Erin Balsa

Content Marketing Consultant and Writer 

I build and execute content marketing strategies for sales-led B2B SaaS startups that sell complex, enterprise-ready solutions.

Erin enjoys B2B content marketing, keeping the Halloween spirit alive year-round, and talking about herself in the third person. 

No but really ... 

I've been working in content since 2011 when I landed my first job as an editor. Since then, I've worn a bunch of hats like:

- Content marketing agency leader
- Inc. 5000 B2B SaaS marketing director
- Freelance content strategist, writer, and editor

Over the years, I've written for a bunch of brands you probably know including:

- HubSpot
- Drift
- G2
- Intuit
- And a Fortune 100 that shall not be named

These days, I help marketing teams at B2B SaaS companies (Series A-C) survey a representative sample of their ICP and write a 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒗𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆 original research report that positions their brand as a credible authority — to secure press mentions and close enterprise deals.

If you're ready to publish research that builds trust instead of skepticism, let's chat. And if you just want to connect with a fellow marketing nerd who decorates for Halloween in July, I'm here for that too.

Hausofbold.com

Content Marketing Consultant

I build and execute content marketing strategies for sales-led B2B SaaS startups that sell complex, enterprise-ready solutions. 

Unlike some strategists and agencies, I don't hand you a content strategy and say, "Best of luck!" I ensure your success by helping across four buckets:

▶ People 
▶ Process 
▶ Strategy
▶ Execution 

Learn more and read client testimonials at: hausofbold.com

Anyone else feeling like a bear coming out of hibernation today?

After taking extended time off for the holidays, I'm simply not ready for the onslaught of peppy "Behold my 25 top New Year's resolutions!" posts.

I want less of that and more of this:

- I need a nap but also a marketing strategy. 
- Slowly remembering how to be a professional human.
- Desperately searching for things to say at the start of the Zoom call.
- Pretending to remember what we decided before the break.
- Trying to inspire others while feeling like a potato. 
- Eh, that can probably wait until Wednesday. 

Here's to giving yourself (and others) some grace. 🥂

I help B2B marketers create original research reports

An influencer once posted about how to publish an original research study in a week. 

When I asked a technical question about data analysis, it was clear we weren't talking about the same kind of "research."

I could end the story here because IYKYK. 

But for those of you newer to publishing survey-based research reports, I'll add a pinch of color.

*𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘵 𝘚𝘢𝘭𝘵 𝘉𝘢𝘦 𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘫𝘪*

You can NOT publish a 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙗𝙡𝙚 study in a week. 

Even if you collect enough quality responses in two business days — and even if you use AI to analyze the data and surface trends — that leaves you only THREE business days to do everything else:

Report strategy
Survey design
Soft launch
Data cleansing
Human review of AI output
Outline building 
Outline review
Copywriting
Editing
Revisions
Graphic design
Proofreading
More revisions
Autoresponder creation and testing
Nurture campaign creation and testing
Rev ops
Sales enablement
PR
Launch day prep
etc. etc.

Shoot, I spend an entire day writing survey questions!

So yeah, it's possible to publish 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 in a week. But there will be trade-offs, like:

- Potential inclusion of AI hallucinations 
- Rushed survey design that produces obvious, shallow insights
- Limited analysis (no time for meaningful cross tabs or synthesis)
- Weak narrative cohesion that undermines thought leadership
- A report that screams "we built dis 4 leads!"

If your goal is credibility, increased trust, and research that actually shapes the conversation in your space, one week simply won't cut it.

I help B2B marketers create survey-based research reports 📈 Next available report kickoff date → April 6

Turns out the rumors are true. 







Washing machines really DO eat socks. 

I’m enjoying a typical morning of juggling work and home responsibilities. 

Today, the appliance repair guy is here fixing our front load washing machine, which has been leaking due to a rip in the door gasket. 

As the guy was fishing around inside the recesses of the machine, he pulled out a freaking sock. 

