A Journey Of Consultancy Growth | Marc Jantzen

Marc Jantzen, Founder of The Consultancy Growth Network, joins Guy Bloom to explore what it really takes to build, grow and lead a successful consultancy. 

Marc reflects on selling Blue Sky, taking time away from work and eventually returning to build something new in The Consultancy Growth Network. He shares how he tested his proposition, launched with only six members and adapted the business when lockdown made its original model impossible. 

The conversation explores the value of mentors, the importance of testing ideas with the market and why consultancy leaders need people around them who understand the journey. 

Guy and Marc also discuss the impact of AI on consulting, the move from charging for time to pricing around value and the changing shape of consultancy firms as technology replaces more junior analytical work. 

They close with an honest discussion about leadership, motivation, transparency, vulnerability and why being a decent human being matters, but is not always enough. There are moments when leaders must step forward, create belief and have the conversations others may prefer to avoid. 

To find out more about Guy Bloom and his award winning work in Team Coaching, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching click below.

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Transcript

0:00:00:00 - 00:00:02:11
Unknown
if you had to summarize, you know, what guy?

00:00:02:11 - 00:00:28:14
Unknown
I think what I learned there, I think what it showed me, I think the truths it made me understand that might be academically, that might be true. But when you've got your boots on the ground, in reality, it's this. I'd be interested in a little bit of just that story. It's difficult, right, because there are so many learnings that came from that 17 year journey in total.

00:00:28:17 - 00:00:31:14
Unknown
it was a roller coaster from start to finish.

00:00:31:14 - 00:00:52:10
Unknown
And yet what you soon realize is that nothing happens until somebody sells something. And actually sales is a truly fundamental skill that a lot of people back then, in 28 years ago, they would consider it as a dirty word. You know, it wasn't something that people wanted to be. You don't go to university to study sales. You know, you don't come out of school to go, hey, I want to be a great salesperson.

00:00:52:11 - 00:01:11:10
Unknown
And yet, fundamentally, every single business depends on people who get out there and, and sell and do deals. And there is something, isn't there, about if I'm going to have a problem. I'd like it to be how I deliver it, as opposed to the problem being I haven't got anything right. You know, if I've got to have a problem, make it.

00:01:11:11 - 00:01:26:10
Unknown
How the hell am I going to deliver all of this? Yes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, consulting businesses always have one or other of those problems. They either have the problem of not enough work or they've got too much work and they're trying to deliver. So the second is clearly a better quality of problem. Yeah. Yeah,

00:01:26:12 - 00:14:19:20
Unknown
Hi there. My name's Guy bloom. Hope you enjoyed the clip. Like, share, subscribe and if you'd like to check me out some more and maybe even consider working with us when it comes to coaching and teams and culture, then visit Living Brave. Com.

00:14:19:22 - 00:14:22:14
Unknown
I think I am fascinated by that.

00:14:22:15 - 00:14:42:23
Unknown
In truth, how do I do? I ramp up for a future that hasn't yet happened. Do I really you know, but there's a cost to that. And so I think that again, on paper you could easily go, well, you know, if that person, if it costs you X amount to hire somebody and they can generate that much business, get another five of them, you get.

00:14:43:00 - 00:15:01:17
Unknown
Well, hold on a minute. In truth. So I kind of when you said you could have done it easier if you had to go back and just have a word with yourself and just go, right. It's 17 years. I've only got five minutes. I'm not allowed to tell you what's going to happen, right? That would be too easy.

00:15:01:17 - 00:15:24:05
Unknown
But I have got five minutes just to go. Mental note to self, just what do you think you'd end up saying to yourself? Get external advice. Find a mentor. Find someone who's been there and done it and bought the t shirt. Right, and leverage that expertise. You don't need to make all the mistakes yourself. That's interesting. You can learn from other people's mistakes.

00:15:24:06 - 00:15:50:16
Unknown
Yeah, and that might be the weight of the emotion, the weight of the process, the just whatever it is. But actually somebody that can go, I know what you're feeling or absolutely the way through to. Absolutely. Yeah. And that can be strategic and tactical advice. But also I had one predominant mentor during that 17 period and Paul Collins, and quite often we disagreed.

00:15:50:18 - 00:16:09:18
Unknown
But having the debate with somebody who got it was enough for me to get clarity and to feel then a higher level of confidence in whichever direction I was going to head in. That's interesting that we're debating, and I don't agree with you, but actually, if I reinforce my decision, even if it's wrong, I can now act with intention.

00:16:09:19 - 00:16:29:22
Unknown
Yeah, because I've now doubled down on my position. So do you know what? What I'm going to go and do is we'll find out in a minute if I'm right. But so yeah, the conversation that leads to clarity doesn't mean it leads to agreement. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So you know, blue Sky was a was was a journey for a lot of people.

00:16:29:24 - 00:16:52:09
Unknown
I know a lot of people that have moved on since blue Sky and are doing incredibly well because of the grounding. I, I would not be doing what I'm doing if I had not learned how to operate an end to end process in terms of winning business, creating a pitch deck, you know, designing, delivery, delivering, managing a client.

00:16:52:09 - 00:17:10:20
Unknown
So there is something incredibly powerful that a lot of that I just want to acknowledge. Before we get on to the next subject, that there's a lot of people doing quite well right now due to that period of time that they had in that time with you. So I think that's just for me, that's just a personal note to have.

00:17:10:21 - 00:17:34:14
Unknown
So when you come to the end of something like that and you sell a business and you kind of go, blimey, I've only gone and done it and you agree, you get that final 1.50 pound check, you know, that you look at and go, whatever it is, you know, it's not like you were in your 80s and that was that was the end.

00:17:34:16 - 00:17:57:08
Unknown
Well, how long did it take you to maybe come off? Maybe 17 years of adrenaline to a greater or lesser degree and kind of just settle down, maybe almost before you then went? I think it's like being on holidays and you get to Wednesday, you calm down, but by the end of the week you want to go again.

