and my brain power. Yeah, they are, but they're, you can systematize that as well. Here's where I think that what customers really want. And now this is, like, I didn't make this up, but they want you to solve a problem. They want you to solve a problem. And most of them don't care how you solve that problem, as long as it gets done and it's, of course, ethical, and, you know, in their process or procedure, and it's repeatable. So if you can solve this problem, and either it goes away forever, or next time the problem occurs, it can be done again, just like that. That's what they want. And it's not always a bleeding the arms cut off problem, but it's it's something that is stopping them from achieving the goal or growth that they want to have. And if you can solve that problem, I guarantee you there'll be another 25 or 125 problems behind it. But if you solve that problem, that's what they want,
Susan Tatum 32:11
and they want it fast,
Marcia Riner 32:14
and they want it yesterday at zero cost, you know that ain't gonna happen. You get it at this set expectations. You get it at this timeline, and this is what it's gonna cost you. Now I can tell you, I can guarantee you I'm gonna solve that problem, because I've done it before where I know exactly what it is, right? I can see it where you can't, but they want the problem solved,
Susan Tatum 32:33
yeah. And somebody said to me, all they really care about is, how long before this stops?
Marcia Riner 32:38
And if the arm is cut off and it's gushing and it's bleeding. They do it now, right? That's what they want. And the bigger the problem and the more gushy, bloody that it is, they're gonna pay you for it fast and right. If the problem isn't big enough and it's not bothering them enough, then they may not be ready to buy
Susan Tatum 32:58
you're gonna put it off, especially in circumstances like where, you know, the business environment that we're in right now. You know, not many people are going to spend money. They don't have to at this point because she's only the right answer is, yeah, all right, I could keep talking, but we're running out of time here. And I think,
Marcia Riner 33:14
yes, this has been fun. I know we got, kind of got on the delegation and the systems path, but there's so many different things that you can do inside of your business to really, truly make it a real business, because there are benefits to having a real practice that is run like a business. And it's the financial gains, the time freedom that you got into this line of work for it's the the asset that you're creating with this company that could easily be transferred to somebody else somewhere down the line. And your wisdom that you have up in your head, right? And your skills that you've done, there's an either younger person ready to learn those skills and take over your clients when you're ready to leave, then you've got a an exit strategy with some money behind it afterwards. So there's those are just a handful of the reasons that you want the business. But you know, it's you want to make your you want to make your consulting firm a business, otherwise you still have a J O B.
Susan Tatum 34:18
I think that's a great point to leave it with. And I, and I, if I what I think I heard you say is a good first step for everyone to take is to create that org chart that has the functions in it that you're going to need to do. For folks that want to follow up with you, Marcia and don't know you yet, what's the best way to do that?
Marcia Riner 34:37
Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. So I am all over social media. I'm constantly talking about business growth and profitability and ways to create your business, whether it's a consulting practice or a manufacturing practice, they're all businesses. So there's many things, but I'm always talking about it. So find me on social at Marcia Riner, but I actually do what I call a growth and marketing audit, right? Because those are the things marketing drives growth. So if you're interested and you want to learn a little bit more, you can go to profit booster dot biz, and I do a audit, where you go through and you answer some questions, I give you some results on it, and if you'd like help implementing it, then we can book a call, but otherwise, you get information that will help you quickly learn where the the breakage is or the gap is in your business, and how to improve that. Because, you know, bottom line is about everything
Susan Tatum 35:30
Cool. I will put all of that in the show notes, and again, I do. I thank you so much for spending time with me, enlightening us.
Marcia Riner 35:36
Thank you, Susan. I appreciate it. You do. You do a great job and you do a great service for people podcasting as a podcast host myself, it's very valuable to everybody listening. So thank you for doing it.
Susan Tatum 35:47
Thank you. I enjoy it. It's fun. All Right. Talk to you later.
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