Jason Mlicki (00:01.954)
So, Jeff, we are going to talk about myths today. And I thought I would open with a story about a myth that I think you might enjoy. So, what’s that? No, no, no, no. Much, much more American myth. Much more American myth. The myth of Bigfoot. So so

Jeff McKay (00:11.553)
Hmm. Icarus. Hercules. Icarus. Hercules.

okay.

Jeff McKay (00:23.951)
Jason Mlicki (00:28.29)
This is a while ago now. It’s probably been at least seven or eight years. My kids were a lot younger, and I used to run a Cub Scout den for one of my boys. And we’d have a whole pack meeting with all these kids from different grades. And so I had to organize that something for the boys to do. So I came up with this idea that we were on the hunt for Bigfoot, and I packed backpacks full of all these different clues for the kids to go through and try to find the clues to see if they could locate where I found where Bigfoot was, where you would find him, right?

So I orchestrate this whole thing, got five backpack, got it all lined up, it’s all set up, and the kids go through it, they’re having a great time and everything. And so this guy pulls me aside and he looks at me and goes, Jason, he’s like, Is this real?

Jeff McKay (01:13.241)
Hahaha!

Jason Mlicki (01:13.838)
Do you really do this? Do you really go hunting for Bigfoot on the weekends? I looked at him, I was like, no, no, this is not real. This was just fun. So I know I felt bad. He was an accountant too. I thought I kind of laughed. I was like, you know, very black and white kind of guy. He kind of looked at me like he was, he was, he was flabbergasted that this was all I can I can I made this all up. I was like, well, I you know.

Jeff McKay (01:26.841)
You popped his bubble.

Jason Mlicki (01:43.641)
Took me a couple hours. It wasn’t like it was that hard. But they loved it. They loved it. I mean, it was a blast. Because it was basically this was right when escape rooms were starting to get really big. And I sort of just took that idea and just kind of like, well, how could I make a like a you know something to fun to keep them engaged? Because when we were doing this, we’d have, I don’t know, 50 kids and they’d be bouncing off the walls and it was too cold to go outside. And it was like

Jeff McKay (01:47.759)
How did it go over with the kids?

Jason Mlicki (02:12.832)
Miserable February in Ohio, right? So anyway. But we’re we’re not talking about Bigfoot today. We’re actually talking about case study myths. The myths of case studies. The nine I I have nine. We’ll see if it ends up being nine. Nine great myths of case studies. So we’re gonna we’re gonna demystify those nine. Well at least nine, maybe nine. Demystify? Myth demystify.

Jeff McKay (02:33.741)
I’m surprised we limited it till nine.

Jeff McKay (02:39.277)
demystify demystify

Jason Mlicki (02:43.628)
Demystify. Demystify. Here you go. I like that.

All right. You want you want why don’t you start us? This was your this was your you yeah, as usual, we had a plan and then you you you know you called an audible at the at the line of scrimmage. So so so start us out. What what what’s the first first myth of case studies that we’re gonna demyth?

Jeff McKay (03:08.431)
I’m sorry for calling inaudible.

It’s the nature of Jeff McKay. So my first one is every client should become a case study.

Jeff McKay (03:26.549)
It’s simply not true.

The work that should become case studies are the client engagements that reinforce the firm’s positioning. That’s a fundamental change from the way I think most people think about case studies. They think the case study is specifically about

a particular brand or demonstrating success with a premier logo of some kind. What they are designed to do is to reinforce what you want to be known for. And we talk a lot about having a strong point of view.

of not focusing on capabilities, but having a point of view on a client issue in your ability to solve that issue. Every case study should reinforce that positioning. It seems so obvious when you say it, but most firms don’t do it because they think the more case studies, the better.

Jason Mlicki (04:57.848)
Well, I think to your point, in a lot of firms, case studies are like a stack a deck of cards. We need fifty two of them and we need we’re gonna deconstruct them into all these different combinations for every possible business situation we might run into in the marketplace. Yeah, and then you pull out the deck of cards from your pocket and you dig for the queen of spades, and the queen of spades represents ERP, you know, implementation. And then the jack of diamonds is your

you know, employee engagement one. And so it’s like there’s like this like huge puzzle that they’re they’re always trying to assemble a collection of case studies that does everything. And usually the that deck of cards, it’s actually not the Queen of Spades. It’s actually a woman with a crown that wears black. Because we can’t name her as the Queen of Spades because they’re all unnamed.

Jeff McKay (05:50.894)
I like this metaphor. Keep going. Keep going.

