Consulting Client Acquisition

"𝙉𝙞𝙘𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙤𝙬𝙣" is the most misexecuted advice in consulting. Not wrong. Misexecuted. Consultants hear it and start shopping for an industry. Fintech. Healthcare. SaaS founders between $1M and $10M. They spend months agonising over the vertical — and their pipeline stalls while they decide. Here is what the advice actually means, and almost nobody applies it: 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗱𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀. Some of the highest-fee consultants in our network work across 4 or 5 industries. Nobody asks them "𝘥𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳?" Their positioning answers a sharper question "𝘥𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘮𝘺 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮?" and the answer is unmistakably yes. The pattern we see repeatedly: the consultant who owns one named problem, (unpriced expertise, a stalled leadership team, a referral-dependent pipeline) out-earns the "𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘩𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵" who does a bit of everything for one industry. 𝗡𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺. 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲. That is how you become a category of one without shrinking your market to a sliver. 𝗥𝘂𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁: write down the problem you solve in one sentence, without naming an industry, a tool, or your methodology. If that sentence could sit on a competitor's profile without anyone noticing, you have not niched at all. You have just picked a smaller room to be generic in. #ExpertProject #Positioning #ConsultingBusiness

Positioning isn’t what you say. It’s what they believe. That belief? It's shaped in seconds by your copy, your content & your clarity. Without nailing your brand positioning, you’re just another brand in a sea of noise. No edge. No clarity. No conversions. Here’s the 5-step positioning framework I use with clients to help them generate inbound leads — consistently. 1. Know your audience. Not vaguely. Deeply. ↳ Who are they? ↳ What do they fear, want, hate, crave? Surveys, interviews, LinkedIn comments = goldmines. 2. Study your competitors. Not to copy. But to differentiate. ↳ Where are the gaps? ↳ What do they do well and what do they miss? Your edge lies in what they don’t say. 3. Define your USPs. You don’t need 10 features. You need 3 sharp reasons why people choose you. Clarity > complexity. 4. Craft your positioning statement. “I help [audience] achieve [results] with [unique method].” Simple. Memorable. Shareable. 5. Say it loud. Say it everywhere. Your positioning isn’t just a slide deck. It’s your entire brand narrative across LinkedIn, emails, sales calls and decks. If your messaging isn’t clear, your product won’t sell. Your goal is to position yourself for success. Once you nail it, your comms hit harder and every marketing dollar stretches further. Need help finding your brand’s edge? DM or Comment "🎯"

How do you outmanoeuvre the competition? Not by being “better” than them. But by being different them - and highly valuable to your audience. Hello from sunny Limassol, Cyprus 🇨🇾! I’m here consulting for a leadership team from a business operating in a crowded market. The challenge? How can we stand out - for the right reasons and to the right people? The answer: a bold brand strategy. One that is not simply about colours fonts and logos. But one which influences all Parts of the business to innovate and recalibrate to create unique value. I’ve been working with the leadership team of a B2B professional services company tackling the challenge of standing out in a highly saturated market. Scaling in such environments is never easy—but after two intense strategy days, the energy and clarity in the room have been incredible. On Day 2, we strategically repositioned the brand around a new, sharper direction. This included: • Prototyping ideas for an improved customer journey • Reimagining how they create and deliver value • Exploring a new pricing structure and onboarding process The breakthrough moment came when we clarified not only what they would start doing, but also what they would stop doing to focus on becoming the only choice for a specific audience. By the end of the session, we had: • Conceptual alignment on a focused new approach • A clear strategy to differentiate the brand in their market • A high-level action plan for the end of 2024 and the first half of 2025 The leadership team left energized and excited, with a renewed sense of purpose and direction. For my part, the next step is to further clarify the strategy, engage their wider team, and ensure momentum stays strong. For CEOs and business leaders, the lesson here is simple: when your market is crowded, clarity is your superpower. By focusing on a specific audience and carving out a distinct territory, you can turn complexity into alignment and alignment into action. How are you helping your team focus, differentiate, and move forward? #branding #Leadership #Strategy #BrandPositioning #ScalingUp #TeamAlignment #CustomerJourney #ValueCreation

