1. Frame the Problem: Bucketing

Does your client think everything is a problem? 

That’s when you pull out the Bucketing framework. 

Think of it like the consultant version of organizing a junk drawer. 

You dump everything on the floor and organize it into boxes. No overlaps, and nothing’s missing. 

What you end up with is a clean, logical picture or what actually drives the problem – not just a blob of its symptoms. 

Imagine a consultant brought into a SaaS firm – convinced that their sales team wasn’t performing well.  

Instead of scheduling training or hiring new people, she used the Bucketing framework to cover every possible cause – from pricing confusion to bad lead quality and clunky CRM. 

Once everything was grouped, the real problem surfaced: positioning, not sales.

Marketing chased the wrong buyers, closing the wrong deals. 

After refocusing the message and pipeline, they cut 30% off the sales cycle. 

Bucketing didn’t just tidy up their thinking – it also reframed the problem entirely. 

Download our template here and experience the quiet magic of a good structure: