A Boutique Advisory
Positioning creative firms profitable in competitive markets.
PILLAR FIVE: CONSULING
They said yes. Now you have to lead the room.
Learn to structure a session, run a workshop, and deliver guidance clients actually act on.
Request a workshop >Three Steps
Step 1
Session Architecture
The shape of a session that gets somewhere. Openings, diagnosis, divergence, decision, close. What changes between two hours, two days, and a programme.
Step 2
Running the
Room
Asking instead of telling. Holding silence. Handling the senior person who disagrees in public. What to do when the room turns, in the moment.
Step 3
The
Mandate
Turning a good day into a decision, and a decision into the next engagement. How the room becomes the door rather than the deliverable.
The room is where the mandate is won.
Not in the proposal. Not in the follow-up deck. In the three hours where you either get them to a decision or you don't. This pillar is how you run those hours.
What it is
A [two-day] facilitation intensive and [six] weeks of follow-through, built around a real engagement you have booked. We design your session, rehearse it properly, and then debrief it after you've run it. You leave with a session architecture you can run again, the questions that move a room, and a follow-up document that turns a workshop into a mandate.
Why it's needed
Positioning gets you invited into the strategic conversation. Nobody ever taught you what to do once you're in it. So you prepare the way a creative prepares — you build a deck — and the session becomes a presentation. Everyone agrees. Nothing is decided. Nobody calls back.
How to get started
A short call. Or Find Your Gap, if you're not sure this is the pillar — it usually isn't the first one.
Who it's for
Creative firms and independent practices already being paid for their judgement, who now have to deliver it in a room full of other people's opinions.
When the time is right
There are many symptoms that might signal the need for Consulting, including:
Sessions that end in agreement and no decision
Building a deck when you should be building an agenda
Clients who loved the day and never booked the next thing
Presenting your conclusion instead of surfacing theirs
Improvising when the room turns, and hoping
Charging by the day because you can't name the outcome
What to expect
You're ready to get started. What happens next?
1. Paperwork
Agreement and invoice.
2. Materials
The engagement we're building toward: the brief, the client, who'll be in the room and what each of them wants. Plus recordings or notes from [two] sessions you've already run. Two hours.
3. Review
I go through what you've run before — where the room opened up, where you closed it too early, where you started presenting. You'll hear things about your own sessions you didn't notice at the time.
4. The Workshop
[Two days.] Architecture, questions, resistance, decisions. We build your session and then rehearse it, out loud, with me playing the difficult client.
5. Follow-through
[Six] weeks. You run the real thing. We debrief it properly — what worked, what you avoided, what you'd do differently — and then build the repeatable version.
Marko helped me build a business that I know is right for this modern landscape. And I definitely wouldn't have got there without him. It was a thought-provoking process, and I highly recommend him.
Andrew Coyle
Founder, Shared Beliefs
Australia
Marko helped us to set up shop in New York and win clients in the US market while operating out of Chișinău, Moldova.
Valentin Prijilevschi
Co-Founder, Brazilero
USA
Marko has a unique talent for identifying potential in business and relationships. As his new biz dev mentee, he has helped me build confidence as well as providing me with all the tools, education and guidance to thrive.
Pedro Faria
Sales Rep, HUGO Creative
USA