In this Consulting Accelerator Review by Sam Ovens I’m going to explore – in detail – the program that helped me build a 6-Figure business in 4 months. If you stay to the very end of this article you’ll learn the hidden secret Sam Ovens uses to turn everyday men and women into skilled entrepreneurs.
But first … let’s be real.
Starting a consulting business isn’t easy. There are so many obstacles to overcome, such as your own inertia.
I know I had plenty of people telling me to relax, take it easy and just let success happen. I always felt that was wrong. It might have worked in the 12th century, but can’t possibly work now.
What I needed was a kick in the butt, so to speak, or a way to accelerate myself on the path to success. When I found the Consulting Accelerator by Sam Ovens, something clicked and I felt it’s worth investigating.
So, here’s my Consulting Accelerator review.
Consulting Accelerator Review — Course Overview
In a nutshell, Consulting Accelerator is a 6-week course that teaches you to see everything as a business opportunity.
It reorients your mind and teaches you how to “Think as an entrepreneur.”
It shows you how to let go of your inner limitations and adopt a success consultant mindset. It also explains how to make ads, understand your clients and much more.
Sam Ovens’ idea of consulting is not as narrow as you might think at first. He considers any kind of mentor-student interaction consulting, even online training programs.
That’s actually to the benefit of the course, as it expands your horizons, but you should know what you’re getting.
The core business concept presented by the course looks like this:
- use Facebook Ads and a Video Sales Letter (VSL) to draw in customers
- use the VSL as a lead magnet to get their e-mail address
- use email marketing and follow up skills to get them to apply to a consulting session with you
- engage each customer and close the deal
The official website for the course boasts 52 students who have become millionaires and $690mm revenue earned by students.
That’s the snapshot. Now let me take you week by week through my experiences with the course so that you can decide if Consulting Accelerator is right for you.
Consulting Accelerator Week 1
This part of the course is called “Fundamentals and Foundations”. It covers:
- The fundamental laws of business — data, numbers and science are what matters, not your feelings or hunches, though they can get you on the right track
- Picking your niche — focus on something and dominate it instead of scattering your efforts into many different niches
- Testing to get feedback — always test your ideas and always listen to feedback, no matter how rough, but I advise always asking for constructive feedback
- How to improve on what you’re building — do gradual improvements until you nail it down and don’t expect brilliant breakthroughs, although they can happen
- How to get the most out of the program — be curious, don’t be afraid of taking your time or asking questions
- Important things to keep in mind — some more fundamentals for people without a business background
- Overview of the program — what you can expect from the course
- Foundations of your business — the first step is the most important one; proper foundations will help you achieve long-term success
- The power of math — always follow the stats, even if it means going against the grain
For people who already have a business background in the more traditional sense, this module will probably come off as wishy-washy and too philosophical. However, this course isn’t designed for them but for total newbies, who should take in as much information as they can.
I found this module an interesting and actually informative introduction to the world of business. Numbers, especially stats, have a definite power to change your life for the better, but only if you know how to gather and use them for gradual improvement. I also think philosophy can go hand in hand with business, or at least they aren’t necessarily mortal enemies.
Here’s where you’ll first realize how much work it takes to kick-start your business, especially a consulting or training one. You’ll be starting off with no reputation and have to invest yourself entirely to prove yourself to the market, though not in a way that would make you burn out. A sustainable pace is key, in particular one that’s powered by your sincere desire to see the world become a better place for you and others. Customers can see this and will largely cherish it.
There isn’t going to be that one thing you’ll do to become a millionaire or that one day when your life will change for the better. Instead, it’s a gradual improvement, where you’ll be sucking less and less as time goes by. Without even noticing it, you’ll become a millionaire and go, “Oh, I guess I deserve it. Well, I’ll get back to work.” It won’t be dramatic but something completely normal to the point you won’t even notice it. That’s what always happens with earned success.
What seems to you right now as a thrilling roller coaster adventure to treasure is more of a slog through rough terrain, where your goal is to avoid making the wrong step rather than getting to the finish line as fast as possible. It’s a slow, draining process but if you get into it, keep going and learn how to avoid the pitfalls, you can speed up and enjoy the journey.
