PICA Member Spotlights

Q&A with independent consultants who successfully “made the leap” and created the consulting career of their dreams

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Q: Please introduce yourself and tell us the name of your business and your area of expertise.

A: I’m Cynthia Farrell, the owner and principal of my consulting firm, 110 West Group, based out of the Denver area. I provide leadership, team and culture consulting to help businesses build better talent so they can get better business results.

Q: How did you come up with the name for your business?

A: My husband and I were in Bozeman a number of years ago, an area that we love. The 110th west meridian line runs just west of Bozeman, Montana and a little bit west of Denver, too. It runs through some of the most magnificent vistas in the United States, such as Glacier National Park and the national parks in Utah. We came up with the name for a business and knew that we wanted to use it in the future. When I decided to launch my own business, I decided to use the name 110 West Group. It’s about helping companies get to that amazing view, that incredible vista. The work I do will get you on the path to better – better business results through better leaders, teams, and culture. It's something that has a lot of personal meaning for us, yet also resonates with the business as well.

Q: How long have you been independent?

A: It'll be two years since I registered my business in Colorado on June 26th.

Q: What was the inspiration behind it? Why did you make the leap?

A: I had been a corporate warrior for all of my career since I graduated from college, with a focus on leadership, teams, culture, and all the talent work on the HR side. In my last corporate job I was promoted into a role leading HR for a midsize, PE-funded healthcare technology company. I joined that company to lead their talent and organizational development efforts, and when our leader left, they asked me to step into the role, which was an incredible honor. I was in that role for two amazing years. It was the toughest job I've ever done, but I learned so much. I cried a lot just out of sheer lack of knowing. I was really lucky because I was super supported and had great leaders that gave me a lot of grace along the way. About six months into that role, the company was purchased by a public company. It became pretty obvious that they weren't going to need two SVPs of HR. I negotiated a package and stuck around for another six months for the transition. I had been living in Minneapolis since 1995, and my husband and I decided to use that as an opportunity to get out of Minnesota. We love Minnesota, but couldn't take the cold anymore. I took a month off and was interviewing for some head of HR roles out here in Denver. There was one that I was a finalist for but when I didn't get it, I wasn't disappointed. I realized my lack of reaction was saying something to me—that I wanted to get back to the work that I love. As I said, the HR leadership role was an incredible learning experience. It makes me better at what I do, but I wasn't passionate about it. I wanted to get back to the talent work and I wanted to try doing it on my own. So I thought, "Okay, in the past three months, we have moved to Colorado, both of us without jobs. We bought a house sight unseen. Why not take another risk and start my own company?" So I did, and I love it.

Q: What were some of the first steps you took once you made up your mind to go out on your own?

A: Well, I knew I wanted to get back to the work I love - the talent work--but I was having a really hard time framing up how I wanted to do that. One of my good friends is a head of strategic communications for a large company in Minneapolis and I had a lot of conversations with her. I was getting caught up in things like a website, and a tagline--not the stuff that's really important. Part of the work I do is to help companies figure out where to focus from a strategic perspective. That's work that I facilitate, but I wasn't doing it for myself. I realized I could facilitate this process on myself. So I sat down with a pile of sticky notes and a marker and wrote down all of the things that I could do independently. And then I put them in piles and I categorized them.

Probably one of the most important piles was the pile of things that I could do but didn't want to do. For example, I have a really deep background in instructional design, but I didn’t want to do that anymore. So being able to say really clearly, "These are the things I don't want to do," was important.

Once I was able to crystallize where I wanted to focus, then I started reaching out to my network. I made a list of all of the people I had connections with, people I had worked for, managers, employees, and I just started reaching out to them and saying, "Hey, here's what I'm doing. I would love to get your feedback on it to see if this resonates with you in terms of how I am framing it up." I wasn't going out asking for business. I wanted to let them know that I was out on my own and I was available, but it was really framed up as, "I want to get your reaction to this and how I can use that to help craft my message."

Q: Tell us a little bit about how that outreach process went. Were most people receptive? Did some people just not reply? What was the general reaction from people?

A: Most people were super receptive. I have really good relationships with the people I've worked for. That's been very, very important to me. I am a strong believer that how you leave a company is just as important as what you do when you're there. I always made sure to leave well, so I had really good relationships with the leaders I worked for. They were happy to jump on the phone with me. A number of them have turned into clients now. 

One of the coolest experiences (it hasn’t turned into client work, but I believe it will pay off in the future) was when I reached out to our former CEO. He was the CEO of the company I was with when we got acquired. When we got acquired, he joined the board and left the CEO role. So I reached out to Mark and said, "Hey, this is what I'm doing. I'd love to get your input." He was so supportive and connected me with one person here in Denver for a company where he's on the board of directors. I reached out to that person. I had to put myself out there and be super intentional about making connections and building a network here in Denver because I did not have a network here. So I reached out to this one guy, Michael. I quickly found that people in Denver are so willing to help and connect you. Michael connected me with four people. Each one of those four people connected me with four people. I think I've got a list of around 60 people that all go back to my first email to Mark, the CEO I worked for.

