The Big Question
Questions I get from consultants. And my answers.
Got this question from a reader (great question, thanks!):
“Luk, what is your advice to consultants - when they cannot stop committing to a broad range of projects, because they are genuinely interested, and even competent as subject matter experts. I run into this reality regularly. It is the drive that comes from curiosity, competence, and a bit of FOMO as well I guess. So, again, what can we do to temper our eagerness, and still enjoy the fewer activities we get involved in as consultants?”
The reason why consultants come to me: they miss meaning & fulfillment
“I love the variety in consulting, Luk”. I hear this multiple times a week. When I dig deep though and ask a few questions, I quickly get to the bottom of why they are asking me for help: they are missing meaning and fulfillment in their all day consulting life. They run around with horrible laundry lists and at the end of the day they keep asking themselves: did I add value today?
Every consultant I know has some degree of ambition to be recognized as an expert, adding value for their clients. But deep in their heart, without focus on a narrow expertise domain, most consultants know they haven’t added an abundance of transformational value. They get downstream, employee-like tasks from their clients and they get evaluated on hours worked instead of on results, impact, transformational value. In the long run, ‘the-laundry-list-consulting-life’ is one of the greatest obstacles to both personal and professional peace of mind.
Digital is the way new business gets developed
And, like it or not, digital is the way you win new business in consulting. More than ever before, post-Covid. My clients today come from all over the world, amazing. This means you will have more and more competition from all over the world. Your clients will do their research homework before they get in touch with you (that’s what you do too, right?). Get ready for it. You can’t cover multiple expertise areas and still remain competitive. You will have to stand out as a subject matter expert to get found, so you’d better accept the digital world. Your (narrowly positioned) competitor is only one click away. Focus, stand out or get a regular job!
My of ‘Joy of Missing Out’
“But Luk, don’t you love the variety in your work either?” Of course I do. On top of that, I have a restless brain and I am seeing new opportunities every other day. However, I took deep control of the way I live and work: staying in the smallest possible lane and going as deep as possible (but with broad contextual understanding, the T-shape, you know).
Because it was my dream to add value as an expert, to write about the lessons learned, to build an organic pipeline of ideal clients (who had connected with my content), to repeat the same projects to learn all the patterns and the details (and write about it), close substantial deals in 15’ without negotiation (because clients were keen to get the expertise), to have deep client impact. Who wouldn’t want to experience this? (read my article on my experiences from the past)
Depth is a superpower, says author Pete Davis in his recent book ‘Dedicated’. And I’d like to add: repeated observation and pattern recognition is the engine of such depth and its resulting superpower!
I deeply enjoyed missing out for almost a decade. I said no to everything outside my focus because those non-ideal clients would eat my precious time. Too many consultants enjoy the variety at the expense of the craft. And it burns them out in the long run.
In his mail to me, my fellow reader who has sent me his question, closes his mail by referring to a French expression: “Qui trop embrasse mal étreint”. If you try to hold on to all the things you value, you may drop some, because you are trying to hold too much. Awesome expression.
Busy, busy, busy, a toxic consulting drug
A few weeks ago, a German consultant called me for help. He described himself ‘chronically exhausted’. As with many consultants, for years and years he had defined his identity by performing an incredible amount of hours per week trying to satisfy his (very few, but demanding) clients. His mild and amicable style in combination with his long term relationships with his (very few - which is not optimal) clients and his downstream activity-driven consulting work, had always been his drug to keep himself going. He never realized he was swimming in a dangerous and exhausting current, until now.
It’s what happens so often: due to the fear of losing or dissatisfying those clients (I get that, I got that t-shirt), consultants keep going out of fear of getting in trouble. Their ‘being busy’ however is covering up for a deeper problem. ‘Being busy’ is often a symptom of self-doubt and/or fear of giving up the old (doing a broad range of activities) for the new (upstream, shorter, packaged, strategic/diagnostic advisory). I was glad he wanted to quit the rat race of me-too consultancy work to start developing a new, upstream approach. Which, after all, is not that difficult. But you need the courage and the guts to sail in wild waters (for a while).
