This week, I talk to author Chris Knudsen about how to shift your mindset from an employee to an entrepreneur.
Find out more about Chris and his book, Trust Me, I’m a Consultant at https://www.sevenfigure.consulting/.
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Transcript
Hello and welcome to season two episode five of the Grow your side hustle Podcast, the podcast for entrepreneurs who want to grow a side hustle into their main gig or a solid second source of income. I’m your host, Jennifer Roland Cadiente, and today we’re joined by Christopher Knutson. Chris is a published author, university instructor, inventor and consultant. He currently works as an independent fractional CMO. And as a CEO at stoic Yeti, an advertising agency focused on helping direct to consumer companies. He was formerly the CMO at Purple Mattress, and has started and sold several companies including 3d plus me, today, we’re going to talk about Chris’s new book, trust me, I’m a consultant, and how we as side hustlers can get over that employee mindset, so that we can be more successful as entrepreneurs. Hey, Chris, thanks for joining us today.
Chris Knudsen
Jennifer, it’s great to be with you appreciate you having me on.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Awesome, I’m really excited your book. Um, trust me, I’m a consultant is a lot different than a lot of the business books that I have read recently. It’s it, it’s kind of like Stephen King’s on writing, where he used a memoir, to just teach all of the lessons that he wanted us to learn.
Chris Knudsen
Yeah, I didn’t want to write a, I’m going to call it a boring business book, right. And there’s plenty of those on the market, and also didn’t want to write a book about how to start your own business. You know, most businesses, most business books that are talking about entrepreneurship are like, Okay, you have this idea for a business, and you’re going to go start it, you’re going to raise capital, and you’re going to build a product. And you’re going to do all these things. And I have found as I’ve been approached over the last, I mean, I’ve been doing independent, independent consulting for the last 13 years. And I’ve had a number of people who are basically just employees inside of companies who have really good skill sets, that’s typically where it starts, they realize they have a talent for their craft, right? And so they’re showing up in my world and saying, Hey, how do I become an independent consultant, so they’re not looking to hire employees, they’re not looking to build a product, they’re not looking to go out and build this massive Salesforce or this big marketing engine or whatever, they just want to go out and do independent consulting. And so I really see this middle layer, that doesn’t really get addressed very much in the business world, which is, you know, people who just want to go and do independent consulting, rather than go out and jump full both feet into this entrepreneurial journey of going out and trying to run and start this really big business. And the reality is, I think most people, if they had the path, so the book as kind of a Yeah, I think you’re right. By the way, I love that book from Stephen King, too, by the way, so it’s, I’m glad you brought that up, it is a little bit of a memoir format, there’s a lot of funny stories in it, because I wanted to keep it engaging. And and also wanted to expose people to the reality of independent consulting and what it looked like at time. So. So yeah, it’s really a roadmap to get you to that, that middle ground, what I’ll call that, that in between place, which is a great place to be, by the way, and we talk all about that, but of where you’re your own person, you’re out doing independent consulting, maybe you have three or four or five clients, and, and you’re making a really great living for yourself. And you’re basically defining your time, right, you become the master of your time, rather than letting other people control and own your time, which is what employment is employment is that we trade. You know, we trade our skill set, our employer rents it from us, essentially, and gives us a paycheck, and we show up and we apply our skill set. And we’re expected to be there for certain hours, right, so So independent consulting really does give you a really awesome way of controlling your your calendar, but also a really awesome way of making probably a lot more money than you’re making right now. Your current job.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Absolutely. And you’re right, that, you know, it’s either you’re going to build a huge, you know, multi, eight figure business, where you’re making things and selling things, and you have a huge sales force helping you do that. Or you just figure it out. Yeah.
Chris Knudsen
Yeah. Are you just kidding, that was me, you know, it was 13 years ago, I saw this need. I was the chief marketing officer in a fairly sizable agency. And I saw this need in the market what Well, what was emerging at the time was outsourced chief financial officers that was becoming really popular. And I just took a look at that mark. And I said, you know, look of companies that are smaller need professional CFO help, they also need professional cmo help, right, so. So I said, Look, I’m tired of the rat race and I’m tired I’m working for other people. What if I went out and started my own cmo consulting practice, and there was no roadmap. I mean, fortunately how to go, I had I had a good partner at the time that I went to went into it with, that I think was smarter than me, and then had a lot more things figured out. But together, we went into and said, you know, look, if we could figure this out, then it’s going to be awesome. If we can’t we just go get another job six months from now. And so, you know, the thing that was great was, we figured it out. And I’ve always, I’ve always had this thing in my mind where I’m like, Look, if I can’t figure it out, I can always go back and get another job. It’s not like if you leave, and you go try it, and we can talk through a lot of those aspects of how you go and do and be successful. But you’re not forever taking yourself out of the world of employment if you don’t want to, in fact, I know a lot of people who’ve left, they’ve gotten into consulting for a couple of years. And then you know, one of their clients made them an offer, they couldn’t refuse. And they said, Okay, I had to go back in and do it. And it was a, it was a great opportunity, and it worked out really well for them. So there’s there’s a lot of different ways to do it. But what I really wanted to accomplish here with the book was for all for all of you out there who’s sitting there thinking like, Okay, how do I get out of this job, go become my own consultant, you know, make a really good living for myself. What does that roadmap look like? How do I do it? This book was written for you.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Yep. And I think I think it does a really good job of that. And it’s fun.
Chris Knudsen
And it’s fun. Yeah, again, I didn’t want it to be boring. So you know, there’s all kinds of funny stories in there. You know, how to lose your sister’s millions on a podcasting startup. You know, the worst advice a venture capitalist ever gave a roomful of women? All kinds of things like that, you know, that I think there’s like the Navy SEAL laws of combat and aboard coup d’etat, you know, these are all things that I experienced in my consulting career and side situations. Some of them weren’t funny at the time. But as I look back on him, right, I’m like, Okay, that was a pretty funny story. And there’s an interesting lesson to be learned in the story. Right, as, as it pertains to independent consulting.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Yep. Yeah. So one of the things you know, that I that we’re going to talk about today is the way that you have to shift your mindset. Yeah. When give your full time employment to be be your own boss. I know. I mean, I see it a lot is making that shift from high school to college, because I know that I struggled with that when I go to class, so I didn’t serve me well. Same way, when I first started being a full time freelancer, where, you know, I’d been working on the side, so I was really compact and tight with what I was doing. And because I had to do it around a 40 hour job and a commute. And then those first couple of months, I just did the same amount of work, but it just expanded to fill that time.