45 years old and I’m still learning something new almost every day. 🤭

The most difficult part of transitioning from a retainer-based biz to a project-based biz?

Scheduling 

Survey-based research reports are complex projects with lots of moving pieces. 

And even though I’ve developed — and refined — my report project management template over the past 8 years, scheduling multiple overlapping timebound reports has been surprisingly challenging. 

That said … 

Back in my agency days, I used to manage writer resources for 15+ full-time writers to the 30-MINUTE UNIT! 

Imagine your agency has 350 clients.  Each client gets different types and amounts of content. In order to maximize profits, you need to assign each writer as much work as they can humanly handle — and keep their assignment log full at all times, in spite of frequent delays on the client side. And now imagine that one 30-minute unit is equal to 200 words of “standard content,” 150 words of “premium content,” 100 words of “responsive content,” 1 page of an e-book, a 250-word “gold infographic,” a 500-word “silver infographic,” a 300-word video script (and so on and so forth). 

It was nuts. 🥜 

But that’s the kind of workload I managed — by hand, inside various spreadsheets, long before ChatGPT — for 3.5 years. 

So yeah, scheduling multiple report projects for myself is tricky, but I got this.

No alternative text description for this image

🎬 Behind the scenes of making a Navattic research report 🎬 l

Multiple marketing leaders have told me they love Navattic's reports, so Natalie Marcotullio and I figured it would be cool to show you how Navattic "makes the sausage."

I'll be sharing bits of our 30-minute Q&A across a few different posts.

Erin: When did the idea for your "State of the Interactive Demo Report" first come about?

Natalie: The first report was published in 2023, which means the idea came about in 2022. We kept getting questions from customers and prospects asking for data. When you sell to marketers, they really love data — so it was a no brainer! Let's build a resource that succinctly answers all these questions that we can share whenever someone asks a question.

Erin: What questions were your customers and prospects asking?

Natalie: Customers ask questions like, "How long should I make my demo?" and "What kind of language should I use?" Prospects usually want help making their case internally. So with the benchmarks in hand, they can say to their leadership: "Demos convert at a higher rate than other assets we use," or "If we invest in this, here's what we can expect."

Erin: What was the primary question you were trying to answer when you created your first report?

Natalie: What do top-performing interactive demos have in common? 

Erin: How has that primary question evolved, if at all?

Natalie: In the 2026 report, we're still trying to answer what top-performing interactive demos have in common ... but we're getting more granular. People don't just want to hear how their demo compares against ALL the demos built on Navattic — they want to measure performance within their industry or for their company size. Also, we now have lots more features, and people have specific questions about those. For example, "That extra CTA banner that's always across the demo — is that commonly used in the top 1% of demos?"

👉 Navattic's 2026 State of the Interactive Product Demo 2026 report drops next week. 

Want to be the first to see it?

Get early access here: https://lnkd.in/edZ_e7aJ

Meanwhile in Boston ... 

Just sitting here playing the "Should I try to get some work done even though there are five children in the next room?" game. 

Considering it took me 15 minutes to hear myself think long enough to write this three-word post, I’ll see myself out.

Your research report launched ... and nobody seemed to care. 

What do you do?

Welp, your first instinct might be to stick your head in the sand in shame. Totally understandable. But just know that this is fairly common.

(I recently spoke with a former colleague who spent MONTHS and THOUSANDS on a survey-based research report that didn't do a damn thing for the business.)

Fortunately this is a solvable problem — if you're willing to run a project post-mortem. Here's a simple plan of attack plus the kinds of questions that reveal what went wrong:

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝗼𝗻𝗲 - 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗱. 

𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘱 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘸 𝘪𝘵?
𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘱 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘥?
𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘱 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘵?

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝘁𝘄𝗼 - 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗰.

𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘤 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘐𝘊𝘗 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵?
𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘤 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨?
𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘤 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘢 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘩 𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘴?

