3 min read · Written by Grant Rayner on 07 Jun 2023
Share by emailAt the most basic level of business, success requires helping clients solve a problem. While offering the same services as larger security companies at a lower price may solve one problem, it will not be sufficient to ensure long-term, sustainable success.
Therefore, one of your first steps in designing your business is to identify a client problem that you are uniquely qualified to solve.
This article continues on the theme of business design. I’ll share some insights to help you identify the problem you want to solve as an independent security professional.
Let’s start with the simplest way to find out about the challenges your clients are facing: ask them.
Before putting pen to paper on the design of your business, arrange to meet with clients you know well and ask them directly about their problems. You might be surprised by what they tell you.
Here are a few questions you could pose to your clients:
It should go without saying that understanding client challenges requires a deep understanding of client organisations. The more you engage with your clients, the more you’ll develop this understanding. You’re looking for evidence of pain. This pain provides a degree of urgency to solve that problem.
If you’ve worked in corporate security roles, you’ll likely have a better understanding of the challenges faced by corporate security professionals compared to those who have only been on the consulting side of the market. Think about the challenges you faced, and use this experience to determine which problems you should focus on.
As I alluded to above, when identifying problems and brainstorming solutions for your clients, it is useful to focus on issues that can’t be solved in house. At least, not optimally. Here’s a few examples:
A key benefit of using consultants is that they bring an external viewpoint and can provide fresh ideas or innovative approaches to business problems. They can challenge the status quo and bring best practices from other industries or companies.
While your first instinct may be to solve your client’s problems by designing a service, you might want to think twice before launching into action.
Services are relatively easy to conceptualise and deliver. As a result, it will be challenging to design a service that doesn’t already exist and isn’t already available to your clients.
Broaden your approach to incorporate products, including applications, as potential solutions to your client’s problems.
While I’m not suggesting you ignore services altogether, don’t rule out other ways to satisfy client requirements.
A key point to consider is that you’re not necessarily trying to solve every organisation’s problems. You could run a sustainable consulting practice with five to ten clients.
For instance, you could focus on addressing the needs of clients in a particular industry. Alternatively, you could concentrate on the needs of clients who face specific risks in a particular country. In some ways, the more specialised and unique your offering, the better.
In addition to these approach, you’ll also need to think ahead and consider conducting experiments.
Over time, new challenges and problems emerge and challenge your clients. If you closely monitor trends and emerging technologies and standards, you will be able to move quickly to provide timely solutions for your clients.
As an example, right now AI meets these criteria and will impact all aspects of security management. However, most corporate security managers do not yet understand AI and many have not actually used it. Perhaps you could offer a service to help corporate security teams integrate AI into their work streams?
If you’re unsure whether you’re focused on solving the right problems, you don’t need to bet the farm. Instead, conduct an experiment. Develop a minimum viable service or product and present it to a client who you believe would benefit. Assess their response and adjust your approach. If what you’re doing doesn’t seem to resonate, you can either keep iterating or abandon the experiment to try something different. Just be conscious of how much time and resources you invest in these experiments. There’s a risk that they can distract you from focusing on more fundamental aspects of your business.
Experiments are a concept I’ll touch on in greater detail in future articles.
Identifying the problems your clients want solved is a key aspect of designing a sustainable and successful business. Your work must address a burning need. If not, you’ll struggle.
Ideally, the ‘problems to be solved’ should align not only with your strengths but also with your passions. Doing work that you find unfulfilling can make for a long, hard slog.