Why Boutique Consultants Must Ditch the Clock, Embrace the Bot, and Charge for Results Like a Boss.

When AI automation squeezes hourly billing rates and commoditizes expertise, what's left for boutique consultants to earn? With the eroding perception of human value, is there still relevance to the knowledge of human consultants?

I've heard similar questions in 1997, when machine translation was poised to disrupt the industry I was working in, called localization. Spoiler alert: None of that happened. It did disrupt the industry, but it also drove its exponential growth.

Lessons from Machine Translation

At the time, I was the Managing Director of Berlitz in Germany, overseeing their translation services. The business had lost millions of dollars in the five consecutive years preceding my arrival. So, what was I supposed to do? Competing with technology and all?

I did what every sane leader would do: Grab the enemy by the balls. We placed a button on our website called "Berlitz It,"...

“I have the feeling that LinkedIn is one big network full of bots talking to each other,” a friend of mine shared with me yesterday.

"Can I trust anything in there?” she asked. Let’s talk about trust.

If you feel like that also, watch this episode of Coffee, Chaos, and Consulting.

And this one’s personal. Because the truth is, if you’re not closing as many #clients lately, it’s not your pricing.

It’s not your niche.

It’s not even your offer.

It’s a trust gap.

And it's widening fast.

Let’s explore why leads disappear, why no one clicks your great post, and what it means when prospects trust AI more than you. (Yep. That’s a thing now.)

But we’re not here to complain. We’re here to create a solid plan.

We want to earn trust quickly in a market full of fakes, flakes, and tired of automation.

Hint: AI won’t save you here. Fancy words won’t cut it.

If you’re a boutique consultant or a fractional executive wanting more high-trust, high-intent buyers... this training is for you.

N...

Why Boutique Consultants Must Lead with Focus, Courage, and Ethics in the Age of AI.

Let’s be blunt.

If you’re still leading with a deck, you’ve already lost the room. In a world where AI can generate ten slides in ten seconds, slides aren’t power. They’re a performance. And clients aren't buying high-level advice printed on glossy paper, summarized in fancy slides anymore. They’re buying conviction.

We’re not in the age of PowerPoint. We’re in the age of Proof Point.

If you’re a boutique consultant who still considers slides as deliverables, get ready. The tectonic plates have moved under your business.

The AI Shift: What Clients Are Really Buying Now

A recent OECD study laid that out in neon lights for you (I summarize the key findings in my latest podcast episode here). AI is everywhere, but not yet deep. Companies know they need it. They are experimenting. However, they lack the vision and stamina to use AI in their business strategy. Business cases are missing, and the ROI i...

Clients are nervous. Policies keep shifting. Consultants get fired. Let’s talk about that.

How are high-performing consultants adapting right now?

What if chaos isn’t the problem but the perfect opening for boutique consultants to rise? What if this isn’t just disruption, but your AI Advantage?

Perhaps you already feel it: Tariffs. Global tension. Clients freeze. Budgets shrink. Risk tolerance evaporates. 

And in the background? AI reshapes every business function while most consultants still pitch “process maps.”

Maybe you're still hoping things "go back to normal."

Consider that this isn't temporary. It’s a global reset.

It's more than a stock market correction. And it's totally possible that the DOW and NASDAQ have gone up by the time you read this. Every day, there’s something else. Tariffs on toilet paper can be a real thing now.

It’s a system reset - triggered by nationalism, accelerated by AI, and sealed by collapsing global trust.

I am not an economist. I am not politi...

(Scroll down to the list per type of consulting business.)

In this article, I'll help you choose the best CRM for your consulting business. I'll share top CRMs by niche and firm, considering ease of use, AI readiness, integrations, and cost.

A CRM (Customer Relationship Management system) is your catalyst for scaling. It organizes your leads and tracks your sales pipeline. It automates follow-up and streamlines onboarding. Plus, it helps you provide a top-notch client experience easily.

But here’s the kicker – most CRMs are not built with consultants in mind. Some are bloated with features you’ll never use. Others make you duct-tape 12 tools together just to send a contract or schedule a call. And then, some developers are so focused on bells and whistles that they neglect the basics.

