Episode 74- Personal Branding vs Company Branding: What 20 Years of Board Advisory Work Taught Dr Monique Beedles
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Most consultants make the branding decision backwards.
They start a company, spend money on a logo and a company name, and only years later realise their real credibility was never tied to that name; it was tied to them.
Dr Monique Beedles made that discovery the hard way. After nearly 20 years advising boards and senior executives on strategy and asset management, she rebuilt her entire positioning around her own name instead of her company's. Her reasoning, and the framework she now uses with other consultants, offers a practical answer to one of the most common questions independent consultants face: should you brand your practice under your own name, or under a company?
Beedles is uniquely qualified to answer this. She holds a PhD in Strategy and a Masters of Finance, has spent more than 20 years as a board director and chair, and is the bestselling author of Asset Management for Directors and Leadership Assets. She's also the creator of the True Worth Discovery program, which applies strategic and asset-management thinking to a very different asset: human potential.
This article breaks down her approach to personal branding, niche differentiation, and what she calls "true worth", and why these three ideas are more connected than they first appear.
Personal Brand vs Company Brand: The Decision Every Consultant Faces
When Beedles started her consulting practice in her late twenties, she did what most new consultants do. She created a company name and invested in building a brand around it.
"I never had the intent to build a big consulting practice," she explains. "Because I figured that if I want to have 100 people working for me, I'd just become a manager." If scaling into a large firm was never the goal, then building a brand identity separate from her own name was working against her, not for her.
Over time, that became clear. The company still exists as a legal entity: it's still what appears on invoices and contracts. But her marketing, positioning, and public presence now run entirely under her own name.
That transition wasn't simple. It meant a rebrand, a shift in how clients found and referred her, and some friction with corporate and government clients who, in her experience, still expect a company name attached to credibility, particularly in international markets like the US and Europe.
Her view on that expectation is direct: a consultant's name shouldn't need a company's reputation to be credible. The relationship should work the other way. "I bring value to some other organisation if I attach my name to theirs," she says. "I don't want to be in a situation where the other company gives me my credibility."
When It Still Makes Sense to Keep a Company Name
This isn't an argument against having a registered business entity. Beedles has operated through a proprietary limited company for almost her entire career, and recommends most consultants do the same, depending on their financial and legal circumstances.
The distinction is between the legal vehicle and the brand. A company name can still exist for invoicing, contracts, and structuring your finances. Your marketing, your speaking, your publishing, and your client-facing identity can run under your own name at the same time. One doesn't have to replace the other.
For consultants who need to pitch for government tenders or grants that expect a formal business name, keeping a company structure in place alongside a personal brand solves that problem without forcing a choice. If pricing and positioning under your own name is the next question, Melissa Lithgow's pricing and positioning lessons are a useful next read.
How to Transition an Existing Brand to Your Own Name
If you've already built a company-first brand and want to shift, Beedles' own experience suggests the earlier you make the change, the easier it is. She acknowledges the transition "requires a bit of a rebranding," and that it can still be tricky in specific markets or client relationships.
Her advice for anyone starting out now is to skip the detour entirely: if you don't intend to build a large firm, build your personal brand from day one, rather than establishing a company identity you'll eventually need to unwind.
Why Niche Differentiation Beats Competing on Price
Branding is only half the equation. The other half is knowing exactly what you're known for, and Beedles built her niche in a very specific way.
She started with a broad, portable qualification: a PhD in strategy, which could apply to almost any industry. But because she was based in Brisbane, her earliest consulting projects landed in the mining sector, a major part of the local economy. That's where asset management became central to her work.
Rather than treating that as a narrow speciality, she invested in it deliberately, engaging with professional bodies in asset management, pursuing additional training, and building credibility in a field she hadn't originally trained in.
What made her offering distinct wasn't that she became a technical asset management expert. It's that she approached the field from a different direction than most people already working in it.
Finding a Niche When You're Trained as a Generalist
Most people in asset management come up through engineering, trades, or accounting, a technical, bottom-up path. Beedles came from the opposite direction: strategy and board experience, applied downward into technical detail.
That contrast is the point. A generalist background doesn't have to be a disadvantage in a specialised field. It can become the differentiator, if you use it to ask a different set of questions than the specialists already in that space are asking.
Complementing, Not Duplicating, Existing Offerings
This is the core of Beedles' advice on standing out from larger firms: don't try to replicate what already exists. Look for the strategic gap.
In her case, that meant connecting board-and-executive-level strategic thinking to what was happening at the technical level inside asset-heavy organisations, a connection that specialists coming up from engineering or trades weren't necessarily positioned to make.
For any solo consultant trying to compete against a large firm with more staff and broader service lines, this reframes the challenge. You're not trying to out-resource them. You're trying to offer something they structurally can't.
The same principle shows up in how Jacinta Cubis defines the line between a facilitator and a trainer, another case of a consultant carving out a category rather than competing inside an existing one. Professional bodies like the Asset Management Council also offer a structured path for consultants looking to build the kind of sector credibility Beedles describes.
Redefining "Worth": From Asset Management to Human Potential
Beedles' most recent work extends her strategy and asset-management background into a very different domain: people.
