00:01:43The Value of a Consultant Mindset
00:04:48Productizing Services for Efficiency
00:12:09Consultant Mindset in Service Delivery
00:24:39Sales Skills and Career Growth
معلومات عن هذه الحلقة
In a digital landscape that's constantly evolving, the role of project managers and other agency professionals is being redefined. It's no longer sufficient to simply manage tasks; the expectation now is to adopt a consultant mindset, one that actively seeks to add value at every turn.
Galen Low is joined by Max Traylor—The Consultant’s Consultant and Founder of Max Traylor LLC—to explore how shifting your perspective from merely completing projects to becoming a trusted advisor can unlock new opportunities, enhance client retention, and significantly grow your career.
Resources from this episode:
- Join DPM Membership
- Subscribe to the newsletter to get our latest articles and podcasts
- Connect with Max on LinkedIn and X
- Check out Max’s website
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WEBVTT
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Hey folks, thanks for tuning in.
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My name is Galen Low with the Digital Project Manager.
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We are a community of digital professionals on a mission to help each other get skilled, get confident, and get connected, so that we can amplify the value of project management in a digital world.
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If you want to hear more about that, head on over to thedigitalprojectmanager.com/membership.
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Okay, today we are talking about what it means to have a consultant mindset and how that mindset can create opportunities as well as risks for project managers and other specialists working in an agency or other client services context.
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Joining me today is Max Traylor, a former agency service designer and ex-pro-paintballer who now helps agencies productize consulting services that improve client retention.
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Max, thanks for joining me today!
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Yeah, good to be here.
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Good to have you, man.
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Hope I didn't make you laugh in your intro there.
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That was actually perfect because so what I tell all my guests, as is that I'm going to record my intro every time.
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And I don't think my listeners believe that it's a freshly recorded intro every time.
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So this will be that anomaly.
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We'll run a contest later.
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Oh, yeah, I wanted to knock you off your horse so that, so that you second guess your live performance.
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Mission accomplished.
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I'm gonna make that part of the show from now on.
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Be like, try and trip me up during my intro.
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Love it.
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I'm excited to dive in today.
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I'm really interested in your work.
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The story of how I know Max is that I was listening to you guest on another podcast, and there was so much you were saying about agency life that really landed with me.
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And then I really love this notion of, how folks working in an agency can be a little bit more strategic in their work so that they can create downstream work and can create more value for their clients, create more value for their agencies, and not just be kind of this flash in the pan.
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I thought maybe I'd just start by asking one juicy question.
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And the question is this — why would a project manager working at an agency want to put in the extra effort and energy to be seen as a consultant rather than just focusing on delivering the projects that get handed to them?
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Oh, I don't know.
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Job security, your contribution to the world, the level of respect.
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People like to be respected, not marginalized.
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So there are three levels at any organization, and this isn't my fault.
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This is just corporate culture.
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There's leaders that make decisions.
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There's doers that do things, and in the middle, there are managers that make doers do things that leaders want them to do.
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The top gets paid, the top gets respected, the bottom gets pushed down.
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That's how the top goes up.
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That's corporate culture in a nutshell.
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And if you're managing projects, you are the executioner for the decisions that were made at the leadership table.
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The great thing is you, if you are in a decision maker position and you don't have the experience of managing these projects, you're gonna make some dumb decisions.
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You're gonna make some unreasonable decisions and you're probably gonna push a lot of those people responsible for projects out of the organization because your expectations are unreasonable.
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But make no mistake, your career path goes in one direction, and that is from project manager to decision maker.
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It's nothing wrong with doing project manager.
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It's an essential skill, but the more that you can develop relationships with that leadership team in your current role, the more you'll find yourself slowly and slowly gravitating towards that decision maker identity.
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I really like that framing because I think for probably a lot of agency folks, but definitely project managers, like that path isn't clear of like, what is the role?
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What is that decision maker role that I would ascend towards?
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But I do like that notion of, yeah, it's just, you just want to find your way.
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If that's your goal, you want to find your way up to that, the level of leadership decision maker, whatever that may be.
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Will you go from managing projects to deciding what projects should be managed?
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I mean, in an agency context, is there like such thing as too many leaders?
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We're looking at the stack of kind of doers, managers, and leaders.
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If everyone's trying to be a leader, what happens to the other two layers of the stack?
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Well, if everyone tries to be a leader, there's going to be some churn.
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You're going to go to another.
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We're not still under the assumption that you're going to be at your current employer forever.
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I mean, I'd give you, anybody listening, I'd give you probably another year.
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Let's be honest.
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If we're looking in the mirror.
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So you want to go to that next gig instead of putting, Hey, I'm just a project manager.
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Hey, I've got some ideas about how to prioritize different projects, how to forecast project performance or efficiency, how to train other project managers.
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This is recognizing that your intellectual property, not just what your fingers can do.
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Your intellectual property, the stuff in your head can be codified, can be taught, can be monetized.
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And that's cooler than getting paid by the hour.
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I tell you what.
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Fair enough.
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I love that.
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Not just what your fingers do, but what's inside your brain.
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Yeah.
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And you got to use it a little like that.
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Yeah.
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Whenever we discuss the concept, for folks listening, we're just creepily wiggling our fingers.
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Little creepy piggies.
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Let's zoom out a bit.
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You help agencies productize their services so that they are positioned sensibly, so that they are efficient to deliver, so that they are crafted to increase client retention.
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And all that sounds great for agency owners and operators, but can you walk me through how that benefits specialists at other levels of the org chart?
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When you're talking about the manager level, when you're talking about the doers, how does that sort of productized service help them?
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Well, I mean, project managers should love this.
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Like, okay, you gotta manage a project.
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Has anybody written down what the steps are?
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Are there links to, like, the tools I should be using?
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Do we know how much I should time I should spend on each step?
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Can we somehow inform the client of their role at each of these steps and how long it's gonna take them?
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Do we know how much it's gonna cost us at each step?
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So a tick of mine is when I see a service being delivered and these questions aren't answered, it puts a heck of a burden on a project manager when these things haven't been set internally, let alone expectations be set with the client.
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And so I use a big word productize for something that really amounts to steps and things, you need to go through the same steps and deliver the same things every time.
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And don't give me this"every client is different".
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It's like, of course, but your process for delivering value should not be and you have to make money and you have to put food on the table and you have to babysit crazy, wild, unpredictable clients.
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So to the degree that you can document things, you're gonna do better.
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What is the benefit?
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Sanity, profitability, people liking you, frustration levels, stress levels, basically everything bad about a service business can be mitigated by treating a service like a product.
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And that's all I mean.
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I don't actually mean creating a product where in a lot of cases, if you're able to adhere to the same formula time and time again, there will be opportunities to literally create a product.
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For a project manager, I would look at the commonalities of the last 10 projects you managed.
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I'd put that into an instance of Monday that you can white label and resell to all your clients.
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A buddy of mine, I did that for a buddy, he's making 100 grand a year off of just a project template that he installs for every client.
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He added a line item, we're going to license you our project management software.
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Yeah, there's opportunities to literally make it a product.
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But the idea that you're going to productize a service is just like eliminating as much of the uncertainty as possible.
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I like that clarification because I think when people hear the word productize, they're like, we can't do that.
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Like, everything's different.
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Like you said, this sort of unique snowflake conundrum.
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But you don't mean that, hey, here's what you get in the box and like, only these five things and it's the same every time.
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You're talking about process and repeatability and fundamentally like predictability and like you touched on it there in terms of like, there's a lot of stress I find in a client services context, right?
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In an agency or consultancy, everything seems new and different every time you're working with different teams or stakeholders are different.
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I see a lot of teams are just like shrugging.
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They're like, I don't know what we're going to do.
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We'll just figure it out.
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Like, and it's all of this like ambiguity.
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Whereas actually, yes, if you look back at your, other 10 projects that you just did, there's some repeatable elements there of things that did work that you can bring in and just make life easier for yourself.
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There's a big changeover from the founder doing this work and somebody that's employed doing this work.
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And the difference is the ability and confidence to improvise.
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What comes next is the most important question in any project, right?
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So, if you're putting people in place and the expectation is, well, they're gonna figure it out, they have to improvise.
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One, they have to have the skill to do that, which takes a lot more experience to develop that skill set.
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But then every decision, there's the paranoia of how is this decision going to look for the person that cuts my check?
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Right.
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I like that sort of improvisation.
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In some conversations, that's like, like you said, it can be a skill.
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Yeah, for people like working at your agency who are great at improvising, that's an asset, in and of itself, but I don't think it's always an expectation.
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Yeah, and the best consultants will improvise, the best salespeople will improvise, the best business owners will improvise, the best conversationalists, conversationizers.
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I'm improvising right now.
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You improvised a word.
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The new words, yeah, words with friends.
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But you shouldn't rely on that when it comes to scaling your business.
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Yeah, there you go.
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And look around, most people are bad at it.
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Yeah, I mean, there's so much discomfort in having to improvise.
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You don't always have the full context of how it's impacting even the project, the client, your peers, let alone the person who's cutting your check.
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Yeah, look, improvise all you want, but don't improvise the process.
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Don't say like, today, I think instead of step three, we'll just skip that.
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We'll just skip it and go to step four.
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We'll make something up.
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Put some thought into the client journey.
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What is the most important first step, second step, third step, fourth step?
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A menu, a services menu.
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If your organization has a services menu, you need to have a serious talk with the person responsible for the services.
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A menu is a recipe for disaster.
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You ever worked at a restaurant?
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I have.
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It's a disaster.
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How much better would the experience be if you just hired a really good chef and the chef said, like, this is the four course meal.
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We're going to go one, two, three, four.
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We're going to make that as good as possible.
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Your job is just to make people feel comfortable.
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Make sure they have the drinks that they want.
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You don't have to worry about the food.
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The answer is yes or no.
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You want this food?
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Yes or no.
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Would have completely changed my life as a server.
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Yeah, fair enough.
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So.
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That's an interesting one.
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Menus are bad because they allow your customer to kind of pick and choose things that may or may not make sense.
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Am I picking up what you're putting down there?
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Well, you don't know what's next.
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You don't know what's next, so you can't set the proper expectations for what's next.
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The most important thing is that every client starts the same.
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Everything's about the start, right?
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So if you've got a menu of services, and you can identify your ideal client, which is I'm assuming people are doing that nowadays, your ideal client, then there is a single answer to the question.
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What is the most valuable thing that we can do first?
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That there's one answer to that.
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And so every time you allow a client to say, I think it's actually installing new toilets.
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That's what I want to do first.
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Then you're like, yes, client, the client's always right.
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No, the client's not always right.
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That's why they're hiring you.
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And so sometimes you got to step up and say, perfect.
