Andy Polaine: Hi and welcome to Power of Ten, a podcast about
design operating at many levels zooming out from thoughtful
detail through to organisational transformation, and under
changes in society and the world. My name is Andy Polaine.
I'm a service design and innovation consultant, design
leadership coach, educator and writer. My guest today is my
friend and ex colleague Joff outlaw, Managing Director of
Designit for Australia and New Zealand. Having taken over from
Katja Forbes, who was on the show a few months ago, Joff has
led design and consulting teams across the UK and Australia with
project work spanning across all industry verticals. He has a
passion for design, CX consulting and building
successful and happy teams. Joff's key focus is helping
clients through the sales process, which means taking the
time to truly understand an organization's short term and
long term goals. Joff, welcome to power of 10
Joff Outlaw: Hello, my friend, how are you?
Andy Polaine: I'm very well. Have you eaten any good
sourdough recently?
Joff Outlaw: Well, you know that's not the case. You know
that the only person in the whole design industry that's not
a fan of sourdough. I actually told my new team that recently I
think I lost them straightaway.
Andy Polaine: Yeah, I think you might have done you know, as
someone who bakes sourdough, you know, I send you photos
occasionally. I feel quite offended. What is wrong with
sourdough?
Joff Outlaw: It's not so much for bread itself. It's the
monopoly that it's it's got of every cafe in Sydney. So for
example, the best breakfast in the world in my opinion is Eggs
Benedict, and Eggs Benedict it should be served on a toasted
English muffin. But you can't you can't get that anymore in
every cafe it's sourdough. And, that disappoints me, upsets me.
I think sourdough with a bowl of soup is fine. It's just I just
got a problem with how it's taken over. It's my main issue.
Andy Polaine: You will be amused to know that I cut my lip on my
own sourdough crust the other day.
Joff Outlaw: Yeah, you would do. It's quite a vicious bread.
Andy Polaine: You're more of a kind of you know, soft toast
bread kind of guy. Hovis.
Joff Outlaw: I'm more of a soft farmhouse.
Andy Polaine: The northern roots, right.
Joff Outlaw: It must be. I haven't got the the evolution of
gums to deal with sourdough.
Andy Polaine: I don't know how we segue from from sourdough
into your role. But so you've just taken on this new role. You
just, you know, upset your team, by your sourdough mutiny. What
is your new role? And what are your plans?
Joff Outlaw: I'm not sure yet. It's come. It's come very
suddenly. So it's my second role in a year. Which is not not
Great. Now, you and ..., Well, we've been... so for people who
ideal, because there's a lot of mental toil in starting a new
role as you've started the year, having left Accenture after five
years and joining Wipro and was just getting settled there. And
then this opportunity came up. And I guess you can choose when
opportunities come up. So I had to take it and want you to take
it. But there's a few issues that are I want to get stuck in
straightaway. But my my key ambition really is to make sure
that design is recognised in the region. Obviously, we've got a
really impressive global heritage, do some fantastic work
across Europe, in particular in the US. And so yeah, we need to
get going in Australia, only the expats know who we are here. So
yeah, that's the aim to, to grow the brand and do work that
matters. And hopefully, the team will be proud to be part of it.
However, however long it goes on, however big we get.
don't know, Joff and I work together Fjord in Sydney, and
across Australia, New Zealand, and often – I was going to say
straight man, funny man, but I think you were the funny man,
and I was the straight man in those client pitches and client
engagements. Is that fair to say?
I don't know about that. So some of your metaphors, are pretty
legendary.
Andy Polaine: Yeah, okay. I tend tend to have quite of dad jokes.
But I think it's probably pushing it to say that I was the
funny one. We've talked a lot though in, in, you know, in over
coffees and all sorts of places around what's known as client
engagement. Whats certainly known in consulting as client
engagement. And, you know, understanding where clients are
coming from understanding how to, you know, engage with their
problems, but just before recording, you said, you know, I
want to talk about sales. And I want to talk about why sales is
a dirty word. Why is sales a dirty word in your view? Or at
least why do you hear that it's a dirty word from designers,
Unknown: Because you're asking for money. And that's seen as a
bit uncouth, maybe, I don't know.
Andy Polaine: Why is that uncouth? What's been your
experience?
Joff Outlaw: Well, I think, I don't think this is a new
phenomenon. I think, you know, you can go back to ancient
times, and, you know, market times and dodgy salesmen, and
the mistrust between the buyer and the seller. So there's
always been instances and there will always will be instances of
you know, bad sales processes, and you know, the customer not
getting what they want or what they thought they would get. And
so it's never as a kind of craft. I think it can be very
good. Very bad. And therefore the reputation overall ends up,
you know, somewhat tainted in sales becomes a kind of
slightly. I wouldn't say that profession, but potentially not
a noble profession. Whereas I've always really, really enjoyed it
and always been motivated by and it's only as I've got older,
that I've really embraced it. And I'm proud to tell people
that, you know, obviously, I'm a managing director, and I've got
many hats that I wear, but sales is the one that I always say,
That's my strength. That's what I do really well. But yeah, even
when I've had people, you know, starting out, and they say, they
kind of say it in hushed tones, like, I'm interested in sales,
you know, great. Well, let's talk about that, you know, it's
so almost seen as the, you know, profession that you don't really
want to do, and you fall back on, because it's a way to make a
living. But um, no, I think, I think if it's done, right, it is
a noble profession. And it's a very worthy one.
