Consulting Mastery

Karie Miller & Ahmad Munawar

Welcome to Consulting Mastery, where we help B2B consultants master the business of consulting. Join us as we explore the art of delivering outstanding client value, earning a higher income, and thriving in today's marketplace.

  1. 4d ago

    Consulting isn't dying, but being good at everything is

    You've seen the LinkedIn posts. The big firms are shedding staff, your revenue feels harder to hold onto, and three prospects in a row have mentioned bringing more work in-house. The narrative writes itself: consulting is dying, and AI is holding the knife. Except the market isn't shrinking so much as splitting in two. While mid-market firms get stuck between two worlds, unable to move fast enough in either direction, something is happening at both ends that the doom posts miss entirely. And the firms winning right now share one trait that might surprise you, especially if you've been trying to position yourself as a one-stop shop. This episode is for boutique consultants and independent practitioners who keep hearing the market is dead but suspect there's more to the story.

    16 min

  2. Jun 15

    How to sell consulting services in a low-trust market

    A stranger reads everything you've accomplished and still doesn't quite trust you. The work is good, the track record is real, and none of it lands the way it used to. What changed isn't your expertise but the way people decide who to believe. They've turned inward, wary of anyone who seems to see the world differently, and a long resume now reads as distance rather than proof. For a consultant who built a practice on credentials, that's a hard thing to sit with. Adding more proof only widens the gap. What closes it is letting a stranger see how you think, until they recognize you as someone who sees the problem the way they do. That recognition is the new currency of trust, and unlike a resume, it's something you can put into the world on purpose. For consultants who feel the warm network thinning and want to understand what replaces it.

    21 min

  3. Jun 9

    If you can't say why it failed, you never tried it

    You realized you needed to do some marketing, so you asked an AI tool for ideas and got back a list. You worked the list. Some outreach, a podcast, an agency, a little of each, and none of it produced much. So you tried the next thing, and the next, always with a fresh tactic right behind the last one. Six months later you've tried everything and learned almost nothing, because nothing ran long enough to tell you anything. The consultants who break this cycle aren't the ones who found the right tactic. They're the ones who stayed in long enough to know whether what they were doing could actually work. For consultants who've collected tactics like trading cards but still don't have consistent pipeline.

    18 min

  4. Jun 3

    Your list of tactics is not a marketing strategy

    You realized you needed to do some marketing, so you asked an AI tool for ideas and got back a list. You worked the list. Cold outreach, a podcast, an agency, a little of each, and none of it produced much. So you tried the next thing, and the next, always with a fresh tactic right behind the last one. Six months later you've tried everything and learned almost nothing, because nothing ran long enough to tell you anything. The consultants who break this cycle aren't the ones who found the right tactic. They're the ones who stayed in long enough to know whether what they were doing could actually work. For consultants who've collected tactics like trading cards but still don't have consistent pipeline.

    22 min

  5. May 27

    What your prospect hears when imposter syndrome takes the call

    You're on a sales call with a prospect who feels too big for you. Maybe it's the company size, maybe it's their sophistication level, maybe it's just that voice in your head telling you that you don't belong in this conversation. That voice isn't just living in your head. It's leaking into your tone, your posture, your energy. And your prospect can feel it. They're about to make a leap of faith with someone, and your self-doubt is making that leap feel risky. The problem isn't that you feel like a fraud. The problem is that it's showing. For consultants who've ever walked out of a sales call knowing the doubt cost them the deal.

    23 min

  6. May 18

    That prospect you wrote off might be your next client

    Another discovery call. Another prospect asking detailed questions about your methodology, your process, your approach, but something feels off. You can sense they're taking notes not to evaluate working with you, but to figure out how to do it themselves. What if that read is costing you more deals than you know? The DIY mindset isn't a fixed personality trait. It's a point in a buyer's journey, and the right conversation can actually move it. This episode is about how to tell the difference between someone who will never buy and someone who simply hasn't failed enough yet to know they need you. For consultants who are tired of writing people off and starting to wonder if they're missing something.

    24 min

  7. Apr 27

    The obligation to grow

    What if growing your consulting business isn't just a personal ambition — but a moral and societal obligation? In this episode, Ahmad defends a provocative claim he made to a group of clients: if we're truly honest about the consequences of our work on the people we serve, each and every one of us has an obligation to grow our business. Ahmad and Karie unpack why self-interest is a surprisingly low ceiling for motivation. Once your survival needs are met, your brain quietly works against further growth — even when you rationally want it. The fix isn't more discipline. It's reconnecting to who your work actually serves. They dig into Adam Grant's famous study of university fundraisers whose weekly revenue more than doubled after a single brief meeting with a scholarship recipient — no change to scripts, strategy, or training. Just a connection to the human on the other end of the work. This is pro-social motivation, and Ahmad argues it's the single most underused growth lever in consulting.

    24 min

  8. Apr 20

    When does educating a client actually work?

    A consultant pushes back on something we said a few episodes ago: that you can't convince prospects they have problems they don't feel. His counter was fair. McKinsey does it. BCG does it. That's how the consulting industry has worked for decades. So who's right? In this episode, Ahmad works through the real answer, which isn't "stop educating" but "understand when you've earned the right to be heard." There are two scenarios where problem education actually works, and one move that builds more credibility than any education session ever could. This episode is for consultants who can see a prospect's problem clearly but keep walking away empty-handed.

    20 min
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5
out of 5
12 Ratings

About

Welcome to Consulting Mastery, where we help B2B consultants master the business of consulting. Join us as we explore the art of delivering outstanding client value, earning a higher income, and thriving in today's marketplace.

Information

  • Creator
    Karie Miller & Ahmad Munawar
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    172
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Karie Miller & Ahmad Munawar
  • Show Website
    Consulting Mastery

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