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 - 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗱𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆.

𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦?
𝘞𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵? 
𝘐𝘧 𝘢 𝘴𝘬𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴, 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮?

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗿 - 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴. 

𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸?
𝘋𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘦?
𝘊𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘢 𝘫𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘢 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴?

And if you'd like an outside opinion on where things broke down, I'm always here to help!

The 2026 State of the Interactive Product Demo report just dropped! 👀 

Navattic analyzed the top 1%, 10% and 25% of demos built on their platform to uncover what actually works.

They found that top 1% interactive demos do 7 specific things:

1) They keep it short (5-13 steps).

2) They offer choices. 

Demos that give people options (explore different product lines, personas, or use cases) have a 57% completion rate vs. single-flow demos, which have a 35% completion rate.

3) They get Step One right.

On step one, 29% use "you/your" language, 24% add visual beacons to indicate where users should look, and 15% give explicit instructions. 

4) They use multiple CTAs inside the demo.

Believe it or not, they use 4-5 CTAs per demo on average! Most CTAs are actionable (Try for free, Book a demo, Get started).

5) They deploy interactive demos all over the dang place.

50% of top performers have demos in multiple places:

- Product pages: 62% (up from 19% last year)
- Homepage: 48% (up from 8%)
- Demo centers: 45%

6) They tend to be ungated. 

7) They use HTML/CSS web capture. Web captures refer to HTML/CSS cloning of the front end of your product. This means the demo looks and feels real and you can edit the product data for personalization. 

👉 Download the full report for more helpful insights — like interactive demo performance and adoption by industry! 

Link in the comments.

And keep an eye out for more posts from my "Behind the scenes of making a Navattic research report" interview with Natalie Marcotullio!

Chart from Navattic's State of the Interactive Product Demo report

Yesterday I was a bear coming out of a cave. Today I'm a marketer talking about research reports.

More specifically, how brands do it wrong.

Mistake no. 1: Sloppy methodology.

You may have heard the phrase "Garbage in, garbage out."

If you build your report on a foundation of garbage data, you wind up publishing a garbage report that spreads misinformation.

And that's likely at odds with what you're trying to accomplish as a brand. 

Got 30 seconds? Watch the clip.
Got 30 minutes? Watch the full video. 

Thanks Justin Vajko for inviting me on your podcast!

What's the ROI of a research report?

As I told Justin Vajko, while there's nuance, you should generally see two outcomes:

1) In the short-term, press mentions.

There are three things you gotta get right here. 

- Your research has a newsworthy angle.
- Your report is built on high-quality data.
- You let the market know about your study.

If you get those things right, you should see press hits right away. As an example, one of my clients got a write up in an industry publication with 2.6 million daily readers on day one of their report going live.

2) In the longer-term, deal impact.

It generally takes a couple of months to see deals you can confidently attribute to the report, which is why I check in with my clients at the 3-month mark.

At the time of this recording, the same client had just told me that their report had already influenced a few enterprise deals and a few renewals.

Enterprise deals are big, and they take time. 

If the report was that one thing that helped buyers think, "This brand gets it. They seem credible," then I've done my job. 

👉 Liked this clip? Check out the full interview where I explain my approach: Believable Research.  

I'll drop the link in the comments as per usual.

My face when I see someone make sweeping claims about an industry based on their survey of 50 people.

(jk jk — I’m not here to judge, I’m here to help.)

If your survey sample was itsy bitsy teeny weeny, don't present your findings using words like:

everyone
no one
all

That's like walking into a room where all 50 people are wearing Nike sneakers and declaring, "Everyone wears Nike sneakers!" 

No. 

Everyone in that ROOM wears Nike sneakers.

There’s nothing wrong with surveying a small group and sharing what you found. It's a great way to spark interesting conversations on social. 

Just don't frame your findings as universal truths.