Andy Polaine: I mean, obviously, without it, you, you don't have
a business, right? And you don't get to do the work you you want
to do. I've actually often said that, you know, really good
salespeople are the kind of people who you wouldn't actually
want to be friends with, which is not the case, in your case.
So there's some kind of magic sauce there. I think you talk
very empathetically about clients, and I've heard you, you
know, really try and understand, you know, I'd say apply the same
kind of empathy that designers do to the, you know, the end
customer and the end user upwards, if you like, to the
stakeholders and to the clients. What is it that you're looking
for, when you're.. obviously you're you're trying to make a
sale, trying to win business trying to grow the business.
That's the sort of baseline of what you're doing. But it's,
there's the way in which you go about this, that I think it's
probably a bit of a mystery to some designers, and as you, or
people, you know, in the sort of creative professions, what is it
you're trying to do?
Joff Outlaw: There's a lot in that a few things that you said,
actually, that I think is, is possibly why the sales process
is sometimes mis interpreted or misunderstood. So you said, you
know, win or lose, hey beat the competition a lot, right? So
there's, there's a lot of sport in lingo that's used in sales.
So it's this kind of competitive match, you're going in a battle
type of thing. Whereas actually, I don't I never trade sales as
a, as a sport or a competition. Obviously, you know, it's great
to, you know, win new clients, when we work on new problems.
But I think if you treat it as more of a puzzle, it becomes a
bit more interesting. So rather than as, again, think of it more
as a puzzle. And what you're trying to do is understand what
what is the client's problem? And sometimes they don't know,
how important is that problem? Can we help with that problem?
Do we want to help with that problem, as well, which often
comes in, particularly in in the design industry? And if you were
treated from that perspective, then I think the sales process
has a lot in common with the design process, because you go
in into time discover what's what. So that's why I love it. I
love those conversations with clients. It's one of my
favourite things when a client says I've got a problem, or I
think I might have a problem. So good, that's great. Love those
conversations?
Andy Polaine: How often does that happen? Because I hear my
experiences, a lot of clients come in with the I've got a
solution that needs being, you know, being designed, I've got a
thing, here's, here's what I need done, are you the people to
do it? Rather than coming with a problem? How do you kind of
steer that conversation back to what's the actual problem space?
Joff Outlaw: Are you suggesting maybe the brief might be we need
a new website, something like that?
Andy Polaine: You know, typically, that's what you know,
now that comes out, and we need that or, you know, we need a
chatbot, or we need a, you know, a drone, whatever the kind of
latest kind of tech is, yeah, I am I you know, and I've always
kind of felt that... A long time ago, in my career, a long time
ago, who in my career, there was a well, there was a guy from a,
I think, like an insurance company, or came into the design
studio, and you know, and said, some sort of naive things around
design in terms of kind of what he thought the solution was, and
stuff. And afterwards, a lot of designers were kind of laughing
about this suit, who came in and how we need to educate him and
stuff. And my then creative director said, really kind of
picked us up on it and said, it's just really arrogant, what
you're saying, you know, if you were to walk in.. or if I was to
drop you in your jeans and your T shirts, in your scruffy
trainers, into the middle of a kind of the boardroom of a, you
know, insurance company, you would feel absolutely out of
place. And of course, you would try to say something. And so I
think a lot of those briefs come in with a solution built in
partly because people feel that that's what they should do.
Because otherwise, you know, they're coming in completely
naive. Then the second thing is maybe because they're they're
worried they're gonna get ripped off.
Joff Outlaw: Yeah, yeah. So what it's about is normally not what
it's about, right? So if they've coming in saying, let's keep it
simple, we need a new website. Well, what why, like, why do you
need a new website? Are you you know, is it just purely because
you don't like the way it looks? Is it just about looking fail?
And if that's the case, then, you know, do we really want to
take that on as a strategic design? firmus probably other
people I'd recommend do a great job of just uplifting the brand
in, is it because they need to, you know, for the first time
start selling things online. If you've got a client like that,
that causes all different challenges in a different
conversation, is it because they want to connect the in store
experience more to the online experience and try and create a
completely differentiated, you know, product service, you start
asking questions like that, and you get to the heart of what
they're actually trying to do. And by asking those questions,
you're showing that you really care, because it's a lot easier
to just go, Okay, we're the best company ever at websites, here's
10, we've done if you go with anyone else, you stupid, and
it's the price, we'll give you a special discount. If you sign
today. I say you breakfast,
Andy Polaine: it just the way you said that I felt like you've
just sold me a car, Jogg.
Joff Outlaw: Sold you a website. Exactly. So you said, the more
the more you take the time to investigate, the more trust you
build. And you know, they always say I'd say people don't care
how much you know, until they know how much you care. Now, the
flip side of that, of course, is if the client doesn't want to
tell you anything, right, then either already know who they're
going with, and they're not really interested in yet and you
making up the numbers, or they have no idea what to do at all
in which case projects will never happen. So by being
investigative, you're actually qualifying as well to see is
this someone you know, is this an organisation you want to work
with? Is this how you want to spend your time, which is just
as important because in good salespeople or just people who
are good at qualifying, you've only got a certain same hours in
a day as everyone else. So how you choose to spend your time,
you have to be very careful with that. And if you're not good at
qualification, you spend all your time chasing the wrong
deals, and you have to get a new profession. Right. So
investigation is the most important bit of any any cell.
