Episode 156: Demand Decoded: The Three Commitments That Build Real Consulting Demand

Buyers are not comparing you to the best consultant they have ever hired; they are comparing you to the last disappointing experience they want to avoid. That is why demand can feel strangely out of reach even when your expertise is real, your credentials are strong, and your work delivers. In episode 4 of the Demand Decoded series, we dig into the hard truth behind why modern consulting marketing and sales feel so hard. 

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Transcript

Build Your Own Consulting Table

SPEAKER_00 0:01

They say the odds are stacked against us as women, especially women of color, trying to thrive in the consulting world. But rather than wait for a seat at the table that may never find, what if we build our own table? What if we channel our talent and decide each other sports that we deserve? What if the Black Girls consult to podcast? I'm your host I can enter in a data class walk the past from healthcare consultant to a mentor for women like you, ambitions, unstoppable, and ready to make waves in the consulting world. This podcast is your go-to spot for all free entrepreneurial consultants. For us as women, especially women of color, be good to enter a weekly coffee date with a friend who's here to dish out real talk of building a solid business, elevating your thought leadership, and mastering that all-important mindset. And let's not forget, we're doing all of this while balancing day jobs, family life, and running teams. Yes, we can do it all. So if you're ready to dive into how you can grow a thriving consultancy or get strategies and insights that actually fit your busy lifestyle, then you're in the right place. Grab your coffee, tea, or hey, even a glass of wine. I won't judge. And let's get started.

Why Everyone Has An Answer

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to the Black Girls Console 2 podcast. This is your host, Dr. Angelina Davis, and today we're going to be continuing our conversation around demand decoded and our demand decoded series. I hope you've been following along. If you haven't, you can check out the other episodes in this podcast feed. So just go back and give it a listen. I promise it'll be well worth it. But today I want to just start with this question. Have you ever noticed that everybody has an answer these days? Seriously, if you want to lose weight, there are thousands of diets. You have low carb, keto, plant-based, intermittent fasting. Listen, I have done them all, so I can attest to the fact that that is true. And every single person is convinced that their method is the right method. If you want financial advice, you have one person that says to stop buying your daily coffee and that's gonna add up to a million dollars. You have another that says to buy real estate. Someone over here is telling you to invest in index funds, and then someone else has talked about cryptocurrency and how that's the future. And if you ask five different people how to build wealth, listen, you will get five different answers, and they're gonna be completely different. And the thing is that even when it comes to something that we have known to be a part of our lives and society forever, such as education, it's not immune. Some experts believe that traditional education is still the gold standard. We need to make good grades, we need to go to the best schools, we need to get the highest degrees. And then others believe that formal education is outdated, that it's a thing of the past, and that if you're relying on degrees and certifications, you're already behind. So when you think about all of this, what are people supposed to believe? Because I don't think this is an information problem. There's a lot of information out there. In each of these examples, there is validity to the argument that's being made. It works for some people, it works in certain in a certain context, and then in other times it doesn't. I believe that what we have is more of a trust problem.

Information Is Not The Problem

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Listen, we have more information than we have ever had before. I remember when I was younger and a salesperson knocked at the door, my mom opened it, and long story short, there ended up being this long conversation with this guy who was at the house selling encyclopedias. And listen, I am telling my age. Don't you all go tell anyone else? But seriously, they were selling encyclopedias, and we were so excited as kids because that meant that we didn't have to go to the library anymore. Because back then you would spend your weekend at the library trying to get reports and homework done so that you could turn it in. And so the library really was kind of like the hangout, especially uh when you were in like middle school. So that was something that was new and cutting edge to have encyclopedias in your house, like you were doing the thing, like you were the person on the block that had the information, right? And because those books were new, you felt like you had the most recent up-to-date information. But then the internet came along and that totally changed the game. Encyclopedias became a thing of the past, everyone had information just flowing at their fingertips. Listen, and when people got computers in their houses, that really took off. And you see how things have grown and exploded over time. We have a lot of information. We have more experts than we have ever had before. We have more access than we have ever had before. I'm talking about those encyclopedias and home computers, but now we have a full computer, 10 times that we had back when I was growing up in the palm of our hands. And somehow, despite all of that growth, despite all of that advancement, trust seems harder to earn now than ever before. And if you think that consulting is somehow immune or has somehow escaped this problem, I can assure you that it has not.

