Hi Reader,

A crack appears in a wall. You patch it, repaint the area, and move on. A few months later, another crack appears. You patch that one, too. At some point, shouldn’t you ask yourself a different question?

Independent consultants face a similar dilemma. When a consultant struggles to consistently attract the right clients and generate revenue, the symptoms quickly become visible. Networking yields small talk instead of meaningful conversations. Referrals slow down. Prospective clients seem interested but stop short of asking for your help.

The natural reaction is to repair what we can see. Maybe you rewrite your message. Maybe you start networking in different places.

Sometimes that is exactly what needs to happen. But, it is also possible the visible problem is merely a symptom of something else.

This is where independent consultants forget something they already know how to do exceptionally well.

Treat Your Business as the Client

When a prospective client engages with you, they are doing so because of your expertise and judgement—your analytical and problem-solving skills, your ability to ask structured questions, challenge assumptions, look past distractions and complaints, and distinguish symptoms from underlying issues. They want a trusted expert who knows how to figure out what is “really” happening before jumping to or suggesting a solution.

Yet when the client is our own business, it is easy for us to skip the diagnosis and move directly from symptom to solution.

Your immediate guess might be right. But, if you act before understanding why something is happening, you can spend considerable time fixing the wrong thing.

When I look closely at how consultants diagnose their own businesses, two patterns of misdiagnosis stand out.

Mistaking Early Traction for Validation

A consultant leaves a corporate role and quickly lands one or two clients through former colleagues. The work is familiar, the clients trust them, and revenue arrives. The consultant is ecstatic. The business appears to be working and the consultant feels as though they are on the path to success.

Then the referrals slow.

Those early engagements demonstrated something important. Former colleagues trusted the consultant's expertise, understood what they are capable of doing, and were willing to hire or refer them.

But those engagements did not necessarily validate the need for the business. They may have validated the consultant's expertise and reputation. But, they did not necessarily validate sustained demand for the business the consultant intends to build.

When those early referrals slow, it is easy to draw another quick conclusion: broaden your services, accept whatever work appears, or expand the type of client with whom you engage.

But before changing direction, the more useful diagnostic question may be: What did those first clients actually tell me about my business—and what did they not tell me?

The consultant’s early success is evidence of their ability to do the work. The challenge is correctly interpreting what that evidence means. It also may raise foundational questions such as: What do you want to be known for? Whom do you serve? What specific problems do you solve?

Assuming You Already Know the Answer

I believe this is the easiest pattern for an independent consultant to fall into.

Expert consultants are known for their expertise and are paid for their insights. That expertise also makes it remarkably easy to jump to conclusions about our own businesses when it is not producing the results we want.

Consider two consultants who both say: “I have a referral problem.”

• Consultant A has people who want to help her, but her messaging is so vague they don’t know who a good contact would be. It is impossible for them to know whom to introduce her to or clearly understand the problem that she solves. She keeps asking for referrals, but the people around her do not know what a useful referral looks like.
• Consultant B can explain what problem he solves and who his ideal client is. The people around him know exactly whom to introduce him to. But he has developed very few referral relationships and rarely asks for an introduction.

Same visible symptom. Different diagnosis.

Consultant A could spend months asking for more introductions without addressing the underlying ambiguity. Consultant B doesn't need to refine his messaging; he needs to develop trusted relationships. Neither consultant benefits from assuming that the visible problem—the symptom—is the problem that needs to be fixed.

A Map Is More Useful Than an Assumption

To evaluate your business effectively, you need a structured way to look at it.

It does not matter whether you use my framework—The Independent Consultant's Blueprint,—another consulting business framework, or one you have developed for yourself. What matters is having a way to look across your business rather than reacting only to the place where the problem has become visible.

If something is not working The Independent Consultant's Blueprint is my map, my guide:

It gives me a way to look across the business and consider where a bottleneck—a constraint limiting the result I want—may exist.

Not only do I ask an initial why, I keep asking why until there are no more why questions to ask.

The answer may lead me to my Business Core. It may lead me to Awareness, Relationships, Engagement, or Delivery. Or, I may discover that the activity I first identified as a symptom is the problem.

The framework does not provide the diagnosis. It helps me avoid deciding on a solution too quickly and deciding on the wrong solution.

Stop Patching Long Enough to Ask Why

Independent consultants have limited time. When revenue is inconsistent or creating clients is difficult, continuing to investigate can feel slower than jumping into action.

Acting on the wrong diagnosis consumes time, too. You can spend months doing more networking when networking is not the problem. You can rewrite your messaging when the real constraint is that too few of the right people are seeing it.

Operating with a less-is-more philosphy begins here. It isn't about doing less simply for the sake of doing less; it is about stopping long enough to make sure your energy is spent on the right fix.

When your business has a problem, bring the same expertise, judgment, analytical thinking, and problem-solving skills to diagnosing it that you bring to your clients. Then decide what needs to be fixed.

Stop patching long enough to ask:

Until next time,

Laura Burford

Whenever You’re Ready, Here’s How I Can Help

​Business Core for Independent Consultants ​
Business Core is a supported consulting business program for independent consultants who want to build their business with greater clarity and focus as to what they are known for, who they serve, and how to differentiate themselves. If you’re wondering whether Business Core is the right next step for you, schedule a free 45-minute Business Core Strategy Session to explore whether it’s a fit.

​Resources to Support You ​
Practical guides and tools designed to give you clarity and help you move forward including:

• ​The Business Core Snapshot: A short assessment to help you look at your Focus, Ideal Client, and Service Offering and identify where your business foundation may need more clarity or alignment.
• ​The Independent Consultant’s Blueprint©: Your guide to confidence and building a successful business.
• ​The Consultant Assessment: An assessment of the five blueprint pillars to help you understand where you are today and what to focus on next.
• ​Seven Strategies to Stand Out as an Independent Consultant: Practical ways to become the "Go-To" expert you want to be.

​Self-Study Courses​
Two self-study courses based on the Consulting Mastery program are available for a limited time.

• Creating Trusted Relationships: Become Known, Build Trust, and Create Opportunities
• Engage with Your Client: Move from Discovery to Proposal

​YouTube Channel​
Educational videos and interviews based on the Consultant’s Blueprint©. Topics include defining your focus, attracting the right clients, building trusted relationships, and more.

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Have a question? Send me an email at Laura@lauraburford.com.

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