(Series) The value of a product manager in a consultancy company - part 1
Why consultancy business should think about getting some product people into their businesses.
Introduction
For those who don’t know it, at the beginning of October I joined my friends of Thinking With You, as a Product Manager, with the idea to explore a different path from what I’ve been doing for the last 7 years. I’ve done it before, but from another point of view, different skills, and the same passion.
Initially, this post was going to be dedicated to explore the following topic: “Traits that PMs can learn from consultants and viceversa”, but given that being part of a consultancy business is quite different than being part of a product company, I’ve decided to show how consultancy businesses in general should consider the idea of bringing a Product Manager into their conversations, even as an advisor, if you cannot allow to hire them as a FTE.
First - Skepticism
I have to admin that I’ve been always skeptical about the value of consultants (even if I’ve done the job). The main reason for this, was that bringing someone, usually call the expert to tell you or assist you with something you don’t know, was completely against of how I did things in life, since I was a child.
In my childhood, I didn’t want to have a teacher to help me playing the piano, I didn’t ask others to help me out. I was isolating myself, thinking that I had all I need to learn a skill or embark into a journey I’d never explored before, and more. Thankfully, I’ve changed my mind on how to think about this.
Although this is a story for another post, I’ve seen my career being propelled by someone with an external point of view, that had already been there, and who can guide you towards achieving your goals, and get better at something.
When I joined TWY I wonder, “What am I going to do here?”. There is no a product as such, until you discover the entire company is the product. Simple and complex at the same time. The formula is easy: number of hours/month * € / hour = revenue. If revenue > cost then you have profit and live happily ever after. Simple right?
Second - Discover
Now the thing gets more interesting when you scratch the surface and look at the health of the business. This is a business model that has been around for ever (selling time), and quite successfully to be honest.
Nonetheless, when you come from a place where what you sell is something digital, that scales quite rapidly, where you can distribute it everywhere (doesn’t matter where you are) you wish you can do the same with the consultancy business. I’m going to stop you right there. In this business you must be careful with what you wish for. Because your major strength can become your biggest weakness. So, my next question I had was, “How are we going to scale and sell more?”, considering our major asset is not software, but people.
Scalability was the first thing that I’ve noticed that I needed to think differently.
The other thing that I was very mindful of, was the idea of being strategic. When you are a PdM, you cannot go into a meeting with your boss (director or VP) and levels above (CPO / CEO), saying “we think we will do ok if…” or “I think we should go into this direction”. This is like saying, let’s plunge together into the pool and if we are lucky, there will be water on the other side. No way.
You must understand the context, form an opinion, make a diagnostic about the situation, clearly articulate the principles that are going act as guardrails, and articulate an execution that will take you to the destination you have defined.
This is what I mean by strategic. Although gut feeling and sense it’s important, you must spend time thinking thoroughly and being deliberate on where you spend your energies.
Otherwise, if everything is going ok, you live in the fantasy land, we are all happy, and if not, you must have hard conversations, that unfortunately you are not prepared for, because you haven’t articulated what you are supposed to do and how to know you are getting there.
Strategy was another point we must improve, in order to have conversations that are informed by what we want to do, and if we are going into that direction.
The last area, but for sure not least relevant is the idea of “selling” or “distributing” your services. I don’t like the word selling because it seems to be too transactional, and one of the main beliefs at TWY, and what differentiate us from others, is the idea o building relationships with our clients above all.
Nonetheless, in order to build that relationship you need to ensure the following things:
Product / Service: be 100% sure of what is the thing you are offering, what differentiate you from the rest, your unfair advantage.
Market: who are you offering you product or service. This is by understanding the job your product plays in your prospect or client life. Why would they be better with you and not with what they have or something else?
Channel: how are they going to know you exist. We will see that one of the biggest levers of TWY is an organic viral loop (WoM), but that may not be enough.
Model: how are you going to make money. Does the same work for all of our customers? Can we charge the same to a PyME than to a large corporation? Do the services cost the same?
Distribution and selling is another great area where we need to be mindful of the way we are configured. Both side of the spectrum can kill you, the one where you have more projects than you can chew, and the one were you have no demand.
The areas
As you can see, I’ve enumerated three areas that are big chunks where a PdM can assist:
Scaling: how can we offer more and growing in the number of people organically while maintaining our essence
Selling: understanding demand to position your service to target the right people and offering new things clients need.
Strategy: how can be more crisp and clear when communicating what we are going to do and what we are not going to do.
The path
Come along with me during this journey to uncover how we can break down each of the previous topics, with the aim of showing the value of adding product management thinking into a business that has been successful for the last 10 years and the impact it could have.
The exciting part is that while I’m writing these pieces of content, we are acting upon each of the topics, and hopefully I will be able to share results afterwards.
In the next nugget, we will talk extensively about “selling and distributing”. One of the most interesting topics for consultancy business.