Consultants like to consult. They like to develop creative solutions to solve problems. If they’re any good at their job, they thrive at both problem-solving and managing client relationships.

Great consultants cherish this—and so do their clients. 

But professional services firms need their consultants to help the firm grow. They need to bring in new clients and expand relationships with existing clients. Marketing should drive this effort, but they must have the input of the consultants to make it work.

This means the consultants have to put consulting on the backburner every now and then and—gasp—sell. A lot of these “doers” hate this idea (we’re defining “doers” as the professionals who are working with clients, typically at a strategic level and laddering down to execution; “doers” does not imply mindless drones). They find it to be too commercial, too demeaning. They want clients to come to them because they’re so awesome at their job. They know they’re good at consulting, but selling is foreign, new and just flat-out hard, and most will struggle to succeed, at least at first. 

But wait, there’s more: If this firm is like most professional services firms and its business model is based upon billable hours, the consultant is billing fewer hours. This creates tension, both between partners and other consultants, and within the consultants themselves, who feel drawn to the doing.

You don’t have to be a used car salesperson

When we say “selling” we’re not talking about Willy Loman stuff. There’s no cold calling (well, there shouldn’t be). There’s no pounding the pavement. You don’t have to be that stereotypical super-slick sales bro.

When someone hires a professional services firm, they are typically looking for a long-term relationship, not some transactional quick fix. They want to hire the proverbial trusted advisor who can guide them over years. This reality changes the nature of how you sell.

You don’t need to have conversations with a million people—you just have to have regular, quality conversations with the right people. Your goal is not to sell 50 cars this month, or 500 SaaS subscriptions; your goal is to bring in five (or maybe 10 or 20—it depends on the size of your firm) new, high-quality, committed clients each year. This needs to equate to 25-30% of your revenue.

What your future clients want

Clients hire professional services firms for their expertise. But here’s the problem: Those future clients can’t tell you apart from your competition. Just about every firm in the universe is talking about the same things—their great people, their great service, their great blah blah blah. So, they want to hire you for your thinking but they can’t judge what you think or how you think.

This means that your selling is really about showing your thinking. It’s like those proofs they made you do in high school trigonometry (sorry for the flashback)—you need to show your work. In other words, selling at a services firm is more about marketing to raise awareness of the firm’s ability through well-distributed thought leadership. This builds trust with prospects, who can begin to understand how your team would approach their challenges. 

That makes them interested in you.

That makes you top of mind when it’s time to hire a firm like yours. 

That makes them more likely to take your call or read your message when you reach out.

Of course, creating and distributing thought leadership content also takes time, which means time away from billable client work. The firm’s marketing team, whether in-house or external or a combo, can do a lot of the lifting, but individual consultants must lend their time and expertise to the effort. Otherwise, it becomes shallow, surface-level me-too content that falls flat.

But the consultant does need to be the closer

Clients hire people, not firms. 

And they want to buy from the person who will be doing the work, or at least involved in the work. Not some salesperson. Not some marketer. They want the doer, which means the doer has to be the seller.

Marketing can nurture a prospect toward a decision point, but the consultant needs to step in and close the deal. They need to have those crucial conversations about the client’s needs, demonstrating their expertise in real-time, and showing how they would approach the client’s specific challenges.

This doesn’t mean abandoning the consultant mindset—the best “selling” conversations happen when consultants approach them exactly as they would a client engagement: asking thoughtful questions, listening intently, and offering strategic insights. They’re not selling so much as they’re consulting before the contract is signed (but don’t give away too much thinking for free).

Finding the balance

The key to success lies in finding the right balance between doing and selling. This means:

• Blocking out dedicated time for marketing and business development activities
• Viewing relationship-building as an extension of consulting work, not a separate activity
• Leveraging marketing support to maximize the impact of your limited time
• Having patience—today’s conversation might not lead to a big new client until some time next year
• Recognizing that growing the firm ensures its ability to serve clients better in the long run

The reality is that the most successful consultants aren’t just great problem solvers—they’re also skilled at building relationships, sharing their expertise, and yes, closing new business. They’ve learned that selling isn’t about pushing services onto reluctant buyers; it’s about helping potential clients understand how you can help them succeed.

And that’s something every consultant should be able to get behind.