Most experienced professionals don’t have a marketing problem.
They don’t have a confidence problem.
They have a system problem.

They have years of experience, judgement, and results, but they’ve never translated that expertise into a clear, adoptable system the market can buy.

So selling feels heavier than it should.
Positioning stays vague.
Authority doesn’t compound.
Income plateaus.

That’s the structural issue I work on.

My goal is to future-proof your business in an AI economy.
And the only way to do that is to become a category of one.

That doesn’t happen when you sell what you do.

It happens when you build a system the market wants and package your judgement into infrastructure that buyers can adopt.

I help experienced consultants, experts, and coaches turn their expertise into systems, assets, and business infrastructure, not services, not offers and not job descriptions wrapped in consulting language.

My clients don’t hire me - they adopt my system.

What makes my work different

I merge two operating systems.

Most people try to build a $500K+ consulting business using the same internal programs that have run their entire life - the same decision patterns and default settings.

So they build the “right” strategy…
and then sabotage execution.

That’s why I design the external operating system
(system architecture, market validation, positioning, sales, distribution)

and upgrade the internal operating system - the operating code behind how you decide, implement, and follow through.

This isn’t therapy or motivation.
It’s 13 years of deprogramming distilled into a simple method that removes internal friction so the external system can actually run.

For high performers, this is not optional.

Inside my work, I help you:

-Define the real business problem you solve
-Codify judgement + decision-making into a system
-Design frameworks, methodologies, and operating models you own
-Validate demand before you sell
-Build multiple monetisable assets from one system design
-Commercialise the system end-to-end
-Build authority-led sales, marketing, and LinkedIn positioning
-Position you as a category of one

How I use AI:

I design AI instructional systems, not prompts - capturing judgement, edge cases, and decision logic so AI supports execution without replacing intelligence.

I connect everything into one system so you can validate demand, build the assets, and start monetising within 30 days.

Schedule a private conversation here:
👉 https://go.oncehub.com/15MinuteExpress

Mary Henderson

Can I pick your brain?" is the most expensive question you will ever answer.
Stop saying yes...


Every time you agree to a "quick coffee" or a "15-minute call" with someone who wants free consulting...

You're losing money.

Not theoretical money. Real revenue.

That hour you spent "picking your brain" for free? 
That's an hour you could've spent with a paying client.

That "quick coffee" that turned into 90 minutes? 
That's $500+ of billable time you just gave away.

But it's not just money. It's energy.
These people are Energy Vampires.

Read my article to find out what you can do to repel these people away from you and start attracting premium buyers. 

Share my article with your network
Leave a comment
Subscribe to #TheMidlifeQueen

Business & Monetisation Specialist | Build a One-Person Consulting Business in 2026 | Replace a $200K+ Salary | Codify Expertise Into Offers That Sell | LinkedIn Strategy → Clients

Can I pick your brain?" is the most expensive question you will ever answer. Stop saying yes. Every time you agree to a "quick coffee" or a "15-minute

Open article: "Can I pick your brain?" by Mary Henderson • 3 min read

How to build a consulting business in 2026 so you can replace your $300K salary in 12 months.


There are two mistakes I’m seeing new consultants make right now and both will keep you stuck.

Mistake #1: Believing what ChatGPT tells you to sell.

Last week I spoke to a COO who said, “I’m brilliant at what I do. I got ChatGPT to figure out my value proposition, and now I know what I sell.”

ChatGPT can give you language that sounds incredible on paper.

But here’s the real question:
Does the market want what ChatGPT just told you is your solution?

If you don’t have validated demand, you don’t have an offer.

You have a theory.

That’s why so many people can’t package their expertise into an offer that actually converts.

They’re selling what sounds good, not what buyers are already buying.

Mistake #2: Thinking pipeline will magically appear.

If you don’t know how to get consulting clients on LinkedIn, you will not replace a $300K salary. Period.

Because ChatGPT can create content… but most of it is dead on arrival.

If you don’t know how to build a pipeline on LinkedIn, you can’t test messaging.

You can’t start conversations.

You can’t generate DMs.

You can’t get in front of the decision maker consistently.

You end up posting and hoping.

Save this: The 10-Second Consulting Business Test (2026):

1.  Can you articulate in 10 seconds what you sell?
2.  Can you define your avatar?
3.  What is your sales strategy: top, middle, bottom of funnel?
4.  What is your good / better / best solution and how will you deliver it?
5.  How will you price a consulting offer based on outcomes, not hours?
6.  What is your brand promise?
7.  What is your thought leadership strategy on LinkedIn?
8.  How will the decision maker find you on LinkedIn this week?