Jason Mlicki (05:55.983)
It’s a bit of a stretch. I think it’s at the bottom of my big foot bag.

Jeff McKay (06:00.366)
It’s not a stretch at all. I think most firms do think, with 52 case studies, let’s pull out the one that’s relevant to this one situation. And what ends up happening is you have 52 case studies that communicate nothing essentially to the market at scale.

Jason Mlicki (06:28.79)
No, no. And they’re and they’re

They’re not even worth the digital ink they’re printed on, right? Because they’re I I always talk about this as sort of a another myth I had, is that a blinded case study is good enough, right? You know, a lot of times I find firms subtle and they tell me all the time, they say, well, you know, our client relationships are highly proprietary and we just cannot divulge any details. and as a result, they’ll have 30, 50, 70, 90 of these sort of short.

profiles that are terse that don’t really tell you much of anything. They say, well, client of this type had these problems. We did these things and these were the results. And it’s all kind of described in about hundred and fifty words and twenty one bullets. And I just don’t know that anybody looks at that and gets anything from that or has any so that’s so it’s like why publish it if it’s not going to create any value.

It’s just noise. So I I guess I like I I go I come coming full circle. It’s just that I I I like that that first myth, this idea that well, let’s just pick a handful of. I talk with our clients about this a lot. I’m like, I’ll take three really great stories that reinforce the positioning of the firm, the types of clients you want to work with, the types of issues you want to solve, and demonstrate real meaningful impact with a client who’s comfortable letting you talk about them.

As a best practices example of how to overcome these types of challenges, I’ll take three of those over thirty or fifty-two, fifty-two of my Queen of Hearts examples.

Jeff McKay (08:14.178)
I think that’s exactly right because what is the purpose of a case study anyway? You know, it’s to demonstrate to the client that you’ve solved this problem before, that you’ve solved it for someone like me because buyers are, I don’t know that self-absorbed is a word, but they’re only concerned about themselves.

right, and getting to the solution that they want. And they want to trust that you can deliver that result that they’re looking for. And that’s what the case study needs to communicate. So I really like your points around, you know, keeping the ideal client in the right context as you create these case studies. And it’s not quantity.

its quality that reinforces the positioning.

Jason Mlicki (09:17.548)
Yeah, I think that the I I don’t I some of what you said I think is a myth though. U and I and what I mean by that is I’m not I’m not convinced that the only use of a case study is to do exactly what you said, to demonstrate that I’ve solved problems like you face as a client in organizations specifically like yours. Because I would argue that almost every single client engagement is new and different and unique.

Jeff McKay (09:24.066)
Mmm.

Jason Mlicki (09:47.331)
firm, ever actually every company that you work with is unique in its own way. And it’s super rare that you can line up a case study and say, this is exactly the problem that you face in your industry, in your situation. And let me show you how we did it before. And I think that that’s sort of a myth that that’s how the only use of the case study. A lot of to to me, a lot of what a case study, good case study

should also do is is demonstrate that you’re in good company. that we’ve worked with great companies and we help them solve difficult challenges and we help them navigate that. And we can do that for you too. And so it’s it’s sort of like less about the specificity and more about just helping them helping a client feel comfortable that

They can trust their spend with you, they can trust their their career with you. and I also think there’s an educational piece to this that gets lost. I mean, I think firms also forget often that part of the reason people read case studies is to learn how other companies solve problems somewhat similar to what they’re facing. And so if it’s all about reassurance, then you’re sort of missing a piece of it, potentially.

If that’s how you want to use your case studies, I think there’s a couple ways you can use them. but I don’t I don’t think that I guess my my long-winded way of saying to me the myth is that case studies are all about risk reduction and reassurance. And I don’t think that’s necessarily the only use case. I think there are other use cases that you can create for. And I think those are educational in nature and they’re sort of inspirational in nature, you know.

Look at how this great company overcame this critical challenge and how they’re thriving. And that could be you two, right? Does that make sense?

Jeff McKay (11:52.983)
I like that. I agree with that. Educational and inspirational. That’s a good mantra.

Jason Mlicki (11:58.095)
Yeah. And and they’re all different points of the sales cycle. So it’s like you you you almost like one of the things you talked about earlier is like, you know, how do you extend the life of a case study? Well, that’s one way you can do it. Is that you can have multiple variations of one story for different points of the sales cycle. You know, the the one that’s all about reassurance, you hold that behind the veil. You don’t bring that out. It doesn’t, it’s not published on the website. That exists in a conversation when a client is

close to doing a deal, but they’re getting cold feet. Like this is gonna work. And that’s when you go into more detail and process, because that’s when they want reassurance. you know the front side, the stuff that exists on the web might be more educational and inspirational because that’s early stage buying, right? So it might be more just trying to get people excited about my what would happen if we reinvented our customer loyalty program. Because our customer loyalty program stinks and it doesn’t it doesn’t imbue any loyalty. Right.