My first client paid me ₹15,000 for a design project. Last week, I closed a deal for ₹8 lakhs. No, this didn’t happen overnight. And no, there were no shortcuts. But there was a framework that changed everything for me. Let me share it with you: 1️⃣ Nail Your Positioning in Everything You Do Positioning is about delivering consistent quality at every touchpoint: >> We invested heavily in redesigning our website to showcase our vision. >> Our client proposals detail everything—from team members to our process. >> Our online presence builds credibility before conversations even start. >> The way our team interacts with clients demonstrates efficiency, trust, and responsibility. >> Even our team’s personal branding reinforces our studio’s values. >> Your work needs to reflect "premium" before you even mention your price. 2️⃣Price According to Your Value, Not Your Fear Clients who can pay ₹80,000 are often charged ₹30,000 simply because designers are afraid to ask for more. Stop thinking small. When your positioning and target audience are aligned, your pricing should reflect that. Premium clients expect premium pricing—it signals quality. 3️⃣Say Yes Only to High-Impact Projects My business grew exponentially when I stopped taking on small-scale projects. We no longer work on just a brochure or a logo. Instead, we provide comprehensive solutions. Right now, we're working with a new hospital on its online and offline brand identity and experience—from color palette selection to its launch event design later this year. When a client asks for a business card, show them how a complete brand identity could transform their entire business. 4️⃣kYou Don't Have to Be Everything to Everyone Being selective with clients might temporarily dip your revenue, but partnering with those who share your vision is where real growth happens. When I started turning down projects that didn’t align with my vision, I began attracting clients who truly valued quality work. Position yourself strongly. Focus on impact. Show up big. In a world full of noise, clarity is your superpower. Stand for something. Price for value. Deliver quality work. That’s how I went from ₹15,000 to ₹8 lakhs—and that’s how you can too.

This is what most B2B markets look like. (see image). Not one clear competitor. But a fragmented set of alternatives for solving the same job. You can only get this view of the market if you look at it through a jobs-to-be done lens. The trap many founders fall into is looking at the market ONLY through a category lens. They fixate on magic quadrants, analyst reports, and other YC-backed startups, building their messaging to compare themselves to those vendors. 🔴 This is often a big mistake. Because most of market isn’t even aware of these tools, let alone actively evaluating them. So the message doesn’t land. In reality, the competition is usually: - DIY efforts - Bent or hacked together legacy tools - Manual processes - Agencies bundled into broader work Take our business, Fletch, for example. We help B2B software develop their positioning strategy. At first glance, you might assume our competition is ‘other positioning consultants’. That’s rarely true. We almost never compete head-on with another consultant. Instead, we usually compete with: - teams this work in-house - founders delegating it to ChatGPT - positioning gets lumped into a larger branding exercise or website refresh with an agency ——— There is another hidden insight in seeing your market through a JTBD lens. → Recognizing that your value argument (ie. Differentiation) will be COMPLETELY DIFFERENT when compared to different alternatives. Fletch example: • When compared to in-house marketing teams, we tout our frameworks and proven experience working with 500+ companies as our main differentiators. • When compared to other positioning consultants, our two week sprint (speed) and pricing become our main differentiation. This is where a lot of teams in trouble. They look across this map and try to combine ALL of the value arguments into one unified message. In practice, this results a generic, bloated, and forgettable message. Only in sales conversation do you have the luxury of time to unpack multiple alternatives, explain tradeoffs, and tailor your story. Marketing doesn’t work that way. You don’t get 30 minutes. You get 10 seconds. Which means you have to choose who you’re PRIMARILY positioning against, in order to tell a clear, compelling story of why you are better. ——— So when working on your positioning and messaging, remember: → Markets are (usually) very fragmented → In most markets, your competition is rarely a fellow startup → Only with a JTBD view can really uncover your main competition

