The blog
Notes from The IC
Practical notes on pricing, impact, boundaries and building a business of one — written for practitioners, by practitioners.
COLLAB NOTES7 min readCollaboration over competition: partnering with other consultants
Subcontracting, referrals, joint bids and co-delivery are how independents take on work too big for one person. Here's how to structure those partnerships so they hold when the project gets hard.
COLLAB NOTES7 min readDo masterminds work? Small-group mentoring for consultants
Masterminds have a mixed reputation, and most of it is earned. Here's an honest read on when small-group mentoring actually moves a consulting practice forward, what to check before you pay, and how we structure it inside The IC.
COLLAB NOTES7 min readFounder Loneliness Is Real: Finding Your People as a Business of One
Running a business of one means making every decision alone, and that isolation has a cost. Here's an honest look at founder loneliness — and the practical things that actually shift it.
DESIGN7 min readPositioning a purpose-led consultancy without shouting
If self-promotion makes you uncomfortable, the answer is not more volume. It is more specificity. Here is how to state what you do so the right client recognises themselves in the first sentence.
DESIGN7 min readA warm pipeline beats cold outreach: referrals for values-led consultants
Cold outreach is a poor fit for the way consulting work is actually bought. Here is what a warm pipeline is built from — past clients, peers, communities and visible work — and how to run it as a system rather than a personality trait.
DESIGN7 min readProductising consulting services: packages that sell themselves
Bespoke work is expensive to sell and exhausting to deliver. Here is how to find the named, scoped, repeatable offer hiding inside the work you already do — and what to deliberately keep custom.
DESIGN7 min readWorking Out Your "Enough" Number: The Revenue Your Business Actually Needs
Most purpose-led consultants price by feel and find out in June whether it worked. Here's a worked method for calculating the revenue your business actually needs — and the client load that gets you there.
SUSTAIN7 min readSimple systems for a business of one: the minimum viable stack
The smallest set of tools and routines that keep a solo consulting business standing: money, delivery, pipeline and admin. Categories and criteria, not brand names.
DELIVER7 min readImpact mapping your business: from good intentions to a plan
Most purpose-led consultants can describe the change they want to create but can't show how their week connects to it. An impact map fixes that in four layers, with a worked example you can copy.
DELIVER7 min readChoosing values-aligned clients (and saying no gracefully)
Values fit is a commercial decision, not a moral one. Here's a four-filter screen for values-aligned clients, the exact words for declining work, and what to do when you need the money anyway.
DELIVER7 min readMeasuring your impact as a solo consultant: simple, honest metrics
Impact measurement for a business of one comes down to three questions: what changed, for whom, and how do you know. Here is a small set of measures you can actually maintain, and how to report them without overclaiming.
DELIVER7 min readSDG 17 Partnerships: What the Goal Actually Means for a Business of One
SDG 17 is the enabling goal: partnerships for the goals. Most solo consultants read it as something for governments and multinationals. It isn't. Here's what partnership means at the scale of a one-person practice, and why collaboration is the mechanism rather than a nice-to-have.
SUSTAIN7 min readBurnout-proofing an impact-driven business: a founder's guide
Purpose-led work carries a burnout risk that ordinary consulting does not, because the mission makes overwork feel virtuous. Here are the structural protections that hold when willpower does not.
SUSTAIN7 min readClient boundaries that protect your calendar (and that clients respect)
Boundaries are not a personality trait. They are contract terms, onboarding design and a handful of sentences you have already decided to say. Here is how to build client boundaries that hold without damaging the relationship.
SUSTAIN5 min readCompany of One in practice: why we're not trying to scale
Growth is the default assumption in consulting — more clients, more staff, more revenue. A company of one practice rejects that default deliberately. Here's what choosing not to scale actually looks like day to day.
COLLAB NOTES6 min readInside the Impact Architect Framework: five pillars, one diagnostic
The Impact Architect Framework is the structure underneath everything we do at The IC — five pillars, a diagnostic you complete at onboarding, and pods that follow your lowest scores rather than your loudest interests.
COLLAB NOTES9 min readWhy Community Beats Networking for Consultants
Networking rooms and communities are not the same thing at different volumes. They are structurally different, and they produce structurally different outcomes. Here's what repetition, reciprocity and knowing each other's work actually change for a purpose-led consultant.
DELIVER10 min readThe UN SDGs for small business, practically
The 17 Global Goals were written for governments, then borrowed by corporates with sustainability teams. Here's how a consultancy of one or five picks the SDGs it genuinely touches, sets a target it can evidence, and measures it without greenwashing.
DESIGN10 min readPricing impact consulting without underselling the mission
Most purpose-led consultants fix their pricing last, after the website, the methodology and the LinkedIn headline. Here's why underpricing happens, what value-based pricing looks like when part of the value is social, and how to raise a rate with clients you already have.
SUSTAIN10 min readThe three-day work week: how consultants actually make it work
A three-day work week is not a reward for getting efficient. It is what happens when pricing, client fit, boundaries and systems are built to hold at lower volume. Here is what each of those four conditions actually requires.
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