Interview – Wes Wheless
Amanda: Hi everyone, and welcome to today's episode of Female Fractionals. I'm your host and fractional CMO, Amanda Nizzere. In today's episode, I'm talking to Wes Wheless, and I'm so excited to bring you this discussion.
Wes and I talk about a very important topic in the lives of fractionals — niching down and the importance of getting your message right. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to that have struggled with putting a stake in the ground for whatever reason, and when they finally do, they struggle to tell their story in the right way.
Wes is a master of this and shares his formula with us today, and even gives us all a few tips to get started. This is a must-listen episode.
But first, let's learn a little bit more about Wes. Wes helps solo consultants bottle their secret sauce. As founder of Develop My IP, he turns deep corporate expertise into magnetic positioning and visual IP that attracts dream clients.
Before going solo, Wes worked in the strategy and tech trenches at BCG, Expedia, and most recently Reforge, where he worked one-on-one with top tech execs to transform their know-how into signature frameworks and premium masterclasses. These days, he partners exclusively with solo professionals to sharpen their niche and make their thinking visible.
Wes holds marketing degrees from Wharton and Kellogg and is the voice behind The Lightbulb, a daily email packed with insights and original frameworks for solo consulting success.
For links to Wes’ one-minute lightbulbs and the topics we cover on today’s episode, go to developmyip.com/female. As a bonus, you’ll also find a starter guide to sketching your first intellectual headshot on your own — which you can send to Wes for personalized feedback.
Trust me, you're going to want to take advantage of Wes' offer. Without further ado, let's jump into this important episode.
Amanda: Hi Wes, welcome to Female Fractionals. I'm so excited you're here.
Wes: Thanks Amanda. I've been looking forward to it.
Amanda: I am really looking forward to this conversation. I think everyone is going to learn so much. But I always like to start every discussion with our guests just sharing how you got started in the space and what led you to focus on helping fractional executives.
Wes: Yeah, sure. I like to say that my overall arc is that I'm a boomerang consultant. I started as a consultant straight out of undergrad at BCG, went from there into industry, business school, about 10 years in tech and product management — and now I'm back as a solo consultant.
And to double down, I'm a solo consultant who serves other solo consultants. I've been in this arena for quite some time. I do have a practice called Develop My IP.
And you might wonder: how did the IP development come into this? My last full-time job was at a company called Reforge. If you're in product management, you might have heard of them. We were essentially building masterclasses for the tech community.
We partnered with execs from big tech and prominent startups, and we would sit them down with someone like me. I would interview them for a few hours at a time over two or three months, and then just build frameworks out of their experiences.
The metaphor I’ve been using is that I’m kind of like a police sketch artist: I ask you questions, you tell me the answers, and I start sketching out what this looks like. That’s what we built — frameworks that we then packaged into courses. It was a really fun job, and I got a lot of reps at doing that kind of expertise extraction and packaging.
We were hit by the downturn in 2022. I was laid off from that role. But interestingly, I had a lot of inbound interest to create Reforge-type content for B2B SaaS companies. They were coming to me saying, “We’d love to create something like that, but based on the knowledge of our own executives — could you do that for us?”
And sure enough, that’s what built out my first year of independent work. Somewhere down the line, about at the year mark, I started seeing some holes in the business model. So I worked with a coach to rethink what I was doing and for whom.
She said, “Let’s really focus on what your expertise is.” Mine happens to be pulling out expertise from other people and packaging it into something monetizable. So the next question was: who can use that type of help?
There were a lot of different ways I could have gone, but she looked at me and said, “I work with independent consultants all day every day — and a lot of them could use help extracting and synthesizing their expertise.”
So I did a bit more research and ultimately decided that’s the way I wanted to go. I made the tough decision to start turning down executive clients, weaning those clients out of my roster, and starting from scratch with a new audience.
Amanda: I feel like this fear of putting a stake in the ground and actually picking your niche is something that I hear all the time — both on the podcast and in the different fractional circles I find myself in.
You obviously work in it and hear from your clients all the time about this fear as well. Why do you think people are so afraid to put that stake in the ground?
Wes: Yeah, and you’ve phrased it really well because at the end of the day, it really is a fear-based resistance to niching down.
Everyone knows the general advice is to specialize. We see that all the time — you go to a primary care doctor for one thing, but you go to a specialist for something else. But when it comes to our own decision, there seems to be a lot more at stake. There's a self-protection mechanism that kicks in.
I think of it as: you jump into this pool and it's sink or swim. Naturally, you're trying to grasp onto anything to stay afloat while you figure it out. That’s what really drives the generalist mindset.
