He said no. He was right.

Turn your decades of expertise into a premium consulting practice built around the life you want.

_{Issue #15 — April 14, 2026}

I had a sales call last week that I can’t stop thinking about.

We'll call him Bill. Fractional sales leadership consultant out of Florida. Sharp. Experienced. Two active clients, making about $15K a month. Wants to get to $25K.

On paper... he’s exactly who I built my program for.

We spent forty minutes on the call. Good conversation. He asked smart questions. He’d done his homework. I could see the path for him clear as day. $25K wasn’t even ambitious given what he brings to the table.

Then he mentioned the other business.

Bill also runs a financial services practice. Different company, different clients, different everything. And while we were talking, he let slip that he was evaluating a third opportunity.

Three directions. Three cookie jars.

I asked him the question I always ask: “If nothing changes for the next twelve months, what happens?”

Most people feel the weight of that question. They get quiet because the honest answer scares them a little.

Bill didn’t flinch. He said it wouldn’t be that bad. He’d just put more energy into the financial services side.

And then he said something I’ve been mulling over ever since.

“I need to decide which cookie jar I want to make bigger.”

Here’s what that has to do with you...

I presented the offer anyway. And if I’m being honest... I could feel it. That slight hesitation in his voice. The questions that were, well, polite...but not hungry. He was interested the way you’re interested in a restaurant you might try someday. Not the way you’re interested when you’re hungry.

He told me it was “probably candidly more than I want to spend right now.”

But here’s the thing... the money wasn’t the issue. Bill could afford it. The issue was that Bill hadn’t picked his cookie jar yet. He had a comfortable fallback, no real urgency, and three directions he could go. Investing in one direction when you haven’t committed to that direction doesn’t feel like an investment. It feels like a gamble.

A few days later, he emailed me. One line: “This is not a direction I will pursue. I wish you all the best.”

My first instinct was to wonder what I could have done differently on the call. Could I have painted the picture better? Should I have pushed harder on the urgency?

But the honest answer... the one that took me a day to make peace with... is that Bill made the right call.

Not because my program wouldn’t have helped him. It would have. I know the path, and I could see his. But you can’t build a consulting practice on the side of your attention. Not a real one. Not the kind that gets you to $25K a month and stays there.

And here’s where I have to be honest about something.

I know this because I’ve done it myself.

There was a stretch early on where I was trying to serve too many types of clients. General business coaching. Leadership development. Some ops work. A little of everything for anyone who’d say yes. I told myself I was being smart. Diversified. Keeping my options open.

What I was doing was making sure none of those options ever got my full weight behind them.

I was reaching into three cookie jars and wondering why none of them were getting any fuller.

The pivot to working exclusively with experienced consultants... the decision to go narrow and deep instead of wide and shallow... that wasn’t a strategy I read in a book. It came from finally admitting that “keeping my options open” was just a dressed-up way of saying I hadn’t committed.

But here’s what I’ve started to realize about that admission...

It wasn’t just about business models. It was about identity. As long as I kept multiple doors open, I never had to say “this is who I am and this is what I do.” Because saying that means closing the other doors. And closing doors feels like loss, even when what’s behind them isn’t what you want.

Now... I want to be careful here. Because there’s a difference between straddling and building a bridge.

If you’re consulting on the side right now while you’re still in a day job... and you’re doing it deliberately, testing your offer, landing a few clients, building proof that this works before you make the full leap... that’s not straddling. That’s building a bridge. And a bridge is a plan.

Bill wasn’t building a bridge. He had three open doors and no intention of walking through any of them. He wasn’t testing consulting to see if it could support him. He was keeping it as one option among many, with a comfortable fallback that guaranteed he’d never have to choose.

That’s the difference. A bridge has a destination. Straddling doesn’t.

Think about it this way...

If you’re running two businesses and one always becomes the safe one... the one you retreat to when the other one gets hard... and the hard one... the one that could change your life... never gets past hard, because you keep giving yourself permission to put it down... that’s not a bridge. That’s a revolving door.

The fallback feels like a safety net. But it’s really a ceiling. Because the safety net absorbs exactly the energy you’d need to break through.

Here’s why that matters to you.

The biggest reason experienced consultants stall isn’t money, time, or skill. It’s that they haven’t picked.

They’re standing in front of three cookie jars, reaching into all of them, and wondering why their hands keep coming out with crumbs.

The moment you pick... really pick... something changes. Not gradually. Right away.

Your decisions get clearer because you’ve eliminated the alternatives. Your investments make sense because they’re pointed at one thing. Your urgency becomes real because you’ve stopped giving yourself a place to retreat. And the people around you... your clients, your coach, your network... can finally help you. Because you’ve told them where you’re going.

Nobody can help you get somewhere you haven’t decided to go.

Bill knew this. He said it himself on the call. “I need to decide which cookie jar I want to make bigger.” He already had the diagnosis. He just hadn’t written the prescription yet.

And when he emailed me that he was out, he wasn’t rejecting the program. He was being honest about where he was. I respect that more than a half-committed yes. A half-committed yes is the most expensive mistake in consulting... because it costs you time you can’t get back and teaches you nothing about why you stalled.

So here’s what I want to ask you.

How many cookie jars are you reaching into right now? Not how many you want to have someday. How many right now... today... this week?

Hit reply and tell me the number. Just the number.

I’ll write back. Every time.

Dale

Want to dive deeper? Check out these related articles:

👉  The Prosperous Consultant | Issue #14
👉  The Prosperous Consultant | Issue #13

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P.S.: When you're ready, here are more ways I can help you...