If you can’t answer those, it doesn’t mean you’re not smart.
It means you’re still guessing.

AI can write your words. It can’t validate your market.

What’s your real gap right now: DEMAND or PIPELINE?

Most consultants leaving corporate think they have time.
Time to think. Time to learn. Time to “figure it out.” 👉🏼 They don’t.


Consulting is splitting right now, and it’s not splitting around experience or intelligence.

It’s splitting around who can turn judgement into something the market can buy.

I explain why in this article 👇

Make sure you subscribe to: #OnePersonConsultingBusiness

Business & Monetisation Specialist | Build a One-Person Consulting Business in 2026 | Replace a $200K+ Salary | Codify Expertise Into Offers That Sell | Authority Positioning That Drives Invitations & Clients

View newsletter: One-Person Consulting Business

This isn’t a prediction. It’s a consequence. And it’s already happening, not on LinkedIn, but inside organisations, boardrooms, and consulting budgets

Open article: Consulting Is About to Split in Two:
Those Who Turn Experience Into Assets, and Those Who Slowly Disappear by Mary Henderson • 5 min read

Consulting Is About to Split in Two:
Those Who Turn Experience Into Assets, and Those Who Slowly Disappear

You Didn’t Run a CFO or COO Role With Post-it Notes.
So Why Are You Running Your Consulting Business Like That?


I see this pattern constantly.

People go from earning $300K+ inside a corporate system, making high-stakes decisions, managing risk, owning outcomes, to feeling strangely frozen the moment they’re on their own.

Not because they lost capability.
Because the environment changed.

Most consultants aren’t failing because they lack experience.
They’re failing because they tried to turn a job title into a business.

And those are not the same thing.

A senior operator understands:
-risk
-profit and loss
-decision-making under pressure

But none of that automatically converts into:
-a defined problem the market recognises as urgent
-a structured solution a buyer can mentally place
-a monetisable asset instead of bespoke effort
-a sales and distribution engine
-leverage in an AI-shaped economy

Six months in, the symptoms appear.

Pipeline feels thin.
Confidence is at an all-time low.

And the conclusion becomes:
“Maybe consulting isn’t for me.”

That conclusion is wrong.

This isn’t an intelligence problem.
It’s a structure problem.

In corporate, you didn’t improvise your way through complexity.
You didn’t “figure it out as you went”.

You said: “We need a specialist to architect this properly.”

The irony is that when you step out on your own, you expect yourself to magically know how to do all of it.

Here’s the part most people don’t want to face:

Your corporate performance has zero value on its own.
The market doesn’t pay for titles.
It doesn’t care what you were.

It pays for what you can extract, structure, and deploy from that experience into something it actually needs now.

Running a consulting business without structure isn’t brave. It’s inefficient.

And it quietly destroys confidence.

Save this: The Corporate-to-Consulting Reality Check

If you’re being honest, which of these are you doing right now?
-Hoping experience translates without being re-architected
-Treating clarity as a substitute for validation
-Building offers in isolation instead of against live demand
-Assuming confidence returns before structure is installed

If you wouldn’t run a company like an experiment, stop running your consulting business like one.

The people who move fastest don’t work harder.
They stop pretending they should already know how to do this.

They treat the transition seriously.
They invest like operators.
And they build something intentional.

That work happens inside The IncubAItor.
Next cohort starts January 26.
Comment GAP or DM me GAP.

If you want to replace your $250K salary, stop selling hours. Build this instead.


I spoke to an ex-CFO this week.
She took a severance package and is building her consulting business.

Her back story was impressive.
Then she told me how she plans to “help companies solve problems.”

So I asked one question:
Are you sure organisations are actively buying that problem… or are you assuming they should?

Because here’s what most executives don’t realise when they leave corporate:
A lot of organisations are not shopping for “skill gaps.”
And when they are, they’ll often pay hourly.

Save this: Let's do the salary replacement math

To replace a $250K salary at $200/hour, you need:
1,250 billable hours.
That’s a lot of hours.

That’s also why time-for-money consulting becomes an uphill battle fast.
You don’t replace a salary by billing time. 
You replace a salary by selling something deployable.

This is what my clients are doing differently:
They’re not selling advice.
They’re not selling access.
They’re not selling “I can help.”

They’re selling a solution a business can adopt inside systems it already uses.
They codify their judgement.
They validate what the market is actually buying.
They target the right people on LinkedIn.

That’s why they can charge $20K+ for an outcome.
Not hourly rates. 

If reading this makes you feel uncomfortable, good.
That discomfort is usually the moment you stop trying to “make consulting work” and start building something commercial.

