The offer that cost me my business

THE PROSPEROUS CONSULTANT

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

Issue #44

"You're too entrepreneurial for us."

That's how it ended. The same trait they recruited me for was the reason they showed me the door.

I'll come back to that story in a minute, because the ending isn't even the painful part.

First, a call I had last week.

A consultant in our community ran a proposal by me. He'd been working with a wealth management firm... growing, successful, hundreds of millions under management... and one of the partners had asked him what it would take to bring him on full time.

Most consultants would gush with pride over that.

And why not? No ad campaign put him there. A relationship got him in the door, the firm paid him for a first look at their business, and the full-time question came up on its own.

But when he told me, I felt my stomach drop.

Because somebody once asked me the same question. And I said yes.

Years ago, a CEO followed me out to the parking lot. He praised the way I worked and asked what it would take for me to "be part of his leadership team."

"We like your entrepreneurial approach," he said.

Keep that sentence in your pocket. It comes back.

I shared the offer with my wife that night, and there was no going back. The money was too good to say no to. I think she'd have considered divorce if I said no. I caved. If you've been here a while, you've read about the day I put on the lanyard, and how it felt like a millstone around my neck.

And I'll be fair: it was a great two-year run. Good work, good people, and the security of a steady paycheck.

Then one morning it was over. Suddenly, and not on my terms. "You're too entrepreneurial for us," they said.

The very thing that got me hired got me fired.

And losing the paycheck wasn't even the expensive part. I'd walked in with a great business of my own. The job left me no time to keep it fed, and by the time that door closed, the business was gone too. Back at zero, a few years older.

Nobody shows you that bill when you sign. Every year inside builds their business and starves yours. And the day it ends might not be your call.

And that brings me back to you.

Sooner or later, somebody floats this at you. Maybe not in those words. Maybe it's "something more permanent," or a fractional title, or "why don't you just join us?" And if it shows up when your pipeline is a bit light... when the referrals have slowed and the bank balance looks shallow... that offer feels less like a compliment and more like a lifeboat.

I understand completely. I grabbed the lifeboat.

So today, I want to hand you what I wish somebody had handed me:

• Why "come work for us full time" is the most expensive compliment you can accept.
• The question a buyer will ask you instead... "how is this not a Band-Aid?"... and the honest answer.
• How one day a month can out-build a full-time hire, and how to price it.

Back to the consultant and his offer.

You already know what it looks like inside a firm like that. There's always one person everything runs through. The business grew up around him, his calendar fills up before anybody else's, and every new client makes it worse. He has everything except a single uninterrupted day.

The consultant described it to me in four words I haven't been able to shake: wealthy, and just dying.

So when the partners looked at their situation... no structure, no clear roles, their star drowning... they reached for the instinct every owner reaches for. Buy a body. Hire a chief operating officer, three hundred grand a year or more, and let somebody else sort it out.

What I told him next sounds backwards, but it's true...

The worst thing that firm could do is hire him.

Not because he couldn't do the job. He could. It's that the moment you go inside, you trade away the very thing that made you valuable out there.

Your day gets diced up by other people's meetings. The office politics come at you whether you want them or not.

And worse... the moment you're considered part of the help, the whole relationship changes. Every conversation with the team. Every idea you bring. You stop being the trusted outside voice and become another name on the org chart, fighting for the same airtime as everybody else.

They'd be paying full-time money for a man with both hands tied behind his back.

I learned that one with my own hide.

Now, you might remember a concept I wrote about back in the spring called the one-day month. I spent a couple of years working closely with the team at the Flow Research Collective, the human performance people.

The short version: organize a day correctly... no interruptions, the right people, one clear target... and you can get more done in that one day than most organizations get done in a month.

Picture it for a second.

The man on the inside can never have that day. The work environment won't let him. His calendar is an open target for everyone with a problem.

But the outsider... you... can plan a whole engagement around that one protected day.

That's the advantage you're selling, and it's what I told him to sell: not a job, one day a month.

Calendars blocked, his and theirs. The right people in the room. Sleeves rolled up, one defined outcome on the table, and everyone focused like a dateless cheerleader a week before prom.

I run these myself and call them VIP days, and I've watched one well-run day finish work that had been stuck for months.

"But how is this not a Band-Aid if it's not full time?"

One of the partners will ask it. Yours will too. And the honest answer takes the fear right out of the question: they don't need a body in a cubicle forty hours a week. They need your structure, knowledge, and wisdom implemented. A full-time employee might provide the hours, but the right outsider hands them the answer, and the uninterrupted day to build it.

Then there's the price. This is where I watch consultants leave a fortune on the table.

He'd priced his day off his own modesty. I made him raise it before we signed off. The firm wasn't comparing him to an hourly rate... they'd already priced the alternative. A full-time hire was going to cost them that three-hundred-grand salary, plus the months of hoping they picked the right person. Next to that number, a consultant who walks in with the structure already worked out is the bargain of the year.

Price your day against what they're already pricing, not against your hourly math.

Last week I wrote about building a first step a buyer can say yes to. This is one. A monthly build day has a defined outcome, a set rhythm, and a real price. An owner can look at it next to the hire they were already pricing, and it's a quick and easy yes.

P.S. Our community member walks into that partner meeting Monday, selling the day instead of the job. I'll let you know how it goes.

"The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates,
and a monthly salary."

(Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes, 2010)

Want to dive deeper? Check out these related articles:

👉 The Prosperous Consultant | Issue #43
👉 The Prosperous Consultant | Issue #42

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