00:17:57:12 - 00:18:22:10
Unknown
So what was your kind of after the sale? The adrenaline. But what am I doing tomorrow? I'd just like to know that a little bit of reality. So I took six months out and with a view to not working at all, to just purely reflect, I took the family away for, you know, once in a lifetime trip around the world, which was amazing.

00:18:22:12 - 00:18:41:24
Unknown
And then I started. You know, you can't help yourself. I couldn't help myself. Anyway. You start thinking about what's next. And what? Yeah. What you want to do. I did have something lined up. Don't need to go into it. It's not. Not that interesting. But I did have something lined up which then fell away, which meant it was like a complete blank sheet of paper.

00:18:42:01 - 00:19:08:00
Unknown
But then I just turned to reading different books and again looking for external insights. And I guess one of the influential books I read was Daniel Priestley's A Key Person of Influence, and he talks about having your mountain of knowledge and thinking about how you leverage that. And yeah, so time off, time to reflect, talk to as many people as possible, go around and catch up with all my old school friends they hadn't seen for ages.

00:19:08:02 - 00:19:30:11
Unknown
Spend time, you know, took up a new sport, took up golf. Crikey. And I'll keep me busy for some time. So? So yeah. And then and then within sort of six months or so, I was, I was back in back in working. I never forget seeing Elon Musk being interviewed by Joe Rogan. And Joe Rogan said, that must be amazing being in your brain.

00:19:30:11 - 00:19:52:07
Unknown
And he went, not really. And he said, why not? He says, because I can't turn it off. And I imagine he's operating, you know, at a kind of a few levels, above few levels above us. But I think that is a common theme for people who I think are that tip of the spear kind of personality. I can I can pause, but I can't turn it off.

00:19:52:11 - 00:20:16:01
Unknown
I don't think the brain allows it, you know, there is no there's no off switch. There's no kind of just unplug it. I can take a moment. It's not going to stop working. Do you know what, though? I would say it was one of the strangest feelings. Was waking up in the morning during that six month period and not having and not not not switching on straight away and having a big, long list of things that just suddenly come into my mind.

00:20:16:02 - 00:20:35:14
Unknown
Yes. And that was that was quite calming. No question about that. Because I'm back. I'm back to it now. And when I wake up every morning straight away, things are coming into my mind. But yeah, it's a weird feeling to get used to. And I, I was in my early 40s, so I wasn't ready to to hang my boots up.

00:20:35:15 - 00:21:04:02
Unknown
And I still, you know, when I look into the future, I don't know if I'll ever be ready to just completely stop. I don't think so. It'll migrate into a different version of you. You'll end up as the grand mentor, you know, doing whatever. But I think that's the space. I mean, I think I can feel myself shifting that I'll get to a point where I'm clearly not going to work like I do, but I'm not going to be able to stop because my brain wants to do another book or a podcast interview with somebody else, or I think it is.

00:21:04:02 - 00:21:26:06
Unknown
And that's, that's a that's a good thing. So if we look at the consultancy network again, you know, taking over a business isn't the same as creating a business. You know, there's a big difference between would you come in and run and you know, it's now been going for ten years. We'd like you to versus you going right.

00:21:26:06 - 00:21:47:07
Unknown
Then what I'm going to do is so what is that first year of when you went, okay, then I'm going to reengage with the world under this new kind of banner of what I want to achieve and blah, blah, blah. Well, you know, what was that first? Doesn't have to be 12 months. But what was the first stage for you?

00:21:47:08 - 00:22:08:18
Unknown
Yeah, I'll tell you what. It was an interesting period for me because of course, I came in just under a year, I think, after Elka had started blue Sky. So I was not the initiator. I was not the entrepreneur that started that business. And you question yourself. Do you consider an entrepreneur because you kind of run your own business, or what does it mean to be an entrepreneur?

00:22:08:20 - 00:22:33:11
Unknown
And so starting my own business at that point was very interesting because, you know, you've been advising people for 20 years as a consultant. Now all of a sudden you're having to to create something from scratch. And the first step was actually to pull together a draft of my proposition of what I believed that we could offer and, and then to go talk to that target market.

00:22:33:11 - 00:22:53:24
Unknown
So I talked to 20 or 30 consultancy leaders who would give me the time to say, look, I'm thinking of creating this. If I did, would you buy it? What would you pay? What value would you want to get from it? And that was incredibly useful. Every person I spoke to, I'd changed something, adapt something. It also increased my network.

00:22:54:01 - 00:23:16:11
Unknown
They introduced me to other people. So I guess for me, the first stage was first step was drafting the proposition. Second step was going out to the market, testing it, getting feedback and and then thinking through how to launch it, which we did in October 2019. We ran three events in London and invited consultancy leaders to come and find out all about it.

00:23:16:12 - 00:23:47:19
Unknown
Have a drink network. We put over 150 people through that event. So over those three sessions and we sold the grand total of six memberships to start in January 2020 and in March 2020. You may remember that we all experienced lockdown for the first time. The actual proposition that I'd developed was a face to face networking offering, and we ran our first event in the February of 2020 and it was a huge success.

00:23:47:19 - 00:24:09:07
Unknown
And I'm thinking, okay, this is great. And then in March, everything shut down. But of course, as is often the case, you know, that that really created the business because we were forced to go online and for a couple of years could only deliver our offering online and actually just to jump in. It wasn't that you were forced.

00:24:09:08 - 00:24:26:10
Unknown
You adapt it. Yeah, sure. If we wanted to keep going, there was no other route, right? So I saw a load of facilitators or trainers in my space and they went online, but it was just a little laptop camera. And they didn't do anything. They didn't build a studio, get a mug, get a 4K camera and knock it out of the park, you know, and there is.

00:24:26:12 - 00:24:46:12
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. So we adapted then and we and we but but the beauty of that of course, was now everything was being recorded. Whereas if we'd have been running face to face events, you know, captured the capture the side conversation, you've got to pay a videographer, you've got to pay for the venue. Now all of a sudden we're on zoom pretty much for free press on record, we're pressing record.

00:24:46:14 - 00:25:09:08
Unknown
And so that triggered the build up of an asset base of a whole raft of experts, talking about all the various topics associated with growing and consulting firm. Interesting. It is, I think sometimes that I have come to learn that with every trial comes the next stage. If you actually this is going to turn into something and somebody goes, what?

00:25:09:10 - 00:25:27:02
Unknown
I don't know yet. Yeah. You know, bear with me. Caller yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, it will because it always does if you keep pushing, if you keep going. It'll turn into something. You know, I think that's interesting. I did turn to because I'd already brought Peter and Dom on as my non-existent mentors right at the beginning of the process.

00:25:27:02 - 00:25:46:01
Unknown
That was another learning, actually. So I never had a board of directors of blue Sky, and that was a mistake. And I would say perceived wisdom is now get a board of directors right from the get go, which is what I did with the consultancy. If you were going to say why, why, yes. It comes back to my point around external references and mentors and people who've been there and bought the t shirt.

00:25:46:07 - 00:26:09:20
Unknown
So I brought in Peter Chap who had built a community. Well, the guy who had built the the Digital Agency Collective, up to 350 members, was running events at the Barbican for 152, 200 people. He'd already been there and done it and bought the t shirt. And so when I turned to him and said, you know, when we got the six members at the end of all of our launch events, and I said, well, listen, I'm going to work, is it?

00:26:09:23 - 00:26:28:19
Unknown
And he said, Mark, if you can get six, you can get 60. And you're like, okay, the process is the same thing. You're just going to turn the handle. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting isn't it. Those moments where you go and then somebody actually just offers you that external viewpoint that actually if they'd have said it, you'd have gone, well you got six.

00:26:28:19 - 00:26:54:17
Unknown
So just, you'd have given that advice. Yeah. But it's very hard to say to yourself. And I think that's fascinating when you go, are you telling me what I would say to you? And they go, yeah. Here you go. So it's so there we go. So the consultancy network when if people then go, okay, why would I. Well, listen to this podcast for whatever however you found yourself to be listening to it and you go, I'm interested in that.

00:26:54:19 - 00:27:22:13
Unknown
Who is your audience? Who are the people that you go? I if I was going to say why you should join, why you should pay attention, why you should get involved, if you are in this space, then I can add value. Yeah. Yeah, it's you know, what's nice about it is it's really straightforward because if you are growing a consulting firm, we have and you have an ambition to grow, you don't have to have an ambition to sell.

00:27:22:14 - 00:27:56:17
Unknown
If you do great and you recognize you don't have all the answers and you're open to learning and taking on board insight, feedback, expertise, then frankly, be crazy not to join. It's like it starts from 400 pounds a month. I mean, it's peanuts. And if you're we have a minimum threshold of half a million revenue. And so that you've got you've got traction with your proposition, you've got a few people working with you typically then beyond that stage, because a lot of our content will support you in building that team for the future.

00:27:56:19 - 00:28:25:08
Unknown
But, you know, we help consultancy leaders in three primary ways. We help through what we call our consultancy maturity roadmap. So all of those workshops that we ran that I mentioned on zoom have all been orchestrated now into a journey right through from strategy, go to market, sales, finance, all the capabilities you need to build a consultancy, all online or full of experts and frameworks and tools to help you do that.

00:28:25:09 - 00:28:47:17
Unknown
And then you have the community. So you have peers that you can talk to that facing similar challenges, but you also have experts. So part of our vision is to be a one stop shop for consultancy leaders. So if they need legal advice or financial advice or to help with their marketing or their sales, whatever they need, we will know somebody who has the expertise to do that.

00:28:47:19 - 00:29:10:02
Unknown
And then the final thing is the learning community, the side of things we have for face to face events every year, and we bring along inspirational speakers to get people motivated to do things differently. So the access point for somebody is to go on the website, reach out and to say, hey, how do I engage? And then just have the conversations?

00:29:10:03 - 00:29:30:02
Unknown
Absolutely. Yeah. It's really that. Yeah. So who's the I'm interested in that. You know when we say entrepreneur and when you said, you know, I started in the company the blue Sky, for example, if you go for whatever 12 months or so, I'm a really an entrepreneur. It always makes me smile because I've got three black belts and I've never had a fight, you know, and I go, I it's like, what would happen, I don't know.

00:29:30:03 - 00:29:51:03
Unknown
You know, it's that kind of self deprecating. And also am I any good at this? It's hilarious. But you do wonder, so what's an entrepreneur. But also is it that you've is it it's not that you've got to have started it. It might be a mindset it. So when we say that word, the probably is a characterization or a cliche that comes with it.

00:29:51:04 - 00:30:08:18
Unknown
But is it? I haven't started yet. I'm about to. I've been actually the company has been going for 20 years. What? Interesting. To be honest, I would say I'm probably more of a business leader than I am an entrepreneur. Right? So.

00:30:08:20 - 00:30:31:01
Unknown
So my belief around entrepreneurial is people are able to spot gaps in markets and constantly be having ideas around how they might solve that gap and have a bunch of ideas, most of which are crazy and never going to work. But there are a few in there that could potentially work. That's not me. I have some ideas, but I don't have a bucket load of ideas.

00:30:31:01 - 00:30:52:08
Unknown
I'm not sitting here going, okay, if I don't do this business, then I could do 16 others. So I yeah, I think I am entrepreneurial in my thinking to the point of being creative around problem solving. So there's an element of that. And I am involved in multiple businesses and I have a passion for business. I do enjoy it.

00:30:52:08 - 00:31:11:23
Unknown
I am intrigued by how you make businesses successful. Is that entrepreneurial ism? Probably not. Probably not. It's probably it's different, I think. I think you have clear purpose. I think when you get engaged, I mean, you're either in the engagement comes, you can't make yourself engaged with something. But I think once you do, you then know what you're about.