What Buyers Remember About Consultants

SPEAKER_00 5:50

When I think about how I was introduced to consultancy and just the idea of being a consultant or who consultants were, what they did, it was from the buyer side. You know, before I became a consultant, I worked as an infectious diseases clinical pharmacist at a very large inner city hospital. And because of the nature of our hospital, we face constant, I mean constant financial challenges. Every time you turn around, we had consultants lining up at the door. And part of that is because we manage trauma patients. So trauma patients, usually, if you don't know, are relatively young and oftentimes not insured. And so you provide a lot of urgent and emergent care for those patients that is very costly from surgeries, you know, radiology, things of that nature, um, and in complicated stays. And you may not necessarily get reimbursed for that. And so that creates uh a debt. You go into red for a lot of these cases. And we also served a very, very large uh underserved population and very indigent population. So, from that standpoint, resources were limited. And when it came to the hospital budget, it was tight. And I mean tight. So because we had all those financial pressures, it's not surprising that hospital administration would reach out to find consultants because they needed help. That's a great thing for us in our space. But when these consultants came in, they were being brought in to make things more efficient or uh more cost effective to make things better overall. And I can remember exactly how we felt then. When you're working there, you don't see that consultant coming in to help you. You actually saw them as a threat. And so a lot of the resistance that we may often meet in practice stems from the fact that people have had experiences with consultants before. And that experience may not be positive. As a matter of fact, when another consulting group would show up at our front door, there was an uneasiness that set in. You could feel it throughout the entire hospital. Everyone was trying to make sure they had everything intact. You were totting your I's and crossing your Ts, just trying to make sure that you were ready for whatever they would ask or whatever they would find or whatever changes they wanted to make. Because we'd seen this movie before. It happened over and over again. The consultants would come in, they would interview everyone, they would analyze workflows and collect data, they make their recommendations, and then next thing you know, departments would be completely restructured, people would lose their jobs, processes would change. And many times those of us doing the work already knew that some of these recommendations weren't even going to work. Because in any in some cases, they didn't speak to the people who were actually doing the work at the ground level and they were working without full knowledge. And in others, it just was because we understood that there was a different dynamic at play than most people would want to admit. But either way, the fact that these initiatives would be implemented anyway, and that they wouldn't achieve the desired outcome in many cases, then what we would find is that the consultant would leave and then another one would come in. And so you just had this happen over and over again. We were starting with someone new who was going to bring change, they bring change that wasn't effective, and they were seeking for more help. And every single time I remember thinking to myself, here we go again, here we go again. And honestly, could you blame us? It's a real feeling. They're evaluating us through the lens of every previous experience they've had. And that right there, that's the important thing that we often forget. Before we continue, let me just ask you something. If buyers are making decisions based upon confidence and not just capability, have you ever stopped to ask yourself what conclusions they're actually reaching about you before you ever have a conversation? Because that's often where the gap is. It's definitely not that you're not qualified. It's that buyers don't yet have enough confidence to see the full value of what you bring. So there's a gap there.

The Authority Gap Quiz Invitation

SPEAKER_00 10:35

And that's exactly why I created the authority gap quiz. In less than two minutes, you'll discover the biggest gap between your expertise and how the market currently perceives it. Identify your primary authority blocker and get a personalized roadmap to help you build the kind of authority that attracts premium opportunities. So listen, if you're ready to stop wondering why your expertise isn't translating into demand, I need you to click the link in the show notes and take the quiz. And then I need you to head right back into this episode because we got a lot more to uncover. One of the unfortunate realities is that many times buyers aren't approaching consultants from a place of optimism. They're really approaching us from a place of uncertainty, sometimes even disappointment, sometimes frustration, and honestly, sometimes a lot of skepticism. They've hired experts before, they've invested in solutions before, they've been promised transformation before, and it didn't work. So here's the reality I want you to walk away with. We're not building trust from zero. And this is one of the biggest misconceptions that I think a lot of us have. We think about building trust in business and we're thinking we're starting at ground zero. When in reality, we're building trust from a deficit. And those are two completely different things. So the question really is how do we overcome that? In all honesty, I don't think that there are any shortcuts. I don't think that this is going to be solved by a simple marketing hack or a social media strategy that's going to fix this overnight. Many people will have you believe that it's that simple, but I honestly believe that it takes three commitments. And I want to explain what these commitments are. And I also, while we're discussing this, I want to give examples so you can better understand the complexity of this problem and why it can't just be simply solved by easy tactics that we see advertise or mention online.

