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Building Better Clients for Innovation.
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Welcome to F-Stop*

Faulkner Strategic Consulting's monthly eNewsletter

We all have clients.

Whether you’re in a corporate setting, a supplier or consultancy, or work independently or freelance, your clients are your bosses, team leaders, functional heads, customers, and other stakeholders.

We’ve all also experienced the full spectrum of positive and negative client experiences, and by taking a closer look at what has worked--and not worked--in the past, I’ve identified three steps you can take to build better clients:
1, Build a Better Brief 
The biggest disappointments in client relationships tend to come from missed expectations. Great briefs help clarify expectations by answering these critical questions:
  • What’s the objective? Why is this work being requested? What is the business question that this work will address? Don’t settle for a surface answer to this; understanding the real underlying business context, drivers and needs will help provide a more relevant deliverable.
     
  • What does success look like? Not every project will have formal, numerical success metrics (although some certainly should), but what constitutes success should be understood and agreed among all parties. 
  • What comes next? If this project is a piece of a larger initiative or plan, make sure you understand the broader context and how it fits. This will help you both define scope and tailor the deliverable. 
 
2. Build in Enough Time 
A common mistake in creating project timelines is to underestimate the time required for activities outside the project itself. These include things like: upfront briefing and alignment, check-ins and updates along the way, reviews and feedback (potentially multiple rounds), and follow ups after initial project completion. The consequence of not building in adequate time for these things ranges from missed deadlines to compromised quality to going over budget—or getting underpaid.
 
To increase the accuracy of your timelines, draw on past project experience (your own and/or getting input from other team members) and think through the times that felt rushed, required trade-offs, and were otherwise unanticipated time-draws. This isn’t about creating padded or unnecessarily long timelines; by planning for these connection and feedback points up front, you can often be more efficient overall, or at least more accurate.

 
3. Build Relationships 
Chatting and small talk don’t come naturally to everyone (myself included), but spending a bit of time on pleasantries adds an element of human connection that not only makes interactions more enjoyable, but also increases trust and sharing—and increases the odds that you’ll get the benefit of the doubt if needed. 
 
Practice professional empathy with your clients. Try to put yourself in their shoes and understand their motivations and priorities. This can help you proactively tailor messages and deliverables and give you context to understand feedback and reactions. You’ll obviously invest more in building relationships with clients who are ongoing business partners or regular customers, but practice these approaches on a smaller scale with potential or new clients, in a sincere and authentic way, and they might just end up becoming ongoing clients (or key internal advocates) as well!

The above is a shortened version--read the full article here.
 
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Thanks for reading this month's issue of F-Stop. Previous issues of F-Stop are available for download here. Feedback is always welcome and please feel free to share via social media buttons above or forward to friends and colleagues! 

Sarah Faulkner
Principal, Faulkner Strategic Consulting

 

Faulkner Strategic Consulting is dedicated to innovation that grows brands, driven by deep consumer and market insights.  

*Why F-Stop? In photography, F-Stop is a measure of lens speed which controls the brightness, or illuminance, of the scene. These concepts are central to innovation as well. The goal of F-Stop is to provide resources, information, and inspiration to illuminate and accelerate innovation.
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