Chris Knudsen
Yep. Yeah. It’s it’s interesting, because I love the the college analogy that you just use there that I have a son that just went to college. And I had to explain that very thing to him, Jennifer, about, you know, look, you know, when you were in high school, we forced you to go to high school, you had to go to class, you were expected to be there, you were marked absent if you weren’t all that stuff, right? And I’m like, now that you’re in they that you have the freedom, but you don’t have to show up. But there’s consequences if you don’t show up. And so, I like to equate this to, and I think this is where you’re going with this too is if you’re how you are as an employee, right? is a really good indicator of how successful you will be as an independent consultant. So I talk a lot in the book about the 8020 rule, which is 20% of your employees are your stars and 80% of them are not your stars. Okay, so the 20 percenters who are like the everybody knows if you’re thinking about this, right now, you’re listening this podcast, you’re like, hey, think about the people in your business. And maybe it’s you. That’s that 20% Or where you’re a self starter like you don’t you have really good communication, you get along well, with everybody, you, you understand the playing field, perhaps you’re a manager, and you’re good manager, because you’ve established what good management practices are. I spent a lot of time in the book talking about bad management practices and why they apply to this, this issue, but good, good. 20% employees have a really high EQ. They’re really good with people. They have really good personalities. They’re not passive aggressive, they’re hard to offend. They’re bridge builders. They’re usually above interoffice, rivalries, those types of things. And and they don’t need to be told to get up out of bed and go do something they don’t need a boss right? Of course, most of them have a boss or they are the boss, but they generally don’t need a boss they just they’ll just go to work and they’ll get it done. Where the 80% is typically the opposite of that we don’t need to go into that but so if you possess those those 20% qualities, you’re you’ve qualified yourself really well for self employment because just like college Jennifer, just like you said, which is a great analogy. When you get up out of bed in the morning and you’re working for yourself, guess why you have to sell star you have to go get to work and you got to get it done and And and the other thing too, that’s really funny is about the the profession is your clients will hold you to a higher standard than they hold their own employees. In fact, I’ve had, and I’ve consulted with hundreds of companies. And so I think it’s great when I get in there, I actually get to be really good friends with the CEOs, because the CEOs are in a really lonely job. And they really need outsiders who they can talk to. And I’ve been that shoulder to cry on a lot of occasions. But I’ve had CEOs where I’ve met with them. And we’ve been through, like an evaluation of the consulting agreement, everything that’s going on, you know, which is really good, usually. But I’ve had to call them out a little bit and say, professionally and say, Look, if you held your employees to the same standard, you’re holding me in this implant in this contract, basically, for consulting your business will be a lot further down the road. And, and so it is a case, like there’s a couple things you can be learned from that, right. It’s like how we, you know, because a lot of people will look at consultants and think, Oh, this guy paid them a lot more money and all this stuff. And I have this high standard, it’s high expectation cool, you should also have that for your employees. And your business will get further down the road, the road if you DO and SO. So I think that 20% group, if you fall into that, that group, I spent a lot of time in the book talking about that group and why they’re so cut out so well for self employment. And one of the one of the practices that I take the reader through is this process of internalization. internalization is I call it just sitting down and having a talk with yourself? Which sounds kind of weird, because it sounds like you’re talking to yourself, but it’s not it’s it’s really having an honest conversation with yourself about where you stand. Are you actually really a 20 percenter? Or are you in that 80%? And what do you need to change to really become a 20 percenter? And if you can be humble and get to that spot where you’re like, Okay, I know, I need to improve, I know, I need to do better here, I’m going to go and change this or do this or this, sometimes it requires changing your job, because you might be caught up in a culture, where you just can’t change and the culture around you is really, maybe it’s got a really nasty interoffice rivalry problem, right? And you’re like, I just can’t get out of this interoffice rivalry issue, it’s like, Hey, I encourage you to go find another job. And when you arrive in that other job, set yourself up to be in that 20%. And when you’re in that 20%, you’re usually going to go really far in that job. But if you’re interested in self employment, and you’re interested in independent consulting, doing so is going to put you in a spot where you’re just going to excel really well, when you do finally make that jump over to self employment.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Right. And, you know, I think that’s not to say that you have to be perfect the day that you write the start, you’re starting your own business. So what can you do to help grow some of those skills if you either didn’t have them, or you just weren’t in a position where you had to use them?
Chris Knudsen
Yeah. So again, if the first step is it comes back to that internalization, right. And so if you see yourself where you’re in a spot, especially like, Okay, well, how good am I communication? Am I using text messaging too much to convey? Maybe passive aggressively convey that I’m disappointed in an employee or something? It’s possible. So it’s like, okay, maybe I need to stop doing I need to actually go sit down face to face, just start doing that just start going down and sitting down and being face to face with people. 20 percenters are really good. They have very good organizational skills. They’re very good at details. So attention to detail being on time, like really high organizational skills and execution, that little things that you do, like, are you on time to a meeting, you know, I have this this guy one time in my life who he was, not only was he never on time to a meeting, but he was constantly sending out I mean, like, it’d be like a group of 20 people in a meeting, and he sent out and say, I can’t be at this meeting at 11, can we push it 15 minutes, and I’m like, bro, you are messing up 20 people’s schedules right now. And I sat down with him and told him that I’m like, you gotta like, listen, you’re doing this all the time. And it’s a really low EQ attribute that you have, like, you got to fix this. Right? So attention to detail, too, is I think, one of the biggest ones where if you don’t, if you’re not really good at details, that’s a learned skill. Like some people will say, Well, I was just born that way. No, I don’t buy that one bit. Attention to detail is is is a it is really an acquired skill. I would say there was a point in my life where I wasn’t very good about paying attention to those details. And I had to train my mind to get really good at paying attention to details. And because I went through that effort to do that, I’m way better off because of it. And it served me extremely well as an independent consultant. So there’s it really comes down to that piece where you have that internalization, you have that talk with yourself. And then you identify those skills, those areas where you need to improve and then just Put yourself on a path of improvement. And that sounds like I might be oversimplifying it, but I think most people actually over-complicate it.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s also important to learn which details matter.