At first, though, business success is about poring through data until you zero in on that set of numbers that make sense to you. There are all kinds of niches out there and all you need is one of them, but one where you have a profound knowledge of. That niche could be knitting, finger painting or shoelace tying; if the numbers show it’s profitable and has a steady rate of growth, it’s a viable niche. This idea of curbing your ego and listening to the market, your customers and the numbers is also fantastic.
Both people and data will tell you what you’re doing wrong, though they can be misleading if you have a small sample size. Get enough data and feedback, find a common thread to them both and adopt it and I guarantee your life will improve in countless ways. Just make sure to keep your ego in check and don’t take anything personally.
In short, this module has some revelations that seem intuitive and some that seem counterintuitive, and they’re both meant for people who haven’t had any business success. I think this module is definitely worth 2.5 hours of your time, which is the combined length of all videos in it. If you can get through it, you’ve already made one step towards the riches that await.
Consulting Accelerator Week 2
This part of the course is called “New Paradigm & World View” module. It covers:
- A new paradigm — how learning a fundamentally new concept can set you free
- Destructive and flawed beliefs — how to realize what’s been holding you back and change your mentality
- Self-sabotage — how and why people come to the verge of success and go down in flames
- Facing your dark side — your personal struggle with self-doubt, anxiety, limiting beliefs and past traumas
- Embracing reality — how adopting an objective outlook on life can make you serene and successful
- Duality of man — how the human mind works and why it always has to bring up the opposite to whatever it sees
- Thinking like a billionaire — all rich people avoid thinking like the mainstream society does and they are much better for it
- Answers to big questions — science can provide many questions but for the rest we have to look inward
- Past stories and beliefs — your past history has been holding you back and limiting your future successes
- Hacking your own mind — using your mind to its fullest extent
- Confirmation bias — you see what you expect to see; changing your expectations opens up a whole new world of opportunities
- Material reality — the world around us has unseen but provably powerful forces yet the society fixates only on what’s palpable
Here we get into psychology. Why do people think the way they do? How can you understand that and adapt your way of thinking so there’s a win-win situation? How does that influence your business success?
This module might make it seem like the entire course is about pondering on the fate of humanity, but I assure you it’s not. There are genuine psychological barriers in all of us and they’re quite simple but unbreakable. Whenever you want to change something in your life, this innate doubt in your skills interjects and stops all forward momentum.
The problem is that most people adapt to the life they’re leading and don’t really bother looking towards the horizon. In fact, most people don’t even lift their head from the computer screen they’re glued to think beyond here-and-now.
That’s the biggest strength and the biggest weakness of this part of the course — it will likely resonate with only a small percentage of the population, namely those interested in self-discovery. For everyone else, it’s probably going to result in plenty of eye rolling and sighing.
I understand that you’d want to skip all the philosophy and just get a proven formula that you can use straight away. I thought like that too until I started listening to people like Gary V, who says, “Focus on making more content and stop worrying about dumb things”. The point of that video is that consistent content making is more important than your perceived quality of it.
So, why aren’t you making 3–4 videos a day? It’s the belief that it’s useless, that you’ll never make it, and besides, there’s already so many content creators. Am I right? The mentality that got you here is the same one that’s holding you here. You will get some success with effort alone and without changing your mindset, but long-term, sustainable success requires a pivot in thinking and effort.
I recognized the lessons taught in week 2 as the same ones all rich people eventually talk about, and they can best be summed up as, “Stop thinking like a poor person”. People who grew up in poverty most often can’t trust anyone and don’t know how to delegate, which makes them obsessed with control and sabotages all their business efforts.
There are only a few things in your total control, and one of those is your mindset, especially when it comes to thinking God or some other entity is holding you back. You can have a string of unavoidable failures but you shouldn’t be blaming yourself or anyone else for them. Doing that puts you in a passive “victim mentality” and takes away all your agency.
