How To Build a Consulting Business Around What Makes You Different – with Magnus Wood, Founder of Wild Leadership

In this episode of the HR business marketing podcast, A Better HR Business, Ben speaks with Magnus Wood, Founder & Board Adviser of Wild Leadership, a company helping founders and senior leaders who have been quietly domesticated by the organizations they run to get their edge back.

Magnus Wood is a board adviser, leadership thinker, and former CMO with more than 30 years of experience across global businesses and startups. His career has spanned roles from Managing Director to Chief Marketing Officer, most recently as CMO and board director of a PE-backed business.

His work explores what happens when leaders become too shaped by the organisations they lead—when caution replaces conviction, and “being sensible” starts to mean saying what will land rather than what needs to be said.

Through his work with CEOs and leadership teams, Magnus focuses on what is genuinely getting in the way, rather than simply treating the commercial symptoms. His approach, which he calls Wild Leadership, challenges conventional organisational thinking and encourages leaders to become more grounded, courageous, and fully themselves.

Magnus shares his thinking through essays, a podcast, and a book currently in development.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• How to recognize and overcome “domestication” as a consultant or senior leader.
• Why finding your niche and reclaiming your unique edge helps attract the right consulting clients.
• How AI tools can empower HR and workplace consultants to save time, add value, and stand out in the market.

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About The ‘A Better HR Business’ Podcast

In my HR marketing podcast, I talk with different HR consultants and HR tech companies from around the world to learn about what they do and how they keep their businesses healthy and moving in the right direction.

If you have questions you want to ask me about growing an HR consultancy or marketing for HR tech companies, just let me know or visit the HR marketing services page.

Remember to subscribe to our mailing list to get notified of new episodes.

Enjoy the show!

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Episode Transcript

Episode 317: How To Build a Consulting Business Around What Makes You Different – with Magnus Wood, Founder of Wild Leadership

Ben [00:00:28]:
Hello, welcome back to the show. Great to have you along, and I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation with Magnus Wood. Magnus is the founder of Wild Leadership and an advisor to founders and CEOs, with a wealth of experience, and we’re going to get into Wild Leadership and how it helps. But firstly, Magnus, thanks very much for joining me today.

Magnus Wood [00:00:46]:
Thank you very much for having me, Ben. It’s a real pleasure. I’m looking forward to our conversation.

Ben [00:00:49]:
Yeah, and you’re based in the southern part of the UK, right? Whereabouts?

Magnus Wood [00:00:53]:
I am, yeah. I live in Sevenoaks, and I also have a boat, a narrowboat, moored in Godalming in Surrey that I spend lots of weekends and some of my time in as well, which is lovely. Really nice this time of year. So I live in a couple of places.

Ben [00:01:06]:
For people listening, Wild Leadership helps founders and senior leaders who have been quietly domesticated by the organizations they run to get their edge back. And the work is direct and personal. And Magnus has also built Bearings, which is a fixed-price program that helps senior people work out their next move when a role ends or goes flat. And that’s a huge thing. And it’s only going to get bigger, I think. So let’s start with the context. Give us the background to the formation of Wild Leadership.

Magnus Wood [00:01:31]:
Yeah, so I’ve worked in corporates and startups for over 30 years. I’ve been an MD, I’ve been a CMO, I’ve been all sorts of things. I’ve got a degree in psychology. I started working in advertising. So I guess I’ve always been interested in people in that sense and the kind of people aspects of business. Time and time again, as I went through my career, and this would happen to me, I saw good people just get hollowed out by the pressures of work, the stress of work, and really operate not at the level they could or should do. A lot of the people I work with are in the second half of their work, as I saw it described the other day. So maybe in their kind of 50s going forward, you know, with a good slug of experience behind them.

Also, you know, in positions of authority, they could be on the board or they could be a leader of a team, you know, or something like that. And so time and time again, I kept seeing this kind of hollowing out, and I didn’t really have words for it until I was exited from a business. And so that forced my hand to do a couple of things, to go, right, I’m not going to work for anyone ever again. I said that previously and then took a job because it was kind of good money and all the rest of it.

