Where Are Your Case Studies?

The difficulty in creating case studies makes having them a distinct advantage. There are ways to get great case studies if you're clever.

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I just spent the past hour or so browsing the websites of newsletter subscribers who subscribed in the past two months (yes, if you subscribed in the past two months, I snooped on you).

I have two questions.

1. Why do so many of you have custom domain email addresses which don’t resolve to working websites?

2. Where are all your case studies?

I don’t think a single site featured any case studies.

Case Studies Elevated Me To A New Level

Many years ago, I had lunch with Will from Distilled.

Right at the end of the lunch, after giving me a brain dump of helpful advice, he said, “And make sure you have case studies - they’re critical for enterprise clients”.

That comment caught me off guard.

At that point, we didn’t have any case studies. We had worked with many clients, had many fancy logos on our website, and had a good reference list.

…but we didn’t have any case studies.

I spent a considerable amount of time over the next month working with the team to create a number of case studies (our approach to case studies has changed over the years, as you can see).

Over the next year, we began signing a calibre of enterprise clients we never had before.

I can’t say that case studies alone were decisive; we were doing many other things then, but they sure felt impactful in hindsight.

Today, I even use them to gain an advantage in sales. Since other consultants don’t have them, I volunteer case studies for prospective clients to read before we’re asked for them.

So why don’t more consultants feature case studies?

Why You Probably Dont Have Case Studies

There is a simple reason why more organisations don’t have case studies on their site.

Getting case studies takes a lot of work.

1. It’s Hard To Get Data Showing Your Results

Let’s imagine you create a strategy for an organisation. The client might spend years executing the plan. That means you must wait years to see if you helped the client. And even if you did, would you return to the client years later and ask for a testimonial or data? By that point, the people you’ve worked with have likely moved on, and they might not be able or willing to share that data.

Or what if they only implemented a part of your plan and made some natural amends over time? How much of the credit can you take? Or what if they were doing well when they executed the plan, but later conditions changed, and they became known as a bad example?

Or what if you need more visibility for long-term success? It can be incredibly difficult to know the full results of an engagement because it might take years, and clients might be unable or unwilling to share them.

You might ask for a case study too early or too late and find yourself unable to get what you want.

2. Non-Disclosure Agreements/Company Policies/Approvals

Non-disclosure agreements preclude the case studies. To write a case study, you almost certainly have to reveal information you acquired during the consultancy that wasn’t already public. This means a case study would violate the NDA.

You would need approval to publish a case study (more on that later). But the question is approval from home. Can you simply get an email from the most junior person (even an intern) in the organisation saying it’s ok? Or do you need the legal team to sign off?

(Hint: There will be a place in the NDA document which details how and when changes can be made to the NDA. But now we enter the realm of how strictly we want to follow that. In most cases, you must write a recorded letter to the legal department. Which, naturally, won’t permit because…why would they? They don’t know you and have no reason to say yes.

Blanket policies

Many organisations also have blanket policies against anything that could be considered an endorsement of a third party or limit who can communicate externally. This is equally a problem when getting testimonials.

Many organisations have multiple people who must approve a case study. None of them is motivated to say yes (or even read it). Coordinating the approval process takes a considerable amount of time, and by going through PR, legal, and your contacts, it’s probably been stripped of any interesting details.

3. Organisations Aren’t Willing To Invest Time and Effort

Sometimes, case studies don’t happen simply because they require time and effort on behalf of the client.

Everyone in every organisation is incredibly busy all the time. They don’t have the time or the motivation to co-create a case study with you. They might want to help you but aren’t going to go significantly out of their way to do it.

I’ve had case studies languish for months, waiting for clients to help provide information or check a small section.

4. The Organisation Is Unable or Unwilling To Admit Flaws

When you see case studies, they’re often about as bland as possible.

Sometimes, the case study doesn’t contain a single problem or challenge the organisation wants to solve and is vague about the solution and results.

The reason is apparent: the organisation doesn’t want to admit flaws or share information that might help a competitor.

The best case study would be a gripping read that begins with an organisation's critical problem, with the consultant acting as the hero in helping them solve it and showing the precise results of this work.

However, that means the case study has to admit flaws - often flaws which were the responsibility of past or present staff members. That’s hard to agree to for an external audience.