I think week 2 has a lot of potential to really touch a nerve in some people, and if they can take a look at themselves and consider these lessons a piece of constructive feedback, they can become rich in all sorts of ways. For the rest, I think they will just sit this one out and fast-forward through them, which is fine. It’s just that they shouldn’t expect complete success in their lives.
Consulting Accelerator Week 3
This part of the course is called “Alchemy of Client Conversion”. It covers:
- Science of conversion — what makes people accept phone calls from strangers, engage in conversations and do business with them
- Sales script — all the most natural speakers and salesmen started out by following a script and then perfecting the delivery
- Handling objections — people have a reflex of objecting to novel proposals because they’re afraid of taking risks
- Taking feedback into account — perfecting your script based on what your customers tell you is paramount in all business success
- Salesman killers — proven ways in which you will sabotage your own sale unless you deal with your limiting beliefs
- The theory ends here — by this point in the course, you can start making things happen and testing out your ideas
- Performance tracking — the course provides you with a sheet to track your performance
- Debunking myths — salesmanship is burdened with all kinds of myths and superstitions; this part of the course will help you shed them
Listening about sales principles and jotting down your ideas is one thing; putting those same ideas and principles into action is something else entirely. If you’ve never sold anything to anyone, you’re likely to enter into a self-defeating loop of superstition and magical thinking, “If I laugh twice, the customer will accept my proposal.”
Superstition happens when you don’t base your decisions on data but on seeing patterns where the data doesn’t support them. That’s actually the way many people think through their daily lives and it works well enough. But, if you want reliable, steady success, you need to always look at the data and track your performance.
I like how week 3’s content drills into your head the idea of combining theory and practice to become the best salesman you can be. If you know nothing else but have a solid sales practice, you can achieve success in any niche, hence the “alchemy” reference in the name.
Alchemists were rumored to be able to turn lead or stone to gold with their touch. I have no idea if that was actually the case but imagine the kind of buzz an alchemist would create. He would be the superstar of any gathering and rich people would throw money at him for no particular reason. Of course, an alchemist should be able to fulfill at least a part of that expectation but the point is that a good reputation does half the work for you.
That means initial success is actually the hardest; the better you are, the easier it gets. Your confidence in your skills grow, you get in the flow and have a much greater capacity for solving problems. Ultimately, all people want is someone to come in and solve their problems or at least offer a handy solution. If you can identify the problem and offer the solution, you’ve made it.
Just like alchemists had their recipes and tweaked them to create whatever they needed, so can you by using a sales script and modifying it as needed. Once you understand the psychological foundation of human behavior and can detect the nuances in what people are telling you, there’s no limit to how far you can go.
Still, if you haven’t resolved your own self-doubts or gone through the painful process of rejection, you will likely give up before netting your first success. My sticking point was dealing with rejection. Being a people-pleaser, I was always fixated on doing what’s best for the other person, without thinking about my own needs. What I realized is that people find such behavior suspicious and they immediately get cold feet.
Think about it — if you approached someone on the street and offered a gold coin or something of similar value, what do you think the reaction would be? I guarantee you people would react with suspicion because it’s too good to be true. The more you chased them, the faster they’d flee from you and your, now obviously malicious, offer. That’s how it works in sales as well.
Instead, you present your offer as something of value and let the customer call you. That cuts down on the effort you need to invest and goes back to what I mentioned above, which is delegating tasks to others. Your contacts will help you achieve success; all you have to do is make the initial offer and let them call you back. If your offer is any good, you’ll be swamped with work.
The core idea is that people don’t value what they’ve gotten for free but value whatever it is they’ve worked for. Putting an obstacle will actually let you sift through all the customers and immediately recognize which ones have cold feet and which ones could be worth your time.