Chris Knudsen
Sure. Yeah, it’s, um, it’s funny, it’s pick your battles the correct way, right. And by that, I don’t mean that in a negative way, either. In terms of battles, there’s just certain problems and things that you have to go and you have to take down. But sometimes people have a really difficult time just ordering importance of those things. And so yeah, 100%
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Yep. And that, you know, if you are still in, in your day job, that’s something that, that you can ask for, you know, support from your manager, asked to take trainings on, you know, how to prioritize things like that. There, you know, there are all sorts of things that you can do inside the workplace to help grow these skills, so that when you’re ready to leave, you’re ready to hit the ground running with your business. Absolutely. Okay, so, um, one of the things that you mentioned as being really critical to these top 20%, folks, is that high EQ, yeah. Sometimes. So when we go into our, you know, our own individual solopreneur business, it’s real hard to use that, because we don’t see people that much.
Chris Knudsen
Yeah, depends on the type of business that you’re in. It’s, you know, most most consulting businesses are Client Services type businesses, where you’re going to be interacting with, you’re trying to improve, even if just incrementally or help someone inside of a business that needs help, whether it’s the CEO, or whether it’s like, let’s say you’re a graphic designer, and they need more graphic design help, and they’re bringing you in as an outside resource to come in and be a graphic designer or computer programmer, an engineer and account all those things, right. So you will, it’s some course of that you’re going to have interactions with with other people. But the thing that’s really important understand about your emotional quotient is and this is also a really good place to internalize is, what’s your empathy level? Right? So empathy is really the EQ is really about empathy. And empathy is really being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and see their situation and have, you know, the ability to be able to understand where they are at mentally, physically, spiritually, all those types of things, right. So we typically looking at leadership, and we say, what is the the highest value type of trait that you can possess as a leader. And it’s empathy? Well, which is really difficult for a lot of people, because, for some reason, especially in entrepreneurship, I would say especially in entrepreneurship, we did attract narcissists. And narcissists have a very difficult time. They’re typically low EQ, and they have a very difficult time, or at least, almost always have a difficult time empathizing with those who are around them. And so that lack of empathy is probably, I would say, is probably the one thing in, in business today that we are really missing, that, that we can really work on and improve. It’s in terms of managers. But if you possess those skills, going into independent consulting, they only benefit you in a number of ways. It’s never a detriment to you, then only it’s only ever a benefit.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
So when you’ve seen people who didn’t really have a high EQ, what if What have you suggested that they do to help build that?
Chris Knudsen
Yeah, I’ll make the I’ll tell people just straight up. I mean, this is where I’ve gotten to the point, I don’t think I was like this at the beginning. But I’ve gotten to the point where I’m like, hey, look, I’m your consultant, I just need to tell you, this is my observation, right? And it’s probably through a lot of frustrating experiences I’ve been through with managers and CEOs and people that I finally got to a point where I’m like, I realized for myself, where I said, Okay, look, you’re not an employee. You don’t have to have a fear of getting fired. Of course, they might be like, well, we’re going to terminate your contract. So what I’ve got other people out the door, right, you’re going to always go in, you’re always going to get other work, right. But there’s been a lot of times in my career, there’s an important aspect of your question here that I’m going to get to in a second, but I’ve gotten to the point, I would say, about 10 years ago, yeah, maybe eight years ago, where I said, you know, I’m just going to tell people what I think, okay, that’s okay, if you do it politely and professionally, if you have data points that you can back it up with, and you don’t do it in front of a group of people. So public shaming is just will never get you anywhere, like nobody will be happy with you if you’re publicly shaming somebody. So I’ve had a lot of occasions where I pull someone aside and said, Hey, look, here’s something that I just want to convey to you that I saw in that last interaction with the group and you know, from an empathy standpoint and feel like we’re really coming at it really understanding the problem that the group is facing or whatever, and and I’ll just approach it that way. The key is just to be nice. Like you don’t have to be a jerk about it and so frequent li frequently though people with low empathy, they, when they’re approaching other people, and there’s a problem, they’re kind of a jerk and which is unfortunate, it’s we have this real, I’m going to call it a real management problem in the United States, and MBA schools have had a really difficult time trying to fix this problem or address this, this issue of what is good management. Because good management is not a spreadsheet, like you can’t really teach it. And I mean, you can’t teach it but you can’t teach it in the way that we think about things are taught in MBA school, I went to MBA school, so I know this, right. So it’s okay, here’s the spreadsheet, this is easily that’s going to do it man management’s a lot different. And, and so I think MBA schools have generally failed, and management, management courses, and those things have generally felt to, to express what it means to be a really good manager. And being a good manager generally starts with being a good human being. That’s, that’s kind of the bottom line. And so when we go into work, we typically put on armor, we become a different persona, we become an individual that we generally are not at home. And that armor is typically there as protection for a lot of people because they’re walking into an environment, especially a cultural environment and their work, where they have to put the armor on in order to mentally protect themselves from the eight hours of of pure hell that they’re about to go into. And which is really unfortunate, we see this in a lot of businesses in the United States. And so what happens is, they just pick up on those bad habits. So they’ve got their arm around, they’re picking up on the bad habits. And frequently, because we’re putting on that armor, or we’re putting on a different persona, we’re forgetting in the workplace that we need to be a human being first. And so if you’re a human being first, and you can have, you know, real empathy, and a real understanding for the people who around you, then you’re going to go a lot further than most people in management. Management is generally about psychology than rather than sociology. So sociology is the study of a group. And when you’re a manager, you have a group of people that you’re you’re managing, but it’s really about psychology, which is about the study of the individual. And so you have to look at and this is hard to do, I acknowledged, but, but generally, you have to look at the individual and go, Okay, what is that person about that person about that? For? What is their need their need their need? How do I help them with this problem, this problem, this problem. And so this is the thing that’s very difficult about it about management, because you can’t approach this group from a sociological standpoint has to be a psychological standpoint. And then when you do, you’re a lot more successful in that management role than you are otherwise. But most people treat it like sociology and manage that way, which generally doesn’t work.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Right? Yeah. And when you’re working with, you know, with human beings, every day is going to be different. And so you have to be prepared to sometimes something good happens to someone on the way to work, something, sometimes something not so great happens on the way to work. And that changes your whole day.
