Notes from Nick

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Last time I wrote about how important it is for consultancy-style shops to solve their client’s strategic challenges. I got some great feedback on that newsletter, but I also got a few questions. One of the most common ones was around how exactly to have those strategy chats with clients.

I just ran through this with another client, so I thought It’d be helpful to share the process and some sample questions to get you started.

First, a bit of background on where this advice comes from.

Skip this section if you already trust my work 😁

During my brief stint as an equity analyst, I spent a large part of my time interviewing. I spoke with everyone from VP and C-level execs at large publicly traded firms to floor managers at electronics retailers. This gave me an immense appreciation for the amount of industry insight you can gain from having simple conversations.

When I started out, I clung to a script for dear life.

I hated when interviews would veer off that script because I didn’t know enough about the space yet. Sure I knew the broad strokes, the overarching themes, but I didn’t know what was important to that executive that day. I worried they’d “find me out” and ask why I didn’t know something that simple about their industry.

Well, that never happened. Good thing I was so concerned about it…

A few months in, I got more comfortable with the industries I was covering (semiconductors and enterprise software). I also got comfortable going more off-script.

I still remember when it clicked.

It was during a call with an executive who oversaw a sizable European business unit. “Sizable” meaning one of the three global leaders in the space. He was being polite and answered my scripted questions but he kept adding commentary about a topic I wasn’t asking about. The first few times I brushed it off and returned to my script, but the third time, I thought there might be something there.

Turns out there was gold down that path. We went almost an hour over, running through this major shift that was happening and the downstream implications.

After the call, I sat there digesting everything we went over. It felt like I leveled up my industry understanding 10x. It wasn’t just a new trend, it was the insight I gained into how that trend would impact seemingly unrelated parts of the business.

From then on, I got much more fluid with my interviews. I’d make sure to hit the high points, but I got more comfortable with the detours. I started to crave the scary off-script chats.

I would spend a few more years doing those kinds of interviews. While the job ended up not being a great fit for me, I’m thankful for the experience. The interviewing skills I learned have become integral to how I work with and guide agency owners.

I’ve now spent the last 7 years doing those kinds of interviews with agency owners and sharing how to do them with their clients. Almost like clockwork, they come back from the first few client interviews almost giddy. There’s excitement around finding out how you can help on a deeper level.

Interviewing tips

With that background out of the way, here are some interviewing tips I’ve picked up. These are geared toward deeper conversations with clients about their businesses, but most can be applied generally.

• Don’t sell. You’re not there to sell anything. Do these correctly and they’ll act as force multipliers for future sales.
• Conversation not interrogation. Make these as conversational as possible. Your goal is to uncover things you don’t already know, not to check off every question on a list.
• Record and take notes. Let them know you’re recording for review and not to publish. There are some great tools like Grain and Otter that’ll hook into Zoom and Google Meet that’ll transcribe the meetings. Having transcriptions and a recording to review later makes the whole process more conversational. It limits your note taking to just the critical points.
• Start by reiterating why you’re chatting. This should have already been explained when you reached out to chat in the first place, but it’s good to frame the call from the start. An example would be: “Thanks for helping us better understand your company and your industry. While we typically focus on [whatever it is your shop does], I really want to learn more about the factors impacting your company.”
• Ask a question, and then stay quiet. This is their space to share and expand on their view of the world. We want to influence their responses as little as possible. Allowing space for silence is less awkward than you think and it lets them get past their canned responses.
• Take detours for emotion. When you hear them getting passionate about something (positively OR negatively) ask them to elaborate. Go off script until you understand the “why” behind that passion. “Can you tell me more about that?” is the best follow-up question you can ask.
• Share what you’ve learned. After you’ve done a few of these and you start picking up on patterns, share some of that back with your clients on the call. It gives them value for chatting with you, and it also helps position you as a strategic resource. Later, you can put together and share some published research if you’re into that kinda thing.

Sample questions

Here’s a list of some sample questions to guide these client interviews. A good conversation that addresses all of them and allows for a few detours should take 45min-1hr. For these to be effective, they need to be with contacts relatively high up in the organization. Think C and VP-level. There’s definitely stuff to learn from other positions, but we’re focusing at the top first.

• How do you describe or define your industry? Gets them to talk about how they see their industry
• What are the key trends that you think will shape your industry over the next few years? Easy softball to open stuff up
• Where are the opportunities?
• What are the main risks?
• How do you think your company will change as a result of those industry trends?
• What are your goals for your firm? What are you trying to build?
• What’s blocking your firm from reaching those goals?
• What are the most challenging parts of running your company? Intentionally open-ended
• If you could magically solve one of those challenges, which would you pick? Which one would have the biggest impact? Unearthing key challenge
• What does solving that challenge enable for your firm?
• How are you currently solving those challenges?

Putting it to work

Once you’ve done a few of these, you’ll start to develop a great internal sense of where to focus. You’ll know what’s important to your clients and thus what’s important to your agency. The best part, you only need to do a few a month to get started. Have your salespeople or account managers set these up as they go through their normal calls. A few months of weekly meetings will net you some powerful industry-specific insight.

This alone can be a literal superpower.

You can level it up even further by sharing what you’ve learned with your team. Create a living doc where you summarize and keep track of your key takeaways. Review them with the team regularly (repetition is necessary here) and be sure to call out when there are any sizable changes or new trends.

Use what you learn from these calls to better guide your strategic decision making. As always, if you’d like help on strategy work (positioning, benchmarks, roadmaps, etc.) just reply to this email and we’ll set up a time to chat.

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AI and Agencies?

Are you using (or considering) AI tools in your shops?

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There are a bunch of tools that have come to market over the last year that we’re seeing some agencies start to use. Check out Sequoia’s market map for a great list. I’d love to get a better sense of how you’re thinking about AI in your industry.

What kind of impact, if any, do you think it’ll have on your industry?

Feel free to reply to this email with your thoughts on the topic.

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