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You want that?
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Here's the process that we're going to use to do that.
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A singular services process.
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You take those five things on your menu.
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And the first step is just to go, we're going to go one, two, three, four, five.
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Number one might take five minutes, but we're not going to skip it.
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We're not going to skip it.
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You're going to try that salad, even if you only have one bite.
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You must pick an appetizer from this fixed price menu.
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Yeah.
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It's part of the experience.
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You can't skip it.
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So singular services process, good.
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Menu, bad.
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I like that because like now I'm looking at it.
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I'm thinking about your background as a service designer, right?
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And you can't create a sort of client experience where the client is just calling all the shots and you're kind of just asking, you just taking their order.
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How can you deliver value there?
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Yeah, and then you start to say things like well, the client experience is that we're very attentive.
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Yeah, exactly.
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We're responsive.
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And we have a strong culture and we're always smiling.
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Here to do your bidding, the agency.
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Yeah, no one cares.
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No one, no one cares.
00:12:04.384 --> 00:12:07.153
Let's dive into that, because, we're talking about this consultant mindset.
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We were talking about consultants being also great improvisers.
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And you were talking about the client journey and the client experience, which I think is really important here.
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I'm thinking of this sort of consultant mindset and productization, and I'm wondering just like, how does the consultant mindset play into service delivery?
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Like, what do you mean when you say that agency folks should be thinking of themselves as consultants?
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Well, a consultant is someone that helps someone else make decisions, right?
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And the later you get involved in the decision making process, the less impact you can make.
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I've already decided that this is the most valuable project that we should work on.
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You go manage it.
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So now you're limited because what if there's a different project that you see because you're wise, and you have a different perspective and you're like, well, this project's, all well and good.
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But this other project over here would actually be more valuable and you haven't even thought about it.
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So a consultant is just somebody that helps these businesses make better decisions.
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As my dad would say, his definition of a consultant is that you just make up the price.
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Which I thought, it was always funny.
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The problem is that marketers identify as marketers.
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Project managers identify as project managers, when you really should identify as somebody that's adding value.
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I am here to add value.
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That is the only reason anyone is employed, is to add value.
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And so, the mindset is how can we add the most value?
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That's it.
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You walk around saying, how can I add the most value in a conversation about a project?
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You actually walk in, you go, how can I add the most value instead of saying, here's an update on steps three, four and five.
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I'm gonna go back and put my nose into this piece of paper here.
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And so with that mindset, you start to challenge things in ways that might make your job actually a little more difficult or a little more scary.
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Or you'll have to improvise, right?
00:13:59.408 --> 00:13:59.879
There you go.
00:14:00.099 --> 00:14:07.469
So, yeah, it's a mindset of like, look, I have project management to sell, or I have marketing to sell, or I have these other services to sell.
00:14:07.719 --> 00:14:13.068
But instead of that being my identity, and like, that's all I talk about, I'm actually here just to add value.
00:14:13.068 --> 00:14:14.879
So we could actually have a business conversation.
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It has nothing to do with marketing, nothing to do with project management.
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I'm actually here to figure out what is most important for you.
00:14:22.004 --> 00:14:27.433
What's going on in your life, and maybe just a conversation about that is actually adding value.
00:14:27.464 --> 00:14:33.423
Maybe I know somebody that I can introduce you to, and in that moment, you're a consultant, you're an indispensable partner, you're a trusted advisor.
00:14:34.683 --> 00:14:47.833
And if people start seeing you as a trusted advisor before they see you as a project manager, that just strengthens your relationship with the people that pay the bills, and that's gonna help you in every way, if you haven't figured that out.
00:14:48.274 --> 00:14:49.183
Absolutely, I love that.
00:14:49.323 --> 00:14:55.804
I love it because, especially for project managers, but arguably for, anyone sort of doing a job at an agency.
00:14:56.125 --> 00:14:59.673
It's easy to just be like, okay, I'm an order taker.
00:14:59.894 --> 00:15:04.125
Especially a project manager, they're like, I'm this in between where client asks for something.
00:15:04.355 --> 00:15:06.745
I take that and I ask the team to do it.
00:15:06.845 --> 00:15:07.745
That's my job.
00:15:07.975 --> 00:15:09.033
I'll stay in my lane.
00:15:09.254 --> 00:15:25.745
The more technically complex your practice is, I think the harder it is to step back and recognize that something so simple, that no one's really like talking about, is actually more powerful than the last five years of expertise that you've gained.
00:15:25.745 --> 00:15:30.284
Take like technology people that know how to fix computers, bless them, right?
00:15:30.284 --> 00:15:33.215
They have so much knowledge that no one cares about.
00:15:33.414 --> 00:15:38.594
Like, I don't care, but they need that when, they need to be there to answer those questions and to fix those problems.
00:15:38.595 --> 00:15:38.774
Right?
00:15:38.774 --> 00:15:45.059
So you go into a room with leadership and now your identity is attached to this technical stuff that no one cares about.
00:15:45.590 --> 00:15:46.789
What they care about is the value.
00:15:47.389 --> 00:15:52.590
And it's hard for somebody with all that technical knowledge to go in and just say, How can I add the most value?
00:15:52.590 --> 00:15:55.028
What's actually going on at the leadership level?
00:15:55.029 --> 00:15:57.538
What are some of, what are some of your important initiatives?
00:15:57.539 --> 00:15:59.799
Oh hey, marketing, what's up?
00:16:00.049 --> 00:16:00.940
Where are you up to?
00:16:01.789 --> 00:16:02.039
Right?
00:16:02.039 --> 00:16:07.169
That's not their profession, but it's how you generate relationships, trust, credibility.
00:16:07.500 --> 00:16:09.548
It's how people learn to like you.
00:16:09.600 --> 00:16:14.129
People like people that listen, not that can recite how to take apart a computer.
00:16:15.309 --> 00:16:16.918
I would not want to hang out with that person.
00:16:16.919 --> 00:16:17.409
Like, good for you.
00:16:17.409 --> 00:16:19.600
You have the knowledge, like save it for someone else.
00:16:20.019 --> 00:16:21.700
I like that sort of, stepping back from it.
00:16:21.730 --> 00:16:25.159
I mean, maybe we can get a little bit tactical here and like dig into that.
00:16:25.330 --> 00:16:31.548
You ever notice how if you talk to any employee and you ask them about their superiors, they're like they don't know anything.
00:16:33.349 --> 00:16:38.779
It's because it looks so simple from like an expert's standpoint that is doing all the work.
00:16:38.779 --> 00:16:39.980
I'm actually doing the work.
00:16:39.990 --> 00:16:41.320
I am pressing the buttons.
00:16:41.320 --> 00:16:43.840
There go the weird piggies again, the hands.
00:16:44.190 --> 00:16:45.279
I'm doing all the work.
00:16:45.570 --> 00:16:49.639
You're just sitting there, but they're not invited to that decision maker table.
00:16:49.639 --> 00:16:55.820
They don't know what happens in that room where you're just having higher level conversations and you're talking about adding value.
00:16:55.820 --> 00:16:59.538
So to an outsider, it just looks like they're like, what do you actually do?
00:17:00.229 --> 00:17:01.219
I'm a people person.
00:17:02.339 --> 00:17:11.219
It's really interesting you said that because I find often people will even be dismissive of the leaders above them to be like, well, they made the decision and I have to live with it.
00:17:11.398 --> 00:17:14.058
And it's just rather than being curious about it, I guess I should say.
00:17:14.118 --> 00:17:22.358
Because you said earlier, you're like, yeah, listen, ask questions, have conversations with people who don't do what you do, because then you'll have a better understanding of why these decisions are made.
00:17:22.358 --> 00:17:23.648
And then you can start influencing them.
00:17:24.038 --> 00:17:29.868
So one of my mentors, Steve Lashansky, that I end up quoting on every single podcast that I'm on.
00:17:29.999 --> 00:17:37.298
I get no kickbacks, but incredible leadership coach has this whole principle of being an indispensable partner.
00:17:37.588 --> 00:17:43.068
But he talks about two things that will have somebody perceive you as an indispensable partner.
00:17:43.308 --> 00:17:47.509
And that is, first, you have to be perceived as somebody that understands what is most important.
00:17:47.769 --> 00:17:51.108
I have to perceive that you understand what is most important to me.
00:17:51.358 --> 00:17:55.499
And number two, I have to perceive that you can actually facilitate what is most important.
00:17:55.808 --> 00:18:02.979
Which happens if you can help somebody identify what's most important, if you can help me identify what's most important for me, you get both.
00:18:03.028 --> 00:18:07.949
I will automatically assume that you can facilitate what's most important, regardless of if you have the skill set or not.
00:18:08.108 --> 00:18:15.659
But another thing that he talked about, I almost forgot when I was saying this, but being right is not sufficient for being effective.
00:18:16.469 --> 00:18:30.949
Technical people can be right all day long, but unless you can bring the other decision makers or the people writing the checks through a process of co-creation, of collaboration, lots of c words, that make them think it was their idea, it's not effective.
00:18:31.759 --> 00:18:32.669
You can be right all day long.
00:18:32.689 --> 00:18:33.308
It ain't gonna happen.
00:18:33.598 --> 00:18:35.969
Or you're gonna have one person out of five that's a blocker.
00:18:36.489 --> 00:18:37.548
You know, and then it's all done.
00:18:37.548 --> 00:18:39.618
So these soft skills are really important.
00:18:39.848 --> 00:18:44.439
I like the filter of sort of understanding what is most valuable to that person.
00:18:44.679 --> 00:18:49.703
Because also I've seen folks working at consultancies who, they take this a different way, right?
00:18:49.703 --> 00:18:51.334
They're like, I'm going to be a consultant.
00:18:51.384 --> 00:18:53.354
I'm going to sell any project.
00:18:53.374 --> 00:18:56.483
I'm just going to go and talk to my stakeholders and be like, you should do this and you should do that.
00:18:56.483 --> 00:18:57.844
And I'm going to spin up all these projects.
00:18:58.013 --> 00:19:03.634
And sometimes the effect is that whole portfolio of things they pitched while they were walking the halls doesn't make any sense at all.
00:19:03.874 --> 00:19:05.413
Nobody sees any value in it.
00:19:05.594 --> 00:19:10.213
They aren't the person who is going to be able to bring all the folks to the table to deliver those things.
00:19:10.483 --> 00:19:16.374
And really, they're just walking the halls to be schmoozy and salesy, thinking that equals dollars into their bonus.
00:19:16.759 --> 00:19:19.798
Which it could, but that's probably the wrong mindset.
00:19:19.818 --> 00:19:32.249
The better mindset is how can I understand the problem set better so that I can think of ways to add value that makes sense and then position myself as someone who understands what is valuable and kind of be that trusted partner.