Chris Knudsen
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can have and this is back to that the sociology, psychology, kind of where you can be having someone walks in the office, you having a great interaction with them, the next person walks in, and it’s the 180 degrees different. And they’re mad because of something you said or did or what and you’re like, Okay, geez, what is this, but this is, especially for the true for CEOs, they’re very much in this situation, maybe more so than just frontline managers. But, but Frontline Management is rough, because you generally have to manage down on on human beings that, that are all human beings, you got 10 People with 10, different problems and 10 different personalities. And then you got, you’ve got your boss, and you’re going to have to go in, you got to manage up to your boss, right, you got to manage the expectations with your boss. So being that middle management area is really rough. Everybody has a boss, that’s that’s what I tried to say to everyone and everybody has a boss, even a CEO, as a boss, it’s the board the board has the boss, it’s the shareholders, right? So everybody has has a boss and and so we all need to have empathy for each other. Because we’re all in the same situation. We’re rare, where we have a boss, even in self employment, if you’re on your own, like I’ve been on my own for a long time, you have a boss, that boss could be your mortgage, it could be your spouse, right? But it’s like, Okay, I gotta get to work because I gotta pay the more I gotta get to work as my spouse expects me to get to work and shear here, whoever has an expectation that this is what this is going to look like in order for you to be successful. And therefore I have to fulfill that expectation of my quote unquote boss so I can make sure that I can continue to do this. So again, it’s empathy. That is the thing that’s missing, and it’s the thing that you can develop, you don’t have it you can develop it. One to 25 Americans are sociopaths. And all sociopaths are narcissist and those that’s the one and 25 people who will never develop empathy, the other 24 of you will, so I have no hope for the one I have plenty of hope for the 24 so it’s it’s that one skill set ever. We can all develop and do better at
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
right and I You know, when you’re when you’re providing services, you know, even if it’s not consulting, but different services, that empathy can help you perform well, because you don’t want to let someone down. You know, yeah, for sure. They have to go to their boss and say, Yeah, this thing didn’t happen, because that person that I hired didn’t fulfill what they said they were going to do.
Chris Knudsen
Yeah, if you can have empathy for your, your boss, your co workers, if you can have empathy, like in business, especially, it’s really interesting or important, I should say, to have empathy for your competitors. Yeah. So putting yourself in your competitor shoes, and really, like you will, you will build better product, if you have empathy for your competitors. And so that empathy aspect is, I guess I can’t overstate it enough. I know we’ve been on it for a few minutes, but it is the thing that we probably ought to work on and develop a lot better. And I think we all need to do better hot,
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
right? Absolutely. So when people are leaving their job to be on their own, what are the mistakes that you’re seeing people make? I mean, I shared my mistake, which was that I got unfocused. Okay, expand to fill the time available, rather than keeping it where it was, and then marketing the rest of the time.
Chris Knudsen
Oh, no, I love this question. This is a great question, Jennifer. And it is, I’ll give you a couple. So number one is, you if you’re going to go out on your own, you should always have about six months of financial runway. That’s, that’s the most important thing. If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, it’s going to be very difficult for you to launch into independent consulting. The other thing is, you may not like it and the way that you can, the way that you can test it is and this is okay to do, too. You have to kind of see how you, your workplace may have rules about this and some of the things so if at the individual level, you have to figure this out. But I encourage people who are like, especially if they’re very, they have a lot of trepidation about going into this, this, the self employment world, go out and pick up a client or two while you still have your full time job. So you’re going to be straddling two worlds. And it’s a little bit difficult. But let’s say you’re a graphic designer, and you have a friend that works at another company that does graphic design, and they’re like, Hey, we could really use five to 10 hours a week of additional graphic design help. Okay, cool. I’m interested in trying to figure out how to go out and do consulting as a graphic designer on my own. How about if we do a deal together, while pickup 10 hours from Yo, give me a break, so that you guys understand, I’ll give you a break on price. So that you guys understand that I still have a full time job, and I’m going to only be working on this at night or the weekends or whatever. And then you spend, you know, an hour or two at night, maybe a couple hours on the weekend doing graphic design work for another company, and it starts to get you acclimated to what that world starts to look like. It gives you a very good view of, of what it looks like to have a client to do client work and to invoice someone and get paid and all those things, right. Because there’s all those little intricacies that you have that as being self employed, that you need to be thinking about. And so, so I think frequently people are just going out there, like, what happens a lot of times if somebody gets fired, and they’re like, Well screw this, I’m, I’m just going to go work on my own, and then I’ll never be employed again, which frankly, was my work, I write about this in the book, this is what happened to me. And I was like, Well screw this, I’m just going to go, I’m going to go do this thing that I’ve been thinking about for months anyway, and I’m just going to go after it, I got lucky. And a lot of people don’t get lucky, or what happens is a job opportunity comes along, and they’re like, well, that kind of seemed really hard. And I guess I’ll go just go for the job opportunity. And then they find themselves at some point in the job going man, I wish I had figured out how to do the self employment thing and all that. So it’s this really ugly, you know, cycle that can occur there. So it is you just have to very much have a plan you need to have family support spousal support, in particular is is extremely important. Like, if your spouse doesn’t support you, if you are married, or you have a significant other partner, and they’re not supportive of of you going out and doing this and being self employed. It’s, it’s really hard for it to be successful. And so you got to have her and I’ve been lucky, I’ve had a really supportive wife who grew up in a very stable house as the daughter of a doctor and then I come along and we get married and I’m the entrepreneur that I am and that’s a totally different world, right and so, but she’s been extremely supportive. And so you have to have, you’d have to have that spousal support, you have to have a plan you have to have the financial runway, you have to have a way of of lead generation I’ll call it where you know how you’re going to go out and you’re going to get those deals and I spent a lot of time in the book talking about if you don’t know how to do get leads or figure out people that are hiring for your your industry. Here’s how you do it. You have to have some capability of sales. Right? I spent several chapters talking about this is what sells is and sales is not what a lot of people think it is. And this is how you sell. And this is how you go out in the world and you close deals. And so having the capability to understand the process of taking a prospect and closing them into a contract to fulfill consulting services is, that’s a, that’s a really important skill set to possess, that’s actually probably the one thing that scares people the most. And the thing that I found among a lot of the people that I’ve worked with have gone out on their own is they come back to me and say, sales is actually the thing that I liked the most. And so I think a lot of people will get into, and they figured out that they actually have a really natural knack for it. And it’s actually fun to go out and talk to prospects and close them and put them into deals. And so so if you’re listening to this, and you’re like, well, that’s the one thing that really terrifies me is going out and closing the deal or selling a deal. There’s a couple things you can do one, you can just go out and go for you read my book, and I’ll teach you how to sell in the book, or partner with somebody that is interested in also consulting that actually has the capability to go on sale and not that let that person do the selling. Um, when I was first on my own, doing consulting work, my my partner was really good at pitching us and I just let her pitch right. I was like, okay, cool, just let her go. She was she was really good at doing it and really good at closing deals. And, and that worked out really well for us. In fact, that was probably the thing that kept us going was just her capability to be able to go out and pitch deals and, and get get us into get us into to contract. So. So yeah, there’s a lot there that you really have to take into consideration so that you don’t, you know, back to your original question, Jennifer, so you don’t, you know, mess things up, and find yourself in a situation really quickly, where you’re like, oh, geez, I didn’t know what I was doing. And so now I gotta go back and get a job that I don’t want. You gotta go on with the plan. So again, I wrote that book, trust me, I’m a consultant, because I wanted to give people a roadmap. So they could sit down and figure out their plan for getting into it. Because I didn’t see anything in the market that existed. That was a roadmap or a plan for helping individuals go out and actually, you know, get into this world of self employment. So that’s what I hope it accomplishes for people.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Yeah. And I think, you know, that sales and marketing piece, it does sound really scary, but it’s a good thing to practice while you still have a job in a steady income. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Find a few clients. Make the mistakes. Wow. not life or death.
