Ep. 142 – 100% Inbound, Zero Rainmakers: How much. Consulting Grew to €12M With E-Commerce Marketing Tactics - with Simon Stappen

0:03 In the beginning, obviously quite a few people knew us, but we were very, very small. And then over time, there were I think there was a time where maybe 95% of our clients didn't know us. And obviously, after now that we've built a fairly large client base, we do get a couple of clients from network and a couple of clients through referrals, but I would say we are still between um 80 and 85% of our new clients we have effectively never met before and they don't know anyone personally that knows us.

0:39 Welcome to Leaders in Consulting. I'm Sammy, your host and founder of the community. In this show, I speak to CEOs, partners, and MDs of consulting firms about the best practices and hardworn insights. Beyond the podcast, our community is all about connecting consulting leaders like you to learn and grow together.

1:00 Tell us your biggest challenge, and we'll personally introduce you to a peer who's lived through it and is willing to share their experience. This will help you find your own way forward. Visit leadersinconsulting.com to sign up. Membership is free. And now let's get started with the show. Today I'm speaking with uh Simon Stappen, CEO and co-founder of Match Consulting.

1:30 Simon, great to have you on our show.

1:32 Hi Sammy, thanks for the invitation.

1:35 Yeah, it's my pleasure. Um so for listeners who may not know um Much Consulting, can you tell us a little bit about uh your current size in terms of headcount and/or revenue?

1:48 Um we are currently about 110 people in three countries, and our revenue this year will be between 12 and 13 million euros, probably.

2:01 Yeah, awesome. And um which countries?

2:05 Uh we're in Germany, we're in uh Portugal, and in the UK.

2:10 Yeah, and you're right now in Manchester, you said.

2:13 Exactly. So I'm in the in the brand new Manchester office that we have just opened six months ago. Um, yeah.

2:21 Very cool. And what is your company doing?

2:25 Um, we are an EOP consultancy, is probably the best description. So we help our clients to digitize, uh to automate their processes, and to to implement large and complex IT solutions.

2:41 And the interesting thing is you don't like when when our listeners hear like ERP solutions, they think about SAP. But you're not implementing SAP, do you?

2:51 That is that is correct. Um, so not all of our businesses implementation as a lot of management, consulting, change management, and so on. But when we implement systems, it's always Odoo. It's an originally open source system from Belgium that is the fastest growing EOP or business process um system currently around.

3:15 Um, yeah, so we are kind of the SAP incumbent um trying to take the crown.

3:22 Awesome. And for people who don't know Udo, like me, I I heard it for the first time when I talked to you. What like just high level out of curiosity? What's the difference to SAP?

3:32 I mean, system-wise, it's a lot more modern, it's fully integrated. So the data is not in different silos for CRM, for sales, for finance, but everything is fully fully integrated, which allows a lot higher degree of automation out of the box. Um, so that's I would say on the on the business on the process side, what's very interesting.

3:52 And then secondly, and because it comes from this open source area, and the CEO and founder is an engineer and I would say a nerd first, um, the technology is is uh yeah very advanced, it's very modern architecture, it's extremely easy to extend and customize. Um, you can use AI very, very easily in the Odoo world.

4:17 Um, yeah, and on the business practice, the way they yeah work with their clients. Um, I think in the EOP world, maybe more Oracle than SAP, but uh yeah, there's always a lot of um pricing difficulties, and um it's very, very expensive in the total cost of ownership over many years when all the discounts run out.

4:40 And Odoo basically runs the opposite business model. So there's only one price per user. It's very simple. Um, there's a maximum price increase contractually agreed upon, and it's I would say very fair way to run the business with minimum lock-in.

4:57 So that's um that that might be the reason why it's going so fast, and you bet on the white horse. Um and you uh one also there there are two reasons why I like to have you on the show, and I'm really glad that you said you're coming. On the one hand, it's a very unconventional story that we will go through because you founded uh your consultancy out of university basically, and um very young and had a really nice growth story, but not without any hiccup.

5:28 So there's one disruption we will talk about, and you served it really nicely. And the other one is how you created an engine that produces leads uh to help you win clients, because as a young entrepreneur and student out of university, you don't have what all these other consultancies have, which is like a rhododex of existing relationships, and you just mine your existing relationships to create new projects.

5:53 You had to start from scratch, and you did it really nicely. And there are a lot of learnings in there for the consulting leaders that are listening.

6:01 Yeah, I'm really really excited to be here and uh and talk about those. Um, where do you want to start?

6:07 Yeah, so um, when did you found your consultancy?

6:11 Um, we originally founded the company in late 2017, so we then actually started working in 2018. Um, at the time, um, my co-founders and I, we were all students. We just started our our master degree in Munich. And effectively we started a company because uh yeah, we were freelancing ahead between bachelor and master a little bit, and then we had some larger deals, larger deals.

6:37 Um for yeah, for us 22-year-olds, it was very large deals. And we thought, hey, it maybe maybe it's interesting to um start it as a company, so you know you have limited liability, there was a lot of data involved. Um, yeah, and that's actually why we created much. So we we kind of had a a contract that we had good good uh chances to win, and uh we didn't want to do on personal liability, and then we actually created um the company, and yeah, actually we then graduated.

7:08 So I graduated last that was in the beginning of 2020. Um, so we did actually run it as students uh for quite some time.

7:17 And um, can you guide us through the revenue steps that you saw from 2017 until now? Because I think that's a nice teaser to keep people's attention here in the podcast, because that's a quite interesting growth trajectory. And uh you will then or we will then walk through how you made it happen.

7:37 Yeah, so uh we started out in 2017. As said, we didn't really do anything, so zero euros. Um, the good thing about zero euro revenue, it's very easy to to grow high percentages from there. Um, in 2018, uh, we went to about 100,000 euros um of revenue, and then um to about yeah 280, 300k um in 2019. So that's that's when we were still students.

8:06 Um, yeah, so for three students doing it part-time, we were feeling we're doing really well. Um and then actually in in 2020, when when I also graduated and actually yeah, started focusing fully on on the company, um, we did a little bit over 600k um in revenue. In 2020, we also then you know started to build a real company before it was really like kind of three freelancers working together, I would say.

8:33 And yeah, then it went uh quite quick in 2021. Uh we did 2.4 million, 2022 it was 4.7 in 2023. Then now the the covet rush was cooling off a bit. It was uh around six million, and then in 24, 6.4. And last year we did about 8.8, 8.9. Um, and here we are, maybe doing two-digit million euro revenues this year.

9:06 Yeah, congrats. What a journey as an entrepreneur, yeah. Shapo. Really cool. And back then, when you started, what was your ambition? Like, did you have this kind of company and growth in mind, or what was driving you back then? And also when you basically graduated and said, it's let's focus full-time.