So I think there’s just you know

There’s more there’s more nuance to how you can use case studies than than I think most firms think about. They kind of it’s like a a checkbox, right? Let’s just get this out the door. We did this work, we gotta get it out there to talk about it and move on. Check the box. So what other myths are we we have here? Sorry, we got a little bit on a on a wicket there.

Jeff McKay (13:17.708)
Yeah. Check the box.

Check the box.

Jeff McKay (13:27.67)
Yes, you did.

Bye.

My second myth is case studies are stories about clients.

kind of kind of alluded to this right we want the brand we want to be in good company but the fact of the matter is case study should be about specific problems like I just said we want to position around an issue we want to be known for solving and those case studies should reinforce

Jeff McKay (14:18.466)
that our ability to deal with those problems. They buy because they recognize their own situation within the case study. They’re like, that’s me. know, Seth Godin says people like us do things like this. And the case study is not so much about Exxon or BP. It’s about, you know,

the specific issue that that company was experienced and the unique circumstances around that problem and situation.

Jason Mlicki (14:57.812)
Yeah. Ex jumping on the back of your you know, you that maybe the story the story isn’t about Exxon, the story is about how Exxon navigated the fallout from the worst ecological disaster, you know, known to man, right? And so you I so I think to your point, it it’s like being more specific about it is is really important when you start to think about these. And so so even when you think about creating them, if if if a

Jeff McKay (15:11.287)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Mlicki (15:25.502)
You’re a marketing lead, the partner comes to you. I to I want to tell I I wanna do a case study about our work with you know, Coca-Cola. yeah, absolutely we should. What do we what do we do for Coca-Cola, right? And so the the the first question should be, well, what what exactly did we do for them? And does it align to to your point with our positioning? Before you say, Yeah, absolutely, because it’s Coca-Cola. We’ve got it’s gotta be out there, you know.

Jeff McKay (15:38.094)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha

Jason Mlicki (15:50.447)
And of course you have to then ask the logical question of like, how hard is it going to be to get Coca-Cola to approve this? Because that comes back to the notion of unnamed and named. And that some that that sometimes that can be a I’m not gonna dismiss the barrier that that is. It’s really hard. And so if you really want to tell that story, you have to be committed to navigating the corporate infrastructure necessary to get there. It can be done, and it is done all the time. It’s just

Takes perseverance, as you like to say. So

Jeff McKay (16:21.634)
Yeah, yeah. Which leads me to my third myth. And that is that the hero in the case study is the consulting firm. The hero in the case study is not the consulting firm, it’s the client. And if the case study represents the client as a hero, a client is going to be much more inclined

Jason Mlicki (16:25.154)
Yeah.

Jeff McKay (16:51.32)
to support being part of that case study. But for…

Jason Mlicki (17:00.162)
Yeah, we always talk about you the the case study is supposed to be when you when you go to the client, it’s you the the the ask is like, we think that you’re a best practices example. We think you navigated this problem exceptionally well, better than anybody else we’ve seen. And we’d like to tell that story. and to your point, I always use there’s there’s there’s two storytelling frameworks I like to use on case stories. The first one is the slaying the monster framework, and the idea is that the

The the client is the hero and the firm is the sword that slays the monster. So the the client slaying the monster, you’re just the sword. You’re the tool that they use to help accomplish it. and the other one I I always like to use is the notion of a hero’s journey, the idea that you know the the the clients on this long overarching journey to you know quest to to cast the ring into the into the depths of Mordor, right?

And you’re telling that arc of that journey, and you show up as a companion somewhere along the way. You know, you’re not you maybe you’re the Sherpa, you’re the guide or something, but you’re not you’re not the one throwing the ring in, you know. You’re Sam, you’re not Frodo. You know, so anyway, I agree with you. I I I and I love that myth because you see it all the time. It’s most case studies show up as like,

Jeff McKay (18:10.318)
That’s right, you’re Sam.

Mm-hmm.

Jason Mlicki (18:23.21)
Our client was completely confused and didn’t know what they were doing and was in total shambles and we fixed everything and now it’s awesome. That’s the essence of the story.