And honestly, that generalist mindset can actually serve you well when you're first starting out. The most important thing is to go out and get your first client. You might have an idea of your niche, but don’t hold out on that first engagement. Just take what you can — because you learn so much in that first engagement about sales, proposals, what you like, what you don’t like, what a buyer looks like.
That’s all valuable data to help triangulate your niche going forward.
Where people run into trouble is when they keep that generalist hat on for too long. Typically, I see it start to feel painful as early as six months — definitely by a year or 18 months. It really depends on what you're selling.
But the signs start to show up: you’re not clear on your messaging, you’re not getting many inbounds, revenue becomes spiky, and all of that fuels more anxiety. So you just keep grasping at whatever’s closest.
Amanda: Yeah. What kind of mindset is needed to get past that generalist mindset and actually niche down?
Wes: To solve this fear problem, it has to be a mindset shift. There are a few lenses I look through — I’ll cover two of them.
First is the obvious one: scarcity vs. abundance. If you're resisting narrowing down, you're implicitly saying, “I don’t think there will be enough work if I choose a niche.” That’s classic scarcity thinking.
But you can flip that. You’re not new to this. You’ve got decades of experience and very unique, intersectional expertise based on your background. If you talk about it the right way, you can build demand — and then you get to decide which projects you take.
Second, and maybe simpler: put yourself in the buyer’s shoes. Generalist thinking is about protecting yourself. But think about what your buyer — usually a CEO — is going through. Most CEOs don’t wake up saying, “I need a fractional CMO.” They’re saying, “We’re plateauing. Our growth is stalling. Our marketing isn’t working. I need help.”
At that point, they’re not even thinking “fractional.” They’re looking for someone who’s solved this exact problem before.
So if you’ve positioned yourself as “I do everything in marketing,” you won’t stand out. But if you say “I help early-stage companies bust through growth plateaus through brand marketing,” now you’re speaking their language — and you’ll get the first call.
Amanda: Yep. So we're going to get into the IP angle in a bit, but you’ve written — in your fantastic newsletter, which we'll link to — about the five benefits of niching down. Can we walk through each of those briefly so that listeners understand what they are?
Wes: Yeah, absolutely. So the first one is pipeline growth.
If you're trying to build multiple pipelines at once, you’re splintering your effort. It’s really hard to build momentum. I saw this myself when I was exploring multiple lanes and doing a listening tour. My calendar was full of discovery interviews, and I’d be thinking, “Okay, who’s next? Are they an executive? A new consultant?” Just switching mental hats constantly. But once I focused on one audience, everything became easier to scale.
The second benefit is market affinity.
That just means you’ll get known faster within the vertical you specialize in. As you serve more clients and meet more people in a niche, your name starts getting tossed around. I doubt I’d be on this podcast if I hadn’t narrowed down — someone mentioned my name to you, and here we are.
The third is service refinement.
Exactly what it sounds like. When you deliver the same type of work over and over, you figure out what’s inefficient, what adds value, and you improve the process. You get faster and your clients get better results.
Fourth is rates.
This is the one everyone wants to know about. As you specialize, your achievable rates go up. There’s a study from Michael Zipursky at Consulting Success that shows a clear difference — specialists are significantly more likely to earn $10K+/month than generalists. The data is in.
And lastly, expertise acceleration.
This is the sum of everything else. As you go deeper into your niche, your expertise becomes sharper, more valuable, and compounds over time. And that’s the key: these are all compounding benefits. The earlier you niche down, the sooner those benefits start to build.
Amanda: Yeah. So what do you mean by “IP,” and why should fractional execs stop thinking about it as a big, intimidating concept?
Wes: Great question. Take it from someone who literally named their company Develop My IP — I know that “IP” can scare consultants off. I’ve thought about changing the name! But I keep it because I think it’s such an important concept.
Most people hear “IP” and think: book, course, legal protection, trademarks. It sounds expensive and overwhelming — and easy to put off for “someday.”
But I use a more gentle definition:
Intellectual property is a set of your unique insights, synthesized into a shareable point of view.
Let me say that again: a set of your unique insights, synthesized into a shareable point of view. That’s it. And for most consultants, that means frameworks and visuals. You don’t need a book. You don’t need a lawyer. You need to start making your thinking visible.
Amanda: How exactly do these “intellectual headshots” help accelerate sales and marketing?
Wes: So an “intellectual headshot” is a term I came up with. It’s a visual representation of how you think — a snapshot of your POV on a specific problem. It’s like a headshot for your brain.
