How To Thrive As A Solo Consultant

How exactly does a flute player end up building and running her own six-figure consulting business? Amy McDougal, President and Founder of CLEAResources, shares her journey from earning a BM in Flute Performance to leading a thriving legal compliance consultancy. 

After a chance entry into law and military service, Amy discovered her passion for preventive legal risk mitigation. She created a niche by blending the personalized approach of a lawyer with the structured frameworks of a consultant, bridging the gap between costly law firms and off-the-shelf solutions.

To reach such high level clients as General Counsels and CCOs, Amy uses innovative, network-driven tactics, emphasizing direct communication over digital marketing. Her clients range from family-owned businesses to global corporations, all seeking effective compliance programs, and she compares compliance to the essential investment in physical security, highlighting its critical yet unquantifiable value. Drawing upon military lessons like followership and an abundance mindset, Amy remains a solo consultant who delivers high-quality, personalized services, and whose referrals and focus on comfort fuel her sustained growth and success.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How to identify market gaps and create hybrid consulting offers

• Marketing strategies for reaching niche client profiles (e.g., General Counsel)

• The power of analogy in communicating the value of preventative services

• The importance of both leadership and followership in consulting

• How to build a successful business on your own terms

Welcome to the Consulting Success podcast. I’m your host Michael Zipursky, and in this podcast, we’re going to dive deep into the world of elite consultants where you’re going to learn the strategies, tactics and mindset to grow a highly profitable and successful consulting business.

Before we dive into today’s episode. Are you ready to grow and take your consulting business to the next level? Many of the clients that we work with started as podcast listeners just like you, and a consistent theme they have shared with us is that they wished they had reached out sooner about our Clarity Coaching Program rather than waiting for that perfect time. If you’re interested in learning more about how we help consultants just like you, we’re offering a free, no pressure growth session call. On this call, we’re going to dive deep into your goals, challenges and situation and outline a plan that is tailor made just for you. We will also help you identify where you may be making costly and time consuming mistakes to ensure you’re benefiting from the proven methods and strategies to grow your consulting business. 

So don’t wait years to find clarity. If you’re committed and serious about reaching a new level of success in your consulting business, go ahead and schedule your free growth session. Get in touch today. Just visit Consulting Success – Grow to book your free call today.

Amy McDougal, Founder & President of CLEAResources, LLC, is a compliance and ethics expert. With a background as a federal prosecutor and in-house counsel, she advises organizations on risk mitigation, developing and implementing comprehensive compliance programs, and navigating legal complexities. Her expertise spans various sectors and includes creating innovative compliance tools. A published author and CCEP certified professional, McDougal holds a JD from Vanderbilt and a BM from the prestigious Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins.

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00:00 – From Music to Military Leadership in Business

Welcome, Amy.

Thank you so much, Michael.

Yeah. Excited to have you here to dive into your business. I thought where we would start is you have a deep background, obviously, in compliance and legal, also the military, which I want to explore a little bit more. But kind of take us back to the early days. How did you decide to get into the type of business and consulting that you’re in today?

It was entirely by accident. I think a lot of people share that story. It was an evolution. If you look at the beginning and the end, it doesn’t make much sense. I actually got my undergraduate degree in Flute Performance at Peabody Conservatory of Music.

I did not know that.

Most people laugh. It’s okay. And people say, “Flute. Is that a four-year degree?” Yeah, it actually is. It is a four-year degree. It took many more years than four, obviously, to learn to play the instrument. But for all sorts of reasons, I needed to pivot at the end of graduating with a degree in Flute Performance. It didn’t look like that was going to happen for me. So I went to law school because that’s maybe what you do when people don’t know quite what to do next. Just go to law school and figure it out. And so that’s what I did. 

From there, during my law school experience, I ended up in the military. So I came from a military family. My grandfather, my grandmother, my father. So I kind of felt a call to serve. If anybody’s experienced, you know what I’m saying. I was called to fulfill that as another generation to serve in the military. So I went on active duty as a Judge Advocate, a JAG in the Air Force. Great exposure to a lot of different areas of law. But it’s all compliance, right? Is what you’re doing compliant with the Uniform Code of Military Justice? Is it compliant with Air Force instructions and Department of Defense regulations? 