Trust Starts From A Deficit

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Now, one commitment or the first commitment, and I would argue one of the biggest commitments that we have to make as consultants is to remain client focused. And I want to emphasize the word remain because I think this is one of the easiest things to lose as our business grows. And honestly, I think this commitment is much bigger than just having empathy. Clearly, empathy is a part of it, certainly a part of it. But seeking understanding is part of it. Transparency is part of it. But I think the bigger question is this who do your clients believe you are working for? And that's a difficult question. Because most of us would immediately say, Of course I'm working for my clients, right? I'm sure that's what the consultants said or would say, who used to come to my job previously and make changes. They would say, I'm working for my client. But that's not how we felt. That's not how it was perceived. So I do think that buyers are becoming much more sensitive to that tension. They're asking a lot of different questions now. They're wondering, can they trust the recommendations that you make? Is this really the best solution? Or am I going to be hiring someone else next week? They want to know whose interests are being served here. And you know, this makes me think about an article that came out not too long ago about uh Deloitte. And it's caught my attention because a few years ago, the firm was hired to prepare a report for the Canadian government. Now, uh, this was under a contract that was worth roughly a million dollars. But later, concerns were raised because some of the citations and the references in the report couldn't be verified. And then also what they found is that some of this content appeared to be generated by AI. Now, I'm not bringing this up to criticize Deloitte. I that's not the point here. What interested me was what happened next. People immediately started asking questions. Was the research validated? Were the sources real? How much of the report reflected actual subject matter expertise? Was the client truly receiving the level of expertise they thought that they were paying for? And I think that's fascinating because the story wasn't really about artificial intelligence. Yes, they potentially use artificial intelligence and we can talk all day about whether or not they should or shouldn't. But the story was really, when you get down to it, about trust. And we're entering a period where the access to information is making it easier to create, easier to package, and honestly, easier to imitate real expertise. AI can write reports for you, it can do presentations for you, it can summarize research, it can help people sound incredibly knowledgeable. And you know that I am an advocate for us using AI to build our businesses a lot faster and to do a lot more work and be more productive, that we can do a lot more, especially as solo or independent consultants or even small firms, if we are able to utilize AI and its capabilities. But one of the reasons why consulting is changing so quickly is honestly because clients aren't paying for information anymore. Information is everywhere. They're paying us for judgment, they're paying us for discernment, they're paying us to honestly understand the nuances of their organizations and their people and their industry and their unique challenges. And this is where empathy becomes incredibly important. Not because empathy is simply something nice to have that we need to understand what's happening and have compassion for people and uh, you know, really take all those things into account, but empathy actually does give us context. Our clients aren't operating in a vacuum, they're dealing with limited budgets, they're navigating office politics, they're leading resistant teams, they are under pressure. And if we don't understand those realities, then we can't create recommendations that actually work within their environment. And I think one of the biggest mistakes consultants make is assuming that clients hire us because they want answers. They don't. Clients hire us because they're trying to solve problems, and people don't trust consultants because they have answers, they trust consultants because they believe that those answers are developed with their best interest in mind. So we have to make sure that we remain client focused. We don't want to ever create a scenario where we're called into question because why we are doing something is not fully understood. We want that transparency to be there so that we don't appear to be self-serving. We want to always make sure that our clients are first and foremost.

