A 15-person strategy consulting firm lost more than half their revenue in under a year. Here’s how we fixed it.
Their anchor client was gone. CEO conversations had dried up completely. Strategic projects across their client base were being pushed to the back burner. The partners were questioning everything.
This was not a firm that had been careless. They had steady C-suite access and a reliable roster of repeat clients. They were good at the work. The problem was that their entire revenue engine depended on a handful of relationships — and when those relationships went quiet, there was nothing else to fall back on.
We rebuilt their growth engine in two tracks.
1️⃣ The first six months were about speed. We mapped every relationship the founder owned — past clients, partners, peers, adjacent professionals. Warm outreach only. No cold pitching. The goal was to convert dormant relationships into active conversations. Multiple discovery calls were booked within the first quarter.
2️⃣ The next 18 months were about building something durable. Weekly LinkedIn content, a monthly long-form deep dive, and an invite-only community for senior executives. They also wrote a book — not as a vanity project, but to capture the firm’s IP and make it visible to people who would never find them through referrals alone.
The results came in two waves.
👉 Year one: USD 100k in new advisory work and direct access to 50+ CEOs who had never engaged the firm before.
👉 Year two: new projects with a global Fortune 500 and leading regional corporations. Speaking slots at major industry conferences. Client concentration risk — the original vulnerability — effectively gone.
Two things made it work.
⭐ Outcome-based pricing reduced perceived risk for new clients. And consistent content meant the firm was visible and credible long before any prospect was ready to buy.
They did not need a bigger budget or a better network. They needed a clear plan and the discipline to execute it.
Most consulting firms wait until revenue drops to start thinking about this. The ones that recover fastest treat business development as a system, not a reaction.
📢 If this resonates with where your consulting business is right now, feel free to reach out. Happy to talk through what a plan might look like for you.
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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.
