Getting Through This Together
by Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 4 Minutes
Getting Through This Together. Our goal when we founded Carbon Design LLC was not to get rich or famous. It was about doing meaningful work for clients who appreciate it. We don’t apply for awards or recognition that others chase, preferring to focus on the work and making clients happy. It’s why I’m excited to share some of the feedback we’ve received recently.
Before COVID hit we had scoped a follow on project for a Coalfire, a cyber security firm. Unfortunately, our client’s budget was cut before we got started. Knowing the importance of the project, we did the work for what little of the budget that remained.
We delivered the findings in early June and the week later received a package containing a thank you and a Coalfire branded jacket. They were impressed with the insight we delivered but more importantly they thanked us for our flexibility and partnership.
At the end of the month we receive more positive feedback.
For years, Tony Anticole and I have worked with the team at Challenger to turn the commercial insight they create for clients into marketing campaigns and assets through a 1.5 day workshop.
With the pandemic, the team had to figure out how to turn an in person session into a digital experience that created the same value…not an easy task. We were generally concerned with our ability to read and respond to the attendees remotely.
On top of this already challenging scenario the lead person from the Challenger team left the organization leaving the remaining member of the team in a difficult position. She had only attended one other session as an observer.
Two weeks ago, we delivered the last of 5 weekly (2-3 hr) workshops. Last week, we received the feedback below from the client via our Challenger partner Taeya Sharrock, mentioned above.
I wanted to pass along feedback from Bassel about the CCS workshops:
“I thought it was brilliant, Tony & Scott were amazing & did a great job over the 5 weeks. The workshops were thought-provoking – this was the best part, changing the mindset completely. Everyone who attended had really good feedback to share.”
Taeya was also kind enough to pass along the comments below about her experience.
“Will, I wanted to let you know what a great job Tony & Scott did and how incredibly generous they have been with their time. I know they were only able to bill back a limited number of hours for preparation, but they have been keen to have additional calls/debriefs as we prepared for sessions, and have given a lot of additional brainpower to ensuring the insight was strong enough that we would get to a good end-point.” With David having left before we got into the nitty-gritty of figuring out how to run these sessions, and with only ever having seen one Content Strategy workshop, I have really appreciated all of their help!
I wanted to share these comments because we’re all probably being asked to make sacrifices, do things we’ve never done before, and perhaps, may be getting paid less for it.
Keep your head up and stay focused. We’ll get through this together but we need patience, flexibility and understanding. Onward!
Getting Through This Together.