But also, getting towards the second half of my career, as it were, what have I learned and how could I be useful? And I just kind of stumbled across this idea of Wild Leadership, partly because I’ve got a love of nature, and I think it’s really important to reconnect with nature, and time spent in nature is a good thing. So this kind of idea of reconnecting with the wild came. And then there’s all sorts of people with all sorts of perspectives on leadership. And I thought, well, there’s some things that stood me in good stead that I know to be true. One of which is, if you as a leader create space for people to do their best work and get yourself out of the way and get things out of the way for them, people tend to enjoy their work, do better work, and everything’s better. So I had a few things kicking around and just came across this idea of Wild Leadership, you know, and then kicked around this thought of what does that mean? Does that mean a return to the wild, as it were? And actually, that’s when I landed on this thought of domestication, which actually became a way for me to articulate the behavior that I saw in lots of leaders over time and could see in my own behavior, which is you kind of, bit by bit, you fit in. You know, you might not say something that was as provocative as you would do when you first started your career, because you learn that that’s not doing you any good.

And so bit by bit, I see people having their kind of their edges chiseled off them a bit, and they just become tamer versions of themselves. Most people don’t notice that. And that’s why I talk about those three moves, which the first of which is to recognize domestication. So actually see that that’s happened to you. And we’ll talk about marketing later. A lot of my marketing is actually about holding that mirror up to people and going, look, this is what’s going on. So that’s kind of where it came from. And domestication is, if you contrast that with wild, it’s that you’ve just kind of lost the edge.

You’ve taken the stuff that made you unique and different and better than others. And you’ve kind of let the system or the machine or whatever you want to call work rub it off a bit. So you just don’t have the edge that you used to have. And I think that’s where Wild Leadership started, because I thought, well, if you could return to that edge, you know, if you could bring that back, what made you great in the first place, particularly when you were younger and what got you to the position of leadership you’re in now, that’s a good thing for you, but it also has to be a good thing for the organizations you work for.

Ben [00:04:42]:
Yeah, very interesting. So it’s almost about risk minimization, risk avoidance, playing it safe. I guess I have to ask, does it matter if there is domestication? Does it mean that someone knows how to play the game, get through the role, tick the boxes, check the boxes in their reviews and performance targets, and just go through the motions but still get the bills paid and get off at the weekend, that sort of stuff?

Magnus Wood [00:05:05]:
That doesn’t matter in the slightest. If you’re happy with that, that’s absolutely fine. I don’t think most people ever go through that reckoning. I think people, as they do get to the second half of their careers, realize that because you have a lot of life reckoning that goes on from that time on. So I think it can matter. And I’ve seen plenty of people, and I’ve included myself in this, where sometimes you’ve been in jobs and roles and you’re just kind of doing it for the money and kind of grinding away. It matters in the sense that if that’s making you unhappy, it will be making other aspects of your life unhappy and your family and loved ones unhappy. But I think it also matters to organizations because if you’ve got people who are not operating at their best, who are kind of just showing up and doing stuff and not really being as creative as they can be or pushing things as much as they can, that’s going to limit the success of the organization.

Ben [00:05:53]:
Yeah, sorry, I’m just thinking. I’ve interviewed hundreds of people on this show. I’ve coached hundreds of consultants in the HR space, and there are a bunch of different reasons people start their own businesses, for example, but there is a significant portion, a large chunk of people, that say they’re doing it because they don’t like their boss, they don’t like their role, they’re stuck in something, they think they could be doing more, they think they could be doing better. So yeah, I’ve certainly seen that in my experience.

So you mentioned three moves. What were they?

Magnus Wood [00:06:18]:
I write every week, so I do a kind of longer essay and a shorter piece that goes onto Substack. As I’ve written, and I’ve written well over 30 pieces now, that’s enabled me to develop my thinking. And so I started with this sort of sense of you realize you’re domesticated, you realize that you’ve not got the edge that you once had. That’s the first move, to kind of face up to that. And as often as not, when people do face up to that, it’s a relief. And as you just said, it prompts some people to move on and do their own thing or whatever, or at least prompts you to be honest with yourself and go, is this working? Am I happy with it?

The next part of that is to refuse editing. Editing is an example of domestication. It’s kind of one of the sharpest examples of that. You know, you might be going into a board meeting or an important meeting and you go, I’m not going to say that because, you know, Terry’s in the room or Sarah’s in the room, or they said, don’t say that in front of him or her. So you kind of edit your behavior. You essentially conform to what you have been asked to do, or usually what you think is needed in order to survive and thrive in this organization.

