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Read This: The Secret to Content that Attracts Consulting Clients

Does your consulting firm produce snoozeworthy content? Are you guilty of communicating blockbuster ideas in articles, webinars and social media posts that are utterly boring? Dull as lichen on a rock?

By adding a magic spice, your consulting firm’s ideas will pop to the top like a Taylor Swift song. You’ll transfix your audience and, most importantly, attract clients.

Let’s make your consulting firm’s content buzzworthy!

Recently, my team compared the LinkedIn posts from two different, small consulting firms.

Parone Consulting’s posts were utterly forgettable despite containing excellent ideas.* By the fourth example, it was a struggle just to finish reading the entire post. Parone’s efforts garnered few views, almost no comments and definitely no inquires from clients.

In contrast, Leep Group’s posts consistently generated thousands of views–sometimes tens of thousands, plus reposts, a tons of comments and a steady trickle of inquiries from prospective clients.

What’s the difference between the two consulting firms’ posts?

Buzzworthy content uses Standing-Up Energy, not sitting down energy.

Sitting down energy pervades most of Parone’s work, including their writing, speaking, webcasting, podcasting, blogging and other visibility-building efforts. They create content sitting down and it feels that way.

While their content may be practical and high-value, you can consume it while casually reclining and drifting… off… to… Zzzzzzz.

In contrast, Leep builds content with Standing-Up Energy. They employ language, expressions, illustrations and examples that only emerge when you’re bouncing on your toes and flapping your arms like a cadet in semaphore class.

Standing-Up Energy is packed with passion and enthusiasm.

It’s the difference between a soliloquy mumbled by an expert hiding behind a lectern (who may as well be sitting) that lulls you into a coma versus a rousing speech that pulls you to your feet and leaves you tingling with excitement.

Don’t take it over the top, of course. You don’t want prospects to feel shell-shocked or that your consulting firm is fake and cheesy.

But, chances are your consulting firm’s content can move two giant leaps into Standing Up Energy without any risk of crossing the line.

THE SECRET TO STANDING-UP ENERGY

If you want to produce compelling, lively, irresistible content, then (this is going to shock you)…stand up! Not metaphorically. Not figuratively. Literally.

Before you put pen to paper, pace around your office and mutter ideas out loud to yourself. Be a bit hyperactive. Then transfer that kinetic energy to your writing.

If a phrase or passage is sluggish, rise up and wave your arms around while you say it. Play with words and terms, expressing your consulting firm’s message in varied ways until the language conveys your dynamic gestures.

Then quickly sit back down and type madly. You’ll be striking your fingers against the keyboard so loudly that your neighbors will think woodpeckers are attacking their house. That’s a good sign!

Prior to appearing on a podcast or webinar, arrange your camera so that you can present from up on your feet. Clap out a few jumping jacks then deliver your pre-prepared key messages as if you’re Leonardo DiCaprio exuberantly crowing, “I’m king of the world!”

Audiences like passion. They want passion. They BUY passion.

Inspired executives stand up, open their wallets and reach out to your consulting firm. That’s when you stop waving your arms around… for just long enough to close the deal.

How do you create high-energy content?


5 Comments
  1. Jerry
    November 29, 2023 at 6:43 am Reply

    Thanks David- I needed to read this today

  2. John McKeever
    November 29, 2023 at 8:07 am Reply

    This is a great idea!

    I’ve typically guided our team to “talk” it first. Before you write anything, what would you say aloud? This creates a more conversational tone and starts down the path of better storytelling. With tools like Otter and Grammarly this becomes a little easier to implement.

    So I appreciate the idea of “standing up” – literally – what would you say if standing in front of an audience? I believe it would take more passionate (and persuasive) language.

    Thanks!

  3. Carole Napolitano
    November 29, 2023 at 8:29 am Reply

    Hi, David —

    Thanks again for such a valuable article.

    What I like about the approach you describe is that it taps into the ontological coaching model that I was trained in through the Newfield Network . . . which values the role of the body in how we experience things and how we show up. In light of the fact that it colludes with emotions and language, the body is an important entry point for changing how we feel, what we say, and how we say it — for generating, for example, the passion and impact of which you speak.

    A favorite exercise I use with coachees is to have them show me (physically) the body of dejection — the “academy-award” version. Once the person has fully dropped into that pose (everything turned in on itself, chest and shoulders contracted, arms limp, head and eyes down, mouth drawn, etc.) I then direct them to show me — WITHOUT CHANGING THEIR BODY –the body of joy. Impossible to do. So, to your point, standing up and assuming a dynamic body is an excellent way of shifting the way we think and the way we express the content we have to offer!

  4. Alexis Hultine
    November 29, 2023 at 11:20 am Reply

    So timely! I have a cup of coffee and notes for my latest blog post and am about to start writing. I do a lot of facilitation and follow this guidance, so why not include it in my blog posts too?! Thanks for the reminder to let our voice and passion shine through.

  5. James Wisdom
    December 12, 2023 at 3:14 pm Reply

    Love it! I find, for whatever reason, that watching a the Tom Cardy H.S. video on YouTube repeating the chorus helps me achieve standing up energy.

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