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Consulting Business: Package Expertise and Win Clients

Name: Consulting Business: Package Expertise and Win Clients
Rating: 5.0 (5 reviews)

Created byPapaHR ★ 170K students: Human Resources, HR Management, SHRM, AI Analytics, Recruitment, Payroll, Certification, CIPD, Claude

Last updated 9/2026

English

English [Auto],

What you'll learn

Package your expertise into a service offer with a defensible price attached
Run a diagnostic engagement: audit, interviews, surveys, and a report a client acts on
Write a positioning statement and a messaging matrix so the right clients recognise you
Qualify prospects with BANT and handle objections with LAER and Feel-Felt-Found
Structure an engagement with scope boundaries, a schedule, a budget and a risk register
Show progress to a client in a form that keeps the engagement alive
Read your own business model and know which stage it is built for
Build a budget and unit economics for a practice, not just for a client
Learn alongside Mike's 1.6 million students from 185 countries
Get the author's experience from Preply, Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank

Course content

16 sections • 44 lectures • 22h 31m total length

Start Here: Say Your Price and Hold Your Scope13:36
In this lecture you get the exact words for the three moments where an independent practice loses money: naming your fee, holding the line when the work grows, and answering the client who says it is too expensive.
This course is built from five disciplines: consulting engagements, brand and positioning, sales techniques, project management and business finance.
The map of the course
A dictionary for reading lectures from other fields as your own practice
A short self-diagnostic that shows which sections to watch first
Download the Fee and Scope Script and write your own version of each line.

Who Consultants Are: Fees, Clients and the Service Package34:59
Why companies hire an outsider at all
What consultants are actually paid, and how the number is arrived at
Where and how clients are found
The typical enquiries, and the ones worth declining
Building a personal reputation, and assembling a service package
Starting With a Client: Audit, Diagnosis and the Report28:19
Running an audit of the area you were brought in for
Using surveys and interviews to diagnose rather than to confirm
Preparing a report the client can act on
Building the Strategy and the Action Plan21:46
Turning a diagnosis into a strategy
Building the processes that support it
Helping the client build the team to run it
Putting a control system in place so the work continues after you leave

Implementing Change: Agile, Adoption and Showing Progress27:55
An agile approach to implementing what you designed
Getting a change accepted rather than merely installed
The tools a consultant has for driving it
Evaluating effectiveness, and showing the client progress in a legible form
Consulting on Hiring, Brand and Onboarding24:21
Where the value sits in a hiring engagement
Which processes to document first
Which tools to implement, and what to automate
Strengthening how the client is perceived externally
Consulting on Motivation, Engagement and Retention22:52
Separating motivation, loyalty, satisfaction and engagement, which clients conflate
How each is assessed
Analysing turnover properly
Developing a change plan, and what advice actually helps

Consulting on Pay, Ranges, Bonuses and Benefits23:52
Assessing pay against the market
Building a range system
Designing a bonus scheme
Tailoring a benefits package, and implementing a review process
Consulting on Performance, Goals and Learning Systems23:26
Choosing between OKR, MBO and indicator-based systems
Teaching a client organisation to set goals
Implementing one-to-ones and a review cycle
Launching a learning system quickly, and handing over the development function

BRAND OS: The Message Architecture Behind a Practice37:24
Why an unpositioned practice competes on price
The BRAND OS model and its six layers
An AI stack mapped to each task
Why a clearly positioned consultant beats a more experienced one
Audit With AI in One Day: Competitors, Perception, Metrics26:20
What an audit covers internally and externally
Running one with AI in four hours instead of three months
Competitive analysis, and how you are currently described
Health metrics: awareness, consideration, share of search
Positioning and Messaging: The Matrix, Formula and Naming33:37
Mission, vision, values and purpose, formulated rather than borrowed
Architecture: one message or several
The positioning statement formula, and generating options with AI
The messaging matrix: one position turned into six versions for six audiences