Actors have headshots that help them get auditions. Consultants don’t have anything like that. We have LinkedIn, maybe a website. But imagine if you had a one-pager or framework that spoke for you before a sales call — that’s what a headshot does.
From a marketing standpoint, it acts like a billboard. It draws curiosity, shows off your expertise, and gets people into conversation.
From a sales standpoint, it frames the call. Instead of “Who are you and what do you do?”, the buyer says, “I saw your framework on X — I think I’m struggling with this part.”
That builds trust. It shows domain authority. It gives them a vocabulary and a path forward. All of that shortens the sales cycle. And shorter sales cycles often mean higher rates.
All from one visual.
I didn’t even mean to do it at first, but I created a framework slide using a mining metaphor: pickaxe → diamond → diamond ring. That became the first slide in my proposal. It was memorable and sticky, and that one visual led to a five-figure deal.
If one visual can do that, wouldn’t you find time to create one?
Amanda: Yes. I literally just grabbed a pen while you were talking. Let’s make this tactical: how can people start to extract their expertise and build their own “intellectual headshot”?
Wes: Great. So in my IP Builder Sprint, I give clients a pre-sprint worksheet with reflection prompts. I’ll share a few of them here.
What question do you get asked all the time?
That’s usually a good sign you have something valuable to say. If you’re repeating yourself often, it’s worth turning into a visual.What pain is your client in when they come to you?
Can you depict that visually? Can you represent their stuck point in a clever, clear way? That’s what creates connection.What’s your process?
Literally: what are the 3–5 steps you take to solve the problem? Think metaphorically. Could it be a ladder? A map? A pipeline? Use tools like ChatGPT to brainstorm metaphors and sketch from there.
Then just start sketching and iterating. It doesn’t have to be pretty — just clear.
Amanda: Yes. What pain are they in, what don’t they see that you do, and what are your first 3–5 steps. That’s so good.
So what are the deliverables from the Sprint?
Wes: The IP Builder Sprint is a two-week engagement with three live sessions. At the end, you walk away with four polished “intellectual headshots” — your starter set of what I call your insights portfolio (that’s my softer term for IP).
You can use those visuals right away, or take them to a designer to match your brand.
But honestly, the biggest value is in the process — sitting across from someone and articulating your POV. Getting clear on your vocabulary, the pain you solve, how you want to be known. That clarity is a huge outcome on its own.
We also do a four-week follow-up to see how it’s landing in the market and tweak if needed.
Amanda: I love that. Okay, time for rapid fire. Ready?
Wes: Let’s go.
Amanda: First job that taught you something valuable?
Wes: Blockbuster Video. Taught me I was great under pressure — I worked Friday and Saturday nights.
Amanda: I was also a video store girl! Favorite productivity hack?
Wes: I hate writing recap emails. I use Otter to record meetings and send automatic summaries. Total time-saver.
Amanda: Best investment you’ve made in yourself?
Wes: Hiring a coach, one year into my solo journey.
Amanda: Three apps you can’t live without?
Wes: Spotify, Otter, and ChatGPT.
Amanda: Most unexpected skill that’s helped your career?
Wes: Empathy.
Amanda: Favorite way to celebrate a win?
Wes: I have a little hand bell on my desk. I ring it every time I close a deal. Feels great when you work solo.
Amanda: Mentor you want to shout out?
Wes: My coach, Melissa Lieberman. She’s amazing. Her podcast for solo consultants is fantastic too.
Amanda: Where do you look for inspiration?
Wes: Long walks with headphones and a podcast.
Amanda: Sauna or cold plunge?
Wes: I like contrast therapy, but I could get lost in the sauna.
Amanda: Most used emoji in professional texts?
Wes: 💡 (lightbulb). It’s the name of my newsletter. Also 🙌 (double high five).
Amanda: Go-to comfort food?
Wes: Pizza.
Amanda: What did you want to be when you were five?
Wes: A movie critic.
Amanda: And now you're making intellectual headshots. I love it.
Wes, this has been great. You’re doing such important work for the fractional community — helping people do one of the hardest things: making their value visible. I’m so grateful you joined me.
Where can people find you?
Wes: I’m on LinkedIn — last name is Wheless, W-H-E-L-E-S-S. And my website is developmyip.com. We made a special page for this podcast: developmyip.com/female — it has links to everything we discussed.
Amanda: Perfect. Thank you so much, Wes!
Wes: Thanks for having me. This was fun.
Amanda: As always, please remember to follow, comment, and share. And don’t forget to head over to femalefractionals.com for the full transcript and show notes. Thanks for listening!
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