And so what happens is you just kind of edit yourself down. So you’re not as creative, you’re not as passionate, you’re not as you as you could be. And that forms in all sorts of ways, and people don’t even notice they’re doing it. So one of the things that I do in my one-to-one work with CEOs and boards is I call that out. In my writing, I talk about how that happens.

And I give examples of—there’s one where I was told in a meeting by a board member, before I was on the board, not to call out somebody if they behaved badly in that meeting because that’s the way they always were and it would be fixed elsewhere.

So I was in a meeting with my team and this board member just ripped into them. And I did as I was told. I didn’t call them out. I didn’t stand up for myself, stand up for my team. And I didn’t feel good. I lost my team in that meeting. I lost their respect, all because, A, I was doing what I’d been told to do, which I didn’t agree with, but that was an example of editing.

You can sort of see where the consequences go if you lose your team, and that’s obviously not a great position to be in. And lo and behold, I didn’t stay there much longer because, you know, it just wasn’t working out for me.

Ben [00:08:25]:
Yeah, it can be a very painful experience in some ways. You write a lot, as you mentioned. How do you help? What are the sort of products or services, the way in which you help either individuals or CEOs and their organizations?

Magnus Wood [00:08:38]:
It kind of concentrates on three areas. So I describe myself as a consigliere to CEOs who want to be dangerous again. So that’s the kind of the mafia consigliere without the violence, but in the sense of the trusted advisor to the top boss, the person that you can speak honestly to and will speak honestly back to you.

Is it mentoring? Is it coaching? Actually, the reason I use the word consigliere is because it’s about honesty and it’s about calling people out and having the courage to do that. And also working with people who are happy to have that relationship. I have relationships with individuals who are happy to work that way. Kind of tends towards a bit more the mavericks and the maverick CEOs and people like that I find more interesting anyway.

So does that work? And I was talking to a friend of mine, why can I do that? Well, I’ve been C-suite for a long time. I’m also happy to call out somebody on their bullshit, to be honest. You know, because that’s the problem. I was talking to one CEO the other day, he said, I don’t have anyone to talk to. I don’t have anyone to have these kind of conversations with. Because there are generally no structures. And you also feel you can’t talk to your board about a lot of stuff. Maybe you don’t want to take it home to your family.

So that’s one piece of what I do, is this consigliere role, which is ongoing and, you know, we work for as long as we need to.

The other piece is, so I don’t have an HR background, but I have been a people leader amongst other things in organizations. I tend to also work with organizations where there is perhaps a lack of honesty within the board or the senior leadership team about what the real problems are, how they’re working with each other.

And so I’m often called in by a C-suite member to go, just these guys just aren’t working as well as they could do, or we’re not really facing up to the real problems of the business, or I’m not seeing traction on the actions.

So that’s often about one-to-one work with senior leadership teams, with C-suites, but also board work. It’s also systemic sort of views of an organization, talking to people and going, I can see this is working, this isn’t working. Maybe if you kind of pull this lever here, that will move things on.

And then the two other bits I do are away days and workshops, because obviously that’s a kind of natural product. We’re often asked at the end of all of this, “Run a workshop, you know, let’s get everyone together, kick some heads together, and make things happen.” So I do that.

And then you kindly mentioned Bearings, which is the thing that literally just launched, and you were one of the first people to hear about it. I left my business in February of this year, and I’ve had to start from scratch and go, what on earth do I do? I could have gone to an expensive career consultant, and instead I thought, okay, well, what can I do?

So I realized, by going through the exercise of going through my LinkedIn, my positioning, how I talk to myself—because at the end of the day, I’m a marketeer. How do you position yourself? Where’s the market going?—that I was able, in a quick read-through of no more than, I think, five or six questions, which takes about five minutes to ask people online on a form, to tell me some stuff about you. I take a look at their LinkedIn and I give some feedback.

Very good example: somebody who’s a project manager, they’re talking about skills in project management.

And the observation was, well, AI’s coming from here.Those skills just are going to be commoditized and mechanized. But actually, what this lady was also talking about was her passion as a translator between different types of individuals and functions in the organization. And I’m saying, right, dial that up, because that’s the human skill that can never be replaced by AI.

