A consultant filled out my workshop intake form last week and wrote something that caught my attention: "I want to land clients without reaching out to hundreds of people hoping for one yes. I cannot do that kind of marketing." That single sentence captures the exhaustion I see across my client base. The LinkedIn gurus are telling consultants to send a thousand messages and wait for the 1-2% response rate, but nobody's talking about what that approach actually costs you. When prospective clients see generic, mass-produced outreach, they're drawing conclusions about how you operate—and those conclusions aren't helping you. In this episode, I'm walking through why volume-based outreach backfires (based on patterns I've observed across hundreds of consulting businesses), what actually works better, and how positioning lets you reach 40 people instead of 1,000 while landing better clients.
Show Notes:
- The intake form response that sparked this conversation—why so many consultants feel trapped by volume-based outreach tactics
- What your outreach reveals about your consulting approach: If you're sending the same message to hundreds of random prospects, clients are wondering how you'll handle their business
- Real examples from my inbox: The food and beverage manufacturing pitch (I don't work in that industry) and the Harley-Davidson parts message that illustrate thoughtless targeting
- Why "just get in front of more people" advice misses the point—the consultants I work with who are winning clients aren't reaching more people, they're reaching the right people
- The three positioning elements that make outreach efficient: who you serve, what problem you solve, and how you're different (without these, you're guessing)
- A client's current bottleneck: 20-30 active conversations with qualified prospects in her LinkedIn inbox—what that looks like when positioning works
- The actual math on efficiency: One client from 1,000 outreach messages versus landing clients by reaching 40-50 highly targeted prospects