And then when I pivoted in my civilian career, I ended up at a company that needed to build a compliance and ethics program. They were a government contractor, and there’s an expectation of proactive mitigation of legal risks. And that’s really when I first got my taste of compliance. And I was like, “I kind of like this ‘prevent the problem’ thing. I’ve cleaned up enough problems, but wouldn’t it be better, isn’t it more enjoyable if we just prevent the problems in the first place? So I kind of got hooked on this idea of mitigating legal risk on the front end. I compare it to being the primary healthcare provider for someone instead of a specialist. Kind of looking holistically at someone’s health. Are you wearing your seatbelt? Are you maintaining your weight? Legally, this is what I’m doing for organizations. And it was very rewarding. So I pivoted to compliance.

I’ve got to ask one question, which is: you’re studying law, and then you had the calling to join the military, do you remember where you were or what happened when all of a sudden that kind of lightning struck and you decide to, “Well, I’m going to leave law school and get into the military”?

I had a taste of the military while I was an undergrad. So Peabody Conservatory is part of Johns Hopkins. Johns Hopkins had an Army ROTC program. And if I’m being completely honest with you, I was interested in just taking ROTC class. There was one called Military Leadership Lab. Get me out of Peabody a little bit, maybe meet a few more people. So it was just out of curiosity to do something entirely different than what I was doing at Peabody. Let me just go rappelling and do some drill and ceremony and hang out with some Army ROTC cadets and see if I like this. I did like it, and it was a fit. I didn’t want to pursue the program at that time, but I’d already had a taste of what that would be like. 

So in going through law school, looking at law firm route in-house counsel, government attorney path, I was drawn to the Air Force. My grandfather and my father were both Air Force officers, and I was drawn to that. And I started looking, “Oh, maybe I could be a lawyer in the military.” And lo and behold, that television show JAG was out at the time. So Harmon Rabb and Associates, right? I was thinking that’d be a really cool job. I just want to be clear, though, for all of our listeners, actual JAG has absolutely nothing to do with the cool things that we got to see Harmon Rabb do on the television show.

That’s usually how things go, right? Hollywood or whatever makes things look a little bit different than they can be in reality. 

Marketing isn't one-size-fits-all. You must craft a strategy that resonates with your specific audience Share on X
So let’s fast forward. So you went to law school and the military. You get experience there, you work for a government contracting company, build up their kind of compliance function. You think this might be interesting for me to build a business around. So the transition from that to then kind of putting your shingle out and becoming a consultant and starting to build that business, what did you do to get your first client? How did you actually kind of establish the business and get started?

04:43 – Building a Business from Scratch

I actually had as my first client the company I was in-house counsel for when I transitioned. I kept them as my first client. And the company that I had worked in before that was still my client. So I brought them with me even though I wasn’t practicing law for them. But all of those risk mitigation pieces, being a fractional outsourced Compliance Officer, looking at policies, getting a risk assessment done, forming training, but developing and designing training targeted to some of these risk areas, these were things that were already familiar, I’d already done for this company. So I kept them as my client. 

Beyond that, I started calling around because fundamentally, I’m an attorney, I’m a compliance professional. I’m not a businesswoman. I’d been in the military. There’s no business development in the military. The business lands on your desk whether you want it or not. And I wasn’t experienced with going out and finding people. So I had to ask around for advice, develop an elevator pitch, and do some speaking and some writing. Okay, These are fundamental things. But I started to do those things which revealed results. I had results from that. And from there, some referrals. I think a lot of other consultants have the same experience. My name would go from one company to another. “We worked with Amy on this and it was great.” And I found this nice little spot where I was more legal than a subject matter consultant, if you will. But I wasn’t charging law firm rates because I’m not practicing law for that client. So I came in this zone in the middle of completely curated solutions that you would get from a lawyer with a blank legal pad ready to solve your problem and a suite of solutions or approaches or methodologies or phases of work that a consultant might come in with and say, “This is a one size fits all, this is what I do for everyone. And it works.” Kind of came in in between those two things with a somewhat custom approach that you would get from an attorney and- But a framework that a consultant might offer a client.

06:42 – Bridging Legal Gaps with Hybrid Solutions

Why do you think that that resonated with the marketplace? So, it sounds like you had a bit of a hybrid offer. It wasn’t a fully productized offer and it wasn’t fully custom. There was a hybrid or kind of an overlap between those two. Why did you feel that was maybe the right path to take? Or why did it resonate so well in the marketplace?

