You’ve read about the ‘Day1 Deal’ and the ‘Day1 Way’, now I am going to explain what makes Day1 different: The ‘Day1 Difference’.

So what does make Day1 different?

We have a motto, a mission statement if you like those kind of things:

Your outcome is our outcome.

In other words, whatever your vision is, it becomes our vision too. We don’t have a different vision to you for our business. Our vision is simply whatever yours is.

The most important thing we need to know before starting any project is ‘What is your outcome?’. What is going to be the difference in your company, business, organisation; when this project has been delivered?

Now a lot of people, and that includes most consultants, think that an outcome is something like “I want to have a budgeting system”. But that is not an outcome it’s a ‘thing’. It might be a means to an end, but it is not the outcome.

An outcome might be say “I want to create a robust financial budget in 15 days with only one central person dedicated to working on it”. That’s an outcome, perhaps not the most succinct, but it is an outcome. But if it currently takes you 2 months and 3 or 4 people dedicated to working on it, then it’s a pretty compelling outcome.

So we need to understand what your outcome is. Only then can we ensure that we engage properly and deliver your outcome.

Now what is the difference between this and what every other company says they do? Because they all say that “customer satisfaction is their Number 1 Priority”. Well a lot say that, but you know what?

Their outcome is not your outcome.

Most consulting companies are driven by utilisation. I challenge you to ask them how they motivate, incentivise and measure their consultants.

I guarantee that 90% of them will answer ‘consultant utilisation’.

The argument is that ‘the best way to get high utilisation is to deliver customer satisfaction’. That is a very attractive argument. However it pre-supposes that if you deliver customer satisfaction then the customer will use you again.

The problem with this approach is that any incentivisation always has unintended consequences. The unintended consequence of this approach is that the consultant feels under pressure to maximize their utilisation. They will use any means, and I mean any means, to ensure their utilisation is maximised.

One giveaway is a consultant who is always wanting to demonstrate the solution to higher management so that “they get to see what’s being built, what’s been achieved”. They will say it is to ensure that they are building the right thing and that everyone is happy. The truth is that they want higher management to see the possibilities that could be delivered elsewhere in the business, and they hope that will lead to other projects. Thus generating more business and maintaining, or increasing, utilisation.

They even have a name for this approach. It’s called ‘land and expand’. It’s a strategy that is based on doing one project really well, often at a loss, in order to generate many more projects.

Now just think about that for a moment.

Even the language is wrong; ‘land and expand’ is the language of invasion not partnership. And that is precisely how they see it.

They see this as a way of using you to build their business.

Their outcome is very different to yours. Their outcome is more and more work in the future. It’s not the same as your outcome. You want a partnership where both parties are working for the same thing. What you are getting is an organisation that wants to do a good job, but only in order to get more business later on. And they are willing to do anything to get that.

Their outcome is not aligned with your outcome.

In the long run that is not a sound basis for a working relationship.

If you want a partnership then your service organisation needs to have the same vision, and to be working towards the same outcome, as you.

At Day1, our outcome for a project is the same as yours. So if you want to produce a budget in 15 days, then that is the outcome that we want as well. That’s what we will work towards producing, and we will do whatever is necessary to achieve that outcome.

If we get it right, then with a bit of luck, you may want to do more business with us. But if you don’t then that doesn’t matter to us, what matters is that we have delivered your outcome.

That is the ‘Day1 Difference’;

Your outcome is our outcome

When you are happy, we are happy. Even if we never work with you again, that is not what is important.

Thank you for reading these three pages. I hope you now understand what makes Day1 unique.

We look forward to doing business with you.

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