9:26 Yeah, so in the beginning, it was really the thought hey, we you know, we learned about corporate law, um, a lot about startups and and how you build a company. And we were very curious to also try it out, you know, to start a limited company, to run it, to see how all the accounting works. I think um, yeah, if you study business, um, I studied business and computer science, but if you study business, I think it's just super interesting to also see how all of this works in the real world.

9:53 Um, so this was a big motivation for us. Um, also uh working part-time as a student, you make maybe 10, 15 euros an hour. So we thought, you know, maybe uh maybe we can we can get a little bit more than that. Um, so that was obviously very uh very motivating um to make a little bit of money uh next to being a student.

10:13 And originally we thought we would we would do a few um projects for other people and then kind of build our own product, um, which was kind of for us the gold standard of uh creating a company. Uh but then yeah, later, after one, two years, when we saw how well it was working out in a service business, and we had a couple of friends that did product startups that had venture capital.

10:36 Uh, we bootstrapped always, so we don't have any investors. And we saw how stressful it is if you have investors and um yeah, how much freedom you also lose. Um, so that was a big motivation then for us to say, hey, services are super cool, you don't need investors, you can kind of do your own thing.

10:52 You have a very high degree of independence. And yeah, then when we were graduating, it was kind of foreseeable, I would say, that you know, you would make more money doing this. Um, and it's also a lot more fun than if you would uh start working in big consulting, which probably for all of us was really the main other alternative.

11:10 Uh we really we really liked the the consulting side. Um yeah, so you know, if you have more freedom and make more money, um it seemed like a decent deal. Uh so we continued after graduating, really.

11:24 And the the interesting thing is did you or did you work in in any consulting company as an intern or whatnot? Um, I never did.

11:33 Uh so I worked um in business intelligence mostly, so mostly data-related roles in data-driven marketing, um, in startups, and in one internet company. And uh yeah, one of my co-founders worked uh did an internship internship. He didn't work, but uh he did an internship at a yeah German finance and controlling consultancy and at a big four.

11:56 And he was not super happy, I would say. There were a lot of things that um that annoyed him. So we kind of came together. I was uh unhappy in the startup world where things were very unprofessionally run, and we I was always feeling like there was a lot of um things to be desired in terms of how professional you operate things and you know how you do stuff.

12:19 And he kind of came from the the opposite direction. It was like, oh, everything's super professional, and uh you wear you wear nice clothing as well. Um, but the best result doesn't really matter, it's very much about hierarchy and you know who makes the call. And uh yeah, so this is kind of the uh the the cultural bedrock of our company that we say, hey, we're we're a consulting company, but we're really trying to have the culture of a tech startup um more than than a classical consulting business.

12:53 I find it super interesting because I mean I've talked to hundreds of consulting leaders, and um, and you basically came in and almost with a blank sheet. Um, and blank sheet also in terms of contacts you have, yeah. So um and you wanted to grow and you obviously did it well. So um if you can think back uh when you when you found it much, um what did you believe about growth that others didn't in that industry?

13:23 Yeah, so I'm not so much not so sure this was about belief, it was more about necessity, I feel. Um so because obviously, if you're a 22-year-old uh college graduate without, you know, um I don't know, good family contacts or something like that, it's very uh very difficult, obviously, to go by network.

13:45 We did do get some contracts from network, right? If you tell everyone you're doing something, you do get connects and so on. Um, but we were feeling very quickly that we can't be reliant um on network just because we don't have enough. And we went to a lot of events in the beginning. Anyone that would let us through the door, we basically showed up.

14:04 Um and we were always kind of a highlight because there's seldomly 22-year-olds at fairly serious business events. Yeah, so that actually did work a little bit, but it was very cumbersome and very time consuming. And as said, I did mostly business intelligence for online marketing companies before, so e-commerce, um, very, yeah, very data-driven marketing.

14:24 So um very early we thought, hey, if we can kind of replicate this style of pipeline um and the style of working that maybe you would you would sell shoes online with more than professional services and make it work um for our niche, um, yeah, then we wouldn't be reliant on a network and we can actually build a real company and get a certain size um without basically just going to events for three more years.

14:51 Um, yeah. So that's maybe our main belief that there must be a way that you can find and convert clients that don't know you and that didn't get a referral to buy some complex um professional service.

15:06 And you mentioned one data point that I found super interesting. Maybe you can elaborate on that. Um, it's about how how many or what percentage of the clients you win previously knew you or you had a relationship before.

15:20 Yeah. So in the beginning, obviously quite a few people knew us, but we were very, very small. And um then over time, there I think there was a time where maybe 95% of our clients didn't know us. And obviously, after now that we've built a fairly large client base, um, we do get a couple of clients from network and a couple of clients through referrals, but I would say we are still between um 80 and 85 percent of our new clients we have effectively never met before, and they don't know anyone personally that knows us.

15:55 And that is a number that I mean let that sink in as a consulting leader, yeah, because that's something I never heard before. Uh, most of consulting companies say, well, we have partners, they have a network, they mine the network, they switch consultancies with the team, but especially with the network, and that's how we can maintain and grow revenue.

16:17 And you do the absolute opposite. Um, it's not like you don't care about relationships, but a lot of your clients, because you're growing fast, um, per definition, you don't know, and you're not growing by acquiring partner teams, you're growing differently. Can you elaborate a little bit on um which like how how do you do that?

16:36 What what is the way you you you decided to go, which uh which worked in the end?

16:41 Yeah, so when we uh then decided, I would say to build a full company, lay like in 2019, um, we made that decision. And then we looked at our business from a marketing side, very similar to how you will build the marketing for an online shop. Uh, first of all, we had a lot of customers in the e-commerce segment, so it was quite close to us.

17:01 And with my background, obviously that also helped. And um, yeah, and then we did um, I would say what every what every online shop and every niche does. You start out and say, hey, um, you know, where do I get um the clicks really that are very close to buying something to a conversion, right? Um, you obviously can't track it as beautifully as uh in in in an online shop where people then put stuff in the cart and then buy it, and you have beautiful touch points.

17:29 Um, but I think the same the same mindset works. Um so in the beginning we started very uh very low in the funnel, very close to the conversion, just people that are trying to buy um yeah, these digitization automation um services or trying to implement an EOP like very soon. And yeah, so that's where we started off in the funnel, and then channel-wise, uh effectively also clone of an of an online shop.

17:54 Um, we started out with the channels that are very easy to test things. Um, for us, that was Google AdWords first, because obviously everybody um yeah put stuff into Google. Um, and in a professional services environment at that time in Germany, there was also very limited ads. So the ads were also quite um quite cheap.

18:13 And the the beautiful thing about AdWords is that you can just put in a little bit of money, see what works, and adapt very quickly, what you know, what your message is, um, how you approach people to what kind of page you send them, and yeah, you get a little bit of traffic for very cheap, I would say.