00:19:32.429 --> 00:19:40.499
Look, it's easy to understand what is valuable, but the most critical skill is to arrive at what is most valuable.
00:19:40.778 --> 00:19:44.759
The most difficult question on the test is not the ones that say, pick the right answer.
00:19:44.759 --> 00:19:49.038
It's the ones that say, pick the one that best applies, and they're all the correct answer.
00:19:49.038 --> 00:19:50.328
It just drives you fricking nuts.
00:19:51.088 --> 00:20:00.048
That's what's going on in real life every day, because if you want to make more money, you can make more money by selling five things one at a time than you can by selling five things.
00:20:01.124 --> 00:20:03.413
Bundling brings the cost down.
00:20:03.784 --> 00:20:11.763
But if you can sell five things, one at a time, well, then you're going to get full buy-in from everybody involved to do one thing better and better.
00:20:11.913 --> 00:20:13.784
You're going to increase your renewals.
00:20:14.153 --> 00:20:15.903
You're going to piss less people off.
00:20:16.374 --> 00:20:18.003
You're going to reduce stress levels.
00:20:18.325 --> 00:20:23.013
You're going to be able to manage and set expectations and meet expectations more consistently.
00:20:23.358 --> 00:20:46.554
Like every project manager's dream is to manage one project at a time, and the only thing that's missing is the reason a client will want five things at a time is because you haven't brought them through a process to give them confidence in what is most impactful first, and why it's beneficial to do that most impactful thing first, before you do the second thing, before you do the third thing.
00:20:47.023 --> 00:20:47.884
That's really interesting.
00:20:47.923 --> 00:20:50.403
And there's so much discipline to that, I'd imagine.
00:20:50.463 --> 00:20:54.413
I've worked at agencies where, of course, we want to sell all five projects at the same time.
00:20:54.634 --> 00:20:56.433
It's going to add a couple zeros to the deal.
00:20:56.443 --> 00:20:58.163
Like, let's do it all at once.
00:20:58.634 --> 00:21:00.713
Clients like, yeah, let's boil the ocean, let's do this.
00:21:01.064 --> 00:21:05.294
And then, you're 4 weeks in and it all stalling because like, nobody actually has capacity to do that.
00:21:05.463 --> 00:21:06.963
Nothing's happening in the right order.
00:21:07.013 --> 00:21:12.979
I'm coming back to your like, fixed menu idea rather than having, Hey, choose what you want to do.
00:21:13.028 --> 00:21:13.788
Maybe it's everything.
00:21:13.788 --> 00:21:15.538
Maybe you want dessert first, like let's go.
00:21:15.939 --> 00:21:21.959
Versus like knowing and having enough confidence in your service and experience that you've designed to be like, we need to start here.
00:21:21.959 --> 00:21:24.249
We need to find the most valuable thing.
00:21:24.429 --> 00:21:26.058
And then we need to do that one thing.
00:21:26.374 --> 00:21:27.574
And then we can do the next thing.
00:21:27.794 --> 00:21:28.114
Yeah.
00:21:28.173 --> 00:21:30.163
The best restaurants have tiny menus.
00:21:30.284 --> 00:21:30.683
Yeah.
00:21:30.864 --> 00:21:31.243
Right.
00:21:31.534 --> 00:21:36.854
Hey, look, we only caught one fish today out there in the ocean and we only serve fresh, so this is what you're going to get.
00:21:37.003 --> 00:21:39.983
And it's the best, it's the best fresh fish you're going to get.
00:21:40.013 --> 00:21:42.054
And if you don't like fish, like you shouldn't be here.
00:21:42.263 --> 00:21:47.183
That's the other thing that people don't do is just take a stand on like who they're for and what they do.
00:21:47.384 --> 00:22:02.913
They just, they take anything and so it's impossible to have confidence in that singular services process because you're going to take somebody on that actually shouldn't go through that singular services process and they're actually going to only need the fourth out of five things that you've got.
00:22:02.913 --> 00:22:04.604
So there's this, it requires both.
00:22:04.624 --> 00:22:07.993
It requires you to make a decision on your ideal client.
00:22:08.328 --> 00:22:12.298
And you can't say something like a B2B software company.
00:22:12.618 --> 00:22:16.519
Like, No, dude, there's like a million different categories in what you just said.
00:22:16.709 --> 00:22:18.699
You might as well just say I help companies.
00:22:19.669 --> 00:22:26.239
It requires a more focused, ideal client, and it requires you to turn down some opportunities that aren't the right fit.
00:22:26.338 --> 00:22:29.568
And boy, is that scary because most of us are driven by fear and hunger.
00:22:29.769 --> 00:22:32.159
It's like that marshmallow thing.
00:22:32.398 --> 00:22:33.568
The test for the kids.
00:22:33.719 --> 00:22:35.449
Yeah, the famous marshmallow.
00:22:35.749 --> 00:22:39.788
Hey, kid, if you wait five minutes and you don't eat this marshmallow, you'll get two marshmallows.
00:22:40.298 --> 00:22:41.199
Kid eats the marshmallow every time.
00:22:42.489 --> 00:22:44.159
We're all just kids eating marshmallows.
00:22:44.348 --> 00:22:55.489
I was thinking that as what a difficult thing to persuade an agency owner to do when the whole game has been about trying to gather as much money on the table, like don't leave any money on the table.
00:22:55.679 --> 00:22:58.078
Yes, we will do copywriting suddenly.
00:22:58.263 --> 00:23:05.483
Even though that wasn't part of the deal and it's not a service we offer, but we'll find a way because there's money on the table and it's just dilutes their differentiation.
00:23:05.604 --> 00:23:08.243
Yeah, and I know what they're thinking right now.
00:23:08.374 --> 00:23:15.005
They're like, oh, it's easy for you to say, well, the reason is because most of them have not taken responsibility over their pipeline.
00:23:15.005 --> 00:23:18.755
So they actually need to eat because they don't know when their next meal is coming.
00:23:19.045 --> 00:23:21.355
Most agencies participate in buying process.
00:23:21.375 --> 00:23:22.434
They do not sell anything.
00:23:22.444 --> 00:23:23.494
They've never sold in their life.
00:23:23.799 --> 00:23:40.609
They've never gone out, developed a relationship, listen to somebody's critical initiatives or their priorities or over a period of time, and then offer a solution when what you offer is going to be most impactful for what they've decided is an important initiative for them.
00:23:40.878 --> 00:23:44.269
Most agencies just respond to a buying request.
00:23:44.269 --> 00:23:46.009
Hi, we've decided we want a website.
00:23:46.029 --> 00:23:48.430
Ooh, I'll be the cheapest or we'll be the best.
00:23:48.430 --> 00:23:49.210
Here's our features.
00:23:49.484 --> 00:23:51.724
That's participation in a buying process.
00:23:51.755 --> 00:23:54.095
There is no sales skills required for that.
00:23:54.994 --> 00:23:58.634
And so they don't intentionally build these relationships consistently.
00:23:58.805 --> 00:24:10.684
There's no rhyme or reason to the size of a client coming in, when those clients are going to come in, the relationship between an amount of hours being put in by a business development or sales rep, or even founder-led sales.
00:24:10.704 --> 00:24:19.019
There's no mathematical equation that says, if I let this crappy fish go, I will get the fish that I came for two weeks from now.
00:24:19.650 --> 00:24:23.819
It's like, I'll eat the crappy fish because we out here in the ocean and I might die.
00:24:24.920 --> 00:24:25.789
Yeah, we're hungry.
00:24:25.789 --> 00:24:26.329
We need to eat.
00:24:26.359 --> 00:24:26.909
Yeah, we're hungry.
00:24:27.219 --> 00:24:28.279
We need to eat now.
00:24:28.390 --> 00:24:29.319
That's really interesting.
00:24:29.480 --> 00:24:38.980
And actually, that spins back to the sort of consultant mindset where when you have a good client, if you have a good fish, you don't want to go out and get a whole bunch of new bad fish.
00:24:39.140 --> 00:24:41.509
You can actually get more from this good fish.
00:24:41.700 --> 00:24:43.200
Maybe I've taken the metaphor too far.
00:24:43.490 --> 00:24:48.884
But I think the sort of consulting thing, you said participating in a buying process is different than selling.
00:24:48.964 --> 00:24:58.144
And I think if I'm picking up what you're putting down, the consultant's job is selling in the sense of asking and understanding, not just reacting to a request.
00:24:58.305 --> 00:25:01.614
And I'm thinking about that in terms of, okay, yeah, so I'm a project manager.
00:25:01.614 --> 00:25:03.194
I want to be seen as a trusted advisor.
00:25:03.355 --> 00:25:04.275
I'm going to talk to people.
00:25:04.275 --> 00:25:05.035
I'm going to listen.
00:25:05.065 --> 00:25:07.275
I'm going to help make decisions.
00:25:07.305 --> 00:25:12.775
I'm going to help people, my clients specifically understand what the most valuable thing they could do right now.
00:25:13.125 --> 00:25:17.454
It sounds all fine and good, but I think a lot of folks listening are going to be like, okay, but like, that's a lot of time.
00:25:17.454 --> 00:25:19.035
Like, is that billable time?
00:25:19.095 --> 00:25:22.164
Am I going to be sacrificing my billability?
00:25:22.375 --> 00:25:24.335
Is my utilization rate going to go down?
00:25:24.345 --> 00:25:33.355
How can project managers and other agency folks like be consultants without sacrificing their billability or even just getting distracted from their job?
00:25:33.484 --> 00:25:35.404
First of all, there's so many things I want to say about that.
00:25:35.615 --> 00:25:37.325
Number one, everyone is in sales.
00:25:37.325 --> 00:25:39.045
If you haven't figured that out, you're going nowhere.
00:25:39.474 --> 00:25:44.055
You have to sell your job role every single day to your employer, do you not?
00:25:45.565 --> 00:25:47.704
And so consultant is selling.
00:25:47.993 --> 00:25:54.914
You're selling the idea, you're selling your role, you're selling in that thing that is most important.
00:25:54.924 --> 00:25:56.545
Everyone is in sales.
00:25:56.980 --> 00:26:01.769
People that have sales roles are simply the way that the money is exchanged.
00:26:02.259 --> 00:26:09.779
I'm getting you to make a decision where you're going to purchase something from me, whereas a consultant is I'm making you a decision where you'll continue to work with me.
00:26:09.779 --> 00:26:10.839
It's barely different.
00:26:11.230 --> 00:26:14.619
And the idea that am I being paid for this?
00:26:14.630 --> 00:26:16.200
Is this part of my hourly, billing?
00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:20.339
Everyone's objective should be to get out of hourly billing.
