There's something that just hits different when you finally feel like you've found your voice. Not the voice you think people want to hear. The one that's actually yours. I'm sitting here looking at the new McKersin Consulting site and for the first time it feels like it says exactly what it needs to say. Nothing more.
Here's the thing though. I've been consulting for about a decade. I was doing this kind of work well before I ever called it consulting. Helping organizations figure things out, building programs, coordinating events, stepping in wherever I was needed. But for most of that decade, I wasn't treating it like a business. It was one-off projects here and there. Somebody needed something, I showed up, I did good work, and I moved on. There was no real direction behind it. No brand. No intentional client pipeline. Just me saying yes to things because I knew I could do them well.
A few years ago I decided to take it seriously. I made it official. McKersin Consulting became a real thing with a real name and a real intention behind it. But even then, I was still figuring it out. And by figuring it out, I mean I was offering everything I could possibly offer to anyone who would listen.
My unfortunate skill is that I wear many hats. And I genuinely like helping people. So my instinct was to put all of myself out there.
Strategic planning. Branding. Analysis. Program design. Marketing. Project management. Curriculum development. Event production. Facilitation. Training. Artist services. Operations. Etc!
If I could do it, I listed it. I think at one point I was advertising ten different things and thought that was normal.
Offering everything doesn't build confidence in the people looking to hire you, it does the opposite. When someone lands on your site and sees a list of ten things you do, they don't think, "wow, this person is versatile." They think "does this person actually specialize in anything?" And that's not a knock on the work. My work ethic has always been strong. The level of quality and detail I put into everything I touch is top notch. But my clients don't know that until they've worked with me. Before that, all they have is what's on the screen in front of them.
I had a business mentor early on who told me I needed to find my niche. He was surprisingly chill about it. Didn't pressure me. Just said it's something you should find eventually. And I remember thinking I already had. I was only offering about ten things. How is that not focused? But I didn't really understand what he meant. Not yet.
The understanding came through the work. That's the part that's hard to shortcut. You can read about niching down. You can listen to podcasts and reels about it all you want but, you don't actually feel it until you've worked with enough clients to see the patterns.
Where do I consistently deliver the most value? What do people keep coming back for? What overlaps with what?
Program design and curriculum, for example. I had those listed as two separate services for a while. But working with clients, I noticed that those two things almost always show up together. People would typically hire me to build a program and it would be second nature to think about the content inside it. So that's just one service now. That kind of clarity only comes from doing the work, and doing it enough times that the patterns become obvious.
And once you start combining and cutting, something shifts. You stop trying to be everything and you start standing behind something specific. That's what a niche actually is. It's not about limiting yourself. It's about giving people a reason to trust you before they've ever met you.
I'm really enjoying the new website. I love the simplicity. I love that it's one page. I love that you don't have to guess what you're in for when you work with me. And that's something I was chasing for years. I feel like I finally reached that point. The voice is clear. The offer is clean. The foundation is solid.
It's only up from here.
With Love and Respect,
-McKersin