I had heard, especially when I was in-house, from my in-house peers, what they were missing and I would lament the same thing. I wish there was something that was a solution for this company because this person’s product won’t work because we do it this way, or this just doesn’t fit us, or it doesn’t fit the culture. So as far as trying to build a compliance program, I’d felt some of the same pain in that I just wish there was a custom piece of this. But for something like developing training, if you went to a law firm, some law firms do have people on staff that have experience with really, truly designing and developing training for adult learners. But others, they’re good at training on what the law is, but they’re not good at necessarily training people who are outside the law on what they’re supposed to do with the information that the law gives. So I saw this kind of gap between the off the shelf solutions and the amount you would have to pay an attorney at an hourly rate to develop a custom solution. I saw an opportunity there to craft something that was somewhat in between those two things that I knew my peers, when I was in-house counsel, and my colleagues had talked about wanting that type of solution.

Yeah. And I think I just want to highlight what you’re bringing up right now because a lot of the people joining us are not in compliance or in legal. And so you might be wondering, well, how does this apply to me? And I think the big takeaway is that you listened to the marketplace. You really were looking for what did people want, what was working, what wasn’t working, and then you created an offer that fit that. Now you have the benefit of kind of already having those preexisting relationships or being in-house. For those who don’t have that, I would really say you should still be focusing on having conversations, reaching out to organizations and decision makers to have those initial conversations. They’re not necessarily sales conversations. They’re conversations in terms of doing research and getting that sort of information so that you can spot the opportunities. Because there’s always opportunities in every single industry or in every market. You just need to get the information to know where to position your offer and your message. So that’s great. 

So you have something unique. As you kind of enter the marketplace and you talk about the business then built or started to grow based on you just doing great work, having an appropriate kind of unique offer. And yeah, referrals are coming in. If we take us to today, because today your business, you’re a solo consultant, you intentionally– We were talking about this just before, you earn significantly more than the average even executive in organizations. You’re doing very well. You continue to grow and build your business. What does the marketing look like behind the business today? What are you doing beyond referrals, if anything, that you can share that you maybe see as different from what you did before or what you’ve already talked about?

09:55 – Unique Marketing for Hard-to-Reach Clients

Isn’t that the golden question? That’s the big question every consultant wants to know. I will confess that marketing has been really difficult for me. And it’s not necessarily that I can’t present what I do and the value because as a lawyer, you’re trained as an advocate. And I can pitch it, I can sell it. But truly marketing, having a plan in place, this was the piece that was missing that kind of led me to consulting success and clarity. Because I felt, okay, I’m doctoral level in what I know and what I do, but as a businesswoman, I would have put myself in maybe second or third grade. I had some fundamentals, I could draw pictures, I could write a few words and spell my name, but I really didn’t have anything, any understanding beyond that. So I had to either learn those pieces and hack at them myself or I have to hire someone who can do that. 

The challenge I ran into and some other consultants will run into the same challenge is that the person in an organization I market to is typically a General Counsel or a Chief Compliance Officer possibly. Particularly a General Counsel, they’re hard to get to. They’re really hard to get to. If it’s not in a FedEx envelope and it’s clearly been sent to them overnight, it could have something catastrophic in it, they’re not going to open it. It’s not going to resonate. So, I have to go to where the in-house counsel are, they’re not going to answer my questions: “What are your pain points?” “Come talk to me about this,” or survey questions – they’re not going to respond. They’re so busy. So you have to embed yourself in their world. So like the Association of Corporate Council, you have to go to the places where they’re all talking about what their problems are already and try to engage with them in their own turf. Because they say, “Well, you do a podcast.” That’s going to work for some consultants. I guarantee you there aren’t general counsel of major companies right now across the United States listening to podcasts to find people in compliance, it’s just not happening. “Oh, a YouTube channel with videos and some TikTok,” that’s not going to work for me. It will work for other people. But I just know. I’ve been an in-house counsel, I know them, I talk to them still. That’s not where they’re getting their information. That’s not going to be of value. So I had to really learn how to get to where my ideal client is in the manner in which they will receive me and our dialogue. I couldn’t take these traditional routes. I needed to craft it as I went and there were no solid answers on that. You’d get the information, “Here’s how you market.” But not if it’s to a general counsel. I need to do it a different way. And if that’s investing in FedExing them something because I know they’re going to open a FedEx, then that’s what I do. That’s what I pick.