Andy Polaine: I know you've got a very good radar for this, you
know, very good nose for kind of that investigation to sort of
watch you in action, as it were, it seems quite instinctual. I'm
interested to know how you kind of develop that knows, and
whether you have a kind of process that you could say, you
know, this is my process or whether it's more something
you've learned over time?
Joff Outlaw: Well, you know, I'm the I'm not a huge price sky.
It's bit of a weakness of mine. There's lots of qualification
frameworks, and you have too many to mention. And most of
them fail as well, because of that kind of instinct that as
you say that the nose for it. So there's a bit of an art and a
science to it. You know, you've got to you've got to kind of
understand those cues. But you've almost got a seen it
before as well. Because if you're going through a
qualification process, and you're asking the questions just
to try and get answers, so you can tick a box and then start
working on the proposal. You're not really qualifying properly.
So qualification frameworks can give you a steer in the right
direction, but then it's the same with, okay, I'll bring the
analogy back to research. You could give anyone a discussion
guide, right doesn't make them a good researcher. Same thing,
when it comes to qualification, you've got to kind of really try
and get a sense for what the client is trying to do. How
important is it? Do you really understand the issues or the
issues quantifiable? And that's, that's, there's so much in this,
but sometimes you can't can tell you the problems. But when you
say a Why is it a problem? They go burner? And then you're you
suddenly realise it's no, it's never gonna get funded. Because
there's no business outcomes tied to what the charter do.
They're just leading you on a merry dance. So there's a lot in
it, I think you a qualification framework can help but then
you've got to go get the experience, you've got to go and
get burned and you know, lose that time and know what it feels
like to spend months on a deal. That's never going to happen.
And before you really kind of can become having no sweat, as
you would say,
Andy Polaine: And what was your trial by fire? In that sense?
Was there a moment where you kind of had had a click or was
it a gradual sort of accretion of experience over time?
Joff Outlaw: There was no eureka moment. I wish there was no it
was years and years of dejection. Yeah, it's the same
as anything and it's just experience and you learn and you
get you get a little bit better every day, right, it becomes a
bit easier.
Andy Polaine: So I've got a slight theory, or at least it's
me, I'm just saying, I'm just talking about me, but I think
there is you said dejection, but it also made me think of
rejection. You know, there's there's quite a lot of that's
part and parcel of that process. You know, it's that's quite hard
to kind of personally to take sometimes I have you dealt with
that aspect of selling design wrok?
Joff Outlaw: Have I dealt with the rejection? It's not that
important in the grand scheme of things, and so I say,
Andy Polaine: I don't care is the answer to that question, is
it?
Joff Outlaw: Yeah, no, I mean, like, of course, like, you know,
you want to win interesting work for the team. And I felt
enormous pride when we've, you know, certain projects and
potentially certain projects we've worked on together, where
you bring that piece of work in at the studio, and everyone's
super excited about it. And then you look at the teams working on
it for months, and you see the end result and you're like, you
feel a sense of pride. But when you lose one, I mean, it's part
and parcel of of the nature of the work, you can't you can't
win them all. Like, it's impossible. So the main thing is
just if you're going to lose, just lose quickly, like the
worst is that kind of the maybe that goes on forever, you know,
when you've got a you know, that's that's normally means
you've done something wrong qualification. But when you've
got a client who, you know, drags on for months and months
and months, that's the worst. But I've got no problem with
you, you know, if you've got an opportunity, and a month later,
you get told it's a no, that's great. Move on, gotten the next
one.
Andy Polaine: So it's, it's pretty common, at least
certainly, in my coaching work. And you know, also in my sort of
consulting work, I hear designers moan about clients and
stakeholders as well. How can stakeholders be a better buyer
of design?
Joff Outlaw: How can stakeholders be a better of but
I don't think that's their job. That's our job, right? So you
know, that they're not design professionals, and they're
hiring us because we are, yeah. Now I know that you get
different levels of sophistication and
understanding. I mean, it's very helpful if you get a client that
really knows their stuff, although sometimes that can be a
bad thing as well. But yeah, I would say it's our job I do. I
know, I know what where your questions are. And I'd hear a
lot working with a team where, you know, it's always the client
doesn't get it. And, you know, the client doesn't know what
they've signed up for. That, to me means that we're not doing a
good enough job either in the sales process to scope it
properly, or during the project in terms of project management,
comms, and, and communication. Now, look, you're always gonna
have those instances where it just doesn't work out. But you
know, if you if you get the sales process, right, and look
for a reason and qualify out could be that the client just
doesn't isn't a good fit because of that, like, they're just too
immature, their expectations are too outlandish. Why would you
put yourself through it? The budgets not right. You know,
there are reasons why you don't go into that relationship. But
if you decide to go into it, then you know, we should be
helping them look good. That's our job. Right?