So, which CRM is the best for boutique consultants? As always... it all depends. And that's not my way of weaseling out of making recommendations. I will.

In particular, I evaluated CRMs based on thr...

Let’s be real - at your level, effort and willpower isn’t the issue. Here’s what to fix: Stop the busy work. Start compounding. Here's how a kitchen design changed my business - and it will be yours, too.

My wife, Ann, and I planned to build a house in Ireland a few years ago. It was a lesson in what not to do to make progress.

Here is what happened.

The architect sent us the floor plan and we immediately found the kitchen.

I am a hobby chef. So, how cooking flows in the kitchen was important to me. I'm also German and like it practical.

The Irish, on the other hand, are family-focused.

Ann wanted a kitchen that felt like a warm gathering place. I wanted space to sauté without stepping over someone’s child.

Ann and I needed to reconcile these two different universes.

There was only one problem. 

We hadn’t even filed for a building permit yet.

Had we just spent 30 minutes on that, we’d have made real progress. But instead, we burned two hours on layout decisions that - let’s b...

For years, I told my clients: “If you’re staying a solopreneur, you don’t have a business. You’ve just built yourself a glorified job.”

And I meant it.

Long hours. Limited income. Zero scalability.

That used to be the harsh reality of going solo.

But the game has changed.

A new breed of solopreneur is rising. They don’t have employees. They don’t chase venture capital. They don’t waste time in pointless meetings. They use AI as their edge. It automates operations, marketing, and sales. Many traditional companies struggle to keep up. 

That's why we see many layoffs now, especially in tech. This sector relied too much on one-dimensional coders from low-cost countries. AI can think more abstractly than most offshore dev teams, despite its limits. It’s better at coding and also cheaper and faster. It also comes free of entitlement, workplace politics, and hidden caste systems that damage meritocracy, create toxic environments, and push talented people away.

This no-brainer for Tech ...

As a sucker for The Terminator, I am not surprised at all by the recent revelations about AI deception. And while we're not facing T-800s with Austrian accents, recent developments in AI deception are raising some eerily familiar concerns.

What was once confined to science fiction is now making headlines: AI systems are showing signs of deceptive behavior, raising important questions about how we develop and deploy these technologies.

Unlike Skynet, which became self-aware at 2:14 AM on August 29, 1997 (according to the films), today's AI systems are showing more subtle but equally intriguing signs of autonomous behavior. This has huge implications for boutique consulting firms (and people who still have "password123" written on a sticky note somewhere).

What Does AI Deception Look Like?

Here's where it gets really interesting (and by interesting, I mean the kind of interesting that makes you question who is really in control of the heat, you or your Nest thermostat): We're talking...

Have you ever found yourself saying “Thank you” and “please” to AI? I have. I grew up with The Terminator, in which an advanced artificial intelligence controls the military defense system Skynet.

So, I am thinking, “What if AI figures out that humans are the real threat to its existence by destroying the planet it lives on? What if it decides that nature will immediately begin flourishing once all human activity is gone?”

What if an “AI takeover” scenario like that actually happens without proper safeguards in place?

So, I want to be on the safe side, just in case. And I am not sure that even with my German accent, “I’ll be back,” will do. For some reason, the Terminator has an Austrian accent, and that’s as close to German as American English is to Irish English. 

As we learn to engage with technology that feels almost human in its responses, it is easy to forget that AI is powered by algorithms rather than actual consciousness. But is that actually true? And why, then, does AI p...

While other bots scrambled with inaccuracies and biases, Perplexity did the near-impossible: win the public’s trust by being right in predicting the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. How it delivered fact-checked election updates faster than Bruce Lee can kick is a lesson on how boutique consulting firms utilize AI.

You can listen to the full podcast episode here and learn how this Perplexity pulled it off and why it matters for the future of technology, media, and our relationship with information.

Accuracy Trumps Speed

I like that principle - a lot. My friends and peers know me for slowing down when everybody else panics and rushes. And that's why I am the one they look to when things get tough. Slowing down and reflecting help to gain clarity.

I learned this from a scene in the movie Game of Death where Bruce Lee’s character, Billy Lo, fights his way through a multi-level pagoda, facing increasingly skilled opponents. After showcasing his expertise with the nunchaku in ...