Consultants: are you too reliant on your network?
You’ve been building your consulting business…
…but underneath the surface, there’s a hidden sickness festering — “Network Overreliance.”
It’s a slow, creeping disease that thrives on comfort and familiarity, feeding off your existing connections.
While it may feel like a lifeline, it’s actually a silent killer of growth, keeping you trapped in a small pond when there’s an ocean of opportunities waiting.
Network Overreliance is very common among consulting business owners: for more than half of you, 60% of your business comes via the people you already know.
If that’s the case, what are you supposed to do when your referral well dries up?
This year over 50 million baby boomers are over the retirement age of 65. So if you’re a more seasoned consultant, your network is on the verge of retiring (or has already).
How are you supposed to win new business if your network is on the beach, enjoying their retirement?
Overrelying on your network is an anchor dragging your business down, stifling growth, and limiting your reach.
In this article, I’ll explain why curing network overreliance is essential for growing and scaling your consulting business.
As a consulting business owner, you can’t afford to live with this potential disease. And at Consulting Success®, we’re dedicated to helping consultants cure this illness.
Let’s protect your business against this complacency and create a healthier, more dynamic marketing engine.
Overrelying on your network is an anchor dragging your business down, stifling growth, and limiting your reach.
The Symptoms Of “Network Overreliance:” Do You Have It?
If you’re suffering from “network overreliance,” you’ll experience the following symptoms:
- You get most of your consulting clients from your network
- You’re worried about what happens when your network retires
- Marketing and sales are among your toughest challenges
- You get 0 (or VERY few) leads/calls per month from your consulting website, LinkedIn profile, or other marketing assets
- Without referrals, you wouldn’t have a steady stream of clients (or you don’t have a steady stream in the first place)
- You feel like winning clients is all about hope and luck
Hope works great when times are good.
If you want to be able to survive the unpredictable and choppy waters of running a consulting business, heed this warning:
Your referrals will eventually dry up. It’s not a question of if —but when.
While many consultants see their businesses grow to a certain level based solely on referrals, taking your business to the next level requires more than relying on referrals alone.
Referrals can fuel your consulting business’s initial growth, but to truly scale and dominate your market, you need a robust marketing system. High-performing consultants don’t leave their success to chance – they proactively build their brand and attract ideal clients.
The best thing you can do for you and your family is to make sure you have a real strategic growth plan so you can grow your business…
…without relying on anyone else but yourself and your own effort.
Don’t get me wrong, referrals are a great source of business.
But they’re only one source of business.
In the next section, I’ll give you a high-level plan to help you diversify where your business comes from.
Your referrals will eventually dry up. It’s not a question of if —but when.
The Cure For Network Overreliance: Your Strategic Growth Plan
In the context of a consulting business, what is a strategic growth plan?
It’s not waiting around for referrals.
Instead, a strategic growth plan is a comprehensive, long-term roadmap designed to guide a consulting business founder in expanding their operations, increasing revenue, and achieving their business goals.
Here is how we conceptualize the strategic growth plan for consultants in our Clarity Coaching Program:
I’ll break down the first 5 modules: the foundations of your consulting firm’s growth.
A strategic growth plan is a comprehensive, long-term roadmap designed to guide a consulting business founder in expanding their operations, increasing revenue, and achieving their business goals.
1. Consulting Business Models
Choosing the right consulting business model is crucial for your success and happiness.
However, it can be overwhelming with so many options available.
In our Clarity Coaching Program, we teach the three proven consulting business models to help you find the best fit for your goals and preferences.
- The Firm Model: Ideal for those looking to build a larger team and scale operations by leveraging the efforts of multiple consultants.
- The Solo/Independent Model: Perfect for consultants who prefer to work independently, maintaining flexibility and a lean structure.
- The Productized Model: Focuses on creating standardized solutions to specific client problems, allowing for scalability and efficiency.
Additionally, there’s the Hybrid Model, which combines elements from different models to create a distinct approach suited to your business and personal preferences.
By choosing the right model that aligns with your desired impact, revenue goals, and management preferences, you can develop a clear, strategic plan for building the consulting business you desire.
Further Reading: https://www.consultingsuccess.com/consulting-business-models
2. Ideal Client Clarity
The next step is to identify your ideal client.
Without ideal client clarity, you cannot create powerful messaging, offers, or marketing.
There are four components of achieving ideal client clarity:
- Self-Discovery & Niche Scoring: Begin by aligning your passions, interests, and expertise with potential client niches. Evaluate your experience, confidence, and interest in each niche to find the best fit for your consulting services.
- Specialization: Once you’ve chosen a niche, specialize within it. Being a “big fish in a small pond” allows you to stand out, attract ideal clients, and command higher fees. Specialization also reduces risk for clients and positions you as an expert.