00:26:20.490 --> 00:26:23.269
It should be to get out of trading time for dollars.
00:26:23.549 --> 00:26:25.769
Because you are incentivized to suck at your job.
00:26:26.140 --> 00:26:29.259
Am I going to make more money if it takes a simple task, five hours or one hour?
00:26:29.470 --> 00:26:31.259
I'm going to make more money if it takes me five hours.
00:26:31.269 --> 00:26:32.470
So you're incentivized to suck.
00:26:32.849 --> 00:26:34.839
Now, profitability comes from innovation.
00:26:34.940 --> 00:26:36.960
Innovation makes you do things better, faster, cheaper.
00:26:37.220 --> 00:26:48.684
So if you start innovating and coming up with ways to do things better, faster, and cheaper, you will make less money, which is why your current hourly gig that you got going on is terrible for you.
00:26:50.545 --> 00:26:52.565
It's like walking around with weights on your feet.
00:26:52.565 --> 00:26:56.154
So the question is not, is this something that I can charge for?
00:26:56.335 --> 00:26:59.525
The question is simply, how can I add the most value?
00:27:00.134 --> 00:27:01.134
And the answer is, I don't know.
00:27:01.134 --> 00:27:07.484
So you got to go talk to the people that have the money that aren't getting paid hourly, people that run the company, and you're gonna ask questions.
00:27:07.934 --> 00:27:09.644
And it's not, how's your computer going?
00:27:09.744 --> 00:27:11.964
Or can I do this project any better for you?
00:27:11.964 --> 00:27:15.144
It's like, Hey, I never asked you, what's the plan with this business?
00:27:15.384 --> 00:27:17.244
Are you going for an exit in a few years?
00:27:17.244 --> 00:27:18.994
Do you see this as like a lifestyle business?
00:27:18.994 --> 00:27:22.914
Are you trying to hand it off to somebody like, what's the big, how's your family?
00:27:23.414 --> 00:27:24.515
The important shit in life.
00:27:24.644 --> 00:27:25.184
I like that.
00:27:25.184 --> 00:27:26.464
I mean, there's a lot to chomp on.
00:27:26.474 --> 00:27:27.404
And you're absolutely right.
00:27:27.404 --> 00:27:27.694
Right?
00:27:27.714 --> 00:27:34.174
For like a, when you're getting paid for time spent doing a thing, copywriting, being a project manager, being a designer, you name it.
00:27:34.404 --> 00:27:34.615
Yeah.
00:27:34.615 --> 00:27:39.424
You are incentivized to, for it to take time so that you make more money or whatever.
00:27:39.664 --> 00:27:43.994
And that kind of like curbs the innovative spirit because you're like, why would I innovate?
00:27:44.194 --> 00:27:45.684
I'm not incentivized to do that.
00:27:45.904 --> 00:27:49.934
But I do like this idea of just like going and having that conversation.
00:27:50.183 --> 00:27:52.255
I like this idea that we're all in sales, right?
00:27:52.255 --> 00:27:56.973
You're selling your value every day to frankly, everyone you interact with, especially your boss and especially your client.
00:27:57.134 --> 00:28:02.894
But I guess at the end of the day, and maybe to cap this off, like, folks who are listening to this and going, yeah, that sounds awesome.
00:28:03.045 --> 00:28:03.994
Max, you're absolutely right.
00:28:04.025 --> 00:28:05.234
I need to be doing more of this.
00:28:05.234 --> 00:28:07.513
I need to be having more of these conversations.
00:28:07.835 --> 00:28:12.184
But what if they're like five layers away in the org chart from having that conversation?
00:28:12.400 --> 00:28:17.549
Where it's not so simple, Max, I can't just email my CEO and go, Hey, can we chat about your family?
00:28:17.670 --> 00:28:19.059
No, start with the people around you.
00:28:19.059 --> 00:28:25.710
You can't pogo stick five layers up, but you can start to develop stronger relationships with the people that you already interact with.
00:28:26.079 --> 00:28:30.189
People that make decisions about how many hours you work, what projects you have to take on.
00:28:30.449 --> 00:28:34.900
Everyone should understand who their most valuable relationship is.
00:28:35.375 --> 00:28:40.025
At one organization, there's like one person that's your ticket to the next step.
00:28:40.615 --> 00:28:42.434
So you start with that person and you practice.
00:28:42.765 --> 00:28:46.325
You have to sell the idea to that person that you are more valuable than your current role.
00:28:46.653 --> 00:28:48.734
That is what career path is.
00:28:49.134 --> 00:28:51.743
Selling the idea that you are more valuable than your current role.
00:28:52.015 --> 00:28:56.644
And so the idea that a project manager is sitting there going, Well, I've not paid for that.
00:28:56.644 --> 00:28:57.575
That's not my job.
00:28:57.825 --> 00:28:59.555
You misunderstand your job.
00:28:59.859 --> 00:29:01.359
Your job is to add value.
00:29:01.710 --> 00:29:06.799
And there's something else that you could be doing or talking about that is more valuable than the project you're managing today.
00:29:07.019 --> 00:29:07.700
Go figure it out.
00:29:07.910 --> 00:29:08.529
Go find it.
00:29:08.789 --> 00:29:09.140
Boom.
00:29:09.470 --> 00:29:09.859
There it is.
00:29:09.875 --> 00:29:10.345
I love that.
00:29:10.765 --> 00:29:12.775
Max, thanks so much for spending the time with me today.
00:29:12.845 --> 00:29:13.714
Loved our conversation.
00:29:13.714 --> 00:29:14.384
It's been a lot of fun.
00:29:14.575 --> 00:29:15.315
I enjoyed it.
00:29:16.025 --> 00:29:17.484
Alright folks, there you have it.
00:29:17.634 --> 00:29:23.134
As always, if you'd like to join the conversation with over a thousand like-minded project management champions, come join our collective.
00:29:23.384 --> 00:29:27.124
Head on over to thedigitalprojectmanager.com/membership to learn more.
00:29:27.324 --> 00:29:31.894
And if you like what you heard today, please subscribe and stay in touch on thedigitalprojectmanager.com.
00:29:32.095 --> 00:29:33.615
Until next time, thanks for listening.
00:00:04.919 --> 00:00:06.089
Hey folks, thanks for tuning in.
00:00:06.099 --> 00:00:08.619
My name is Galen Low with the Digital Project Manager.
00:00:08.810 --> 00:00:17.250
We are a community of digital professionals on a mission to help each other get skilled, get confident, and get connected, so that we can amplify the value of project management in a digital world.
00:00:17.689 --> 00:00:23.228
If you want to hear more about that, head on over to thedigitalprojectmanager.com/membership.
00:00:23.298 --> 00:00:36.859
Okay, today we are talking about what it means to have a consultant mindset and how that mindset can create opportunities as well as risks for project managers and other specialists working in an agency or other client services context.
00:00:37.384 --> 00:00:46.603
Joining me today is Max Traylor, a former agency service designer and ex-pro-paintballer who now helps agencies productize consulting services that improve client retention.
00:00:46.625 --> 00:00:47.963
Max, thanks for joining me today!
00:00:48.104 --> 00:00:49.475
Yeah, good to be here.
00:00:49.634 --> 00:00:50.384
Good to have you, man.
00:00:50.405 --> 00:00:52.393
Hope I didn't make you laugh in your intro there.
00:00:52.433 --> 00:00:58.185
That was actually perfect because so what I tell all my guests, as is that I'm going to record my intro every time.
00:00:58.375 --> 00:01:02.265
And I don't think my listeners believe that it's a freshly recorded intro every time.
00:01:02.445 --> 00:01:03.564
So this will be that anomaly.
00:01:03.575 --> 00:01:04.474
We'll run a contest later.
00:01:04.474 --> 00:01:08.314
Oh, yeah, I wanted to knock you off your horse so that, so that you second guess your live performance.
00:01:08.314 --> 00:01:09.155
Mission accomplished.
00:01:10.575 --> 00:01:12.394
I'm gonna make that part of the show from now on.
00:01:12.405 --> 00:01:14.575
Be like, try and trip me up during my intro.
00:01:14.694 --> 00:01:14.885
Love it.
00:01:15.239 --> 00:01:16.629
I'm excited to dive in today.
00:01:16.629 --> 00:01:18.170
I'm really interested in your work.
00:01:18.439 --> 00:01:26.280
The story of how I know Max is that I was listening to you guest on another podcast, and there was so much you were saying about agency life that really landed with me.
00:01:26.329 --> 00:01:41.280
And then I really love this notion of, how folks working in an agency can be a little bit more strategic in their work so that they can create downstream work and can create more value for their clients, create more value for their agencies, and not just be kind of this flash in the pan.
00:01:41.620 --> 00:01:44.719
I thought maybe I'd just start by asking one juicy question.
00:01:44.969 --> 00:01:55.299
And the question is this — why would a project manager working at an agency want to put in the extra effort and energy to be seen as a consultant rather than just focusing on delivering the projects that get handed to them?
00:01:55.439 --> 00:01:55.989
Oh, I don't know.
00:01:55.989 --> 00:02:00.129
Job security, your contribution to the world, the level of respect.
00:02:00.359 --> 00:02:03.109
People like to be respected, not marginalized.
00:02:03.370 --> 00:02:06.879
So there are three levels at any organization, and this isn't my fault.
00:02:06.890 --> 00:02:08.050
This is just corporate culture.
00:02:08.050 --> 00:02:09.729
There's leaders that make decisions.
00:02:09.969 --> 00:02:16.150
There's doers that do things, and in the middle, there are managers that make doers do things that leaders want them to do.
00:02:16.409 --> 00:02:19.259
The top gets paid, the top gets respected, the bottom gets pushed down.
00:02:19.259 --> 00:02:20.719
That's how the top goes up.
00:02:21.129 --> 00:02:22.969
That's corporate culture in a nutshell.
00:02:22.969 --> 00:02:30.675
And if you're managing projects, you are the executioner for the decisions that were made at the leadership table.
00:02:30.675 --> 00:02:39.115
The great thing is you, if you are in a decision maker position and you don't have the experience of managing these projects, you're gonna make some dumb decisions.
00:02:39.115 --> 00:02:48.000
You're gonna make some unreasonable decisions and you're probably gonna push a lot of those people responsible for projects out of the organization because your expectations are unreasonable.
00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:54.300
But make no mistake, your career path goes in one direction, and that is from project manager to decision maker.
00:02:54.710 --> 00:02:56.770
It's nothing wrong with doing project manager.
00:02:56.770 --> 00:03:09.645
It's an essential skill, but the more that you can develop relationships with that leadership team in your current role, the more you'll find yourself slowly and slowly gravitating towards that decision maker identity.