As a result, by the time a case study is approved, it is a very bland piece of work containing little information other than that you worked with a client and that the project achieved outcomes the client liked.

How Most Consultants Approach Case Studies

To tackle the challenges above, most consultants take one of three approaches to case studies. These are:

1. Include it in your contracts. One option is to include the right to publish a case study in your contracts. This gives you the right to publish something, but you still have to tiptoe around the NDA. Honestly, very few people would willingly sign a contract if they saw this condition. So it can become a ‘gotcha’ - which is never ideal for a long-term client relationship.

2. Publish first and ask questions later. Another approach is to publish the case study without asking for permission. The upside of this is it’s there, live, for others to see. The downside is you won’t have client testimonials, which will probably harm your client relationship and almost certainly violate any NDA you signed. You might get away with it most of the time - but that one time, it will come back to haunt you catastrophically.

3. Anonymise the client. A final option is to anonymise the case study. We’ve occasionally done this, but I hate doing it. There’s no way to prove we didn’t just make it up. To counter this, I try to include specific data, but it’s not always possible.

None of these are ideal - and explain why so few consultants can feature case studies on their site.

Fortunately, there is a better approach.

How To Get Case Studies - Align Your Motivations

All of the problems above can be overcome if the client has internal motivation to overcome them.

One person genuinely fighting your corner can get a good case study through the chain of approvals - but they have to be able to explain why.

Currently, most consultants approach case studies from the ‘can you do me a favour?’ angle. There’s no reason for anyone in the chain of approvals to say yes. You got paid after all - what more do you want? And if they do say yes, there’s no motivation NOT to remove any information that might admit flaws or share information which isn’t in the public domain.

This means you need to position a case study to benefit the client more than you.

…or at least benefits your contact more than you.

There are three good ways of doing this.

1. Industry award submissions. Please pay attention to relevant industry awards and offer to create a submission for the client. It’s no extra work or risk for them - and it gives them a reason to provide you with the information to create the best possible submission.

   You should have a good list of relevant industry awards for which you can submit client case studies (some platform vendors are smart enough to host their own and have clients essentially compete to create the best case study for them). Even if you don’t win, you still get a data-driven case study out of it.

   We’ve had more success with this approach than any other.

2. Generating positive publicity. A second approach is to generate positive publicity for your contact and the organisation. Reach out to relevant media publications (Harvard Business Review and Forbes are common options) and see if they would be interested in your client’s story of transformation. Once you have secured the interest, you can work to either create the article or gather the journalist's needs.

   I love this approach because it shows an additional way you’re adding value to a client. For example, you can say, “The results of our work have been published in….” Better yet, your contact is likely to share this on their social media platforms, giving you further proof of your success and strengthening your relationship.

   The key to this approach is to make your contact (and the client) the hero throughout the entire stage. While you should give yourself a small mention, focus on making the client the champion.

3. Speaking submissions/examples of best practice. Help your client (or yourself) secure speaking slots at relevant industry events where they can share the results of your work and any other relevant information. Most conferences are keen to feature people who work for major organisations (they’re suckers for logos too).

   I helped Microsoft, a client, secure a speaking slot at an industry event, and they gave me credit on stage in front of an audience of peers. You really can’t buy publicity like that.

   There are plenty of opportunities to co-present, help the client get speaking slots, or present a client case study at a conference. Anything which helps your contact and the client present themselves in a positive way is usually ideal.

The approach to case studies has to shift from ‘Can you do me a favour?’ to ‘Publishing the results of our work will help you.’

When Case Studies Are Your Advantage, Use Them

Because great case studies are so hard to get, they become far more valuable.

If you’re the only consultant who can show clear and specific case studies, you stand out in the crowd. It’s also the thing you can promote regularly to others. Better yet, it’s the thing you can proactively promote to prospective clients:

“I know all consultants talk a strong game, which is way I want to share several case studies of our past work with you. I’d strongly recommend reviewing the case studies of any consultant you’re considering. If they don’t have any, that usually tells its own story”

Better yet, you can usually dice it up into quotes, videos, and more to use throughout your social media platform or on your website.

Make sure as many people read your case studies as possible. There’s so few people who can prove the results of their past work - make sure you’re one of them.

Thanks for reading.

Richard Millington

p.s. If you want to learn more about fees and selling consultancy projects, sign up for my Proposal Mastery course.