18:30 Um so that's when we started. And then effectively we built the more and more difficult channels over time. So when we had yeah, the search engine advertisement part done, we went over to SEO to search engine optimization. So now basically, knowing what people click and what keywords work and what wording works, uh, we then built out uh a fairly large website and a large blog and that then optimizes on these keywords.

18:55 So people find us on Google without paying. And this is also super important for us because we felt that um, I mean, we're obviously selling to business leaders, but we're also selling a lot to IT leaders, you know, that need support to convince their business leaders as well. Um, yeah, and obviously all IT people use an ad blogger in their browser, so we knew that a lot of people wouldn't see our ads because our target audience has a very high share of ad blockers.

19:20 So we knew um we need to be organically showing up uh in Google. So effectively we did this, um, built SEO. Um on both channels, we actually then went a little bit up funnel. So trying to get people um even earlier um in the flow, maybe when they were just thinking about hey, how do I how can I transform my business?

19:40 Um, how can the next generation take over? Um, you know, what are the usual things that would happen there? Spoiler alert, one of them is build getting a new EOP and changing your business, like your core business IT, because yeah, uh, usually before a mid-sized company is handed to the next generation, there's not nobody makes these kind of investments anymore.

20:00 So this is always a good uh touch point. Um yeah, so we went a little bit um up channel. And yeah, and then um from there we started um to see that this works really well online and to support this, um we decided to go as much as possible into events and sponsor a lot of events where um yeah, our target audience is um and obviously also participate.

20:22 Because if people have this touch point in the real world, it obviously builds a lot of trust, so it also boosts your online conversions um by quite a bit. Um and what we what we found out over time is that we don't know how many offline touch points people have, obviously. We have a rough idea, but we don't know.

20:38 But we learned over time that people actually enter our website um about six times. So they have six sessions on our website before they ever send us a message. And that really shows that you need to have a quite you know broad set of content, provide a lot of value. So people keep returning, and at some point they think, hey, I've been on this website for the sixth time.

20:57 How is that possible? Maybe I'll just drop the guys a line. They must be they must be knowing what I need, kind of. Yeah. And with the setup, we now have um, so on our DAC market, we effectively have a hundred percent inbound. We don't do any outbound activities at all. And this leads currently for qualified opportunities uh to about a thousand a year.

21:18 So we're collecting about 250 qualified opportunities. Obviously, it's a good bit more in terms of leads, but uh obviously there are a lot of are qualified out.

21:29 Wow. Um that that is like amazing. So no outbound, uh mainly inbound, some events. Could you the whole the whole um story from from Google Ads to SEO to events? Can you put it on a timeline? When did you start what?

21:46 Yeah, so we started the first very simple um ads in 2019, and then we hired a marketing manager in 2020 and really basically spent a year just doing this. Um All of this, it always takes time. There's no obviously there are hacks, but there's no hacks that long term will keep your head, right? You really need to invest the money and the time.

22:09 Um, yeah, and then in 2021 and 2022, we did mostly SEO, but we still so we still do it. We always build the channel. Then when we really know how it works in detail, we keep doing it forever, basically. So you don't stop and then do another one. Um so yeah, in 2021, 2022, we did a lot of SEO. Um, and then 24, 5, we started to go to a lot of events.

22:35 Yeah, in between, we we we kind of we did like a little bit of a rebranding and so on. So we have one year where we didn't really start many new channels anymore. And yeah, and then last year, mid of last year, we started also all our social channels. So we always had a company LinkedIn. Uh, we started that maybe in 23, 22 as well, to start posting fairly regularly.

22:55 Um, we never really see saw much effect doing it on the on the corporate page. Um, it's nice, you know, people get updates, it's kind of like a newsletter, but you don't have to sign people up to it. But didn't work. And then last year we decided um to start with my my account to start kind of like a personal branding um LinkedIn account, got some professional help because I personally don't really have a big uh big love or spend a lot of time on any social media, so it was very uh very hard and unintuitive for me to to understand how it goes.

23:26 Um and yeah, so um we decided to to get uh some help uh from a smaller agency in Frankfurt. And yeah, then this year we actually in-sourced it, hired a social media marketing manager, now doing it uh ourselves internally. Um yeah, that's actually, I think that's now working really well. And one thing that surprised us a lot about LinkedIn is that we we do get some direct opportunities, right?

23:50 It might be 10, 15, 20 a month, so there is some. But what it drives even more that we didn't expect at all was actually that existing clients are now referring us four times more than a year ago. Um, because they read, you know, you're always top of mind. They read your stuff twice a week, and then they go for lunch with a friend that's also, you know, a um head of logistics or a CFO or an IT leader, um, and they'll they talk about their problems.

24:19 They're like, oh yeah, you know, uh, we worked with the service provider um that is helping us out here, and because you're top of mind, they will remember you basically, and then you get a lot more referrals. Yeah, so that was a really that was quite a big surprise for the social side, and now I would say across all um so across our website and our social channels, we have uh well over a million impressions per month uh per quarter.

24:44 So it's uh yeah, it's quite a lot. If you consider million impressions per quarter to maybe 250 opportunities, qualified opportunities, uh, you know, um, you do need quite a lot of reach to that get this amount of inbound.

25:02 Yeah, I would quickly no one knows. Thanks a lot for sharing. It's super interesting insights and how you connect them also. Uh, and you you're not alone by having like a little bit of skepticism around LinkedIn. What I find interesting is that you from the get-go said, I shouldn't even start doing it myself.

25:20 I don't have a passion for that and I don't know how it works. So we hire someone to learn, and once you learn how it works, you can insource it. So um, that's also a good mental model, quite straightforward, but many don't do it this way. Many try it themselves and struggle and don't see anything happening or feel like it doesn't work.

25:37 What's also different, what I see for you, is that you you track your numbers. Yeah, so um you're really well in tracking your numbers, and that's also what I don't see in old school consulting companies. Um, they maybe they bought a CRM at some point, but when you ask them how many leads did you get in the last 12 months, how many opportunities, what's your pipeline value, how many did you close?

26:03 Um, that's where it stops. And it's um, and for you, you have all these numbers, if I understand correctly.

26:10 And I think it's also like critically important. So we track on every um opportunity the usual UTM parameter, so medium, source, and campaign, especially. Um, and even you know, we every every event is a campaign, right? Every Google AdWords uh campaign is a campaign in our tracking as well, um, which allows us to not only see what works, you know, when when the opportunities come in, but we also see what converts really well, right?

26:39 And we even so we uh we pull this from the opportunity to the to the order to the invoices, so we even know per channel and per campaign and per medium uh how much revenue we did, like actual build revenue.

