"Beyond Slides" - What Actually Happens When You're in the Room With a Client (And Nobody Told You What to Do)
Most consulting books tell you how to get clients or how to price your services. Almost none tell you what to do when the room goes quiet, the plan falls apart, and the client is looking at you for an answer. This one does.
I'm going to be upfront about something: Maurizio Cuna didn't write this book for you.
He wrote it for full-time consultants at McKinsey, BCG, Deloitte, and tech firms—people navigating promotions, firm politics, and 60-hour weeks. If you're building Encore Income 8-10 hours a week alongside your corporate job, not every chapter is going to land.
But here's why I'm recommending it anyway: the parts that do apply are some of the most useful consulting advice I've read. And they fill a gap that no other book on this page covers.
Let me explain.
The Gap in Your Consulting Bookshelf
If you've been working through the resources on this site, you may have already read Win Without Pitching (positioning) and Million Dollar Consulting (pricing). Those books answer two critical questions:
Win Without Pitching: How do I get premium clients to come to me?
Million Dollar Consulting: How do I charge what my superpowers are worth?
The question neither book answers: What do I actually do once I'm in the room?
That's the gap. You've positioned yourself. You've set your fees. The client said yes. Now you're sitting across the table from a VP who expects you to have answers you don't have yet, navigating politics you can't see, and delivering under a timeline that assumes you know exactly what you're doing.
This is where most corporate professionals monetizing their superpowers quietly panic. Not because they lack expertise—they have decades of it. But because consulting delivery is a different skill than corporate execution, and nobody teaches it.
Cuna teaches it.
What the Book Actually Covers
Beyond Slides is 269 pages with 39 practical exercises. It's part career guide, part survival manual, and—unusually for a consulting book—actually enjoyable to read. Cuna has a direct, occasionally funny writing style that makes the advice stick.
The core argument is simple: consulting isn't about the slides. It's about what happens between the slides—the ambiguity, the politics, the moments where you have to project confidence while still figuring things out.
Here's what's inside:
Handling ambiguity. Your client says "we need a strategy." That could mean 50 different things. Cuna shows you how to navigate vague briefs and unclear expectations without looking like you're lost—because your Corporate Superpower is the expertise, but the delivery context is always different.
Client politics. Every organization has them. Cuna covers how to read the room, figure out who actually makes decisions, and avoid getting caught in political crossfire. This is especially relevant when you're an outside consultant applying your Corporate Superpowers—you don't have the internal context that full-time employees take for granted.
Building credibility fast. When you walk into a client engagement, you have about 48 hours to establish yourself as someone worth listening to. Cuna explains how to demonstrate expertise early and build trust before you've delivered any results. For part-time consultants monetizing their superpowers, this is critical—you don't have months to prove yourself.
Delivering under pressure. Deadlines that are too tight. Stakeholders who change their minds. Deliverables that need to be excellent on the first pass. Cuna gives you frameworks for producing quality work under real-world conditions, not textbook conditions.
The soft skills that aren't soft. Cuna makes a point I agree with completely: the so-called "soft skills"—influence, communication, relationship management—are the hardest skills in consulting. Technical expertise gets you in the door. These skills determine whether the client calls you back.
Why Repeat Clients Matter More Than New Ones
Here's something most consulting books gloss over, and it's directly relevant to building Encore Income:
The Math of Client Retention vs. Client Acquisition:
- Finding a new consulting client takes 10-20 hours of networking, positioning, and conversations
- Getting a repeat engagement from an existing client takes a phone call
- Repeat clients pay faster, negotiate less, and refer more
What this means for Encore Income:
- With 3 repeat clients, you can generate $60K-$100K/year in 8-10 hours/week
- Without repeat clients, you spend half your available hours finding work instead of doing it
- Delivery quality is what creates repeat clients—not positioning, not pricing
Positioning gets you the first engagement. Delivery gets you every engagement after that. That's the piece this book addresses.
This is why I added Beyond Slides to the Consulting & Advisory section alongside the positioning and pricing books. It completes the system.