00:31:12:03 - 00:31:33:16
Unknown
And that means you then know what the business is about. And then if you hear somebody talking and it's not about that, you go well on it. How's that contributing to that? I think you have a clarity, and I think that's probably then an inherent truth in whether or not you're running a team, your family or an organization.

00:31:33:18 - 00:31:54:18
Unknown
There is a clarity of purpose and intention that if I can't say what it is, and that doesn't mean I show you the commercial document. And we sit there for 15 hours and I talk to you about EBITDA. It's me being it's a little bit like when Brian Cox talks about the universe. If he explained it at the level he understands it, there's only be four people that know what he's talking about.

00:31:54:19 - 00:32:15:00
Unknown
So he's going, well, I'm in a trampoline with a big ball on it, and we all go, oh, right, right. And I think it's the ability to understand it at a level that possibly you're only going to speak to a few people about, but then be able to talk about it with a clarity and a purpose that everybody around it can get, because it's synchronizes.

00:32:15:02 - 00:32:37:11
Unknown
And I think that's a that's what I see in you. But I think that's for me. I'd be interested if is that a theme that regardless of your personality acquire, you allow your gregarious, you're in your whatever. It's not about your personality. It's about your clarity of purpose. It's about being able to engage people in the narrative that you're trying to create.

00:32:37:12 - 00:32:58:22
Unknown
The manner of how you get there probably is going to be a distribution curve of humanity. Is that something that is common or. No, I don't know if it's that simple or I'd just be intrigued. I think what's interesting is when you've been studying it for a while and dealing with lots of businesses. So I talk about a business focus for the moment.

00:32:59:01 - 00:33:13:06
Unknown
I do think there are there is almost a systematic way that you can go about building a business. You know, there are some do's and don'ts. There is there is a roadmap, really. There's an algorithm. There is really because, you know, just like I said, you know, go out to market and test your proposition before you launch it.

00:33:13:07 - 00:33:30:05
Unknown
A lot of people will just launch it and think, you know, it's and build as you go. You know, there's lots of lots of things that you can learn, that you can put into place that are going to make sure that you succeed. I don't know.

00:33:30:07 - 00:33:51:00
Unknown
Yeah, not I'm not sure what else I can add to that, really. But I just wonder if you see people that you go, listen, there's a you could fail because of process. You could fail because of systems. Can you fail because of the. Well, that might be the what you're doing. Could you fail because of the who you're being while you're doing it?

00:33:51:01 - 00:34:13:13
Unknown
Of course. And of course. And what would that look like? What? So you could say, I've got the systems, I've got the processes. I've been I've been learning whatever source you've learned from. So I know if somebody came and did a diagnostic it would be technical boxes. Yeah, I could it then enhance because of who somebody's being or the leadership teams being or the or fail.

00:34:13:14 - 00:34:24:04
Unknown
No, I mean nothing's significant really is going to get created by one person. Is it. Right. So it's going to take a team. And so if you can't.

00:34:24:06 - 00:34:52:05
Unknown
Get other people passionate about your quest and join you on it, then yeah, that's going to be a route to failure. So I think absolutely. And who you are is obviously a massive part of whether people want to jump on the, the, the bus or the bandwagon with you to follow that cause so, so I'm, I guess I'm interested in that to a point where for some people there's a reward based kind of motivation.

00:34:52:06 - 00:35:14:12
Unknown
You know, a yes, there's a might be a salary. But also, look, you know, this is where it could go. Some of it could be a contribution based kind of thing. I'm part of something. I'm growing it. Yeah. Others. So I suppose really it's just like every business in a consultancy it's going to be made up of. There's not one particular type, there's not one particular reason.

00:35:14:14 - 00:35:38:02
Unknown
But as long as it gives you that motivation to engage. Yeah. It would you wouldn't say no, there's one thing. And if it's not there, you know, but there are probably some truths. But all personalities can make a business work. Yeah, absolutely. I think the definitely one of the learnings I got from the back, going back to the blue sky days was we had a target at one point.

00:35:38:03 - 00:35:42:14
Unknown
So, right, we're going to get to 10 million revenue.

00:35:42:16 - 00:36:02:17
Unknown
Frankly, the team really didn't care whether we hit 10 million or not because we hadn't found a connection between us as a leadership team and as a partnership group. Wanting to get to 10 million acres. In the back of my mind, we were looking to exit this business, but there's a whole team of people going, well, why should we care about that?

00:36:02:18 - 00:36:23:10
Unknown
So you have to build a narrative. I think what I call an invasion narrative that that lays out where this business is going in the future and why it's going there and what difference is going to make and how this is going to make a difference to everybody within the firm, not just the fact that it's going to put some money in the pockets of the owners.

00:36:23:11 - 00:36:39:19
Unknown
Yeah. And I mean, you may remember there's a great you probably you probably told me about it at the time, but the there's a great vehicle for doing that, which is quite simply get people to write an article as to describe what do you want people to be saying about this business in five years or ten years time?

00:36:39:20 - 00:36:52:17
Unknown
Yes. And break it down. You know, how many officers do you want to have? What kind of clients you want to have, what type of work? What kind of impact do you want to have so that people can kind of grab, hold and go, okay, I want to be part of that. But you're right, it's different. It's horses for courses, isn't it?

00:36:52:18 - 00:37:15:22
Unknown
So not everybody's going to want to jump on that bandwagon because they might be more interested in environmental sustainability or some other topic that they're passionate about. Yeah. And I think that, you know, the good old classic Tony Robbins six human needs. Some people want growth, some people want significance, some people want to contribute some etcetera, etc.. And actually all of those things are true, you know, and they shift and they change.

