Look into the "3 Ways to Generate Leads With Your Podcast" E-book for free here on our website! (https://ghapodcast.com)

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Debbie brings a practitioner’s depth to leadership and team development. After years building and leading talent, culture, and organizational effectiveness functions inside large, complex companies, she now helps organizations navigate growth with stronger teams and more grounded leadership. Her approach is steady, evidence-based, and human. She focuses on the behaviors and systems that quietly determine whether strategy becomes reality. For consultants, Debbie offers a clear view into how organizations actually work, and how to guide leaders toward real change.

She helps teams align on purpose, improve collaboration, and build the internal capabilities needed for sustained performance, the areas consultants are often asked to influence but don’t always get the inside perspective on.

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Proposed Interview Structure:

1. What first pulled you toward organizational strategy and coaching, was there a specific moment when you realized this was the work where you could create the most impact for leaders and teams?

2. When clients bring you in today, what core business or team challenge are they usually struggling with, and why does that particular problem matter to you personally?

3. Who are the leaders or teams you work best with, and inside those organizations, who typically champions your work and decides to bring you in?

4. How do most clients find you today, and what approaches have been most effective for building trust and visibility for The Plager Group?

5. Your engagements often involve deep behavior change and long decision cycles, what does your typical path from first conversation to a signed engagement look like?

6. Once you’re working with a client, how do you build long-term relationships, what helps them stay with you, come back, and continue the work over time?

7. As a consultant-coach running your own practice, where do you find yourself most stuck right now, if at all?

8. Looking ahead as a consultant and organizational strategist, where do you see the biggest opportunities for your work?

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Know more about Debbie Plager

Website Link: theplagergroup.com

Connect with Debbie Plager

LinkedIn link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dsplager/

Apply to be a guest on Consulting Leaders:

https://ghapodcast.com/application-to-be-a-guest-on-consulting-leaders/

Look into the "3 Ways to Generate Leads With Your Podcast" E-book for free here on our website! (https://ghapodcast.com)

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Helen Hanison has spent over a decade coaching leaders, founders, and leadership teams who look successful on paper, but feel stuck, misaligned, or at risk of losing their best people. Her work focuses on helping leaders-in-waiting regain momentum, clarity, and confidence before disengagement quietly sets in. With early experience as a Consultant Director at H+K Strategies and a first-class degree in Psychology, Helen brings both commercial credibility and behavioural depth. She now works with organisations like Shell, Citibank, GSK, IBM, and WPP, designing leadership interventions that strengthen emotional resilience, psychological safety, and purposeful performance.

Helen is also the bestselling author of Unstuck, where she shares her practical framework for purposeful career redesign, born from her own experience of climbing the corporate ladder only to realise it was leaning against the wrong wall. Her work is especially relevant for consulting firm owners navigating retention challenges, leadership fatigue, and the quiet disengagement of high performers.

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Proposed Interview Structure:

1. What first pulled you into consulting and leadership coaching after your agency career?

2. What is the core problem you help leaders and organisations solve today, and why do you think it’s becoming more critical for consulting firms specifically?

3. Who are your ideal clients now, and who is usually the decision-maker when they bring you in?

4. How do organisations and leaders typically discover your work, and what has proven most effective in attracting the right clients? Current Aquisition Channels: Referral, Content, Webinars, Podcast (guesting), Speaking engagements Sub Question: What’s your perspective on podcasting as a marketing tool in the consulting and coaching space?

5. Selling leadership and culture work often involves long cycles and multiple stakeholders, how do you usually bring those conversations to a decision?

6. Once a client starts working with you, how do you retain them over time, what do you do deliberately to build trust, create ongoing value, and keep clients coming back?

7. Where do you find yourself most stuck right now, whether in growth, positioning, or the next evolution of your work (if at all)?

8. Looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunities, or risks, in leadership and talent retention over the next few years?

