How do I decide which clients I actually want?
Start with the work you've already done, and be specific about which parts of it you'd take again. Look at your last ten clients and mark the ones where the work was good, the relationship was good, and the money was good. That's your list. The pattern is usually sitting right there, and most consultants have never looked at it on purpose.
Then write one sentence. Not a positioning statement, not a tagline, one plain sentence you'd say out loud at a dinner party:
> I help [kind of organization] [do what], when [what's going wrong].
Three things make that sentence work:
- The organization is specific. "Mid-size healthcare tech" gives you something to work with. "Startups" gives you nothing.
- The role is named. Who in the organization would bring on someone to solve this problem? Who can sign the contract?
- The problem is in their words. What they'd type at 11pm, how they would actually say it.
Here's the part that stings: this is where most consultants stop, because deciding feels like closing doors. It isn't. You'll still take the good work that happens to come your way. Deciding just means you know where to point your effort, to make clients happen on purpose.
How do I find clients who can afford my rates?
Almost every time a consultant tells me her clients can't afford her, the rate isn't what's broken. One of two other things is:
You're in the wrong room. Some organizations truly don't have the budget for what you do, and no amount of better selling changes that. If everyone you talk to is choking on your number, you've found a segment problem, and the fix is to go where the money for this work already lives. Bigger organizations. Better-funded departments. Budget holders instead of budget askers.
Or they can afford you and don't yet see why they'd spend it here. That's a value problem, and it's the more common one. Price only feels expensive next to unclear value. When a client can see exactly what changes for them, and what it costs them to leave it broken, the number stops being the conversation.
That's the difference between being a Painkiller and being a vitamin. A vitamin is a good idea they'll get to eventually. A Painkiller is the thing they need handled now, and Painkillers get budget.
So before you go hunting for richer clients, get honest about which one you're looking at. Are you in a room with no money, or in a room that doesn't yet understand the value you provide?
Where do the clients I want spend their attention?
Wherever it is, it's a shorter list than you think. For most B2B consultants, the right clients are reachable in three places: LinkedIn, their inbox, and rooms other people have already gathered them into.
- LinkedIn. Your clients are there in a professional frame, with budget authority, and plenty of them read constantly without ever posting or commenting. You're writing for the "lurkers," the quiet ones.
- Their inbox. You own the relationship, nobody's algorithm sits between you, and an email worth opening builds the relationship week after week.
- Rooms with borrowed trust. A podcast, a conference stage, an association, someone else's newsletter. You inherit the host's credibility and are positioned as an authority.
Pick one or two at the outset. Depth beats breadth every time, and being present in one place consistently is more effective than trying to be in five places occasionally.
And go find out rather than guessing. Ask three current clients where they go when they need to solve this kind of problem. Their answer will be more useful than any channel advice, including mine.
How do I get in front of them without cold outreach?
You don't need to land in a stranger's inbox to reach the clients you want. Two things work better, and one of them works this week.
Warm outreach, pointed at the right rooms
Go through the people who already know your work and ask who they know in the rooms you've just named. Not a pitch. A specific, generous ask. Most consultants have a warmer path into a better room than they realize, and they've never traced it, because it feels like imposing.
It isn't imposing. People like making introductions that make them look good.
Visible expertise, aimed at the right role
Once you know exactly who you're talking to, your writing changes. You stop broadcasting at "businesses" and start talking to an avatar of one person, about the thing keeping them up. They read you for a few months, and by the time you talk, they're not meeting a stranger. They're meeting someone whose thinking they already trust.
Cold outreach asks a stranger for time. Visible expertise means they arrive already knowing how you think.
Leah's take
Here's the thing about "the clients I actually want." Almost every woman who says that sentence to me can describe those clients in detail. She knows the industry, the size, the kind of leader, the kind of problem. She's just never said it out loud as a decision, so her marketing keeps talking to too many people, and it's watered down and not compelling to anyone.
And I get why. When work has come through referrals, you take what comes your way. That's what referrals do: someone else picks you, and you say yes. After a few years of that, choosing feels almost rude, like you're turning down a gift. So you stay open to everything, and "open to everything" reads as "not particularly for me" to the exact person you wanted.
The women who get in front of better clients aren't luckier, and they don't have bigger audiences. They decided. They picked an ideal client, they got intentional about reaching them, and then they showed up over and over until the right people knew their name. Deciding is the whole move, and it's free.
If you want help figuring out who your best clients are and how to reach them, that's what I teach in The Academy.