And if you don’t know how to do this, it doesn’t mean you’re not smart.
It means commercial packaging isn’t your domain.

That’s what we do inside The IncubAItor: codify your intelligence, validate demand, and build a full-stack content + marketing system, fast.

Comment: SALARY and I’ll share the 3 deployable solution types that replace a salary fastest in 2026.

Posting more on LinkedIn won’t fix a quiet pipeline. And not posting doesn’t protect you either.

The real problem is simpler - the right buyers don’t know why they should think of you yet.

I hear this from serious industry experts all the time:
“I can’t be bothered posting every day. Surely there’s another way to get clients.”

There is.

But the answer isn’t frequency.
And it isn’t hacks.

The real issue is that most people are still treating LinkedIn like a broadcast channel instead of a demand system.

Posting frequently doesn’t build pipeline.
Posting without a system doesn’t.

Not posting doesn’t buy you focus.
It just ensures the right buyers never think of you.

Here’s what is important:
Organic LinkedIn doesn’t work when you “show up consistently”.
It works when your content helps the platform and the buyer place you.

Industry experts aren’t selling attention.
They’re selling codified judgement, outcomes, and results.

That requires a different operating model.
Not more posts.
More precision.

Save this: The Organic Demand Misdiagnosis Test
If organic LinkedIn “isn’t working” for you, it’s usually because one of these is true:
-You’re posting without a declared outcome
-Your buyer isn’t obvious within 5 seconds
-Your content changes topics faster than the algorithm can place you
-You’re optimising for views instead of conversations
-You’re treating content as output, not as signal

If any of those are present, frequency won’t save you.

Here’s the reframe that changes everything:
Organic content works when it’s part of a closed-loop system:
-clear problem
-clear buyer
-clear perspective
-clear conversation path

When those are in place, you don’t need daily posts.
You need recognition.

That’s why some people post twice a week and get DMs from the right buyers 
and others post every day and attract nothing but noise.

Posting more on LinkedIn won’t fix a quiet pipeline.
And not posting doesn’t protect you either.


Posting more on LinkedIn won’t fix a quiet pipeline.
And not posting doesn’t protect you either.

Posting more on LinkedIn won’t fix a quiet pipeline.
 And not posting doesn’t protect you either.

The real problem is simpler - the right buyers don’t know why they should think of you yet.

I spent six months pulling apart how distribution actually works, not from gurus, but from platform behaviour, engineering signals, and live testing and turned it into a structured system that connects:
-offer
-message
-content
-buyer placement

Once that’s installed, organic stops feeling effortful.

It becomes directional.

This isn’t about being everywhere.
It’s about being correctly placed.

And when that happens, the right people don’t need to be convinced.
They already know why they’re reaching out.

Question:
If you’re honest, what’s missing right now -OFFER clarity or PIPELINE placement?

Share below and I will give you my honest answer.

Pamela Kellert

Leadership in STEM is more than expertise — it's about having the courage to embrace the unknown and lead transformative change. The journey begins when we dare to evolve ourselves first.

As a professional in STEM, you are dedicated to creating solutions for global challenges. You work hard to make meaningful contributions, yet you may sometimes feel unseen or not sufficiently recognised. The pressure to prove yourself can be constant, leaving you wondering if you are focusing your efforts in the right areas. It’s natural to seek guidance as you prepare for the next phase of your career. 

You might be asking yourself: Am I ready to grow further? 

The answer is absolutely yes. You have come a long way, which demonstrates your determination. I have worked with many talented STEM professionals, scaling teams from 5 to 100+ and developing exceptional leaders. I understand how to identify your strengths and help you cultivate authentic leadership through a proven methodology. 

The STEM sector thrives on individuals who bring unique perspectives and talents to the table. This is how teams create extraordinary results.

You have leadership potential in you – I help you unlock it. As an experienced executive in strategy and project management, I focus on actionable steps that lead to results. Because leadership works through human-to-human relationships that ignite engagement and commitment.

I know this aspiration is possible because I have been there myself. The main ingredients are already within you. I see my clients gaining life-changing clarity, which is crucial when we assume leadership responsibilities.

My goal is to share my 20+ years of strategic leadership experience to help you thrive in your professional journey. Will you commit to yourself? 

Once you make that commitment, here is what I can assist you with: 
•	Gaining clarity on your unique talents 
•	Developing your leadership skills, confidence, and impact 
•	Making important career decisions

Let’s connect to unlock your potential or elevate your team’s capabilities!
📧 hello@womenleadinginstem.com


Client results

“Pamela's coaching opened my eyes to things I did not know about me. It gave me clarity on who I am, and what I bring to the table…”

“With her insights, I was able to gain completely new perspectives and take a significant step forward in my career…”

“Pamela has been fundamental in my transition back to the workforce. After taking a long career break to raise my children, I needed help to rebuild my self-confidence and to believe I could still take on a new challenge…”

Founder of Women Leading in STEM | Leadership Coaching and Online Program

WHAT I DO: I help female professionals in STEM sectors to elevate their leadership skills, confidence and impact so they can thrive in their roles.