26:53 Absolutely. I like it because in the end, then you're not comparing um just the the cost per lead, but what does it uh convert to and the probability of closing and everything? So um, one more question there. Who is taking these opportunities in your company? Is it you and your co-founder, or did you hire people for that?

27:14 How is it working?

27:15 Yeah, so um originally or for a long time, um, it was effectively uh one of the partners. Um, the first two uh two years, it was one of us always. And then in 2020, I took over the sales function. It was just me, so it wasn't really a function, it was just you know, uh 30% of my time. And uh during COVID, um, it was ridiculously easy um to close deals because nobody had supply.

27:42 Obviously, automation digitizing things was extremely important. And yeah, dare I say the the German mid-sized companies, the middle stand, they were also a little bit behind, maybe. Yeah, so it was super easy. Effectively, you pick pick up the phone, people tell you what they need, you send them a quote over, you get that sign in a few days, it goes.

28:02 Um, yeah, so that's actually how it worked until we were about 45-50 people, and then at the end of COVID, um, it was really starting to slow down. At the time, we also worked with a lot of high-growth startups, especially in the e-commerce area where we were also quite strong previously. Yeah, and then we figured out oh, without COVID, without all the subsidies, it's now a lot more difficult to sell.

28:28 And we actually had to kind of fully transition to first of all invest a lot more in marketing. So we effectively saw that our conversion rate and the number of opportunities coming in went down by quite a lot. So we were selling about a quarter of what we were selling the year before. Um, so yeah, quite dramatic.

28:48 Um, luckily, it's not only a project business. We have kind of, you know, our clients do buy more usually um over time. So it yeah, it doesn't impact you directly. Um, but what we basically said is okay, we now gotta spend four times more on marketing. So we really tuned up all our paid channels right away, especially Google, um, to get a lot more opportunities in.

29:10 And uh we started building a real a real sales team. And today I nearly never um speak to a deal, nothing then comes in inbound, I speak to usually, um, only things that come from my own network. Uh yeah, but everything else goes directly to our um sales team. And it's I would say it's not a classical sales team, it's really consultants that can also sell, but the focus is very much on creating client value from the beginning, um, not trying to sell them something they don't need, but really, you know, and being very, very value-driven, which we felt in the beginning it was very hard for us uh to get this mindset into into a sales team, kind of uh because usually that's not you know how you how

29:54 you commonly do sales, I would say. Um yeah, and now we have 12 uh we call them solutions consultants. So 12 consultants that take the opportunities up, but they're also really they design projects, they build architecture, so they're doing a lot more than than just selling.

30:11 What's the difference between that persona in your company and a classical partner at the consulting company?

30:18 I mean, first of all, they don't own any equity, so uh very important uh distinction, I would say. Yeah, I mean our our partners now um we we are not super involved currently in the sales or the specific deliveries, obviously on very large clients and so on. We still do some key account management, um, but we are really focusing on on expanding, you know, on improving our business, on like structurally increasing the value to our clients.

30:46 Yeah, and uh we now have directors as well that that basically run all of the day-to-day um in the company. Um, yeah, and then our our solutions consultants, they have a lot of freedom, so they can really, you know, they they can act a little bit on the sales side, uh, the way maybe that a partner would.

31:03 They can make a lot of decisions themselves, and obviously they have a very high variable contribution um variable compensation.

31:10 So, in terms of a hundred percent of the time of these sellers, the solution consultants, how much time can they spend on um on selling and how much time do they have to spend on um anything that is related to executing a project?

31:25 Yeah, so the way we do it is effectively they they do kind of the early sales cycle, right? Um they do qualification. I mean, they they do the the base qualification, then they do a qualification call, um, make sure that we score out, either based on research or based on a meeting, uh, all the clients that don't fit our profile.

31:43 Um, we then usually refer them to someone else that that can help them. And then um, you know, they go kind of in a deep dive with the client, find out what they need, and maybe do a system demo um, you know, to show how how do works, if that's relevant at the time. And then um, as soon as the client um decides that we want to build a concept, right?

32:04 How does this work for your company for specific use cases? Um, then we basically have the first order. Um, so the clients pay for a concept phase with us, and that's where then the solutions consultants are joined by our EOP consultants um that then later also deliver projects in details. Um, yeah, and then they they help out do the design and figure out the architecture and so on.

32:28 And because probably each of them sees maybe 16 to 20 companies every year, something like this, like in a very detailed degree, right? Um they're also very good, obviously, in spotting things that um you know that we have learned from from this industry. Um they're very good obviously in building the relationships really quickly with the client.

32:52 Um, but also at that concept phase stage, they really have to hand everything over, right? So the the our relationships go over to our consultants and our uh yeah, our business unit hats that that lead the consulting teams, and that obviously also has to be facilitated there.

33:07 That's interesting because that sounds like it's a sales unit, a real sales unit that is in in the first stage of uh basically well, I would count the the first phase where you do a proof of value or a POC or a small one, is still a selling phase, uh, but then it is handed over to the execution team and they can focus or keep the majority of the time focused on on doing these sales calls and closing clients.

33:33 Yeah, yeah. They I mean they spend probably on, I would say, really classic sales activities, it's probably more than half of the their day, I would say.

33:41 Very good. Because that's one that's one fallacy I see in classical consulting companies. It's really it wasn't a problem for 10 years because for 10 years the clients just came and they closed, and they the only problem was where do I find more consultants? Because well, I could sell way more. So nobody was focusing on how do I create like a unit like you have um that is focused on on closing.

34:06 And now times changed 2023 and 2023, everything changed for most of the industry in consulting, and and suddenly yeah, the deals don't come like they came before, and now they are in this typical when they have projects in this typical pick cycle. When they have projects, they are too busy, busy in implementing the project, and they don't have time to do sales.

34:29 And when the project, the big projects end, they start selling, but selling is not like you sell today and you have a project tomorrow. So suddenly they have these swings in revenue because nobody is continuously keeping the pressure on um like you do on winning new clients all the time. And that's in my opinion, a for most consultancies, it's um it's a design, uh corporate design problem.

34:53 So, how do I structure my company? Um, and I really I don't understand why more companies try to think it in the way that you served it, to be honest.

35:03 Yeah, I think I think there is a lot of boutique consultancies that do that. Um, from what I've been hearing from the US, uh, this trend of like you have consulting sales force in your consulting company, you're maybe a bit more AI forward than the the classical consulting companies, and uh yeah, then you have a very high customer value focused offering, which obviously allows you to you know take the butter of the bread that only works in German, uh, but you can easily take the butter of the bread um of the big consultancies a little bit.

35:36 Um, yeah, so this is this is exactly what we're doing, and uh for us it might be even more important, right? Because to go with us and kind of uh you know uh have us as as your um consultants, but then also as your implementers, right? We're really trying to make the slides and make the concept and identify the improvements and then also deliver them.