Andy Polaine: That's I guess what I'm talking about in terms
of, it doesn't necessarily have to be experts in design, they
don't necessarily have to know about design, I guess I'm
saying, but in fact, maybe there's more, there's obviously
more than one client, but at least there's at least two camps
of I've got this problem. And I think design might be the
solution or the thing I need. And then there's I've done this
a lot. And this is kind of what I'm after, for the people who
for whom, you know, the client, it might be their first time
where it's been a design heavy kind of project, design may have
been a kind of sort of ancillary, decorative service
for them up until now, something they couldn't go on, you talked
about, say said branding, and, and those kinds of things. But
for something that's maybe more, you know, change led, or it's
got a kind of heavy CX component in it. And they are going much
more heavily design support, I'm struggling not to say DESIGN
LEAD, because I don't actually really want to say that, but it
is heavily designed, supported. It's often you know, the first
time they've really engaged in that way. And I think that is
often the mismatch of expectations is often a mismatch
of or some misunderstanding or misaligned kind of mental models
of what this could be often kind of felt like, those clients are
actually sort of struggling to buy everything they actually
need. And that's what I meant by how might there be some better
stakeholders?
Joff Outlaw: You know, as we both know, it's, it can be very
hard because we don't always know the answer, we have to go
through the process to get the answer, right. So when we talk
about the particularly if it's a strategic kind of services
aren't project, you know, we can explain the process. And the
client will often say, Well, what does that look like that?
And it's the old consulting. And so well, it depends.
Andy Polaine: What is the outcome look like?
Joff Outlaw: Yeah, what were the what did the outputs look like?
And you can show examples? But then, then that can be
dangerous, because then suddenly, you're tied into doing
a journey map again, when it might not be the right answer. I
think the only answer I've got to that is that you need a
project manager. That is equal to the sales team. So that is
working, or a project lead doesn't have to be a project
manager, but it's managing those expectations all the way through
regular check ins. Here's what we are, here's what we found,
early sketches. This is what we think we're going to do, what do
you think, and look, part of the project setup is how you're
going to be invested in this project to help us through
because normally when design projects go wrong, it's because
you've got a disengaged stakeholder who kind of just
wants to throw it over the fence, that that's often a sign
that it's going to go badly because at some point, they're
gonna get engaged, and they're gonna go, Oh, hold on, this
isn't what I was thinking. And we never captured what they were
thinking because it's three weeks down the line. with, you
know, we've already started sketching out particular concept
or service vision or whatever, have it, you need a good you
know, project lead to kind of counterbalance with the sales
team. But I also don't think the sales team should disappear
either like, projects tend to go better when the sales lead is
there for the client was kind of, on the balcony. So you can
come and chat to me if, if something's not going as you'd
expect, plants get pretty upset with their sales guy comes in
because the dance is gone as soon as a contract sign. So you
need that kind of guy on the balcony as well, just to provide
a bit of perspective. And they can be clamped down if they get
a bit anxious.
Andy Polaine: This is the person they first formed the
relationship with and trust.
Joff Outlaw: Yeah absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And you need that
objectivity, you need someone outside of the project, just to
provide a bit of, yeah, provide that, that objective view of
what's going on and give the client a bit of comfort.
Andy Polaine: So you know, the, the selling is another kind of
first part of it, and then you've just talked about that
project manager who's or project lead, who's kind of shepherding
it through, which feels in a way, you know, lots of sort of
mini sales points, actually, you know, kind of saying, you know,
this is where we're at, you know, what do you think of this,
this is where, you know, literally to say, are you still
buying this, you know, of what we're doing here, but there's
this sort of other end, which I've seen a lot of, and you and
I have experienced, you know, teams get burned out on, which
is that disconnect between the people who sell the project and
what the experience of actually doing that project was because
selling the project is also involved in as part of it's also
scoping it and saying, we need this many people for this much
time, this is what we're going to achieve. And if that feedback
loop doesn't happen at the other end to go, do you know what, we
actually needed two extra weeks on that project or another three
people because that was a kind of complete nightmare. And we
were all kind of frazzled and burnt out that quite often that
feedback loops doesn't seem to happen so often.
Joff Outlaw: Yeah, no, I agree. It's, it's absolutely essential,
you know, you need to have that retro and the sales. I mean,
look at the sales lead should be working with, as I said, the
delivery lead in some capacity all the way through. And that
ritual needs to happen. You need to like just same same way as a
client, you need to avoid the use of them, which can easily
happen. When things get tough, the delivery team can, the
easiest thing for delivery team, per se is sales teams. Easiest
thing to do, just playing the scoping of the project, because
it's often easiest thing for the sales. Easy for the sales guy to
do, he's got delivery messed up it. So you need to kind of watch
out for that because it doesn't serve anyone's purpose, the
company's purpose long term or the clients. So I agree with the
retros really important. And it could only stretch her what
everyone can, what went well what went wrong and learn and
look at in terms of the sales process, it's not an isolated,
it shouldn't be an isolated team working on that I've the design
team should be providing inputs, the challenge that you often
have, as you well know, in agency land or in a
consultancies, that it's very hard to predict, who's going to
be available to work on the project whenever the sale may
happen. So a design director might work with a sales team to
scope it. But that might not be the same design directly in the
project when the client finally signs it three months down the
line. And so the team have to get comfortable with that as
well. And so well look, you know, hasn't necessarily been
involved in scoping this, but I trust my teammate who has, and,
you know, approach it with a positive mindset to try and make
it work. Because everyone would do things differently. It's not,
you know, we're dealing with complex problems. So there's
never kind of one single answer in terms of solving that.