Her True Worth Discovery program and community grew out of an observation she made repeatedly, even among senior, highly capable professionals: talented, ambitious people who were consistently undervalued, underestimated, or undermined in their roles.
The pattern she saw was a mismatch: between what people knew they were capable of and what they were actually being recognised for, whether that showed up as a missed promotion, a stalled pay rise, or a job they didn't get.
Her core premise is straightforward: people need to recognise their own worth before others will. The program is built to help people move from feeling undervalued to feeling respected, valued, and seen, and she's seen participants make concrete decisions as a result, including pursuing roles they'd previously talked themselves out of.
Why "People Are Our Greatest Asset" Falls Short
Beedles is sceptical of a phrase most organisations use without examining it: "our people are our greatest asset."
Her argument is that organisational systems are often built the way physical assets are managed: hierarchical, standardised, mechanised. But people aren't machines, and treating them with the same systems used for land, buildings, or equipment doesn't work.
In a tight labour market, she argues, that disconnect has real consequences. If people don't feel valued or given real opportunity, they leave. That's not a soft observation: it's a retention and competitiveness problem for the organisations getting it wrong. Rita Cincotta's approach to deliberate leadership covers similar ground from the leadership-development side.
The True Worth Discovery Framework
The program applies the same basic structure used in corporate strategy work to an individual's career: where are you now, what capabilities do you have, what's the vision, and what's the plan to get there.
It also connects directly to her Leadership Assets framework, which argues that effective leaders need three layers of capability: technical skill, business skill, and (most often underdeveloped) human capability, including empathy, humility, and integrity. Beedles notes these human capabilities are frequently missing from formal leadership training, despite being what actually differentiates leaders who advance from those who don't.
The Real Cause of Imposter Syndrome in Women Consultants
Beedles pushes back on how imposter syndrome is typically framed, especially for women in consulting.
Her position: the common narrative, that women lack confidence, gets the causation backwards. In her view, women are frequently underestimated, undervalued, and undermined, and the more often that message is reinforced externally, the more it erodes confidence internally. The confidence gap, in other words, may be a symptom rather than the root cause.
She observes that many women are highly qualified, often more so academically than their male peers at the same level, and that this achievement frequently isn't reflected in corporate or government leadership representation. Her conclusion is that the explanation isn't a personal deficiency; it's structural factors limiting opportunity.
What Women Are Actually Up Against
Rather than framing the fix as building more confidence, Beedles reframes it as recognition: understanding your existing capabilities, and identifying what's genuinely unique about how you think and create.
Identifying What Makes You Irreplaceable
This connects directly back to her work on differentiation and automation. Skills and knowledge, she argues, are replaceable: they can be learned, delegated, or increasingly automated by AI and robotics. What can't be replicated is unique creativity, insight, and judgement.
Her advice for consultants navigating both imposter syndrome and increasing automation is the same: identify what makes you irreplaceable, and build your positioning around that, not around tasks that could eventually be done by someone, or something, else. Mandy Napier's take on building a practice without spray-and-pray marketing picks up this same theme of positioning around what genuinely sets you apart.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should consultants brand their business under their own name or a company name?
If you don't plan to grow into a large multi-person firm, branding under your own name from the start avoids having to rebrand later. A company entity can still exist behind the scenes for invoicing and contracts.
How do I differentiate my consulting practice from large firms?
Focus on offering something a larger, more generalised firm structurally can't: a specific niche, a distinct combination of experience, or a strategic angle the bigger players in that space aren't positioned to offer.
What is the True Worth Discovery program?
It's a program created by Dr Monique Beedles that applies strategy and asset-management principles to individual career development, helping people move from feeling undervalued to recognising and acting on their actual capabilities.
Is imposter syndrome really a confidence problem?
Not necessarily. Dr Beedles argues that in many cases, particularly for women, what looks like low confidence is a reasonable response to being consistently underestimated, undervalued, or undermined: a structural issue rather than a personal one.
How did Dr Monique Beedles build her niche in asset management?
She combined a broad strategy background (PhD in Strategy) with deep, deliberate specialisation in one sector (mining and asset-heavy industries), approaching asset management from a board-and-strategy perspective rather than the more common engineering or technical route.
Conclusion
Dr Monique Beedles' approach covers three areas: branding, niche-building, and redefining worth. The same idea runs through all three: know exactly what makes you valuable, and stop diluting it by trying to look like everyone else.
For consultants building an independent practice, that means making deliberate choices early: brand under your own name if that's genuinely your business model, differentiate instead of competing on price, and recognise that your most durable asset is the thing about you that can't be copied or automated.
Work With Jane Anderson
Want more frameworks like this for building your consulting practice? Explore Melissa Lithgow's guide to pricing and positioning, or join the Women with Influence community to work through your own branding and niche strategy alongside other consultants.
Listen to the full conversation with Dr Monique Beedles on The Apple Podcast, and connect with her directly on LinkedIn or at moniquebeedles.com.