35:57 I think that you know that's uh that makes us a bit different. So we're not only consulting, we are really delivering everything we we recommend. It's kind of a doctor, you know. Many many consultancies are doctors that doesn't give you the medication, kind of. And we're always like, yes, uh, we we we find we give you a diagnosis, um, what's wrong, and then we will go and implement the medication or the surgery and do that.

36:21 And because this is such a kind of like fundamental interruption of your entire business as a client, right? Our sales cycles are incredibly long. So the company um now um, you know, we exist for quite some time, but we actually this year, in the beginning of this year, we closed an opportunity that had been open for more than half of the time the company existed.

36:41 So for over four years at that time. And yeah, our sales cycles are obviously quite long. Um, sometimes you get lucky, but it's unlikely. The bigger deals they always take more than six months, I would say. Um, so for us, it's even more important, right? Like if you imagine you wouldn't stay, um you wouldn't stay on the game and you wouldn't stay on the client, you would never really close a client because you would never stay on for six months in a row.

37:05 Um that's uh that's uh yeah, that's uh very helpful. And we really actively try to manage our work backlog, right, with our sales team. So they also know hey, uh what kind of teams um would would uh yeah really gain from another client. Um we know when big projects are dropping off, um, because our delivery works quite yeah, quite on time, I would say.

37:29 So we really when we plan big projects to end, they usually then also go down um the way they were planned. Um yeah, so this obviously makes it a lot more predictable. And I think it in a little bit at least it solves this base problem every service company has that you always have to manage your utilization between how much you sell and how many people you have, because you don't want to burn out your people.

37:54 And uh obviously you need your clients to be happy and returning and recommending, maybe even. Yeah, so you you can't oversell and at the same time uh you can't undersell because then your margin is basically instantly gone. And I think with having this really stable marketing and sales process, and you know the flow, we also see how many opportunities coming now.

38:15 Maybe August was a bit slower, so we know six to nine months from now, maybe a little bit less projects will start, which helps us then to adjust a little bit on our hiring plan, how much we can hire or should hire to basically capture this future demand.

38:29 Yeah, and it's it's a testament to um if you are a consulting leader listening and you don't have this data at hand, you should really start thinking about um going this route because otherwise you're flying blind and it's um it's really costly, as you said. If you don't have if you have too few people and well you can work a little bit with freelancers, but still you're maybe overstretching your own team and then burnout and everything that follows.

38:56 And if you're uh um underselling or don't have enough opportunities and overhiring, um you you lose money. So it's a really delicate, delicate uh balance that you have to keep. And um gut feeling worked in the times where everything was growing, but nowadays it's not working anymore. So it's really nice to hear what you're doing, and I can only um yeah, urge everyone who's not there yet to start going into this direction.

39:23 Yeah, we are actually we're working with a lot of um specially IT services companies, but also a few others from like maybe 100, 200 to a thousand employees, where we actually help them set up, you know, the system and the processes, kind of the way we do it. So we have a 10 people team that only works with professional services.

39:43 And because the way we have kind of built this for ourselves in in our Odoo and where we have all our data effectively together, um obviously that that helps a lot of other companies. So that is actually something we we help a lot of service companies with.

39:56 What is the range of employees or whatever, or headcount or or revenue or size of companies that you go after?

40:03 Yeah, it depends a little bit on the sub-industries, right? Because for us to create enough value, you need to have enough inefficiencies and enough complexity that it makes sense, right? Otherwise, like we thrive in in complexity um effectively and in inefficiencies. Um, so for example, when we work with uh wholesalers, which is a quite a big area for us, like construction wholesalers, but also um other things like electronics, uh, we usually say, hey, they they need to make at least 100 million in revenue.

40:33 Obviously, the value creation of a wholesaler is also quite small, right? Um yeah, so they might then have 50 to the largest one has a few thousand employees. Um, if we talk about service companies, um usually I think if a service company makes it to the 100 people um threshold, um, then they really have to professionalize.

40:54 And you can create a lot of value by creating these kind of structures, making things measurable, um, you know, also automating a lot of these back-end billing processes and so on. So it's usually from 100 people upwards. The biggest client in the segment we have has maybe 1300 people, something like that.

41:11 Um yeah. So then they would obviously also do at least 10 million in revenue, usually a good bit more. Yeah. And then, for example, we also have a unit that works with um compliance-heavy manufacturing, like aviation and medical um device suppliers mostly. And obviously, there your complexity is incredibly high, even if you're small, because you have so much compliance stuff to take care of.

41:33 Um, yeah, so there's actually also a few smaller companies, like 50 people plus, um, but the crazy amount of complexity um that manage.

41:41 Yeah, okay, very interesting. Thanks for sharing, Simon.

41:44 So, wherever we can create value is the real answer. If we can create value, we'd rather we'd rather not do it.

41:51 Yeah, makes sense. Um, so imagine you are managing director of a consulting company who has a lot of rainmakers, but notices, oh my god, this is not the future anymore. And the rainmakers they they um basically retire at some point, and we need a stable company. What would be the steps that you would take to make your company independent of those few people that bring in most of the revenue?

42:20 Yeah. So I think step one, um, anything we can still get from that, right? We should. So I think second, setting up a proper CRM, making sure everybody puts in their contacts and so on is very valuable because then even if they come later, after people retire, for example, you would still know, aha, you know, that's where that came from.

42:41 So that's super helpful. Then I would build an inbound marketing strategy, really find out what kind of things are interesting to your target persona, right? Like if you're uh helping optimize warehouses, you probably want to talk to head of warehousing, head of logistics, and so on. What do they do?

42:58 Where do they go? What do they read? What are kind of the hot, interesting topics in this area? Where can I find them ongoingly? So I always know what the hottest topic is. And I, yeah, right now I think it's a bit uh more difficult because with the emerging of everyone asking AI first, um, I would probably start with Geo today, so not optimize for search engine, but optimize um for AI bots and then optimize on topics that are very close to your conversion, right?

43:29 Yeah, so maybe um how do I how do I write the perfect tender for a warehouse optimization consultancy, right? There might be an amazing blog post if you're a warehouse optimization consultancy. And you know, and then you can all bring all of these kinds of um of things in um or publish a selection criteria list, um, or you know, an evaluation list for evaluating these kind of service providers.

43:56 And yeah, and then for example, if you use some kind of framework to optimize. This warehouse, talking a lot about this and publishing a lot on what you do, creating a lot of open public value, right? I think that's that's super um that's super relevant. And a lot of people always come to me and say, Simon, if you share everything you know online, why does anyone still buy anything from you, right?

44:19 And to be honest, I think anyone can find these kind of things in books and online anyways, somewhere, right? Um so I prefer if they find them with my twist and my uh and and my brand connected, obviously. And at the same time, um finding something online and roughly understanding what's going on and being able to do that yourself as well, right?

