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Hey, happy Monday,
Maybe you’ll have combined Monday with Tuesday to take a well-deserved break by taking advantage of this bridge… or maybe, like me, you’ll give it your all today knowing that tomorrow you’ll be able to slow down a little…
Either way, I am careful not to break the promise I made to you when you signed up for this newsletter: every Monday, at 7:00, I will send you my notes. And here I am.
After all, a brand is nothing more than the promise we make to the people who give us their attention.
It is promises, those who know me know how important they are to me, are never broken.
I also promise to always respond to everyone who writes to me and I really do, especially those who respond to the (automated) welcome email. If you have written to me and still have not heard back, it is because this newsletter has just surpassed 1,100 members And I’m taking a little longer than usual. Sorry about that, it comes…
In the last week alone, this community has engineers, nanotechnologists, business developers, marketers, designers, growth hackers…
Perhaps, the largest extended team in Italy. Maybe the most capable of cracking the code of innovation. I’m glad you’re here.
Facts that really happened
On Thursday, in one of the groups I follow on Digital Strategy issues I commented on a post that sounded something like this and which I do not share by taking a screenshot because it is not important who wrote it, but it is important why it was written.
“[…]I am creating a business idea exploration workshop for a group of entrepreneurs.
[…]will aim to gather insights from the various stakeholders […] to validate the hypotheses that will come out of the experience of the people involved.
I chose these exercises:
- Business Model Canvas: have not yet built a BP and members have conflicting ideas about customer segments and service sales channels.
- Proto Personas: […] I would like to be able to prioritize 2-3 customer segments […].
- User Story Mapping: […] I need to understand the effort for a possible platform/app that we are going to create.
In your experience[…]do you think they make sense as I have presented them to you?”
Here’s how I responded. This is also the comment with the most interactions:
“[…]they are all useful exercises, but they have one flaw: You will get information that you already have. In my personal experience, I have realized that the first step is never to design the product or experience but to validate that there are people willing to pay someone or something to solve it for them. What do you have to prove is true for your hypotheses to make sense?”
After a short while the real reason for the request for help is revealed–the author responds to me.
“Totally agree with what you say, the problem is […] I have to follow the needs of the agency that has to sell its services.“
The borrowed clock
When I pull out the agency presentation, my colleagues pray that I didn’t put that slide where it says:
“If you want to grow 10× faster fire your agency.”-Antonio Civita
When I use it, it is always signed with my name and I always take responsibility for it, since I am also the Creative Director of the agency that writes it. I’ll explain why I really mean that.
Problem no. 1
Consultants are notorious for asking to borrow your watch to get paid to tell time. After two months of the work of the most talented business analyst jr. you get only two things: an invoice, and a 200-slide report with exactly the same things you knew before you commissioned the work.
Issue no. 2
Agency and Client both have the same problem: selling. Therefore, if not properly prepared, they will sell “the thing” in which they are most expert, which translated means, the highest-margin service.
Issue no. 3
Agencies are a beast to feed and therefore end up living in constant survival mode.
Some people do everything from logo design to Facebook Ads… In order not to give up work they deliver underperforming services and end up creating the next client who asks for discounts because they have already spent everything with the previous agency (history repeating).
Issue no. 4
Short term vs. long term. The purpose of buying consulting is to quickly fill a technical, organizational, operational… debt. To try to quickly achieve goals that would be too complicated to achieve with the current team. This is job-to-be-done.
But the real ROI of consulting happens when at the end of the work on the individual project both teams rediscover themselves better than when they started.
Often, however, the project becomes an exhausting tug-of-war where the client on the one hand demands an endless list of tasks in a contract (not paid in advance and not renegotiable), and on the other hand the agency performs all the steps one after the other, without questioning them, in order to keep the collaboration active and get paid at 120gg.
The new wave
Regardless of whether you offer or need innovative consulting services, you will have touched on the three problems I have just listed. But how is it possible to solve them?
A new wave of counseling is emerging…
Solution to problem no. 1
Co-creating. Because there are no experts with the glass ball and perfect knowledge of the client’s business model and operational capabilities.
A new agency model emerges that owns and governs structured design processes that enable:
- Fast learning: ability to quickly learn jargon and business dynamics typical of the client’s industry
- Inclusiveness facilitated: the ability to identify early and involve in decision-making processes those in the organization who will impact project delivery
- Multidisciplinary talent: the ability to bring to bear the most useful skills for any particular project, no the classic one-size-fits-all
Be careful not to get carried away with workshops. They are not a show. A way to turn a boring requirements-gathering meeting into a sexy way to impress clients. If every meeting turns into a workshop, something has gone wrong….
Solution to problem no. 2
Method. True professionals have a codified and repeatable method for consistently bringing results. Intuition does not count.
There are now so many design methodologies rooted in Design Thinking, here are a few, all of them effective.
But they are not the only ones. You could have your own proprietary method. I invite you to consider your greatest success story and, in retrospect, codify the various processing steps that brought that result. Come up with a name, brand this sequence of activities. Would you be more successful if you could apply this recipe, systematically to all clients?
Solution to problem no. 3
Hyperspecialization. Everyone is at their best under particular conditions of maturity of the organization they are working with or the project they are working on.
Mapping one’s own competencies and those of one’s value network is critical to attracting and working with the customers with whom one has the best chance of success.
Remember that recommending your colleague, or a competitor, is also a form of consulting. If you really solved the problem, your client will not only be grateful, but will come back to you when they are ready to buy your services.
Solution to problem no. 4
Learning or just delivering? Both are critical. Customers expect to completely outsource execution, as if innovation were a shiny object you could buy and put in your company, turn the key and watch it print money.
It cannot work that way. Innovation is a team game of rapid experimentation and shared learning. As the project continues both teams gain new expertise. Mutual training is not optional; it is an integral part of the project. Moments that must be marked in the gantt.
This on the one hand allows teams to work more cohesively, and on the other reduces the risk of customers being blackmailed into performing vital tasks (e.g., how do I do lead acquisition or where is the code documentation?).
Do you also see the same problems?
Are you already working in/with a new wave agency?
Sign up and reply to the welcome email to tell me yours, I always read and reply to everyone!
Good work!
Make yourself heard.
