I sold my last company for €2M+. Right now, I’m sitting here, feeling like an absolute loser and having severe anxiety attack. That sentence feels almost too embarrassing to write. I know how to build a business. Have done it a few times with more or less success. I’ve done it before. I grew a company to almost 100 people and eventually sold it. And yet... Here I am, starting again and struggling with something that used to feel much simpler: keeping my client pipeline full. I now run a remote Fractional COO / operations & project management consultancy and the strange thing is that I actually love the work. I really love what I do and working closely with my clients. When I’m working with a client, I find purpose. I figure out why everything his/her business is chaotic, where time and money are leaking, why the team keeps dropping balls, what needs to be systemized, delegated or fixed... I genuinely come alive. I've landed quite a few contracts, so I know I can sell the work and deliver it. But I haven't figured out how to make getting those contracts consistent. And honestly, it's starting to get to me. The truth is, I'm rebuilding pretty much everything at the same time. My entire life went down the drain about 2 years ago. Went through a divorce that broke me, financially and most of all mentally. I had to pick myself back up and figure out who I was on the other side of it. I moved to a completely new country. I’m learning a new language. I’m building a new life without the network, routines, familiarity and stability I used to have. I'm dealing with weather so brutally cold that some days I genuinely question my life choices, then I remind myself that I chose this country for it's safety for women. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I'm trying to build a business remotely and convince strangers on the internet to trust me with their companies. Some days I feel incredibly capable. Other days I look at me in the mirror and I don't fucking know if in a year I'll be in a better place. The weirdest part is that I know I can do the work. I've done it before. I've built companies. I've managed teams. I've sold a company. I've walked into messy businesses and made them work better. But knowing you can deliver isn't the same thing as knowing how to consistently get people to buy from you. It's an entirely different skillset I wished I had developed sooner. And I really, really want this to work. It has to. There's no plan B. I want to work remotely. I want to choose the clients I work with. I want to do work that I'm genuinely good at and genuinely enjoy. I want to wake up six months from now and not have that little voice in my head asking whether I'm going to have enough work next month. So I'm asking people who have actually built consulting businesses: How did you get from “I can land clients” to “I consistently have clients”? What changed? Was it your positioning? Your niche? Your offer? Outbound? Content? Referrals? Partnerships? Something I haven't even considered? And what did you waste months doing that, in hindsight, you wish you'd stopped much sooner? I don't need someone to tell me to “believe in myself.” I need the uncomfortable, practical advice from people who've actually been here. I'd really like the business piece to finally click   submitted by   /u/DistinctVoice5216 [link]   [comments]