Jeff McKay (18:31.278)
That’s exactly right. Right, right. In the essence of the story,

in addition to addressing the problem, should be building the brand reputation of the client in the case study, right? So that the client is getting what they deserve from being a part of the case study.

Jason Mlicki (18:49.122)
Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

Jason Mlicki (19:02.69)
Yeah. No, I I I like that a lot too. I at the end of the day it’s like y y you know, you want to show

And the purpose of my storytelling frameworks was like you’re on this journey together, right? In some way, you’re either a partner or you’re a resource or you’re a tool. You’re on a journey together. And that journey is to a much better place for everyone. And so the idea is that you’re lifting up the brand of both partners. I like that a lot. So all right. All my myths are running together. What I feel like some of them we’ve already talked about. What else? What what other myth do we have here that we have to demystify?

Jeff McKay (19:37.728)
My fourth one, and this is…

This is something I had to learn as a CMO. I should say unlearn. The fourth myth is that results are enough. If you got to a good outcome, you’re golden with the case study, right? Because the result is the Holy Grail. And I’ve come to appreciate that’s not always true.

I think the case studies need to demonstrate process as well because

Jason Mlicki (20:22.456)
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This is coming from the guy that for years said he hated process. You didn’t want to have anybody come in and talk about process. And now you want process? Where’d this come from?

Jeff McKay (20:36.834)
Well, process is different than methodology, I think, in this example. Maybe those are synonymous, but the process communicates to me how you work with me. You know, it shows that you understand why the problem existed, not just that the problem did exist.

Jason Mlicki (20:43.214)
Semantics. Keep going.

Jeff McKay (21:06.082)
that there were choices and alternatives that needed to be weighed in solving this problem because there’s always multiple ways of solving a problem. So contextualizing the approach is important instead of we came in and ran our ABC methodology and solve this problem, right? It’s like, okay, your magical methodology.

I get it, but that doesn’t help me understand what it’s like to work with you. I think you need to explain why the approach actually worked. What was it about the ABC methodology and the circumstances in the case study that allowed the result to occur?

And then I think you need to explain, what happened organizationally? What were the impacts on the players and what were the outcomes associated with those impacts? Not just getting straight to the number. We increased, you know, client retention 30%. Okay, that’s good. I want that outcome.

But there’s a lot more that goes into that story than just increasing client retention 30%. And most people just skip over that.

Jason Mlicki (22:42.222)
Well and to your earlier point, there’s a couple things I want to unpack there. One is that, you know, the the increased client retention thirty percent is sort of the inspirational piece of a case study, right? I want that. You know, we’re str we’re we’re struggling with client retention right now. We’re losing clients, we don’t know why. I wanna improve that. we we gotta get better here, right? So you you get excited about that as a as a buyer. But later in the process, when you’re getting ready to sign the contract.

You kind of go, is this really gonna work? That’s what the buyer’s thinking to themselves. Is this actually going to work? And is this going to work for us? And so having that process in there, as you talked about, I’ll steal this line from our good friend Blair Enns. when you’re in a late stage buying cycle, buying process, consistency in process implies consistency and outcomes. So if you can show to a client that you have a process for dealing with these types of issues.

And that it has yielded results in the past, the likelihood that they’re gonna sign that contract and fork over that deposit invoice goes up greatly because they feel more comfortable at this stage of the game that you’re going to be able to get that 30% that you’ve got for my peer. so it’s a critical piece of it. Also, I think there’s something in there around this may be as as a as a a a tangential myth.

Around the case study should only show everything that we did was right and we should gloss over anything that went wrong. Right. And I’m not saying you have to publish your your failures, you know, to the world, but I think you are a lot better if you at least talk about them. So if in the story when you’re talking with clients, well, here, you know what? Actually, we had a couple things go wrong.

Or sometimes it can even just be surprises. You know, what surprised you on the journey? Well, I I didn’t see this coming. We didn’t nobody nobody planned for you know, a power outage in the middle of this event and all of a sudden, you know, we’re recovering on our heels, right? And we didn’t plan for it. And so I I yeah, I I I like where you’re going with that. I I think there’s a lot to that, this idea that like, you know, a lot of particularly in the late stage cycle of buying.

Jason Mlicki (25:07.542)
A lot of the case study is about understanding the process and the journey as a buyer, so I can feel comfortable that, you know, as we get into this, things are going to go well. and you’re going to have a plan, a contingency plan if things do go off the rails a little bit, which they inevitably do on any major initiative, right?

