Seize authority: Stand up, stand against and stand out
What has your industry taught you that you need to reject? To abandon, discard, dump, shed, forsake, jettison or drop?
What do you stand against?
These two questions have had a profound impact on how I conduct my workshops.
I’ve taken my design process from 8 months to 1 month. No BS!
I could even do it in a week if I had the client on tap. Let me explain.
A Doctor and a fax
A friend of mine recently went to the doctor with her toddler. She was told to fax the toddler’s referral to her specialist.
Email? My friend asked.
No. It had to be faxed.
This all happened in July 2021. My friend did not know anyone with a fax machine!
Medical professionals continue to use fax machines even though the technology is outdated and poses a clinical risk to patients. In 2018 a coroner in Melbourne found that a critical medical test result had been sent to the wrong fax number leading to the death of a man. The coronial report recommended urgently phasing out use of the fax machine for communicating medical test results, but the health industry was proving to be stubbornly averse to change.
We could spend a long time delving into the reasons for this, but briefly the medical industry is:
poorly educated about advancements in email security
averse to change because it has a lot of power over customers (we don’t tend to argue about administrative issues when we need an urgent medical procedure, plus as consumers we tend to trust medical professionals).
This causes medical risk, and a lot of pain for customers like my friend who is a busy mum and wants to organise an important procedure for her toddler.
You may own a medical practice, or medical centre. You may be a doctor, nurse, or medical specialist. And the question is, do you stand against this?
Surely, it’s a no-brainer.
You have to STAND UP and call this out as wrong.
Stop diluting the idea…
The danger of feedback
Twenty years in the creative industry taught me to provide endless feedback sessions for clients. Others in the same industry would agree with me on this.
The problem is (as my former colleagues would attest) at a certain point on this timeline the quality of the product would start declining.
So the product, the brand, the images, the narrative, the impact - would become worse, not better. Gradually, more people added to email chains would provide input. People calling out the most risks seemed to have the most influence.
As the quality of the product reduced, so did the client’s state of mind regarding the project. The longer the process dragged on the more the clients would second-guess themselves. After months, the product, yet to be released into the public domain, looked stale to everyone.
Their satisfaction dropped from happy face emoji, to slightly concerned, to begrudging acceptance.
Somehow in the past few decades the idea crept in that all opinions are valuable.
Creative teams inserted every idea, every change to wording or to colours or to narrative, into the final product with a subsequent weakening in the role of creative gatekeepers.
It results in clients who aren’t amazed by the final product and frustrated creatives.
Feedback from clients can drain the process.
It sounds offensive!
But I had to STAND UP and call this out as wrong.
Like the medical professionals clinging to fax machines, many creatives simply continue with endless feedback sessions. They know the quality of the product is sliding as this happens, but they have survive on a breakfast drink of pragmatism and sending in their final invoice for the job.
This is something I stood against (I had to if I wanted happy clients, higher paying clients, more income and a happier life).
I’ve taken my design process from 8 months to 1 month. No BS! I could even do it in a week if I had the client on tap.
To provide a metaphor:
Imagine if my family from Sydney visited me in Port Macquarie, and imagine they had never been to Port Macquarie before. Also imagine that on day one I said to them, “So where are you taking me today? What are the best attractions in town? Where’s the best coffee? Which beach shall we go to in this wind?”
My family would have no idea why I am asking them these questions.
I am the expert on where I live.
It is the same with the creative industry. If I am brought in as an expert, then I’ll act like the expert and be the creative gatekeeper.
These days I’m increasingly shortening the time period for feedback. Feedback is also targeted and filtered, and always brought back to the client’s first principles - discussed at the beginning.
Clients are happier than ever. I’m happier than ever. The brands and products my team produces look amazing.
So, what do you passionately stand against?
After STANDING UP, we then need to STAND AGAINST.
What needs to change about the way things in your industry are done?
Remember, when we ask this question, we’re not trying to solve the problem yet. We’re just calling it out. There is always a process that follows of doing things differently. For the medical professional, it’s working out how they won’t allow correspondence to fall through the cracks when they migrate to secure email.
I needed to be comfortable to lose clients who thought their expertise in a field such as engineering or finance made them an expert in creative products.
Asking yourself this question will help you articulate your ideal clients and differentiate you from the mob and add value to your products and services.
This means we then STAND OUT.
Grow from ‘meh’ to MAGNETIC
Align your expertise with your customer’s needs to become a world-class brand
Become your industry’s go-to expert. Join the expert consultants who have repositioned their brand, clarified their message and attracted high-value clients with an irresistible offer and a magnetic brand all within a month. HOW? Ask Jason Knight or schedule a 15 minute call to talk through any questions.