Andy Polaine: Let's talk about procurement.
It was lovely to see your face, I wish I wish people could have
seen your face. I give procurement a beating quite
often in sort of writing and talking and presenting and
thigns because, you know, on the one hand, I feel like I'm always
we're very sorry for anyone's in procurement, because I feel like
I'm being very nasty to those people. But actually think of it
more systemically, in the sense of you've got this kind of
strange setup where this department exists in order to
ostensibly save a company money and stop them getting ripped
off. And yet it seems to function to entirely waste money
and end up you know, encouraging people to sort of hoodwink them
in order to get through it and yet And yet they're only doing
what they're supposed to be doing which is to kind of
maintain the status quo.
Joff Outlaw: Yes. Hey, yeah, procurement. My next door
neighbour works in I feel sorry for him, look, there's a lot of
that let's not completely bash the whole profession. I think
there's some very good skills that you need in procurement
that are useful in lots of areas of business. So procurement
people are normally very good at negotiation, very good at kind
of gathering requirements and you should be good communicators
as well. So there is some good skills within that that
profession is a question how I not how I deal with procurement
much my strategies for working with procurement is that we'd
like to know,
Andy Polaine: It's slightly... I mean, I guess it's what I'd say
is procurement seems to be function well, in the way you've
just described it for things that are of unknown quantity. So
if you're buying, you know, boxes of Sharpies, or desks, or
office space, or whatever, where we know this thing is a is a
thing. And we can compare it to other exactly the same things on
the market, and therefore negotiate a deal. It seems kind
of absurd to try and negotiate a deal on something where nobody
actually really knows what the middle of the project and then
you might know what the desired outcomes are. But those are
different from outputs. Right. So and I think procurement
really is not set up to procure the kind of work that that we do
Joff Outlaw: Create services or complex services, yeah, no, I'd
definitely so there's some truth in that. I think the the key
thing here is that the procurement team obviously don't
write the briefs, right, that kind of sat on the desk now, you
know, we need to do we really need to try and improve our, you
know, banking experience for the new generation of digital
natives or whatever. It's terrible briefs, but you get the
idea that they're obviously getting their briefs from their
stakeholders. So our job is really to influence those
stakeholders. Be involved in the mean, ideally, you want to
always avoid procurement, as she kind of hinted at, but where it
becomes too big procurement normally get involved. At that
point. You need to have done the work before the RFP comes out.
So if you're if you're responding to an RFP that you
didn't know about, good luck with that.
Andy Polaine: Okay, let's move on. Let's talk about the whole
process. So RFP, and there's RFIs aren't there as well. So
let's, let's D acronym them, what are these strange things
job for those who, down the other end of the design process?
I've never heard of these things.
Joff Outlaw: And you're sure your listeners want to hear
about these things?
Andy Polaine: Well, they might, they can always skip, they can
always fast forward.
Joff Outlaw: Yeah. Okay. So very quickly. So you have an EOI, and
EOI is the worst of all, that's an expression of interest. That
basically translates as we just want some information off you to
find out things what we might not know about, and with no
commitment to buy anything off yoiu. An RFI is a request for
information. Normally, a request for information is the precursor
to an RFP. So you normally would consider doing that if you knew
with good faith that it was going on to something bigger,
and you wanted to make sure you were down selected for the RFP.
And then RFPs obviously, the request for proposal, that's
where the the real work starts. That's where you get the 30 page
PDF and you lose a few weeks of your life responding to try and
win that big business, often in government, of course, as well
often in government.
Andy Polaine: Yeah, which disadvantage is smaller agencies
sometimes, right, because it you know, it does require a someone
who's a just constantly across those very arcane kind of places
where those things appear, for starters. And secondly, is is
able to plough the time into going through as, as our
Accenture, previous Accenture colleagues would call answering
the exam question, right, which is literally to sort of just go
through and have we ticked all the boxes in this RFP?
Joff Outlaw: Yeah, I mean, that those organisations are trained
to respond. Right. So any of you being, you know, the big four or
Accenture as the Big Five, their, their trained, they're
match ready to respond to these RFPs. They've seen other
questions before they have all their content ready. As a small
agency, you know, I mean, most of those RFPs anyway, you you
wouldn't even be a take the risk to take on the project. Because
if it went south, you could use up your whole team as well. So
would you take that risk to have all your eggs in one basket? I
mean, the government has tried to do some things around that in
Australia, obviously, with the digital marketplace. I think
that if you were involved in that. Yeah, so we created that
to try and make it easier for smaller businesses. But yeah,
RFPs procurement, not not a lot of fun but they're a necessary
evil like, these are the tend to be the market changing
opportunities, the ones that you really want to work on. And
that's why procurement are involved because there's big,
big dollars involved. So they want to make sure that they're,
you know, following the due process to make sure that they
feel confident they're getting the right value from what
they're putting out there. The main advice we've got is to do
the do the pre work like, make sure you make sure you're having
the right conversations and with the right stakeholders and
finding out about the problem so that the RFP isn't a surprise to
hear. So many companies respond to RFPs. We know relationships.