00:03:09.905 --> 00:03:17.835
I really like that framing because I think for probably a lot of agency folks, but definitely project managers, like that path isn't clear of like, what is the role?
00:03:17.835 --> 00:03:21.215
What is that decision maker role that I would ascend towards?
00:03:21.405 --> 00:03:24.465
But I do like that notion of, yeah, it's just, you just want to find your way.
00:03:24.645 --> 00:03:30.485
If that's your goal, you want to find your way up to that, the level of leadership decision maker, whatever that may be.
00:03:30.655 --> 00:03:34.574
Will you go from managing projects to deciding what projects should be managed?
00:03:34.585 --> 00:03:38.365
I mean, in an agency context, is there like such thing as too many leaders?
00:03:38.455 --> 00:03:41.895
We're looking at the stack of kind of doers, managers, and leaders.
00:03:42.104 --> 00:03:45.705
If everyone's trying to be a leader, what happens to the other two layers of the stack?
00:03:45.990 --> 00:03:49.310
Well, if everyone tries to be a leader, there's going to be some churn.
00:03:49.620 --> 00:03:50.979
You're going to go to another.
00:03:51.229 --> 00:03:54.610
We're not still under the assumption that you're going to be at your current employer forever.
00:03:54.659 --> 00:03:57.590
I mean, I'd give you, anybody listening, I'd give you probably another year.
00:03:57.830 --> 00:03:58.770
Let's be honest.
00:03:58.879 --> 00:03:59.849
If we're looking in the mirror.
00:04:00.340 --> 00:04:05.430
So you want to go to that next gig instead of putting, Hey, I'm just a project manager.
00:04:05.449 --> 00:04:15.849
Hey, I've got some ideas about how to prioritize different projects, how to forecast project performance or efficiency, how to train other project managers.
00:04:16.019 --> 00:04:21.100
This is recognizing that your intellectual property, not just what your fingers can do.
00:04:21.685 --> 00:04:27.435
Your intellectual property, the stuff in your head can be codified, can be taught, can be monetized.
00:04:27.685 --> 00:04:30.855
And that's cooler than getting paid by the hour.
00:04:30.855 --> 00:04:31.475
I tell you what.
00:04:31.694 --> 00:04:32.194
Fair enough.
00:04:32.235 --> 00:04:32.694
I love that.
00:04:32.694 --> 00:04:34.704
Not just what your fingers do, but what's inside your brain.
00:04:35.095 --> 00:04:35.314
Yeah.
00:04:35.314 --> 00:04:37.495
And you got to use it a little like that.
00:04:38.014 --> 00:04:38.245
Yeah.
00:04:38.394 --> 00:04:42.454
Whenever we discuss the concept, for folks listening, we're just creepily wiggling our fingers.
00:04:42.665 --> 00:04:43.944
Little creepy piggies.
00:04:45.305 --> 00:04:46.095
Let's zoom out a bit.
00:04:46.295 --> 00:04:55.795
You help agencies productize their services so that they are positioned sensibly, so that they are efficient to deliver, so that they are crafted to increase client retention.
00:04:56.064 --> 00:05:03.084
And all that sounds great for agency owners and operators, but can you walk me through how that benefits specialists at other levels of the org chart?
00:05:03.084 --> 00:05:08.295
When you're talking about the manager level, when you're talking about the doers, how does that sort of productized service help them?
00:05:08.634 --> 00:05:11.495
Well, I mean, project managers should love this.
00:05:11.545 --> 00:05:13.214
Like, okay, you gotta manage a project.
00:05:13.464 --> 00:05:15.694
Has anybody written down what the steps are?
00:05:15.975 --> 00:05:18.444
Are there links to, like, the tools I should be using?
00:05:18.685 --> 00:05:21.494
Do we know how much I should time I should spend on each step?
00:05:21.803 --> 00:05:26.694
Can we somehow inform the client of their role at each of these steps and how long it's gonna take them?
00:05:26.944 --> 00:05:29.165
Do we know how much it's gonna cost us at each step?
00:05:29.509 --> 00:05:43.019
So a tick of mine is when I see a service being delivered and these questions aren't answered, it puts a heck of a burden on a project manager when these things haven't been set internally, let alone expectations be set with the client.
00:05:43.379 --> 00:05:52.279
And so I use a big word productize for something that really amounts to steps and things, you need to go through the same steps and deliver the same things every time.
00:05:52.745 --> 00:05:55.274
And don't give me this"every client is different".
00:05:55.295 --> 00:06:05.423
It's like, of course, but your process for delivering value should not be and you have to make money and you have to put food on the table and you have to babysit crazy, wild, unpredictable clients.
00:06:05.423 --> 00:06:08.875
So to the degree that you can document things, you're gonna do better.
00:06:09.144 --> 00:06:10.165
What is the benefit?
00:06:10.314 --> 00:06:22.464
Sanity, profitability, people liking you, frustration levels, stress levels, basically everything bad about a service business can be mitigated by treating a service like a product.
00:06:22.524 --> 00:06:23.305
And that's all I mean.
00:06:23.305 --> 00:06:34.404
I don't actually mean creating a product where in a lot of cases, if you're able to adhere to the same formula time and time again, there will be opportunities to literally create a product.
00:06:34.824 --> 00:06:39.225
For a project manager, I would look at the commonalities of the last 10 projects you managed.
00:06:39.555 --> 00:06:44.985
I'd put that into an instance of Monday that you can white label and resell to all your clients.
00:06:45.324 --> 00:06:51.824
A buddy of mine, I did that for a buddy, he's making 100 grand a year off of just a project template that he installs for every client.
00:06:51.824 --> 00:06:55.495
He added a line item, we're going to license you our project management software.
00:06:56.053 --> 00:06:58.615
Yeah, there's opportunities to literally make it a product.
00:06:58.615 --> 00:07:05.843
But the idea that you're going to productize a service is just like eliminating as much of the uncertainty as possible.
00:07:06.084 --> 00:07:10.084
I like that clarification because I think when people hear the word productize, they're like, we can't do that.
00:07:10.084 --> 00:07:10.985
Like, everything's different.
00:07:11.004 --> 00:07:13.605
Like you said, this sort of unique snowflake conundrum.
00:07:13.910 --> 00:07:20.139
But you don't mean that, hey, here's what you get in the box and like, only these five things and it's the same every time.
00:07:20.370 --> 00:07:30.928
You're talking about process and repeatability and fundamentally like predictability and like you touched on it there in terms of like, there's a lot of stress I find in a client services context, right?
00:07:30.930 --> 00:07:37.079
In an agency or consultancy, everything seems new and different every time you're working with different teams or stakeholders are different.
00:07:37.360 --> 00:07:39.149
I see a lot of teams are just like shrugging.
00:07:39.149 --> 00:07:40.990
They're like, I don't know what we're going to do.
00:07:40.990 --> 00:07:41.949
We'll just figure it out.
00:07:41.980 --> 00:07:44.220
Like, and it's all of this like ambiguity.
00:07:44.430 --> 00:07:53.978
Whereas actually, yes, if you look back at your, other 10 projects that you just did, there's some repeatable elements there of things that did work that you can bring in and just make life easier for yourself.
00:07:54.309 --> 00:08:01.249
There's a big changeover from the founder doing this work and somebody that's employed doing this work.
00:08:01.559 --> 00:08:05.838
And the difference is the ability and confidence to improvise.
00:08:06.178 --> 00:08:09.009
What comes next is the most important question in any project, right?
00:08:09.449 --> 00:08:15.168
So, if you're putting people in place and the expectation is, well, they're gonna figure it out, they have to improvise.
00:08:15.178 --> 00:08:20.399
One, they have to have the skill to do that, which takes a lot more experience to develop that skill set.
00:08:20.819 --> 00:08:27.869
But then every decision, there's the paranoia of how is this decision going to look for the person that cuts my check?
00:08:28.119 --> 00:08:28.519
Right.
00:08:28.778 --> 00:08:31.288
I like that sort of improvisation.
00:08:31.369 --> 00:08:34.629
In some conversations, that's like, like you said, it can be a skill.
00:08:34.879 --> 00:08:43.068
Yeah, for people like working at your agency who are great at improvising, that's an asset, in and of itself, but I don't think it's always an expectation.
00:08:43.208 --> 00:08:52.479
Yeah, and the best consultants will improvise, the best salespeople will improvise, the best business owners will improvise, the best conversationalists, conversationizers.
00:08:53.769 --> 00:08:55.139
I'm improvising right now.
00:08:55.269 --> 00:08:56.188
You improvised a word.
00:08:56.958 --> 00:08:59.089
The new words, yeah, words with friends.
00:08:59.149 --> 00:09:02.599
But you shouldn't rely on that when it comes to scaling your business.
00:09:02.798 --> 00:09:03.798
Yeah, there you go.
00:09:03.798 --> 00:09:05.928
And look around, most people are bad at it.
00:09:06.158 --> 00:09:08.778
Yeah, I mean, there's so much discomfort in having to improvise.
00:09:08.808 --> 00:09:15.038
You don't always have the full context of how it's impacting even the project, the client, your peers, let alone the person who's cutting your check.
00:09:15.269 --> 00:09:18.609
Yeah, look, improvise all you want, but don't improvise the process.
00:09:18.609 --> 00:09:22.259
Don't say like, today, I think instead of step three, we'll just skip that.
00:09:22.399 --> 00:09:24.339
We'll just skip it and go to step four.
00:09:24.339 --> 00:09:25.249
We'll make something up.
00:09:25.599 --> 00:09:28.369
Put some thought into the client journey.
00:09:28.369 --> 00:09:31.428
What is the most important first step, second step, third step, fourth step?
00:09:31.788 --> 00:09:34.668
A menu, a services menu.
00:09:34.698 --> 00:09:43.269
If your organization has a services menu, you need to have a serious talk with the person responsible for the services.
00:09:43.359 --> 00:09:45.979
A menu is a recipe for disaster.
00:09:46.158 --> 00:09:47.379
You ever worked at a restaurant?
00:09:47.489 --> 00:09:47.918
I have.
00:09:48.208 --> 00:09:49.479
It's a disaster.
00:09:49.759 --> 00:09:56.634
How much better would the experience be if you just hired a really good chef and the chef said, like, this is the four course meal.
00:09:56.764 --> 00:09:57.923
We're going to go one, two, three, four.
00:09:57.933 --> 00:09:59.744
We're going to make that as good as possible.
00:10:00.094 --> 00:10:02.283
Your job is just to make people feel comfortable.
00:10:02.283 --> 00:10:04.114
Make sure they have the drinks that they want.
00:10:04.313 --> 00:10:05.364
You don't have to worry about the food.