00:37:15:22 - 00:37:33:04
Unknown
But I might fight like hell for you because I want to grow and learn how to do it. I might fight like hell for you because I want to be part of the team that made that happen. Yeah, etc. so I think that's quite an interesting frame of reference. There isn't just a cardboard cut out of this is what makes it work.

00:37:33:05 - 00:37:59:24
Unknown
It's factoring in that maybe I can't create your motivation for you, but there's lots of reasons why somebody can engage with that journey, and it doesn't have to sit with you as the the individual, leading it to supply all the motivation for everybody. No, but it's helpful to understand individual motivations. And so you might tell that narrative differently to different members of the team to hopefully connect with what it is that matters to them.

00:38:00:00 - 00:38:28:04
Unknown
Yeah. So if we look at the world as it sits today, where we have everything from AI all the way through to, you know, whichever governments in power or whatever it may be, if we think about what you're hearing, people talk about that kind of the drumbeat, the concerns may be that and there might be some, I suppose maybe there's two truths.

00:38:28:04 - 00:38:49:08
Unknown
There's the inherent truth of wherever they are in developing their business. And then there might be the drumbeat of what's going on in the world and actually the layers on top. But what's the stuff that you hear that you go, that's a relatively big sound that I hear. That's that's my kind of finger on the pulse for what people are talking to us about.

00:38:49:10 - 00:39:16:05
Unknown
So the obvious one is AI, and particularly in professional services, people are getting replaced and the shape of organizations is changing as a result. The work that an analyst would have done in days now takes minutes. And, you know, the reports that get produced that would have taken a partner or a senior person days to produce now gets done in so much less time.

00:39:16:08 - 00:39:41:21
Unknown
If I was on a call this morning with, as I'm running a capability sprint on profitable pricing for members of the network, and one of the questions there today was, what are we going to do about AI? Because our clients obviously know about AI. We know we can do things quicker as a result, but that means we we, you know, if we're selling on a time of materials basis, that 70 gram project is now a 40 gram project because it's, you know, we can't say it's XP, right?

00:39:41:23 - 00:40:00:16
Unknown
We can't. Exactly, exactly. So they're figuring out and and I would say, to be honest, the consulting space is a little bit slow to the game as well. If you're holding on to that model. I made a client go no disrespect, but I don't want to pay you for four people. That's correct. Why aren't you changing? Exactly right.

00:40:00:18 - 00:40:34:02
Unknown
Exactly right. So there is really no. In my view, there's no option, right? Consultancies have to embrace AI. And as a result, if if they are, if they are building on time materials, then they're going to have to be less because they're going to do it quicker. It just reinforces the need for consultancy leaders to be thinking about how they price on value and move away from timing materials and look at the value that they create, and then charge accordingly to that, as opposed to just based on hours and time.

00:40:34:02 - 00:40:54:05
Unknown
And if time and hours is for me, in some respects, it's almost like supplying a product which is, you know, that can be replaced or it is where they are, but the value, the perceived value. Why is the Rolex? Why is a Felipe attack? Why is a BMW? Well, it might be made well, but there's a value proposition that goes with it.

00:40:54:08 - 00:41:14:10
Unknown
So it's and I'm I'm in that phase right now. We've been talking about it where I am. Am I increasing my value or am I more valuable. Well I hope both are true, right? My value increase is therefore there's more value associated to me. But I do see people that try and increase their value. But I don't think they've become more valuable.

00:41:14:12 - 00:41:40:06
Unknown
So there is something there about you can't just up your price and go wrong. I'm I'm making it like that. There's got to be an associated value that goes with it. Yeah. That's why you can say that is the value and that's why it costs this. Yeah. I mean I guess I think maybe we're looking at it through slightly different lenses because you're thinking of as a freelancer, you need to build your profile and your credibility and so on.

00:41:40:08 - 00:42:03:15
Unknown
But as a business providing consulting services, typically, I would argue the value should come through the outputs of that you create. No, that's what I'm saying to those metrics. Right. So that's why we're now going to say our value is increasing as an organization. Right. Because the value that we are giving you is that might be true for an individual, but it would also be for an organization to go.

00:42:03:16 - 00:42:23:08
Unknown
Because if you shift those KPIs and as a result, they sell more, or they reduce cost or they reduce risk and there's a value attached to it. Yes. You know, there's 1 million pounds of value. What would you pay for it? And I, I noticed that when I get somebody that wants me to when they go, you know, what's your hourly and I don't have an hourly rate or what's your day or I don't have a day, right.

00:42:23:09 - 00:42:39:16
Unknown
Why not? Well, we talk about what it is that you want to achieve. And that would be like saying what is the what is each component of the BMW cost? Well, I only want to pay that when it doesn't want to. Like that, you know, what do you want the vehicle to do? Well, this is the vehicle that it is and that's how much it cost.

00:42:39:18 - 00:42:58:16
Unknown
And that's fair, you know. But it is what it is. So I guess for some people, if there's a there's a shift, then for some that if they've created a model that has been working and they've been working on it, AI comes in and it didn't exist in the way that it does, probably even 3 or 4 years ago alone.

00:42:58:18 - 00:43:21:19
Unknown
It's only really got traction. It's like the internet existed. And then then it got traction. So if people on the cusp of looking at their business model and going. Bugger. Yeah, I'm actually some people, then I'm going to have to reflect almost go. If I was coming in new, what actually would I have to do and build today?

00:43:21:20 - 00:43:42:24
Unknown
Absolutely. And what changes am I going to have to make so I don't get left behind in that process? And I imagine that's when a network becomes incredibly powerful because I'm not alone. Absolutely. Absolutely. And something else we do as part of the networks. We run an annual survey. And so this year we had over 350 consultancy leaders respond to that survey.

00:43:42:24 - 00:44:02:22
Unknown
And we asked them about levels of implementation around AI. And that's a consultancy benchmark right. Consultancy bench press it's called. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah absolutely. So and we asked them so so we get levels of implementation of AI and the extent to which they've implemented across the business or just they're trialing it or what have you. And then we correlate that with growth and profitability.