12:39 – Aligning Marketing with Client Behavior

What you’re sharing is so, so important. And I have to say that having you in our Clarity Coaching Program has been just a real gift. I’ve always enjoyed seeing you and chatting and watching your business grow, Amy. But I think the lesson for everyone there is that marketing is not one of these things that you just take off the shelf, that is a one size fits everyone type of thing. Because there’s lots of different industries, there’s different types of buyers and levels. And so your example, I think, is a fantastic one to help people to see that you don’t just take what is working for one person and right away assume that it’s going to work for you. It’s all about creating and looking at like, “What is the strategy that’s going to work for the buyer and the client that I’m really trying to target?”

Another example of this is we have a client based in Europe and in their specific situation, they’re not legally allowed to send emails to people they don’t already have a relationship with. And they also found that their clients are not active on LinkedIn. So what were they to do? They can’t just go on LinkedIn because the people aren’t there. They can’t send emails to people because they’re not allowed to do that. So in their case, similar to what you just talked about, we developed and helped them to develop a direct mail campaign and strategy that allowed them to send stuff in the mail, but they couldn’t email. So that required a bit of an investment from them but they executed it flawlessly. As you know, you’ve done so amazingly well. And that turned into multiple six figures of business for them and continues to pay dividends. But it’s these kinds of things you have to sometimes think a little bit out of the box. So I appreciate you sharing that example because I think it will resonate with many people who have maybe tried different marketing methods or tactics in the past. Things off the shelf, things they’ve read about or heard about somebody online talking about. And it really is about figuring out what’s going to work specifically for you. 

Let’s then move forward a little bit so you start to really figure out where to find your ideal client. You’re getting in front of them more consistently. What do your service offerings look like today? Can you talk a little bit more, I know you mentioned you had kind of this hybrid between an off the shelf like a product as an offer and custom, but how do you engage with your clients today? Is it a retainer type of agreement? Is it a subscription type of model? Are they one off projects? Can you give kind of a sense of what a typical engagement looks like for you?

Sure. And I essentially ended up with a hybrid on that. So for some clients, and I limit the number of clients I do this for, because frankly I wouldn’t be able to serve effectively and I believe in my personal opinion for a fractional outsourced Compliance Officer, my client knows how much of my time they get per month and that works for them because they’re not ready for a standalone headcount in the company as for a chief Compliance Officer, but they need more support than what their one or two in-house counsel can maybe provide for the company. So that’s a sweet spot. So a fractional outsourced setup is a good arrangement. 

Aside from that, project based work, I’ve gotten really good over the past 13 years at understanding how much of my time a certain project will take, and, thanks to the Clarity Program, recognizing value based pricing. So it’s not just I know it’s going to take me approximately these hours and if I were to put a reasonable attorney’s fee or a consultant fee on that to price that, I also can think now outside the box on what is the value that that project brings to the client. Especially if it’s something I’ve done before. I’m not rebuilding it for them. I can do it quicker. But then, that engagement does not represent the true value of what I’m giving them because I’ve already invested in the intellectual property before I gave that to them. So project-based work is the other piece of how I work. So a firm fixed price for what I understand a project will be, of course, always understanding it could take a little bit more of my time than I thought and I took the risk on that. Or I overprice it a little bit, might price myself out, which is a little bit scary sometimes too. But again, I don’t want to be in a situation where I’m just grossly underpaid for the amount of time a particular project were to go on. 

And then I also, if the client prefers, and this is a lot of times the case for in-house legal departments, they’re used to working with firms that bill them on an hourly basis so that they don’t have a big chunk of money that’s going out the door. I just help them on an hourly basis. So some will tell me, “We need this much work with our compliance program. Let’s just take the next year to do it. But cap out at this dollar amount per month of an hourly rate.” And I’m billing them an hourly rate for the work and the support that I’m giving them. And this is better for a client who has in-house resources to do some of the work or some of the implementation. They just need external support to review some things or touch them up. I’m really flexible because I want to be flexible for the client. So whether it’s an hourly engagement, affirm fixed price, project-based engagement, or fractional outsourcing, I want to be flexible for what that particular client needs, keeping in mind their ultimate goal for their compliance program.