00:10:05.844 --> 00:10:06.693
The answer is yes or no.
00:10:06.703 --> 00:10:07.484
You want this food?
00:10:07.504 --> 00:10:08.014
Yes or no.
00:10:08.573 --> 00:10:12.703
Would have completely changed my life as a server.
00:10:13.073 --> 00:10:13.693
Yeah, fair enough.
00:10:14.484 --> 00:10:14.894
So.
00:10:15.619 --> 00:10:16.428
That's an interesting one.
00:10:16.479 --> 00:10:24.739
Menus are bad because they allow your customer to kind of pick and choose things that may or may not make sense.
00:10:25.068 --> 00:10:26.389
Am I picking up what you're putting down there?
00:10:26.658 --> 00:10:28.099
Well, you don't know what's next.
00:10:28.288 --> 00:10:32.698
You don't know what's next, so you can't set the proper expectations for what's next.
00:10:32.979 --> 00:10:36.198
The most important thing is that every client starts the same.
00:10:36.678 --> 00:10:38.408
Everything's about the start, right?
00:10:38.428 --> 00:10:50.099
So if you've got a menu of services, and you can identify your ideal client, which is I'm assuming people are doing that nowadays, your ideal client, then there is a single answer to the question.
00:10:50.099 --> 00:10:52.928
What is the most valuable thing that we can do first?
00:10:52.958 --> 00:10:54.308
That there's one answer to that.
00:10:54.739 --> 00:10:59.278
And so every time you allow a client to say, I think it's actually installing new toilets.
00:10:59.278 --> 00:11:00.509
That's what I want to do first.
00:11:01.124 --> 00:11:03.163
Then you're like, yes, client, the client's always right.
00:11:03.403 --> 00:11:04.823
No, the client's not always right.
00:11:04.833 --> 00:11:05.933
That's why they're hiring you.
00:11:07.094 --> 00:11:10.984
And so sometimes you got to step up and say, perfect.
00:11:10.994 --> 00:11:11.683
You want that?
00:11:11.703 --> 00:11:13.903
Here's the process that we're going to use to do that.
00:11:14.043 --> 00:11:15.793
A singular services process.
00:11:15.793 --> 00:11:17.474
You take those five things on your menu.
00:11:17.803 --> 00:11:20.178
And the first step is just to go, we're going to go one, two, three, four, five.
00:11:20.989 --> 00:11:23.178
Number one might take five minutes, but we're not going to skip it.
00:11:23.469 --> 00:11:24.188
We're not going to skip it.
00:11:24.188 --> 00:11:26.178
You're going to try that salad, even if you only have one bite.
00:11:26.599 --> 00:11:29.568
You must pick an appetizer from this fixed price menu.
00:11:29.568 --> 00:11:29.649
Yeah.
00:11:29.708 --> 00:11:30.538
It's part of the experience.
00:11:30.538 --> 00:11:31.028
You can't skip it.
00:11:31.788 --> 00:11:35.038
So singular services process, good.
00:11:35.649 --> 00:11:36.408
Menu, bad.
00:11:36.803 --> 00:11:38.504
I like that because like now I'm looking at it.
00:11:38.504 --> 00:11:40.663
I'm thinking about your background as a service designer, right?
00:11:40.663 --> 00:11:48.203
And you can't create a sort of client experience where the client is just calling all the shots and you're kind of just asking, you just taking their order.
00:11:48.644 --> 00:11:50.104
How can you deliver value there?
00:11:50.153 --> 00:11:54.153
Yeah, and then you start to say things like well, the client experience is that we're very attentive.
00:11:54.224 --> 00:11:54.964
Yeah, exactly.
00:11:54.974 --> 00:11:55.644
We're responsive.
00:11:55.693 --> 00:11:58.744
And we have a strong culture and we're always smiling.
00:12:00.364 --> 00:12:01.644
Here to do your bidding, the agency.
00:12:01.644 --> 00:12:02.783
Yeah, no one cares.
00:12:02.894 --> 00:12:03.994
No one, no one cares.
00:12:04.384 --> 00:12:07.153
Let's dive into that, because, we're talking about this consultant mindset.
00:12:07.333 --> 00:12:10.474
We were talking about consultants being also great improvisers.
00:12:10.744 --> 00:12:16.644
And you were talking about the client journey and the client experience, which I think is really important here.
00:12:16.854 --> 00:12:25.443
I'm thinking of this sort of consultant mindset and productization, and I'm wondering just like, how does the consultant mindset play into service delivery?
00:12:25.673 --> 00:12:29.734
Like, what do you mean when you say that agency folks should be thinking of themselves as consultants?
00:12:30.134 --> 00:12:36.908
Well, a consultant is someone that helps someone else make decisions, right?
00:12:36.969 --> 00:12:41.918
And the later you get involved in the decision making process, the less impact you can make.
00:12:42.308 --> 00:12:46.448
I've already decided that this is the most valuable project that we should work on.
00:12:46.499 --> 00:12:47.519
You go manage it.
00:12:47.964 --> 00:12:55.413
So now you're limited because what if there's a different project that you see because you're wise, and you have a different perspective and you're like, well, this project's, all well and good.
00:12:55.663 --> 00:12:59.354
But this other project over here would actually be more valuable and you haven't even thought about it.
00:12:59.364 --> 00:13:04.683
So a consultant is just somebody that helps these businesses make better decisions.
00:13:05.173 --> 00:13:09.073
As my dad would say, his definition of a consultant is that you just make up the price.
00:13:09.519 --> 00:13:10.938
Which I thought, it was always funny.
00:13:11.399 --> 00:13:15.639
The problem is that marketers identify as marketers.
00:13:15.999 --> 00:13:24.278
Project managers identify as project managers, when you really should identify as somebody that's adding value.
00:13:24.318 --> 00:13:26.788
I am here to add value.
00:13:26.850 --> 00:13:30.879
That is the only reason anyone is employed, is to add value.
00:13:31.208 --> 00:13:33.879
And so, the mindset is how can we add the most value?
00:13:34.318 --> 00:13:34.729
That's it.
00:13:34.759 --> 00:13:39.288
You walk around saying, how can I add the most value in a conversation about a project?
00:13:39.288 --> 00:13:44.938
You actually walk in, you go, how can I add the most value instead of saying, here's an update on steps three, four and five.
00:13:44.938 --> 00:13:48.078
I'm gonna go back and put my nose into this piece of paper here.
00:13:48.408 --> 00:13:57.298
And so with that mindset, you start to challenge things in ways that might make your job actually a little more difficult or a little more scary.
00:13:57.619 --> 00:13:59.139
Or you'll have to improvise, right?
00:13:59.408 --> 00:13:59.879
There you go.
00:14:00.099 --> 00:14:07.469
So, yeah, it's a mindset of like, look, I have project management to sell, or I have marketing to sell, or I have these other services to sell.
00:14:07.719 --> 00:14:13.068
But instead of that being my identity, and like, that's all I talk about, I'm actually here just to add value.
00:14:13.068 --> 00:14:14.879
So we could actually have a business conversation.
00:14:14.879 --> 00:14:17.788
It has nothing to do with marketing, nothing to do with project management.
00:14:18.089 --> 00:14:21.509
I'm actually here to figure out what is most important for you.
00:14:22.004 --> 00:14:27.433
What's going on in your life, and maybe just a conversation about that is actually adding value.
00:14:27.464 --> 00:14:33.423
Maybe I know somebody that I can introduce you to, and in that moment, you're a consultant, you're an indispensable partner, you're a trusted advisor.
00:14:34.683 --> 00:14:47.833
And if people start seeing you as a trusted advisor before they see you as a project manager, that just strengthens your relationship with the people that pay the bills, and that's gonna help you in every way, if you haven't figured that out.
00:14:48.274 --> 00:14:49.183
Absolutely, I love that.
00:14:49.323 --> 00:14:55.804
I love it because, especially for project managers, but arguably for, anyone sort of doing a job at an agency.
00:14:56.125 --> 00:14:59.673
It's easy to just be like, okay, I'm an order taker.
00:14:59.894 --> 00:15:04.125
Especially a project manager, they're like, I'm this in between where client asks for something.
00:15:04.355 --> 00:15:06.745
I take that and I ask the team to do it.
00:15:06.845 --> 00:15:07.745
That's my job.
00:15:07.975 --> 00:15:09.033
I'll stay in my lane.
00:15:09.254 --> 00:15:25.745
The more technically complex your practice is, I think the harder it is to step back and recognize that something so simple, that no one's really like talking about, is actually more powerful than the last five years of expertise that you've gained.
00:15:25.745 --> 00:15:30.284
Take like technology people that know how to fix computers, bless them, right?
00:15:30.284 --> 00:15:33.215
They have so much knowledge that no one cares about.
00:15:33.414 --> 00:15:38.594
Like, I don't care, but they need that when, they need to be there to answer those questions and to fix those problems.
00:15:38.595 --> 00:15:38.774
Right?
00:15:38.774 --> 00:15:45.059
So you go into a room with leadership and now your identity is attached to this technical stuff that no one cares about.
00:15:45.590 --> 00:15:46.789
What they care about is the value.
00:15:47.389 --> 00:15:52.590
And it's hard for somebody with all that technical knowledge to go in and just say, How can I add the most value?
00:15:52.590 --> 00:15:55.028
What's actually going on at the leadership level?
00:15:55.029 --> 00:15:57.538
What are some of, what are some of your important initiatives?
00:15:57.539 --> 00:15:59.799
Oh hey, marketing, what's up?
00:16:00.049 --> 00:16:00.940
Where are you up to?
00:16:01.789 --> 00:16:02.039
Right?
00:16:02.039 --> 00:16:07.169
That's not their profession, but it's how you generate relationships, trust, credibility.
00:16:07.500 --> 00:16:09.548
It's how people learn to like you.
00:16:09.600 --> 00:16:14.129
People like people that listen, not that can recite how to take apart a computer.
00:16:15.309 --> 00:16:16.918
I would not want to hang out with that person.
00:16:16.919 --> 00:16:17.409
Like, good for you.
00:16:17.409 --> 00:16:19.600
You have the knowledge, like save it for someone else.
00:16:20.019 --> 00:16:21.700
I like that sort of, stepping back from it.
00:16:21.730 --> 00:16:25.159
I mean, maybe we can get a little bit tactical here and like dig into that.
00:16:25.330 --> 00:16:31.548
You ever notice how if you talk to any employee and you ask them about their superiors, they're like they don't know anything.
00:16:33.349 --> 00:16:38.779
It's because it looks so simple from like an expert's standpoint that is doing all the work.
00:16:38.779 --> 00:16:39.980
I'm actually doing the work.
