Are You Calling Yourself a Swiss Army Knife? That's a Problem.

Pull up the LinkedIn profile or website of almost any new consultant and you'll find something like this:

This person spent their career acquiring deep expertise. The credentials are real. The capability to do most of these things is probably real.

And yet the message lands as: I'll take whatever you have.

The menu problem

A long list of services feels like opportunity. More offerings, more types of companies you can help, more chances someone says yes. The math seems right.

But buyers don't hire that way.

When someone has a specific, urgent problem, they look for the person who understands the problem as deeply as they do and can solve it quickly. A list of eight services doesn't signal range. It signals "I really need some income."

Think about a restaurant with a 20-page menu. Does that help one diner make a quick decision? Or is it designed to appeal to large groups (think families) that need to satisfy many different palates? Your consulting business is not a family restaurant.

The message "I can help (almost) everyone" resonates with no one. In a world of limited attention, a vague message doesn't get a second look.

People move on.

Fast.

Two things that won't improve matters

The "something for everyone" offer is often accompanied by heavy emphasis on the following.

Resume and logos. You've had an impressive career. Fortune 500 companies, maybe an Ivy League degree, senior titles, recognizable logos. Those things open a door. They don't close a deal. The person across from you is not interested in where you've been. They're interested in what you can do for them right now, specifically. Your past makes you credible. Relevance to their current problem is the most important factor. Don't expect a buyer to intuit that because you have done X, Y, and Z, you can deliver the business results they need. Make it explicit.

Likeability. Being warm, personable, and easy to work with matters. But it's expected. Thinking charm alone will green-light a project is unrealistic. Being the one who remembers everyone's kids' names and gives compliments freely is business 101. What's worse: the more you pour on the charm, the more alarms you may raise. Concentrate on the hard value you deliver, and be specific.

Clients hire the consultant who understands their situation better and more deeply than anyone else in their ecosystem.

Be relentless and crisp in every communication about your specific expertise.

What real positioning does

Real positioning starts with your ICP, and it goes deep.

You know the companies you serve, the specific people inside those companies who make the buying decision, and the problem those people are losing sleep over. You know the language they use to describe it (not your language, theirs). You know what they've already tried and why it hasn't worked. You know what leaving the problem unsolved is costing them.

And you know how your specific combination of experience, pattern recognition, and point of view addresses that problem in a way that shows up in their P&L.

That's what is going to earn someone's attention.

Getting there requires research, honest thinking, and practice at articulating it clearly. Don't skip the research or do it superficially. Even if you have been in the same industry and/or function for years, if you haven't consulted before, you need to broaden your talking points and validate your offer.

Don't build your positioning from what sounds good (to you) or what AI has served up. Talk to people. Your ICPs. Ask open-ended questions.

The result of skipping this: messaging that never lands, poor-fit referrals, and revenue that never builds.

Real positioning is built with a specific process. In my work with clients, that process is always the starting point: ideally before the website goes live, before the LinkedIn announcement, and before the networking for referrals begins.

This works at every scale. A company of 3 million and a company of one both need strong, specific positioning: being crystal clear about who is most likely to buy what they have, the problem they solve, why their POV is the right one, and how it produces business results for the buyer.

The specificity that feels like risk? Like lost opportunity? Not using all of your skills and talents?

And most of all, the worry that you're leaving money on the table?

The crisp, narrow focus of your business is what will attract the people who need you most and are most ready to buy.

Meg Crumbine is the founder of Heard and a go-to-market strategist for ex-corporate women building B2B consulting and service businesses. She helps women turn their expertise into clear positioning, smarter offers, and a lead generation strategy that creates strong revenue.