Less About the Drill, More About the Hole. Pt. 2
In my last post I talked about how we researchers can do ourselves a disservice by talking too much about process (‘the drill’) and not enough about outcomes (‘the hole’). This seemed particularly true when it comes to prospective clients. So I thought I’d follow up by sharing a few thoughts on what I think that actually means at a practical level.
I’m not presuming to speak for all clients, but in my experience, when pitching your services or presenting credentials to a prospective client, you should take care to:
Spare the detail: an introduction to your company’s set up and broad capabilities (history, head count, offices, scope of services, etc.) is the last thing you should focus on. Not only is it pretty dry stuff, I find the client either already knows this, or in the least assumes you have the basic capabilities – otherwise they wouldn’t have agreed to meet you. Have that info on hand, but never present it unless asked.
Bring the team: we are a service business, which means we are a people business. In my experience, prospective clients want to meet the people they would be working with.
Resist banging on about how new / innovative / different you are: others have covered this better than I, but the key points are worth reiterating. For starters, you may not be as new / innovative / different as you think you are. More critically, even if you are, there’s nothing inherently good about being ‘new’ or ‘different’ from a client’s point of view. Talking about it might well have got you noticed (and as I said in my previous post we should always be striving to be new / different / unique), but it’s probably not what prospective clients are wanting to hear now you are in front of them. So what do they want to hear? In my experience, in short, it’s proof that you understand and can work on their business. So…
Show don’t tell: it’s not enough to simply tell clients you can meet their needs – show them. And that means case studies, case studies and more case studies.
Show don’t tell (2): if you don’t have case studies, then take a gamble, do what you’re good at and do some ‘research’ of your own (desk research, talk to your nearest and dearest, ‘vox pops’ with the general public on the street, mine the collective knowledge of others in the your team, etc.). Then develop a point of view on your prospective client’s category, brand, or target consumer. Demonstrate how good you are at what you do.
And if you ever get past the credentials meeting and have the opportunity to submit a proposal, start at the end: these are your objectives, here are examples of exactly what you will get if you work with us, now let’s go through how we will get you there…
‘More talk about the hole, less about the drill’
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Over the last couple of months I’ve read a lot of lively online discussions about the role and future of qual research. As interesting as it’s been, what struck me most about what I read is they seem to be covering the same old topics (focus groups are dead, no they’re not, digital technology is wonderful, we need to get our heads around Behavioural Economics, etc. etc.), with discussion seemingly going round in circles.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the need for this type of discussion. It helps us be better researchers – and the better we are, the better we service our clients. And I agree entirely that some of the more recent advancements in qual have been great (more emphasis on ‘cultural insights’ rather than just individual motivations and attitudes; what mobile technology enables us to do; and a better understanding of human irrationality are my particular favourites). And I also understand that talking about new / interesting things can set you apart from your competitors and get you noticed.
But for every discussion like this on the web there seems an equal number of posts from clients talking about their dissatisfaction with research – lamenting the fact that, for example, researchers don’t focus enough on outcomes, that clients need insight that will have an impact, but just get more data, or that they are sick of getting great voluminous reports, etc. etc.
All ‘complaints’ we’ve heard many times before, right?
The temptation is to simply dismiss them as coming from unfortunate clients who have paid for bad research (and if only they used us instead….). But that would just be patronising. Anyway, to me the key issue is not whether these ‘complaints’ are justified. Rather, the question we should ask ourselves is why they persist, particularly as we are so convinced we deliver what our clients want.
To my mind, one reason is the clear dissonance between how we talk about what we do, and what clients are repeatedly telling us they want to hear. We debate techniques and processes and talk to clients about our ‘unique’ offerings. They want to hear about benefits to their business, clear next steps, a point of view.
I once heard someone say (albeit in a different context) that ‘nobody ever needed a drill, all they ever needed was a hole’. I think this analogy sums up the issue nicely: as an industry we talk ad nauseam about the drills we use, yet say comparitively little about the holes.
Why is this such an issue? In the very least because potential clients are likely to judge us – at least initially – by what we say, and too much talk of process can make us seem like inward-looking navel gazers who don’t understand a client’s business (despite claiming we do). We need to think carefully about how we appear to those who don’t know us.
But it’s also an issue because the less we talk about outcomes, the larger the leap of faith on the part of prospective clients. We make it harder for clients to ‘buy’ us than it need be.
But most critically, if we are constantly talking about processes and products not outcomes, then we risk devaluing our own services, commoditising what we do, and in the end make it harder for ourselves to become the valued partners our clients want us to be…?