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About The Consultant's Way Podcast
The Consultant's Way podcast is your go-to resource for navigating the complexities of the consulting and professional services world. We bring you insightful conversations with industry thought leaders and executives from top Professional Services organizations, sharing their expertise on how to:
• Build high-performing consulting and professional services teams
• Differentiate your offerings and increase organizational growth
• Deliver exceptional client value and drive impactful outcomes

Brought to you by:
• McMann & Ransford: A strategy consulting firm with over 30 years of experience helping leading B2B organizations escape commoditization and achieve sustainable growth. Learn more: https://mcmannransford.com/
• The Consultant's Way: Your one-stop shop for training and enabling consultants and professional services teams to deliver exceptional client value. Learn more: https://www.consultantsway.com/

Connect with us:
• LinkedIn:
○ Dean McMann - https://www.linkedin.com/in/deanmcmann/
○ Anthony Paluska - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-paluska-5081804b
• Email: podcast@consultantsway.com

Interested in being a guest?
We're always looking for insightful guests to share their expertise. Reach out to us via email or LinkedIn if you'd like to be considered for a future episode.
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In this episode of The Consultant’s Way Podcast, hosts Dean McMann and Anthony Paluska welcome Dan Sacchitella, a seasoned professional in sales strategy, consulting, and complex solution development. Dan shares insights from his journey, starting with selling simple instrumentation and progressing into sophisticated software solutions and consulting engagements. His expertise lies in helping clients define and solve their true problems—many of which they struggle to articulate.

Dan emphasizes the critical role consultants play as "corporate therapists," uncovering real issues beneath surface-level concerns. He illustrates this with an example from the food and beverage industry, where clients may believe recipe errors are the problem, but the real issue lies in outdated systems and infrastructure. His approach involves deeply understanding the business, stakeholders, and underlying causes before crafting a solution, ensuring clients feel involved rather than being handed a pre-packaged answer.

The conversation also explores the challenges of shifting organizations from product-based selling to solution-driven consulting. Dan recounts times when executives resisted this evolution, preferring to sell straightforward products over complex solutions requiring consulting and professional services. He discusses navigating internal resistance by selectively adopting leadership guidance while demonstrating the value of a holistic, outcome-driven sales approach.

A major theme of the discussion is trust. Dan highlights that successful consulting isn’t just about having the right technical solution—it’s about fostering strong relationships. Clients buy from people they trust, and trust is built by understanding their needs, providing early value in conversations, and making them feel like co-creators of the solution. Dean and Anthony praise Dan’s ability to craft his own messaging and solutions, noting how he’s thrived even in organizations that failed to provide structured marketing or positioning support.

The episode closes with a key takeaway: success in consulting is rooted in relationships, trust, and a problem-solving mindset.