Instead, use language like:

"Of the 50 senior leaders we surveyed ... "
"The majority of respondents said ... "
"1 in 3 surveyed BDRs ... "

That way you come across as credible instead of just another vendor who stretches the truth to push their narrative and sell shit.

I share writing & editing lessons so entrepreneurs & founders can attract + convert high-value clients | Edited 3M+ words | Former Head of Content | Running on seltzer 🤩

I help solopreneurs and founders turn their scattered expertise into content that drives business. AKA, I get you out of the "recognition gap."

If you're stuck in the recognition gap, your content probably isn't making people think, "Holy sh*t, I need to work with this person."

I've been there.

After 4.5 years as Head of Content, I went solo and made every mistake in the book: scattered messaging, feast-or-famine revenue cycles, content that got likes but zero leads, relying on referrals like my business depended on it (cuz it did).

Then I had my 'aha!' moment: Stop trying to be known for everything. Own one specific problem so I can become the obvious solution. 

What I do now:

🏴‍☠️Duo Consulting: We help solopreneurs standardize, market, and sell their consulting offers

📈 How Solos Scale: Podcast, newsletter, and mini books for solos stuck in the recognition gap and keen to scale from $20K+ to $50K+ per month

📚 Cut the Fluff Newsletter: Exploring how solopreneurs and founders can cut the fluff in their content, business, and life

A few milestones for good measure:

→ Built a 90K+ audience in 3 years
→ Sold multi-six figures in courses to 2100+ students
→ Helped dozens of clients land $45K+ deals and scale to high six and seven figures. 

My philosophy: Your expertise and the way you frame the problem you solve is your edge. Let's package it into an offer your ICP knows, likes, and buys. 

✉️ Weekly insights: Cut the Fluff newsletter, How Solos Scale podcast 
🎯 Work with me: Duo Consulting 2:1 program 

Book a call: Duoconsulting.co

Erica Schneider

Dear everyone on LinkedIn,

You’re not wrong. But you’re also not right.

Sincerely,

Nuance

Offer design & content for scaling solopreneurs | Co-Founder @ Duo Consulting | Running on seltzer 🤩

Here's how to go viral on LinkedIn as a solopreneur in 2026:

(trust me, read this)




STOP TRYING TO GO F*CKING VIRAL IT'S A WASTE OF ENERGY. JUST MARKET THE PROBLEM, PROCESS, AND PROOF AND FOCUS ON STARTING CONVERSATIONS WITH YOUR ICP.

SHEEEEEESH.

Me: Am I really gonna keep posting on LinkedIn year after year after year after year...

My bank account: Shut up and post

Me: 🫡

If you want to grow your solo business in 2026, you only need to talk about three things in your content. (And a fourth optional moment, if you want.)

We call it the MP3 Framework. (Or MP4, if you add the optional one.)

Market the Problem. 
Market the Process. 
Market the Proof. 
(Market the Parasocial.)

That's it. That's the whole strategy.

🔴 Market the Problem means articulating your audience's pain better than they can themselves.

You're not yelling at them that they suck and making them feel sh*tty. 

You're diagnosing their problems and making them feel seen.

When you name their silent struggles, they assume you know how to solve them. 

🔵 Market the Process means showing how you think. 

You're letting people see your decision-making, your frameworks, your approach. 

This is how you stand out from everyone else selling the same category of results. Your process is your differentiator.

It also proves you have experience solving the same problems you're preaching you understand. (Trust builder, baby.)

🟢 Market the Proof means showing receipts. 

Before/afters. Specific numbers. Screenshots. Client stories. 

This answers the question every prospect is secretly asking: "But will it work for me?"

Well yes, indeed it will, and here is the proof.

These three are required. 

🟡 The fourth P - Market the Parasocial - is optional.

This is the content that makes people feel like they know you as a person, not just as an expert. 

Your kids, your therapy breakthroughs, your existential crises. These behind-the-scenes moments make people feel like they know you, which makes them like you, which can accelerate trust.

