ConCon26: Building a powerful consulting brand | The biggest strategic benefit in the age of AI - #67

So.

From your perspectives, and Nick, let's have you lead on this one.

So what's the biggest positioning mistake that you're seeing consulting firms make when they're trying to grow?

Yeah, and this is very much an echo of Ben's point is, They're generalist firms cannot grow.

I think this is the the misnomer and we see this often in the boutique spaces.

Many have come out of big consultancies and the likes of an Accenture or a PwC.

They are generalist because they have the scale that they are.

They can have those practice areas.

Actually, when you boil down the partnership, it's specific niche practices.

And so generalist just doesn't work.

To Ben's point around software consultancies, we work with a number.

We've got clients in SAP and other platforms.

And just having that focus distinguishes you already.

I always bring this to a personal example.

And I always think if anyone's ever had an operation on this call, I had a knee operation.

And would you rather go to a knee specialist or a general surgeon? I think we all know the answer.

And so if you apply that in your personal life, the same is true in businesses.

Your buyers are making decisions very quickly based among a number of options they need to know why to pick you and just saying we do change well we are trustworthy is not going to cut through

Just a quick one on that.

So Luke and Florian, who were on two sessions ago, used a medical analogy about heart surgery relating to positioning.

So if I'm on this call and I've not made the link between that and that, then we've obviously done something wrong.

There's something in the water there.

Ben, what have you found from the investor side that sort of like you can identify and maybe some due diligence that you're doing before you're looking to invest that enables you to see whether they really have clear positioning or a clear market narrative versus maybe one that's a little bit more muddled.

Well, I think there's some very... qualitative and then some quantitative things.

You know, I think first of all, you can look at the, you can look at the marketing spend, um, the firms that I see that are the best from a positioning standpoint are spending very, very little on actual advertising dollars and almost all on, on events, things that are, that are proprietary conferences that they put on.