The Expert Shift by Dieter Brandt

Starting Your Consulting Business at 50+

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Everybody wants the new tool and the secret sauce for success.

The AI prompt.The hidden workflow.The customers list ready to buy.The shortcut that turns experience into clients. Let me reflect first on how I use AI today. It's about evaluating faster, structure insights, prep client work, and create assets that would’ve been out of reach 2–3 years ago. Espec...

May 02, 2026

Reduced variance. Higher trust. Better clients.

Why many senior executives struggle when they star consulting?Over the years I clearly saw that most senior executives do not struggle in consulting because they lack expertise. It is also not about missing effort or energy they put in to start their next professional chapter. They usually strug...

Apr 25, 2026

AI won't replace you. But it may change your career decisions.

Why more executives should think about entrepreneurship now For a long time, a senior executive career offered something that mattered deeply: predictability. If you performed, delivered results, and kept moving, the system gave you structure, status, and a clear next step. That model is becoming...

Apr 18, 2026

Reduced variance. Higher trust. Better clients.

Let's put one of the most critical questions on the table why many senior exectuves struggle when they start in consulting... Most senior executives do not struggle in consulting because they lack expertise. They struggle because they bring too much of it to the market. That may sound strange at ...

Apr 11, 2026

You do not need more leads. You need better conversations.

Many senior executives think their challenge in consulting is visibility. It isn’t.It is conversation. I learned this years ago selling capital goods in the printing industry.These were not quick transactions.Some projects took up to two years before a decision was made. You do not survive in tha...

Apr 04, 2026

Younger consultants sell theory. You sell pattern recognition.

Too many senior executives look at their corporate years and think: “Was this a detour?”I see the opposite. Your 20+ years in corporate are not baggage.They are your unfair advantage. I know this because I lived it myself.I worked in headquarters and in the market.Spent 20 years abroad in regiona...

Mar 28, 2026

AI will not kill consulting. But it will kill average consulting.

Dear Reader, One question keeps coming up in my conversations with executives and consultants: “Will there still be a future for solopreneur consultants in the age of AI?” My answer is: yes — but not for everyone. Because AI is changing the game fast. Clients will do more research themselves.Th...

Mar 21, 2026

The moment I knew freedom was no longer optional

There are moments in life when your career stops being the priority.Not because you lost ambition.But because life makes the decision for you. Because something far more important takes over:The people you love need you. And in that moment, one question decides everything:Do you control your life...

Mar 14, 2026

When you leave corporate, you don't lose your competence.

You lose your systems. That’s why independence feels harder than it should.Not because you suddenly became “less capable.”Not because your experience stopped mattering.But because, overnight, four invisible systems disappear — and nobody warns you. “Leaving corporate doesn’t remove your value. I...

Mar 07, 2026

How I wasted months after leaving corporate (and the 3 mindset traps that caused it)

A senior executive wrote to me after taking the Index: “Dieter — this is spot on. But why do I still feel stuck, even though I’m doing ‘the right things’?” I know that feeling. When I left corporate and started building Brandt & Partners, I thought my experience would protect me. It didn’t. In...

Mar 04, 2026

From Expertise to Offers

Dear reader, When I started building my consulting business as a solopreneur, I had one thing above all: experience. What I didn’t have was a clear system for turning experience into revenue, revenue into stability, and stability into freedom. I assumed (like many senior executives do): “If I’m g...

Feb 28, 2026

Webinar Slides – Don’t Miss Out

Dear reader, Thank you for registering and showing interest in "From Executive to Entrepreneur". Whether you were able to join us yesterday or not, we truly appreciate your time and participation. As promised, here are the presentation slides:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zjhDw55xtWUlYFGChNwfn...

Feb 27, 2026

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