Simply put you want to show 80% of the value with 20% of the effort. In other words showing value should come easy to you, and the customer should be impressed. This does not mean that you must finish all the work with 20% of the effort (though that’s may not be a bad aim by itself). It is often true that the remaining 20%, the non-flashy and non-sexy bit of the work takes 80% of the effort. You should be honest and up front with the customer that there is a lot more work to do to take into production or implement what you have shown them.
The emphasis is no show. Show do not tell. Demonstrate do not promise. Of course, the sales pitch, the nice pitch deck, the case studies, all help show a compelling story about your value. But when it comes to doing the work, you should be able to show a sample of what the customer will receive quickly. A customized sample, a sample that shows the main use case or solves the main pain point for the customer.
This requires you to focus and identify the one thing that the customer wants and needs and make it a reality. For example, I was able to build a demonstration app for a customer in a few hours using AI. Once the customer said that was the right direction, I was able to talk about the real work of implementing and scaling such an application. In the second phase I took a month (even though I wanted a week) to replicate the same app in the actual technology with which we will finally go live. The overall project will probably take four months to go live.
The benefit is that the customer will be engaged all along the way. What I hate the most from development and consulting companies is when they go for weeks on end without any engagement from me. And most customers are like this too. They have spent a lot of money, time and energy on a project, and they do not want to be kept in the dark. Show value up front, to gain trust, and then show it again often. Put this in your planning, in your strategy, in your delivery process.
Even saying this, it is important to be honest with yourself, and with the work necessary to be successful. You are not trying to pull the wool over the customers eyes, nor are you trying to not have money to pay your employees. Show all the limitations and all the shortcuts you’ve had to take. Show all the other parts that have to be built before you will be able to scale. However, it is a much easier discussion to have when the customer has just experienced a wow moment, and when they see that they will get what they’ve dreamed.
To find out more read about the Pareto principle and how it came to be used in so many areas of industry. For example you can read about Dr. Juran’s adoption and development of the Pareto principle – https://www.juran.com/about-us/