You’ve probably seen a thousand posts telling you to “position yourself.” Everyone says it. Almost no one shows you how. Here’s how you actually do it → 1. Craft a Clear, Compelling Narrative Saying “I’m a marketing consultant” is forgettable. Saying “I help B2B founders turn LinkedIn into their #1 revenue driver” builds authority. People don’t remember job titles. They remember outcomes. 2. Own a Specific Space If you try to appeal to everyone, you resonate with no one. The more general you are, the more invisible you become. Instead of going wide, go deep. Niche down and dominate that lane. 3. Back It Up with Social Proof Self-proclaimed experts are everywhere. Results are rare. Use numbers, client wins, testimonials…anything that proves your credibility. “Helping businesses grow” is vague. “Helped a SaaS founder triple revenue in 6 months” builds instant trust. 4. Be Impossible to Ignore If your content sounds like everyone else’s, you’ll get ignored like everyone else. The key to standing out? Have a bold point of view. Say something real. People follow conviction, not neutrality. 5. Challenge the Status Quo Playing it safe is the fastest way to get lost in the noise. Don’t echo what’s already been said. Say something that cuts through. Instead of “Content is king,” say “Content is useless without distribution.” Instead of “Personal branding matters,” say “People trust people, not logos. Build accordingly.” Safe = invisible. Bold = magnetic. 6. Use Words That Hit Words shape perception. Weak words dilute. Strong words provoke. Avoid fluff. Use language that moves people… emotionally or intellectually. Positioning isn't about what you do. It's about how powerfully you communicate why it matters. Be specific. Be bold. Be unforgettable.

A consulting firm is not a business that sells services; it is a market-making engine that must successfully mediate two brutal competitions simultaneously. One is the race for client contracts; the other is the fight for elite talent. If you are winning in one but losing in the other, you are not growing: you are merely accumulating technical debt. In my board advisory work, I frequently see boutique founders fixate on the Client Value Proposition (CVP) while treating the Employee Value Proposition (EVP) as a back-office task for HR. This decoupling is a strategic failure. In professional services, the product is the person. Therefore, your recruitment strategy is, by definition, your product development strategy. Research into the "resource-based view" of the firm suggests that competitive advantage stems from assets that are valuable, rare, and difficult to imitate. In a boutique, those assets walk out of the door every evening. If your CVP promises high-level transformation but your EVP only attracts mid-market generalists, the resulting "delivery gap" will eventually destroy your brand equity. The most successful firms create what Hitt et al. (2001) identify as a critical link between human capital and firm performance. By securing high-stakes, intellectually demanding projects, the firm becomes a magnet for top-tier consultants. These consultants deliver the results that justify higher margins, which then allows the firm to reinvest in further talent. If this circle breaks, you fall into the commodity trap. When a boutique fails to innovate its talent offering, it becomes a training school for the Big Four or tech giants. You bear the cost of development, and your competitors reap the rewards of the experience your staff gained. Your CVP must go beyond the cliché of "having great people". It must articulate a proprietary methodology or niche domain expertise that solves a specific, high-value problem. Simultaneously, your EVP must offer the one thing global firms cannot: high-velocity autonomy. Elite talent joins boutiques to escape the bureaucracy of large-scale consulting, not to find a smaller version of it. High staff turnover is not just a recruitment problem; it is knowledge leakage that degrades the quality of your intellectual property. To evaluate your firm's strategic health, you must answer two questions: • What specific problem do you solve for clients that is so complex it cannot be automated or outsourced to a lower-cost provider? • What specific career experience do we offer that makes the opportunity cost of working elsewhere too high? If your answers are generic, your firm’s long-term viability is at risk. Strategy in consulting is the art of synchronising who you hire with what you sell.