17:40 – Diverse Client Profiles in Compliance

And how would you describe your typical client? Is this a small organization? Just for everyone listening. Is this a very large– Or just give a picture of the types. I know you can’t necessarily name names, but what would be– How would you describe your typical client?

And you know, that’s a fantastic question. And when I was first asked that, I believe it was in your program. “Who is your ideal client?” I can’t say there’s one that’s typical. I’ve had clients that had 12 people in the company and they’re all related by blood and marriage. And global corporations, 15,000 retail locations just in the United States alone, publicly traded, the whole gamut. And the framework for compliance programs is the same. The amount of resources and the formality of the program will dramatically differ. But all of those companies need a compliance program. 

I will also say my clients fall into two different buckets as far as whether they have government contract contracts or not, because that’s a different, that’s a different risk profile for each of those companies. A company that’s just a retail company, say some type of dollar store, their risk assessment is going to stay the same year to year, generally speaking. If you have a government contractor and they provide one type of service, say it’s armed guards, their contracts and their risk profile working for the US Marshals will look very different than working for the FBI, will look very different than working for this maybe Secret Service, will look very different for Department of Defense. If they’re doing air-based defense, it’s going to look very– The risk profile will be different even though their services are the same. So there’s two kinds of clients there. 

And I also have another category, two kinds of clients. One, the clients who’ve gotten in trouble already, they are facing a deferred prosecution agreement from the Department of Justice or some sort of administrative agreement with a government agency and they need to invest in their compliance program because the government told them they need to do it, and that’s part of their agreement. And then the other half of my clients who have not been in trouble yet, but they have a C-suite who want to understand more about their legal risk. Or it could be a brand new CEO, it could be a brand new GC to the company. They’re about to do a big merger or acquisition and they kind of want to know where they are with their program to roll that out to a new entity when it comes on board. Or especially with a merger, what legacy elements are we keeping from the one program versus the other? Who has the better program? How are we unifying this? So my clients really, really range from 12 people to hundreds of thousands of people globally and across the board. So when I had to do the curriculum on who is your ideal client, I mean, I wanted to go a little bit more complex than one who can pay me. But that’s kind of– And I think other consultants–

It was, it was a challenge.

Yeah, other consultants can relate to that. And I think in some areas they can more specifically nail down an ideal client. But for me, it’s, I think, a wider range of types of companies.

Let me ask you another question. So, if you think about the larger organizations that you work with, the ones that typically might bring in or consider bringing in a Chief Compliance Officer, what you’re doing is you’re saying, “Hey, instead of hiring the full time Chief Compliance Officer, I can fill that gap for you,” correct?

20:46 – The Value of Fractional Consulting

If I believe that I can, yes.

Sure, of course. And so what do you feel or what have you found is your value proposition? And I want to extend this to others. So beyond compliance, beyond legal, because the fractional component, we actually just did an article on this recently on the consulting success.com blog about fractional opportunities. Because as a term, fractional has really increased in popularity. It’s not necessarily a fit for everybody, but it’s certainly- there’s a direct connection to fractional and consulting, some nuances and so forth. But what have you found to be the most effective, Amy, in conveying the value to an organization about why it makes sense for them to bring you on in the consulting/fractional capacity as opposed to hiring a full time Chief Compliance Officer?

Wow. You ask the hard questions. And this is another place where I struggle because of what I do. And anyone who’s in any type of security space, I would even say even in the cybersecurity space, would probably agree with this, is that it’s hard to pitch the ROI of your engagement if the goal is nothing. The goal is no fraud, no misconduct, no violations of law or company policy. That’s the goal. It’s zero. Kind of like the Transportation Security Administration, TSA in the US, the goal’s zero weapons getting through, zero banned items getting through. So if that’s the goal, the goal is nothing. You can’t measure with metrics nothing, really. So it’s very hard when what you’re bringing to someone is legal risk mitigation. How do you later say, a year later, when there’s no violation of this particular bribery policy, how do you know that’s related to the compliance program itself? Or you just hire people who don’t pay bribes?

But let’s say they didn’t have a compliance program or there wasn’t something in place, there’s a cost, an expense. There’s reputational damage.

Absolutely

So there’s value in what you’re providing. You’re just saying that it’s sometimes hard to convey that value when it hasn’t happened yet. Or hasn’t happened yet, I should say. 