Jeff McKay (25:31.841)
Exactly right. And that would be my fifth myth is case studies always have to be positive. They just simply don’t. Your point is a great one about what you don’t have to publish the failures, but you probably should have in your back pocket the case studies that you can discuss.

that didn’t work out. Right? Here was the issue, here was the approach, here was the failed outcome. And then the key part of that is here’s what we learned and here’s what we changed as a result of that learning. And that what we changed might be within the client.

but it’s even more important that you as a firm grew from that experience. Because if you grew from it, I know that you’re not gonna repeat that error with me.

Jason Mlicki (26:43.148)
Yeah, I I I it’s the lessons learned piece of all this that I think is doesn’t show up in a lot of case studies. And sometimes it can even just be I always encourage when we do them for ourselves or we do them with a client, I always encourage to have quotes within the story if we’re publishing it, from both sides. So quotes from the client that talk about their experience and the and what they maybe learned and have them reflect on the journey. And also the people that were

delivering or the consultants or the leads. Cause it’s again, you know, most of consulting, most of professional services, it’s a co-delivery, right? It’s very rare where you hire a consultant and you just kind of like raise your hands up and walk away and let them just kind of go to town. Like there’s always some like partnership involved. And so I think having, you know, showing that through the story with perspective and and

Context, you know, c you know, reflection, as that’s the word I was looking for. Reflection I think is really important. and really valuable to anybody reading it. So I have one more myth and it it this is a that it’s called a case study.

Jeff McKay (27:56.718)
Hmm?

Jason Mlicki (27:58.199)
I I actually think that’s the fundamental problem with case studies, is that we call them case studies. For years I tried to just tell clients call them we call them case stories. Just use the word story because at the end of the day, you are telling a story about a client and a problem that they had and how they navigated it. That’s what you’re doing. You’re telling a story. And so when we call it a study, it sure is it changes the way we think about it and talk about it internally in a not so healthy way.

Worse yet is to call it a project profile. Let’s do a profile of a project we did. Again, the problem is clients don’t care about your projects, they care about their problems. So why in the world would they want to read a profile of a project? They don’t want to do that. so

Jeff McKay (28:33.228)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Jeff McKay (28:39.395)
Yeah.

Jeff McKay (28:42.744)
Yes. Yeah. And that gets you into the situation approach result.

Jason Mlicki (28:49.878)
Yeah, which is not a bad framework. I mean it’s just it’s just a little bit incomplete, right? You know, it’s like you know, it’s like I mean it’s we use that all the time, but there’s other things you need around it, right? So

Jeff McKay (28:54.156)
Yes, yes.

Jeff McKay (29:00.354)
Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it would be useful if we talked about the anatomy of a strong case study and what should be included and what should be, if need be, in these things.

Jason Mlicki (29:19.734)
All right. All right. Well let’s do that. Well well we’ll okay. I I hesitate only ’cause that sounds really hard, but yeah, but but let’s go ahead and do it. And that’ll be the way we we

Jeff McKay (29:28.502)
Okay. Well, I penciled some thoughts. So I’ll give us the basic framework and then we can, you can beat it up as you often do and prove me wrong as I lay this out. Okay. So I think first thing that needs to go into a strong case study is what’s the situation.

Set up the story.

Here’s what was happening. Here’s why it was happening. What the client was thinking at the time. Set up the situation. Lay the foundation for a great story.

Two, what was the underlying business problem? What was the issue? And again, this issue should substantiate your firm’s positioning. What do you want to be known for in the market? But what is the underlying business problem?

Number three, why does this matter? And generally that means

Jeff McKay (30:52.942)
what’s the cost to the company? You know, is it slowing growth? it increasing in efficiency? Is it augmenting risk? What, why is this relevant to buyers? Because they’re looking for a connection with their, their issue in the, in the context of their

Jason Mlicki (30:57.324)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff McKay (31:22.4)
issue. So why it mattered. Four, and I think this is something I don’t see in a lot of case studies, but I think you should include obstacles because most of the firms, the clients that firms work with are filled with educated and intelligent and driven people. And if the

solution to the problem was easy, they wouldn’t need our help. There are obstacles in their way, whether those are cultural or capabilities or political, whatever the case may be, there are obstacles that I think are really relevant for contextualizing the case.

But it gives the reader of the case study or case story a context for what’s happening. And most firms ignore that. But I think you have to include this realism in the case studies that this is what the operating environment is about.

fifth thing is the approach and this is not your ABC methodology but how you thought about and weighed various approaches or paths if you will to solving the problem.

