Getting the “yes” is only half the job. 

A lot of conversations focus on closing the deal – how to position yourself, where to find prospects, and how to convince them you’re the right person for the job. 

But once the client says yes, the work changes. 

The skills that help you find the “yes” aren’t the same ones you need to cross the finish line – or turn one project into an opportunity for the next. 

In this article, we’re tackling two things: how to deliver your best client work while setting up your business up for future work. 

By this point, you already finished four out of the many steps of a consulting engagement: 

(Read the first part of the pitching process here.)

You’ve been upstream – introducing yourself to many prospects, engaging more deeply with some, and writing proposals to only a few. 

Now, the flow has narrowed. 

What comes next is when an engagement shifts from possibility to practice – where the engagement becomes real. 

By this step, the decision is mostly made. Now, it has to survive logistics and approvals. 

Formalizing the deal isn’t just about the contract. 

It’s using documentation to set the rules of the engagement before the real work begins – rules that prevent confusion, protect the engagement, and make delivery easier. 

Scopes are explicit. Responsibilities are written. Expectations are clarified. 

In your contract, you must detail what the scope is and provide documentation for those.  

Documentations come in many forms, including (but not limited to):

Contracts also communicate expectations about how you will work with the team – positioning you as someone who takes care of the strategy, not the execution itself. 

Doing so keeps you focused on high-level tasks and ensures you won’t be pulled into the weeds of manual work.

Let’s look at this in the eyes of a fractional CMO.  

If a client hires a fractional CMO to help with their marketing, they’re concerned about the marketing strategy alone – like reaching a specific number of customers, subscriber count, or other KPIs. 

The fractional CMO is there to improve their marketing strategy. 

They’re not there to publish posts on social media or send PR emails to media outlets. 

To avoid being a part of the execution team, the fractional CMO should clearly state what they will do and won’t do while they’re formalizing the deal with the client. 

(Read our piece on contracts here to learn more about setting expectations and including the right clauses.) 

But know that some deals also stall at this point. 

Contracts experience friction as it moves through procurement, legal, and back around. Some clients move quickly; others take longer. 

You can send a gentle ping, but always stay respectful and value driven. 

What I’ve learned is that procurement teams are always involved – and you have to assume they know nothing about the engagement. 

You could have been talking to the client for three months, yet they’re still unaware of what the procurement team needs to approve the engagement. 

Some procurement teams are easy to work with; others feel like the ministry of No. 

The best-case scenario is waiting for a legal review; but the worst case involves compliance requirements, like your company’s revenue information, tax structure, and other details. 

Based on my experience, larger and older companies typically have more complicated approval processes. Startup and FinTech clients are fairly simple.  

But as a consultant, part of the job is helping clients achieve the most value and making their lives easier – even early at this stage.

Having a contract template will save you hours of writing. It also allows you to bake in specific terms and scopes that will protect you as needed.  

Here are some essential terms to consider: 

Alternatively, you can download our contract template here. 

Some clients produce their own contract – if so, it’s crucial to take in every detail and understand the terms. 

My biggest advice for this is to hire an attorney for two reasons: they review your contract template and fortify it as needed – or review the client’s contract for you in case of unfamiliar terms. 

Congratulations on reaching this step – it means you’ve already signed the deal. 

The goal is to deliver what was promised in the contract, but there’s a lot more to it – aside from completing tasks and providing high-level strategies, strong consulting work also validates the client’s decisions to hire you.

The first few weeks of the engagement matter more than most consultants think. 

Clients watch what you deliver and how you operate: 

Strong delivery buys trust, and trust wins you the room.

It helps you navigate ambiguity, adjust scope, and handle surprises without friction. 

Early momentum matters, so early wins and milestones are your keys. 

Checklists and milestones guide the work you do. 

I suggest creating a first week checklist – with all the things you need to accomplish by the first Friday.

This includes tasks like setting up IT access at day one, establishing communication rhythms, solving a papercut problem, and defining a clear problem statement. 

You can also create a first month checklist – similar to the one above, but with a longer time span and bigger goals.

In here, you can plot accomplishments for every week, leading up to your first big deliverable (which could be a project kickoff meeting or a simple project plan). 

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This is where you grow your network while delivering great work — the core of what rainmakers do.

Stakeholder harvesting doesn’t happen after the work; it happens during it. 

During the engagement, you’re introduced to many people: collaborators, decision makers, skeptics, and quiet influencers. These people form opinions about you long before outcomes are formally documented. 

Your job isn’t to pitch yourself. It’s to be memorable for the right reasons.

This means showing up in ways that make progress feel easier: 

This is how reputation compounds in the eyes of stakeholders. 

Do it right and people will mention your name in conversations you’re not a part of. Over time, those impressions travel with them as they change roles, teams, and companies. 

A simple habit helps: keep track of who you interact with and who consistently shows up in key moments. Notice where trust forms and who influences decisions, even quietly. 

For this, I suggest keeping a stakeholder mapping database. 

It’s also important to remember that small behaviors matter:

When well done, stakeholder harvesting won’t feel like biz dev baked into client work. It will feel like good consulting.

With more contacts entering your referral engine, your efforts quietly set up future work long after the current engagement ends. 

Once the final output has been delivered, many consultants simply move on. 

But I think that’s a missed opportunity. 

The end of one engagement is a gold mine of case studies. It’s when outcomes are visible, relationships are established, and the value of the work is easiest to articulate. 

Your job at this step is to close the loop deliberately – and that starts with documentation.

Not exhaustive reporting, but a clear articulation of what happened: 

This simple framework turns your experience into proof. 

It helps the client explain the value internally, which matters more than what many of us realize. When the client team and other stakeholders easily describe what you did and why it mattered, your work travels further. 

This is also a good moment to think about continuity. 

Some engagements naturally continue to extended or additional projects. Others might not, but they still create advocates. 

Either way, how you exit shapes what happens next. 

You can create a template for case studies. The key is to keep things simple and highlight what you did and how you did it. 

At Keenan Reid, we create case studies as part of our exit. 

We document everything, package it, share it back with the client, and then return it to the consultant for their own portfolio.

This does a few things at once:

When writing a case study on your own, framing matters. 

The goal isn’t to describe everything you did, but to position the client as the hero of the story – and how you helped them get there.

You came in to help solve a problem, and you left more value than initially expected. Make that visible.

A consulting practice isn’t built one deal at a time. 

It’s built by running the same engagement process well, over and over. 

First, you build relationships – introduce yourself and get to know the client and their problems deeply.

Then, you propose a possible solution – draft your proposal and follow up until you formalize the deal.

Finally, you do great work and be known for it. It’s your job to make the client’s life easier and purposefully create connections in the process.

Each engagement feeds the next, so treat it as part of a connected system instead of a standalone project. 

And when you leave clients with a clear story about their success, you don’t just finish the work – you also make the next introduction easier. 

Trust is transferred, context is set, and skepticism is lower even before the first conversation. 

That’s how the flywheel accelerates. 

This process works not because it guarantees outcomes, but because it’s repeatable. 

You won’t close everyone, and you’re not supposed to. 

The goal is to move with clarity and intent – and to focus your time on the few opportunities that are ready to move forward.

Remember, the path to success is paved with continuous learning and embracing fresh perspectives.

Let's stay connected, share ideas, and elevate your consulting business.

Stay curious, friends.

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