Key Takeaways from Today’s Episode:
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Jane Anderson introduces her podcast, the Jane Anderson Brand New Show, aimed at experts seeking greater impact, influence, and income in their careers or businesses. She emphasizes the importance of building relationships, especially in the current climate of uncertainty. Anderson discusses various topics prevalent in consulting, such as the "quiet quitting" trend, engagement, retention, and the transition from the "great resignation" to the "great retention." She mentions challenges related to hybrid events, travel restrictions, and staffing shortages in hospitality. Anderson promotes her IGNITE program and introduces the guest, Dr. Monique Beedles, an expert in strategy, leadership, and asset management.
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Dr. Monique Beedles expresses her excitement about being on the show and looks forward to the conversation with Jane Anderson. Jane establishes a personal connection with Monique Beatles, mentioning their previous encounters in Thought Leaders Business School and their shared Brisbane background. She invites Monique to share her journey and insights, particularly focusing on her consulting practice and experiences.
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Monique Beedles reflects on her nearly 20-year consulting career, highlighting her transition from academia to consulting and her focus on strategy, leadership, and asset management. She discusses her decision to start her practice at a young age and her commitment to helping boards and senior executives navigate strategic challenges.
Jane asks Monique about the challenges she faced in her consulting practice and the secrets of her success. Monique shares typical life challenges, including balancing work and family responsibilities, and emphasizes the importance of adaptability and prioritization.
Jane praises Monique's inspirational journey and the choices she made, defying conventional timelines for starting a consulting practice. Monique acknowledges the importance of pursuing personal and professional goals on one's terms, irrespective of societal norms.
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Anderson transitions the conversation to Monique's new initiatives, particularly her True Worth Discovery program and community. Monique explains the program's focus on helping individuals recognize and embrace their true worth, overcoming feelings of undervaluation or underestimation.
Monique elaborates on her True Worth Discovery program's objectives and outcomes, emphasizing the transformation from feeling undervalued to feeling respected and valued. She shares anecdotes of participants' progress and decision-making following the program.
In this segment, Jane Anderson and Dr. Monique Beedles discuss various aspects of Monique's consulting journey, challenges, successes, and her new initiatives aimed at empowering individuals to recognize their true worth. Monique's expertise and insights provide valuable lessons for aspiring consultants and professionals seeking personal and professional growth.
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Dr. Monique Beedles discusses the impact of her True Worth Discovery program, emphasizing its ability to empower individuals to make significant life decisions and pursue their aspirations. She explains how the program leverages principles from strategy and asset management to help individuals recognize their value and potential. Monique underscores the importance of addressing the disconnect between organizational structures and human needs, particularly in environments where people feel undervalued or underestimated.
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Monique elaborates on her approach, emphasizing the need to develop human capabilities alongside technical and business skills for effective leadership. She underscores the significance of qualities like empathy, humility, and integrity in leadership development, which are often overlooked in formal training. Monique discusses the concept of "leadership assets" and its relevance to personal and professional growth strategies.
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Monique reflects on her own branding journey, advising consultants to prioritize personal branding over company branding. She shares insights into building relationships within target markets, differentiating offerings from larger competitors, and leveraging speaking engagements and publications for visibility and credibility. Monique encourages consultants to focus on niche markets and articulate strong value propositions to attract clients.
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Monique shares her journey of establishing niche expertise in asset management, highlighting the importance of aligning one's skills with specific industries. She discusses her strategic approach to transitioning from a broad business context to focusing on the mining industry, where asset management became a crucial component of her consulting projects. Monique emphasizes the value of offering complementary services that address strategic needs from a different perspective, rather than duplicating existing offerings in the market.
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Monique discusses the untapped potential within individuals and organizations, emphasizing the importance of creating environments that allow individuals to achieve their full potential. She highlights the economic benefits of tapping into diverse talent pools and leveraging human creativity in an era of automation and AI. Monique encourages individuals to identify their irreplaceable qualities and leverage them to drive personal and organizational growth.
Jane Anderson concludes the conversation by summarizing the key takeaways from Monique's insights. She highlights Monique's advice on personal branding, embracing creativity, and defining one's unique value proposition. Jane encourages listeners to connect with Monique's True Worth community and engage with her expertise in personal and professional development. Monique expresses gratitude for the opportunity to share her passion and expertise, emphasizing her commitment to empowering individuals to realize their true worth.
In this final segment, Dr. Monique Beatles and Jane Anderson delve into overcoming imposter syndrome, unleashing untapped potential, and connecting with Monique's True Worth community. Monique's insights offer valuable guidance for individuals seeking to overcome self-doubt, leverage their unique strengths, and thrive in today's competitive landscape.
Full Show Transcript:
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Hi there, my name is Jane Anderson and this is the Jane Anderson Brand New Show. It's the podcast for experts who want to have greater impact, influence and income for their businesses and careers. As experts, we know that people buy from people and work with people who they know, who they like and who they trust.
So I'm so glad you're here because it's that time again now to really amplify how you show up in the world. Hi there and welcome to the Jane Anderson Show. I am so thrilled that you are joining us today.
We have a very special guest, which I'll be introducing shortly, but today we're talking all about how to build your consulting practice, particularly for women in consulting and working with large organisations, which is where we spend most of our time, whether I'm sharing my insights or interviewing people, particularly women who are doing this amazing work or people who particularly understand our world and how we apply it in our work. Some of the things that we're working on at the moment, I'm doing, seeing a lot of things happening, particularly there's a lot of conversation, particularly around the quiet quitting.