But parasocial content can also become a trap.

We've seen solos with 50K, 70K, 100K followers who are struggling to pay the bills. They built an audience of people who like them but don't need them. Affinity without demand.

So if you're naturally drawn to share personal stuff, go for it. But only if the first three Ps are already running. 

---

Stop overthinking your content.

Start with Problem, Process, and Proof. Add parasocial if it gives you energy.

That's how solos scale in 2026.

I'M HONORED TO INTRODUCE YOU TO SUPER DING-DONG CONSULTING. Nick Bennett 🏴‍☠️ and I did something so stupid, and I must share. 

Duo Consulting is doing really well, and we wanted to make it official on the books.

But we didn't want a purely partnership-based structure for many reasons.

So we created a new shared company that both of our individual companies own.

But there was a problem...

This company needed a name.

So we pondered.

And pondered some more.

And then, when we thought we couldn't ponder for a minute longer, it hit us.

Why not name it an inside joke? I mean, who cares, right? 

And thus, SUPER DING-DONG was born. It's the shadow company that owns our company. Clients will still get invoiced by Duo Consulting.

The pleasure I get from seeing this stupid name in my inbox is unmatched. 

I giggle.

And now I hope you, too, giggle.

This is the best time of year to ask yourself: What kind of business do I want to build?

We don’t ask ourselves this enough. Especially if we’re talented, capable, and successful by “winging our way through things.”

Most of the solos and micro agency owners we work with doing $50k+ months have no idea what they’re working towards.

They’re just working.

That’s only sustainable for so long.

By the way I don’t mean sit down and answer:

“What revenue targets should I hit?”
“How many clients do I need?”
“What's my growth trajectory?”

I mean ask yourself: 

"What's my vision for this business?"

This shifts your focus to what you're working toward, not just the tactics and targets to get there. 

It makes you think deeply about: 

"How does this business fit into the life I want to live?"

We’re releasing a mini book in a few days that’ll go deeper into this. You can subscribe to our newsletter How Solos Scale in my profile. 

In the meantime, like I said, it’s a great time to throw some brain cycles at this.

Alright alright everyone sit down please. That’s enough chitchat. 

STARTS WRITING ON CHALKBOARD.

Ok so let’s pick up where we left off. 

“Ignoring advice that keeps you poor.”

Tony, can you remind the class what kind of advice keeps you poor?

Ummm, chasing likes?

Aha! So you do pay attention. Fantastic.

CHASING LIKES

Deb, what’s wrong with chasing likes?

It can trick our brains.

Yes, elaborate please?

Well, the more likes you get, the better you feel, so you chase that feeling. It’s like a drug.

Indeed, we call this:

CHEAP DOPAMINE

Sasha, what’s better than cheap dopamine?

Money?

Haha, money is amazing. But it’s only part of it. What’s the real goal of being on social if you’re a consultant?

Finding the right clients?

Yes!

RESONANCE 

A byproduct of resonating with the right people is making money, so you weren’t far off Sasha.

Teacher Erica?

Yes, Zach?

If chasing likes is a trap, why do so many people preach this strategy?

Excellent question Zach.

The short answer is: We’re human, and we all want to fit in. More likes feels good, and it’s also a good strategy for traffic businesses or SaaS founders in growth mode. 

But not for consultants who run relationship businesses?

Exactly.

You only need 10-30 clients a year. And they don’t need you to teach them how to do something. They need to feel like you understand their problem so well, they can trust you to fix it.

So when you teach people how to do something, it’s more likely to get likes?

Yeah. Teaching posts attract lower maturity lower ticket buyers trying to figure it out on their own.

But when you market the problem and your process for solving it, that’s how you reach people looking to spend $5000+ for a partner, instead of <$150 for a self guided experience or SaaS.

Alright that’s enough for today. Great job everyone.