Chris Knudsen
Yeah, the place where you really started your network. And you might have a really small network of people, but it might be people you went to college with might be your roommates, and people that they know, it might be people at church, it might be if you start thinking about your, if you start thinking about your circle of people, most of us have about 150 individuals that we know at some level, right? That’s the average American associates at some degree with about 150 people. And so, you know, you go to a friend that maybe is also someone that you are in graphic design school, they’re like, oh, like, I just come back to that example of, of, yeah, we’re looking for help, or whatever, you really don’t start finding those things out until you start talking to people. And that’s what you have to do, you got to go out and you have to kind of talk to strangers, your mom told you when you were a little nuts, talk to strangers. And it was really good advice for you when you were five. And it’s super bad advice for you. When you’re when you’re 25. Right, you got to talk to strangers. And so if you can get to a point where maybe somebody, you were in a fraternity with them, or the friend at another company or something and there’s Hey, my boss is looking for this or that. And I’ll give you a connection over email and you’re connecting over email and you say to him, Hey, can I take you to lunch and just pick your brain about what it is that you’re looking for? I really want to understand your problem and see if I can solve it for you. There’s almost nobody that will say no to that, honestly, especially when you’re positioning it as you know, I have I have this understanding that you have this problem. And I think I might have a solution for you. I’ve never been in a situation where someone has said, No, I don’t want to talk to you, when I’ve positioned it that way.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Right. And people, you know, they get scared thinking about going to their network, because they’re like, oh, do I have to, you know, tell that guy that I sit next to at church? That I need money? No,
Chris Knudsen
no, no, not at all. Yeah.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
conversation and say, Hey, this is something new that I’m trying.
Chris Knudsen
Yeah, you could say, Yeah, I have a job. I work as a graphic designer and XYZ software company. But, uh, but I also do side work, right? And they’re like, Oh, you do side work. Tell me more about that. Like, I think I think I have graphic designer on the brain because there’s a big need for graphic designers right now. Right? So it’s like, and there are good ones are hard to find. And so you start saying well, yeah, and I also do Oh, you do side work. Really? Tell me more about that. Because my company is looking for that help. Or my brother owns a company and they’re looking for he told me they’re like looking for somebody? Oh, really? Yeah. Do you want to give me an introduction? I’ll be happy to talk to him. You know, that’s how you get into your initial deal flow is that immediate network that you have there and then from there, it’s what’s really interesting is you’ll find that this has been true with me. I think more so at times and other times and a lot of times the ebbs and flows of the economy, but it’s like people just find you they’re like, Hey, I heard you work for this company. You do this thing or whatever. And I Are you still doing consulting on this or that or what? Yes, I am. And then you’re putting deals together with those people as well. And so you You never know until you go out and you start having those conversations. So if you’re a little bit shy, or you’re a little introverted, that might be a little bit more difficult, but start with those simple statements of letting people know like, Yes, I’m also freelancing. I’m doing some stuff on the side. I have, yeah, I have a job. But I’m freelancing, and then people will be like, Oh, they’re freelancing there. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard somebody say that to me. Yeah, I freelancer, I do this. And I’m like, Oh, I got a client that totally needs that. You want me to introduce you to them. And I’ve gotten people gigs that way. I mean, it has happened tons of times in my life. And so you just have to vocalize and socialize and put yourself out there a little bit. And that can be a little scary to put yourself out there. But I think, Jennifer, to your point that you were just making, nobody will look at you. If you’re like you have a job. And I do side work and things like that. I pick up clients, I do some stuff on the side. Nobody looks at that, like, oh, this person’s poor and needs money. Right? They they’re always like, Oh, the thing that they start thinking about immediately is do I need help? Yeah, okay. Yes, you can help me Yeah. Okay, great. That let’s, let’s, let’s talk. So that’s it, just just just keep that in mind, as you’re going out and putting yourself out into the world is, you’ll find that there’s probably way more people that need help from you than you think. Right?
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
And everyone wants to help. Yeah, if someone comes to me and says, you know, I want to do this thing, then my first thought is like, Who do I know who needs that thing? How can I connect them? I connector on any of the personality tests, but still, you just want to help.
Chris Knudsen
I have this agency that I work with, and I refer deals to that. You typically when you’re doing referral deals, you’re usually paying people back referral commissions. So we don’t have to go into all that. But that’s typically how it works. But these guys are interesting, because they’re like, Hey, we don’t do referral commissions. Like we just think that it comes back to you. Right? And I was like, Oh, that’s interesting. You know, they’re, and they’re always referring people around to everybody. And they’re like, we built our business on this model of not expecting anything back financially from the refer, or for us referring. And we have built, we have a huge business based on people just showing up and sending us deal flow all the time. And that’s a great way, especially the beginning to do it, where it’s like, yeah, I don’t expect anything for it. I just want to give you an introduction here that I think can be really useful for you now, too, if you do, I’ll say this as well. If you are really smart about how you do referral commissions, you can make a lot of money off referral commissions in consulting, I’ve made a ton of money off of referral commissions that I’ve set up with companies where I’m like, Yes, I’ll send people over to you. But I want 10% of the deal on the back end, or those types of things. And I’ve set up deals with them. And I’ve seen a lot of really nice extra income coming in from those types of deals. So they’re good to put together as well. Both ways are great. I think when you’re first starting out, just be like, I don’t have an expectation of any money for this. I just want to connect you or whatever. And people remember that they genuinely remember that and and it will come back to you.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Yeah, absolutely. So when someone is getting ready is making that plan. Beyond you know, the finances and practicing what they’re doing. What should they be trying to learn? Before they go full time on their own?