00:44:02:23 - 00:44:27:15
Unknown
And on average those that are fully embraced AI are achieving nine percentage points improvement on EBITDA. So it's very tangible. But that is in decline. So the gap is closing. So you need to kind of get on with it. Basically if you're going to get any competitive advantage over because otherwise give it 1224 months everybody. So it will be in in the moment advantage because it's going to normalize.

00:44:27:16 - 00:44:47:18
Unknown
Yes. And level out. And some of the promises of it aren't going to mature. Yeah. And actually be careful what you do. Because if I recognize what you're doing, it'll actually decrease its value. And I cut that where I've noticed some people have generated coaching reports using AI. But once somebody realizes what it is that you're doing. So yeah.

00:44:47:18 - 00:45:14:16
Unknown
So you've got to you can get on board with it. But then actually are you running two horses at the same time? Yes. Take on the new process, the new system, but then also increase your value because actually that is going to stabilize. And so the people how do people create value outside of just hours, you know, is that is that something that is is that the conversation that he's had or is that the wrong question?

00:45:14:17 - 00:45:37:23
Unknown
Because if we're if we're not charging on hours, then and we're not charging on boots on the ground and the AI systems making it quicker, where are people looking? Well, I mean, we we had Source Global actually come and speak at our conference last October, and they did a whole range of analysis on what buyers are looking for and what matters to the most.

00:45:37:23 - 00:46:04:18
Unknown
And return on investment as like increased significantly. And that's what that's got to be where we've got to aim for as consultancies. If we're not delivering a financial return on investment to our members, to our clients, then we are vulnerable. That's the bottom line. So whatever you are doing, what KPI are you shifting through the work that you're doing with that client?

00:46:04:20 - 00:46:30:01
Unknown
It's quite simply, are they selling more? Are they saving cost? Are they reducing risk? Is there a tangible metric that they can associate some value with. And then you link your pricing to that and you lift your and you link your service proposition to that. So it's increasing the validity. It's increasing the credibility of yourself with evidence. It's having a system and a tool that isn't just an aspirational kind of what we're working with a consultancy.

00:46:30:02 - 00:46:54:15
Unknown
No. Look at what they do. Look at the shift. So it's a it's an evidential piece. Because if you're just providing resources a lot of, you know, firms will make good margins. Well, you know, lower margins but still health good money for, you know, as you call it, body shopping. Right. So, you know, somebody needs ten analysts or eight consultants for three months to work on a project and they make 25% or whatever.

00:46:54:15 - 00:47:14:09
Unknown
That's not really consulting. And a lot of that low level work is going to move. We're seeing the shift to the sort of more diamond shape, rather than a classic pyramid in your average consultancy, and just plain to people what that might be. What does that mean? So, so the traditional way, if you look at the big firms, you'd have a partner at the top of the pyramid.

00:47:14:10 - 00:47:30:09
Unknown
They'd have a bunch of senior people, handful of senior people working for them and below, then the next level of more junior people, and then the sort of junior consultants and analysts at the bottom, and you'd have a raft of those. And if you win a big contract, you'd have ten of them working on it and three of the next level and one of the next level.

00:47:30:11 - 00:47:51:08
Unknown
You're getting leverage, right? You're getting leverage. Yeah. So you're getting higher utilization of the people at the lower end of the pyramid. Obviously you're charging lower rates for them, but there's more of them. Yeah. So the move to the diamond shape implies that we still have 1 or 2 partners at the top. But you've then got more senior people and fewer junior people at the bottom.

00:47:51:08 - 00:48:15:03
Unknown
So you're getting a lot less leverage from your senior people, and you're making less money, and it's a smaller contract, and that's fine. But that has the potential to cause real challenges, because where do you find your next level of senior people? If you've only got a handful of junior people because they're not getting trained up, but they're not cutting their teeth on projects like they would have done, because we're getting AI to do that work for us.

00:48:15:05 - 00:48:36:04
Unknown
The shift which which I believe is happening is historically, we would have used those unit people to produce stuff, to do stuff. Now the production and the doing is getting done by AI, but they're checking the quality. Validation still has to be done by human, and that's just a slightly different skill set and ideally a more senior skill set.

00:48:36:06 - 00:49:03:24
Unknown
So there's just that. That shift is is already happening and people need to adapt. They need to adapt their proposition, then adapt their resource strategy to match that based on on demand. Yeah. Because go forward five years. Go forward ten years. Where is that mass of I'm I'm now ready for the next step. I've, I've spent X amount of years doing the grunt work for the want of a better phrase.

00:49:04:00 - 00:49:28:14
Unknown
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's really interesting I think just in that space. So if you then look at where the consultancy network is today and if you could jump forward five years or whatever, the space of time is that you have in your mind, is it what it is today but just bigger, which isn't a small thing to say or actually, no, it's becoming something else.

00:49:28:14 - 00:49:48:13
Unknown
I again, I don't say that knowing anything. I ask the question. There's a question. I don't know the answer to you right now, actually. So we I've just engaged a consultant to come in and do a bit of an audit of where we are. And there are two obvious routes. There may be other routes that he potentially comes up with.

00:49:48:14 - 00:50:11:18
Unknown
One is just to carry on doing what we're doing and get bigger. We have some ideas around that. And another is to actually, you know, there's over 300 people in the community is 100 companies. We could just cap it at that and work harder with our community and provide more depth and move from a towards a kind of do it with you, do it for you type service offering.

00:50:11:20 - 00:50:37:14
Unknown
A lot of what we offer at the moment is reliant on the members doing it themselves, using our tools. So so that is an option or going for scale. I think one of the things that will help us define which way we go is we're we're just in the process of testing some new software, which we're calling provisionally anyway Deal Finder, because, well, let me take a step back, actually.

