A consulting firm hired a marketer to drive growth. It didn’t work. What they discovered surprised them.
I’ve seen versions of this across many consulting firms.
The founder is buried in delivery, managing people, and expanding existing accounts. There’s little time left for business development, let alone thinking about the future.
So they hire someone to “help with marketing and sales.”
Someone to post on LinkedIn, send newsletters, run outreach campaigns,
and keep things moving.
It’s a reasonable instinct. But often it solves the wrong problem.
In this case, the more interesting work began when I introduced bigger conversations about growth.
👉 How were their markets changing? 👉 Which client problems were becoming more urgent?
👉 Were their existing services still relevant?
👉 What new offerings could they create? Which partnerships or collaborations could open doors they hadn’t considered?
Suddenly, we weren’t talking about content calendars or outreach campaigns.
We were exploring possibilities for the business.
And that’s when an important distinction emerged.
The founder had assumed that hiring a marketer would free up time to focus on delivery and existing clients.
But through our conversations, they began to recognize that what the firm needed wasn’t simply more time or additional marketing activity.
It needed the space to think, imagine, and explore new directions for growth.
That was the real shift in their understanding of what the business needed.
This is something I keep seeing across consulting firms.
Founders have tremendous expertise, relationships, intellectual property, and ideas. But they’re so consumed by running today’s business that they rarely have the mental space to imagine what tomorrow’s business could look like.
And you can’t reasonably expect a junior marketer to do that thinking for you.
A thoughtful go-to-market strategy creates the opportunity to step outside day-to-day operations.
To examine markets and emerging trends. Rethink service categories. Identify unmet needs. Explore new partnerships. And consider growth opportunities that aren’t immediately obvious.
It’s about bringing creativity and strategic thinking into how you grow your business.
Once you have that direction, hiring marketing and business development people becomes a very different proposition.
Now their work has purpose. They know which buyers to pursue, which problems to lead with, and which conversations the firm needs to generate.
The hidden cost of hiring too early isn’t just salary or wasted marketing activity.
It’s the growth opportunities you never imagined because nobody made space to think about them.
Before hiring someone to save you time, make time to rethink your growth.
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👋 Hi, I’m Faheem Moosa. I help boutique consulting firms develop GTM strategies and build revenue engines. Follow or connect with me for more insights on consulting firm growth.
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Ready to add $100k-$500k revenue to your consulting business in 12 months or less without burning out? Schedule a call and let me show you how.
