The Big Question
Questions I get from consultants. And my answers.
I received this question from a fellow subscriber, a partner in a small consultancy: “Luk, because of our rather small size we get frequently asked by the buyers if we have enough capacity (people and/or expertise) to deliver. How would you react to that?”
It’s a great question because it’s also a frequent discussion I am having with my clients. And from the clients’ perspective, this is a reasonable inquiry. Right?
An imperfect positioning
I know this is probably totally unthinkable for you, but I’d say: RUN !!! This is the wrong client. You might get in trouble if you continue. The fact that you get this question will - in 90% of the cases - result in a weakened client relationship from the start. The buyer doesn’t trust you enough. Otherwise, you wouldn’t get that ugly capacity question.
You will most likely try to twist your answers way too much to convince the client to defend yourself. Or you will try to prove you can deliver by all means. In most cases, it will result in substantial negotiation loss of power at your end or an over-serviced and under-charged project profile. Say NO!
I know I am a little black and white here because I hope it works cathartic for you. Let me explain a bit more.
It’s about you, not about the client
This question about the needed delivery capacity is all about you, not about the client. No, it’s not a difficult question or an overly demanding buyer. If you get into such an ‘inquisition’ recurrently, the positioning design of your consultancy is wobbly. You bet.
What does that mean:
1. you either have targeted the wrong audience (e.g., too big/small, too complex,...)
2. you are suffering from an inadequate assessment of the client's pains (you have bent the pain narrative to fit into your capabilities and capacity, a frequent problem caused by exaggerated ambition or ego)
3. you have developed an inaccurate problem resolution (for the false client pain), the ultimate disaster scenario (and you probably don’t realize it until you get challenged)
Poor positioning is difficult to recover from
In workshops, I am always asking consultancy teams: what is difficult to recover from? I almost always get the answers: losing a client, losing a proposal, or losing a key player in the team.
At the end of the workshop, I always repeat the question. If everything goes well during the workshop, the participants understand how vital positioning is. The new answer most likely becomes: the wrong positioning of our consultancy is the most difficult obstacle to deal with.
Entering a pitch with an ambiguous or hazardous positioning is like leaving the garage with your car with insufficient oil and run-down tires. At some point, you will have to come back, repair it and start again.
If your positioning isn’t damn right, this can echo for years to come. That’s why I always urge consultants to externally validate their (new) service offering fast and furious (and iterate quickly to adjust).
Reverse-engineering your service offering is what you should do
Start from your capacity (!!!) and reverse-engineer your service offering. Don’t target large-scale implementations in a multinational if you are a small team. But you can target such a multinational if you have a packaged solution with limited capacity needs. I have explained productization in my 3 previous newsletters (#33, #34, and #35) and in the November webinar about productization.
I have several solo-consultant clients doing excellent work for large enterprises and they never get the ‘capacity to deliver’ nasty question.
Their offering is limited to, e.g., diagnosis, development of implementation roadmaps, co-writing the business case for a new implementation, providing guidance to executives (advisory retainers), etc. But it requires discipline (focus!) to stay in the lane and not twist the narrative to get the deal.
So, to avoid getting the ugly capacity question, your positioning is your starting point:
- laser-sharp definition of your client
- deep understanding of the prototypical client pains
- Finally, a problem resolution based on those prototypical pains reverse-engineered based on your capacity to deliver.
Delivery capacity by design.