00:50:37:14 - 00:51:08:04
Unknown
So we ran a bit of an experiment at our event in in April. So let's say there's 100 people in the room, ten tables at ten. And I asked everybody the question, think about a client and think about needs that that client has that you're not in a position to fulfill. And then what kind of capability would that client need to be able to deal with those, those needs or issues that they have.

00:51:08:06 - 00:51:27:21
Unknown
And then we got people to have roundtable conversations. And lo and behold, when I was I was hosting one of the tables and you literally had John pipe up and say, look, I've got this gap, I've got this need Jane Pipe and said, I can fill that need. Yeah. And then that literally happened. There's only 8 or 9 of us on the table and that happened three times.

00:51:27:23 - 00:51:50:12
Unknown
And of course, imagine what that could do then if you include the whole room and then go beyond the room to the whole network, because not everybody you know, from the network was in the room. So off the back of that experiment, we've, we've built some software to, to basically provide a matching service based on unfulfilled client needs to identify who's in our community that could potentially fulfill those.

00:51:50:14 - 00:52:11:11
Unknown
So they can partner, they can make introductions. And frankly, that's been the one kind of gap, if you like, since, you know, growing this network for the last six years is we know that what consultancies want need is introductions. They want leads. They want opportunities. That's the number one thing. It's a very organic step, isn't it? It's very natural thing.

00:52:11:11 - 00:52:28:04
Unknown
Yeah. You're not forcing somebody in now. They're already here. And everyone it was probably got one thing you haven't quite sorted. And there's probably at least one other person that can help you. To be honest, it was it was quite overwhelming. And I did get feedback in the break from some of the members going, well, you need to sort this out.

00:52:28:04 - 00:52:53:17
Unknown
You need to bring some technology and you need to get a grip on it. You can't be under can't. Yeah, exactly. I've got I can do that. Where was that? Which table were they on? You know. So it was it was a little bit chaotic. But I did explain it was it was catalytic, not chaotic. I think it's you know, I don't think it is that I think it's that it's almost when you do something and then boom, you, it's like you put something on outside, maybe on social media.

00:52:53:17 - 00:53:17:00
Unknown
And then somebody said, you know, I'm going to get 500 views. And somebody said, it's gone viral. You've got 10 million. What? You know, why did that happen? Am I an influencer? Clearly not. But it's the replication that's exciting, isn't it? Yeah. You experiment. You know what? I'm going to just try something. It could go left or right, but worst case scenario, it adds a bit of value somewhere.

00:53:17:05 - 00:53:39:04
Unknown
Oh, blimey. Here's a need. Which is really you testing the market. It's like the original source data going. I'm just doing it again, not because I'm trying to start off because I'm trying to add value. Absolutely, absolutely. I love that it's the bit that I've loved the most about the last six years, which I hadn't really worked out, to be honest, at blue Sky was I love creating the value proposition.

00:53:39:04 - 00:53:55:16
Unknown
I love thinking of new service lines that can add value to the membership. I thoroughly enjoyed that aspect of it. I think that's quite powerful for people. That is. Look, there is probably parts of the role that have a mundane ness to it, or you can be good at it, but you don't necessarily love it. There are things I do.

00:53:55:18 - 00:54:12:13
Unknown
You're quite good at that you must enjoy doing it. No, I'm just good at it. And then there's the stuff where you go. But I'll tell you what I do like doing. And I think when you're really trying to build something or whatever, it's sometimes just remembering you've got to. It's going to be a hard slog if there is not an element of joy in there for you.

00:54:12:14 - 00:54:28:23
Unknown
Yeah. Doing maybe your thing is I'd just like to bring 1 or 2 people through or whatever it might be, but you've got to have an element of joy in this, or all of a sudden ten years can go and you go, I don't know what I've been doing there. Yeah. You know, but just with, you know, just alert to time.

00:54:28:24 - 00:54:59:19
Unknown
Is there anything else that is just worth. And the answer might be no other. You know, I think we are where we are, but is there anything else for you that's just worth a conversation or just something that you just want to verbalize just before we go that is relevant to the topic that we've been talking about? Yeah, I mean, I think obviously with your the name of your podcast being Leadership Bites, I had a thought, I did do a little bit of reflection on what leadership means to me and what I've learned about leadership, I guess, along the journey.

00:54:59:23 - 00:55:27:16
Unknown
And there were a few things that struck me that that maybe worth sharing loves it. One of them was, so I'm a very open person, and what I found actually being open and communicating transparently with the team actually could be problematic, which is a bit counter-intuitive for me. So there were times where. So I used to share an office with our accountant, and someone would wander in and say hi, whether that's to janitor or to me, and then we'd have a conversation, what are you working on?

00:55:27:16 - 00:55:42:16
Unknown
And I might share the fact that I'm working on a new service line, or I'm thinking about restructuring the business in this sort of way, or whatever it may be, right? Whatever I'm working on. And then that person might go, oh, I hear that there's a new service line coming, and they might say that to their boss, and their boss doesn't know anything about it.

00:55:42:17 - 00:56:07:23
Unknown
Yeah. And then they feel totally undermine. And they come to my office. What the hell's going on? You know, and I'm like, that's just an idea. I was just, you know, bouncing the idea of. So I worked out quite quickly that, you know, there is a reason for a bit of I don't I don't like the word hierarchy, but respecting the fact that I maybe shouldn't just be open and transparent with everybody at any given moment and that, you know, there is a reason why these the managers are there and they need to understand what's going on.

00:56:07:24 - 00:56:28:01
Unknown
Should that staff member ask a question, they would not be in a position to to answer it because they had no idea. So so that was I guess, one of my reflections. I mentioned the point about the 10 million target just not working. And you know what's in it for me. Factor being really important. So I think that's really key for people to go away and think about.

00:56:28:03 - 00:56:53:24
Unknown
And I think the I was kind of asking myself, okay, what is what is being a good leader look like? What does it mean to me? And actually, all I could come up with was actually just feels like being a good human being most of the time, right? So it's a crazy talk, you know, just just listen to people and give them a voice and but but actually just being a good human being that I thought actually is not enough all of the time.

