13 lessons from building a $10M consulting practice

For nearly five years, I led the Experience Strategy and Design practice at a mid-sized international consulting firm. My team and I grew it from $0 to a $10M/year business with 25 folks across strategy, design, research, and technology, serving Fortune 500s, mid-sized companies, and startups.

That experience taught me invaluable lessons about leadership, relationships, and creating value. These lessons didn’t just shape that practice, they’re the foundation of what we’re building at StealthX. We’re focused on action, efficiency, and results. Our anti-consultant philosophy is the backbone of how we show up.

Here are 13 lessons I learned building that $10M practice and how we’re applying them at StealthX.

1. The power of small actions

When you’re building trust with clients, it’s rarely the big things that make the difference. It’s the small ones. Forgetting to follow up, showing up unprepared, or not listening closely can erode confidence in ways that are hard to recover from. On the flip side, taking the time to follow through, clarify expectations, or remember a key detail shows that you actually care. These small gestures, while easy to overlook, are the building blocks of lasting relationships.

Putting this into action:

  • At StealthX, every interaction is treated as an opportunity to build trust. We take detailed notes, share them promptly, and follow through on every commitment.

  • We’ve baked this into our culture, ensuring clients always feel heard, valued, and respected.

2. Play the long game: decades over deals

One of the most common mistakes consultants make is focusing too much on closing the deal instead of building the relationship. Clients can feel when they’re being treated as a transaction, and it’s a major turnoff. True success comes from becoming a trusted advisor. Someone that clients turn to not just for answers, but for collaboration, brainstorming, and support during tough moments.

Putting this into action:

  • At StealthX, we prioritize long-term relationships over short-term gains. We invest time in understanding our clients’ goals and challenges, even before engagements start.

  • By focusing on building trust, we create partnerships that lead to repeat business and referrals. No aggressive sales tactics required.

3. Show, don’t tell

One of the biggest frustrations clients have with traditional consulting is the reliance on theoretical discussions and endless PowerPoint decks. It’s all talk, no action. People don’t want to hear about what might work. They want to see it. Demonstrating your value early through tangible examples, mockups, or prototypes eliminates doubt and helps get buy-in.

Putting this into action:

  • At StealthX, we don’t endlessly talk about solutions. We create quick prototypes and proofs of concept to bring ideas to life.

  • We start engagements with hands-on work, letting clients experience the potential impact rather than just hearing about it.

4. Be prepared for long sales cycles

Working with large companies often feels like running a marathon. Bureaucracy, shifting priorities, and internal politics can drag out the process, leaving your team frustrated or overcommitted. Without patience and strategic resource allocation, you risk wasting time on deals that never materialize.

Putting this into action:

  • We carefully evaluate opportunities at StealthX to ensure the potential payoff justifies the effort.

  • Tools like real-time forecasting and AI-powered insights help us prioritize high-value prospects and avoid spinning our wheels on low-probability deals.

5. Don’t count on deals until they’re signed

It’s easy to assume that once verbal agreements are made, the deal is done. But things can fall apart at any moment. Budget cuts, leadership changes, or unexpected legal hurdles are all common challenges. Staffing a project prematurely or relying on unconfirmed revenue can put your team in a tough spot.

Putting this into action:

  • We’ve built agility into StealthX’s operations, ensuring we can adjust quickly when plans change.

  • We never allocate significant resources to a deal until the contract is fully executed, protecting our team from unnecessary disruption.

6. Build systems early

As you scale, chaos becomes inevitable without clear systems. Teams waste time reinventing processes, knowledge gets siloed, and inefficiency grows. Building scalable systems early creates a foundation for consistency, speed, and alignment, even as you grow.

Putting this into action:

  • We’ve created a shared knowledge hub and standardized processes to make sure our teams can move fast and cut down on time/effort to transfer knowledge.

  • Where it makes sense, we’re experimenting with AI tools and automation to minimize inefficiency and free up time for high-value work.

7. Hire for mindset, not just skills

Hard skills can be taught. Mindset is harder to change. If you hire people who don’t align with your values or culture, you risk creating disjointed teams that struggle to collaborate. Things like curiosity, empathy, and initiative is the true driver of team success.

Putting this into action:

  • At StealthX, we prioritize hiring people who embody our core values: a growth mindset, strong communication, a bias for action, and a high “give-a-shit” factor.

  • We invest in continuous development to help team members grow into their roles, rather than expecting perfection from day one.

8. Be willing to walk away

Not all opportunities are worth it. Misaligned projects drain your team’s energy and create unnecessary stress. Saying no requires courage but protects your team’s well-being and builds credibility with clients who value your integrity.

Putting this into action:

  • We regularly evaluate opportunities against our values and goals, saying no to work that doesn’t align.

  • This focus ensures we dedicate our energy to projects where we can create the most impact.

9. Invest in yourself

Your team can only grow as much as you do. Leaders who prioritize personal growth set the tone for a culture of learning, resilience, and innovation. When you don’t invest in yourself, you risk becoming the bottleneck to your team’s progress.

Putting this into action:

  • We prioritize leadership development at StealthX, from coaching to regular self-reflection.

  • I’m doing my best to model continuous growth and encourage every one on the squad to do the same.

10. Ask better questions

Clients don’t just need answers. They need help identifying the right questions. A powerful question can reframe problems, clarify goals, and unlock solutions that weren’t obvious before.

Putting this into action:

Our conversations often begin with high-level questions like, “Why do you want to do this? What’s the ultimate outcome? So what? Who is this for? How do you know this is the right problem? Imagine it’s the end of the year and you’re raising a toast to a successful year, what will you have accomplished? Who else should be involved? What might cause us to fail? Anything else?” This questioning approach ensures we’re solving the right problems and delivering meaningful impact.

11. Use storytelling

Stories stick. Data is important, but without a compelling narrative, it’s hard to move people emotionally. Stories help clients understand the stakes, visualize success, and get excited about the possibilities.

Putting this into action:

  • At StealthX, we use storytelling to bring customer challenges to life, helping clients see the human impact of their decisions.

  • Every presentation, deliverable, or workshop is designed to resonate emotionally and intellectually.

12. Start small, scale big

Starting with a small win builds trust, reduces risk, and creates a foundation for deeper engagement. Large upfront engagements often lead to skepticism and misaligned expectations.

Putting this into action:

  • We focus on delivering quick wins that showcase our value within the first 90 days of every project.

  • By proving impact early, we earn trust and build lasting client relationships.

13. Prioritize outcomes over “annuities”

Traditional consulting often traps clients in recurring retainers and long, drawn-out projects that don’t serve their goals. True value comes from focusing on measurable outcomes, not dependency.

Putting this into action:

  • Every StealthX project has clear success metrics, timelines, and deliverables.

  • We prioritize solutions that empower clients to succeed long after the engagement ends.

Wrapping up

These lessons didn’t just shape my past. They’re the foundation of how we work at StealthX today. We’re hell-bent on rejecting the status quo of traditional consulting and working hard to create a model that’s faster, more impactful, and laser-focused on results.

Onward & upward,
Drew

P.s. If we haven’t met yet, hello! I’m Drew Burdick, Founder and Managing Partner at StealthX. We work with brands to design & build great customer experiences that win. I share ideas weekly through this newsletter & over on the Building Great Experiences podcast. Have a question? Feel free to contact us or message me on LinkedIn, I’d love to hear from you 😊