Commitment One Stay Client Focused

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Now, the second commitment is that we have to remain consistent. And I think this is one of the most overlooked aspects of building trust because when I say consistency, listen, I'm not talking about showing up on social media or LinkedIn every day. I'm not talking about posting three times a week or speaking on stages every month or networking, you know, consistently every Thursday night. I am actually talking about consistency more in the traditional sense. I want it to be your message that is consistent, consistency in your methodology, uh, consistency in your specialization or how you approach your work because people need to know what to expect from you. And I think this is where many consultants, especially us as independent consultants, unintentionally create a lot of confusion. Now, let me stay with me here. Let me let me explain this because I know your intent is not to create confusion, but by nature, we're problem solvers. That's what we do. We solve problems. If someone has a problem, we solve it. Another person has a different problem, we solve it. And before long, we become incredibly adaptable. And I will be the first to tell you that adaptability is a wonderful skill to have. It's something that is going to be a true asset to the clients that you work with until it isn't. Because the thing about adaptability is that it can easily turn us into generalists if we're not careful. And being a generalist in today's market is much more difficult than it used to be. It's not that you can't be, it's just that it's going to make the road ahead of you in terms of growth and sustainability harder, especially in 2026, because buyers are overwhelmed with options. They are seeing hundreds of consultants, thousands of creators, countless experts. Everyone, everyone out there is claiming to have the solution. If you go into business, the first thing someone tells you is you need to be solving a problem, you need to have a solution. And when a market is that crowded, I want you to put on your buyer's hat now. People are looking for patterns. They're looking for signals that help them to reduce the uncertainty that they have. And consistency is one of those signals. Think about someone like April Dunford. Now, if you're familiar with her work, you probably immediately associate her with one thing, and that's positioning. More specifically, she does positioning for B2B tech companies. Her books are about that. Her content reinforces that. Her speaking is designed around that. Her consulting is about that. Everything points back to the same expertise. And because of that consistency, she has become recognizable. And that's the important part. Because buyers don't have to spend time trying to figure out what she does. They already know it. And now, listen, I'm not saying that you need to become April Dunford. I'm not telling you to do something so repetitively that you don't create any space for growth or evolution or adaptability. That's not what I'm trying to communicate. But I am saying that trust becomes much easier to build when people can consistently connect your name with a specific type of expertise and a specific type of transformation. Think about it. If someone finds you on LinkedIn, what do they learn about you? If they watch one of your YouTube videos, do they walk away with the same impression that they first had when they stumble upon you on LinkedIn? If they read one of your articles, does that reinforce the same message that you were sharing on these other platforms? If they visit your your website, do they see the same expertise? Or do they feel like they're meeting four different people? Because if they feel like they're meeting four different people and the message changes depending on the platform, if your specialization changes depending upon the opportunity, And if your methodology changes depending on the client, then buyers begin to question what is it that you actually do? And that's where this uncertainty starts to creep in. And from our standpoint, we're not doing this intentionally. You're showing up and trying to create content and keep it fresh. You are talking about things in a video on YouTube or on a stage that you feel is important for that particular event or that time and space. And the methodology that you created for one client may not necessarily work for the next. I honestly, I think one of the biggest mistakes consultants make is believing that saying yes to everything creates more opportunities, especially starting out, this is understandable. We're going to say yes to more things that are different than not. But as you continue to grow, this has to start to minimize. Because if you continue to just take on a lot of different projects, a lot of different random engagements, you are going to appear scattered. And so your ability to take on more and more from whoever needs help actually creates the opposite effect. Because people don't remember consultants who do everything. They are going to remember the consultants who became associated with something specific. And so you want to think about how you can begin to develop a recognizable body of work. You want your ideas to be so consistent that your name immediately becomes connected to a particular problem or a particular outcome. And I think that's the real goal. It's not to be repetitive, it's not to be rigid, it's not to never adapt. It is honestly to become recognizable because recognition creates the familiarity. And familiarity reduces uncertainty and reduced uncertainty creates trust. They are all linked. So when I talk about consistency, I'm really talking about becoming known for your work. I'm talking about creating a clear connection between your name, your message, your methodology, and the transformation you provide because trust becomes easier when people don't have to play the guessing game when they already know what you do and who you are. So that's commitment to is that we have to start being more consistent. And this one, this one really gets me fired up because I will like die on this heel.

Commitment Two Become Recognizable

SPEAKER_00 24:28

But the third commitment is getting results. I'm always disheartened when I hear people describe consulting as just giving advice. And honestly, I get why it looks that way because some people, many people function that way, but no, absolutely not. If that was the case, then it wouldn't be so difficult to get a job as a consultant for a major firm. It wouldn't be so difficult to build a thriving consulting business. It is not just giving advice. It honestly is not. You know, there's a classic Harvard Business Review article that's actually called Consulting is More Than Giving Advice. Go figure the name. But they were on their soapbox just like I am right now. And the fact is that it was written more than 40 years ago. And it is still relevant today. And that tells us something. We've been having this conversation for decades. And if you actually go and look at uh Harvard Business Review, I can't remember the quote, but I do remember reading somewhere that it was like one of the uh most referenced articles, uh, definitely in that space. And so I do think that this is the case because recommendations are only half the job. Implementation is the other part, and implementation is hard. People resist change, organizations resist change, processes resist change, culture resists change. And I think this is where many of us as independent consultants unintentionally lose a lot of business because we focus on creating these brilliant recommendations, developing this uh extensive and well-thought-out strategy. And our clients are paying for outcomes. And outcomes don't happen without implementation. Otherwise, it's just recommendations on a sheet of paper. I think healthcare taught me this better than anything else. You can have the most evidence-based treatment plan in the world, right? And if nobody follows it, outcomes will suffer, the patient will suffer, the hospital will suffer. So it's not just about having these things on paper. That's actually why you have regulations. That's that's why, in order to be accredited, accredited for many facilities, you have to ensure that you're following this evidence-based practice. Because at the end of the day, if implementation fails, the results suffer. And here's the difficult truth: people don't remember your recommendations. They honestly don't, no matter how great they are. I wish I could say that they did, but they honestly don't often remember it. What you become known for are the outcomes. The outcomes that result from the proper implementation of the strategy and the recommendations that you've outlined. Those stories, they become your reputation. And your reputation over time will build trust. And in all of this, when we're talking about these three commitments, that is what creates demand.

