De-Risked Growth, Grounded in Building Relationships at Scale
Choice is increasing, trust is eroding, and financial pressures are rising. This means that all buying decisions are inherently more risky. Successful firms are becoming the low-risk choice for their ideal clients, and in the process taking control of the pricing discussion, decreasing sales cycles, and accelerating growth.
Over the years working with dozens of boutique firms, I have developed positioning and growth frameworks meant to effectively position them, build organizational alignment around this positioning, and activate across all business functions to make the positioning come to life in the minds of their ideal customers.
Owner's Clarity
Outcome:
A clear owner intent and constraint map that makes strategic decisions faster and reduces leadership whiplash.
Timing:
Typically 3 - 5 weeks
Cadence:
Five working sessions plus async review and a final alignment readout.
Who participates:
Owner or Managing Partners
What we do:
- Guided working sessions to help you think through your purpose, identity, intent, and capacity
- Targeted assessments to stress test your thinking
What you leave with:
- Owner's Clarity Brief with the outcomes you want, the constraints you accept, and the non-negotiables that shape every decision.
- Decision rules with simple criteria for what you say yes to, what you say no to, and what requires deeper evaluation.
- Constraint map that shows how your business is, or isn't working within your constraints.
- 30/60/90 focus plan to identify concrete actions that reduce drift and protect momentum
Risk reduced:
- Strategy swings driven by uncertainty
- Owner burnout driven doing too much unfulfilling work.
- Owner regret due to prioritizing the wrong things.
When to implement or revisit:
- Before any positioning or business strategy work is done.
- A major life change (e.g. marriage, children, major illness)
- Targeting major business inflection point (e.g. capital raise, bringing on a partner)
If you want your business to grow, and for you to not be miseable while it does, this deep introspection work is step one.
If you have multiple partners in the firm, you each need to do this work, and identify the overlaps and gaps, so you can effectively build a business that serves all of you.
Growth Risk Assessment
Outcome:
An understanding of what growth gaps and opportunities exist, and whether your core positioning makes you seem risky to buyers.
Timing:
Typically 2 - 4 weeks
Cadence:
Async data intake and an initial discovery session, followed by async analysis and a working session to discuss gaps and prioritize work.
Who participates:
Owner or Managing Partner. One sales lead. One marketing lead. Delivery lead when relevant.
What we do:
After you and your partner or leadership team take the self assessment, we deep dive into the various aspects of your positioning and go-to-market engine:
- Ideal Client Profile (ICP)
- Intellectual Property (IP)
- Segmentation
- Service Delivery and Pricing
- Business Development
- Sales Enablement
- Lead Generation
What you leave with:
- Growth Risk Report
- Positioning Risk Identification
Risk reduced:
- Investing in random acts of marketing or messaging
- Misdiagnosing root cause of growth challenges
When to implement or revisit:
- Before any major growth investment
- An unexplained growth plateau, especially over multiple quarters.
- Consistently struggling to make critical growth investment decisions.
This isn't a benchmark report or a useless SWOT analysis. This is a gap analysis of the key components of your go-to-market engine. If you want to have more confidence in your next growth investment decision, you need to know where the gaps and leaks are first.
positioning
Clarity
Outcome:
A positioning foundation that your team can execute, buyers can trust, and delivery can prove.
Timing:
Typically 8 - 12 weeks
Cadence:
Weekly working sessions, async review, plus a few longer deep-dive workshops
Who participates:
Owner or Managing Partner. One sales lead. One marketing lead. Delivery lead when relevant.
What we do:
We define differentiation across three layers
- How you think: IP, POV, frameworks, and decision logic
- How you deliver: service design, operating model realities, proof of outcomes
- How you promote: thought leadership, business development, ecosystem moves
What you leave with:
- ICP definition with real buying context
- Buyer and client research reports
- Differentiation map across how you think, deliver, and promote
- Strategic narrative for sales, marketing, and leadership alignment
- Activation priorities for the next 2 quarters
Risk reduced:
- Being evaluated as a commodity, leading to price pressure and discounting
- Internal inconsistency across marketing, sales and delivery, leading to confused prospects and stalled deals
When to implement or revisit:
- Targeting major business inflection point or pivot (e.g. capital raise, bringing on a partner, major market shift)
- An unexplained growth plateau, especially over multiple quarters.
- Consistently struggling to make critical growth investment decisions.
If your answer to "what makes your firm different?" is some variation of "it's our people, their deep expertise, and our proven process of delivering the work" then you actually sound just like every other boutique consulting firm out there, which makes you a risky option.
positioning
Activation
Outcome:
A relationship-led growth system that scales trust and reduces buying risk.
Timing:
Typically 12 - 24 weeks
Cadence:
Weekly roadmap and advisory sessions, plus variable async touchpoints and execution work
Who participates:
Owner or Managing Partner. One sales lead. One marketing lead. Delivery lead when relevant. Other SMEs as necessary.
What we do:
Scope is set by the prioritization plan developed during Positioning Clarity. Activation follows that sequence, focusing first on the work that reduces buyer risk fastest and creates the most leverage.
What you leave with:
An IP + Service System
to elevate your strong talent and outcomes so your value is well-communicated and services are easy to buy.
- IP articulation and packaging (POV, frameworks, decision logic, proof points)
- Offer and pricing structure aligned to buyer risk and buying context
- Service design (delivery blueprint, milestones, roles, handoffs, quality controls)
- Operating model refinements that protect consistency (capacity, accountability, delivery standards)
A Demand + Pipeline System to leverage your new positioning and build a repeatable way to create and progress best-fit opportunities.
- Thought leadership engine tied directly to your IP (themes, formats, production rhythm)
- Distribution and amplification plan that fits your market and relationships
- Ecosystem and partner activation plan
- Relationship-led outbound system (target accounts, sequencing, follow-up structure)
- Sales enablement assets that show how you work (proof, process, decision support)
- Opportunity progression tools (qualification, de-risking checkpoints, next-step logic)
Risk reduced:
- The gap between how you say you want to be seen and what you actually do.
When to implement or revisit:
- Going after a new segment
- Launching a new service
