There’s an old adage; “Perception is reality”. Simply stated, perception of a brand lies in its ability to influence a client’s behavior. When you have successfully branded your business, in client’s eye there is no service in marketplace quite like your service.

All consulting businesses should have a distinct, sustainable, and competitive advantage to differentiate their services from competition. I call this process of identifying your advantage “Brand Your Consulting Brilliance”.

Here are six simple steps to brand and differentiate your services in current business environment.

1. Think client focus first.

The client’s reality: Consulting businesses exist to serve clients. Develop a client visitation calendar and schedule in-person visits. Look client in eye and say, “I am here to serve you.” Follow up and follow through on all client related matters in a timely manner.

Create a client questionnaire so clients can rate performance of your services. You want them to tell you how you’re doing and what you can do to serve them better. It’s also a way to discover what challenges they are currently facing. Be relentless in your client retention efforts.

2. Discover a distinct advantage that will set you apart from competitors.

Start by articulating your “unique marketing proposition”, a statement of all of qualities and characteristics that set your services apart in marketplace. Analyze your services: What skills and services do we provide that are distinctive, measurable, and add value? Which of our past successes can we leverage in marketplace? And don’t forget to ask colleagues what they see as your competitive strengths.

Explore with me how some of multitude of definitions for word "leader" actually serve as a performance standard for leadership.

Leaving behind standard definition of "one who leads or guides", consider second definition: "one who has power or influence". Have you known people in a leadership role who seem unable to influence people around them? The ability to make connections, to speak clearly and to frame information so everyone hears a "what's it in for me" message are essential for influence. We are also persuaded by people with conviction and passion. We are influenced by people whom we think we can trust. Lose or misuse any of this and a leader's power vanishes.

A leader is defined as "a conductor or principal performer in an orchestral section". Finding ways to bring together different talents of employees or volunteers so that all play from same sheet of music and blend their instruments into a harmonious whole is a skill demonstrated by finest of leaders! As a principal performer, we look to a leader to have one talent that is heads above other people in that arena of "play". We don't want a leader who professes to best at everything. But we do want a leader to have one clearly recognizable skill.

The foremost animal in a harnessed team is a leader. Do we not look to leaders to guide way, joined shoulder by shoulder to rest of team? Remember how presence of a leader at a front line became rallying point for many a battle?