Yes. In dollar terms. Usually an analogy to physical security is helpful here. So I could tell a CEO, “You don’t ask every quarter what your ROI is on the physical security of your building. You light the parking lots at night, obviously, there’s alarms on some of the doors. Why don’t you have an armed guard? Why aren’t you paying for an armed guard?” “Well, we don’t think we need that.” You don’t need it, right? But you’re investing in certain levels of security that you feel are appropriate to protect your business. But you don’t ask the security officer or your chief security officer every quarter for “What’s our ROI on all of these security measures that we’ve taken?” You put them in place as a preventive measure. But some consultants can give you, “I can save your business $12 million in the next year if I implement this three phases of work or this structure.” I really can’t guarantee that. But what I can say is, with the analogy to physical security, this is something you do to secure the inside of your business. Once you let the people in the building. What’s your next plan? So that resonates as far as the value of what I bring. And then the next is, if you think compliance is pricey, try non-compliance. Non-compliance is always way more expensive than compliance. And so one violation could be enormous. And it doesn’t take long to pick a couple headlines that are a week or two old and put them in front of any CEO and say, “Will this be you?”

24:32 – The Cost of Non-Compliance

And I think that’s like insurance. You don’t think you need it, but when you do need it, then you wish that you had it. And so it provides that peace of mind. And I would also imagine that as part of the conversation, the buyer is looking at, well, what’s the cost of a full time chief Compliance Officer? What’s the cost or the investment of bringing on somebody like Amy, which would probably be less than a full time person, yet they’re still getting significant value? And you kind of talked about what that value is. So those are some things that I think are good for people to look at and consider. 

I want to then just transition over to the military for a moment because you spent time in the military and I’ve had many guests over the years who have been in the military in one form or another, both in the US and Australia and different places around the world. And I wonder, what do you still have with you today, or what do you feel like you brought from that military experience into your business, where it’s shown up either in the business side or even personally, that has really helped you to get to where you are today?

25:38 – Leadership and Followership in Consulting

Also a fabulous question. And I would say that obviously leadership skills is one. You’re trained on that as a young officer, what it means to be a leader and what it means to take the values for the Air Force, their integrity, service before self, and excellence in all that we do, when there isn’t a regulation to govern whatever situation that you’re facing, using those core values that everyone is to use in resolving those issues. We want the same in corporations. If there’s no policy or law that applies to this situation, what do our corporate core values tell you about how to navigate this particular scenario? Even if your options are just two things that are legal. And how do you choose between the two? So the falling back on corporate core values would be one piece of it. 

But the other key piece that I don’t hear talked about much in the “civilian world” is followership. Everyone talked about leadership, Harvard Business Review “Leadership – How to be a leader at work, how to stand out as a leader at work.” So what you end up with is meetings where multiple people want to show their leadership. You can’t have any leader succeed, no matter what skills they have, if there’s no followers. And what’s not rewarded? What I see not being rewarded in the civilian sector is good followership. That’s not teamwork. Teamwork is different. That involves communication with others. You can be a follower, even not on a team, if you just have you and then your- What is good followership and how can you recognize it so that someone feels comfortable just sitting in that followership role because they’re getting rated on that, they’re getting rewarded on their followership skills? Because no leader can succeed unless someone on their team has good followership skills. You just end up with a room full of people competing to prove what great leaders they are. And then you have people taking credit for other people’s works. You have the proverbial ‘pissing contest’ between who’s going to be the real leader, because that’s what’s valued, that’s what’s recognized, that’s what’s praised. If in the civilian sector, we praise more what good followership is, people can be recognized for being that follower, it doesn’t mean they’re number two. It just means on that project, they’re more in an execution role, and following their leader and supporting their leader in making that leader successful, no matter what set of skills they have.

That’s a really interesting kind of concept and perspective, one that I haven’t spent much time thinking about. I’m imagining just because of my time that I spent living in Japan and building a business there and studying martial arts and so forth, to a degree, I’m thinking about the samurais and everyone who is so loyal to the shogun or the leader, the daimyo and so forth. And these are people that no one would look at and say that they’re weak because they’re not the leader. Each of them individually, they were a leader, but a leader to themselves, but they were following someone that they saw as being the true leader, if you will. So beyond that, I haven’t really thought about it. But I guess my question to you then is for a consultant or a consulting business founder, how does that concept of followership play out? Or what would you suggest that somebody look at? Is that about how you interact with your clients? Is that about more of your team? Or just any thoughts on what that might actually look like.

