I keep having the same conversation with consultants: "My network is feeding me deals, so I'll fix my positioning when things slow down." It sounds perfectly rational—why fix what isn't broken? But here's what I've learned from working with over 1,000 consulting businesses: the consultants who wait until they feel crisis pressure to build positioning and pipeline face a fundamentally harder challenge than those who do it proactively. You're not just building skills—you're trying to rethink your entire market approach while worrying about next month's mortgage, while your confidence is shattered, while your runway shrinks. In this episode, I'm breaking down the five legitimate reasons you might not need to worry about positioning right now, the hidden vulnerabilities each one creates, and why the consultants who scale to 7 figures consistently build these capabilities before they need them—not after they become desperate.
Show Notes:
- When your warm network actually is enough: The specific conditions where you genuinely don't need to panic about positioning (and the critical difference between being "busy" versus having real pipeline flow)
- The whale client illusion: Why being busy with one large client creates a completely different risk profile than having consistent opportunity flow—and what happens when that whale disappears
- The money you're leaving on the table: How simple positioning tweaks can increase your fees 20-50% for the exact same work with the same clients—and why that's hard to ignore even if you're "satisfied" with current income
- Building from strength versus desperation: Why doing positioning work when you're comfortable is a completely different experience than scrambling to figure it out when your network dries up or your big client leaves
- The soul-sucking client problem: The consultant making $250K who didn't need more money—he needed to stop working with clients who drained his energy (and how positioning gave him that choice)
- The fragile network reality: Why your warm network isn't just finite—it's fragile, and what happens when key referral sources retire, change companies, or simply stop sending business
- The honest assessment: Five questions to determine whether you actually have a sustainable consulting practice or you're just riding luck that won't last forever