They don't know anyone When in the government organisation or
the financial institution, or whatever sector it may be, and
they respond, because the opportunity is so big, they get
excited about the potential of winning. But it's a lottery,
it's a lottery ticket, you've got very, I mean, everyone's got
one, everyone's got one story, and we didn't know anyone. And
we still want it hurts, but then it's, that's a curse itself.
Because that all that does then is waste the next 20 years of
your life that you keep going after.
Andy Polaine: So what has been your, obviously you can't name
names, but give me an example of just the thing to avoid what's
been the kind of terrible sales and client engagement experience
you've had? And maybe what was the lesson. Just get out your
Joff Outlaw: I wouldn't say it's terrible, you know, I had a lot
big book.
of knocks come in coming through in terms of going to meetings
where I thought I was ready to go on my own. This is, you know,
decades ago, and then turning up and going, I've got nothing to
say actually should have brought someone who knows what we're
talking about. And the meeting lasts like 15 minutes, and
you're like, Alright, I'm gonna get the train back to Ipswich
now, sorry about that. That's a bit awkward. But the ones that
and most of most of the things I kind of, I always treat this
whole profession with a sense of humour. And, you know, it's a
bit of fun, I enjoy it. But there's a couple where sometimes
now, and again, they'll creep back in, and I'll go, we should
have, we should have done that work, we should have done that
project. One in particular, which you'll know of, which is
when we had to fly all the way to New York, to pitch for it
from Sydney, which isn't a short flight, it was Saturday for
about three days, I think. And we should we should have, we
should have won it, we should have won it. And we didn't. And
Andy Polaine: We were robbed.
we didn't looking back and thinking about it, we didn't
because we weren't set as a team going into it. So we pulled in
so many different people. And they were all the right people.
And we were the best company to do the work. And I still believe
that to this day. And this is going back about four or five
years now. But we didn't win it because we weren't formed as a
team. We hadn't sold something together as a team, we hadn't
yet delivered something as this group of individuals going to do
this presentation to some very senior people. And it showed
because the process was so thorough, its way out. So that
was kind of an important point. Because what we should have done
is just stick with the people that we knew that, you know,
they might not be the most senior or as senior rather. But
we would have had a bit of chemistry and we'd have been
able to I believe off each other and it didn't come across as
more authentic. So that one hurts because we should have we
should have got that. I mean, I genuinely I don't mind losing. I
don't mind not winning a deal or losing a deal. If you know
sometimes you get what I'm not sure we were right for the
client. I'm not sure we had the right services or it'd been a
bit of a stretch for us to be really, you know, there's lots
of reasons you can rationalise a loss that when I couldn't that
when I was like we were definitely the right company to
do so it killed me a bit.
Joff Outlaw: We were robbed, yeah.
Andy Polaine: So you don't is as long as the other team kind of
played better than it's okay. But when it's just like a kind
of...
Joff Outlaw: Yeah of course. Yeah. And you could end up being
on the other side. It's a small industry and you know, it's just
good to see companies spending good money on design right. And
important areas. So it's positive.
Andy Polaine: Did you hear my attempt there to try and talk
football to you?
Joff Outlaw: Yeah, I decided to ignore it.
Andy Polaine: So, er, soccer to our American friends. Do you
still play? Joff still claims he could have been you know, played
for some Premier League team. Is that Is that still the case?
Joff Outlaw: Depends if I've had more than two beers. Normally if
I've had more than two beers I could have captained England.
No, I still play for as long as my hamstrings last night and
it's about five games. And then that's for the rest of the
Andy Polaine: It's a young man's game. That's for sure. And it
season.
was when I was a young man, it was not my game either. So it
was never my game. I was putting goal at school playing soccer
because it was rubbish. And then when the ball came towards me
I'd sort of go "Aagh!" and it would go through.
Joff Outlaw: You did my sort of goalkeeper,
Andy Polaine: I'm always fascinated by goalkeepers
because I think when you see a good one, there's a level of
commitment even if it's in the wrong direction, particularly
with penalties, there's a level of commitment to dive towards
the you know where they think it's going to be that you have
to have that I don't I have... I flinch away I'm too dithering
they've kind of I don't know which direction to go in.
Joff Outlaw: The psychology of goalkeepers, so they're always
crazy this person on the team goalkeepers strange strange
breed
Andy Polaine: Yes. Well, they also got big hands too. I don't
know where that leaves us. So that was a so that was that was
a we would end up laughing. So that was an interesting aside,
but I was I was hoping you might go somewhere. For me, I think
that the commitment to the kind of direction thing was where I
was going with that, I think is actually is quite important to
have some kind of commitment to direction and then, you know,
okay, we weren't the right fit, or we're not the right person to
you, because I think I've seen where, for me, I've seen sort of
sales go wrong, at least from this perspective of being, then
part of the team who are having to deliver on the promise is to
bend yourself out of shape in order to try and, you know,
satisfy the ask, instead of having the guts to say no, so,
you know, you talked earlier about, you know, we should
things I wish I'd gone for and so forth. My experience, and I'm
interested, if it's yours is that the things you say no to
are much more important. And I wonder if you've had some
examples of things you you're glad you said no to or whether
you're even agree with that?