Chris Knudsen
Yeah, I think there’s there’s certain things that you need to get kind of acquainted with in terms of like accounting, for example, you don’t have to be an accountant. But you have to understand that you’re putting yourself into a different tax situation, right? When you’re when you’re self employed. And so meeting with your CPA and understanding what the right model is, you can set it up in a couple of different ways. We’re not going to go to all the details on this, but you can set it up a couple of ways that are really advantageous from a tax reset perspective. I mean, I have friends that are like, who are who are kind of funny to talk to about this because they have jobs, but I’m like, and I have this very nice truck, it’s it was a very expensive vehicle. And it’s a total tax write off because I’m self employed. And like the payments written off, the depreciate, depreciates, the gas is written off, the insurance is written off, the maintenance is written off, everything is written off as an expense against my taxes, because it’s a vehicle that I use in my consulting practice, and, and it’s a nice luxury vehicle. And they can’t wrap their heads around the fact that like they have similar types of vehicles, and they just pay a lot of money for them every month, right? Because their employees and I’m like I yeah, this thing dead benefits me. From a tax standpoint, it benefits me all day long. And so there’s really cool things that you need to learn about taxation that I do talk about some of that in the book. But, you know, if you’re going to Are you going to put yourself on your own payroll, like you can do that if you have an LLC that’s set up your LLC can give you a W two paycheck, and which is awesome, because that’s one way to help avoid self employment tax, self employment tax is extremely steep. And you don’t want to get in a position where you’re just getting hit with self employment taxes all the time. So there’s a little detail things like that, that if you have a good a good CPA is really good to have in these situations that can help you navigate through through taxes and payroll, and some of those those things that are those are some of the details that people might call 80 or 90% of people just don’t want to think about but they’re generally not as painful as they sound. So just you know, get yourself At the end with a with a good CPA and they’ll help you along. And if you don’t have access to one, just start asking people who are self employed that, you know, do you have a good CPA all of them do every one of them. And they’ll be like, oh, yeah, you got to talk to my guy here, they can help you get set up. And so and they’re usually especially to get set up to help you with these types of situations, they’re not expensive, like, they’re generally not very expensive. And especially if so like, if you’re in New York City, or Los Angeles, or one of those places, don’t get a big city CPA or attorney to help you with these things, because they’re very expensive. Like in New York, if you’re in New York City, find somebody in White Plains to do it for you, it’s like, you know, they’re going to be a lot cheaper than the CPA or upstate, they’re going to be a lot cheaper than the CPA that’s in New York City. And they’re in the same state as you. So they know all the same stuff as the person that’s in New York City. And so think about those things, when you’re out looking for those types of professional services to help you so so that would be some of the things, Jennifer, with regards to some of those questions and things that you need to think about your home is, if that’s your office, then it’s a deduction, right? And I recommend just taking the IRS just gives you a deduction for home office, don’t get all fancy, and try and write your entire house off, or else you’re going to get audited, right? Just take the take the, I can’t remember the name of it, but you just take the deduction the IRS gives you and said, Oh, you have a home, okay, great, here, we’re just going to give you a deduction for that. So you do those things. And it’s really smart, and it saves you a lot of money. And you’ll find too, that if you have a W two job, or you’re doing some consulting on the side, you can run a lot of write off types of expenses, like your phone, and your health insurance and some of those things through your LLC. And you’re saving yourself a ton of money on taxes and pocketing a lot more money on the W two side. It’s actually a really interesting, interesting trick. And it’s totally legal. So, so self employment has a lot of those types of benefits as well.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Yeah, it’s a great reason to be doing it on the side, because then you have the income to help pay for the professionals who will help you, you know, figure these things out and implement them.
Chris Knudsen
Yeah, imagine if you had a job. And then you had a site, let’s say you had a side gig or two that was paying you four or $5,000 a month, okay? That pays for your cell phone, your health insurance, your car, it pays for all your food, when you eat out. It pays like you can travel. And that’s a write off on your LLC if it’s for work, right. So you can have like this LLC with all this cash coming in that has basically doesn’t make any money. But guess what, you just pocketed a ton more money on the W two side. So then I have a friend that I helped get set up on this right now who he was in that world where he was straddling employment, he had a job for a long time, but he was taking on two or three clients on the side. And he was like, this is the best thing ever, because I’m writing off all this stuff that normally would have just been an expense against my bank account. Right. And then he made the jump fully over to, to consultant after about three years of kind of straddling both worlds. But, you know, he saw a really awesome benefit from that. So think about those things, too, as they can really help them in that regard. So yeah, it’s great.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Yeah. Yeah. So I know, you know, you do talk a lot about about mindset. And, you know, in addition to all of these, all of these, like, you know, practical and tactical details, but one of the things I wanted to ask you about is like, the half truth about happiness being a choice? Oh, yes. Because we it’s never, no one ever says that. It’s like, oh, yeah, no, absolutely a choice. No, absolutely. You know, based on your experiences, and you know, what’s happening externally? So what do you mean, when you say that,
Chris Knudsen
I think this is one of the great lies that we’re dealing with a site that makes you feel bad, too, because I feel like when someone stands up and says, let’s say it’s in the community, or church or someplace like that, they’re like, happiness is a choice. I’m like, Are you really? Are you really saying that to the 82 year old widow? Like, you know, it doesn’t feel very sympathetic, right. And, and so, it happiness is a choice is true in this regard. And this is the half truth, which is, if you go and you robbed a liquor store, and you go to jail, you made a bad choice that resulted in unhappiness. Right, and this is exactly how our choices can affect our lives. This is you going if you break the law, you get you go to jail, you’re unhappy, right? That’s a great kind of an example of, and there’s a lot of, yeah, hey, look, if you make the choice to start smoking, and you get lung cancer, you’re living with the consequences of this choice that you made, that’s going to make you very unhappy, because you’re going to be in a lot of pain, and you may die, right? But there are certain experiences that you have to go through in life, that are really painful, and in and you really only grow in life when you’re going through painful experiences. And that could be death, death of a loved one, losing a job, getting sick, losing a