The Consultant With Pink Hair

by Cal Harrison

The Consultant with Pink Hair is the story of Andrew Braun and Lou Di Angelo, partners in a fictional management consulting practice struggling with the real life challenges of being just another consulting firm in a crowded market place.
They battle low margins, late nights responding to crazy RFPs, confusing branding advice, and the pressure of too much revenue coming from one big client--and the disaster when that client walks away.

Genres: Business

198 pages, Hardcover

First published August 2, 2012

Reviews

[Christopher Nguyen]

The content of the book is good & relatable for consultants. Unfortunately, the grammar and writing is horrendous, as if the author is allergic to basic punctuation. The lack of commas and full stops makes the book hard to read at times.

[Sajjad Heydari]

The lessons are worth every page

Honestly, the story itself is a thin vehicle, it's a pretty standard business parable setup, and the fiction isn't going to win any awards. But that's not why you're reading this.

The lessons Cal Harrison packages into it are genuinely excellent. The insight that what attracts your clients today is the same thing that makes your firm valuable to a future buyer flipped something for me. It reframes positioning not as a marketing exercise but as a business-building one.

The breakdown of what you're actually selling when you sell a professional services firm (hint: it's not relationships, it's the promise of future cash flow!) is one of those "obvious in hindsight" ideas that most consultants never make explicit.

If you're in professional services, consulting, or building any kind of practice read it for the framework, not the story. Five stars for the value delivered.

[Ravi Shankar]

This book is a basic guide on using differentiation (or not using differentiation) as a strategy and how a consulting company positioned itself better to stand out as as Consultants with 'pink hair' among the so called 'Management Consultants'.

[Catherine]

This is a fun entertaining read, and quite relatable to people working in the consulting industry.

[Anthony Ho]

Good fun light read! Was not the most insightful but had some sound advice. I do like that this has a memorable story attached to its teachings

[Patrick]

A business novel (and you know how I feel about those) focused on how a small consulting firm can be competitive. The book focuses on a management consulting firm trying to differentiate themselves from competitors, only to realize that they should care about their clients and not competitors, and that their differentiation is their expertise in a specific area. Sort of the old Good to Great:Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't hedgehog concept with a customer-focused twist.

Took about 2 hrs to read, was not overly painful, and I highlighted 5 sentences. One of them was because of my incredulity at their Millennial-bashing, though ("How many of tomorrow's video-game instant-gratification graduates is [long hours and hard work] going to appeal to?"). Two stars, but maybe bump it up one if you're actually running a small consulting firm.

[Kathryn Gorges]

Excellent for any consultant looking to grow their business

This story format works great to demonstrate the process of identifying a strategy to be top of mind in your market.