"Consultants are on the outside"

@June 7, 2021

This is something I hear often in new client intake calls. It is so fascinating because in almost every engagement I've had, I, the outsider, the not-bothering-to-show-up-for-all-hands meetings am somehow the one with the deepest understanding of the customer's JTBD.

I reacted in the moment to someone saying this to me recently with my chest puffed out, "well we'll see about that!" I say this on account of the fact that my engagements involve doing research, setting up research libraries, defining strategy based on that research, and then designing experiences based on that research - and then presenting to stakeholders who have often barely skipped the research report. "I'm the only one doing research, so in one study I'll know your customers even better than you do so there."

And lately the threads I'm tugging at in my work is to make myself less unique in understanding the customer. How do we mobilize the insights? How do we get the team to agree on how to use the insights? What role does qualitative data make in decisions, and how do we get it to play a bigger role?