Standing Out Among 840,000: Why “How” You Consult Matters More Than “What”

Here is a number worth sitting with. There are roughly 840,000 management consultants in the United States today. Worldwide, there are only about 8,000 Certified Management Consultants (CMC®). That ratio tells you something important about differentiation in this profession.

Most consultants try to differentiate by what they do. Strategy. Operations. IT. HR. Organizational development. Succession planning. There are easily a hundred variations on the "what" theme, each one promoted with confident language about deep expertise in some specific domain. The problem is that almost every other consultant in your market is doing the same thing. The "what" you offer rarely sets you apart. It usually just places you on a shorter list with, perhaps, a large number of other consultants. Short blogs or ‘catchy’ graphics on LinkedIn, for example, can’t carry the weight of your work and expect too much of the reader to interpret what those mean to them. Further, everyone competing in your ‘space’ uses the same words.

The consultants who build practices that last figure out something most of their peers miss. Differentiation does not come from what you consult in. It comes from how you consult.

The Quiet Power of "How"

Think about what your best clients value when they hire you, particularly in a world progressively inclusive of AI. Not the technical content you bring, important as that is but the way you bring it. Your judgment. Your professionalism. Your steadiness when their situation gets complicated. Your willingness to tell them what they need to hear rather than what is easy to say. The way you handle confidential information. The way you handle a conflict of interest you could have stayed quiet about.

Those things are the "how" of consulting. And they are exactly what clients struggle to evaluate before they hire you.

That is where IMC USA membership starts to do real work. Membership is not a credential designed to impress your peers. It is a strong signal to your prospects and clients that the way you practice has been tested against an international recognized standard (ISO quality). The CMC® designation, held by only about 8,000 consultants worldwide, takes that signal further. It tells a prospective client that you have been independently assessed and certified against international standards of consulting competence and that you have committed to a written Enforceable Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct that can be enforced.

In a profession where most "differentiation" is marketing language, that is a meaningful professional difference.

The Tripod That Holds Up Your Practice

The "how" of professional consulting rests on three things. Together they form a tripod that supports everything else you do, the client-facing work. The What you offer your clients.

The first leg is the International Competence Framework for consultants to management, maintained by the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes and adopted in US by IMCUSA. It defines what competence in management consulting means: the skills, the behaviors, and the standards of practice that distinguish a professional consultant from someone who has put the word "consultant" on a shingle and business card. CMC® certification confirms you meet or exceed that framework. (See: icmci_cmc002_competence_framework_version_4.0_1.pdf)

The second leg is an Enforceable Code of Ethics. The word enforceable matters here. The recent history of major professional services firms is full of ethics failures that stayed quiet for years because no enforcement mechanism existed inside the firm strong enough to act on them. The IMC USA Code of Ethics is different. Members pledge in writing to follow it. Violations can be brought before the Ethics Committee. Real consequences follow real breaches that protect both clients and the industry. That is what makes the Code worth more than the paper it is printed on. (See: Enforceable Code of Ethics)

The third leg is a professional Code of Conduct that addresses how members conduct themselves in their work with the Institute and with each other. Impartiality. Integrity. Stewardship of resources. Honest disclosure of conflicts. Behavior worthy of the profession. The Code does not cover every situation. It does not need to. It establishes the spirit and intent that members commit to bring into the gray areas where most behavioral decisions actually happen. (See: Code of Conduct)

These three legs work together. Take any one away and the tripod falls. Together they describe how a professional consultant practices, regardless of what specific domain the consultant works in.*

The Greater Good Dimension

There is one more dimension to membership worth naming, because it is often missed. The Competence Framework includes active support for eight of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: Good Health and Well-being (Goal 3), Gender Equality (Goal 5), Decent Work and Economic Growth (Goal 8), Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure (Goal 9), Reduced Inequalities (Goal 10), Responsible Consumption and Production (Goal 12), Climate Action (Goal 13), and Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions (Goal 16).

Professional consulting, done well, is not just transactional work for individual clients. It is work that contributes to the larger systems clients operate within. The Framework treats that responsibility as part of professional competence. Members and CMCs commit to consulting in a way that serves the greater good, not just the immediate engagement.

That commitment shows up in how you work. It shows up in your presence. It shows up in the questions you ask, the tradeoffs you surface, and the standards you hold yourself to when the easier path is available. Clients notice. Prospects notice eventually. The profession is strengthened by it.

Your Move

Here is the practical question. If your differentiation strategy currently rests entirely on the "what" you consult in, ask yourself how durable is that strategy in a market where AI is reshaping the economics of consulting work and where 840,000 other consultants are making similar claims?

If you are already an IMC USA member, consider what it would mean to pursue the CMC® designation. If you are not yet a member, consider what membership would say to your prospects and clients about how you practice.

The "what" of your consulting will continue to matter. It will not be enough on its own. The "how" is what separates a professional from a practitioner, and a trusted advisor from a vendor. IMC USA membership, and the CMC® designation specifically, is one of the clearest signals available that your "how" can be trusted. More information here: IMCUSA Membership

That signal is worth sending.

* This author adds to proposals/Letters of Agreement the following language: As a prospective purchaser of management consulting services you have the absolute right to hire whatever consultant(s) you think best fits your needs. I would ask you to consider those consultants who meet or exceed international consulting competencies, adhere to an Enforceable Code of Ethics, and practice to a professional Code of Conduct for your protection.