Construct and Use Case Studies to Boost Your Branding and Credibility as a Consultant on the Side
Want to assetize your knowledge as a practicing consultant in your niche? You need to spend time constructing case studies.
Call it client education. Or knowledge papers. To me, case studies are the ultimate digital asset every 1-Man consultant on the side must develop.
Here’s why.
- It shows the experience and exposure we have in our niche.
- It details our thought processes when confronting a tricky and complex problem.
- It demonstrates how we navigate the choppy waters of client organizations’ office politics.
What more do you want out of a digital asset? And this is the best part. Our knowledge captured in the case study format has a long shelf life.
And that means we can attract new clients with existing case studies while building new ones working with existing clients.
It is a good deal.
The Pillars of an Effective Consulting Case Study Paper
“According to data from Content Marketing Institute, case studies rank as one of the most popular content marketing tactics with 65% of marketers perceiving them as effective. They’re so effective, in fact, that 82% of B2B marketers report using them as part of their strategy.”
- How to Write a Case Study That’ll Make People Love Your Business
In short, it works. Stamped and endorsed by professional marketers.
I know. Bad memories linger. We have all gone through the mental torture of case study presentations and examination papers in varsity. Why would clients want to subject themselves to an encore?
You are right. But not quite.
Remember, you are the consultant on the side now. You get to decide what goes into the case study. You can scrap boring bits of your experience. You have control over your digital asset.
This is my first piece of advice. Trim the fats. Remove all meetings you sat in, in writing. Curate those relevant ones where the positive or negative impact on your consulting engagement is obvious to the reader.
Next piece of advice. Do not create a serial drama. Think thriller. There is no need to produce 12 pages of work (ahem, ahem, professional services firms, you hear me!?) when 5 pages seal the deal.
Yes. 5 pages will do. And these are the tenets that must go into the 5 pages.
Start With The Industry You Consult. Your Niche.
Consultants with clarity in communication win the biggest contracts.
Clients, future or current, need to trust our work. Our credentials in their industry and sector are telling.
Set the stage of your case study by choosing a consulting engagement in the niche you are involved in. Or you want to be in. It builds resonance from the get-go.
Also, you avoid attracting clients from other industries. That is a good thing, by the way. I typically spend 50% more time closing a consulting engagement with clients outside my niche.
Bad idea for the time-crunched consultant on the side.
The Problem. The Fact-Finding Journey. The Merry-Go-Round. The Wild’s Goose Chase.
Outline the initial problem you are engaged for. Be specific. And then, be detailed in your approach to engaging different power players.
Then, arrive at a mid-point conclusion that you got hoodwinked. Not deliberately, of course. Clients may not know the real problems themselves. Show the epiphany of discovery with your words.
Highlight the genuine issues and how you tabled them for presentation to the client. Make sure you capture one of the following scenarios.
- The clients are impressed — You have uncovered a discovery they never knew (or pretended not to know).
- The clients are unimpressed — You uncovered the obvious. They knew it all along. And they demand a solution from you, the competent consultant.
Your case study flow arrives at a fork road at this juncture. I will focus on the positive case first.
The Solution. The Next Steps. The Grind.
Explain how you dealt with the issues you have correctly identified.
How are you able to substantiate your observations and findings with data? You must staple numbers to your analysis at this point.
- If you are engaged in an efficiency study — The clock is your reference point. Use seconds, minutes, and hours.
- If you are engaged in a productivity study — Use pluses and multiplicity. How many more units of goods are produced with the existing headcount? By how many percentage points did labor or machine productivity increase by? Start there.
- If you are engaged in a digital transformation implementation project — Compare digital and physical. Provide analysis on straight-through processing. Demonstrate how better is better, cheaper, faster.
Embrace Show-&-Tell at this stage of your case study. Walk your future or existing clients through the journey.
Show them that your ability to solve complex problems and the results you achieve is not by chance. Your problem-solving framework and methodology of client engagement deliver success.
Back to Hell Part 2
There is a purpose in showing clients those consultant engagements that we faltered. It sends a clear signal that we will not make the same silly mistakes again.
I cross my fingers for you. And myself.
If you pursue this route in your case study, make sure you do not spend too much time telling your client-reader that you circled in the same hell 5 times. Once will do.
And then, you want to fast forward to the positive route. Be the victorious hero in your own story. There is no reason not to.
Case Study Finale
This part is easy. Show results.
Let your future or existing clients know how your consulting engagement supercharged your client’s business. As again, numbers are your friends here.
These are my go-to numbers.
- Cost-Savings — By how much?
- Revenue growth — By how much?
- Business efficiency achieved — By how many percentage points?
So on and so forth.
One final tip for aspiring consultants. Remember this. Stories sell, and numbers tell. You want to include both in your case studies.
In Conclusion
Case studies are the ultimate digital asset for 1-Man consultants on the side.
Well-designed case studies pack a punch. Information is repurposed to become knowledge. It also demonstrates our ability to confront and resolve different types of problems along our way.
It helps to build trust with future or existing clients with our framework and methodologies.
Start writing them. Use your consulting knowledge to your advantage.
As a content contributor, I write my observations from daily life and my business exposure. Because our life experience is the bedrock of our unique perspectives.