00:56:54:01 - 00:57:22:02
Unknown
There are times where you have to step up as a leader. And you may remember when blue Sky was going through a particularly difficult time, and we borrowed the Savior's offices in London. I was just about to. Do you remember that time, dude? Yeah, I you know, it was it was a moment of humanity and it was a moment of ownership and it was a moment of truth and.

00:57:22:04 - 00:57:39:22
Unknown
Yeah, I remember it. Yeah. And, you know, it wasn't just good enough to rock up and be a good human being on that day. People needed more, right? People were concerned. They were fearful. And, you know, I had to step into a space of giving people a sense of belief and confidence that we could we could fight our way.

00:57:40:03 - 00:58:12:23
Unknown
Well, I think the phrase will sell our way out through the recession, right. Because there was a you know, I think I think you're right, though, there is the human being, which is the treat people, the respect. And there's a list, possibly, but it doesn't have to be overly clever, just be decent. But then the human doing is it is the owning it, the stepping up that being clear about what good looks like, giving people feedback that they might not want to hear, living with their reaction to that, which could be anything from resignation to reflection through to, you know, an epiphany.

00:58:13:00 - 00:58:28:11
Unknown
You know, I don't know what the I'm going to tell them this don't know what they're going to do with it, you know. So I think, yeah, there's the human being I'm going to do, I'm going to have this very difficult conversation, but I'm going to do it well. I'm going to do it with care. So I've got to marry the two set side by side.

00:58:28:11 - 00:58:46:14
Unknown
This is one thing I'd be interested in getting your take on, actually, before before we wrap up, because there's a lot of talk about leaders showing vulnerability. Yeah. And, yeah, I'd be interested on your take on that topic. Well, if you have one. Yeah, we do, and I think one time. Yeah, we do. And I think there's two little things here.

00:58:46:14 - 00:59:19:10
Unknown
I think you become invulnerable with your vulnerability and that the difference is I'm not being vulnerable, as impassive. I'm not being vulnerable through weakness. I think that's a different thing. That's don't hurt me. I'm vulnerable. But I think the strength of me sharing my vulnerability with you, anything from my inability to understand the spreadsheet through to my uncertainty on how to deal with Bob, whatever it is, then that means I can say to the room, I actually don't know what the answer is here, and that actually doesn't make you vulnerable.

00:59:19:11 - 00:59:46:09
Unknown
And I think that's the bit that people need to wrap their head around. But it also links with psychological safety, which is actually if what I'm doing is we are going to have conversations where the truth is going to be spoken about, which is at one end. You could say, you know, we need to be vulnerable. Maybe. But psychological safety doesn't mean it's going to be easy.

00:59:46:10 - 01:00:31:05
Unknown
It means that we're going to be forthright, transparent. We're going to come to this with integrity. We're going to actually be truly adult, and we're going to manage our emotions and have the conversation. So I don't think vulnerability is being vulnerable and weak. I think it's actually the willingness to step into the space that is a public space and own your truth and manage your emotions and even ask the other person demand of the other person, or contract with the other person, or give them feedback about their behavior that says, if we're going to have this truly honest conversation, it's not a it's not about two vulnerable people, it's about two incredibly strong people.

01:00:31:11 - 01:00:55:00
Unknown
Or even if we're developing our strength to do it because we both feel vulnerable. But let's become strong through the process. So it is a growth space. It is a adult space, and it is a forthright space. And I think that's how individuals and teams grow, not by being inverted commas vulnerable, but through the growth of themselves through that lens.

01:00:55:00 - 01:01:16:12
Unknown
And I think that's because we don't want to reinforce the vulnerability. We want to develop strength. And that's that's because I think that's how I want my child, my children to grow up. Yeah, the vulnerability is their strength. They can walk into a room and go, excuse me, I actually don't think I know how to do this. And that's that's not I'm brushing it off.

01:01:16:17 - 01:01:41:19
Unknown
And it's not that. All. You're so brave being vulnerable. What wasn't being runnable? I was. I know how to have that conversation. But it made you vulnerable. Only if I let it. It was a link to me, for me around authenticity. So a lot of people talk about authentic leadership. Yeah. But it's it's not about bringing all of because you don't want to bring all of your woes to work.

01:01:41:20 - 01:02:05:22
Unknown
Right. But so yeah, we always talked about being bringing your best self to that place. I think it's growth. I think the business has got to grow commercially. You know, it's got to grow culturally. Well, the business is made up of people and we want to grow in terms of our knowledge and our competence and our and actually, five years from now, we should all be stronger, better, more competent individuals.

01:02:05:23 - 01:02:30:10
Unknown
Not that I've just I've spent five years turning the mangle lever. I've spent we've spent five years growing, having the difficult conversations, becoming more robust, not just resilient. Resilience is recovery. Robustness is it doesn't hurt me in the first place. And how do I come robust? Because I've I've not toughened up because I've learned how to manage it and navigate it.

01:02:30:12 - 01:02:49:11
Unknown
And you've helped me do that. Why? Because you've told me some home truths and I've had to go away, and I've had word with myself and come back and I and all that kind of stuff. So I think that's interesting. Yeah. So listen, let's bring it to, you know, with a bottle of wine and a pizza. These conversations are as long as you could, you know, you could write books and take degree courses, no doubt.

01:02:49:11 - 01:03:14:14
Unknown
But I think I'm excited about what you do. I really strongly suggest that anybody who's in that consultancy space really takes a very strong, serious look at you as an organization. All the links will be associated with what we're doing, and I think I will not hang my hat on many things, and I will definitely hang my hat on the work that you do and the who you are and the team that you have with you.

01:03:14:14 - 01:03:20:06
Unknown
So I'm going to shake your hand and say, thank you very much, sir, very much. Always a privilege. So appreciate it.