So that’s Bearings. It’s an online service. And basically, there’s a kind of free product that then leads to a more comprehensive thing that gives you a plan for the next 90 days. And then there’s an added-on bit where, you know, we can talk one-to-one on that.

I’m enjoying it enormously, as I’m sure all the people who you talk with who’ve set up their own businesses, because it’s much more fun doing your own stuff.

Ben [00:12:12]:
I saw an image or a picture or meme, whatever you call it, a while back. And it was a jar, and it says, “You can’t read the label from the inside of a jar,” something like that. But it sounds like Get Bearings helps people do that, because everyone knows their own history inside out. They can tell you which job they had and when and all that sort of stuff and who they dealt with. But sometimes it’s hard to hold that mirror and find the shining lights and the things maybe that you shouldn’t focus on, which, you know, helps them get out of the rut. Is that what you find?

Magnus Wood [00:12:41]:
Yeah. I mean, I think people get stuck on kind of what they deliver and what they’ve done for a period of time. That’s inevitable. People get very proud of their achievements. They see themselves as in, “This is who I am. This is what I deliver.”

The problem with that is, particularly as you age, there are a lot of other people coming up who deliver the same thing. As technology changes things, the needs for that delivery may be changing, but also there are much greater and more interesting ways to express their talents.

So if you take this person who’s a great project manager, at her essence, what I could see, she was a translator and a communicator between different sets of people. Well, that could take you in all sorts of different directions where there are probably more possibilities. So I think that’s the problem is that people kind of, I can see what I can do, but what I don’t have is a kind of nudge in these directions to maybe go off and explore those.

Ben [00:13:29]:
And then that person can take that. So they might have a certain skillset or a strength that they weren’t aware of, but even within that, there are layers of onions or there are subsections. So that might be becoming an expert in projects that are broken where they’re behind budget, behind expenses and stuff. It needs someone who can talk to the different groups and draw them together, or it could be something where it’s geographic splits, all kinds of things. So there are different use cases within that skillset or that talent.

Magnus Wood [00:13:55]:
And I think that goes to marketing, and I’m sure we’ll talk about this, which is, I think it’s better to find your niche that seems to be a good market niche, but also be very focused and specific and message and present yourself to that niche rather than going wide, which is what everyone’s temptation is. Because most people can do most things, particularly if you set up as an HR consultant and go, I’m going to win here because there’s a space here. here, and I can present myself and re-evidence myself in a way that makes me more compelling than somebody who’s going, yeah, I could do that as well.

Ben [00:14:24]:
Absolutely. You mentioned that earlier when you were sort of setting up in the first place, that you were thinking about what you could do and so on. It’s one thing to think about what products and services to offer. It’s another to actually meet the market so that there’s a need there. What’s your thinking on that and advice to others in terms of coming up with products and services or even going out on their own? Making sure that what you want to deliver is actually going to be something that people buy and pay for.

Magnus Wood [00:14:50]:
I came across this as a CMO within large organizations. We all get so stuck and entrenched on what we can do and how brilliant we might be versus somebody else and what our talents are and why our products are better than other, other people. We forget that most people aren’t the slightest bit interested in you selling to them. You have to go with value. You have to meet your audience with value or something that they go, That’s interesting. You know, if you think about your LinkedIn feed, that stands out as something that’s just different to somebody trying to sell me something. So I think the start point is always, you know, who do you think you can serve? And how can the very first interaction you have with that audience be one where they go, that’s interesting. This person’s got something different.

There’s value to me in clicking that link, having a conversation or whatever. And I think from there, if that is your mindset, that is where the products can then flow because I think you can then start to see, well, where’s the market opportunity? So Bearings, on one level, it’s a lead magnet. It kind of brings people in. Yeah. But it’s also of value to people as well. I was thinking about that earlier on. I feel very happy if I do 10 of these signals, the first part, and they’re free, ’cause I think at least I’ve done something good for 10 people today.

And I think that’s gotta be your orientation, which is, you know, how can I help and serve people and take it from there really?

Ben [00:16:09]:
And if I swing across more to the marketing side, and that’s your background anyway, I know you’ve been an executive and had all sorts of experiences. What have you learned or what are you doing to get in front of the right audience and market and grow the business? It’s a new business. What are you doing?