pet, right abuse, these types of things that happen in the course of daily life are terrible, and they’re also important to our growth, right? So you may go through a situation I’ll give you an example. I think I gave this example in the Look, I had a friend whose wife passed away suddenly. And it was really tragic. I mean, for about three weeks, she was sick, and we couldn’t figure out what’s going on. And then one day, it’s just she died. And it was very sudden, and. And I sat down with him. And I said, Okay, I said, Look, you’re never going to be the same and rightfully so. But just understand it’s going to take about a year, and then you’re going to start to feel normal again. And he said, Okay, let’s get through the year, right. So we worked on it, we got through the year. And he came out the other end of that year, that was a rough year was really hard. He came out the other end of that year. And he told me, he said, You were right there, it was a really hard year. But I’m, I’m in a place where I think I’m better. And I think I’m in a spot where I can start dating again. And that’s what he did. He got married another year later, he was remarried. And so he went through this tremendous, tremendously difficult experience, that’s just part of life, that is just part of life. So life is not intended to be like, beaches and waterfalls, and stuff all the time. And, and what you see on social media, where you look at people on social media, like oh, my gosh, they’re always happy. They’re always doing something cool. They’re always amazing. Why can’t my life be like that their life isn’t like that. That’s, yeah, it’s the deception of social media. When you see someone, it’s like, there was I just went through this experience, where I had a friend that was in the middle of a horrific divorce, and her social media page, you would have never known it. I mean, her social media, her Instagram was like, this is I have this life, that is the most amazing life. And to anybody that didn’t know her that looked at her Instagram, they would have just thought, oh, yeah, everything is totally amazing. But here’s she was in this, really, I knew, because I knew the details of it, because of our relationship, she was in a horrific divorce. So there are things that you will go through in life that are really sad, and really hard. But they’re really important for your personal growth and development. And when you go through those situations, and you go through those tests, that, that you’re given, if you come out, you can come out the other end a better person, you can come out a stronger person. And if you can internalize the lessons that you learned through those experiences, again, whatever it is, you’re going to grow from that you’re going to go from that. But if you’re in some perpetual state of happiness, you’re never going to grow. And none of us are in a perpetual state of happiness, it just doesn’t happen. Right? So, so the moral of the story is, don’t rob liquor stores number one, right, that’s going to put you in a bad spot. And number two, just realize when those things come along, death, unemployment, illness, you know, all those types of things that you’re going to experience in life, just understand that that is an opportunity for you to grow, and to come out the other end of better person. And so that’s the thing that I disguised back. This is part of the the sub chapter, I’m sorry, the subtitle of the book, right, which is, is learning that shocking truth about happiness. And that shocking truth is, you have to be, you have to kind of experience the fullness of sadness, to experience the fullness of happiness. And it’s just a it’s just a fact of life. So don’t let those self help gurus get you down, when they’re telling you and you’re not happy. When they’re telling you happiness is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Because it is actually really, I think it’s a really destructive thing that a lot of people are saying in society today.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Yeah. Yeah. And because it doesn’t accept reality. Right. Yeah. And you? You know, I think that that’s really the important part of like, you know, mindset is, it’s not that everything is all light and happiness all the time, but that you believe that you will continue, you believe that you will grow you will you will you believe you’ll be successful, no matter what life throws at you. And that, you know, that, I think, is one of the most critical determinants of whether someone can be successful in business is just that they can.
Chris Knudsen
Yeah, and I wrote a lot of really hard stories into the book, because I wanted people to see that it hasn’t been all roses for me, right. It’s been there’s, there’s a level of difficulty and a lot of things I’ve had to go through some of it’s been self imposed, honestly, like, like, some, as you read through the book, you’re like, Okay, well, you really screwed that up, right? I mean, I’m trying to present a really honest, honest situation here where, yeah, like, if I were to come to you and say, oh, you know, what, last 13 years, I went out, I had a bunch of clients on day one, you know, I got super rich and I, you know, was making lots of money and everything was amazing. And, and, you know, I’ve developed this really great reputation in the world for being this, you know, top tier consulting guy and blah, blah, blah, and all this stuff. I’d be totally lying to you, right? I mean, it’s there’s been a lot of pain and suffering that’s come along with a lot of the success that’s come to, but there’s been a lot of pain and suffering that’s come along with it. And I try to convey that pain and suffering pretty thoroughly in the book, so that people will look at that and say, Okay, this guy is real. He isn’t just some dude coming along. I’m telling you that everything is going to be amazing and neat when you go out and you do this thing. It’s just it’s not it’s not genuine and I didn’t want to be disingenuous. And so it’s Welcome to Life, right? And life is hard. And my journey has been really hard. My mom says she read my book, I don’t think she knew a lot of things in my book. And she sent me a text and said, Well, you really did pick the hard path. And you and I said, there’s no easy path. Like there is no easy path. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. There’s no easy path to this, right? So you really are picking your pain, right? And for me, I pick the pain of self employment over the pain of employment, I’m much more adept to the pain of self employment than the pain of employment, pain of employment was almost unbearable, to me. Pain of self employment is pretty for me, it’s pretty unbearable pain, right? It’s, you’re going through certain things where there there are times there’s uncertainty, and there’s you’re upset, because you haven’t collected a payment, somebody’s late on a payment or those types of things. But you know what, I’d really way rather go deal with that than a boss who hates me, no matter how well I’m doing. And I don’t know if there’s somebody sitting in a dark room somewhere calculating how many pennies they can save on the next quarterly report, if we just lay off this many people, and we have no idea if they’re performers or not performers, but their salary is too high, or whatever the factor is that they’re using to get rid of you. I don’t want that pain. I don’t want to be involved in that situation. So I’ll take the Okay, I guess I gotta drive over to this office and see if I can collect the check pain because that’s, that’s just way easier, frankly. So pick your pain, right? Pick your pain, I don’t want that to sound negative. But that’s that’s life, you generally are picking the pain, but pick that pain that you’re you’re you’re happy with with picking and going with.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
And the benefits can make the pain bearable. Yeah, sure.
