I had been the CFO of a public company. My idea was that I would start a business consulting practice serving several smaller companies by becoming their part-time CFO.

I documented all that I had accomplished as CFO and created my first marketing story and brochure. When I told my story to everyone I could get to listen, I got lots of compliments but no business. I had made two mistakes.

 The first mistake was that I assumed that the problems that smaller companies had were the same as my previous public company. They were similar, but not the same. I had to change my story of my business consulting practice so that it was clear that I understood and could solve the problems of the smaller companies.

The second mistake was that I focused too much on me, rather than my prospect. When I tweaked the marketing story from what I had accomplished to what my previous companies had accomplished with my help, my business consulting practice finally started to gain more traction.