The clock on the screen told me I had two minutes before my next appointment. The virtual workshop, scheduled to run for 90 minutes, was fast approaching the 2-hour mark, and questions were still coming at me. Expressing sincere appreciation to the participants, I offered my apologies for not being able to answer every question and closed out the Zoom meeting with a wave of my hand. The other was already swiping to the calendar app on my phone, where discovery call information is readily accessible.
I skimmed through the appointment notes in the seconds remaining before the clock struck noon. This was a discovery call, a referral from a financial advisor with whom I partner in the healthcare space. I tapped the phone number on the calendar and waited for the call to connect.
The doctor answered on the second ring – an unusual occurrence in a world of patient emergencies and appointments that often run into the lunch hour – and we exchanged greetings. I asked how I could help. He shared what he was looking for, asked if those were services I provided, and when I confirmed they were, he said, “Great! How can we get started?”
I glanced at the call time on my phone, as I do every time, I get a “yes” from a potential client. Four minutes and thirty-two seconds had passed.
The call ended three minutes later.
In a quiet moment of reflection, I realized this was more than a personal record for time-to-close with a new consulting client. It was the apotheosis of the years I’ve spent refining my niche, gaining authority in my space, and being a go-to referral for this type of service. And it was a confirmation of everything I had just spent two hours discussing with an engaged group of entrepreneurial HR professionals.
A Full-Circle Moment
The virtual workshop I had just jumped from minutes earlier had been a full-circle moment in my career. In 2009, while enrolled in a marketing degree program, I took my first Introduction to Human Resources course. Research for my assignments often took me to a blog written by an HR expert who styled herself as The Evil HR Lady. Reading her articles was one of the primary inspirations for switching my major from Marketing to HR Management.
Fifteen years later – after years of blending self-employment and corporate practice, serving in multiple roles that leveraged skills of marketing, leadership, business development, strategic planning, and HR – I was surprised by a Facebook message inviting me to present a course to an audience of HR professionals interested in transitioning from corporate roles to independent consulting. I was both awestruck and deeply honored by this invitation, as it came from none other than the blogger who had inspired me to pursue a career in HR a decade and a half prior. She was partnering with another well-known expert in the HR space, one who had established the ConquerHR boot camp I purchased to study for my senior HR certification exams.
The person I credit as the inspiration for my HR career and the person I credit with helping me achieve two of my post-nominals were joining forces to serve our fellow professionals… and they considered me a subject matter expert. Insert “OMG” emoji.
Creating the Space
I humbly accepted their invitation and set to work building the content. It didn’t take long. I drew on what I wish I’d had when I first started, using content I’d created for my community.
When I started my business in early 2020, I searched the depths of the internet for resources that would support an independent HR consultant. I found resources for HR professionals, and resources for independent consultants, but few specifically for “independent HR consultants.” So, I did what many millennials do when they want to build a community around a particular topic – I founded a Facebook group.
The HR Consultants Mastermind community started with fewer than 100 members. Drawing on my business and marketing expertise, I developed resources to share with other entrepreneurial HR professionals. This eventually included a full-day virtual mastermind, which served as the primary source of content for my comprehensive training and has become the foundation of my coaching practice.