Chris Knudsen
Yeah, absolutely. Especially if you’re doing it, right. I mean, you can make a lot of money and independent consulting, right. And so I’ve made a lot more money in independent consulting. Maybe this point in my career now where, you know, I would be in a very high executive type of position at 50 years old, for sure. I mean, I was in those types of positions in my 30s. And, you know, so I’m sure now I would be in those positions where I’d be making maybe an equivalent type of money, but I made a lot of money in independent consulting. And it’s not unusual. So my general generally what I’m doing in my consulting practices, I’m usually doing marketing type consulting, right. So I’m working with companies on go to market strategies, I’m working with them on, like, direct to consumer marketing problems, a lot of advertising issues, those type that’s, that’s really where I’ve really cut my teeth, and really made my consulting practice. And that’s developed into a larger agency that I run now to, and I and that’s a very lucrative world, in terms of the amount of money that you can make, and, and so if you look at your world, and I go through and talk about how you should really price yourself out to that’s an important thing that people need to understand. Because as a consultant, you do need to take things into consideration, like taxes, and all that type of stuff. And so if you think you’re worth $30 an hour, you probably worth $60 an hour, if you think you’re worth 100 an hour, you’re probably worth 200 an hour. And you got to keep that in mind as you’re on your own. Because you are going to have taxation issues and things like that you need to consider, and you’re just going to, you’re going to pay more, but you’re going to charge more, because you’re going to because you’re worth it, and it will be and people will pay. That’s the thing that’s shocking is I’ve literally had consultants show up in my world, and they’re like, they want to consult me on something. And they tell me what they charge and I’m like, You’re not charging enough. Which sounds crazy for me to be saying that to somebody when I’m like, Hey, do you I’m like, let me sit you down and talk you through the numbers here because you’re actually not charging me enough for your services. This in order for you to make real money here. This is exactly what you should be charging me and they’re looking at me like I’m crazy, because I’m literally telling them to charge me more money, but I want people to be compensated fairly. And you got to take all your considerations into into it as you’re as you’re thinking about these things.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Yeah. And if you go to your employer, your HR person typically and ask, you know, what is my total compensation you might be really shocked by the number because it’s a lot more than your salary.
Chris Knudsen
If you’re making $100,000 a year depending on the state that you live in your your federal taxes alone are 30% on top of your of your gross. So if you’re making 100,000 You’re really 130 fully loaded. And then you’re typically health insurance, I’m going to go on an average here health insurance if your employer is covering your health insurance you’re $25,000 on on health insurance as well. So you’re if you’re making $100,000 a year gross, you know which after taxes, you’re at, like 6570 or something like that, right? You your your your tax contribution as the as an individual, right, your company has a tax contribution to it, which is about 30% federal, right so you’re at 100 You’re like a 150 Fully Loaded employee. And I don’t think that employees actually understand that principle that like companies are like, you’re way more expensive than You actually think I didn’t understand that for a long time until I think maybe I went to MBA school. And I was like, oh, wait a minute, you know, if I’m making $100,000 a year right now, I’m actually like a 150. employee. And that’s that’s the case. Yeah.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Yeah. I mean, I learned it just out of a random, you know, 515 conversation as we were walking out to our cars with the accountant. And she was like, No, you make that amount, but we pay this amount, right. thing else that involves you, plus overhead, you know, for the office, and, you know, the services that we get at the office. So that that was really important information for me to get when I thought about what I should be charging?
Chris Knudsen
Absolutely. Yeah, I think employees need to know that because it helps them to understand, like I tell my employees this, I’m like, here’s how much you actually cost us. Right. And I think that they need to know that because they’re like, like, the thing that’s crazy is like, we have really good benefits packages. I don’t think people understand how much those benefits costs. Even though you’re going through things like your renewals and your health insurance, people sit down and talk with you both. So I don’t think they actually realize like, well, how expensive that stuff really is. And so are those expenses really, our I should say those benefits really are and and when they do, I have found actually telling your employees these things, makes them a little bit more grateful. Actually, they’re like, I didn’t realize I’m like, like, like, you literally pay like $30,000 in taxes on me. Yes. Yeah, I have no, like, it’s not money I never see in money. You never see Uncle Sam gets it. And this is a big part of if you look at the breakdown of the federal government’s taxation, payroll taxes have is I think, the largest contributor of taxes in the United States payroll taxes. And so, so yeah, it’s it’s the how we fund the federal government and they love to take, they love to put that onus on small businesses, and they do
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
that, absolutely. All right. Well, um, is there anything else that you were hoping we talked about today that we didn’t get to?
Chris Knudsen
No, I’ll just say, I’ll just say one thing, and conclusion, which is this, if I can do it, you can do it. And that was a big thing that I wanted to have the takeaway in the book was, I want you to see all the disaster that I am and the mistakes I’ve made and the things I’ve done, and I wanted you to look at that and go, Oh, okay, this guy’s being really, he’s being very real. He’s telling me the truth about a situation, he’s become very successful doing these types of things. And it was a really rough road getting there. But the reality is, if if, if he can do it, I can do it. And that’s what I want your takeaway to be in the book. And then I want you to take the blueprint that I put into the book, and I want you to apply it in your own life. And then I want you to go out there and be successful. And that’s why I wrote it.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Absolutely. So where can we find the book?
Chris Knudsen
Yeah, I would just go to Amazon, that’s probably the best place. It’s available at Barnes and Noble and other places where books are sold like that. But your best spot is going to be Amazon. We’re recording this on October 5, the ebook through October 10, will be 99 cents, and then the price goes up. I don’t know when this publishes, but it might be after October 10. And then if it is, I’m sorry, you’re going to have to pay more. But that’s where you can you can get a really good deal on the book right now.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
Great. And where can we find out more about you?
Chris Knudsen
Yeah, just go to seven figure dot consulting. So it’s not a.com Just go to. And that’s not the number seven. It’s spelled out seven figure dot consulting. And that’s the website for the book. And we’ll take you also to other places where you can find me, you can find my agency at stoic yeti.com. That’s a, that’s the agency that I run, and then I’m on LinkedIn all over the place, you can find me there as well. So I’m generally pretty easy to get to.
Jennifer Roland Cadiente
All right. All right. Well, thanks so much for joining us today. Chris had a ton of fun talking to you. And I’ve got about five or six things that I want to start implementing in my own business.
Chris Knudsen
Cool. Jennifer, I appreciate your time. This is a lot of fun to talk to you and wish your audience well and hope they’re able to go out and make it happen.