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Know more about Helen Hanison

Link: https://www.helenhanison.com/

link: https://helenhanisonbook.com/step-1-ebook--bump-page

Connect with Helen Hanison on LinkedIn

link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helen-hanison-com/

Apply to be a guest on Consulting Leaders:

https://ghapodcast.com/application-to-be-a-guest-on-consulting-leaders/

Look into the "3 Ways to Generate Leads With Your Podcast" E-book for free here on our website! (https://ghapodcast.com)

**********************************************************************

Graham has spent his career working with leaders who know what needs to change, yet lack the time, headspace, or internal support to make it happen. His work centres on providing the independent, focused resource CEOs need to actually implement the transformation they’ve been circling for months or years. He’s supported organisations ranging from Unilever and KFC to privately owned SMEs and major universities, giving him a rare cross-industry perspective on how leaders think and how change really sticks.

Today, he operates at the intersection of executive coaching and mental fitness, helping senior leaders strengthen clarity, resilience, and execution. For consulting firm owners, Graham brings a powerful message: high-quality advisory work isn’t about telling leaders what to do, it’s about creating the conditions for them to do it with conviction.

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Proposed Interview Structure:

1. What first led you into consulting and executive coaching, and when did you realise you wanted to focus on supporting senior leaders through change?

2. You often say that leaders already know what needs to change, they just need help making it happen. What specific problems are you solving for them, and why does that work matter to you personally?

3. Who are your ideal clients today, CEOs, founders, NEDs, and who within an organisation typically champions or approves working with you?

4. How do clients usually find you, and what marketing efforts have consistently worked best for attracting senior-level advisory and coaching work? Current Aquisition Channels: Referral, Content, Google Ads, Meta Ads, Webinars, Speaking engagements, Cold outreach Sub Question: What’s your view on podcasts as a marketing tool for consultants and coaches, especially those working with senior leaders?

5. How do you guide organisations from the first conversation to a committed engagement, especially around sensitive topics like leadership behaviour and organisational change?

6. Once you begin working with a client, how do you maintain the relationship, deliver consistent value, and ensure they continue coming back to you over the long term?

7. As an experienced coach, where do you find yourself most stuck right now in your own business, whether in positioning, scale, or the type of work you want to be doing?

8. Looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunities in leadership development and organisational change over the next few years?

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Know more about Graham Whiley

Website Link: https://www.sagegreen.com/

Connect with Graham Whiley on LinkedIn

LinkedIn link: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/grahamwhiley

Apply to be a guest on Consulting Leaders:

https://ghapodcast.com/application-to-be-a-guest-on-consulting-leaders/

Look into the "3 Ways to Generate Leads With Your Podcast" E-book for free here on our website! (https://ghapodcast.com)

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Julie works at the intersection of AI, operations, and process optimization. She helps companies and universities redesign how work gets done: from mapping and simplifying processes, to cleaning up data and building dashboards that leaders actually use.

Her focus is always the same: reduce complexity, increase speed and accuracy of decisions, and make AI a practical tool instead of a shiny toy. Before going independent, she led sales effectiveness, forecasting, and CRM/ERP initiatives at Dräger and other international organizations, where she cut decision-making from weeks to days and lifted forecast accuracy from 40% to 90%.

As a board leader, she’s also driven operational and financial turnarounds, including shifting an international school from negative equity to a €1.5M positive position while cutting costs and growing “customers” (students) by 18%. For consulting firm owners, Julie brings a very grounded angle on AI: if your data, processes, people, and systems aren’t aligned, AI will just amplify the mess.

We’ll talk through how to diagnose that foundation, how to design practical AI use cases, and how to position yourself as the firm that doesn’t just “talk AI” but actually delivers measurable improvements.

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Proposed Interview Structure:

1. What first drew you into consulting and transformation work, and when did AI become central to what you do?

2. When clients bring you in today, what core problems are you usually solving for them? And why does it matter so much to you personally?

3. Who are your ideal clients right now, and who are the key decision makers you typically work with?

4. How do most clients find you today, and what’s worked best to attract new business? Current Aquisition Channel: Referral, Content, Speaking engagements, Cold outreach Sub Question: Where do you see podcasts fitting into the marketing mix for consultants in your space?

5. In complex organizations with long sales cycles, what does your sales process look like from first conversation to signed engagement?

6. Once you’re working with a client, how do you structure things to deliver consistent results, keep them coming back and keep the relationship long term?

7. As an AI consultant today, where do you feel most constrained or ‘stuck,’ if at all?

8. Looking ahead a few years, where do you see the biggest opportunities at the intersection of AI, processes, and operations?

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Connect with Julie Ann Rosenthal on LinkedIn

LinkedIn link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jsr-julie-ann-rosenthal/

Apply to be a guest on Consulting Leaders:

https://ghapodcast.com/application-to-be-a-guest-on-consulting-leaders/

Look into the "3 Ways to Generate Leads With Your Podcast" E-book for free here on our website! (https://ghapodcast.com)

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Alastair’s work sits at the intersection of structure, behaviour, and strategy. At Tricordant, he has guided leaders through significant organisational challenges by combining behavioural science with practical, co-created design methods. His approach is rooted in clarity, collaboration, and designing environments where people and organisations can perform sustainably.

He has also played a longstanding role in shaping the organisation design field through the European Organisation Design Forum, while contributing to leadership practice in healthcare, nonprofits, and complex systems. Consultants will appreciate his nuanced view on diagnosing problems, building trust with senior decision-makers, and designing change that actually sticks.

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Proposed Interview Structure:

1. What originally sparked your interest in organisation design and OD, and how did that journey lead you to founding Tricordant back in 2005?

2. Across all the work you do today, what are the core organisational challenges you’re most focused on helping leaders solve, and why are those the problems you care about most?

3. When you look at Tricordant’s client base, who are the ideal organisations and leaders you tend to serve best, and who are the real decision-makers involved in approving and shaping your consulting engagements?

4. How do clients typically find you and your team, and what marketing or reputation-building approaches have reliably worked for Tricordant over the years? Current Aquisition Channels: Referral, Webinars, Tender Sub Question: What’s your perspective on podcasts as a marketing tool for consultants and OD practitioners?

5. For the type of system-level and organisation design work you do, the sales cycle can be long. What does your process usually look like from first conversation to securing commitment from senior leaders?

6. You’ve worked with many clients over extended periods. What do you and your team do to retain clients, strengthen long-term relationships, and ensure they keep coming back to work with Tricordant?

7. As a consultant and firm leader, where do you currently find yourself most stuck, if at all, in your work or in the evolution of Tricordant?

8. Looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunities for your consulting practice, and for organisation design more broadly, over the next few years?

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Know more about Alastair Mitchell-Baker

Website Link: http://www.tricordant.com/

Connect with Alastair Mitchell-Baker on LinkedIn

LinkedIn link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alastair-mitchell-baker-a01babb/

Apply to be a guest on Consulting Leaders:

https://ghapodcast.com/application-to-be-a-guest-on-consulting-leaders/

Look into the "3 Ways to Generate Leads With Your Podcast" E-book for free here on our website! (https://ghapodcast.com)

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Whitney leads WG Business Enterprises, a consulting firm focused on operational systems, leadership, and technology for small to mid-sized organizations. She often steps in as a fractional COO or operations partner for founders who are stuck in the weeds and dealing with bottlenecks, unclear ownership, and tech chaos.

Her lens is practical: identify the real constraint, clean up the foundation, then rebuild the business so the owner can actually lead. Her experience spans opening large-scale facilities, managing multi-disciplinary teams, implementing software that saved hundreds of thousands of dollars, and driving performance across multiple simultaneous client engagements. She sees what breaks inside consulting and service businesses long before it becomes a fires-drill problem, and she knows how to fix it.

