Message Consulting
For the messages you only get to deliver once
Some communication moments cannot be rehearsed in public. Michael works directly with leadership teams to craft, test, and pressure-proof the language before the stakes go live.
The moments that call for counsel
There are messages you can iterate on, and there are messages you get one chance to deliver. A merger announcement. A price increase to your most loyal customers. A product recall. A restructuring that affects thousands of employees. Testimony before a regulator. The launch that will define the next five years of the company. In these moments, the difference between the right words and the almost-right words is not stylistic — it is measured in market cap, retention, and reputation.
Michael's consulting practice exists for exactly these moments. He is not a ghostwriter and not an agency. He is a strategist who sits with the leadership team, understands the business problem underneath the communication problem, and then applies a disciplined method for finding language that survives contact with a skeptical audience.
How the work unfolds
- Diagnose. Every engagement begins with an honest audit of the current language — what you're saying today, what your critics are saying, and where the credibility gaps are. Most teams are surprised by how much of their messaging works against them.
- Draft. Working sessions with the core team produce candidate messages: not one polished script, but genuine alternatives that reflect different strategic choices about tone, emphasis, and admission.
- Test. Where timelines allow, candidate language goes in front of the real audience — customers, employees, investors, policyholders — using instant-response and qualitative methods. The audience, not the conference room, decides what stays.
- Deliver. The final phase turns winning language into the materials people actually use: leader talking points, Q&A documents, employee FAQs, customer letters, and spokesperson preparation for the hardest questions.
What makes the counsel different
Most communication advice starts with what the company wants to say. Michael starts with what the audience is prepared to hear. That inversion changes almost every recommendation. It is why he will often advise a client to lead with the fact they were planning to bury, to drop the statistic they were proudest of, or to replace a paragraph of reassurance with a single plausible sentence. Skeptical audiences have finely tuned spin detectors; the counsel is designed to keep you from setting them off.
Engagements are deliberately senior and deliberately small. You work with Michael, not a leverage pyramid. That makes the practice a fit for defined, high-stakes moments rather than year-round retainers — although many clients return, moment after moment, for a decade or more.
Typical engagements
- Crisis and litigation communication strategy
- M&A, restructuring, and leadership transition announcements
- Repositioning and category-defining product launches
- Pricing, fee, and policy-change communication
- Executive voice development for CEOs and founders
"He told us to cut the line we loved most. The research proved him right within the first four dial groups." General counsel, insurance carrier
Start a conversation
If you're facing a message that has to land, the first step is a confidential conversation about the moment, the audience, and the timeline. Michael personally reviews every inquiry and responds within two business days.