Marketing for consultants, analysts and advisory firms where the owner is the product.
You have engagements worth a great deal each, a reputation you built over years, and money already going into marketing. This is for the moment you stop trusting the reports and start asking what actually happens after an inquiry lands.
We work with consultants, industry analysts, advisory and fractional practices, boutique agencies, and speakers and authors with a practice behind the book, the ones whose name is the product and whose next engagement usually starts with a client who already trusts them.
- An inquiry came through the website while you were on a client site and sat for four days.
- Your best thinking is in a newsletter platform you rent, not on a site you own.
- An AI assistant answered a question with your work and credited someone else.
- The year is two big clients and a scramble.
It's usually not the leads.
You might say the leads are weak. We'd say your systems probably are. Somewhere between the inquiry, the conversation and the engagement there's a gap nobody owns, and that's where the money goes. If it all depends on you remembering, it isn't a system. And it's why the work dries up right when you're fully booked.
What do you actually do for an expert-led firm?
We design the systems and work alongside you, so no inquiry goes unanswered, no conversation goes unfollowed, and every engagement gets counted. Then the client comes back for the next one. All of it runs on the tools and people you already have.
- The page. We check whether the site holding your work actually gets credit for it, on a phone and on a desktop, because search and AI answers both look there first. If your best thinking lives on a newsletter platform or a podcast host's site, an assistant answering a question in your field has nowhere of yours to point to.
- Where every inquiry lands. Every inquiry lands in one place, whether it comes through the site, a referral email or a message at a conference, and somebody knows the second it happens, even while you're on a client site. It's built around the calendar and inbox you already run, not one more system to learn.
- The first answer. Somebody has a name on every new inquiry, and we know how fast they answer it. When you're between engagements or out of the office, somebody else has it. Written down, not assumed.
- The conversation that went quiet. We chase the ones who stopped answering after a good first call, and sort each one: not now, not you, or not ever. Guessing which one it is costs nothing and gets you nothing back.
- The honest count. What an engagement actually costs to win, broken out by source: search, referrals, speaking, paid newsletter placements. That number tells you which one to cut and which one to feed more.
- The customer you already won. Staying in touch after an engagement ends costs less than winning a brand new client to replace one who already trusts you. The next engagement, a referral to a peer, a case study they let you publish.
Have you done this for a business like mine?
We've worked with businesses from home services to coffee shops and everything in between, but MobileGroove is exactly this kind of business, built entirely on one person's expertise. Someone who'd left had built the automation holding it together, and none of it was documented. We built an operations system one working piece at a time: nine undocumented automations retired, every change version-controlled and reversible, the whole thing written to move onto the client's own accounts. For a veteran industry analyst, we ran the newer version of this problem: a technical audit plus sixty live questions to ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity found that one assistant had credited her own published interview to a competitor's podcast instead.
How does working with us go?
- We look at what's already public, your site and how you show up in search and in AI answers, before we ever get on a call.
- You get a straight read: what we'd fix first, what can wait, and when the honest answer is that you don't need us.
- We start with the biggest gap, not a package, and build and iterate from there.
- Everything runs in your own accounts and is yours whether we stay or go.
This is marketing operations: the systems that make sure every inquiry gets followed up, counted and brought back. It sits in the overlap between marketing, sales, operations and the owner, and that's exactly why nobody ends up owning it.
Who is this for, and who isn't it for?
This is for an established expert-led firm: engagements coming in, a reputation already built, and money already going into marketing you're not sure is earning its keep.
It's not for a consultant just starting out who needs their first clients. If that's you, our free ten-minute checkups by email are built for exactly that stage.
Questions
Why am I paying for newsletter placements and sponsored posts and not getting engagements?
Usually because the placement is doing its job and what happens after isn't built out. A sponsored post gets someone to click through and read your work. Answering their note within the day, chasing a conversation that went quiet, and making sure an AI assistant answering a question in your field actually points back to you instead of whoever's better indexed is separate work. Most of that happens after the click, and if nobody owns it, a paid placement earns attention that goes nowhere.
How do I stop losing inquiries when I'm on a client site all day?
Give every inquiry, whatever channel it comes through, one place to land and a way to flag it the moment it arrives, even while you're mid-engagement. A message during a conference or a reply to a newsletter is easy to lose track of if it isn't landing somewhere you actually check. Set a rule that anything new gets acknowledged within a day, even a short note, and check that it's actually happening rather than assuming it is.
How do I follow up on a conversation without being pushy?
Set a schedule for it: a note a few days after a good first call, another a couple of weeks later if it's still quiet, so it runs on a plan instead of memory. Most people who go quiet are still weighing budget or timing, not saying no. A short, genuine check-in at set intervals catches a real share of those before they move on to someone else. A written note of the last check-in keeps two people from reaching out the same week.
Should I stop using paid newsletter placements or sponsored posts?
Not until you know what an engagement from that source actually costs you to win, including the placements that got attention but no reply. Some newsletters and sponsors pay off fine once the follow-up behind them is solid. Some don't, and you can't tell the difference without the number. Track it the same way you'd track any other spend, because a placement that looks cheap on paper can be the most expensive once you count the inquiries that never turn into a conversation.
How do I know what an engagement is really costing me to win?
Work backward from what you already have: how many engagements came from each source this year, what you spent or gave up in time to get them, and how many actually turned into signed work. Do that by source and the real cost per engagement shows up on its own. Know your numbers walks through the math with numbers you already have, and most consultants have this sitting in a calendar and an invoice history already.
Start a conversation
Ready to find out where yours actually stands?
Tell us what the business does and what's actually bothering you. A paragraph is plenty.
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