The Threadstars mission is to bring value at every level. The below post sums up the expectations we set for ourselves at Threadstars in any client situation but also internally, towards colleagues, direct reports and partners.

We don’t bring problems to clients.

We identify points which have room for improvement, and solutions on how to improve them.

For example:

Giving one more problem to the client would be:

• Your interior design is weak, there is so much going on, your consumers are complaining they feel uncomfortable. But we are not interior design agency, we can’t help. Check with yours why they did such a poor job.

Alternatively, we could say: 

• We have noticed that your interior design could be improved for your customers to feel more comfortable in the space, and stay longer, ordering more, such as desserts or extra drinks.
• We can easily help you fix that by spending a few hours in your store removing what is making it feel overwhelming, and recommend a few props you can add to give it more of a homey feeling. (Billable 2-4h consultation)

We don’t just make assumptions. We make hypothesis which we verify. We are curious to learn before we know enough to teach.

For example:

Making assumptions would be:

• The client deadline in brief is tomorrow. We must deliver by tomorrow. 
• The client didn’t speak about their internal QA process. They don’t have a process. Let’s spend the project’s budget building then a new process.

Being curious approach: 

• I see your timeline in the brief is tomorrow for this application, when are you planning to go to production? If you let me know when your samples come back, we can also help you check them before mass production. (gets you the real timeline + upsell)
• I was wondering what your internal QA process is at the moment? Oh, you don’t have it in a document? That’s alright, let’s have a quick call, then we can help you putting in a document you can share with your team, and give you some recommendations based on approaches we have found to  successful in the past.

We don’t make decisions for clients. We lay down their options and leave the decision with them. Sometimes, only one option is a perfect fit, the other options only help reinforcing them that this is the right solution.

For example: 

Making decision for client would be: 

• We have an aligned QA process with 3 rounds of revisions. But we don’t have time to do those checks with the timeline they gave us. Client don’t have time to check on their own. And we must meet this deadline. So we’ll only do 1 round of QA and hope there is no mistake.

Laying down options for the client would be:

• This brief was challenging, but based on your timeline, deliverable, and mutually aligned QA process, we have identified the following solutions for you:

1. We’ve moved a few things around in our planning to assign more teams. At the best of our ability we can deliver with 3 rounds of QA by the necan deliver the next day. Hopefully this still fits your internal timeline?
2. Else, we can deliver within timeline, however we’ll only be able to do 1 round of QA within that time? Maybe someone else on your team could support with an additional round too? Of course we’ll only charge our time including one round, so this deliverable will be cheaper for you as well.

We understand that the only person we can truly change, is ourself. We can see client’s flaws, yet, complaining about them won’t fix them. Instead, we can use our skills to complement client’s weaknesses. We can in turn offer it as a solution to them, therefore increasing our value by helping them further. And grow our skills set.

For example: 

Trying to change the client: 

• Your briefs are always incomplete. We couldn’t deliver what you wanted because you didn’t ask clearly in the first place.

Being helpful would be:

• I have reviewed your brief with the team, we have a few more questions to review with you to make sure we’ve understood what you needed and deliver creatives which will WOW your boss.
• Shall I sent up a call and walk you through our template? It will take half an hour more this time for the project, but next time you can prepare it on your own, and also use it with your boss so you don’t need to go back to them with questions.