Consulting Accelerator Week 4
This part of the course is called “Alchemy of Client Attraction”. It covers:
- Attracting clients — how to use free and paid strategies to pull clients in
- Sifting through clients — how to attract only those clients who are eager to buy your product right now
- Starting out small — that you need a reliable, replicable action that you can then scale up and let grow on its own
- Keep it simple — how to avoid getting distracted with side goals and projects; always go back to your fundamentals
- Myths and science of attraction — what’s true and what isn’t about attracting clients
- Organic vs paid outreach — the different methods of attracting clients, instructions and templates for each
- Making big money — what to do when you’re ready to get out of the kiddie pool, this section will teach you how to do a deep dive into the market
- Setting up your business — registering business name, website, email and other essentials of having a reputation
- 30 days — how the first month of your business determines the first year of its life
- Violent daily execution — after careful planning, you need to get serious about your work and dig in without pulling any punches
- Organic list building — contact with potential clients will give you plenty of their contact information, which you can later leverage to start a new project
- Analysis paralysis — overcoming the initial stages of panic when you realize what you’re about to do and your risk-aversion instinct takes over
One thing that irks me about this and the preceding week is that the titles aren’t reversed; you should first attract clients and then convert them. Still, the knowledge does synergize with everything else and you should have no trouble keeping up with the curriculum. That’s my opinion in this Consulting Accelerator review, anyways. But Sam Ovens KNOWS what he’s doing.
There’s a lot of solid material in week 4’s modules, most of which comes down to two things: work ethic and transparency. When you combine the insights from both of those, you will get an unparalleled overview of your work method and allow your customers to see it as well, which will reinforce their belief that you’re an alchemist.
Work ethic means that business always comes first. It’s not a side hobby or a passion project for you but a serious pursuit that you give yourself to before anything else. Your business is what not only keeps you afloat mentally and emotionally but also generates value for you, your customers and the entire world. When this becomes a daily habit, every piece of lead you touch turns to gold, without you even realizing.
I could say a lot about how my ideas on work ethic changed when I started doing large writing projects. I realized that life was challenging me to take up more responsibilities and do what I previously thought impossible. With every challenge I accepted, I was becoming better and better, ultimately becoming a master in my field. I believe that applies to all niches.
Transparency in Latin means “to appear by letting light shine through”. When your client asks how a certain part of your process works, you reveal the exact information right away, except when you’re bound by an oath or duty to protect it. It doesn’t mean you have all the answers, because “I don’t know” is a legitimate answer as well, but it does mean your client knows what’s going on and what to expect.
Being transparent with others in a business sense is perhaps the biggest obstacle for people stuck in the mindset of a poor underachiever. People who grew up punished or betrayed for saying the truth most often can’t muster the emotional strength to be honest, even when that could make them unfathomably successful. I could say a lot about being transparent with oneself as well, as we lie to others at least as much as we lie to ourselves.
Consulting Accelerator Week 5
This part of the course is called “Fractal Facebook Evolution”. It covers:
- Fractal Facebook Evolution — a custom way to use the Facebook ad algorithm to create success
- Scale up using ads — everything about how Facebook works and how you can make it work for you
- Common Facebook mistakes — why people have misconceptions about Facebook and how you can avoid or change them
- Facebook compliance checklist — what makes Facebook punish or ban marketers from using its ad system
- Asymmetrical testing — your scientific blueprint for success on Facebook
- Getting clues and information — where to look for the right data and how to create your own Facebook ads off of it
- Five examples of ads — Sam Ovens will show and dissect five Facebook ads he made using his knowledge, with each earning over $1mm
- Pick your audience — making the right ad is impossible unless you know how to pick your audience
- Tracking your audience — how to set up a tracking system so you can see how the audience reacts to your ads
- Ad account checklist — building a flawless ad account from scratch
- Daily Facebook ad workflow — work habits you should adopt to have stellar Facebook ad success, over and over again
- Scale the campaigns up — how to reach an audience of 1 million or more
There’s a joke that says: if you want to anger an engineer, ask him if some design can scale up. The answer is that nobody can tell until it’s built. You can feasibly create some small ad campaign and have amazing success with it but get stuck at a certain level and not be able to make it grow. Thankfully, week 5’s content goes over all the reasons why that happens and how you can make it scale.
The main obstacle here is Facebook’s algorithm. You can imagine it like a giant machine filled with knobs, dials and buttons. Each of those does something and your goal is to figure out how to make the machine churn out the result you want. The way the machine works is complex because simple machines get exploited and ruined. By constantly tweaking the machine, Facebook guarantees only those who put in the effort can have the machine work for them.
