There I was — nervously quivering inside the most grandiose boardroom I had ever seen.

As I stumbled over my words, I was unwillfully distracted by a spanning view of the iconic Brooklyn bridge.

It taunted me with its tenacity and importance.

Who the f*ck did I think I was?

I was a 20-something nobody.

These were important men who did important work.

Why in the world would they hire me as a consultant?

Oh god. 😭

What is a consultant?

I thought long and hard about this question, and eventually settled on the following three definitions:

If you happen to be a consultant, and you’re reading this newsletter, I hope you fall under the first definition — otherwise we’re going to need to have a little chat. 😒

That first definition also applied to me for a period of my career.

Let’s talk about that, shall we?

Why do people become consultants?

Lord knows. 🙄

In my case, I realized that I had unique expertise that could benefit a lot of different companies.

But I had an employability problem — most of those companies didn’t require my expertise on a permanent basis.

And let’s face it. I’m a shitty employee. 🤷

So I was stuck taking jobs that leveraged a little bit of my expertise, but mainly filled my plate with stuff that I could competently do, but wasn’t uniquely amazing at.

Finally, in my late 20s, having had experience…

1. In corporate America

2. Creating several new subsidiaries for established companies

3. And launching a successful startup of my own

… I decided it was time to zero-in on my expertise, and establish a consulting practice as my full-time focus.

I figured that since I was already an experienced entrepreneur, running a consulting business would be a breeze.

Um.

No. 😳

The business of advice

Just because you’re an in-demand-subject-matter-expert, or even an experienced businessperson, does not mean that you’re qualified to run a consulting practice.

Pretty much nobody is when they start.

And nobody actually realizes how unqualified they are when they start, either.

Because operating a consulting business is a skill that no one possesses until they do it.

Every time I talk to someone who is new at consulting, the same questions arise:

1. How much of my expertise should I “give away for free” to sign clients?

2. How much should I charge?

3. How do I screen clients?

4. How do I fire clients?

5. What should I do when a client doesn’t take my advice?

When I started out, I had no idea how to answer these questions. 

Honestly, I still don’t really have the answers. 🤷

But for now, I’ll tell you how I personally navigated the first question, and I’ll do my best to address the others in future stories — because this shit could fill a novel.

Back to the boardroom

I was sitting in that intimidating boardroom, anxiously prattling to three men in dark suits — two of whom were definitely old enough to be my father. 😬

These guys were incomprehensibly busy, and I was stunned that they all agreed to meet with me that day.

So, in the blessed short time I had with them, it was my mission to:

1. Convince them that they had a problem

2. Demonstrate why I was the only one who could solve it for them

This was my first major pitch. 

I had launched my consulting practice only a few months prior. None of the client conversations I had conducted thus far came close to the size and significance of the project this team was working on—

The redevelopment of NYC’s Seaport entertainment district, following the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. 🤯

Here’s who I was meeting with:

👉 George Giaquinto was the VP of Development for The Howard Hughes Corporation — the lionshare holder of real estate in the entertainment district.

👉 Bill Flemm ran operations for The Howard Hughes Corporation, connecting the dots across all the various initiatives. 

👉 And Frank Supovitz, like me, was a consultant — but with a profoundly beefier resume. Having directed the Super Bowl for a decade, he was now lending his entertainment production knowledge to projects like this one.

I had no idea what I was doing in that room. 

But I knew in my gut that I could really help these guys.

“How much is this going to cost me?”

The meeting began with just Bill and Frank.

George walked in a few minutes later. 

They introduced me, and before he even sat down, George's first words were:

 “How much is this going to cost me?”

George tightly gripped the purse strings for the redevelopment project — as well he should.

He was accountable for every penny that was spent on this project, and the leaders of each initiative kept asking for more and more pennies—

So these guys better have a damn good reason for wanting to throw money at yet another “consultant”.

This is when I learned that I’m not good at pitching myself.

Thank god I’m good at solving problems. 😮‍💨

“We’ve heard enough”

Not long into the meeting, without an NDA (which I promptly signed the next day once legal was able to send one over), the conversation was going nowhere — so they decided to roll out some blueprints.

Literally.

It was a common practice back then (and still often is) to print construction and engineering schematics on massive sheets of paper that cover entire tables.

And when those drawings graced our table, a portal in my mind swung open. 🤯

I could immediately envision how people would move through the space. I knew exactly how the elements of the operation would play out in practice, and could anticipate where things were bound to go wrong.

I felt like that girl from The Queen’s Gambit, every time she looked at a chessboard.

Finally.

I could stop selling. 

I sucked at selling. 

I still suck at selling.

Instead, I was nose-to-nose with a plan that was rife with problems — and I had solutions to those problems.

So I started solving.

I stood up, and leaned over the drawings.

I pointed to design elements, asked questions about their placement, highlighted the issues, and proposed solutions.

This was my zone of genius.

I had been so small and meek sitting in that chair — desperate, intimidated, and terrible at “pitching”.

Now I was taking up space, controlling the conversation, and showing these guys the value that I brought to the table.

I will never forget (nor could I ever repay) what Frank did after about 20 minutes of this.

He stood up and said:

🙏 🙏 🙏 

They hired me

I thank my lucky stars that this particular meeting went the way it did.

Not only because The Howard Hughes Corporation ended up becoming my longest ever client relationship — but because, in the span of 30 minutes, early in my consulting career, I learned more about how to conduct my business than most learn in years:

1. Identify the problems your prospective client has.

2. Solve one.

3. Then STOP (thanks, Frank 👊).

Moving forward in my consulting practice, I did my best to procure some sort of visual representation of what the client was proposing, because I understood what an important mental “unlock” it was for me.

👉 Sometimes this was in person — walking a physical site.

👉 Sometimes they had drawings, like The Howard Hughes Corporation did.

👉 And sometimes they provided descriptions that I would literally map out on Google Earth to give myself context.

Once I had some sort of visualization, the problems became stupidly apparent to me — but not to them.

And the space between what they knew to be true —and what I knew to be true— was where I thrived.

I don’t consult anymore

Look — it’s really difficult to find amazing clients George, Bill, and Frank. 

As intimated as I was by them in the early days, they turned out to be the most enjoyable people I ever worked with as a consultant — sincerely.

❤️ Bill was the one who pushed for that meeting in the first place.

❤️ I’ll never forget the way George once stood up for me in a room full of engineers, when I (a non-engineer) proposed a solution to an engineering problem nobody could solve. That solution made it into construction. 👊

❤️ And to this day, Frank is my most valued professional mentor. He’s stuck his neck out for me on more than one occasion, and is always available when I need some guidance.

But in the end, the act of running a consulting practice felt burdensome.

Business was good, and even though I had mastered my “pitch”, I was exhausted by the cycle of working through projects, then having to go out and find more clients.

So when one of my long-standing clients asked me to join their team full-time, I took about six months to wrap up my other commitments (including The Howard Hughes Corporation 😞), closed up my company, and took the job.

.

.

.

Whoops. I forgot that I’m a shitty employee. 🤦

Cheers! 🍻

-Kristin :-)

P.S. — Are you a badass consultant? You might qualify for Stealth Mastermind. Hit reply to this email and tell me why you belong with us.

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