January 31, 2019
“Nice to have” projects
Sent by Jonathan Stark on February 1st, 2019
Reader Shayne Rempel wrote in with a question that I think you’ll find useful (shared with permission):
Hi Jonathan, I wanted to write in to ask a question that I hope will benefit your other readers who are struggling to effectively have The Why Conversation, too. I was really jazzed about having this discovery call today because I didn’t really need the work, so if they said no, at least I got another opportunity to practice. I wrote down some questions beforehand to see if I could determine the underlying business case/motivation for why they were requesting an audit of their new user portal. I brushed up on “Learn Your Lines” before the call, just in case they asked any hard questions. (They didn’t.) They didn’t have any background or understanding of the work that goes into this kind of audit and I didn’t bore them with the details, just a brief overview. When I asked them why this was important to do now, the only thing I learned is that they just thought it would be good to do before they roll out their MVP. When I asked them why they wanted to hire me instead of using someone in-house or the consulting firm they are already using, they said they don’t know if anyone on those teams knows anything about this type of auditing, but they knew I’d done an audit for the person who referred me. They didn’t really even know what the consequence would be if they didn’t do the audit/remediation. I didn’t want to put words in their mouth so I just said okay and moved on with the discussion. I know this is where I went wrong because I didn’t leave the conversation having any idea what the value is to them (minimal it seems) or convinced that they need me to do it. I had what seemed to be the right project team on the call, but I didn’t know how to dig any deeper into why this was necessary. Did I do something wrong or is a project just not worth pursuing if the client “just thinks it’s a good idea”? —Shayne
Great question, Shayne! Thanks for asking :-)
Based on this info, I think there are three main possibilities for what happened:
- Low Value—It is sometimes the case that there is no significant value in a potential project. It’s merely a “nice to have” for the client. This is fairly rare, because buyers tend to be busy and don’t have time to take meetings for no good reason. There is a clue in Shayne’s message that makes me think there’s a chance that this was the problem. The people Shayne met with were referred by a friend/colleague, who could have said something like, “You guys haven’t done an audit yet?! You need to get an audit done! I’ll put you in touch with the person who did ours.” A statement like this from a trusted colleague could create urgency, but without an understanding of consequences or value.
- Wrong People—Unlike buyers, gatekeepers often have plenty of time to take meetings for no good (business) reason. To test whether you are talking to a gatekeeper, you can ask, “If we decide that there’s a good fit here, who would approve the project?” If the answer is someone who’s not in the room, you’re probably not talking to the right people. Shayne mentioned in her note that she believed that the right people were in the room, so this is probably not the issue in this case.
- Premature Wrap—It might be the case that Shayne would have stuck pay dirt by continuing her questioning, BUT she didn’t know how to keep asking Why? without sounding like a broken record. My go-to line when I feel like I don’t have the information I need and we’re running out of meeting time is, “Sorry folks... I’m just not seeing the business case for an expensive engagement like this. What am I missing?”
HTH!
Yours,
—J