The primary goal of the machine is to give the audience what it wants, without the people in the audience even realizing that’s what they’ve been wanting. Combined with Facebook’s other checks and balances, the machine also weeds out the bad actors from the marketplace and minimizes abuse on all sides.
Week 5’s content not only teaches you what each part of the machine does but also how it’s changed in the past and why. By understanding these patterns, you can already start planning for future algorithm changes meant to shake off abusers and bad-faith actors.
There’s plenty of directions in this part, which is fantastic. Sam teaches you how to set up a small campaign and see for yourself that it works. Once you see you can pay a couple hundred dollars and get thousands of organic views and likes, you’ll be pumped to see what comes next. I think after that you’ll agree that Sam’s claims of having a net worth of $65mm, 90% of which he earned through Facebook ads, sound much more believable.
Sam’s method has worked across the years, which means he was consistently right about the way the machine changed. This also means his knowledge and the underlying principles he shares will remain viable for years to come.
I do wish the course placed some more emphasis on other skills, such as team management. The amount of work you’ll be expected to do is mind-blowing and it would be nice if the course went into more detail on how to start building a team so that you can scale up.
Consulting Accelerator Week 6
This part of the course is called “Minimum Viable Service Delivery”. It covers:
- Trim the fat — how to deliver only what the clients ask for and nothing else
- 80/20 principle — 20% of causes has 80% of effect and how that applies to your work
- Client expectations — what you should and should not accept from your clients
- Hiring the best contractors — best hiring practices and how to recognize which workers show bad habits
- Financial discipline — getting a bigger cashflow most often leads to excessive spending, especially on luxury and vanity items
- Building your platform — how making a platform of your own can set you apart from the competition and put on the path to success
- Marketing automation — getting the computers to work for you and amplify any effort you put in
- Planning ahead — how to do promotions and plan 1/2/3 months in advance
- Software stack — how to find tools that can help you
- Productivity hacks — neat tricks that let you go into deep work
The final week deals with being productive, fulfilling client expectations and building a platform. In essence, all three are intertwined and require you to think and plan ahead. Everything you’ve done so far has to be tweaked to scale and mercilessly tested.
You will never manage to do the perfect project. The sooner you get rid of those childish ideas of perfection, the better for you and your clients. There will always be flaws in everything you do but your goal is to work on those flaws while delivering what matters to the best of your ability and according to market standards.
One important point I’d like to stress is that you should always deliver exactly what the client asked for. It’s not your duty to question the client’s wishes, though you should be able to recognize abusive or unethical requests and say “NO” to them. That relieves you of a lot of responsibility that newbie consultants most often take on, not realizing how much it burdens them and their business.
The 80/20 principle is thoroughly fascinating and refers to the idea that the majority of work is done by a minority of actors. This applies to natural phenomena but also social dynamics and human organizations. In short, there’s 20% of contractors that snap up 80% of all jobs on the market; there’s 20% of people in your company that does 80% of the work; there’s 20% of your day when you do 80% of the work etc.
This principle can be refined even more and we could say there’s one person who does hundreds or thousand times the work of a regular contractor and is insanely productive. If you can find this time of the day, contractor or whatever else, you can unlock the same productivity and start churning out success.
All that you’ve learned so far in this course led you to this moment, in which you have to carefully observe everything around you to find what it is that blocks your productivity and how to unlock it. Once you do, the money and fame will come pouring in, at which point most people get lost in the dazzle of baubles and start burning through their cash like there’s no tomorrow.
You will also need financial discipline, which means investing back into your business, with some small financial reserves for unexpected expenses. The workers are the lifeblood of your company, so invest in them as well. No matter how the market changes, this consistent strategy of investing back into your fundamentals will make your business grow and mature.
Whether you have or don’t have a team, investing in marketing automation is a great idea. Computers can be programmed to work on your behalf and deliver exactly what you asked for, nothing more, nothing less. Adopting flexible software can also help you grow and keep growing, even as the market changes.