You've probably seen a bit of that in the media, I'm working with quite a few future work experts and leadership experts, lots of conversations around engagement, retention and this shift from the great resignation to this great retention. So lots of conversation around that. Quiet quitting, which is essentially around disengagement and how people are working from home.
Lots of interesting data that's coming out around the amount of work that people are getting done, trust, how we're trying to get people back into the office, organisations that are doing that well versus organisations who are struggling, how we get the balance right and how it's an employee's kind of market at the moment. It will be interesting to see how that evolves and changes as we go into some pretty tough economic times over the next year, I guess. We've got changes in things like massive inflation.
We've got changes in interest rates, housing market going through a lot of change. So we're still in fairly diabolical kind of times. And so what I'm noticing is it really emphasises the point around relationships.
It really emphasises the importance of staying connected with your customers and clients, continuing to build those relationships, build new ones, because there's still organisations that are doing very well, there's conferences that are starting to come back. So we're definitely seeing those sorts of things. What we are seeing is that it's often fairly short lead times because of the uncertainty and things that are happening.
We've also got issues going on with possible strikes coming up with flights, things like that, really expensive last minute flights and accommodation and those types of things that can sometimes be hindering getting people together, particularly because of staff shortages in hospitality and event management. So it's still really challenging times. We're seeing the research is still telling us around hybrid events and virtual events.
Don't think that's changing too much, but we do know people still really want to get together. So there's lots still happening. On that note, I am running an IGNITE program.
It's a one day workshop. I'm doing one in Melbourne and in Brisbane in October and November. So jump on the website, you'll see them on the events page there.
If you need some help with strategizing for next year, if you're thinking about, OK, I need to put my goals together and set my plan up for the next 12 months, please come on. I'd love for you to come along and join us and to be able to really set yourself up for success for the next 12 months. On that note, and speaking about strategy today, I'm going to introduce a very special guest with us today.
So this guest today, her name is Dr. Monique Beedles . She is an internationally recognized thought leader and best selling author in the areas of strategy, leadership and asset management. She has a PhD in strategy and a master's of finance.
Monique has had more than 20 years of board experience and spent the last couple of decades working with boards and senior executives to nurture the growth of their enterprises. Monique is passionate about helping leaders to identify and embrace their own true worth so that they can do their best work and make a real difference. I look forward to your thoughts, insights and reflections.
Please reach out to me. I'd love to hear your insights and learnings from the interview today with Monique. Hi there, Monique.
I am so excited to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for coming along. I know you are one very, very busy woman.
Thank you for joining us.
[Speaker 1] (5:09 - 5:15)
It's so great to have you.
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Thanks so much, Jane, for inviting me along. I'm really excited to be here and I'm looking forward to our chat.
[Speaker 2] (5:17 - 6:03)
So Monique and I go back a few years, we met back in Thought Leaders Business School a few years ago and Monique, I think back and we're both Brisbane ladies, so it's really nice to connect with a local. We've done a few content creation sessions or thought pink sheet sessions together and different things like that. So for those who are familiar with some of that work, we have lots of listeners who are in that world.
So Monique, tell us, I'd love for you to share a bit about your practice, your journey, because most of the ladies listening to this podcast are women who have either started having consulting practices or left corporate and started their consulting practices and selling to organisations. So it's always lovely to hear your version of that and how you sort of ended up where you are now.
[Speaker 1] (6:03 - 7:54)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Look, I've been in my practice for nearly 20 years now, so I've been doing this for a long time, but certainly it's evolved quite a bit over that time period, as you would expect. When I started out, I was in my late 20s and I was single with no kids and no mortgage.
So I guess it was the perfect time to give it a go and to think, well, you know, I had quit my job and decided that I was going to start doing my own thing. And I basically never looked back. I've never found a job that would take me away from what I'm doing now.
I think we can all relate. That's been great. I had a PhD in strategy.
That's my background. And I had gone to my first board just before I finished my PhD. So I was only 25.
And I guess because my background was strategy, I always felt that, well, that's the board's role. So I would like to combine my own board positions with then advising boards and senior leaders in that consulting capacity. So that's really sort of where I started or why I started doing this.
And I decided right from the beginning that I didn't want to work for any of the big consulting firms that I wanted to do my own thing. So that's what I've always done. And, you know, mostly work with the board, the CEO, the executive teams on their strategy.
Asset management is a is a big part of that in the types of companies that I typically work with that generally like big, heavy industrial companies that have a lot of infrastructure or physical assets. So I help them around that and also their leadership development.
[Speaker 2] (7:56 - 8:25)
And you've had an incredible career. That's phenomenal to start all that in your 20s. You've had so many years experience.
If you reflect back on all that time and you come to today and how your practice has evolved a lot, what have been the biggest challenges that you've had in your practice being able to get it to this point in 20 years is a long time. What what do you reckon has been the secret of your success?
[Speaker 1] (8:26 - 9:31)
Well, look, I think the challenges I've had are probably the typical life challenges that most people have, obviously, being that I started this back in my 20s. And as I was single, then I I didn't have kids or a mortgage. I was traveling a lot.