A business coach told me she had spent $40K on branding. New website. New photos. New logo. New color palette. Professional copywriter. The whole thing. Her close rate was still 4%. She came to me convinced something was wrong with her offer. Or her niche. Or her price. Because she had just invested $40K into looking like a premium brand, and nothing moved. I looked at everything in about 20 minutes. And I could see exactly what happened. Nobody had touched her messaging. The website was gorgeous. The copy was clean. The photos were stunning. But every single word on that site could have been swapped with any other business coach's site and nobody would have noticed. "I help high-achieving professionals create the business and life they deserve." That is not positioning. That is wallpaper. Her $40K bought her a beautiful frame. But the painting inside, the actual message, was identical to hundreds of coaches in her space. So premium buyers would land on her site, think "this looks nice," and leave. Because nothing told them why SHE was the one. Nothing diagnosed their problem in a way they had not heard before. Nothing made them feel like she saw something nobody else was seeing. Here is what we changed, and what it cost her almost nothing compared to that $40K. We rebuilt her core positioning around a root cause her audience had never had language for. We gave her methodology a name. We restructured how she described the problem so it created urgency, not through pressure, but through a perspective her buyers could not unsee. Within 60 days, her close rate went from 4% to 38%. Same website. Same photos. Same logo. Same colors. Different words underneath all of it. I see this pattern constantly. Experts invest in the visible layer, design, photos, aesthetics, and skip the invisible layer that actually drives decisions. Your buyer does not hire you because your website is beautiful. They hire you because your message made them feel understood at a level nobody else reached. Have you ever invested in a brand refresh and felt like nothing actually changed in your results? #BrandStrategy #MessagingStrategy #HighTicketCoaching #ConsultantBranding

A 12-year-old agency told me they'd spent months trying to articulate their positioning. They brought in consultants. Ran workshops. Surveyed clients. Their conclusion: "We dug deep. We couldn't really ascertain a specific problem that we're selling." The chart shows where most agencies get stuck. They start with the biggest circle. What they do. Custom software, web apps, integrations. That's capability, not positioning. Most of that circle overlaps with what competitors also do. It's the commodity zone. Then they look at what their clients value. Speed, quality, communication, reliability. Also not positioning. Every good agency delivers those things. Positioning lives in the small intersection where all three circles overlap. What you do, what your clients actually value, and what your competitors can't easily replicate. That third circle is where most agencies stop looking. The problem is rarely that you don't have a position. The problem is that you're searching in the wrong circle. --> Your position isn't in your capabilities list --> It's not in your client testimonials --> It's in the pattern of problems you keep solving that other agencies keep getting wrong When the agency above stopped asking "what do we do" and started asking "what do clients come back to us for that they couldn't get elsewhere," the answer was obvious within a week. If you removed your agency name and logo from your website and replaced it with a competitor's, would anyone notice? That question usually surfaces the real positioning gap faster than any workshop.

Your work doesn't speak for itself. And the "relationships over brand" mantra is exactly why you're working 70-hour weeks. Here's what actually happens when you don't have a clear brand position: Your sales guy describes your business one way. Your project manager says something different on-site. Your website tells a third story. So every single deal requires YOU to show up and translate. To close it. To save it. To explain what makes you different. You can't step back. You can't scale. You become the bottleneck. Now imagine this: Rapunzel as a consultant named Raphael. Flowing beard instead of flowing hair. He's a business consultant. What makes his brand powerful? His differentiation is unmistakable. That beard isn't just aesthetic, it's a symbol. Strength. Resilience. Breaking free from the mold. Targets Gen Z and Millennials who want consultants that challenge norms, not reinforce them. His messaging is one thing, everywhere. "Untangling the Knots of Business." Bold. Unapologetic. His team could deliver it in their sleep. His tone is distinct. Conversational, empathetic, real. You'd recognize a Raphael email vs. anyone else's. The second I say "Raphael," you see him. You know what he stands for. You could describe him to a colleague. That's not because of his relationships. It's because of his BRAND perception. --- If you want that level of clarity, answer these 5 questions: 1. What's the one frustration your clients feel that NO ONE else is naming? (Not solving. NAMING.) 2. If your competitor said your tagline, would it still be true? If yes, it's not positioning. 3. Can your newest team member explain why a client should choose you in 30 seconds? If not, your message isn't clear enough to scale. 4. What would you have to believe about your market to stand for something polarizing? Polarizing ≠ offensive. It means some people aren't for you. 5. If you stripped your logo off everything, would people still know it's you? Voice, values, and visuals should be unmistakable. --- Many service businesses think brand is a logo and a color palette. It's not. It's the ONE perception that lives in your clients' minds when they hear your name. And if that perception isn't consistent, sharp, and distinct, you'll stay trapped in the day-to-day. So, this is my take: Your brand perception speaks louder than your work. Agree? Disagree? Tell me why in the comments.