00:16:39.990 --> 00:16:41.320
I am pressing the buttons.
00:16:41.320 --> 00:16:43.840
There go the weird piggies again, the hands.
00:16:44.190 --> 00:16:45.279
I'm doing all the work.
00:16:45.570 --> 00:16:49.639
You're just sitting there, but they're not invited to that decision maker table.
00:16:49.639 --> 00:16:55.820
They don't know what happens in that room where you're just having higher level conversations and you're talking about adding value.
00:16:55.820 --> 00:16:59.538
So to an outsider, it just looks like they're like, what do you actually do?
00:17:00.229 --> 00:17:01.219
I'm a people person.
00:17:02.339 --> 00:17:11.219
It's really interesting you said that because I find often people will even be dismissive of the leaders above them to be like, well, they made the decision and I have to live with it.
00:17:11.398 --> 00:17:14.058
And it's just rather than being curious about it, I guess I should say.
00:17:14.118 --> 00:17:22.358
Because you said earlier, you're like, yeah, listen, ask questions, have conversations with people who don't do what you do, because then you'll have a better understanding of why these decisions are made.
00:17:22.358 --> 00:17:23.648
And then you can start influencing them.
00:17:24.038 --> 00:17:29.868
So one of my mentors, Steve Lashansky, that I end up quoting on every single podcast that I'm on.
00:17:29.999 --> 00:17:37.298
I get no kickbacks, but incredible leadership coach has this whole principle of being an indispensable partner.
00:17:37.588 --> 00:17:43.068
But he talks about two things that will have somebody perceive you as an indispensable partner.
00:17:43.308 --> 00:17:47.509
And that is, first, you have to be perceived as somebody that understands what is most important.
00:17:47.769 --> 00:17:51.108
I have to perceive that you understand what is most important to me.
00:17:51.358 --> 00:17:55.499
And number two, I have to perceive that you can actually facilitate what is most important.
00:17:55.808 --> 00:18:02.979
Which happens if you can help somebody identify what's most important, if you can help me identify what's most important for me, you get both.
00:18:03.028 --> 00:18:07.949
I will automatically assume that you can facilitate what's most important, regardless of if you have the skill set or not.
00:18:08.108 --> 00:18:15.659
But another thing that he talked about, I almost forgot when I was saying this, but being right is not sufficient for being effective.
00:18:16.469 --> 00:18:30.949
Technical people can be right all day long, but unless you can bring the other decision makers or the people writing the checks through a process of co-creation, of collaboration, lots of c words, that make them think it was their idea, it's not effective.
00:18:31.759 --> 00:18:32.669
You can be right all day long.
00:18:32.689 --> 00:18:33.308
It ain't gonna happen.
00:18:33.598 --> 00:18:35.969
Or you're gonna have one person out of five that's a blocker.
00:18:36.489 --> 00:18:37.548
You know, and then it's all done.
00:18:37.548 --> 00:18:39.618
So these soft skills are really important.
00:18:39.848 --> 00:18:44.439
I like the filter of sort of understanding what is most valuable to that person.
00:18:44.679 --> 00:18:49.703
Because also I've seen folks working at consultancies who, they take this a different way, right?
00:18:49.703 --> 00:18:51.334
They're like, I'm going to be a consultant.
00:18:51.384 --> 00:18:53.354
I'm going to sell any project.
00:18:53.374 --> 00:18:56.483
I'm just going to go and talk to my stakeholders and be like, you should do this and you should do that.
00:18:56.483 --> 00:18:57.844
And I'm going to spin up all these projects.
00:18:58.013 --> 00:19:03.634
And sometimes the effect is that whole portfolio of things they pitched while they were walking the halls doesn't make any sense at all.
00:19:03.874 --> 00:19:05.413
Nobody sees any value in it.
00:19:05.594 --> 00:19:10.213
They aren't the person who is going to be able to bring all the folks to the table to deliver those things.
00:19:10.483 --> 00:19:16.374
And really, they're just walking the halls to be schmoozy and salesy, thinking that equals dollars into their bonus.
00:19:16.759 --> 00:19:19.798
Which it could, but that's probably the wrong mindset.
00:19:19.818 --> 00:19:32.249
The better mindset is how can I understand the problem set better so that I can think of ways to add value that makes sense and then position myself as someone who understands what is valuable and kind of be that trusted partner.
00:19:32.429 --> 00:19:40.499
Look, it's easy to understand what is valuable, but the most critical skill is to arrive at what is most valuable.
00:19:40.778 --> 00:19:44.759
The most difficult question on the test is not the ones that say, pick the right answer.
00:19:44.759 --> 00:19:49.038
It's the ones that say, pick the one that best applies, and they're all the correct answer.
00:19:49.038 --> 00:19:50.328
It just drives you fricking nuts.
00:19:51.088 --> 00:20:00.048
That's what's going on in real life every day, because if you want to make more money, you can make more money by selling five things one at a time than you can by selling five things.
00:20:01.124 --> 00:20:03.413
Bundling brings the cost down.
00:20:03.784 --> 00:20:11.763
But if you can sell five things, one at a time, well, then you're going to get full buy-in from everybody involved to do one thing better and better.
00:20:11.913 --> 00:20:13.784
You're going to increase your renewals.
00:20:14.153 --> 00:20:15.903
You're going to piss less people off.
00:20:16.374 --> 00:20:18.003
You're going to reduce stress levels.
00:20:18.325 --> 00:20:23.013
You're going to be able to manage and set expectations and meet expectations more consistently.
00:20:23.358 --> 00:20:46.554
Like every project manager's dream is to manage one project at a time, and the only thing that's missing is the reason a client will want five things at a time is because you haven't brought them through a process to give them confidence in what is most impactful first, and why it's beneficial to do that most impactful thing first, before you do the second thing, before you do the third thing.
00:20:47.023 --> 00:20:47.884
That's really interesting.
00:20:47.923 --> 00:20:50.403
And there's so much discipline to that, I'd imagine.
00:20:50.463 --> 00:20:54.413
I've worked at agencies where, of course, we want to sell all five projects at the same time.
00:20:54.634 --> 00:20:56.433
It's going to add a couple zeros to the deal.
00:20:56.443 --> 00:20:58.163
Like, let's do it all at once.
00:20:58.634 --> 00:21:00.713
Clients like, yeah, let's boil the ocean, let's do this.
00:21:01.064 --> 00:21:05.294
And then, you're 4 weeks in and it all stalling because like, nobody actually has capacity to do that.
00:21:05.463 --> 00:21:06.963
Nothing's happening in the right order.
00:21:07.013 --> 00:21:12.979
I'm coming back to your like, fixed menu idea rather than having, Hey, choose what you want to do.
00:21:13.028 --> 00:21:13.788
Maybe it's everything.
00:21:13.788 --> 00:21:15.538
Maybe you want dessert first, like let's go.
00:21:15.939 --> 00:21:21.959
Versus like knowing and having enough confidence in your service and experience that you've designed to be like, we need to start here.
00:21:21.959 --> 00:21:24.249
We need to find the most valuable thing.
00:21:24.429 --> 00:21:26.058
And then we need to do that one thing.
00:21:26.374 --> 00:21:27.574
And then we can do the next thing.
00:21:27.794 --> 00:21:28.114
Yeah.
00:21:28.173 --> 00:21:30.163
The best restaurants have tiny menus.
00:21:30.284 --> 00:21:30.683
Yeah.
00:21:30.864 --> 00:21:31.243
Right.
00:21:31.534 --> 00:21:36.854
Hey, look, we only caught one fish today out there in the ocean and we only serve fresh, so this is what you're going to get.
00:21:37.003 --> 00:21:39.983
And it's the best, it's the best fresh fish you're going to get.
00:21:40.013 --> 00:21:42.054
And if you don't like fish, like you shouldn't be here.
00:21:42.263 --> 00:21:47.183
That's the other thing that people don't do is just take a stand on like who they're for and what they do.
00:21:47.384 --> 00:22:02.913
They just, they take anything and so it's impossible to have confidence in that singular services process because you're going to take somebody on that actually shouldn't go through that singular services process and they're actually going to only need the fourth out of five things that you've got.
00:22:02.913 --> 00:22:04.604
So there's this, it requires both.
00:22:04.624 --> 00:22:07.993
It requires you to make a decision on your ideal client.
00:22:08.328 --> 00:22:12.298
And you can't say something like a B2B software company.
00:22:12.618 --> 00:22:16.519
Like, No, dude, there's like a million different categories in what you just said.
00:22:16.709 --> 00:22:18.699
You might as well just say I help companies.
00:22:19.669 --> 00:22:26.239
It requires a more focused, ideal client, and it requires you to turn down some opportunities that aren't the right fit.
00:22:26.338 --> 00:22:29.568
And boy, is that scary because most of us are driven by fear and hunger.
00:22:29.769 --> 00:22:32.159
It's like that marshmallow thing.
00:22:32.398 --> 00:22:33.568
The test for the kids.
00:22:33.719 --> 00:22:35.449
Yeah, the famous marshmallow.
00:22:35.749 --> 00:22:39.788
Hey, kid, if you wait five minutes and you don't eat this marshmallow, you'll get two marshmallows.
00:22:40.298 --> 00:22:41.199
Kid eats the marshmallow every time.
00:22:42.489 --> 00:22:44.159
We're all just kids eating marshmallows.
00:22:44.348 --> 00:22:55.489
I was thinking that as what a difficult thing to persuade an agency owner to do when the whole game has been about trying to gather as much money on the table, like don't leave any money on the table.
00:22:55.679 --> 00:22:58.078
Yes, we will do copywriting suddenly.
00:22:58.263 --> 00:23:05.483
Even though that wasn't part of the deal and it's not a service we offer, but we'll find a way because there's money on the table and it's just dilutes their differentiation.
00:23:05.604 --> 00:23:08.243
Yeah, and I know what they're thinking right now.
00:23:08.374 --> 00:23:15.005
They're like, oh, it's easy for you to say, well, the reason is because most of them have not taken responsibility over their pipeline.
00:23:15.005 --> 00:23:18.755
So they actually need to eat because they don't know when their next meal is coming.
00:23:19.045 --> 00:23:21.355
Most agencies participate in buying process.
00:23:21.375 --> 00:23:22.434
They do not sell anything.
00:23:22.444 --> 00:23:23.494
They've never sold in their life.
00:23:23.799 --> 00:23:40.609
They've never gone out, developed a relationship, listen to somebody's critical initiatives or their priorities or over a period of time, and then offer a solution when what you offer is going to be most impactful for what they've decided is an important initiative for them.
00:23:40.878 --> 00:23:44.269
Most agencies just respond to a buying request.