The platform is your means of creating the best possible environment for growth and collaboration. So far, you’ve probably used countless platforms without even realizing it, abiding by their often silly rules that keep changing for no good reason. With your own platform, you can set the rules and hopefully provide enough value for your customers to attract them and create a long-term relationship.
Week 7 – Scaling Your Business With Products
There’s not much here, so I won’t speak to in-depth about it … but week 7 is almost a “bonus week” about scaling your business by transitioning into a group coaching model.
When you’re able to turn your business into a series of products instead of JUST selling your time … you can truly scale.
And that’s what week 7 introduces.
But the ultimate aim of Week 7 is to upsell you into UpLevel Consulting – which I’m also in and I LOVE – but that’s not what this Consulting Accelerator review is focused on, so we won’t cover it much.
There’s a lot of great information there – it’s just not as relevant to most newer entreprenuers starting out.
But if you’re experienced, it’s powerful stuff.
Consulting Accelerator Pricing
So what is all of this knowledge going to cost you? In my Consulting Accelerator review I’ve shown you a TON of the bulk of the program – and I highly recommend it.
But there is a cost to it … and it’s totally worth it.
Consulting Accelerator is priced at $1,999, payable in 5 instalments of $597. There are no prerequisite skills, coding, or tech experience.
You can be an absolute beginner and EXCEL with Consulting Accelerator.
You’ll be getting lifetime access to 52 modules totaling 105 hours of video lessons, tools, training videos, live Q&A calls and a Facebook community.
If the price tag seems too high for you to dive in, you can even take a free trial. This provides access to the entire first week’s materials and a few modules from other weeks.
Click here to schedule your free trial now (this IS an affiliate link and I will get a small commission, but as a student of Sam myself it’s totally worth it. And using this link costs you nothing): https://www.consulting.com/invite?rl=30loe
Consulting Accelerator Review — Final Thoughts
If I wanted to become a gardener, I’d obviously want to spend time with an expert gardener, asking silly questions before rolling up my sleeves and getting to work. But, if I wanted to become a consultant, where do I turn? Where can I find someone to answer all my silly questions and guide me through my baby steps?
In my opinion, Consulting Accelerator is one fine attempt at helping the general public overcome the inertia and their inner barriers to start a consulting business. The course taught me how to think and act like an actual consultant and it comes at a bargain price.
$2K is a steal when you consider the tens (often hundreds) of thousands of dollars spent on formal education.
Yet for only $2,000 … which you can easily make back in a few weeks or months … you can get world-class mentorship by one of the best entrepreneurs in the game.
Consulting Accelerator also helped me understand the power of choosing one audience and knowing everything I can about it. That’s the power of relating to niche audiences that can make you popular and relatable in an instant, grabbing its attention without much effort.
I realized bundling my knowledge together to create an effective program works much better than spreading myself thin. There is some charm in starting fresh and putting past failures behind but I believe there’s much to be learned from any failure, as long as ego is kept in check.
Finally, I learned how to create truly powerful VSL (Video Sales Letters). Video is the content format of the future and draws attention like a magnet. You’ve probably experienced it too when looking at some video you didn’t really like but kept watching anyway.
Video is the most powerful content format of the 21st century. If you want to create any kind of business success without using video, you’re doing it wrong. You can’t escape video content and you shouldn’t shy away from it. Make enough videos, don’t give up and you will have at least some success.
Combine this with Facebook ads, automation and some breaking of internal barriers and you’ve got your alchemical recipe for turning lead into gold.
Join Sam Ovens Consulting Accelerator, even if only on a free trial. There is so much to learn in the course, providing you with solid business and personal fundamentals to create your own success.
Click here to get a FREE trial to Sam Ovens Consulting Accelerator now: https://www.consulting.com/invite?rl=30loe
You’ll learn exactly how to build a digital consulting business at no initial cost. Thousands of students before you, including me, have found success.
I built a new business with a partner, Saravanan Ganesh, and in only 4 months sold $100,000 worth of services.
The program is WELL worth it and I highly recommend enrolling right now.
Click here to get started: https://www.consulting.com/invite?rl=30loe