And so some of those challenges then come, you know, once you have a partner and you need to decide together what what you're going to do, how you're going to prioritize where you live. And then, of course, you know, being pregnant and having a baby was like a massive physical and emotional challenge. And I was nearly 40 when I when I did that.
So, you know, you're already getting to the time when your body's starting to say, well, I don't know, is this really a good idea? But, you know, obviously, that's a really joyous thing as well. But it certainly changes your priorities and the way you need to organize your life so that you can, you know, raise your family and still do the work you're doing at this level.
So that's that's certainly been one of the most challenging things.
[Speaker 2] (9:32 - 9:59)
Wow, that's incredible, because I think for a lot of the ladies that, you know, we see they often have sort of come past that time, and that's really interesting that you actually did it. You know, they'd start their consulting practice once they've kind of got those things, you know, that they've had children or, you know, they wait till they're a little bit older. So like they're sort of at least at school and then thinking about doing it.
But you've done it all back to front.
[Speaker 1] (10:00 - 10:48)
Started my consulting first, you know, went on to a board first, then started it. Like a lot of people when I now work with boards, a lot of people see it as a retirement job. You know, I'll do that when I sort of finish my executive career.
But being that I started it so young, it's just always been integral to what I do. And yeah, then like you say, I mean, I find now obviously at school and in other places, I'm really old compared to a lot of the other parents who have kids the same age. So my daughter's now nine.
So she's still in primary school and I've still got maybe 10 years or more to go. And a lot of my friends, their kids are already at uni and leaving home, you know, so yeah, so definitely I've maybe done things back to front there. But, you know, that's how life goes, isn't it?
You never know how.
[Speaker 2] (10:49 - 10:49)
Yeah.
[Speaker 1] (10:50 - 10:50)
Yeah.
[Speaker 2] (10:51 - 12:02)
And I also think it's really inspiring, Monique, because I think, you know, for some that choose this path that they think sometimes, well, maybe I can't do that as well. Like I actually have to. It's kind of either or.
But you're a real inspiration in sort of how you've chosen to to do it your way and what's been right for you. So, you know, it really is. It's it's still possible.
Yeah, absolutely. It's possible. Whatever you choose to do, yeah.
Yeah, amazing. And I think, you know, for a lot of us, isn't it? That's how we went into this this world for a life of choice and freedom, control.
And I mean, like control over our own purpose, destiny, our life, how we how we operate, what our outcomes are. And and and, you know, the life that we want to live in terms of your practices is you've come from asset management and working with boards still continuing to work with CEOs, boards, executives. And you're now sort of going into a new phase of your IP.
Is that right? I'm really excited to learn more about this. I think it's fascinating.
Are you happy to share a bit of it?
[Speaker 1] (12:02 - 14:06)
Yeah, look, I'd love to. Yeah, as you know, I've recently launched my true worth discovery program and a true worth community. And it's for people, you know, because I guess in my experience, what I found, even at that very senior level, is that I've worked with so many people who are very talented, they're ambitious, they're really good at what they do, but they feel that they really are often in a situation where they're undervalued, they're underestimated or they're even being undermined in the position they're in.
So then they start to come across barriers where they feel like they they can't get to the level they think that they could get to based on their skills and their experience. So maybe it's that they didn't get the promotion they were thinking they should. They didn't get the pay rise.
You know, they didn't get a job they were going for. All of those sorts of things where, yeah, they're really just in a situation where there's this mismatch between what they know they're capable of and what they've, you know, achieving at this stage. So what the program does is really help them to work through some of those things.
I think, you know, in my experience, it's best that we need to embrace our own true worth before others can see it. And so the aim is then to help people go from feeling undervalued and underestimated to feeling respected, valued and seen. And look, it's just been fantastic so far to see the progress people have made in the first program that I've run and the decisions some of them have made, including going for that job that they never thought they might have been able to do and getting it and, you know, moving on to something really new.
Like, it's really exciting for me to see that and to see people making these decisions once they do. It's quite often something that they've always wanted or that they've been pushing, putting it on hold or they have thought, you know, can I really do this or not? And just working through this has helped them to take that step.
So, I mean, I think that's just fantastic from my point of view. Yeah.
[Speaker 2] (14:07 - 14:41)
Yeah. Yeah. And what is incredible about this is, you know, it's leveraging the expertise that you've come from with around strategy and asset management and moving that over into a human sense of, well, we all have, you know, that worth.
We all have that value. It's defining what those aspects are. I'm imagining this, you know, the work that you've been doing in asset management is almost like the metaphor for us as a human is finding, you know, there's similar a lot of the principles kind of similar that you've applied and there's maybe some others or what is what's.
[Speaker 1] (14:41 - 16:58)
Yeah. Look, that's partly how I sort of ended up in this space is in fact, the reason is that we can't treat people the same way we treat physical assets. And what I've seen a lot working in this space is that, you know, when you're putting together organizational systems and structures, quite often they're very hierarchical.
They're very mechanized. They're very much trying to fit people who are real living human beings into a system that's really designed for machines and things. And, you know, and so I think there's this real disconnect, especially at the moment where, you know, we've got this very low unemployment.
