Just like vendors need to stand up and provide a real vision (and not AI hype), consultants need to sit down (with executives) and provide the execution clarity that will get buyers on the fast-track to procurement, organizational, industrial, and economic success. More specifically, at this time, they need to:

• Focus on a Niche (as you can’t be experts in everything)
• Establish Thought Leadership (not regurgitated AI hallucinations)
• Create Brand Awareness (for you and for the client)
• Outline an Organizational Path for Long Term Success (not just short term billing)

Focus on a Niche

In the market to come, failure is not an option and no one will want an old-school consultant who says “yes” first and figures it out later. Identify what you’re good at, how you can deliver significant value, and, more importantly, how you can identify significant value now. In the market that’s coming, sound long-term planning tends to fall by the wayside, so even though it’s the most important thing a company can do, chances are, they’re only going to spend on short-term initiatives until you prove that you can deliver the goods.

Establish Thought Leadership

There are hundreds of other consulting providers out there. If you don’t believe me, just ask your favourite AI Engine to give you 100. Why should they use you? How do they know that you know your stuff? How do they know that you’re on a path of continual improvement? How do they know that you’re focussed on being the best? If you don’t establish thought leadership, they don’t … which means that your only chance of success is if the other firms the customer is considering also don’t have any thought leadership and you want to compete on price, not on value.

Create Brand Awareness

Contrary to popular belief, you have to market, market, market. You need permanent brand visibility so that when people have a problem in your niche, they call you. This doesn’t mean expensive print ads in magazines no one looks at (despite impressive sounding circulation numbers), this doesn’t mean sponsoring expensive analyst reports year after year (especially considering that the vast majority of the A-level analysts are now long gone from the big firms), and it doesn’t mean hiring a VP of Marketing who’ll come in, use up a lot of your budget, and recommend the same-old same-old that didn’t work at the last company he was at. What it does mean is that you need to tap into the channels where your customer base already is. Speaking engagements at key low-key events (not overpriced, nosiy, trade shows with too many vendors and too little content), sponsored educational webinars for appropriate professional societies, and, most importantly, the independent educator sites (blogs, podcasts, video content) where educated, innovative, progressive buyers go for information and illumination on a daily basis.

Outline an Organizational Path for Long-Term Success

Although you need a quick-hit ROI niche to get that initial engagement, you don’t want to be seen as a one-trick pony. It’s important to have a plan that will allow you to guide your customers down a recovery path that will take them to their long term success.