What I do

I help companies to develop propositions which customers will want to use and pay for. A running theme across my projects is ensuring that companies have their revenue strategy and their product strategy properly aligned. I create effective pricing schemes, as well as optimising existing pricing & monetisation.

I make actionable and detailed recommendations, supported by customer development work, analysis, data, revenue & assumption modelling, and experience.

Some clients ask me to work with them operationally in order to implement specific recommendations. I’m often asked to extend my work beyond an initial remit of pricing & monetisation, covering areas such as product positioning, route-to-market, and pitch decks.

My process

1. Form

Ahead of a first meeting with a prospective new client, I’ll often ask you to complete a short online form about the questions or problems you want to solve. The form is optional, and it might seem odd or even rude that I'd suggest this before a first meeting. The reason I ask, and the reason most people actually do complete the form, is that it makes the first meeting so much more productive:

1. It enables us to make much better use of time during that first chat. I’ll be entering the meeting already aware of the key challenges and ready to be more helpful.
2. Regardless of whether we decide to work together afterwards, the form increases the likelihood you will find the first conversation independently helpful in its own right.
3. Just filling the form can itself be a helpful exercise by helping to clarify or crystallise your thoughts around challenges & questions facing the business.

Every person who has completed the form subsequently reported they were glad they did it.

2. Initial meeting or call

I'll ask a lot of questions with the objective of getting a better understanding of what you want to accomplish and the challenges you're facing. Following that call, I aim to have a pretty good idea of whether I can be useful to you or not.

3. Figure out what to do next

After our first call, I’ll have a think about the most useful next step. There are usually four possibilities:

A. No further involvement

Sometimes it’s just not the right fit. I might suggest that you actually don’t need my involvement at all, or you might feel that I’m not the right person with whom to work. And if I know someone who’d be more appropriate then I can make an introduction.

OR…

B. Another call, more reading and a Project proposal

Most prospective clients already have a question or problems in mind which need to solved, so it’s at least somewhat clear to me - following the first meeting - what needs to be done. In this case, I usually send some follow-up questions and arrange another call to get more background and discuss outstanding points. I'll often ask if you can share some documents which will give additional context. Afterwards, and if you confirm you’re interested in working together, then I'll write a proposal. My proposal will usually include:

• Detail the problems to be solved
• List the key questions which the project should specifically answer. These are effectively the project’s success criteria i.e. a successful project will deliver actionable answers to those questions.
• Lay out a sequence of activities thorough which I can tackle those questions
  • Usually, I’ll suggest 2 or 3 options for our project
• I’ll explain why I’m proposing those activities
• I’ll describe the outputs or deliverables for those activities, and how those activities tie in with the project’s objectives.
• The project price, and my availability to start working with you

OR…

C. Roadmapping

I use Roadmapping with clients who know they need an outside pair of eyes but aren’t yet sure specifically what they want done.

I deploy Roadmapping as a short, structured discovery process, with the objective of properly defining a company’s challenges, prioritising them, and developing specific actionable recommendations on what to do next. I use Roadmapping because:

1. It delivers a meaningful chunk of the benefits of an outside pair of eyes, while minimising your commitment in time and money.
2. The process is independently useful and implementation agnostic. You can take the Roadmapping documentation and then execute on it internally, or with me, or a mixture. By making it implementation agnostic, the Roadmapping process remains useful regardless of whether we do a larger project together afterwards.
3. Roadmapping enables us to do boundaried but strategically important work, confident that the output will be worthwhile, and comfortable that neither party is making assumptions about doing future projects together.

OR…

D. Retainer

Retainers are appropriate when there’s an anticipated stream of challenges or questions to be dealt with each month. Retainers can be used on their own, or in combination with one of the other options above.

Retainers are useful for companies anticipate a stream of challenges or questions to be dealt with each month.

Time can be split flexibly between remote desk work/preparation, a call and/or a f2f meeting. I.e. it’s not necessary to take the whole retainer period in one go. For example, a client might share details and relevant materials for a problem the company is experiencing. I then work on the problem remotely, and send through follow-up questions & suggestions. And then we meet for an hour to two (in person, or via video-conference) to discuss solutions, and discuss any other issues which may have cropped up in the mean time.

I can work with whichever team-members are appropriate. And f2f meetings can optionally be used for a meeting with an outside party (e.g prospective or current investor/partner/service-provider/employee)

After a project is completed

We’ll meet or do a call to review how it went. The review is primarily an opportunity to discuss the project outcomes, for you to ask me follow-up questions which may have arisen, and to provide feedback.

I’m a one-person consulting firm. Obviously, my preference is that the end of a project won’t be the end of the relationship! Most of my work comes from repeat engagements and word-of-mouth recommendations.

It’s actually nice to receive unexpected calls or emails from clients with whom I’ve worked. Often they’re facing an important decision and just want to talk it through with someone outside their organisation. Some of those interactions subsequently lead to a new project, and some of them don’t. Either way, those conversations have (unexpectedly) become one of the best bits of the job.