- Client Characteristics: Define the specific characteristics of your ideal client, including company size, location, seniority, and job title. This helps you get specific with your marketing and ensures you target the right people.
- Validating Your Ideal Client: Engage with real people in your chosen niche to confirm there’s demand for your services. Reach out to past clients, colleagues, and professional contacts to validate your area of focus.
Further Reading: https://www.consultingsuccess.com/ideal-client
3. Magnetic Messaging
Writing a “magnetic” value proposition is essential for attracting and engaging potential clients.
A value proposition is a concise statement that explains who you serve, the problem you solve, the results you deliver, and why clients should choose you.
Our Magnetic Messaging formula simplifies this process:
“I help [WHO] to [solve WHAT problem] so they can [see WHAT results]. My [WHY choose me]…”
This formula ensures your message is clear, targeted, and impactful — addressing all key interests of your prospective consulting clients.
Start by using the formula to draft your message. Refine it based on market feedback.
Over time, this iterative process will help you develop a powerful value proposition that consistently attracts your ideal clients.
Further Reading: https://www.consultingsuccess.com/value-proposition-examples
4. Strategic Offers
Creating, selling, and refining your consulting offers is vital for building a successful consulting business.
Initially, you might offer a variety of services to discover what resonates with their market.
Over time, patterns emerge, highlighting the most successful and in-demand offerings.
This process leads to streamlined offers that reduce complexity and enable you to scale.
Here are the five factors of creating a compelling consulting offer:
- Ideal Client Clarity: Knowing your ideal client’s industry, size, location, seniority, and job title helps customize your offers to the right market.
- Main Problem Identification: Focus on solving a specific, significant problem for your clients to ensure your offer is compelling.
- Right Product or Service: Develop products or services that directly address your clients’ needs and align with what they are willing to invest in.
- Delivery Model: Choose a delivery method that supports your desired lifestyle while effectively solving your clients’ problems.
- Pricing Strategy: Set prices that reflect the value you create for your client and are profitable for your business.
And here is how you iterate and improve your consulting offer:
- Conversations with Buyers: Engage with potential clients to gather feedback and refine your offers.
- Analyze Conversations: Identify common themes and preferences among clients to enhance your offers.
- Deliver Offers: Implement your offers, evaluate their effectiveness, and make necessary adjustments.
- Eliminate Inefficiencies: Focus on what works best and remove less effective elements to optimize your offerings.
Further Reading: https://www.consultingsuccess.com/consulting-offers
5. Marketing Engine & Sales Pipeline
Now that you have the right business consulting model, have achieved ideal client client clarity, written your magnetic message, and crafted strategic offers, you’re ready to pour “fuel on the fire” —and start up your marketing engine.
Your marketing engine is your step-by-step process that gets your ideal clients to know you, like you, trust you — and ultimately, get on a call with you to learn how you can help them.
Here are 3 simple marketing activities that work well:
- Direct Outreach: Start meaningful conversations with your ideal clients through direct outreach. This can include personalized LinkedIn messages or emails that offer valuable content and spark interest in your services.
- Follow-Up: Consistently follow up with potential clients to keep the conversation going and add value. This could be through direct mail, sending interesting case studies, or white papers that encourage clients to reach out for more information.
- Authority-Building: Establish yourself as an authority in your field by publishing thought leadership content and optimizing your SEO. Regularly update your consulting website with articles that provide value for your ideal clients.
By integrating these three activities into your daily routine — Outreach, Follow-Up, and Authority-Building — you create a continuous cycle of engagement with your target audience.
This approach ensures your marketing efforts are focused on what’s most important: building relationships and generating meaningful conversations with your potential clients.
Further Reading: https://www.consultingsuccess.com/consulting-marketing-strategy
Get Personalized Help Building Your Strategic Growth Plan
Building a marketing strategy and consulting pipeline is easier said than done.
It requires you to have rock-solid positioning, a clear value proposition, and a strong execution of the most effective marketing tactics.
If you’d like help beating your network overreliance once and for all, we can help.
From high-level marketing strategy to proven scripts and templates, we help consultants build thriving pipelines in our Clarity Coaching Program.
In our Clarity Coaching program, we’ve helped over 1000 consultants to build a more strategic, profitable, and scalable, consulting business.
And we’ve helped many of them become leaders of their consulting businesses — growing from independent consultants to consulting firm owners.
Learn More About Clarity Coaching
We’ll work hands-on with you to develop a strategic plan and then dive deep and work through your ideal client clarity, strategic messaging, consulting offers, fees and pricing, business model optimization, and help you to set up your marketing engine and lead generation system to consistently attract ideal clients.
You’ll learn how to make more money with every project you take on — and how to land more clients than ever before. Learn more about Clarity Coaching and get in touch to talk about your situation and goals.