I’ve read a lot of case studies. Most of them are fine. They follow the usual script: here was the problem, here’s what we did, and here’s the great result. But they almost always leave out the most interesting part.

They miss the moment someone saw something that everyone else had overlooked. That little spark of insight that made the whole solution possible.

I call it an Insight-Based Case Study. It’s like getting an x-ray of the consultant’s mind. You see how they think, not just what they did. It’s the difference between a checklist and a breakthrough. And it’s how you know that particular person was essential. Without them, that groovy insight might never have happened.

Here’s a quick, fictional example of what I mean, broken down.

The Problem They Had: A software company was losing customers. People would sign up for a free trial, poke around, and then disappear. The leadership team was convinced they were in a feature war and needed to build more stuff.

They Hire a Consultant: A consultant comes in. Instead of just looking at the competition, she starts by talking to people—the customers who left and the ones who stayed. She digs into the data to see what people were actually doing.

What She Saw That No One Else Did (aka The Insight!): She noticed something interesting. People weren’t leaving because the product was missing features. They were leaving because they were overwhelmed. They never got to that first small win that makes you love a product. The problem wasn’t a feature gap; it was an onboarding gap.

What They Did Because of Her Insight: Because of this, she convinced them to stop building new things and focus all their energy on fixing the first 15 minutes of the user experience. They created a simple, guided path to help new users get that first win.

The Result They Got: The change was huge. More people started converting to paid accounts, and fewer customers left. All because someone looked at the problem a little differently.

When you tell a story this way, you’re not just sharing a win. You’re showing how you think. And in the end, that’s what people are really buying.