We've got a tight economic, you know, environment. And a lot of companies are struggling to get people and to keep good people. And I think it's really fundamental that if people don't feel valued or they don't feel they're being given the opportunities they deserve, then they'll go elsewhere.
I mean, it's really, you know, fundamental. So I'm really passionate about the fact that people are not assets. And we you know, we hear it so often.
Oh, our people are our greatest asset. And that might be true. But yeah, the reality is, if you if you think that you can treat people the same way that you treat, you know, your land and your buildings and your other equipment, then you're not going to do very well there.
So so that's where this has emerged from. It's from what I've observed in that environment, particularly in an asset management perspective. And in terms of developing our leadership skills and in my most recent book, Leadership Assets, I I talk about that, that we have our technical skills, particularly a lot of the areas I work with people in engineering or technical fields.
I've got those those technical skills. When we start to get into sort of higher level roles, we need to develop our business skills. But most importantly, to be an effective leader, we need to develop our human capabilities and that we've got to be able to engage with people.
We need to have empathy and humility and integrity. And that those are some of the things that are lacking sometimes in our formal training. But they're really important and they can be the difference between whether you will get to that next level or not.
[Speaker 2] (16:59 - 16:59)
Yeah.
[Speaker 1] (16:59 - 17:36)
So that's where this is all emerged from. And I suppose I feel like it brings together all of my skills and experience with my technical background, my my strategy and asset management. And this is really about a strategy for your life.
So, yes, it is applying a whole lot of the same principles in terms of, well, where are you now? What do you have? What are your capabilities?
What's your what's your dream? What's your vision and where do you want to go? And then making a plan for how you get there.
So, I mean, yes, we could apply some of those same concepts that we might use for a big organisation to our own careers.
[Speaker 2] (17:37 - 19:31)
So, yeah, I love that because, you know, and this is one of the things we often talk about is being able to why you're the right person to have this message, because and in your case, and we see it sometimes, is that because you're actually telling the opposite message in some ways to what you have had. So you're perfectly positioned and and a credible source to say that because, you know, the polar opposite of it. And so it's almost like a contrast frame in your own practice and positioning to say, well, yes, I'm asset management.
However, the other side of it is that you can't treat everybody like an asset. And I love the balance of that, Monique. And in terms of it, I mean, you're an incredible inspiration for the women who are listening to this podcast or watching the video today.
In terms of what you see, I mean, you've seen, I'm sure, for your own practice, building your own practice and seeing other women that you know who are trying to build their practices. This is a big challenge that we have around being able to define, you know, identifying our really powerful positioning, making sure that we you know, that we're not putting ourselves into a commoditized situation so we're able to really articulate our value, really strong value propositions in the programs that we deliver and the solutions that we bring to the table and how we can help people and defining our uniqueness and what makes us different than everybody else. What do you see when you're you know, you're obviously friends with a lot of people with consulting practices and things like that.
What are the things that you see, you know, when it comes to true worth and particularly women in consulting? If there are things that you notice and that you see or perhaps, you know, that you've had yourself challenges, you've had to go.
[Speaker 1] (19:31 - 21:50)
Yeah, look, I think one of the things that I might do differently if I if I went back over those 20 years is that I started out with, of course, a company name and and a company brand and spent a lot of money on, you know, branding and all of that for my company. But in fact, I never had the intent to build a big consulting practice. That was not ever my goal, because I figured that if I want to have 100 people working for me, I'd just become a manager.
And then I might as well go and work in one of the big four or, you know, one of those larger consulting companies and have, you know, the backing of their brand and all of those resources. So that was never my intent. But yet I think we're kind of the common thing is that you you start a company and really operate that as a business.
So I think one of the big shifts for me, even though the company still exists, it's still the legal vehicle through which I do my work. But my branding and positioning is now all under my own name. So that required a bit of a transition and a and a, you know, rebranding and so on.
And look, it's still sometimes a bit tricky, because particularly when you're dealing with corporate clients and government and so on. And I do find internationally, too, when I deal with people in the US or Europe, they always want to know what what company you're with. And, you know, there's sort of this attachment to another organization like your worth somehow depends on who you work for.
But I've always seen it the other way around. I said, well, I bring value to some other organization if I attach my name to theirs. So I don't want to be in a situation where that the other company gives me my credibility.
I want my, you know, my credibility to improve theirs. So, yeah, so I think that's one of the things which which can be hard. And it's perhaps a little bit contrary to the accepted wisdom that we might get told in any sort of business advice.
So if you don't intend to build a big company, then I would say, you know, go with your own personal branding from the start. And then then you don't have to make that change along the way.
[Speaker 2] (21:50 - 22:42)
So, yes, it's such valuable advice because it's, you know, you're trying to sort of the thing that makes you different is you delivering these programs. Yeah. So and the solutions that you bring, the relationships that you've got, all that sort of thing and humanizing that.
And businesses, you know, if you're speaking at conferences, they're not going to engage a business to speak at a conference. But I think you touch on a really good point. We do have some in the community who, you know, sometimes hit this challenge.
They'll see things like government contracts, tenders or other things might be grants that are looking for. And so so what what do you advise them to do? Do you find that do you find that they're best to stay attached to a company or still have a company name, you know, and a company that they pull out for those situations?
[Speaker 1] (22:42 - 24:03)
Yeah. Like, I mean, I still have that. And I mean, it all depends how you choose to arrange your own personal finances.
But I've had a proprietary limited company since almost the beginning. So, I mean, if you're going to do that, then you can still have that. But it can be your name, proprietary limited.
You know, if you're just starting out. I didn't do that because in the beginning, I, you know, I wanted to make it more broad and not necessarily be attached to my own name. But there's nothing wrong with doing that.
Like I could be Monique Beedles, proprietary limited and that'd be fine. So, yes, still set up the company, if that's the best thing for you to do in terms of, you know, your financial situation. But that's obviously up to everyone's own, you know, scenario, not to be construed as financial advice.
But yeah, yeah. So, I mean, that's what you still need to like in terms of invoicing and contracts and all of that sort of thing. The company will be what is on those documents.
But but in terms of your marketing, your positioning and your sales, they're using your own your own brand. So, I mean, you know, and plenty of companies do that. You your your legal name isn't necessarily a trading name.
So those things can be can be, you know, changed. Right.
[Speaker 2] (24:04 - 24:20)
And what other things do you think? If so, that they built their brand, you know, branded under their name dot com. What are some of the other things you notice that work really well once they've done that, that help to continue to build that true worth in their consulting practice?
[Speaker 1] (24:21 - 25:49)
I think like it's important to build relationships in the sectors that you want to work in. So, you know, deciding where your target markets are and looking at, well, where is it that you can offer value that perhaps some of the other bigger competitors don't and to look at how you differentiate your offering from what, you know, a large corporate or government can get from their, you know, standard run of the mill consulting firm. So I think that's knowing your niche and building your positioning and your relationships in that niche.
So, you know, right from the beginning, I've always, you know, done as much speaking as I can, you know, written articles, published books. I've done that, you know, right from the beginning. And again, that's evolved over time.
But, you know, and now I would get paid to speak rather than like in the beginning, you know, I would do that speaking for a promotional point of view, which I might still do in some scenarios. But so that sort of evolves over time. But I think you can't it's important that you can't be everything to everybody.
So you really need to know, especially if you're only one person, you can't expect to compete, you know, on the on the range of service offerings that a big consulting firm might have. What you have to do is to, you know, differentiate and have something that they don't have.
[Speaker 2] (25:50 - 27:18)
Yeah, that's so true, because, you know, that is one of the most common questions that most come to our community with is how on earth am I supposed to compete with the big consulting firms? How am I supposed to sell? You know, the consulting rate is, you know, if they're going in with, you know, like if your contract is eight hundred thousand dollar days and then if, you know, they're going to charge less than me and I'm coming in at five thousand seven and a half, if I'm trying to build to ten, some have got twenty thousand dollar days.
You know, if we can get that shift from seven and a half, you know, if the value proposition and the and not and being able to define that true worth really take some of those days. So I think that's so valuable. And I love what you're saying about, you know, really, if you say you're saying really as a starting point is don't be afraid to be yourself and your own.
Yes. Brand. Then secondly, is build the relationships and the relationships will help define and be known in that industry.
Yeah. And then how you differentiate your offerings from there. So differentiating, if you're particularly in spaces like leadership development, you know, that's one of the challenges often we'll say, well, you know, that some will come and go, well, how am I supposed to differentiate myself against every other leadership expert?
Yeah. So defining the offerings, knowing the specific niche. So who you work with and the positioning and the relationships.
Yeah.
[Speaker 1] (27:19 - 28:51)
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You know, and I've done that in the sense of starting out with a PhD in strategy, which could, you know, be used in any sort of business context.
But being based in Brisbane and when I started out, my initial consulting projects were all with in the mining industry. So, you know, obviously, because that's a big part of the economy here. And so that got me involved in in asset management as a really important part of the strategy in those companies.
And so then over time, that sort of, you know, started to get known for. And of course, then I went to the effort of, you know, educating myself in that space, getting involved with the professional bodies, doing additional training, all of that sort of thing so that I could, you know, establish a niche in that area and take my strategy and my board experience and bring that to asset management, because a lot of people in that field, they're coming from a background in engineering or trade, sometimes accounting. And so they're coming from the technical level up, whereas I'm approaching it from the other direction, saying, well, what is the board and the executive need to know from a strategic perspective and how do we connect that to what's happening at the technical level?
So then I I'm offering something which is complementary to what others in that space are already doing, rather than trying to duplicate what is already being offered. Yeah.
-
And, Monique, which then brings me to a question I'm thinking is around, you know, when you're tapping into some of those specific niches and specific industries, particularly if you're going with it, we're going message and we're going across a variety of industries. One of the things that sometimes people, particularly women, will come up against and that we've seen in our community, the question is around the imposter syndrome and then starting, well, actually, I haven't spent years in this specific niche or I haven't, you know, but I understand the niche. But, you know, what advice do you have when you're working with with women, particularly in the consulting space?
This imposter syndrome sometimes. What advice do you give to women in this?
