Building a Sustainable Consulting Pipeline

What if the relentless pursuit of growth is actually making your business more complex and less profitable? This week, Michael is joined by Blair Enns, founder of Win Without Pitching and author of The Four Conversations, who returns to the podcast to share how his business has evolved since 2018. Blair reveals how a forced pivot to online training during the pandemic led to significant growth, but also to a profound realization: bigger isn't always better. He explains his counterintuitive decision to stop chasing scale and instead re-engineer his business for simplicity, profitability, and personal fulfillment, a process that involved reducing complexity and empowering a team of coaches to take over training delivery.

Blair gets into the nuts and bolts of his powerful sales philosophy, which is built on the idea that experts should stop acting like salespeople and start showing up as the discerning, in-demand advisors they truly are. He walks through his "Four Conversations" model, a framework designed to move prospects from vendor to expert, qualify opportunities, establish value, and close deals without resorting to traditional pitching. Blair also shares his strong opinion on the common trap of "moving down market" by creating lower-priced offerings, explaining why this strategy almost always fails for consultants. Finally, he offers a grounded, practical perspective on AI, detailing how he's building a "Blair Bot" to support his business while being brutally honest about the technology's current limitations.

In this episode, you will learn about:

• The single biggest mistake experts make in sales conversations.
• Why the most important "conversation" happens before you ever speak to a prospect.
• How to scale a service business with a team of coaches without sacrificing quality.
• The philosophical shift from chasing revenue to embracing "continuous growth."
• The Four Conversations model for a more authentic and effective sales process.
• The common trap of "moving down market" and why it rarely works.
• How to leverage AI as a powerful tool while understanding its limitations.

Welcome to the Consulting Success podcast. I'm your host Michael Zipursky, and in this podcast, we're going to dive deep into the world of elite consultants where you're going to learn the strategies, tactics and mindset to grow a highly profitable and successful consulting business.

Before we dive into today's episode. Are you ready to grow and take your consulting business to the next level? Many of the clients that we work with started as podcast listeners just like you, and a consistent theme they have shared with us is that they wished they had reached out sooner about our Clarity Coaching Program rather than waiting for that perfect time. If you're interested in learning more about how we help consultants just like you, we're offering a free, no pressure growth session call. On this call, we're going to dive deep into your goals, challenges and situation and outline a plan that is tailor made just for you. We will also help you identify where you may be making costly and time consuming mistakes to ensure you're benefiting from the proven methods and strategies to grow your consulting business. 

So don't wait years to find clarity. If you're committed and serious about reaching a new level of success in your consulting business, go ahead and schedule your free growth session. Get in touch today. Just visit Consulting Success - Grow to book your free call today.

Blair Enns is the founder of Win Without Pitching, a sales training program that teaches expert advisors how to sell and price their services like the experts they are. A leading advocate for value-based pricing, he helps consultants and creative professionals worldwide win more business without giving away their thinking for free. He is the author of three books, including The Win Without Pitching Manifesto and The Four Conversations, and co-hosts the popular podcast 2Bobs: Conversations on the Art of Creative Entrepreneurship.

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