I look at it really holistically, across the map. I’m a follower to a great extent of even some of my competitors. Their skill sets are different than mine. The focus of their consulting business might be a little bit different than mine, but following them on the things that I know they are leaders on. Whether it’s literally following them, whether it’s linked on LinkedIn or following their example that they set and looking to those places where I know I could be a little bit better and looking for that example and not just working with the person, but that kind of followership. 

I have to follow my client’s lead in a lot of places. I’ve seen solutions that work in all sorts of different companies. I might come to the table and say, “I hear you on this one challenge you’re sharing with me. Here are some things that I have seen work.” I don’t have the magic bullet necessarily. I have a whole menu of magic bullets, but I have to follow my client’s lead on, “You know, that seems like a good approach. That wouldn’t work in our company. It just wouldn’t work with our leadership or it wouldn’t work with our culture.” I’m always loath to change a finding in an assessment that I do like an actual finding because I’m not going to cover up that it’s that way. But I have to follow my client’s lead on what they’re ultimately going to do with the program assessment to work with them on how can I present the finding in a way that’s going to get the result that they need – more funding for their program, headcount, maybe they need a Chief Compliance Officer. What do they need to use this report for? How can I be a good follower in helping them make my work more useful to them and of more value for why they engaged me in the first place? 

So I’m always checking my role as a follower. Consulting Success and the Clarity Program, how can I bring value as a follower of this program? What can I get in learning from others who have narrowed down one piece of the program or another or have success in that one area? What can I learn from that and how can I follow them in a way that it would bring me to success as well?

Yeah. The sense I have in you as you’re speaking is there’s a connection between this concept and an abundance mindset. So the scarcity mindset could partly say, connect to somebody who feels like, “Well, I always have to be the leader, I always have to be one-upping somebody else. Or I can’t allow any weakness to show.” Whereas somebody who understands that, “No, there’s room for everybody to play. There’s some areas that I’ll shine, some areas that others will shine. I can learn from others. I can help others, others will help me.” It feels much like you’re widening the playing field instead of necessarily narrowing it and giving yourself a little bit more room to explore.

I think that’s exactly right the way that you described it. And I do attribute that to military service. Because if you’re out in the field and you have some food and your battle buddy doesn’t have any food, it’s not, “Well, too bad for you. It’s here, have half of mine,” because when the enemy comes, you want your battle body to be as fueled as you are. So the abundance mindset, meaning there’s enough for everyone and my share, it doesn’t have to just be my share. And so I do credit the military for that type of thinking. It is more team related thinking, but I think I’ve seen it more in the leadership-followership type dynamic. It doesn’t translate as much into the civilian side.

I’ll add one more thing here, which I’ve seen over many years of being in the business of building consulting businesses: that the consultants who are truly viewed as that kind of “trusted advisor,” the ones that have the longest standing relationships with their clients, really embrace this mindset you’re talking about. It’s not about who’s better, it’s, “We’re a team or I want to partner with you and I’m going to do whatever really is necessary within the boundaries of what I can to make sure that you’re successful and to be there for you. And it likely means that I’m going to give a lot more than I possibly need to, but I’m going to do it because I want the best for you.” And clients appreciate that. They see that that not only leads to a better outcome of the product, but also to more referrals. And so it’s kind of like that self fulfilling prophecy or the cycle that keeps going as long as you continue to feed it. 

Before we wrap up, Amy, I want to ask you one more question, which is- we talked about this before and kind of alluded to it or touched on it at the beginning of the call here today, which is you’ve intentionally remained solo. You’ve had an opportunity to grow this business in terms of building out a team, but you’ve decided to stay solo and you’re doing amazingly well as a solo consultant and you’re a true expert at what you do. But there’s no doubt in my mind that if you wanted to, you could expand and you could start building a team and go from working with the four or five or six or whatever clients it is, let’s say at any time, to double that or beyond. Can you share a little bit of why you decided to remain solo for now at least? What’s kind of gone into that thought process?

34:39 – Intentionality in Staying Solo

An excellent question. And I would say just if I have to pick just one concept, it’s my comfort, it’s my comfort level. When I was a little bit younger, I think, a little bit more hungry, ambitious, willing to take a little bit more risk. As I age, I’m a little bit more risk averse. And as a person, just my personality, I’m very risk averse anyway, so very cautious.

