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How many of us can really answer the question, “What do you do?”
As another year comes to an end and clients begin to wind down and defer big decisions until January; the business owner behaves a bit differently. We treat the festive season as a breath out moment. A chance to stop and try make sense of the ending year and at the same time, weigh up the opportunities and challenges of the New Year.
Given the contractual nature of consulting work, the hot topic is always growth and how to find new, amazing clients. Having a pipeline of awesome opportunities for our passionate and hungry team is a never-ending challenge.
Finding new work is never easy, in fact, most of our work has come from people that we have worked with previously, people who have seen us in action and want some of the magic that we bring.
Why is this the case? Why are there not more people reaching out to us for our skills and expertise? Why is network the most effective sales tool?
My refection on 2023 is that as an Agile community, we are our own worst enemies and need to rethink our value proposition and offerings if we are to succeed in our mission of helping teams and organisations reach their potential.
We can’t clearly express what we do and the value we add.
Talking to people in the industry there is a common set of titles, jargon and frameworks that we can discuss passionately. It is easy to discuss the latest trends, clients and case studies. There are debates about SAFe vs Scrum, Servant Leadership, certifications and who is talking at the next Business Agility conference. We have created our own mystery and sense of importance as an agile community.
But the fact that we tend to focus inwards as opposed to focus on the broader, business world is dangerous for the long-term sustainability of our agile community.
We expected too much from clients. We expect them to be fully appreciative of our titles like Agile Coach. We collect certifications and linkedIn badges and believe that clients want the coaching team with the most letters behind their names. We think that businesses are buying SAFe, Scrum or Agile.
However, clients are not going to pay for something they do not understand or appreciate. It’s too risky.
And this has made us realise that as an industry, we have a problem – we might be our own worst enemies. We should not force clients in business (or IT) to be understand what we do and how we do it from the onset. We need to stop talking the language of tools, frameworks, approaches and start listening more attentively to their needs, problems, and requirements.
When we listen to our clients, we will hear them talk about the problems they face that they need help solving. We will stop thinking that the answer they need will be delivered via a framework we believe in. We need to be humble enough to tailor our offer to improve their situation – not believe that no matter what the issue – that it will be solved by our desired approach.
When we link our success to our clients success and partner with them in a problem-solving approach, we will be less eager to show off our certifications, tools and frameworks and more interested in talking about our experience solving similar problems in other teams and organization. We will keep our eye on the prize of solving customer problems.
So, what is it that we actually do?
After struggling with this question for a while, it’s better to reframe the question…channel the voice of customers we have worked with, make their struggles and challenges real.
Tell relatable stories about what problems we solve. No jargon, no self-indulgence and no leaning on tools or frameworks.
Showing that you know the challenge at hand is key – So I no longer tell people my title, I don’t mention certifications or even the term “Agile”. I tell them a story they can relate to. I tell them that the people I work with solve those problems….
“You know how big organizations seem to have a tension between business and IT?”
“You know how there is always way too much work and not enough perceived delivery?”
“You know how everyone seems busy, busy, busy … but customer satisfaction is low?”
“You know how people think waterfall projects or agile ways of work have been tried before but don’t work as promised?”
“You know how teams complain about overload and stakeholders complain about quality and speed to market?”
Well…. we fix these problems. With leaders and teams.
And we have the track record in a few industries and organizations to show it.
That’s what we do.
So, what do you do?
And is your proposition clear and compelling to your customers?