Ray says clients hire him to ask hard questions and diagnose problems, not for answers he already has. His edge is digging until he finds the real sticking point, then bringing clarity. He gets there by being wrong many times first.
Why do people hire Ray? The best engagements I've had, people who hired me for the best reasons were the ones who hired me to ask questions rather than to have pat answers. I have multiple times been described as an expert on one tool or another, on field of development or what have you, but really my special sauce is diagnosis. And diagnosis comes from asking questions and really driving down into what's the core of what's going on and where is the sticking point and how can we get around it? And being able to bring clarity to questions. The key thing to that is that people hire me to ask questions, but not to give pat answers. And certainly I've got a base of experience. Really what I have is a willingness to be dumb 5, 6, 10, 100 times in order to be right once. When you can bring that mental model to yourself, you can have a little bit of Ray speaking in the back of your mind. Be asking more questions, except that you're on search for an answer.
