They Didn't Buy the Work. They Bet on Themselves

By Mitchell Schuckman, PCC | Founder, The Schuckman Group

I have conducted my share of post-loss debriefs with clients. When I review what I heard with the losing team, the room is usually quiet at first. Then someone says it. "They bought the work." Or: "They're going to lose money at that price." Or: "They made promises they can't keep."

I stopped nodding along a long time ago. When I was an engagement partner, I bet on myself constantly. I encourage the teams I coach to do the same. They often don't. And when they don't, they often lose. Not because those things are never true. Sometimes a competitor underprices and overpromises. But I have seen enough situations play out to know that the comfortable explanation is rarely the accurate one.

What Is Actually Happening Out There

AI is doing something to many professional services offerings, not all, but many, that the industry has not fully reckoned with yet. It is compressing the time it takes to do certain kinds of work. It is reducing the headcount required to deliver. It is changing what a reasonable price looks like for a client who is paying attention, and more of them are paying attention than ever before.

Research that used to take a junior analyst two days now takes an hour. Financial statements, regulatory applications, and other filings that required several sets of eyes are being reviewed in minutes. Document review, contract analysis, first-draft memo writing, financial reconciliations, regulatory summaries: the tools available to any professional willing to use them are getting faster and more capable almost every week. I think about this every time I consider whether I need to bring on support staff for my small coaching and consulting business, and then Claude, ChatGPT, or another tool releases new functionality that does the job for me.

The firms winning right now understand this. They are pricing for where their delivery model is going, not where it is today. They are building in efficiencies that are still being constructed, quoting a number that reflects technology they are still deploying, and telling a story about what the engagement will look like that is ambitious by design.

That is not a lie. That is a bet.

The Bet the Losing Firms Won't Make

The firms writing the post-loss analysis are usually doing one of two things. They are either not seeing the shift at all, still pricing based on delivery models and anticipated hours that do not begin to account for where AI is taking the work, or they are seeing it and deciding it is too risky to propose on that basis.

A firm that refuses to price for the future because the future is not fully built yet is not being careful. It is being outrun. The competitor who won that engagement is not planning to give up and lose money. They are planning to close the gap between the promise and the delivery incredibly quickly, and they are betting on their own ability to do it.

What Builders Understand About Confidence

I did this long before AI existed. When I was a client service partner, I would go to my leaders and ask them to let me bet on myself and my team. The pitch was simple: let me transition the client, win them over through relationships and sincere care for their success, learn their business well enough to get efficient, and push my team to do the same. It might take a year or two to get the margin right, but I knew I could figure it out. My leaders said yes, mostly because of my track record and the confidence I brought to the conversation. I almost always delivered.

The builders I coach today have the same instinct. They think hard about where their practice is heading, what technology is going to do to their delivery model, and what a fair price looks like for a client who understands the market. They tell a story that is specific enough to be credible and confident enough to be memorable. And they win.

Then they deliver. That part matters as much as anything. A builder who makes a bold promise and then walks away from the urgency of honoring it has not built anything. The confidence has to run all the way through, into the delivery, into the relationship, into every conversation with their client.

The Question Worth Sitting With

The next time your firm loses a piece of work and someone in the room says the winner bought it, push back. Ask what story the winning firm told. Ask what their price reflected about how they saw the future of delivery. Ask whether your firm was willing to have that conversation, or whether you held back because the future wasn't certain enough yet.

The future is never certain enough. Builders compete anyway.

That's how the work moves to other firms. Not because they lied. Because they were willing to bet on themselves, and you weren't sure you could do the same.

Mitchell Schuckman is the Founder and CEO of The Schuckman Group LLC. He is a Professional Certified Coach credentialed by the International Coaching Federation and the author of I'll Tell You a Great Story. He coaches senior executives, partners, and BD professionals across professional services firms worldwide. theschuckmangroup.com

Note on privacy: Some examples are composites. All identifying details have been changed.