00:23:44.269 --> 00:23:46.009
Hi, we've decided we want a website.
00:23:46.029 --> 00:23:48.430
Ooh, I'll be the cheapest or we'll be the best.
00:23:48.430 --> 00:23:49.210
Here's our features.
00:23:49.484 --> 00:23:51.724
That's participation in a buying process.
00:23:51.755 --> 00:23:54.095
There is no sales skills required for that.
00:23:54.994 --> 00:23:58.634
And so they don't intentionally build these relationships consistently.
00:23:58.805 --> 00:24:10.684
There's no rhyme or reason to the size of a client coming in, when those clients are going to come in, the relationship between an amount of hours being put in by a business development or sales rep, or even founder-led sales.
00:24:10.704 --> 00:24:19.019
There's no mathematical equation that says, if I let this crappy fish go, I will get the fish that I came for two weeks from now.
00:24:19.650 --> 00:24:23.819
It's like, I'll eat the crappy fish because we out here in the ocean and I might die.
00:24:24.920 --> 00:24:25.789
Yeah, we're hungry.
00:24:25.789 --> 00:24:26.329
We need to eat.
00:24:26.359 --> 00:24:26.909
Yeah, we're hungry.
00:24:27.219 --> 00:24:28.279
We need to eat now.
00:24:28.390 --> 00:24:29.319
That's really interesting.
00:24:29.480 --> 00:24:38.980
And actually, that spins back to the sort of consultant mindset where when you have a good client, if you have a good fish, you don't want to go out and get a whole bunch of new bad fish.
00:24:39.140 --> 00:24:41.509
You can actually get more from this good fish.
00:24:41.700 --> 00:24:43.200
Maybe I've taken the metaphor too far.
00:24:43.490 --> 00:24:48.884
But I think the sort of consulting thing, you said participating in a buying process is different than selling.
00:24:48.964 --> 00:24:58.144
And I think if I'm picking up what you're putting down, the consultant's job is selling in the sense of asking and understanding, not just reacting to a request.
00:24:58.305 --> 00:25:01.614
And I'm thinking about that in terms of, okay, yeah, so I'm a project manager.
00:25:01.614 --> 00:25:03.194
I want to be seen as a trusted advisor.
00:25:03.355 --> 00:25:04.275
I'm going to talk to people.
00:25:04.275 --> 00:25:05.035
I'm going to listen.
00:25:05.065 --> 00:25:07.275
I'm going to help make decisions.
00:25:07.305 --> 00:25:12.775
I'm going to help people, my clients specifically understand what the most valuable thing they could do right now.
00:25:13.125 --> 00:25:17.454
It sounds all fine and good, but I think a lot of folks listening are going to be like, okay, but like, that's a lot of time.
00:25:17.454 --> 00:25:19.035
Like, is that billable time?
00:25:19.095 --> 00:25:22.164
Am I going to be sacrificing my billability?
00:25:22.375 --> 00:25:24.335
Is my utilization rate going to go down?
00:25:24.345 --> 00:25:33.355
How can project managers and other agency folks like be consultants without sacrificing their billability or even just getting distracted from their job?
00:25:33.484 --> 00:25:35.404
First of all, there's so many things I want to say about that.
00:25:35.615 --> 00:25:37.325
Number one, everyone is in sales.
00:25:37.325 --> 00:25:39.045
If you haven't figured that out, you're going nowhere.
00:25:39.474 --> 00:25:44.055
You have to sell your job role every single day to your employer, do you not?
00:25:45.565 --> 00:25:47.704
And so consultant is selling.
00:25:47.993 --> 00:25:54.914
You're selling the idea, you're selling your role, you're selling in that thing that is most important.
00:25:54.924 --> 00:25:56.545
Everyone is in sales.
00:25:56.980 --> 00:26:01.769
People that have sales roles are simply the way that the money is exchanged.
00:26:02.259 --> 00:26:09.779
I'm getting you to make a decision where you're going to purchase something from me, whereas a consultant is I'm making you a decision where you'll continue to work with me.
00:26:09.779 --> 00:26:10.839
It's barely different.
00:26:11.230 --> 00:26:14.619
And the idea that am I being paid for this?
00:26:14.630 --> 00:26:16.200
Is this part of my hourly, billing?
00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:20.339
Everyone's objective should be to get out of hourly billing.
00:26:20.490 --> 00:26:23.269
It should be to get out of trading time for dollars.
00:26:23.549 --> 00:26:25.769
Because you are incentivized to suck at your job.
00:26:26.140 --> 00:26:29.259
Am I going to make more money if it takes a simple task, five hours or one hour?
00:26:29.470 --> 00:26:31.259
I'm going to make more money if it takes me five hours.
00:26:31.269 --> 00:26:32.470
So you're incentivized to suck.
00:26:32.849 --> 00:26:34.839
Now, profitability comes from innovation.
00:26:34.940 --> 00:26:36.960
Innovation makes you do things better, faster, cheaper.
00:26:37.220 --> 00:26:48.684
So if you start innovating and coming up with ways to do things better, faster, and cheaper, you will make less money, which is why your current hourly gig that you got going on is terrible for you.
00:26:50.545 --> 00:26:52.565
It's like walking around with weights on your feet.
00:26:52.565 --> 00:26:56.154
So the question is not, is this something that I can charge for?
00:26:56.335 --> 00:26:59.525
The question is simply, how can I add the most value?
00:27:00.134 --> 00:27:01.134
And the answer is, I don't know.
00:27:01.134 --> 00:27:07.484
So you got to go talk to the people that have the money that aren't getting paid hourly, people that run the company, and you're gonna ask questions.
00:27:07.934 --> 00:27:09.644
And it's not, how's your computer going?
00:27:09.744 --> 00:27:11.964
Or can I do this project any better for you?
00:27:11.964 --> 00:27:15.144
It's like, Hey, I never asked you, what's the plan with this business?
00:27:15.384 --> 00:27:17.244
Are you going for an exit in a few years?
00:27:17.244 --> 00:27:18.994
Do you see this as like a lifestyle business?
00:27:18.994 --> 00:27:22.914
Are you trying to hand it off to somebody like, what's the big, how's your family?
00:27:23.414 --> 00:27:24.515
The important shit in life.
00:27:24.644 --> 00:27:25.184
I like that.
00:27:25.184 --> 00:27:26.464
I mean, there's a lot to chomp on.
00:27:26.474 --> 00:27:27.404
And you're absolutely right.
00:27:27.404 --> 00:27:27.694
Right?
00:27:27.714 --> 00:27:34.174
For like a, when you're getting paid for time spent doing a thing, copywriting, being a project manager, being a designer, you name it.
00:27:34.404 --> 00:27:34.615
Yeah.
00:27:34.615 --> 00:27:39.424
You are incentivized to, for it to take time so that you make more money or whatever.
00:27:39.664 --> 00:27:43.994
And that kind of like curbs the innovative spirit because you're like, why would I innovate?
00:27:44.194 --> 00:27:45.684
I'm not incentivized to do that.
00:27:45.904 --> 00:27:49.934
But I do like this idea of just like going and having that conversation.
00:27:50.183 --> 00:27:52.255
I like this idea that we're all in sales, right?
00:27:52.255 --> 00:27:56.973
You're selling your value every day to frankly, everyone you interact with, especially your boss and especially your client.
00:27:57.134 --> 00:28:02.894
But I guess at the end of the day, and maybe to cap this off, like, folks who are listening to this and going, yeah, that sounds awesome.
00:28:03.045 --> 00:28:03.994
Max, you're absolutely right.
00:28:04.025 --> 00:28:05.234
I need to be doing more of this.
00:28:05.234 --> 00:28:07.513
I need to be having more of these conversations.
00:28:07.835 --> 00:28:12.184
But what if they're like five layers away in the org chart from having that conversation?
00:28:12.400 --> 00:28:17.549
Where it's not so simple, Max, I can't just email my CEO and go, Hey, can we chat about your family?
00:28:17.670 --> 00:28:19.059
No, start with the people around you.
00:28:19.059 --> 00:28:25.710
You can't pogo stick five layers up, but you can start to develop stronger relationships with the people that you already interact with.
00:28:26.079 --> 00:28:30.189
People that make decisions about how many hours you work, what projects you have to take on.
00:28:30.449 --> 00:28:34.900
Everyone should understand who their most valuable relationship is.
00:28:35.375 --> 00:28:40.025
At one organization, there's like one person that's your ticket to the next step.
00:28:40.615 --> 00:28:42.434
So you start with that person and you practice.
00:28:42.765 --> 00:28:46.325
You have to sell the idea to that person that you are more valuable than your current role.
00:28:46.653 --> 00:28:48.734
That is what career path is.
00:28:49.134 --> 00:28:51.743
Selling the idea that you are more valuable than your current role.
00:28:52.015 --> 00:28:56.644
And so the idea that a project manager is sitting there going, Well, I've not paid for that.
00:28:56.644 --> 00:28:57.575
That's not my job.
00:28:57.825 --> 00:28:59.555
You misunderstand your job.
00:28:59.859 --> 00:29:01.359
Your job is to add value.
00:29:01.710 --> 00:29:06.799
And there's something else that you could be doing or talking about that is more valuable than the project you're managing today.
00:29:07.019 --> 00:29:07.700
Go figure it out.
00:29:07.910 --> 00:29:08.529
Go find it.
00:29:08.789 --> 00:29:09.140
Boom.
00:29:09.470 --> 00:29:09.859
There it is.
00:29:09.875 --> 00:29:10.345
I love that.
00:29:10.765 --> 00:29:12.775
Max, thanks so much for spending the time with me today.
00:29:12.845 --> 00:29:13.714
Loved our conversation.
00:29:13.714 --> 00:29:14.384
It's been a lot of fun.
00:29:14.575 --> 00:29:15.315
I enjoyed it.
00:29:16.025 --> 00:29:17.484
Alright folks, there you have it.
00:29:17.634 --> 00:29:23.134
As always, if you'd like to join the conversation with over a thousand like-minded project management champions, come join our collective.
00:29:23.384 --> 00:29:27.124
Head on over to thedigitalprojectmanager.com/membership to learn more.
00:29:27.324 --> 00:29:31.894
And if you like what you heard today, please subscribe and stay in touch on thedigitalprojectmanager.com.
00:29:32.095 --> 00:29:33.615
Until next time, thanks for listening.
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إخلاء المسؤولية: البودكاست والأعمال الفنية المضمنة في هذه الصفحة مأخوذة من Galen Low، وهي مملوكة لمالكها وليست تابعة لشركة Listen Notes, Inc أو معتمدة منها.
تعديل
شكراً على مساعدتنا في الحفاظ على قاعدة بيانات البودكاست مُحدَّثة.
