Communications consulting best practices: Part 3 of 3
Stand out among the crowd
This is the final installment of my communications consulting best practices series. In Part 1, we focused on financials; in Part 2, how to kick off engagements with clients on the right foot. The recommendations in Part 3 are less thematically consistent, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t share this blend of practical tips and overarching principles that have served me well as I’ve built a thriving consulting business to my other six pieces of advice.
Number seven: Do real work
Let’s be real — consulting has a less-than-savory connotation. Say that you’re a “consultant” and many people will envision you as someone who passively joins calls, offers the occasional opinion, pontificates about strategy, and spouts aphorisms — but never actually gets their hands dirty.
But being fractional is no excuse for lack of execution. It’s one thing to point out that a startup’s website lacks customer testimonials; it’s another (read: better) if you work with the customer success and deployment teams to develop a strategy for interviewing customers and drafting testimonials, so you can build a system to get them live on the site. Identifying problems isn’t enough — you also need to get into the weeds and solve them.
This is real work. I’ve written about the importance of execution, because I’m surprised at how great a differentiator execution is for consultants. And when you become known for execution you’ll become increasingly indispensable and keep clients longer (which is good for recurring revenue!).
When ex-clients or colleagues in my network introduce me to a prospective client, the thematic throughline from dozens of introductions over years is this: I identify critical problems and kill them dead, executing at an extremely high level in a relatively small amount of time.
The startups I work with feel comfortable ingraining me internally as a member of the team and letting me loose to operate independently and solve hard problems. It’s a hard fought reputation I’ve earned over the years, and at the core was a ruthless focus on doing real work.
Number eight: A new lens on the ICP
Veteran consultants will tell you to have an ideal customer profile (ICP) based on your ideal industry, level of maturation, perfect marriage between needs and your services, things like that. Comms People describes ICPs like so:
If you want consistent work, better clients, and a more strategic consulting business, you need to start with an Ideal Client Profile (ICP). Most consultants skip this step and end up speaking to everyone, while resonating with no one. Your ICP brings clarity to who you’re for, sharpens your messaging, and makes prospecting faster and more effective. It informs how you package your services, what you charge, and what problems you solve. This isn’t just a marketing exercise. It’s the foundation for building a business, not just delivering a service.
I won’t dispute the importance of this — these are questions you ought to answer for yourself — but I’d like to offer a twist on the concept in the form of first identifying what matters to you. I care less about industry than I do feeling aligned with a startup’s mission. I care less about the programs I work on than I do having the ability to solve real problems. I care less about who I work with — a founder, a comms leader, or a new marketing hire — than I do liking the people I work with.
Blend your ICP with what intangible aspects of work matter most to you. Understand that your non-negotiables will evolve and change, but don’t lose sight of them. I’ve found myself working with startups that checked all my proverbial ICP boxes (the “right” industry, the “right” size, the “right” work) but I was still dissatisfied with the work because of less tangible, underlying factors that overshadowed it all.
True satisfaction lies beneath the demographic makeup of clients. It is a bit ephemeral, so think carefully about what it is about work that you really, actually, truly care about beyond and in addition to typical definitions of an ICP. For me, I want to feel inspired by the founding team and the technology’s potential (cue the “I want to go to war! I want a lightsaber!” feeling). I want to be fully embedded with the teams I work with and I want to be around people who want to run fast at the hard problems. And I want to be around people smarter than me so I can learn new things. Knowing your non-negotiables — whatever they are — will help you better determine which prospective clients are right for you.
Number nine: The power of a small network
I am notoriously introverted and suck at networking, so thinking about building a large professional network fills me with existential dread — I’d rather lay down in traffic.
So against most conventional advice, I’ve kept a tight professional network — at first, for my mental sanity, but I later realized that this also helps with efficiency. Rather than spreading myself thin, I’ve built deep relationships with a small group of people who can refer clients to me, and it’s worked wonders. In many cases, these are genuine friends; in others, they are former colleagues who know me well enough to feel confident to refer businesses to me.
Side note: Do not fear the cold email. I’ve had random people and ex-colleagues who I haven’t spoken with in years reach out for advice about consulting; advice I’m always happy to give. Most people want to help. All you have to do is ask.
A small network is a superpower. You don’t need 500 people referring you clients — you need a handful of really good people. If you’re starting out consulting, build a list of people who can truly be of value add and invest time into developing those relationships. A tight, well-constructed network will be better for business development in the long run than a vast network of squishy acquaintances.
A bonus tip for the road: You don’t need a ton of tools
New freelancers always want to know which tools they should use: How should I manage my time tracking? What billing platform should I use? Which lead gen software is best?
From my mouth to God’s ears, there are countless platforms that exist — and I’ve never used any of them. As a consultant, the last thing I want to do is futz around across 48592734 different tools and apps and platforms and whatever else. It takes too much time, requires too much context switching, and generally annoys the hell out of me. I’m already eating the admin burden from my clients; I want to reduce admin for myself.
My long search for a salve to the use-eighty-billion-tools-and-apps problem availed itself in the form of my aforementioned secret weapon: Google Apps Scripts.
Google Apps Script is a “lightweight JavaScript-based scripting language that lets you automate tasks in Google Sheets, Docs, Gmail, and other Google services. It can be used to enhance Google Sheets functionality by automating repetitive tasks, fetching external data, or creating custom functions.”
Within Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, etc), you can use AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude to generate Google Apps Scripts to automate workflows you’re already executing.
Want to send emails when a milestone in a project is finished, create invoices, share weekly summaries, ping project status dashboards as PDFs, or monitor overall profitability of an engagement? You can quite literally automate all of this via Google Apps Scripts. The depth and breadth of Google Apps Scripts is stunning, it’s incredibly easy to use, and it comes with Google Workspace.
Here is code to automate a weekly update to a client.
// === CONFIGURATION ===
const CLIENT_EMAIL = "client@example.com"; // Replace with your client's email
const DOC_ID = "YOUR_GOOGLE_DOC_ID_HERE"; // Replace with your actual Doc ID
function sendWeeklyUpdate() {
const doc = DocumentApp.openById(DOC_ID);
const body = doc.getBody().getText();
const now = new Date();
const options = { year: 'numeric', month: 'long', day: 'numeric', timeZone: 'America/New_York' };
const formattedDate = new Intl.DateTimeFormat('en-US', options).format(now);
const subject = `Comms Update: ${formattedDate}`;
MailApp.sendEmail({
to: CLIENT_EMAIL,
subject: subject,
body: body
});
}All I’d need to do is add a time trigger, fill in the placeholders, and tweak the script if I want any formatting (like bullet points). With ChatGPT or Claude providing detailed instructions, this takes just a few minutes to do. I already use Gmail for work — Google Apps Scripts enables me to automate business processes within tools I already use.
This isn’t a zero sum game
I wrote this three-part series (check out Part 1 and Part 2 if you missed them) because I fundamentally believe there’s enough work to go around. I want comms and marketing freelancers of all stripes to be successful. Rather than languishing in a job you hate, I want any comms pros who are considering freelancing to be equipped with the knowledge to confidently make the leap. I want to help, because others have helped me.
If you found this series enlightening, I encourage you to check out some other advice-centric pieces on The Praxis Forum:
If you have questions, reach out. DM me, email me (ian@aimcomms.xyz), send a carrier pigeon, whatever. I’m here to help.
And hey — thanks for reading.
Shoutout to Emily Ann Hill for providing feedback and editing this essay. Check out Junetail Creative to see how Emily can help improve your writing and, for small businesses, develop an unforgettable brand experience.