Joff Outlaw: Oh, yeah, no, no, of course, I agree with that. If
you change stretch yourself out of your comfort zone, well, it's
normally hard to sell in that way anyway, because, you know,
you're kind of faking it a little bit. And that normally
comes out in the wash. What's even worse sometimes is when you
win, and you kind of stretch in your capabilities, what I mean,
in a bad way, I think, I think we've been up we yeah, we've
been talking about sales a lot as if it's this separate entity
within the entity. So good sales is good delivery, it's good
work. It's good business, it's, it's all connected. So the sales
process doesn't stop if you get the deal signed, if the project
then ends up running a lot, because you had no idea what you
were talking about, are you sold the wrong thing, then that's not
a good sale? Like that's a disaster, right? And I've seen
many instances of that where, you know, projects completely
under sold. And it's it's terrible for the delivery team.
And it's terrible for the client, because it's just been
set up to fail. And no, no good salesperson would ever feel good
about that. They would never go Oh, that's okay. I got those
those things on my number, you should always care about well,
did it lead to the great outcome, which you can then talk
about? I mean, that's what that's what salespeople, good
salespeople talk about. They talk about the good outcomes,
they don't talk about the good sale, because that's largely
irrelevant.
Andy Polaine: Whether there's plenty of some high fiving of
the big sale in agency land, right?
Joff Outlaw: Yeah, I'd hope less so in, in this when I said the
design, you know, the more strategic design, UX kinda, I
think we're a little bit more... salespeople tend to be a bit
more integrated, hopefully with the teams and there's less egos
but yeah, I guess so in marketing and advertising land
that has been traditionally a bit mature. But yeah, I don't I
don't subscribe to that kind of sales environment. I don't
that's not something I would work with
Andy Polaine: it sometimes triggered by the kind of, you
know, incentives and KPIs that the sales teams cost, which is
about volume rather than outcomes.
Joff Outlaw: I remember a good friend of mine once when he left
university ended up at Foxtons and I think he aged about 50
years in nine months and it's just horrific.
Andy Polaine: For people don't have Foxtons is a real estate
agency that massively expanded in England kind of very quickly.
Joff Outlaw: Yeah, it's very, very boiler room type sales
environment, you know, ringing of the bell kind of thing,
handing out cash on a Friday, real kind of
Andy Polaine: Glengarry Glen Ross.
Joff Outlaw: Yeah, "always be closing"
Joff Outlaw: The biggest learning that... Well, by the
Andy Polaine: Always be closing, if anyone's interested in a
horrific example of an envireonment, watch that film.
It's become a weird kind of cult classic. So you know, a lot of
time they've got to that stage, if you're talking about the more
designers, you know, are interested in as they become
more senior. And certainly, you know, by default, as they get
senior kind of design directors and your senior services and
into leadership roles end up taking more of a role in the
sales process. And some you want to for that very reason of like,
I'm fed up of working on projects that had been scoped
wrongly or whatever. What's your you know, you've had a few
senior designers, they already have the knowledge, right,
you've designers go through that process and work with you.
What's your advice to them? What do you think's the biggest
learning they have to...
they've got the knowledge of their craft, so it should take
comfort in that. They should take comfort that they know what
they're talking about. And if you want to build trust with a
client, you've got to have good intent. So you've got to be
there to want to help them solve the problem, as we discussed
earlier, but you've also got to have expertise. So they go in
into the room with the expertise so they should take comfort in
that. Now what they don't need to necessarily have, although
it's definitely can can acquire this skill or learn this Well,
if they weren't, but these are things around negotiation, you
can get, you know, a bit combative, if done in the wrong
way. Pricing switches more can be quite administrative,
particularly work in big companies where it's all about
trying to get the margin, right. You know, they don't necessarily
have to know these things to be involved in the sales process. I
think my advice would be that you you're there for a reason,
which is to bring in your, your expertise and your knowledge.
Now, if you want to get more in the business mechanics effects,
and great, I mean, happy days, I think every salesperson would
love it if a design director wanted to have conversations
around margin now with that stuff. But yeah, tech tech
companies in what you know, I mean, that's your security
blanket, you know, your stuff, right?
Andy Polaine: Yeah. Although I tend to think that designers
weirdly, talk about design too much to clients sometimes. In
that, you know, we talk about, here's all the work we've done.
And here's all the kinds of things, you know, either at the
end of a project, or in the middle of the project of, you
know, here's so we interviewed these people interviewing,
there's all these people, and we tried this and that didn't work.
We tried this, and this didn't work. And we try that and this
doesn't work. And then the clients like, Okay, well, I
don't know, I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking at.
Or, you know, you know, during the ante, I'm guilty of this,
you called me the professor for that very reason. But talk, you
know, long about process and, and the design process and not
so much about outcomes.
Joff Outlaw: Well, I enjoyed your monologues Andy. But yeah,
I understand the point. Yeah. Look, that's the job of the
sales director or the commercial director to do proper
rehearsals, to coach this is what these are the key points,
this is what your role is. Does it always work out perfectly? Of
course not. You're always going to get occasions where maybe
someone gets nervous or girls, just goes into verbal diarrhoea,
do lose a sale because of that. Probably not. Like, you know,
providing you still can cover everything, and you still get to
the detail and the project bill. I think clients sometimes they
forget all that. You know, he obviously knows his stuff. He
was a bit nervous during the sales process. They understand
that they you know, there are people too, and obviously, so,
yeah, look, rehearsals help and the sales director should be
there to coach you that and the more you do it, the easier it
gets. So, yeah, it's not I never kind of freak out if designers,
you know, going off on one, I kind of think it's part of the
charm sometimes, but unless you unless it just completely takes
over and you lose, but then you have to then as a sales
director, you have to interject you have to take control back,
right?
