Weeknote #2: Theory into practice, discovery calls and notions of being organised
Turns out the stuff I worked on last week was really useful. Thank you, last week me.
The big focus for this weeknote
After spending week one putting some foundations in place, week two was going to be all about marketing and outreach. But a couple of unexpected discovery calls meant putting week one theory into practice sooner than anticipated.
I’m also becoming a big fan of all the wonderful consultants and freelancers on LinkedIn who share behind the scenes content. That's why I also value weeknotes. This inspired me to build a basic client outreach tracker in Notion and gave an excuse to fire up Canva.
Wins and progress
Two promising discovery calls meant I could immediately start using some of the product ideas I’ve been developing.
I built a contact and outreach tracker in Notion to organise warm UK contacts and track Canadian outreach. The alerts will keep me accountable.
Set up everyone’s best friend, Canva, to start testing content on LinkedIn.
Generally thankful to brilliant former colleagues for support and advice. Here’s to all the WhatsApp groups.
What’s on my mind
I’m getting used to gauging the potential scope of a brief. Having been on the other side I know it’s tough to develop them at times in complex organisations. So it’ll be fun to work this through with people.
Finding a system to track contacts who offer polite "we will keep you in mind" responses vs. active opportunities, ensuring I follow up at the right point without being pushy.
Recovering from feeling unwell over the weekend while keeping up momentum across tool setup, outreach and call prep. Thanks new childcare germs.
Juggling timezones in my head. Google is struggling too.
My takeaway
Doing the foundational work in week one to better document my services really helped on new discovery calls. But I realised that moving quickly on this was only possible because I’ve been thinking about this shift to consulting for a long time.
It’s easy to forget about that processing time that happens behind the scenes when you’re on the bus, making dinner or just talking things through with friends and family. So let's hear it for our brains. And not outsourcing that bit just yet.
Now to update my Notion database.
Comments