For consultants, Whitney’s message is simple: revenue grows when operations mature. This conversation explores how she diagnoses issues, builds systems clients will actually use, and turns relationships into long-term engagements. **********************************************************

Proposed Interview Structure:

1. Whitney, you’ve built a career turning chaos into clarity for organizations. What originally pulled you into operations and eventually into starting your own consulting firm?

2. In your work at WG Business Enterprises, what’s the core operational problem clients bring you in to fix, and why is solving that problem meaningful to you?

3. Who are your ideal clients today, and who are the key decision-makers that usually bring you in?

4. Where does most of your consulting business come from today, and what’s proven to be the most effective way for you personally to attract the right clients? Current Aquisition Channels: Referral, Content Sub Question: From your perspective, how do you see podcasts playing a role in marketing for consultants and operations leaders? Have you seen them influence trust or relationship-building in your space?

5. Operations consulting often requires educating clients and building trust. What does your sales process look like from first conversation to signed engagement, and how do you guide clients toward clarity?

6. Once a client brings you in, how do you maintain the relationship, ensure they see consistent operational improvement, and keep them coming back for long-term engagements?

7. Where do you find yourself most stuck right now in your own practice (if at all), and how are you thinking about overcoming that?

8. Looking ahead a few years, where do you see the biggest opportunities in business operations and fractional leadership?

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Know more about Whitney Goulish

Website Link: https://wgbusinessenterprises.com/

Connect with Whitney Goulish on LinkedIn

LinkedIn link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitney-goulish-business-operations-technology/

Apply to be a guest on Consulting Leaders:

https://ghapodcast.com/application-to-be-a-guest-on-consulting-leaders/

Look into the "3 Ways to Generate Leads With Your Podcast" E-book for free here on our website! (https://ghapodcast.com)

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Justin Hoffman has spent almost 30 years operating at the intersection of sales, strategy, and execution in the global energy sector. As Founder and CEO of cSolutions, he doesn’t sell a single product or methodology, he builds ecosystems. His work focuses on synthesizing partner value propositions and directing them to the right people, at the right companies, at the right time.

cSolutions was intentionally built to avoid dependence on a single energy cycle. Instead, Justin works across oil & gas, offshore wind, renewables, infrastructure, and emerging technologies, helping clients grow without increasing headcount or internal risk. His model is lean, scalable, and deeply relationship-driven. Beyond his company, Justin is a GlobalScot and Houston Ambassador for the Scottish Business Network, where he supports Scottish innovators expanding internationally.

In this conversation, we explore how consultants can position themselves as connectors, how trust and long-term relationships drive growth, and why ecosystem thinking is becoming essential in complex consulting environments.

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Proposed Interview Structure:

1. What originally got you into consulting and advisory work within the energy sector?

2. What core problem does cSolutions solve for companies today, and why was that important enough for you to build a business around it?

3. Who are your ideal clients now, and who are the real decision-makers you’re typically engaging with?

4. How do clients usually find you today, and what’s worked best for building credibility and opening doors in such a complex industry? Current Aquisition Channels: Network & Networking Sub Question: What’s your perspective on podcasts as a marketing and positioning tool in the consulting and energy space?

5. Energy projects often come with long, complex sales cycles. How do you typically move from first conversation to a signed engagement?

6. Once a client starts working with you, how do you ensure they keep coming back, and how do you intentionally build long-term, trust-based relationships rather than one-off engagements?

7. Where do you find yourself most stuck right now as a consultant and ecosystem builder, if at all, as cSolutions continues to grow?

8. Looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunities in and around the energy transition?

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Know more about Justin Hoffman

Website Link: https://www.getcsolutions.com/

Connect with Justin Hoffman on LinkedIn

LinkedIn link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justhoffman/

Apply to be a guest on Consulting Leaders:

https://ghapodcast.com/application-to-be-a-guest-on-consulting-leaders/

Look into the "3 Ways to Generate Leads With Your Podcast" E-book for free here on our website! (https://ghapodcast.com)

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Michelle Choate has spent more than two decades inside organizations, developing leaders, shaping culture, and building emotionally intelligent teams, including as Senior Director of Culture & Community at Ascension and as an internal OD leader at St. Luke’s Health System. Today, through MLChoate Inc., she works as an executive coach, EQ strategist, speaker, and retreat leader. Her work centers on one core idea: self-leadership first.

Michelle helps leaders and teams get clear on what they want to achieve, how they’ll measure it, and how aligned they are around outcomes, from the C-suite to HR to the teams delivering the work. Emotional intelligence, for her, is not “soft stuff”; it’s a practical lever for performance, engagement, and reduced people-risk.

In this conversation, we’ll dig into how consulting firm owners can use emotional intelligence to lead better teams, run better projects, and protect their firms, from strained client relationships to internal conflict and burnout. We’ll also talk about how Michelle uses speaking, retreats, and partnerships with organizations to win and keep high-value clients.

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Proposed Interview Structure:

1. What first pulled you toward emotional intelligence and self-leadership, and how did that evolve into launching MLChoate Inc. as your own consulting and coaching business?

2. When organizations bring you in, what specific problems are you most often solving, and how do you translate “EQ” into business outcomes leaders actually care about?

3. Who are your best-fit clients today, industries, types of teams, and decision makers, and what signals tell you, “This is a great engagement for me”?

4. In practice, what has worked best to grow your business, keynote speaking, referrals, retreats, HR/legal partners, and how intentional are you about positioning yourself around EQ for leaders and teams? Sub Question: What’s your take on podcasts as a marketing tool in the coaching/consulting space, when do they make sense, and when do they not?

5. Your work often involves sensitive dynamics and multiple stakeholders. How do you typically move a potential client from “we’re curious” to a committed engagement?

6. As a coach, facilitator, and retreat leader, how do you keep clients coming back, what do you deliberately do to build long-term relationships and turn one-off projects into ongoing partnerships?

7. Where do you find yourself most stuck or stretched right now as a coach and consultant, whether it’s scale, capacity, pricing, or something else (if at all)?

8. Looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunities for emotional intelligence and self-leadership work with consulting and leadership teams over the next few years?

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Know more about Michelle Choate

Website Link: https://michellechoate.com/

Connect with Michelle Choate on LinkedIn

LinkedIn link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/choatemichelle/

Apply to be a guest on Consulting Leaders:

https://ghapodcast.com/application-to-be-a-guest-on-consulting-leaders/

Look into the "3 Ways to Generate Leads With Your Podcast" E-book for free here on our website! (https://ghapodcast.com)

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Paul works at the intersection of growth, risk, and exit, where most founders eventually realize that a profitable business is not the same as a transferable one. As founder of Cornerstone 3 Inc. and co-founder of 10X Strategy.co, he’s built an integrated model that brings leadership redesign, capital readiness, operating systems, and succession into one discipline: Capital-Ready Enterprise Design™.

Rather than just “running a tighter ship,” Paul helps owners build businesses that can run without them, withstand investor and PE diligence, and command premium multiples. His work spans 48+ founder-led companies, more than $1.2B in value growth, and several successful exits, including a 10× EBITDA, $50M transaction.

For consulting firm owners, this conversation is about designing a consulting business that isn’t hero-led, that can scale beyond the founder, and that could one day be sold on favorable terms. We’ll unpack how to engineer transferability, what buyers and investors really look for, and how you can use that lens both in your own firm and when advising clients.

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Proposed Interview Structure:

1. What pulled you into designing ‘Capital-Ready’ and ‘Acquisition-Ready’ companies, coming from an accounting and operating background?

