Now we come to the final quadrant of our ‘Consultant’s Quandary’ positioning matrix - “the trusted fixer” — one undeniably personified by the iconic Olivia Pope.

Throughout seven seasons of the over-the-top political drama Scandal, Olivia is the fast-talking crisis management consultant that the US President and his team come back to time and again to downplay leaks, talk down whistleblowers, and even run an entire reelection campaign.

Why did they always come back to her? Because she’s great at what she does, and they trust her (most of the time).

I’d suspect most consulting happens in this ‘customized-specialist’ quadrant, where a consultant will offer customized projects for a particular type of client, often a repeat client who already trusts you.

Scores of books could be written on strategies to optimize your work in this quadrant.

Here’s the top-level skinny:

Why "trusted fixer” is an attractive place to play:

• Varied work within a specialization
• Repeat clients come to you, so your sales cycle is short and leans in your favor
• You continue to amass information about the client's business, most importantly:
  • Understanding their urgent pain points
  • Understanding the value of resolving those pain points
• From there, you can pitch more work
  • …and sell it at a high-margin rate using value pricing ← a can of highly profitable worms for another day

How to get here:

• Established relationship with the client - e.g., sell them a productized service to get in the door
• WOM/referrals - keep top of mind with past clients and capture testimonials
• Demonstrated authority - develop shareable IP and broadcast it consistently via multiple channels (LinkedIn, webinars, podcasts, conferences, etc.)

Pitfalls:

• Follow-on work does not always match your expertise or ‘genius zone’
• Having a ‘whale’ client leaves your livelihood at their mercy
  • Short-term comfort could lead you to take your eye off of lead gen/biz dev, which can lead to a feast-or-famine cycle in the event your main client pulls back
• You could end up operating like or feeling like an FTE
  • Scope & bureaucracy creep
  • Late-night Slack pings
  • One client consumes all your mental energy when, in fact, you’re running your own business

In short, a ‘trusted fixer’ can be a great place to operate, but it can take time to get there, and don’t get too comfortable with one particular client.

___________

To close out this Consultant's Quandary framework series, remember that each quadrant is an archetype. You may spend time in each of them throughout your consulting journey.

The most important takeaway is to be intentional about where you’re playing and why.

To see this five-part series in one place, check out 💡 The Lightbulb ​archive​. Feel free to forward it along!

🚨 ✍️ Heads up: a one-question pop quiz on this framework tomorrow. I hope you like muffins…

💡

-Wes