Andy Polaine: So I mean, rehearsal is an interesting
thing, isn't it because it's there's a sort of golden, a
golden sort of middle to that. Because if you could just go in
and wing it. Just the kind of thing you and I would have never
done it, it can look like you're just going in and winging it.
But if you start over rehearse, it can just come off too
polished and actually inhumane and stiff.
Joff Outlaw: I agree. I agree. Yeah, yeah, there is definitely
a balance and never do a rehearsal on the day of the
presentation. That's another mistake. Never do that. Never do
that. Because any any feedback you get at that point, two
things normally happen: you won't remember it. In which case
why bother with last minute rehearsal or the second thing is
you try and fit it in get your words wrong, because it's
different to what you're gonna say. So by the time the morning
comes, of the big pitch, just you've done everything you can
just go and enjoy it. Don't try and cram in some last minute
message in our last minute rehearsal.
Andy Polaine: Because your your brain just kind of rattle you
just have "don't say elephant don't say.. elephant!"
Joff Outlaw: Yeah, exactly. It's not helpful. It's normally
someone very senior in the organisation that suddenly has a
nervous reaction and suddenly wants you all in a room. You
know, with like 15 minutes to go.
Andy Polaine: With a huddle. Much like rugby team. "Everyone.
Be professional" Really? Okay, well, listen, we're coming for
time. As you know, the podcast is named after this Ray and
Charles Eames film about the relative size of things in the
universe. And my final question is always what small thing is,
is overlooked, that has an outsized effect on the world?
Joff Outlaw: It's the most difficult question of the whole
podcast, isn't it? I feel like everyone always struggles with
it. An easy answer would obviously go back to sourdough
and just remove its influecne from all the cafes in Sydney.
Still keep it around, but just you know, get it back in its
place. I don't I don't know if this outweighs its impact. I'm
going with it anyway. Because it's has a big impact, but I
really don't like cars. I don't I don't like driving. I learned
to drive very late, because I've always lived in cities and it
was only when I moved to Australia about got to know
eight years ago now. I realised I have to charge because, you
know your just not as connected?
Andy Polaine: Hang on. You only learned to drive eight years
ago?
Joff Outlaw: Yeah. Yeah. So I learned in my 30s Yeah, and That
might be why I hate driving, because it's something that I've
had to pick up late. But, yeah, even the younger, I never wanted
to do it. I think it's a waste of time. It's dangerous. It's
not good for the planet. Yeah, just just and it just feels like
it hasn't moved on at all. I mean, the cars are still broadly
the same as they were back in the 20s, or 30s. To sickness a
nice, we need something better. I feel like we could have used
the last two years or locked in our homes to just redesign all
the roads. And we could have come out with something like the
Jetsons or something much better, I don't know. But cars
get rid of them.
Andy Polaine: All the roads have turned into kind of trams and
trains and sort of and smart things. And we're gonna lock you
away for two years. Yeah. And then we're going to come out.
it's like that Woody Allen film where he kind of wakes up in the
future...
Joff Outlaw: Or you just go into like a slide like, like a water
slide. But without water, we could it could be water in
Sydney it's often quite hot here. And it just takes you
where you want to go. But it's not fast and exhilarating.
Because I don't like that either. But just nice and
relaxing. And you can read instead of kind of being behind
the wheel thinking is someone going to smash into me. And road
rage as well, why does everyone get so angry in their cars? It's
almost like the car acts as a shelter where it's like, oh, now
I can just be really rude and swear at you. And it only
because of a pane of glass. So I don't know cars, get rid of
them.
Andy Polaine: Cars or like the the sort of physical social
media, right, where you can kind of... you're hiding in this
little bubble and you can. You know it's why people pick their
nose in their cars and stuff and all sorts of things, even though
they're actually in a glass box. And they're allowed to kind of
act in ways or they give themselves permission to act in
ways that they wouldn't if they were actually face to face. So
yeah, maybe cars need like eyes or something maybe that would
just change things if if the cars have eyes and so they were
sort of frowning or looking upset and stuff. You know.
Joff Outlaw: You talking about Herbie? Herbie Goes Bananas.
Andy Polaine: Herbie didn't have eyes did it? Herbie just did
wheelies and things. I think I'm talking about cars. I'm actually
now talking about the Pixar film, I think. Yeah. Joff, thank
you so much for being my guest on Power of Ten.
Joff Outlaw: Absolute pleasure.
Andy Polaine: Where can people find you online? By the way?
Joff Outlaw: LinkedIn is my preferred medium for everything
work related. I'm not huge on social media, actually. But
LinkedIn, LinkedIn, I'm quite, quite active on.
Andy Polaine: Okay. All right, well, I'll put the link to
LinkedIn and to your new home in the shownotes. Thank you so
much.
As I'm sure you're aware, you've been listening to Power of 10.
My name is Andy Polaine. You can find me at @aolaine on Twitter,
or polaine.com, where you can find more episodes and sign up
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helps others find us. And as always get in touch. If you have
any comments, feedback or suggestions for guests. All the
links are in the show notes. Thanks for listening and see you
next time.