Magnus Wood [00:16:24]:
So writing, as in putting as much value as I can out there as possible. I haven’t broadened the platform yet beyond Substack. As I said to you before we started, you’re brilliant here because like your kind of platform is enormous. You know, you’ve got your podcast and all the other things. But I think sharpen your skills, sharpen your story, keep going out there with your messaging and see how that lands. And then, I’m gonna talk about AI cuz we all do. So AI is your friend in all of this because AI can, if you use it right, can significantly empower you in terms of your effectiveness, your productivity, and your creativity amongst many things. I think this combination of focus on people and then using AI as a working partner.

I mean, I’m looking at my screen now. I’ve got Claude, you know, open here now. And Claude is a full working partner. Don’t necessarily always believe what it does. I don’t always agree with what it does, but it allows me to think about things or approach things in ways that are just a bit different and more productive. And, you know, if I was to go in as a CMO now, which I probably never will do, I would have an entirely different team of people. I’d possibly have the same number that I had, but they would just be significantly empowered by the many AI tools that are out there.

Ben [00:17:39]:
Absolutely. I am a big fan of any consultant in any field, whether it’s HR or marketing, whatever, that they can take some of their products and services and just break a bit off and that becomes a little standalone product service, whether it’s free or expensive or cheap, whatever. But how did you work out what you could offer as a standalone tool?

Magnus Wood [00:17:57]:
I kind of looked at where I was and I also then looked at the whole domestication piece. So if we go back to Wild Leadership, you’ve got a bunch of people who are in organizations who may be stuck in a rut, just not working out for them, or maybe they just feel their days are numbered, or maybe they’re now out. And I thought, how do I serve that audience with something just by asking a few questions and just looking at their answers and coming back with something that’s valuable? That’s how I came up with it. I just thought, I’ve gone through this. I’ve gone through it a number of times. What wasn’t there for me? I need somebody to genuinely come in with some new ideas and go, you say you’re good at this. Actually, I think you’re good at that. Why don’t you get over there? Simple as that, really.

Ben [00:18:42]:
Yeah. Because you mentioned with the Wild Leadership, the team development and supporting the CEOs for their organizations, but I can see that as an upsell for follow-on from a workshop or some sort of work where, you know, you take all the team members through that process and help them play to their strengths. So the team performs even better.

Magnus Wood [00:18:59]:
Yeah. I mean, I use a similar tool called The Recognition, which is on my website. It does the same job essentially. And it’s all about teams, you know, and it asks questions like, in your organization, what happens when the C-suite walk in the room and stuff like that, just to get people going, oh yeah, that’s bad, isn’t it? And like, when was your last time your team did something that was really daring? You know, these sort of questions. And they’re part of my armory, as it were. You know, when I’m working in an away day or afterwards, I use all these tools. Because you can now, and I kind of put them out there in the world for free because they’ve got value and also they create conversations.

Ben [00:19:33]:
And it’s great that you can use similar processes and repackage them almost for different audiences, still deliver great value. It’s just that they’re focused or targeted at exactly who they’re supposed to be helping. So I think that’s really smart. You’ve been very kind. Before I let you go, can I ask you for some parting advice, your thoughts for other people who are in the solo or the startup phase of consulting in terms of business growth advice, marketing advice on how to get more clients and build up a steadier business?

Magnus Wood [00:19:58]:
I don’t know if anyone’s ever come across Tim Ferriss, who wrote The 4-Hour Workweek. He talks about choosing the least crowded channel, which I think is a really interesting way to look at things because you don’t want to be another voice shouting in the room, as it were.

So is there a practical application of that? I guess one of them is The Recognition, which is the kind of the free part of the clearing. I’m literally today, and a bit inspired by you, Ben, as well, I’m going to use Facebook to advertise what is essentially a B2B product.

But in a way that will hook people in, because I reckon that’s a less crowded channel than going on LinkedIn, which is really expensive. You know, think about the least crowded channel.

You could go to a networking event, but are you there with another 50 people? So is there a smaller networking event that you can go to? Is there something else where you can stand out a little bit more and kind of bring your edge a little bit more, which I think takes me to my second point, is the thing I’ve said consistently: think about the value that you can offer to people.

