Want to start a consulting business? Sell outputs, not time

Find one deliverable you’re really, really good at producing – and that the market will pay for.

👋 Hi, it’s Greg and Taylor. Thanks to everyone who filled out our survey last week. If you’d still like to take it, here’s the link.

I’ve hired a lot of consultants. Most sell their time ($X / hour of work). But the smart ones sell outputs – a high-value deliverable for a set fee.

9 times out of 10, I get more value from a consultant charging for outputs. It’s easier for me to see what the value is, and easier to defend to my CFO. When consultants charge for time, I often think at the end of the month, “Okay, you billed 50 hours – what did you actually do?” 

The one exception is when I want to pick a guru’s brain for a few hours a month because they have amazing relevant and recent experience. In that case, I’m happy to pay their (usually exorbitant) hourly fee. But this is only 1% of consultants – not me, and probably not you. 

I talk to lots of folks 10+ years into their career who are considering starting a consultancy (as a full-time business, side hustle, to enable staying at home with the kids, etc.). If this is you, you need to ask this question before anything else:

What’s the output of my superpower? What one deliverable am I better at creating than anyone else?

You only need one. Here’s how to figure out what it is.

– Greg

The framework

Most people make the mistake of taking their first consulting gig because someone they know is in a jam and needs help. They build a website, set up a new LLC, put together an analysis, etc. Don’t do this. You might land yourself $10K+ in short-term revenue, but you’re setting yourself up to fail.

The first thing to do is figure out whether you can produce an output that others will value (and pay for over and over again) in the market.

Here’s our four-step framework to help you figure it out.

1. Brainstorm your deliverables

What deliverable are you better at producing than others? Write a list of anything you produce better than other people. These need to be clear, concrete deliverables (rather than vague activities or workstreams). Here are a few examples.

Clear deliverable 🟢: Enterprise “first call” sales pitch deck and proposal template
Vague promise 🔴: Optimize your sales processes

Clear deliverable 🟢: Direct-to-consumer website copy overhaul with click-through optimization recommendations 
Vague promise 🔴: Improve your website’s transactional performance

List as many as you can. You’ll narrow them down in a second, but first get them on paper. 

Here’s a list we generated for Taylor. These are deliverables she has significant experience creating, does well and within deadline – and could produce for external clients.

• Business plan / strategic memo

• Pre-read for board meetings

• Fundraising decks

• Enterprise sales pitch decks

• Competitive analysis

• Opportunity analysis

• Critique a project plan / investment memo

• AI workflow audit 

• AI opportunity analysis and ROI forecast

• C-level thought leadership decks

2. Determine your deliverable’s value

What’s your deliverable’s value in the marketplace? Now that you have your list, rank the deliverables in order of how much you could get paid for them.

Start with a benchmark of your own time – assume $250/hour x the amount of hours it takes you to create the deliverable (to a VERY high quality standard). If a competitive analysis takes 20 hours to do well, you’d charge $5,000 for it. 

From there, you need a bit of intuition and (ideally) some evidence from the market. Who is the buyer for this output, and what would they pay? Based on your experience, will a buyer pay $5K for a competitive analysis – and do they need it urgently enough to do so? 

If you don’t know, do your research: Look up similar projects on Upwork or Catalant, or find a friend who represents the buyer and ask them. 

And there’s one really important question when it comes to deliverable work (and its pricing): Does the prospect REALLY need it, and will they take action based on it? Sometimes projects are just “check the box” projects – you can make money on them when clients are flush, but they won’t have the same sustainable value as projects that inform decision-making.

3. Group the deliverables into packages

When you’ve ranked your list, group the deliverables into buckets of 2-3 that make sense together for the same buyer.

So for Taylor’s list, that might be a package of deliverables for early-stage startups: Business plan, opportunity analysis, fundraising deck. Or a package for AI-curious leaders: AI workflow audit, AI opportunity analysis, AI project plan. 

4. Pressure-test your distribution

Can you access this market? As a consultant, you’ll have the same problem facing all companies: distribution. You need to make sure you have access to the buyer of your deliverables. The first test: if you left your current company, would they hire you back as a consultant to produce these same deliverables? 

From there, think about your existing network. If you’re selling fundraising decks, do you know a lot of potential and early-stage founders? You should be able to create a short list of 10 people you can pitch without having to resort to cold outreach (which rarely works to start). 

Our advice

After 10+ years working for someone else, it’s natural to contemplate working for yourself. There’s lots of benefits to starting your own gig – autonomy, flexibility, and choosing your clients (as you don’t usually get to choose your boss).

But stop talking about it and figure out if you can really do it. Start by using our framework and see if you have at least one deliverable that you can do better than others. See what it’s worth to potential clients, and then figure out if you have a few prospects. 

Then make a deck and go pitch them. Best case, you land a customer you need to turn down because you’re too busy in your day job. Worst case, you learn about what you can produce and its value in the market. And if it’s not enough to charge someone else for it, then go back and practice your craft and improve your outputs.

And remember, if you can’t start a consultancy … your full-time gig probably comes with health benefits.

To the next 10 years,

Greg & Taylor

P.S. You should have a pitch deck for your potential consulting deliverables. Share it with us, and we’ll review it and provide some feedback (we know a good consultant’s pitch deck when we see it).