Commitment Three Deliver Outcomes

SPEAKER_00 27:55

So listen, before we end today's conversation, I want you to ask yourself three questions. And these three questions, I really want you to take seriously, like grab a pen and paper and write these down. And I want you to think about them because this seems like very simple work, but it's very hard for people to do. Like I said, when I first was introduced to consulting and consultants, it was not a positive introduction in my book. And so, in order for us to create greater demand for our services, we have to get out of this deficit of trust that we've been in as an industry, and then also move beyond that to build the trust necessary for people to make an investment in your services. And the more money you want to charge, the more you want to ask for, the more trust they're gonna have to have in order to cut that check or to sign on that dotted line. So I need you to write these down. The first is when a potential client encounters your business, do they believe you're genuinely invested in their success? Or do they simply see another consultant selling another service? Be honest about that. Here's two. When they move from your LinkedIn profile to your website, to your articles, to your podcast, to your YouTube channel, wherever they go in your ecosystem, do they encounter the same message, the same methodology, and the same expertise? Or are they seeing a different version of you wherever they look? And three, when they think about the work you do, do they associate you with recommendations? Or do they associate you with results? And we talked about why that's different. Because I think that's the challenge. Many of us are still operating under the assumption that if we just become more qualified or more experienced or more credential or simply work harder, that the demand will eventually follow. But that's not the world we're operating anymore. And I don't even know if we were ever operating in that space. But we're operating now in a world where information is everywhere, expertise is increasingly becoming commoditized, AI is reshaping entire industries, markets are oversaturated and crowded, and buyers are skeptical. So if demand feels harder to create today than it did five or 10 years ago, you're not imagining it. It is harder. If you've been frustrated because you've been doing incredible work, but you're not seeing that work that you're doing translate into the level of demand that you expected, or maybe the demand that you honestly deserve. I want you to hear me when I say this. I want I want you to take this all in. This is not necessarily a talent problem, it's often a trust problem. And trust is not built accidentally, it's built intentionally. It's built through the decisions that we make, it's built through how we serve clients, it's built through the consistency of our message, it's built through our methodology, it's built through our specialization, it's built through the outcomes we help create. So maybe we need to stop asking, how do I find more clients? And instead start asking, what signals am I sending that make it easier for buyers to trust me? Because when buyers trust you more, your networking conversations become more effective, your referrals become more effective, your outreach becomes more effective, and perhaps most importantly, you begin creating the kind of business that generates more inbound interest instead of requiring you to constantly chase every opportunity. Because trust isn't a soft skill, it's not a nice to have, it is one of the most valuable assets you'll ever build in your consulting business. And honestly, I think that's where the real work begins.

Three Questions To Pressure Test Trust

SPEAKER_00 32:12

All right, guys, I hope this helps. I hope that you understand that trust is not something that we just are magically given and that we have to earn it. Just like in any relationship, whether it's a friendship or it's a marriage, we have to build trust. We have to earn that trust. We have to do the same thing here. And there is a way to do this strategically, there is a way to do this intentionally. So it starts by making those three commitments. If we can remain client focused, if we can remain consistent and if we can get results, then we will build the trust that we need that will allow us to build a thriving and highly sustainable business. All right, guys, if you enjoyed this episode, make sure you share it with a friend. I always love to hear your comments and feedback about the episode. So whether you reach out on LinkedIn or on Instagram or if you're on the email list and you're replying to an email, uh definitely reach out. I love to hear your feedback. And listen, don't forget to leave your five-star review on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify. This helps us reach more people. And I know that there's so many women out there who are building and growing their consulting practices, and we want them as part of this community. I hope you've enjoyed this. I hope it helps. And until next time, take care. Thank you for tuning in to the Black Girls Consult 2 Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to leave your review on Apple Podcasts, subscribe, and share it with a friend. We're on a mission to increase the success and longevity of women in consulting. And you can help us do just that. Also, I'd love to hear from you. So let's connect at Dr. Angelina Davis on Instagram or LinkedIn. And don't forget to visit Excel at consultant.com for more information to support your consulting journey. Until next time, keep breaking glass delete. All right, to get a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit.