Most consulting firms claim outcomes, but unfortunately, most of it is consulting fluff.
This is a common occurrence that we see on the websites of consulting firms daily – statements that sound impressive until someone asks a basic question: what will materially change for the client? No answer. Because of the fluff.
Here are a few real-life examples, taken from consulting websites, of what their weak outcome language looks like:
“We leverage the power of analytics and artificial intelligence to generate the insights that catalyse growth and efficiency.”
“We improve decision-making, increase operational efficiency, and mitigate risk.”
“We enable clients to accelerate innovation and create lasting competitive advantage.”
In this article, I’d like to break down the problems with these types of outcome statements and provide examples of how each could be redesigned to communicate concrete value to prospective clients.
The underlying issue with consulting firms using generic outcome language is exactly that – it’s generic. It doesn’t offer any meaningful parameters of expertise, target audience, or value. Consulting firms employ this language for various reasons:
FOMO – they don’t want to miss out on any opportunities, be it in terms of the audience they attract or the type of work they deliver.
Internal complexity – generic language becomes a common denominator across a highly complex set of offerings, practices, and capabilities.
Lack of differentiation – there really isn’t anything a consulting firm excels at. It has solid but broad expertise, so pointing to just a couple of things that they do better than competitors is a challenge.
Risk aversion – generic claims blur the lines of accountability. When there are no repeatable processes that deliver predictable outcomes, ambitious-sounding promises become the next best thing.
Lack of internal alignment – senior leaders who can’t agree on what should be the central value communicated to the market around which everything else gets built. Generic statements are a compromise.
Copying competitors – this is how similar consultancies communicate, so it’s a matter of fearing to miss the mark.
Now let’s look at the examples I’ve listed earlier to see why they fail to create relevance and appeal to buyers.
“We leverage the power of analytics and artificial intelligence to generate the insights that catalyse growth and efficiency.” This is capability language wrapped in outcome language. What do words "insights,” “growth,” and “efficiency” even mean? Profit growth or customer growth? Operational efficiency or cost efficiency? Market insights or internal insights? It sounds like this statement is saying a lot, but to specific buyers it says very little.
“We improve decision-making, increase operational efficiency, and mitigate risk.” This statement covers almost every possible consulting assignment. Every single business and every single department within it strives for some sort of insights-driven decision-making, optimised efficiency, and reduced risk. There is no client context in this claim, no business issue, and no tangible result.
“We enable clients to accelerate innovation and create lasting competitive advantage.” The statement contains an ambition but no defined issue, audience, or commercial consequence. Who are these clients? What kind of innovation are they trying to accelerate, and what does “competitive advantage” actually mean in their market (e.g., speed of delivery, higher quality for the same cost, etc.)? The statement sounds positive but provides no indication of the tangible value it creates.
All of these generic outcome statements share the same problem: they create the appearance of relevance while forcing the buyer to do all the interpretation. And most buyers are not going to do that.
Words such as growth, efficiency, agility, resilience, innovation, and transformation are not outcomes on their own. They are broad ambitions shared by almost every organisation.
Strong outcome statements are about exclusion as much as they are about inclusion. They create visible parameters: those who fall within the parameters instantly recognise themselves and their business challenges; those who fall outside of the parameters self-disqualify, not wasting their time or that of the consulting firm.
Therefore, a compelling outcome statement must make choices:
It should name the client context: There are multiple ways to carve out a market. For example, it can be along industry lines – e.g., retail, hospitality, banking, etc. It can be along business areas – e.g., operations, human resources, marketing, and so on. Or perhaps it’s defined by organisation type – e.g., high-growth startups, family-owned businesses, private equity-backed companies, etc. For some consulting firms, it may make sense to stop the segmentation there. For others, they need to go deeper and segment on multiple levels – e.g., PE-backed companies in the AI tech space.
It should identify the issue: What are the target clients struggling with? Did they implement an expansive piece of enterprise software across their multinational organisation and struggling to get to the adoption levels needed to see meaningful ROI? Perhaps it’s a company that has acquired several high-growth startups and is struggling to integrate its people, processes, and systems into a coherent operating model? This issue should be specific enough for potential buyers to instantly recognize themselves in it.
It should describe what changes: What is the destination of the transformation? For example, is it higher technology adoption, faster decision-making, improved customer retention, or a leaner operating model? Consulting firms should be able to clearly state how the engagement will benefit the client.
It should connect that change to a meaningful operational or commercial result: Why does the change matter to the client’s business? Faster decision-making is great, but this change giving the ability to bring new products and services to market quicker than competitors is even better. There should be tangible value for a business. Why? Because no executive comes into the office thinking “I wish we could make decisions faster” and that’s it. They think “I wish we were able to reach decisions faster so we don’t miss out on hot investment opportunities.”
Recommended reading: Winning Consulting Clients: Start with Their Problem, Not with a Service List
In light of these choices that I urge consulting firms to make, here is how the examples of generic outcome claims could be redesigned:
Generic: “We leverage the power of analytics and artificial intelligence to generate the insights that catalyse growth and efficiency.”
Stronger alternatives from our work:
“We help grocery retailers reduce food waste and stock-outs by improving store-level demand forecasting.”
“We help industrial manufacturers identify production bottlenecks and increase plant throughput using real-time operational data.”
Generic: “We improve decision-making, increase operational efficiency, and mitigate risk.”
Stronger alternatives from our work:
“We help banks shorten model-validation cycles and reduce regulatory remediation by strengthening model-risk governance.”
“We help multi-site healthcare providers reduce patient waiting times by redesigning capacity planning and frontline workflows.”
“We help logistics companies lower last-mile delivery costs by improving route planning, fleet utilisation, and depot operations.”
Generic: “We enable clients to accelerate innovation and create lasting competitive advantage.”
Stronger alternatives from our work:
“We help B2B software companies reduce the time from product idea to paid market validation by building and testing focused minimum viable offers.”
“We help industrial businesses turn underused engineering knowledge into repeatable service propositions that generate new recurring revenue.”
When every consulting firm promises the same broad benefits, polished language only makes the sameness more visible…the big, ugly consulting sameness.
Clients spend a few minutes reading these statements, browsing through a couple of pages, and then exiting the site or conversation because they still have no clue what the consulting firm does – and no trust that it can actually deliver on its grandiose promises.
Knowing exactly what the consulting firm is exceptional at, who this system works for, what the change entails, and how it creates meaningful results – that’s what makes prospects pause, dig deeper, and engage in a conversation with the firm. These clients see themselves in the claims. They award this consultancy a certain level of trust because of the relevance in their messaging.
Clients don’t need another generic promise of transformation. They need a reason to believe “this firm understands my situation and can help me change it.” That level of specificity turns a consulting claim from fluff-filled marketing language into a credible commercial proposition.
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