When you’re sitting down talking to somebody or you’re networking, the beginning is how does it connect with them, not what you’re trying to sell them. Because at the end of the day, you know, that’s why they’ll listen, because they go, “All right, this person’s interesting.“

And I think the third piece of advice is, you know, without going down an AI rabbit hole, embrace the tools. You know what, that money, it’s £100 or so a month. It’s well worth it because I’m doing stuff now that I wouldn’t be able to do beforehand.

And also, when you use tools like that, keep thinking about your audience. You know, you’ve got to have a really sharp view of who you’re trying to sell to and why they would want to buy you versus somebody else.

Ben [00:21:32]:
As a follow-up to that, people are going to hear, “Oh, he’s got Claude and he’s using that.” What kind of stuff are you doing?

Magnus Wood [00:21:37]:
I brainstorm ideas. There’s a thing called Cowork, which is part of Claude that I’ve connected to my computer. So it will schedule things for me. It will kind of remind me to do things.So there’s a lot of heavy lifting.

Very good example. Anyone setting up their own business, I got Claude to go through my bank statements from the start of the year and basically extract everything that was a business expense, put it into a spreadsheet, and basically go, “Okay, you’ve set up your business, you’ve got £1,000 or so that you could actually claim as a business expense.“

It now does that on a monthly basis as a sweep. That’s a perfect example. That frees me up time to do other stuff.

And then there are other, I mean, like really off-the-wall stuff that people do. So I have set up a council of virtual individuals based on people who are out there. So they’re based on their writing and their orientation sort of in the world.

There are six of them, and it’s a council that I’ve worked with Claude to create. So I then have the opportunity to ask that council a business question, and they will come back with individual views based on their characters.

And that’s Nicholas Taleb from The Black Swan. I’ve got Ryan Holiday. I’ve got other people, very different kinds of people. Now, whether that’s what they’d actually say or not, in many senses, not necessarily that important. But what it does too, it’s going, “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.“

Magnus Wood [00:23:00]:
It just gives me a kind of, whoa, a sparring partner and somebody to bounce off that isn’t my wife, isn’t my friends, isn’t my clients, isn’t possibly somebody else I could work with. And I found that this council is really helpful for me. And I use it maybe two or three times a week, and it just gives me, “I hadn’t thought of that. Oh, okay. I’ll give that a go.“

Ben [00:23:21]:
That’s so cool. I forget his name. Is it Edward de Bono? Was it Six Hats or something?

Magnus Wood [00:23:26]:
Different. I think his name is Thinking Hats. But it’s kind of like that.

Ben [00:23:30]:
It’s kind of like different perspectives, but on my council, you might have a Richard Branson, who’s that go-getter and stuff like that. But then you might have more of a conservative person to counterbalance that. And then an industry expert.

Magnus Wood [00:23:39]:
I mean, I’ve got philosophers, I’ve got, you know, a real mix of people which Claude helped me choose on the basis of what I was trying to achieve. Other people do this, you know, you can search for it online and you’ll find it’s something, because I thought this is an amazing idea and I was the first person to have it. Obviously not, but I’m sharing it now so lots more of you can do it.

Ben [00:23:56]:
You can claim credit. It’s no problem at all. Just to wrap it up then. So for people listening to this, who would be your ideal clients in case they run across them in the wild and want to send them your way?

Magnus Wood [00:24:06]:
Ideal client is somebody who feels that they could be getting more out of their work for themselves and for their organization, and who is open to not being domesticated, who’s open to kind of reclaiming some of the wildness that made them great in the first place.

Ben [00:24:21]:
Very nice. And where can they learn more about you and your services?

Magnus Wood [00:24:25]:
Yeah, you can go to www.magnuswood.com. That takes you straight to www.wildleadership.co. On the front page, you can see everything I do, and you can get in touch with me and we can have a cup of tea and a great chat.

Ben [00:24:35]:
Well, Magnus, thank you very much. I love what you’ve done. I love what you’ve shared today. So thank you very much. And I’d love to meet your council of senior advisors.

Magnus Wood [00:24:42]:
Send me a question. I’ll, uh, I’ll ask them for you, Ben.

Topics covered: how to attract HR/workplace consulting clients, AI in consulting, business growth strategies for consultants, HR consultants, workplace consultants.

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