Class dismissed.

Year 1 of going solo feels the most exciting, but it's the most dangerous. Especially if you're making good money right off the bat.

Cuz it's way too easy to fall into this trap:

Year 1: Clients show up. Revenue happens. You're like, "Holy shit, I should've done this years ago."

And then somewhere around months 12, 14, 18: It stops. The pipeline thins out. The inbounds dry up. You're not sure what changed, but something definitely changed.

What happened?

Your network was clearing the decks.

Most of those early clients were people who'd been waiting for you to go solo. Old colleagues. Friends-of-friends. That one person who'd been in your DMs for months. 

Maybe some were evidence of product-market fit. 

But most were pent-up demand with a shelf life.

And that shelf life is about 12-18 months.

A rough map of how it plays out:

Months 1-6: The flood. More leads than you can handle. You're saying no to people. Life is good.

Months 6-12: Still cruising. A few renewals, some referrals from early clients. You're heads-down on delivery. Marketing falls off, but whatever cuz pipeline feels fine.

Months 12-18: Things slow down. You notice it but explain it away. Slow season. The economy's weird. "I've been so focused on client work." You haven't posted consistently in months, but whatever.

Month 18+: Panic. Pipeline's empty. And you realize you have no idea how to actually generate demand because you've never had to. Everything before this was gravity.

Now you need to climb. And you don't have the equipment.

If this is hitting a nerve, please know two things:

1. This is normal and almost everyone we work with goes through it
2. Once you realize it, it's fixable

At Duo Consulting, we help solopreneurs stuck around $30-50k months fix your offer, fix your messaging, and build the systems that help you escape the Recognition Gap (the distance between what problem you solve and how many people know it).

Not how many people know YOU, cuz even if you have tons of followers, if people can't name the problem you solve, you're in the danger zone.

Getting out of the Recognition Gap is the difference between "I have to move mountains on every sales call" and "people show up ready to buy."

DM me if this resonates and let's talk.

“I hit up my referral partners and for the first time ever I heard nothing back.”

Yoooo this is a scary moment. And it usually happens around months 12-18 of your solo biz.

Why?

Cuz pent up demand from year one has a shelf life.

It’s not unusual in our world of former tech operators to hit $20k, $30k, maybe $50k months within year one.

If you’re good at your job and well-connected in-house, you likely have old colleagues and friends-of-friends excited to hire you.

Almost everyone we know taps into this network. 

Some of them even get hired to contract for the company they just quit. It’s crazy!

But yeah it doesn’t last. Nor should it, because a sustainable biz must be built on more than your existing network. You have to tap into the wider market if you plan to survive long term.

So if you’re in months 12-18 right now and things are starting to feel a bit weird, this is your window.

Build the machine while you’ve got runway. While you’ve got confidence. 

It’s so much harder to fix this stuff when you’re scared and broke than when you’re stable and thinking clearly.

And if you’re already in the panic, it’s not too late, but you gotta move.

The lie of the year-one-to-year-two transition is that it’ll keep working even if nothing changes.

If most of your clients aren't getting results, is that their fault or yours?

Nick and I ask all the consultants we work with to do a client audit. Rate every client on a scale of 1-10. Not just outcomes, but energy. 

Did you enjoy working with them? 
Would you work with them again?
Did they follow your advice?

One client recently told us he wanted to give almost everyone a 1. 

A ONE out of TEN. Yikes.

He'd never looked at his roster like that before. And when we dug into why, the answer was the same across the board: 

They weren't doing anything with the strategy he delivered.

His first instinct was frustration. "I gave them everything they needed."

But after seeing this pattern over and over again, we've come to believe, as harsh at it sounds... 

Our failures as consultants are ours, not our clients'.

There's only so much "I took on a bad client" to go around. 

At some point, if no one is executing, if no one is getting results, if your brilliant strategies are collecting dust on a shelf somewhere, the engagement model is the problem. Not the client.

