You see a lot of visuals on LinkedIn. Most are forgettable. Some are cheap scroll-stoppers. And a rare few are actually great.
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On Thursdays, I share a visual, or “Intellectual Headshot” as I call them, that caught my eye in the wild, and break down why it works. Let’s dig in.

​Luk Smeyers is an advisor to consulting firms -- not a client of mine, never met him -- and this is his visual depiction of “The AI Double Squeeze”.

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As we all know, the rapid acceleration of AI is disrupting many industries, in many different ways simultaneously. This is certainly true in consulting.

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What Luk does with this visual is distill a fairly complex macro trend he heard described by a client, into a simplified visual asset conveying an urgent pain point being felt industry-wide.

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The premise:

• AI is replacing the lower-level ‘grunt’ work that used to be consulting firms’ bread & butter, reducing the need for junior consultants
• Meanwhile, expensive senior talent is needing to pick up some of the slack
• Combined, consulting firm profitability is getting squeezed from both ends

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The visual:

• Yes, there’s a lot going on here, but what your eye sees first is the visual ‘squeeze’ of revenue pressure and cost pressure — conveying pain right away in a way that lines of written text simply can’t
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• Then, you see the title telling you this is about AI and consulting, which invites you further in
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• And the finer print is there to detail the competing forces if you’ve deemed this visual is relevant for you

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Why this works:

• This is a popular topic of conversation - one that has been written and talked about in blogs, podcasts, panels and conferences galore
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• But overlapping conversations doesn’t mean shared understanding of the problem. In fact, the more people talk, perhaps the fuzzier it gets.
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• This "Intellectual Headshot" serves to offer a visual POV of the problem such that Luk’s intended audience (consulting firm owners) can say
  1. Ah, yeah, that’s what I’m feeling but I couldn’t articulate it
  2. This guy gets it, I wonder if I should talk to him

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Note, I mentioned this was something Luk heard from someone else — it wasn’t even his idea to call it a ‘double squeeze’ — but by capturing the concept visually in an original way and putting it out into the market, he can establish authority in the space and attract new conversations.

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Are there big, hairy trends happening in your domain that people talk a lot about, but still remain murky?

Perhaps this is your opportunity to get folks on the same page. Visually.

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💡

-Wes

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P.S. Want to chat about creating some custom "Headshots" of your domain expertise and services?

Reply to this email or book a free exploratory call.