WHY IT MATTERS: Globally, women are still underrepresented in STEM, particularly in leadership roles. Diverse teams bring enormous benefits to organisations. Hence there's a critical need for female leaders who contribute and co-shape a sustainable future for all.

WHAT MAKES ME UNIQUE: Most leadership programs focus on generic leadership skills but don't dive deep into guiding through the challenges women in STEM face. As a former Executive in Strategy and Project Management, I know first-hand the challenges women in STEM experience as they rise through leadership roles. My focus is to share practical and evidence-based insights so women gain a better understanding of the dynamics and develop a leadership style that is authentic to them and helps them succeed in their environment without compromising themselves. 

MY STORY: With 16 years of experience in Corporate, I loved discovering new countries and professional areas and found my passion in engineering projects. One day, a young female engineer I was mentoring said she had only two female role models to learn from. Shocked by her comment, I embarked on a journey to discover she was right after all.

HOW IT WORKS: I've designed a systemised program to support female professionals with 1-on-1 or group coaching. I also work with organisations for corporate training and speaking engagements. 

READY TO TALK? Reach out to me directly here on LinkedIn or

E: hello@WomenLeadingInSTEM.com

This week, international leaders gather in Davos under the World Economic Forum's theme "A Spirit of Dialogue" - a powerful reminder for these times.


As a member of 100 Women @ Davos, I am excited to join this dialogue again this year and contribute perspectives from the world of STEM leadership.

A special thank you to Dr Anino Emuwa for founding this dynamic community dedicated to amplifying our voices.


What do I look forward to?

-  Strategy conversations: Exchanging insights with leaders on global developments and how they're adjusting their business strategy.

-  AI insights across sectors: Learning how other sectors adopt AI, and identifying practices that can be transferred to transport infrastructure.

-  Building Partnerships for Women Leading in STEM: with increasing demand for STEM professionals, we're exploring partnerships to make a quicker impact —let's connect if you're interested.

-  Embracing new perspectives: last but not least, I look forward to the unexpected. Hearing fresh perspectives from international voices and passionate thought leaders pushing society forward.


I will be sharing insights throughout the week.


➡️ What's one topic you would like to see leaders in Davos discuss this year?



#WomenInSTEM #100DavosWomen #WEF2026
#WomenLeadingInSTEM

The global outlook - what can we expect?
And what is women's role in shaping it?


The World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2026 suggests that most leaders anticipate the next decade to remain volatile.

So is the outlook all grim?

Fortunately, not at all.

It was encouraging to see across various presentations and discussions in Davos this week that there are also significant opportunities for economic growth and social progress - and that women have a critical role in shaping them.


Here are a few of those opportunities:

1️⃣ Women's Health: historically underfunded, women's health is now estimated to represent an opportunity of around $100 billion. This reflects not only an economic potential but also a chance to close gaps in health care equality.

2️⃣ AI as an economic enabler: AI is unlocking new pathways for startups globally. For example, around 75% of young people in Africa say they are considering launching a tech business within the next five years, hence creating new opportunities for entrepreneurship and employment.

3️⃣ Sustainability: Around 60% of CEOs report confidence about meeting net-zero goals by 2030. Yet a shortage of skilled talent remains a barrier. Creating inclusive workplaces and investing in women's STEM education can help to fill this talent gap and accelerate progress.

4️⃣ Tourism: While volatile tariffs challenge trade, countries can leverage tourism as a growth catalyst. For example, Saudi Arabia has shared plans to create about 1 million jobs in tourism, with a 40% representation of women.

5️⃣ Leadership: the challenges ahead demand new ways to lead and women can co-shape these new pathways. In another post, I'll be sharing in more depth how leadership is changing.
	
	
	
➡️ A question for you: 

	• Where do you see further opportunities for growth?

	• And how can your field offer an inclusive workplace for women?



#WomenInLeadership
#WomenInSTEM
#WomensHealth
#economicgrowth
#WEF26

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The Battle

Mary Henderson

Pamela Kellert

Followers

Posts

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Performance ScoreMary Henderson's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScorePamela Kellert's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Mary Henderson

Pamela Kellert

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Mary Henderson's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScorePamela Kellert's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreMary Henderson's LinkedIn Performance