Why facilitated conversations get leadership teams to the honest answers

Why "it depends" is the honest answer, but also one of the most frustrating to hear

Recently, a prospective client asked me the same question four times, each time in a slightly different way.

He ran a practice that creates many of its own opportunities, and he wanted more of that work. That meant getting in front of developers and investors he hadn't met yet.

So he asked how you do that. I told him it depends.

He asked again. Is it emails, calls, meeting requests? It depends, I said, on who you're going after and what you've got to say to them.

He asked a third time. How do you decide what's best for us? It depends on the situation, I said. Every firm is different.

By the fourth time, I should have spotted what was happening. He'd heard me perfectly well. He kept asking because I still hadn't given him anything he could use.

Why marketing consultants say “it depends”

"It depends" is true.

The best route to a housebuilder looks very different from the best route to a local authority. A fifty-person engineering consultancy with a bid team and a marketing manager needs a different approach from two architects starting out with marketing. The consultants worth hiring shape the approach around the firm in front of them.

So when a consultant says it depends, they're usually being honest and a little careful. They want to avoid promising something they can't deliver, and they're wary of handing over a plan they haven't been paid to write.

All perfectly reasonable. And of very little use to the person asking.

What firms really want to know from a consultant

My mistake on that call was answering the wrong question. He knew I couldn't give him the answer yet. What he wanted to know was whether I knew how to find it. "It depends" tells him nothing about either.

That gap explains why firms buy some odd things. Telemarketing, because it comes with a number of calls attached. A rebrand, because you can see it when it arrives. Three posts a week, because it's countable. Any of these can be the right call. Too often, though, they get bought simply because they sound definite and people want a solution whether or not it will actually work.

When the one person in the room who understands the problem stays vague, the buyer gravitates towards and finds someone who sounds certain even sometimes if they turn out to be snake oil salesmen.

How to show you can find the answer

Making something up would have been worse. If I'd told him cold email was the route to those investors, I'd have been guessing, and he'd have found out in about six weeks. The better, more honest move is to be specific about something you know well: another client's story.

A practice I worked with wanted more heritage clients. They were excellent at conservation work, yet few people beyond their existing clients knew it. So we worked out exactly who the buyers were, wrote an in-depth guide to one specific type of heritage building, and put it where those people would find it. It brought in new projects, including some from well beyond their usual patch.

That example shows how I get to an answer. It shares the thinking without doing the work for free, and it takes thirty seconds to tell.

I had that story ready in the back of mind but I just didn't reach for it, because it wasn’t in my immediate memory recall.

Questions to ask before hiring a marketing consultant

But there is a flip side. Take care with anyone who hands you a marketing plan in the first meeting.

If someone hears twenty minutes about your firm and produces a confident strategy on the spot, one of two things is happening. Either they've decided you're the same as the last three firms they spoke to, or they're selling what they always sell, with your name added.

The people who are genuinely good at this ask a lot of questions, because the answer sits in the detail of your business and you. It’s not a case of one size fits all.

From a first conversation, expect a clear account of how they'd find the answer: what they'd look at, who they'd talk to, what they'd need from you and roughly how long it would take. If they can explain that, "it depends" means they know exactly where to look.

So, does your marketing strategy depend?

Yes, and I'll keep saying it, because it's honest.

I now treat it as the start of a sentence: it depends, here's what it depends on, and here's what that looked like the last time I did it. He wanted evidence I'd done it before. I had it, and these days I lead with it but at that time it just wasn’t on the tip of my tongue.

When you're hiring an adviser, do you want a straight answer there and then or the questions first to make sure you end up with the right answer for you?

P.S. If you're working out how to reach new clients in 2027, I'm happy to talk through how I'd find the answer for your firm ayo@abbasmarketing.com