The 39 Exercises
Every chapter includes three practical exercises. This isn't a "read and nod" book—it's designed to change how you operate.
Some exercises are more relevant to full-time consultants (navigating promotion cycles, for example). But many translate directly to part-time consulting:
Exercises That Apply Directly to Monetizing Your Corporate Superpowers:
- How to scope a vague engagement so you deliver what the client actually needs (not what they said they wanted)
- How to establish authority in your first client meeting without overselling
- How to manage stakeholders who have conflicting priorities
- How to handle situations where the client pushes back on your recommendations
- How to build a reputation that generates referrals without self-promotion
These aren't theoretical exercises. They're built from 20+ years of real consulting engagements. You can apply them to your next client conversation.
How This Fits the Consulting System
If you're using the resources on this site to build a consulting-based Encore Income stream, here's how the three Consulting & Advisory books work together:
The Complete Consulting System for Monetizing Your Corporate Superpowers:
- Positioning (Win Without Pitching): Be THE specialist with your superpower so premium clients seek you out
- Pricing (Million Dollar Consulting): Charge based on the value your superpower delivers, not the hours you work
- Delivery (Beyond Slides): Execute so well that clients come back, refer others, and become your steady Encore Income base
Positioning without delivery is a one-time engagement. Pricing without delivery is a refund. Delivery without positioning and pricing is working too hard for too little. You need all three.
About the Author
Maurizio Cuna is a Partner at Infosys Consulting with 20+ years of experience advising clients across Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Australia. He also writes Consulting Intel, a newsletter read by thousands of consultants.
I know Maurizio (we've talked on Twitter and I enjoy his content). What I appreciate about him is the same thing I appreciate about this book: no pretense, no buzzwords, just direct advice from someone who has actually done the work. He didn't write this to sell a coaching program. He wrote it because he's seen too many consultants struggle with things nobody warned them about.
That's the kind of author I trust enough to put on this page.
What I Don't Like
I said I'd be honest, so here it is.
The audience mismatch is real. Cuna wrote this for people building full-time consulting careers at major firms. Sections on promotions, staffing decisions, and firm-level politics won't apply if you're building Encore Income on the side. You'll need to skip or skim about 20-30% of the book. That's not a small number.
It's 269 pages. Not a complaint exactly—it's a thorough book. But if you're looking for a quick read you can finish in an afternoon, this isn't it. The Win Without Pitching Manifesto is 128 pages and makes one focused argument. Beyond Slides covers more ground, which means more commitment.
No specific Encore Income framing. Unlike some of the other books on this page, there's no natural "retirement gap" angle in the book itself. You'll need to do the translation work—reading the advice through the lens of part-time consulting rather than full-time career building. That's manageable, but it requires active reading rather than passive consumption.
Despite these limitations, the parts that apply are worth the price of the book several times over. The chapters on client delivery, credibility building, and navigating ambiguity are some of the most practical consulting advice available. Period.
The Bottom Line
Is this book going to teach you how to get clients? No. That's what Win Without Pitching is for.
Is it going to teach you how to price your services? No. That's Million Dollar Consulting.
But will it teach you how to deliver so well that clients keep coming back, refer their colleagues, and become the foundation of consistent Encore Income?
Yes. That's exactly what it does.
Not every page will apply to your situation. Cuna wrote it for a different audience. But the nuggets in this book—the stuff about handling ambiguity, building credibility fast, navigating politics you can't see, and delivering under pressure—are genuinely valuable for anyone stepping into a consulting role, part-time or otherwise.
Read it with a pen. Skip the chapters that don't apply. Do the exercises that do. And use the delivery skills to turn first-time clients into repeat clients—because that's how you build Encore Income that actually lasts.
Get the Book
Beyond Slides: Stand Out, Become Irreplaceable, and Win Big in Consulting by Maurizio Cuna
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Calculate Your Freedom NumberFortune favors the bold. But fortune also favors those who deliver so well that clients never consider hiring anyone else.
— Scott Fulbright
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