Building a Service Based Consultancy: It’s Just Different (Session 1:3)

Most business development programs are designed with product based founders in mind. Service based consultants often find themselves left out of conversations about marketing, visibility, credibility building, pipeline development, and scaling. Yet these are the exact areas that determine the long term success of a consultancy.

Join Dr. Durryle Brooks of Love and Justice Consulting and Dr. Tara Doaty of Sage Wellness Group for a transparent and experience grounded learning lab that explores what it truly takes to build a thriving service based consultancy as a social impact entrepreneur. This session highlights the realities that many consultants discover only after years of trial and error. Together, Durryle and Tara will pull back the curtain on how to navigate trust based work, strengthen your reputation, grow your client pipeline, and build a consultancy that is both sustainable and aligned with your values.

This session is ideal for members who are exploring a consulting path or who already have a service based business and want deeper clarity about how to grow with purpose, integrity, and long term viability.

Learning Outcomes:

• Why consulting requires a different strategy from product based businesses • How service clarity, positioning, and messaging drive opportunities • How pipeline development actually works in a relationship driven business

• How credibility becomes the foundation for marketing and growth • How to increase visibility in authentic and sustainable ways • How referrals, reputation, thought leadership, and community presence expand your pipeline

• How to structure your business to support wellbeing and long term viability • How values shape pricing, offers, boundaries, and growth decisions • How to think about scaling a service based business without burning out or compromising your mission

Durryle Brooks,PhD is a national speaker, facilitator, and leadership coach whose work bridges critical scholarship, organizational practice, and healing justice. He is the creator of the Critical Theory of Love (CToL) framework, which guides individuals and organizations to reconceptualize love as a force for equity, justice, and collective healing.

Dr. Brooks’ scholarly contributions include the foundational article (Re)Conceptualizing Love: Moving Toward a Critical Theory of Love in Education for Social Justice (2017), published in the Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis, as well as a trilogy of articles in Nonprofit Quarterly (2024) exploring love as a transformative framework for leadership, equity, and justice. Together, these works challenge conventional paradigms and offer grounded, practice-oriented approaches to leading and organizing in complex social impact environments.

Dr. Brooks is the founder of Love and Justice Consulting.Since moving into full-time consulting four years ago, he has grown his firm by 30–40% annually, generating over $1 million in revenue as a primarily solo entrepreneur in that time frame.. This growth gives him a clear, practical understanding of what it takes to build, price, sustain, and evolve a values-aligned consulting business within the social impact ecosystem.

Through his consulting work, Dr. Brooks partners with nonprofits, foundations, public agencies, and community-based organizations to strengthen organizational culture, navigate conflict, and align values with daily practice. He is widely known for his relational approach and his ability to create learning spaces that are honest, accessible, and deeply grounded in lived experience.

Tara Doaty, PhD, obtained her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Howard University. She has also earned several certifications in evidenced-based practices aimed at strengthening parent and child attachment and working with survivors of trauma. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Doaty has developed several curricula in areas of parenting from a trauma-informed perspective, mindfulness, and recovery from various forms of addiction, racial equity, trauma-informed care, and more. Dr. Tara is the Founder & CEO of Sage Wellness Group, which provides both professional development and organizational development & strategy to numerous client agencies. The professional development services offered through Sage Wellness Group merge clinical expertise and practical experience. These workshops connect with audiences and leave them more knowledgeable and encouraged as they fulfill roles associated with being a parent, professional, agency administrator or agency executive. 

Dr. Tara is a national speaker and trainer where she is frequently asked to speak on issues impacting mental and social-emotional well-being for children and adults.  She has been the keynote speaker for City and County government agencies, Pediatric Grand Rounds, school districts, corporations, and non-profit organizations and has given specialized trauma trainings for judges, magistrates, and attorneys. Dr. Tara served as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at Notre Dame University of Maryland and is a frequent guest on WEAA radio where she provides clinical insight surrounding current issues.

In April 2014, Dr. Tara celebrated the release of her first children’s book, ‘Let’s Talk About It’, a collection of 5 short stories that highlight the journey to self-discovery that every child travels. ‘Let’s Talk About It’ was selected for inclusion in Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Public Library, and one of its stories, ‘Mindful of Me’ was chosen to assist children impacted by the Baltimore Uprising of 2015. 

Dr. Tara was appointed to Baltimore City's Trauma-Informed Care Task Force, and in 2021 was appointed by Maryland's then-Governor Larry Hogan, to serve on the Maryland State's Commission for Trauma-Informed Care.  In 2024, she expanded the reach of Sage Wellness Group to create Sage Leadership Institute which honors the specific roles of leaders within organizations. The first initiative of Sage Leadership Institute is Black Girl Sabbath, which caters to Black women in professional and corporate spaces, and emphasizes professional advancement while preserving emotional, physical and mental well-being. Dr. Tara resides in Maryland with her family.

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