There’s no connection to compliance there, I guess, right?

Right, not at all. So I think it’s comfort. I did a great six-month program. They call it a StreetWise MBA, the Enterprise program. It was offered by the state of Virginia and I did it during the pandemic and I had a CEO group and we have a curriculum and it’s basically in the six-month period of time to come up with a three-year growth plan. A growth plan for your business. Very specific with SMART goals. And it was a fantastic program. I absolutely loved it. And in my CEO group I listened to the pain points when we were trying to problem solve with each other. And part of their struggle, a large part of the struggle was making payroll and managing employees. And I think I’ve just been more comfortable doing what I know I do well. And just having a CEO hat on and growing a business, I don’t feel very comfortable. I think that I could do it well. I’d like to believe that and I could just own that, I’m going to do this well. But I’m not as comfortable. And so who knows, in 18 months, two years I might get a hunger for, “I could handle a little discomfort at this point. Maybe this is the time.” 

But I just listened to an inner voice and I really had to check myself because a lot of people talk about those limiting thoughts, the doubt that you put on yourself, fear. And I really explored, “Am I not going to grow CLEAResources now because of fear, because I doubt myself, because I’m uncomfortable being in that role?” And I really deeply explored it. So it wasn’t something that was growing out of fear and keeping me from doing what I really want to do. But what I came back to all the time was I don’t really want to add more people to my team. I really want to focus on landing clients who need exactly what I do and that I know I do well and help them get through that processee, s them smile out of relief at the end to know that these boxes are now checked for them and they feel comfortable with the deliverables. And so it really did come back to what I truly wanted, but not after- And I would encourage any consultant who wrestles with this, really explore, is it coming out of doubt? Are you resisting it because of doubt or just the discomfort alone? I don’t shy from discomfort, obviously, I went into the military, but at this particular time it was more comfortable for me to say, “I’m going to be a solo consultant, I’m going to do what I do.”

Fully respect that and appreciate how you’ve been so thoughtful in that process and as part of your journey. And as you know we have clients, some who are solo consultants, many who have small teams, some that have bigger teams. It’s a wide range of consultant business founders that we work with. But I think to me, the beauty of business and being a business owner is that you get to choose. You get to choose what is the model that works best for you. Do you want to have a team? Do you not want to have a team? Do you want to have custom services? Do you want to have productized offers? Do you want a model that is more high volume, more clients, more projects? Or do you want one that is low volume but high value? These are all choices that we get to make, and ultimately we’re in control of our destiny. And so what you’ve done in terms of how intentional you are today, I think is a great gift that you’re giving yourself because you’re comfortable with that decision. You know that there’s an opportunity for you to grow more or make a “bigger impact” by reaching more people potentially. But you’re doing great work, and that’s clear. Your company is named CLEAResources–

Thank you. I love that.

38:43 – The Abundance Mindset in Consulting

The pun wasn’t intended, but it came in.

It was beautiful. Spectacular.

There we go. Well rehearsed, or not, but yes, the fact that you’re getting all these referrals and the business continues to grow even with a small base of clients says a lot about the work that you do. 

So, Amy, I want to thank you so much for coming on here today. I know that we’re just kind of scratching the surface in terms of your journey. You’ve been through a lot and you continue to build. And we talked earlier about the importance of persistence, which I think is a key trait and characteristic of all successful consultants and business owners. If people want to learn more about you, about CLEAResources, where should they go?

Check me out on LinkedIn – Amy McDougal @ LinkedIn – and also CLEAResources. So we’re at clearesources.com. Now, when I did the logo, I made the ‘R’ at the end of ‘CLEAR’ overlap with the ‘R’ at the beginning of ‘Resources’. Super cute in a logo. Not so great for the Internet, for email addresses and websites. So it’s the word clear, and then the ‘R’ is not repeated and ‘esources’, clearesources.com, one ‘R’ in the middle.

Well, listen, this goes to show that even when you have something like that happen, you can still build a successful business.

Got to roll with it. 

The logo didn’t hold you back. Amy, thanks so much for coming on. We’ll make sure to link all that in the show notes. And appreciate you, and always great chatting with you.

Thank you, Michael.

Important Links:

Amy McDougal

CLEAResources

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