BOUTIQUE consultancies aren’t failing because they lack capability.
They’re failing because they’re positioning themselves like vendors, not experts.
Go look at ten consultancy websites. Chances are, eight of them lead with “what we do” - workshops, audits, frameworks, training, transformation. They don’t mean to sound like a catalogue. But that’s exactly what they become.
And in a catalogue, the buyer picks what they want.
You’re just the delivery mechanism.
So what happens when you start with solutions?
You attract solution-seekers - not strategic partners. Not retained clients. Not businesses looking for big-picture thinking.
Just people looking for a thing.
A tactical thing.
That they’ve already decided they need.
That’s not growth. That’s a procurement brief.
Solution-Led = Reactive, Not Strategic
Let’s be honest: most consultancies default to solution-first messaging because it feels productive.
You’ve spent years developing tools, frameworks, methodologies. You want to talk about them. You’re proud of what you’ve built - and rightfully so. But when your positioning focuses on the delivery format, not the underlying problem, you're not selling thinking. You’re selling parts.
And parts are easy to swap out.
Which means you're easy to swap out, too.
The Buyer Has Already Moved On
By the time a buyer is Googling “leadership development workshops” or “sales enablement training”, they’ve already decided the solution. You’re just a potential provider.
In these cases, you’re not shaping the problem - you’re responding to it. The prospect controls the narrative. They’ll compare you on price, delivery time, maybe brand. But you’ve lost the chance to do what consultancies do best: diagnose and reframe.
In other words, if you meet your buyers at the solution stage, you’re not a partner.
You’re a bidder.
The Positioning Trap: More Services, Less Clarity
There’s another problem that creeps in when you lead with solutions: you keep adding more of them.
You start with one or two. Then a client asks for something adjacent. You say yes. Then another. Then you hire someone new who brings a new capability. So that gets added to the list.
Over time, your positioning becomes a Frankenstein’s monster of services - loosely related, impossible to describe, and totally invisible in the market.
You don’t have a message. You have a menu.
Message-Led Firms Play a Different Game
Compare that to consultancies who start with the situation - the specific client context they know best, the moment they’re most useful, the friction they’re known for removing.
They don’t list 12 services.
They talk about one moment and the cost of leaving it unresolved.
That’s how you win strategic work. That’s how you stop being one of many and become one of one.
Want proof? Look at Exsona.
From Service Sprawl to Strategic Sharpness
Exsona started out like many leadership consultancies: highly capable, multi-service, entirely forgettable.
Then they got serious about positioning - and made a deliberate shift from being “leadership experts” to owning a single, strategic idea: Workforce Success.
Not just training. Not just coaching. But a fully integrated lens on how teams thrive (or fail) during moments of internal friction - scaling, cultural shift, onboarding pain, post-M&A confusion.
The messaging got sharper. The tone got bolder (hello, Workforce Success Legends). The clutter disappeared.
And the clients? Bigger. Better-fit. Shared values.
They didn’t get there by saying more. They got there by saying less, better.
Situational Positioning Creates Selective Demand
When you lead with situation, not solution, something powerful happens: the right people lean in.
Your messaging does the filtering. It disqualifies the wrong clients before they ever get on a call. It magnetises the ones who feel like you’re already inside their heads.
That means:
- Shorter sales cycles
- Less qualification faff
- Stronger average deal size
- Higher-value, longer-term work
Why? Because you’re not waiting for people to figure out what you do.
You’re already describing their world better than they can.
That’s the real magic of positioning.
How to Know You’re Still Solution-Led
Here’s a quick smell test. If your website or creds deck starts with:
- “We offer…”
- “Our services include…”
- “Our methodology delivers…”
...you’re still in solution-speak. And you’re likely attracting:
- One-off project briefs
- Clients who just want a deliverable
- Low-margin, low-impact engagements
None of which build long-term commercial momentum.
Flip the Script: From Service Menu to Strategic Signal
You don’t need to bin your delivery model. You need to reframe how you talk about it. Here’s how:
1. Pick the Moment
Choose a client situation you understand deeply. Not a service — a scenario. A business season. A breaking point.
2. Name the Stakes
Describe what happens when that moment goes unresolved. Speak to the real pain, not the surface problem.
3. Point to a Path
Now introduce your offer as the way through — not the centrepiece. Your programme is the means, not the message.
Final Word: Tactical Work Doesn’t Build Strategic Firms
Solution-first messaging might feel like the practical choice.
But it’s not building you a differentiated consultancy.
It’s building you a dependable income stream of reactive work — and keeping you out of the strategic conversations where growth really lives.
Want to shift that? Start by shifting how you show up.
📩 Ready to drop the service sprawl and build a message that actually moves people? Let’s talk.