Visual and Verbal Identity: Tone of Voice and Style Guide32:26
Visual identity: colour, typography, graphics
AI design tools and when each is worth using
Verbal identity: tone of voice, vocabulary, do's and don'ts
Holding it consistent across every touchpoint a client sees
Campaigns: The Big Idea, Production and the Channel Mix27:28
The anatomy of a campaign: big idea, creative, channels, activation
Generating concepts with AI
The production stack for video, voice and copy
The channel mix behind a message that outlives one launch
Metrics and Monitoring: Dashboards, Listening, Crisis Playbook23:21
The metrics framework
Building a health dashboard
Social listening and mention monitoring on autopilot
The crisis playbook for the first 24 hours, and a 90-day roadmap

Persuasion Fundamentals: AIDA, SPIN, FAB, Value Proposition35:16
The stages a commercial conversation moves through
AIDA: attention, interest, desire, action
SPIN: situation, problem, implication, need-payoff
FAB and the value proposition canvas, which turn expertise into a reason to buy
Building trust through mirroring and references
Reaching Clients: BANT, Personas and the Elevator Pitch37:58
Channels for reaching people who can actually sign
Researching them and building the client avatar
Cold outreach and qualification with BANT
The five touches method, and the elevator pitch
Storytelling and Objections: LAER, Feel-Felt-Found, Closing32:59
The ladder of persuasion, step by step
Active listening and open questions
Presenting through story rather than through a list of services
Handling objections with LAER and Feel-Felt-Found, and closing

Productivity in a Solo Practice: Pomodoro, GTD, Eisenhower23:39
Planning a week that leaves room for finding the next client
Pomodoro and GTD applied to a practice with no colleagues
SMART goals and the Eisenhower matrix
Automating the routine, and avoiding burnout when income depends on you alone
Technology and CRM: Automation, Data Analysis and Trends28:31
An overview of current technology, including chatbots and AI
CRM systems and tracking every conversation
Automation and data analysis
Cases of successful rollouts, and the trends worth watching
Analysing Results: KPIs, Funnel Analysis, Deming Cycle, NPS23:27
Defining and measuring the right indicators
Funnel analysis and where enquiries actually drop out
The Deming cycle: plan, do, check, act
Collecting feedback through surveys, interviews and NPS

What a Project Is: Four Stages and the PMBOK 7 Domains36:56
What counts as a project and what is ongoing work
The four stages an engagement moves through
The role of whoever leads it, and the main difficulties
The PMBOK 7 principles and performance domains
Starting an Engagement: Business Case, Charter, Cost-Benefit27:00
Turning a client conversation into a defined piece of work
Building the business case and the charter
Cost-benefit analysis and the supporting documentation
Deciding which engagements to take at all
Stakeholders: The List, Prioritisation and Engagement Planning23:50
Identifying stakeholders, including the ones who did not hire you
Compiling and prioritising the list
Assessing influence and interest
Planning engagement, and the Stakeholders performance domain

Scope: Boundaries, Assumptions and the Delivery Life Cycle21:33
Establishing that the work is needed at all
Defining where the engagement starts and ends, which prevents most disputes
Setting boundaries and documenting assumptions
The development approach and life cycle domain
The Plan: Work Breakdown, Risk Identification, Networks25:58
Breaking the engagement into parts and labelling them
Describing the plan as a diagram
Identifying risks during planning rather than afterwards
Time planning and the network diagram
Schedule and Resources: Durations, Gantt, Resource Matrix16:31
Time planning methods and estimating durations you can defend
Displaying the schedule, including the Gantt chart
Identifying who on the client side is actually involved
Using a resource matrix, and the Team performance domain

Requirements

Expertise someone would pay for, in any field
No consulting background required. Client acquisition and delivery start from the beginning
Basic financial literacy helps, though the finance block starts from the business model
English at intermediate level or above, since all lessons are in English
Willingness to name a price out loud, which is where most people stall

Description

This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

The people who succeed at consulting are not usually the best practitioners. They are the ones who solved the four problems that sit around the work.