44:40 And having the experience are two completely different things. So you can always share the knowledge because obviously these companies are not gonna have that experience, right? And even if they do and they implement themselves and they they make their own strategy and they optimize their warehouse themselves, and still they re will remember you.

44:56 And if they have a different problem, they might still come back, right? And probably the client that already knows how to do it is also not a great professional services client, I would say. Either you don't create value or the client's gonna be really annoying because he continuously thinks he knows better than you do.

45:12 Yeah. So I think there should really be no holdback in terms of sharing knowledge and information, um, especially online. Um, yeah. And then in terms of channels, as I said, I would start Geo probably first, and then I would probably start building um people on LinkedIn. So in our case, for example, we are also building our team leads uh LinkedIn accounts, our directors' LinkedIn accounts.

45:36 So we're really trying to have multiple people. And it's super important, obviously, that they're all very individual and it's not like a you know ongoing advertisement show. Um, so we basically interview these people every two weeks. 10, 15, 20 minutes is enough. And we ask them, hey, if you have any idea, doesn't matter where you are, just send a voice note quickly to your online marketing manager, right?

45:57 And then they can set up the content, put the LinkedIn spin on it, find a creative, schedule it, track it, um, and obviously also give it back to people for review. Um, yeah. Um, so I think that that would probably be my second choice, especially because you have a network, right? So you can leverage that network on LinkedIn already.

46:16 Yeah, sounds really good. In terms of team, what kind of people would you hire when?

46:22 Yeah. So I think having anyone helping on the marketing side, right, is incredibly helpful. Even an intern, because marketing, there's a lot of nitty-gritty, dirty work. It takes a lot of time. So if you do it yourself and you're busy, which I assume you are, otherwise, probably you wouldn't be a leader in consulting, you will never consistently do it yourself, right?

46:42 So either get somebody external or even if it's an intern, hire someone that does all the dirty work that makes sure it's a continual um process because the continuation is what makes it successful. Unfortunately, might be a bit controversial, but I don't think AI does super good marketing because everything sounds the same and has no edge at all.

47:04 To build a brand, you need to be different, you need to put out some controversial opinions. Um, maybe, maybe not generally controversial, but controversial for your industry. And um you need a human, I think, to put a human touch on it. And the idea should always come from you. I think that's super important as well.

47:22 The difficulty for professional services companies, in my opinion, on the staff side, though, is that there is not a lot of you know, like B2B marketing experts. Um, so obviously, if you look for an online marketing manager that does Google AdWords, you're gonna find a million people, but people that really understand the B2B game, that understands how events work, that can live with this ambiguity that not everything is trackable, right?

47:49 Every all the younger marketing people, they are all trained and everything's 100% trackable. There's instant feedback, and you get that like or you don't, right? Um, I think that's quite hard. It's a very kind of rare skill set, I would say. There's not many good market B2B marketing people out there that then still bring, you know, the drive and um understand maybe the more modern channels as well.

48:11 So uh yeah, I think that's quite a big challenge actually. Like we always have to train our marketing people ourselves. We we failed basically to hire people with experience for this.

48:20 Yeah, interesting. You didn't mention paid marketing and what you would do.

48:26 I mean, it is always the easiest channel, obviously. If I could pay like Claude or ChatGPT to put my ads in there, I would definitely do that. Maybe even still doing Google AdWords because it goes so well into the Google um in Google AI, that is also very, very easy to do, right? And you can set it up super easily.

48:46 You can also learn a lot about um, you know, what what works and what doesn't, what kind of topics work and what which don't. Yeah, but we really we do see that both on the organic and on the ad side, the Google traffic is dropping off a little bit, even though we are spending more and we're doing more.

49:04 Um, yeah, so the last two months we actually felt like hey, you can really start feeling the AI trend also in terms of traffic. Um yeah, but nevertheless, obviously, um paid Google marketing is always uh an early choice as well. And maybe you know, between Geo, paid Google, and social, do what you like most because you're probably gonna be better and more consistent at that.

49:29 So at least um start somewhere. This is what I hear uh out of what you just said. Um and and you know, one thing I noticed that always bothered me a little bit the marketing people in consulting companies. I've never met someone up to now who's focused on creating leads. Most of them are really keen on brand, on putting you at the best employer of the year award, on like doing these for me, it's like artificial things that don't drive uh real company value.

50:03 So there's an absolute mismatch between what they hire and what they should hire. And of course, you said it's really hard to find those people, and um, but what if you would need to find someone and you would have the money to not go with an intern, but with someone who can start, learn, and build it out?

50:22 What would you look for?

50:23 To be honest, like there is uh it's very hard. Like we hired another marketing uh employee early this year, right? Uh, for social stuff mostly and for events, and we saw a lot of profiles, um, and it's really you need to be kind of lucky. Um, so we were obviously looking for somebody that understands social.

50:43 The background, though, was a more B2C-driven social channel, but you still you have the understanding, right? How social works, it does translate in some ways to B2B, I would say. And maybe if it comes from a B2C background, it's a tad more aggressive, so that also helps, obviously. Um, yeah, and then we were very lucky that from two completely different sources, one person had the experience from social, but also has been at B2B events and has seen this a little bit, right?

51:10 So that was a bit lucky. If you want to hire somebody more for the B2B online marketing side, right, um, I would look for people that don't only trust numbers, but also trust a little bit their gut, right? So, for example, we have uh content we created that maybe 10 people see per week, right? At some point you get lucky and you get an opportunity, and maybe only 100 people had to see it that you get an opportunity, which from the 1 million impressions to 250 opportunities, you know, that's a that's a pretty good ratio there.

51:40 And you need somebody that has a bit of a feel for this. So you need to go by the numbers, you need to understand, you know, what's my conversion rate, how much do I pay per click, and so on. But you need somebody also that that has kind of a feel for what you do and understands a bit what you do. And this is really difficult.

51:58 So um, our marketing manager, I think that maybe most represents this. Uh, she has been with us for like six years, and we have trained her in-house. And she she did start as an intern. Um, but I think that's very, very hard to replicate. Um, yeah, and I think also that's why the marketing in many professional services companies is a bit split.

52:17 The partners are kind of the marketing engine for leads and opportunities, but they obviously don't have the time or often even the understanding for how to do that online, right? And the internal marketing team is just doing the brand side because they don't understand the product well enough to actually get leads, because you need to understand what the company is selling in a fairly deep degree, right?

52:41 To to create the content that would then trigger the clients to engage with you and so on. Um, yeah. So I think actually maybe it's people should strive to get their internal marketing team to you know to also do performance-driven lead opportunity marketing. But at the same time, I also feel like uh there is a reason it has been like this before.

53:01 Yeah, yeah, understand.

53:02 I think it's super difficult to make somebody in marketing understand your extremely complex B2B product.

