8 months of restarting my own business consulting activity. Time to make the balance.

In January I left KPMG where I was the head of the customer, sales, marketing and innovation team for close to 6 years.?

Although I enjoyed working for a big4 company rather well, a number of limitations on the audacity of advice and on the tools that could be used and recommended were getting in my way.?

I fully understand why these limitations are in place. A big company with a global presence and with high visibility is open to scrutiny and potential claims from all sides and risk mitigation is an essential component of managing such an organisation.?

While this did not hamper me in the delivery of nice projects nor helping clients structurally improve the way they organise their customer, sales and marketing processes, I felt there was more to be done.?

Eight months ago, I began with a blank slate, driven by the ambition to create a different kind of solo-consulting company. My goal was to leverage a variety of technologies, AI assistants, and ecosystem partnerships to deliver groundbreaking recommendations on the future of sales, marketing, and service, as well as to ignite projects and programs in this field.

I thoroughly enjoyed setting up a fully-fledged marketing and lead generation engine that will launch in a few days. The most fun part was the video recording, which turned out quite well but also produced its fair share of bloopers. I even framed some of them as a reminder to consider a potential career in stand-up comedy.

I read somewhere that the early days of any business are often regarded by entrepreneurs as the most enlightening and rewarding part of the journey to building a successful venture.

Today, eight months have passed, and I am still immersed in this gratifying experience. From shopping for a second-hand seventies desk to creating a consulting technology stack with incredible applications that minimise preparation and follow-up time on projects, I've also developed interaction formats that are concise, effective, and inspiring.

It took me some time to develop the 15-minute call, the 90-minute coffee, and the 3-hour workshop as delivery formats, but these approaches have proven to be an effective way for both me and my clients to engage in serious thinking about the future of sales and marketing. Their format, short duration, and enjoyable locations make it easier for clients to schedule meetings that are more effective than any traditional business meeting or workshop.

It also gives me much more freedom in organising my time. No more daily or weekly meetings, no more reviews and reports—just a lot of free time that I can flexibly manage based on the challenges I need to address.

My experience with using AI—greatly supported by my good friend and AI guru Rik Doclo—has been very positive. When prompts are well-designed and quality checks on the output are rigorously implemented, the results can be astounding. This exemplifies how consulting, much like the legal profession and other knowledge-based jobs, is undergoing fundamental changes. To quote Machiel den Dekker, CEO of AFAS Software, consulting is evolving into a '20 to 1' perspective: what takes 20 people today may be done by just one person in a few years.

The projects that come my way are varied. They range from helping businesses redefine their go-to-market strategies by setting up agile sales, marketing, and service models to auditing the commercial performance of companies on the radar of investment firms. I’m also working on exciting projects in the fields of customer centricity and organising customer service and support within human/machine-based setups. Additionally, my experience in developing business models for Industrial Infrastructure-as-a-Service has landed me some projects that I find particularly enjoyable to work on.

In the coming months, I will be launching initiatives to gather insights on how business managers and owners envision the future of B2B sales. I plan to use this input to complete a new book I'm preparing on future-proofing sales, marketing, and service.

I've also spent a few days recording video content that I’ll be sharing in the coming weeks. This content includes seven five-minute episodes on Disruptive Selling in the 2024 context and will mark my debut on TikTok and Instagram.

Thus, after eight months, the balance is all good and fun. I do sometimes miss my KPMG colleagues and the KPMG culture of continuous learning, team building, and applying international research to local markets. However, I have no regrets about venturing out on my own so far.