Stories / Consulting
Independent Consultant: Average project value £3k to £18k
Positioned as a generalist, competing on price, averaging £3k projects with long sales cycles.
- Client
- Independent Consultant
- Industry
- Consulting
- Size
- Solo
- Timeframe
- 4 months
Anonymised at the client's request · figures verified · published with written permission
The situation
Eleven years of experience described on a website in language that could have belonged to any of four hundred people.
Enquiries arrived, but always in a competitive shortlist and always with price as the deciding factor.
Two years of profitable work sat in the back catalogue, unexamined — the pattern was already there.
What we did
- STEP 01
Sorted three years of projects by profit per day
The top decile was one type of client: regulated financial services firms doing a first outsourcing programme. That was the niche, and it had chosen itself.
- STEP 02
Rewrote the offer as an outcome, not a discipline
'Operations consultant' became 'I take regulated firms through their first outsourcing without a compliance finding'. Same skills, entirely different conversation.
- STEP 03
Published fortnightly, on one narrow subject
Eight pieces in four months, all about outsourcing under regulatory scrutiny. Two of them were the entire reason for the three biggest enquiries.
- STEP 04
Raised the floor and held it
Minimum engagement set at £12k with a written scope. The first two refusals were painful. The third enquiry accepted without negotiating.
The numbers
| Measure | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Average project value | £3,000 | £18,000 |
| Enquiry-to-close rate | 18% | 44% |
| Sales cycle | 11 weeks | 4 weeks |
| Billable days/month | 17 | 11 |
Measured over 4 months
What didn't go to plan
Month two was the worst month of income in four years. Narrowing works, but it costs you the pipeline you already had before it builds the one you want.
In their words
“Saying no to eighty percent of enquiries felt like career suicide for about six weeks. Then the right people started arriving pre-sold.”
Independent consultant · Consulting
The lesson
You cannot be referred for something you cannot be described as.