53:09 Yeah, it's kind of almost disappointing that there's not a golden solution that is easy. You just look for this profile, you hire them and full stop. But on the other hand, at least knowing what you want to get out and what you want to achieve should help you uh try to hire for the white people, and then um obviously internal development and putting some time.

53:28 Um I mean, I assume that you and your co-founder or people internally invested a lot of time into these people to develop them.

53:36 Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Um and I that probably, you know, they probably if you have a bit more budget, there is people like this, right? But they are just quite rare. Like, yeah, so with enough money, you can probably solve any problem. But what I really want to highlight one more time, I'm not sure if that was clear enough yet, is so much about long-term and consistency, right?

53:56 All these channels, all the online channels, they only work if you invest in them for three, four, five years. You keep improving every week. What you do, you look at the data, you go back to the drawing board, you know. Um, and I think that's also maybe why. Um if you have done it, it's obviously very beautiful.

54:15 It's beautiful, it's a great asset also to have. It also helps her brand and so on. Um, but to start, you really um you really need to have the conviction that it's the right way, and you need to have the the depth that you can go for three, four years until this really, really, really starts to work, um, you know, like a machine, like we have built it now.

54:36 Um, then again, it's obviously very beautiful. But uh, I think most service companies kind of fail from actually making this decision starting and then being aware that you have to invest for quite some time um to really see decent returns. But then obviously it's a very, very big competitive advantage at that time.

54:53 Yeah, we have one more segue topic that I wanna like we don't go into full depth, but I didn't want to leave it out because I think that's something that many consulting companies right now are struggling, kind of their let's pick something like automotive, for example. Um, like if you are focused on automotive, you you are in in you have problems right now.

55:17 Um, and you had a similar problem a couple of years ago. Um, can you can you walk us through what happened? Because you were focused on a client segment that was not performing suddenly, and you had to totally switch. So, what what happened? Uh why did you decide to focus on a different segment? Um, let's let's start there.

55:38 Yeah. So, what happened uh was effectively when our really you know high growth started in 2020, it was very, very heavily reliant on e-commerce. And a good bit of this was also startups that had external funding or you know revenue-based financing. And so it was a bit, yeah, it was both dependent on zero interest, I would say, and at the same time, it was dependent on COVID, people not being able to go outside and buy things, right?

56:07 And obviously, in 2020, 2023, that then really started to de-accelerate. And at this time, it was um 70-ish percent of our uh revenue was was uh um e-commerce-based companies. Um, obviously, it's also one of the areas you need an EOP very early. We create a lot of value, so you know it's uh it's actually still a market we are we are quite active in.

56:28 Um yeah, but then there was that was dying down very quickly, and it led for us to two problems. The first problem was all the e-commerce and startup clients, they obviously spoke um English. So we had a lot of English-speaking staff as well that didn't speak any German um because the clients worked in English, anyways, right?

56:46 Uh, the second problem was um there was no really obvious, simple way to pivot towards because all the e-commerce companies were doing poorly. Actually, a lot of our clients were quite lucky they were doing quite well still in comparison to the market. But then obviously the investment dried up. Um, you know, the investors got spooked, their owners uh pushed for profitability obviously over growth, and then obviously all these kind of investments died out.

57:11 Um, what we then did um was that we didn't only change the industry, we also kind of completely changed the main client group. And with this, we also had to transition um obviously quite a bit the culture of the company, I would say. Um so obviously in Germany uh mid-cap companies are kind of the place to be.

57:32 There is an incredible amount, so about uh 250,000 um proper mid-cap companies um in Germany, and they are active in a few industries, a lot as industrial engineering, aviation, medtech, we've already heard. Obviously, wholesale um is quite big. Um, but they work obviously completely different. Uh, they're not by far not on the level of digitization that all these startups were at.

57:56 Um their uh staff is was on average about 15 to 20 years older. So yeah, then we we had to go in, we had to find out, hey, how do we convince them? Which, you know, then we were a bit older. Um, but uh yeah, I was still not 30 yet. Um so selling to um old school, mid-sized companies um with you know, average owner 55, maybe maybe a bit older, even, uh, was quite a transition on the sales side.

58:25 That's also why it was uh quite important to build a sales force that you know that has more experience in mid-cap. And then we really looked for these kind of industries where we can create a lot of value again, right? Similar to e-commerce. And uh we found the especially the three mentioned, and then the professional service companies that came a little bit later.

58:42 And uh yeah, we obviously had to transition also internally, get a lot more German-speaking staff, make sure that we focus a bit more on change management, you know, winning all the employees over in these mid-sized companies is very difficult. And startups, you're like, hey, we want to do something professional, and everybody's like, Yay, let's go.

59:01 When can we do that? Um, yeah, so um that's obviously very different. Um, the change management um perspective. And then also on the startups, we worked a lot with getting stuff done really quickly. So um, you know, you have a startup, um, it's booming, it grows, it doubles in a month, it needs to roll out a new warehouse.

59:19 The warehouse needs to be live in three weeks, right? Uh, so you implement the warehouse in three weeks. And obviously, on the mid-sized companies, everything is a lot more rigid, quality, and um, you know, making every deadline is a lot more important. So we actually had to transition quite a lot also how we work and yeah, how how robust we plan and so on.

59:38 Yeah, so that was that was quite a right.

59:40 That sounds crazy, honestly. Uh, and it was like, how did you decide on where to focus on?

59:47 So obviously, we knew a little bit what could work from this other part of our business that was not um, you know, fast-growing e-commerce. Uh, so for example, we had a client that was a medical device uh company at that time already, and uh we had a fairly good relationship with the director, and we went back and were like, hey, so why did you choose us and Odoo?

1:00:07 And he was like, Yeah, you know, very old software in that industry, so on. So we know, okay, there's uh 10,000, 12,000 meta companies, mid-sized meta companies in Germany. So that's quite a bit, right? That's five percent of all the the mid uh mid-caps. Uh yeah, so we knew this would be interesting.

1:00:24 We then you know started to do talks about this, published all the knowledge we had in our blog, and so on. Wholesale, we actually got through the e-commerce area because we had some bigger e-commerce companies that then actually started to wholesale as well. Um, because you know, you have good logistics, good distribution, it's very similar.

1:00:42 Um, so that's how we got into the the wholesale part of things, because then some of our e-commerce companies actually did do a lot of B2B wholesale distribution. Um, yeah, and then on the professional services side, it really came up because we thought, hey, kind of how we operate in one system with all our data, how good our analytics are.

1:01:02 We knew a lot of people running service companies that were always like, hey, can you you know give me a tip here and there? So we thought, hey, there must be a way to kind of sell our own business IT stack kind of to consultancies um and have them run a bit more professionally. So that's how we how we came came into this.