[Speaker 1] (29:35 - 31:18)
Look, I think the trouble is that women get a lot of really poor advice around this. I I'm not that convinced about imposter syndrome. I think women are always told that they lack confidence.
But I don't think that's really true in the sense that we we know our own ability, but what happens is we are underestimated. We are undervalued and we are undermined. So the more that we get told that we lack confidence, the more that we lack confidence.
And so I think that actually what it takes is for us to, you know, acknowledge those capabilities within ourselves. We what we see is particularly in Australia is most women are vastly overqualified for the work that they do. They are far they have far higher achievement at school and undergraduate and postgraduate at every academic level.
But yet that's not reflected in what we see in corporate and government leadership. And so there's this gap there. And I think it's too easy to sort of go, oh, well, it must be me.
But really, it's not. There's all these other factors that are at play that are sort of cutting off those opportunities. So so I mean, I think for me, part of the work that I'm doing and what I want to be able to help people with is to say, you know, embrace your own, you know, understand what your capabilities are and celebrate them, understand what's unique to you.
So what's your creativity and how do you create something that's different to others? Because the things you know and the things you do, they can be replaced and they're interchangeable, whereas the things that you create, they're unique and others can't do it.
[Speaker 2] (31:18 - 31:18)
Yeah.
[Speaker 1] (31:18 - 32:50)
The other thing that's a challenge in this space is not just to worry about being replaced by other people, but in a lot of sectors now we've got AI, we've got robotics coming along. And, you know, a lot of jobs or a lot of tasks will be replaced by automation. But that's because they're tasks that can be repeated and can be automated, whereas those things that require our unique human creativity and insight and innovative thinking, they can't be replaced by a computer or a robot.
So, you know, part of the work that I do with people is to identify those things to say, well, what makes me irreplaceable? What what makes me, you know, stand out? And therefore, you know, how do I leverage that?
Yeah. So so I think we shouldn't buy this story that we Yeah, I love that. Because I think when you really talk to people, they they know that they have skills and capability, but they just can be so often overlooked, which I think is really sad.
And it also means that from, you know, from an economic perspective where we're missing out on tapping into so much talent that's sitting right under our noses. We say we have a talent shortage, but I mean, to some extent, that's true. But I think, you know, there's a lot of companies where, in fact, if they made the most of the people they already have, why by letting them work to their full capability, they would see that they've got a lot more than they realize.
[Speaker 2] (32:51 - 33:31)
Right. And just giving the opportunity to to actually unpack their true where some of the testimonials on your website. And that's what they're often saying is that I can I now feel like I can achieve my potential.
I feel like I can support, you know, creating an environment where I can do that for my team now as well. So and I think you're so right, is that the skills, like you said, whether it's a skill shortage or not, there's there's so much untapped potential sitting there. And if they're not getting that, then they do look elsewhere because we all want to at the end of the day, if I feel like I'm growing and achieving my potential, the organization will be able to retain me.
[Speaker 1] (33:31 - 33:33)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
[Speaker 2] (33:33 - 33:48)
So if people want to find out more about true worth and you said you've got a community and a program and you're blogging a lot about this and talking a lot about it at the moment, if people want to find out more about it, where would they be best to go?
[Speaker 1] (33:48 - 34:11)
Yeah, sure. They can go to my website, Monique Beedles dot com. They'll find out about everything there.
My true worth community, which you can join for free to be part of the conversation that's at true worth. Dot com. Of course, you can connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram and you can find me in all of those places.
[Speaker 2] (34:11 - 35:57)
That's terrific. Thank you so much for joining us today, Monique. You're doing incredible work.
I'm always in awe of everything you do. I'm so thrilled we're able to have you on the show. The big takeaways today, you know, I think and you come with so much experience.
I think there's a lot of women we've seen today go, wow, 20 years experience having your own consulting practice and still coming back to. Don't be afraid of using your own name. You can still have a business name if you need to, if you've got certain other projects or things you need to pitch for.
But stand in your own light. You said being able to. You talked about how you how you can stand out.
You talked particularly around those skills that we bring, particularly as female consultants and our true worth. Now, often it is the empathy and the humility and those things that are sometimes lacking, but the skills that we've often got, particularly as women and the ability to build relationships, knowing your niche, positioning and differentiating those those offerings. Love your comments around to recap just on creativity, you know, continuing to define.
Because like you said, the task is someone that can be delegated and automated, but we can't replace your creativity and being able to define that uniqueness. So you're doing some and some exceptional work in this space. Monique will be cheering you on from afar.
And hopefully you remember us all when you're famous, already famous. And yes, I jump onto Monique's website. Go and join the true worth community.
Listen to what Monique is saying. She's got so much expertise in this space and and want to really follow your true inspiration to our community. Monique, we're so thrilled to have you on today.
[Speaker 1] (35:58 - 36:13)
Thanks so much, Jane. It's a pleasure to be here and fantastic to have the chance to chat with you about those things that I'm really passionate about. So thank you very much for the opportunity.
My pleasure. Great. Hopefully we'll get to have you back again.
Fantastic. Thank you.
Most of the guests interviewed are current or alumni members of the Women With Influence community. Click here to find out more