Like I said, those have not necessarily turned into work here in the Denver area and that's fine. I don't need work here right now. They will at some point. I've actually gotten to develop some really good friendships, which is also important. But it was just having to be really intentional and being willing to step into a really awkward space. When I reached out to people here in Denver, I still wasn't reaching out to sell what I do. It was, "Hey, I'm new to the area. I'm trying to build a network, and I would love to get your perspective on what the industry is like here in the Denver area." It's very different than in Minneapolis, and that's something I've had to recalibrate on. And it’s probably why I haven't necessarily gotten any clients here because it is such a different market.

I had to be willing to be awkward. I went to some networking events. I'm very extroverted, but I do not like large networking events. I like the more intimate scenario where you're in a smaller group. But I stepped into those awkward spaces and have gotten to know some really amazing people. I really believe that the energy I put out will come back to me at some point. It's just going to happen when it's time for it to happen.

Q: What's one thing you know now that you wish you had known two years ago?

A: You can ask for more than you think you can. I do my projects in a number of different ways. I'm a portfolio consultant--I have three or four different clients at any given time. I have not done full-time work with one client. I like that variety, I like the chaos. I have bid projects on a flat fee and I have one project where I'm on a retainer. And then I’m hourly with my longest running client. The rate I gave them was the rate that felt comfortable to me.

Then I started working with a business coach last year and she said, "With your experience, you're not charging enough." I've heard this elsewhere too: "Charge the number that is going to make you a little bit uncomfortable and yet you'll feel okay if they say no." So I started doing that with all of my subsequent clients. Nobody batted an eye.

Then in January, I went back to my first client. I didn't tell them I was going to raise my rates with them, but I said, "Here's where I'm at. Given the level of strategic work that I'm doing with you and the fact that I'm not doing as many hours anymore, but the work that I'm doing is more strategic than what I started with, you should have capacity in your budget to move me up to this higher bill rate where all my other clients are at. I'd like to move you up there so that all of the work I'm doing with you and my other clients has that same value." No issue whatsoever. Going back, I wish I would have started there. I'm still probably a little low, but I'm comfortable right now. It's probably time to start thinking about a higher rate if I get another client.

So that's what I wish I'd known two years ago. Whatever you think you're worth, you're worth more.

Q: You mentioned that you're redoing your website. Is this in honor of the two-year anniversary or is there some other big shift with your business?

A:  What I am offering and what I want to focus on has shifted a bit since I did my website two years ago. If you were to look at my website even a month ago, I still had change management on there. I don't want to do change management anymore. It's not something I love to do.

So I made the decision to really update my website, but I also wanted to work with somebody who could help me with the content. After 25 years in corporate, I'm really good at corporate speak, and I wanted the website to be a reflection of the importance of the work I do, but also what it's truly like to work with me. I wanted my personality to be in it, and I didn't want to build it myself. I just was doing it in GoDaddy's website builder. I wanted better technology. This is where there are important things to outsource - my taxes, my website building. So I worked with a content person, and I'm working with some website developers.

So going back to your question about a change in my business, one of the things I started doing this year was more speaking. I actually signed with a woman in January to find me speaking gigs. She doesn't pitch me, but she found a bunch of speaking gigs for me. I've got four lined up through that process, and I think another two that I found and pitched myself. One of the things that she said was, "You have to update your website if you want to do speaking gigs, because I can't find you on your website. I need to find you and see you. I want to know what you talk about. I want to see clips of you talking." So that was a big part of the reason for wanting to get it updated.

Q: How did you find a content person to help you?

A: I reached out to a couple of people whose websites I liked and I talked to a couple of web developers who had content people they worked with. And then I just kind of skulked around from that until I found somebody whose tone I really liked. 

One big thing I learned is that just because someone helps with content writing, or LinkedIn profiles, or marketing, or whatever, doesn’t mean they always understand what people like us who are B2B consultants do. They want to put us in the coaching box, and they want to talk about newsletters and building your email list and all of that stuff. That's all great. I should do that, and I probably will at some point in the future. That's not where I'm at right now.

So many of these people couldn't understand what I did. Rather than really listening to me and turning it into what I needed, they were listening for what they wanted to hear. I wasn't getting what resonated with me. If I have to hear one more person tell me to build my email marketing list, I'm just going to stick a fork in my eye. But the woman who I finally chose, she pushed me and she challenged me. We didn't agree on everything, and I was okay with that, but I felt like she got it. That was really what was important to me. If you’re interested in a website content writer who isn’t your typical corporate writer, reach out to Jen at Feel These Words.

 

Q: How did you find the speaker's representative?

A: I mentioned that last year I worked with a business coach and I was part of a Mastermind. There's a pretty tight community here in Denver of women solopreneurs. It was through one of those contacts that I found out about Phylecia at iFind You Close and reached out to her. 

Q: Last, how can people find out more about you or your business?

A: You can find out more about me on my newly revamped website, 110 West Group, and I'm on LinkedIn as well.

LinkedIn110 West GroupiFind You CloseFeel These Words~ ~ ~
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