First Things First, A Hard Question to Ask Yourself
The question, “Are you the right person for the job?” is one of the hardest to ask yourself as an individual as well as a company. Before you can establish a scalable roadmap you have to be the right fit for the job. It’s very easy to take on a job because “you are capable of doing it.” Know your lane and pass it along if it’s not. Not only will it keep you focused on your strengths, you’ll likely succeed much further on all fronts.
Under Promise & Over Deliver
Almost everyone in business can agree that this statement holds true, so why doesn’t everyone follow through with it? There are many reasons why individuals deliver sub-par products, but if you set yourself up correctly you will always be ahead of the curve.
In 1996, I was in seventh grade running around in circles in a hot gym with sweats on. Middle school wrestling at it’s finest. Anyone that knows me today is most likely baffled at this sight since I’m a lover and not a fighter. Needless to say, I only wrestled for one year, but I did take away something that has been with me ever since. Coach Schuyler told us,“practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice does.”
In order to wow a client beyond their expectations, it starts with you. If you have all of your processes perfectly aligned, the delivery to your client will come with ease and over delivering will be natural.
5-Steps
Creating a scalable roadmap for each project is the key to success. At Stacks, we like to use the phrase, “future-proofing.” Insuring that the process you’ve set in place will be the best process. For the past year and a half, we have been working with General Electric on a project to produce over 700 videos a year. We have the “destination” of what the deliverable is, but in order to succeed, each and every step has to be defined. It starts at the ground level. Here are a few things to consider for any project.
1 – Establish a creative look that is easily replicable
- Control, never complicate the scene
- Often a bigger project is over multiple dates but requires same look, so keep it simple
2 – Establish the best taxonomy (filenames/folders)
- Intuitive file and folder organization
- Imagine if ALL your files landed in a single folder, would they remain organized and in chronological order?
3 – Establish a folder structure
- Create a scalable structure based on importance(location?Style? Names?)
- Folder structure = organization=saving time=more profit
4 – Create templates for processes
- If the project is over multiple dates create workflows that can be replicated
5 – Establish a consistent/specific form for delivery
- Dropbox is a great tool but not a proper delivery method to clients. Consider paying for a more robust platform for your interaction with clients.
- Control the experience for the end user by using a proper photo/video/design focused platform
- For this GE project, we delivered everything through Libris
“Speed is really crucial, and they are able to turn these final products around very quickly, which makes it even more meaningful to them [GEManagers], to distribute these [videos] quickly to the people they want to get them to,” Bob Lewis, GE Leadership Development.
“It’s clear that speed and organization are closely tied. If you want to locate your assets quickly, you have to be organized. These findings highlight a major challenge facing marketers: while speed remains critical in finding and sharing content, many still lack a system that is efficient and fast enough to meet their needs.”-2019 Report: Engaging Your Audience with Visual Content by Libris & Contently
The Deliverable
Think of your work as a gift to your client. Would you give a gift without wrapping it in beautiful paper with a nice card? Most likely no, so present every project as it’s going to be your last. Make it easy or your client. They don’t have the bandwidth to be rummaging around trying to find the right assets. Wrap your deliverable and put a bow on it!
Want to see how Brett and the Stacks team puts all of this in action? Check out the video below and watch how the team managed to pull off an almost impossible ask made by clients, GE.