1:01:20 I really like it because especially the part simply talking to existing clients and learning from your existing relationships and asking questions and from there go step by step. Um, I don't know if many consulting companies do it with their own client base, go back and um and take automotive. Um, maybe they have a couple of side hustles with similar companies, but not an automotive, and uh they can do exactly the same playbook.

1:01:45 Exactly. Like from automotive, I mean you put probably you can convert a lot of your knowledge if you mount the operational side into defense right now, right? So that should work. Uh similarly, we transferred all our knowledge from medical devices to aviation. Sounds very different, but the compliance requirements are very similar, you know?

1:02:05 Uh so you're protecting lives in a way by manufacturing very solid products. Um, yeah, so I think these kind of cross-transitions are definitely definitely possible.

1:02:15 From that experience, besides what we already talked about, if you were in such an industry where it's declining as a consulting leader, what what steps would you take or what would you do right now?

1:02:26 I think it's uh it's really tough. It depends on so many things. Uh, but obviously, first of all, you need to keep your money together, right? Cash uh cash is always king, especially in service businesses where it's not that easy to generate. Um, yeah, so I think that's that's number one for sure. And um then if you want to pivot into an industry, right, uh you kind of need to out share and out-value create for free anyone else that's in that space right now.

1:02:54 So I would, you know, publish everything I know, publish every hack, um, find find every touch point um that I can uh digitally, because that obviously works a lot quicker, right? If you go to events and you come, you know, maybe from a day event you can really build three, one to three, maybe good relationships that actually will help you in the future.

1:03:15 I don't think that's that's quick enough. I think you would need to uh really go all out with a content strategy online. I think that would probably be the best way to enter quickly. And yeah, you could do a lot of this playbook, like, hey, what we learned in automotive, that you can use to optimize your defense factory output, you know.

1:03:32 Uh so I think these kind of things work really quickly. And then I would connect to all the people in my target industries on LinkedIn. There's a surprisingly low amount of deciders, right? So, for example, in this MatTech area, there were like people you could find and identify that were the right persona, maybe 6,000 in the DAC region.

1:03:52 That's an amount of things you can filter through, find the target ones, and then add all of the relevant people on LinkedIn, and then they see your stuff as well. Um, so I think that's always a really, really easy hack. Um, because if you connect with someone on LinkedIn, they automatically follow you.

1:04:05 That's always a bit forgotten in the follower game, I think. Because you don't need to talk to 10,000 or 100,000 people, right? You only need to reach the hundred right people that are on the right stage.

1:04:15 Yeah, I have a little hack on top of that. If you um focus one profile on one niche, uh let's say these defense uh ones, you can publish your own newsletter on your own profile on LinkedIn, and um then everybody whom you connect to, so everybody who accepts your connection request automatically gets asked by LinkedIn if they want to follow your newsletter.

1:04:38 And then, of course, you should name your newsletter around something that persona is interested in, and it works quite well.

1:04:46 Yeah, for sure, it's a it's a great idea.

1:04:48 Yeah, it works quite simple. We we did it ourselves. I tried it myself. Um, and I have I think 1600 people now on my own personal newsletter, and we just did it like we published or I published myself honestly three times, and uh now we scale this a little bit. So that's also an easy hack to get a little bit more share of mind.

1:05:07 So we are already at the end of our conversation, Simon, and I have a few um yeah, fast round exit questions for you to answer in like one minute or less. So the interesting thing with you is you are a consulting leader yourself, but you also work with consulting companies and help them um basically improve um the UIP system.

1:05:30 So, what's the biggest challenge that consulting leaders are facing right now, but almost no one is talking openly about it?

1:05:38 Um, we feel that people are not talking enough about how much AI is already transforming their consulting business. I think everybody's a bit wary to talk publicly about where they use AI and for what, and maybe even how they do that securely and well protected. And I feel like at the same time, it's probably you know the biggest challenge anyone's having.

1:06:00 What's the right degree? How much AI to use to not to use? Yeah. And obviously also how you can just create more value with that for your clients.

1:06:08 What are senior consulting leaders underestimating right now, in your view?

1:06:13 I don't want to be repetitive, but I think it is also how much AI is actually gonna change the business. I feel like everybody is trying to do something, right? And everybody's trying is doing something, I assume. But if you think things through how you do stuff, we feel like for the last two years, we have felt constantly that the way we're gonna work two years from now is fundamentally different from now.

1:06:37 We already feel that like a lot in basically everything we do. Um, yeah, but I think the consultancies that are gonna be really fast on this transition and you know be are able to use AI more effectively, maybe not more in you know, count of usage, but really more effectively. Um, yeah, I think they're gonna have a crazy competitive advantage.

1:07:00 One personal question: what habit had the biggest positive impact for yourself as a leader?

1:07:08 I read about two hours a day. I think that's a great source of inspiration and knowledge for me.

1:07:14 What are you reading?

1:07:15 Anything, books, newspaper, magazines.

1:07:20 What's one book that that comes top of mind that you really liked or like right now?

1:07:25 Because I'm uh I'm in the UK and uh I work a lot with cultures. Um I basically always go back to the culture map. It's uh it's a yellow book. If you work internationally, I think it's arguably the most important book to read because if you can properly communicate with people from a different background, uh um nothing else matters.

1:07:43 It's yeah, it's one of my favorite books. We also hand it out en masse um internally.

1:07:49 Very cool. I just google it. I will I will get it myself. That's a good idea. Is now we are on the podcast where a lot of consulting leaders are listening to. Is there anything that um they or we can help you with right now?

1:08:04 Yeah, what we are really interested in um is to understand how consultancies use AI both in their work, but also obviously in their processes. Um, so we are doing we are doing a lot um, you know, with AI also for our clients, but we're really feeling like there should be so much more we can do, and we're looking for these kind of ideas.

1:08:27 Where can AI help you optimize your processes, your client value?

1:08:32 I know at least one place where you can also see that um on a little bit bigger scale. That's our own leaders in consulting summit in London in October. So there the main focus is uh who would have thought AI and the impact on consulting. Yeah. And for anyone who wants to reach out to you and get in touch, what is the best way for them to reach you?

1:08:55 The best way is definitely on LinkedIn. Um, Simon Stappen, very unique name. There's only two people in the world, so you will find me very easily. Um yeah, and you can just always send me a message. I'm usually quite quite quick to reply.

1:09:08 We also put your LinkedIn profile link into the show notes of the show.

1:09:12 Nice.

1:09:13 Thank you so much for being so open um and sharing really everything about your playbook and your growth and your numbers. Um, it's really, really helpful for the consulting leaders that are listening. And um I believe in good karma. I think a lot of good things will come back to you as well.

1:09:30 Thank you so much, and thank you for having me.

1:09:33 Pleasure. Thanks, Sam.

1:09:34 Thank you, bye-bye.

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