The consultants who make the most money? They drag their clients to glory.

Not "here's the plan, good luck."
Not "I'll check in next quarter to see how it went."

They stay in it. They do the work alongside. They build execution into the engagement so the client can't not succeed.

Like it or not, what people pay for is the likelihood that they will actually be successful. That the thing will get done. That someone will make sure it happens.

If you're a consultant right now wondering why your clients aren't getting results, stop asking what's wrong with them.

Start asking what's missing from your offer.

PS. Thanks to Rachel Elsts Downey✨and the Share Your Genius team for making us sound amazing every week.

Liam 2x’d his revenue in 2 months (without working more hours). Here’s how we took him from $40k to $80k mrr in 60 days:

When Liam came to us, he was running a successful fractional growth practice. Four clients. ~9k average retainers. Referrals coming in left, right, and center.

But he was stuck.

He was working 60-hour weeks doing all the button-clicking himself. LinkedIn ads, Google ads, reporting, everything.

He had no capacity to take on the referrals people were sending him.

He was actually telling his network to stop sending deals because he couldn’t handle more work.

And his positioning was generic. He sounded like every other demand gen consultant in the market.

Here’s where he is now:

Running at $80K/month. That’s a $1M annual run rate.

7-8 active clients at ~12k retainers with pricing power to push higher.
Full contractor team operational at ~70% margins. All running through ClickUp with proper workflows.

Capacity to take on 3-4 more accounts.

Here’s the insight that unlocked everything:

Liam isn’t a paid media consultant. Paid media is table stakes. What he actually does is help companies stop being over-reliant on a single source of pipeline.

Once we nailed that positioning, everything else fell into place. The offer made sense. The pricing made sense. Conversations with prospects got easier because he could finally explain why he’s not just another fractional marketing hire.

The other piece: Liam pushes back on founders. He won’t be an order taker. That’s a feature, not a bug. But he wasn’t articulating it. Now it’s part of his positioning, and it resonates with the exact clients he wants to work with.

Two months. Doubled his revenue. Built the infrastructure to scale past where he was stuck.

That’s what happens when you stop selling your time and start selling a point of view.

DM me if you’re doing $30K+ mrr and want to scale without working more hours.

"I have enough deals in my pipeline, but I need help standardizing my scope."

All five of our latest clients said this when we asked what's going on in their business. This means:

-The demand is there 
-People want to work with them 
-But every new deal feels like starting from scratch 
-Every engagement has a different scope, different deliverables, different timeline
-They're customizing everything because they haven't figured out what "the work" actually looks like when it's repeatable

You know you're here if:

🤪 You dread writing proposals because you have to rebuild the entire engagement from scratch every time.

🤪 You've said yes to scope that made you miserable because you didn't have a clear boundary to point to.

🤪 You undercharge because you're not sure what the work is worth when it changes every single time.

🤪 You can't delegate anything because the "process" lives in your head and shifts depending on your mood and the client's budget.

🤪 You're technically at your highest revenue ever but you've never felt more exhausted.

🤪 You've caught yourself thinking "maybe I should just go back in-house" because at least that chaos came with a steady paycheck and PTO.

The fix isn't productizing everything into a rigid box. That's an overcorrection. 

The fix is standardization: every client engagement looks the same at the top level, even if the details vary. 

A clear arc. Defined phases. Deliverables you can name. A process you can refine over time instead of reinventing every time.

If your pipeline is full but every deal feels like a custom nightmare, you have a systems problem. And it's the reason your success is making things harder instead of easier.

DM me if you're doing $30k+ MRR and are ready to fix this.

taplio

The Battle

Erin Balsa

Erica Schneider

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreErin Balsa's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreErica Schneider's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Erin Balsa

Erica Schneider

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Erin Balsa's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreErica Schneider's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreErin Balsa's LinkedIn Performance