2. What specific problem are you solving for founders with Capital-Ready Enterprise Design™, and why does this issue of ‘trapped wealth’ matter so much to you personally?

3. Who are your ideal clients today in practical terms, size, stage, profile, and who are the actual decision-makers you need aligned?

4. How do founders usually find you, and what have you learned actually gets a busy owner to pay attention to the transferability and exit question before it’s too late? Current Aquisition Channels: Referral, Webinars, Speaking engagements Sub Question: How do you see podcasts fitting into your world, as a way to educate founders and as a marketing tool for advisors and consultants in this space?

5. Your work touches strategy, family, succession, and exit, all long-cycle, emotional decisions. What does your sales process look like from first conversation to engagement, and how do you build enough trust to move a founder from ‘someday’ to ‘let’s start’?

6. Once a client signs on, how do you keep them with you over a 12-36 month journey, what rhythms, touchpoints, or results do you focus on to retain clients and turn engagements into long-term relationships?

7. Where do you feel most stuck or constrained right now in your own practice, is it capacity, educating the market, building a team, or something else (If at all)?

8. Looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunities in your field, helping founder-led companies become acquisition-ready and structurally transferable.

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Know more about Paul Cronin

Website Link: https://cornerstone3inc.com/

Connect with Paul Cronin on LinkedIn

LinkedIn link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-cronin-cs3/

Apply to be a guest on Consulting Leaders:

https://ghapodcast.com/application-to-be-a-guest-on-consulting-leaders/

Look into the "3 Ways to Generate Leads With Your Podcast" E-book for free here on our website! (https://ghapodcast.com)

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Betsy works at the intersection of strategic HR, leadership development, and executive coaching. She partners with organizations that are growing fast, often faster than their people systems can keep up. Her work helps founders, executives, and teams move from reactive HR to intentional, scalable structures that support culture, clarity, and long-term success. Her background spans enterprise environments with tens of thousands of employees to startup teams building from scratch.

She’s seen how turnover, inconsistent leadership, and compliance gaps quietly erode growth, and conversely, how early investment in leadership coaching and HR foundations transforms performance.

Consulting Leaders will appreciate her ability to translate people challenges into business outcomes. Today, Betsy leads B2B HR Consulting while serving as an executive and professional coach, board member, and community leader within ICF Arizona. Her philosophy is simple but powerful: when leaders grow, organizations grow.

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Proposed Interview Structure:

1. What originally drew you into HR and eventually into executive coaching and consulting? Was there a moment when you realized this was the work you wanted to specialize in?

2. You talk a lot about “silent risks” in growing businesses, especially around HR infrastructure that can’t keep pace. What specific problem are you solving for your clients today, and why does this issue matter so much to you?

3. Who are your ideal clients, and within those organizations, who are the decision makers that typically bring you in?

4. How do clients typically find you today? What has worked best for attracting new business that other consultants might learn from? Current Aquisition Channels: Referrals Sub Question: And in your view, how effective is podcasting as a marketing tool for coaches and consultants in the HR and leadership space?

5. Consulting often involves long and complex sales cycles, especially when HR, leadership, and organizational change are involved. How do you usually move a conversation from initial interest to a committed engagement?

6. Once you're working with a client, how do you make sure they stay engaged, see consistent results, and continue coming back? What does long-term relationship-building look like in your consulting practice?

7. As a coach and consultant, where do you find yourself most stuck right now, if at all? What part of your practice feels like the next area you want to strengthen or evolve?

8. Looking ahead as a consultant, where do you see the biggest opportunities for your business over the next few years? What shifts in HR, leadership, or organizational development are creating new openings for the work you do?

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Know more about Betsy Dokakis

Website Link: https://www.b2bhrconsulting.com/

Connect with Betsy Dokakis on LinkedIn

LinkedIn link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/betsydokakis/

Apply to be a guest on Consulting Leaders:

https://ghapodcast.com/application-to-be-a-guest-on-consulting-leaders/