(This article was updated on September 16, 2024)
“Variation in a boutique consulting doesn’t sell. Focus does.” I’ve said these words to my clients – boutique consultancies – more times than I can count.
Let me clarify what I mean.
I come across consultancies daily that offer a buffet of services. Their messaging is all about tailored solutions and hyper-customisable services. I get it. These consultancies try to show how customer-centric they are and want to cast as wide a net as possible.
I consider that as a mistake. Variation is a boulder that weighs boutique consultancies down.
Large firms – the Big 4s of the world – can afford to offer variation. These consultancies have endless resources and an army of consultants. They can provide a wide range of services because their internal pool of knowledge is massive. But that’s not the case for boutique consultancies.
So why even try to compete against these large firms on variation? Consulting businesses with consulting teams of 30-100 people don’t stand a chance in such instances against consulting firms that employ thousands of consultants across multiple continents!
The superpower that boutique consultancies can employ, however, is developing a signature methodology – a highly effective way of addressing high-value problems for a narrow audience with high predictability in outcomes.
As I’ve witnessed countless times, the path to developing that signature methodology and becoming a high-performance consultancy is through an unwavering commitment to repetition.
That’s what I’m going to elaborate on in this post.
A signature methodology is a unique and proprietary approach developed by a consultancy to solve specific problems or address particular challenges their clients face. This methodology encapsulates the consultancy's expertise, processes, and best practices distilled into a structured framework.
Let’s say two consultancies of approximately the same size bid for the same project – developing and implementing a sales forecasting system for a multinational fashion brand.
Consultancy 1 markets itself as a one-stop shop for all digital sales and marketing needs for retail businesses. Consultancy 2, on the other hand, has a proprietary methodology for implementing sales forecasting systems for large fashion brands that consistently deliver forecasts with 95% accuracy. It has a track record to back up that claim.
Which consultancy is the client more likely to book? The answer is obvious.
That’s the power of a signature methodology. It creates trust with prospects – the impact of such consultancies’ work is typically exponentially higher, while the risks of hiring such firms are exponentially lower.
Here are just a few reasons why a signature methodology for solving significant client problems is a driver of the success of high-performance boutique consultancies:
Recommended reading: The 12 Characteristics of a High-Performing Boutique Consultancy
A signature methodology is only effective when it delivers outstanding results. In my experience, designing such a methodology without repetition is impossible.
By focusing on the same narrow list of problems for a highly targeted audience day in and day out, a consultancy achieves the following:
One of the most common traits I encounter in boutique consultancy owners and leaders is their “hustle mode”. It makes perfect sense, of course. Running a business means being responsible for bringing in revenue, recruiting top talent, doing quality control, and about a hundred other things. This “hustle” often fuels the very existence of a business.
However, the “hustle mode” should be kept in check as it can come at odds with the commitment to repetition. It requires discipline and the ability to commit to a long-term vision. That’s why I urge boutique consultancy owners and leaders to be mindful of their entrepreneurial spirit – that eagerness to explore opportunities – and develop the discipline required to maintain focus.
Repetition, by definition, leaves very little room for customisation. That, of course, doesn’t mean that boutique consultancies need to forget about customisation completely. Even applying a signature methodology will not be 100% the same for each client, no matter how narrow the client profile is. Typically, some minor tweaking and adjusting need to be done.
However, I want to warn consultancy owners and leaders to be very careful about keeping the scope of customisation to a minimum If a project requires a high degree of customisation or is outside the immediate fo. In that case, I recommend that boutique consultancies ask themselves whether they would be justified in charging at least 50% more – whether the client would agree.
Why? Because a consultancy won’t have the advantages of the signature methodology and repetitions, those efficiency gains must be compensated.
"A narrow expertise focus in a boutique consultancy may initially be tedious but, through repetition, becomes more exciting over time. People start inviting the consultancy—the experts, the industry leaders who know (almost) everything, have the most compelling data and trend analysis, can spot intriguing patterns, explain fascinating methodologies and solutions, reduce the variability of outcomes, get admired for thought-provoking ideas, and ultimately don't need to sell or convince anymore." (quote from Luk in a Linkedin post)
A large pharmaceutical company invited me to help them assess pitches by consultancies for a post-merger digital transformation project – a 3-year contract valued at around €3 million.
In brief:
At first sight, it may seem counterintuitive. The pharmaceutical company had a proposal from the Big 4 consulting firm that was much more suited to their budget, and they could tap into the massive pool of consultants they offered.
In the exceptional pitch delivered by the boutique consultancy, the core strength lay in their 'signature methodology', which was developed and refined through repeated application over several years.
Their approach, tailored to address specific post-merger digital integration challenges, was presented with remarkable transparency during the pitch. The consultancy openly shared its journey of repetition, detailing the iterative process of perfecting its 'signature methodology' through past mistakes and lessons learned.
This candid presentation demonstrated their deep expertise and instilled high trust and confidence in the client. The impact was profound—despite a higher-cost proposal, the client was compelled to choose the boutique firm, valuing the predictable, outcome-driven results promised by their proven, repeatedly tested approach.
This pitch - see the recommended reading link to the case study below this paragraph - exemplifies the transformative power of repetition to develop a signature methodology to distinguish a boutique consultancy in a competitive market.
"Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment." — Zig Ziglar.
Recommended reading: The Best Consulting Pitch I’ve Ever Seen
The ability to design a signature methodology is paramount for boutique consultancies aiming to thrive in a competitive landscape. This distinctive approach, honed through repetitive application, offers numerous advantages ranging from enhanced differentiation and standardised processes to increased profitability and client satisfaction.
By committing to repetition, boutique consultancies can refine and deepen their expertise, optimise resources, streamline operations, and unlock valuable insights from data that drive sustainable growth.
While the allure of service variation is strong, everything that I’ve observed in my work with both struggling consultancies and high-performance consultancies points to the conclusion that it is the disciplined dedication to repetition that ultimately paves the path towards building a reputation for delivering outstanding results for clients, which is, ultimately, what clients want to pay for.
Repetition and focus are not merely a means to an end but the cornerstone upon which high-performance consultancies are built.
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