Being findable. Being chosen. Delivering to a defined end. And knowing whether the whole thing makes money.

Why good consultants stay small

The offer is described as an area of expertise rather than as an outcome someone can buy, so every conversation starts from scratch. Work arrives through referrals only, which means income is unpredictable and the pipeline is invisible. The engagement has no scope boundary, so it expands until the fee stops covering it and the client is annoyed anyway.

And the pricing was set by looking at what someone else charges, with no idea what the practice actually costs to run.

The practice, the positioning, the pipeline

Forty-two lessons. Eight on the consulting engagement itself: what clients pay for and how the number is arrived at, which enquiries to decline, running a diagnostic through audit, surveys and interviews, writing a report that produces action, turning diagnosis into a strategy, implementing change so it is accepted rather than merely installed, and showing progress in a form that keeps the engagement alive. Those lessons use people and organisational work as the worked domain; the structure applies to any advisory practice.

Then six on positioning, taken from brand work: the audit, the positioning statement formula, the messaging matrix that turns one position into six versions for six audiences, tone of voice, campaign structure, and a monitoring dashboard.

Selling, delivering and the arithmetic

Then six on winning work: AIDA, SPIN, FAB and the value proposition canvas, BANT qualification, the elevator pitch, objection handling with LAER and Feel-Felt-Found, CRM, funnel analysis, and productivity for a practice with no colleagues to absorb the slack.

Then ten on delivery by PMBOK 7, which is what separates a consultant from an advisor: charter, stakeholder mapping, scope boundaries, work breakdown, schedule, budget, risk register, working with a client team you do not manage, progress control, and a closure that actually happens.

And twelve on business finance: the operating model, how models evolve as you grow, translating intent into financial targets, process inefficiency, budgeting that supports decisions, indicators across four dimensions, Lean, and what has to exist before you hire your second person.

Who is teaching this

Mike, the number one HR instructor on Udemy. More than 1.6 million course enrolments, over 150,000 professionals trained, PHRi and SHRM-CP certified, HRCI representative in more than 10 countries. I built the people function of the unicorn Preply and worked at Wargaming, Alfa-Bank and iDeals, and I have run an independent practice alongside that, which is where the uncomfortable parts of this course come from.

What is included

Lifetime access to all course materials
Active instructor support in the Q&A section
Udemy Certificate of Completion
Practical assignments and real business cases
A section with additional courses, tools and resources

One sentence to write first

Write what a client buys from you, in one sentence, without naming your profession. If the sentence describes what you know rather than what changes for them, that is why the conversations are hard and the price is contested. Enrol now and start the first lesson today.

Who this course is for:

Specialists considering leaving employment to consult independently
Freelancers who deliver well and cannot predict next quarter's income
Consultants who win work through referrals only and want a second channel
Coaches and trainers packaging expertise into a repeatable service
Agency owners whose delivery is strong and whose margins are not
Corporate experts who are asked for advice constantly and never charge for it
Anyone whose problem is not the work but everything around the work

Consulting Business: Package Expertise and Win Clients

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Start Here1 lecture • 14min

The Consulting Practice: Fees, Clients and Diagnosis3 lectures • 1hr 25min

Delivering Change and the First Engagement Areas3 lectures • 1hr 15min

Reward and Performance Engagements2 lectures • 47min

Brand Architecture: Positioning, Audit and Messaging3 lectures • 1hr 37min

Identity, Campaigns and Measuring a Practice3 lectures • 1hr 23min

Winning Work: Persuasion, Outreach and Objections3 lectures • 1hr 46min

Running a Solo Practice: Productivity, CRM, Results3 lectures • 1hr 16min

Engagement Foundations: PMBOK 7, Case and Stakeholders3 lectures • 1hr 28min

Scope, Plan and Schedule3 lectures • 1hr 4min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: