How To Charge More and Work Less as a Choosy Consultant

Embrace the Choosy Consultant flywheel to propel yourself toward living your best life.

Kaiser Permanente’s Thrive advertising campaign triggers its flywheel. Wellness leads to affordable healthcare. Photo by Dane Wetton on Unsplash.

In “Good to Great,” Jim Collins introduced us to the flywheel effect in business.

The concept denotes a self-reinforcing system that gains momentum over time. Pieces of the system not only fit together but do so in a way that build on each other. The result? A self-fulfilling, ever-improving business system.

I’ve looked for flywheels ever since reading Jim Collins over 20 years ago. As a consultant, I first saw the flywheel effect in action at my client, Kaiser Permanente, in 2006.

Fifteen years later, I would discover my own flywheel when I became a Choosy Consultant.

“Independent consultants become choosy by continuously cranking the Choosy Consultant flywheel.”

Kaiser Permanente’s Thrive Flywheel

Launched in 2004 with the Broccoli Manifesto, Kaiser Permanente’s Thrive campaign isn’t simply brand marketing, though it is brilliant at that too.

Photo credit: Kaiser Permanente

The campaign also highlights Kaiser Permanente’s strategic vision for its health plan membership, employees, and the community. The vision of widely available, affordable care for everyone aligns with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Triple Aim framework.

“ The IHI Triple Aim framework — the simultaneous pursuit of better care for individuals, better health for populations, and lower per capita costs — has become increasingly central to improving health care.”

So, how does Kaiser Permanente do it?

Kaiser Permanente’s Thrive Flywheel

Kaiser Permanente’s Thrive strategy and campaign trigger the flywheel effect.

1. Promoting healthy lifestyle. Members, employees, and communities are urged to get active, sleep well, and eat healthy. This message is shared far and wide.

leading to…

2. More preventative care. Newly self-identified health-conscious individuals seek out annual checkups, recommended tests, and screenings, all to catch potential sickness sooner.

leading to…

3. Less expensive healthcare services. Members are treated early and before sicknesses turn serious and costly through emergency room visits and hospitalizations.

leading to…

4. Cheaper health insurance. Kaiser Permanente is able to keep its costs low and then share savings with its customers through cheaper health insurance.

leading to…

5. More people are insured. More individuals choose Kaiser Permanente given its lower cost and focus on health and wellness. Health plan membership grows.

Kaiser Permanente achieves its strategic vision through a wonderful, self-reinforcing cycle packaged in what we now know as Thrive.

The Choosy Consultant Flywheel

In 2021, I discovered the Choosy Consultant flywheel effect. The flywheel assumes three things. 

• You are a skilled consultant valued by clients. 

• You have built a personal savings and investment cushion. 

• You’ve started your own independent consulting business (to control your destiny).

Given that, how does the Choosy Consultant flywheel work?

The Choosy Consultant Flywheel

Your incredible consulting work triggers the flywheel effect. It’s a good place to start because great work is always the foundation for anything else you build. In our case, you’re building yourself a choosy lifestyle.

1. Higher value work and better client results. You help clients with their biggest challenges because it's the most intellectually stimulating work for you.

leading to…

2. Higher consulting prices and profit margins. The high-value work you perform builds your skills and expertise, your impact, and your pricing power.

leading to…

3. More time for rest and rejuvenation. Because this intense work takes a lot out of you, you are right to build in time to rest and rejuvenate.

leading to…

4. Increased commitment to do great work. Then you return to the consulting game refreshed. You’re ready to work even harder for clients at higher rates, further protecting your choosy lifestyle.

The Choosy Consultant flywheel reinforces high-value consulting conducted on your terms. The seasonal nature of work guarantees you lead a full life and feel energized every time you return.

Who wouldn’t want to do intellectually stimulating, well-paid consulting between long vacations? I can see myself doing it forever.

Flywheels can be grand and corporate like Kaiser Permanente or narrow and personal like Choosy Consulant. When the pieces fit and propel a greater mission, it seems to defy physics.

A life that is better and easier to live as you live it? We all need that.

—-

Brian Herriot hunts for flywheels from his home in Alameda, California, and cabin in Hazelhurst, Wisconsin. He also prepares financial freedom plans for consultants and other mid-career professionals in one-week sprints. Check out his take on a new and different kind of retirement at choosyconsultant.com.