Six, what was the measurable outcome? Quantify it. 30 % increase in client retention, whatever outcome you can possibly get to. I recognize that this is often an issue with case studies is firms don’t build this into their work. The results take longer to come to fruition than whatever.

Jeff McKay (33:31.704)
But to the degree that you can put the measurable outcome, put it into the case study.

Number seven, what is the lasting business impact of this? How did this not only produce the result, but how did it reverberate, if you will, through the organization? And how was the outcome sustained? Not a one and done, but actually that you brought change to the organization.

And then finally, number eight, we already talked about it is what were the lessons learned from this? I just think that’s so critical to say, hey, we had operated under this hypothesis, but we learned this. And as a result of that learning, we now think about it in this way or whatever the case may be, but lessons learned. So.

Just to reiterate, the situation, number one. Number two, the underlying business problem. Number three, why it mattered to the organization in terms of growth, cost or risk. Four, the obstacles that the client was operating within. Five, the approach.

how you address the problem and weighed the options. Six, what was the outcome, measurable if possible. Seven, lasting impact on the organization. And eight, lesson learned.

Jason Mlicki (35:26.07)
Yeah, I don’t I think it’s I think it’s great. I I I have no edits or, you know, pushback on on the structure. The the one thing I can hear a lit a listener or a managing partner saying is, Well Jeff, th that that sounds really long and and copious and no one’s gonna read that. I mean we get that’s the type of feedback we get on this kind of stuff. No one’s gonna read that. And my my it

My answer to that, whenever anybody throws it at me, is I’ll say, well, timeout. Yes, the casual visitor to your website that is in kind of browse and learn mode is going to glance at this and not really read it too much. They’re going to look at the logo, see the company, and and and they’re going to zoom down to the results. And that’s fine. We’re okay with that. You know, like to your point earlier, to some extent, we are

Demonstrating that we work with great companies and that we generate outcomes. And so if someone just glances at something for five seconds and that’s the conclusion they draw, that’s great. Now that said, if it’s a late stage buyer and they’re about to fork over six or seven figures to solve a very big problem in their organization, you better believe if you put that in front of them, someone on their team is going to read that in detail. May not be the the the the

executive sponsor, it might be someone supporting them. But you better believe that that someone’s gonna do that level of due diligence and want to read that and they’re gonna ask you some questions about it. And you better be prepared to answer them. And it’s gonna be valuable to them if you do it the way you did it. So

I think we always I I say all that only in that I I just advise clients to just bring a little nuance to your marketing in the sense of recognizing that just because you go into Google Analytics and see average time on page is thirty-four seconds, don’t assume that means that nobody’s that matters is reading this for the four and a half minutes it requires. because there are people doing that. You just maybe don’t know exactly who they are. So

Jeff McKay (37:33.742)
I want to say two things as you said what you just said.

Jeff McKay (37:42.905)
There’s two important things to keep in mind, given these eight components that I outlined. One, these are all contextualized as a case story. And that’s critical. I love that you make that distinction, that these are stories.

And when you think about them in story form versus, you know, these set or eight bullet points, right? It repositions what we’re talking about. If you just were to do a case study and bullet point these eight things.

It’s going to be marginally effective, but contextualizing it as a story is critical. So that’s number one.

Number two, this seems like a lot of content, if you will, for a single case study. But again, this is a case story and it could be rendered in a lot of different ways. So if you think about,

a case study repurposed as webpage, webinar, white paper.

Jeff McKay (39:33.686)
I’m a yeah, a podcast episode, right? A video, whatever the case may be that that work doesn’t seem so, so arduous, if you will. And it’s a wise investment in your intellectual capital. but most firms don’t think that way. They think of, I need a one page case study. Yes.

Jason Mlicki (39:34.371)
Podcast.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Mlicki (40:01.816)
Summary. Yeah, yeah. One page summary that I can email to my clients about the work we did for

CVS. yeah, I I agree. I I I think I I think that’s good advice. I and I think I yeah, I like the eight points and I like the two pieces of advice. So

Jeff McKay (40:10.828)
Yes, yes.

Jason Mlicki (40:26.318)
I think I’m gonna take us to wrap. I’m gonna leave us with this thought. Bigfoot is real. Go find him. bring your backpack.

Gotta believe.

Jeff McKay (40:37.42)
Hey, can you write up a case study on how you found Bigfoot?

Jason Mlicki (40:42.062)
I can. I can. An excruciating detail about my process as well. It’ll be but it’s not gonna be named. I I I I don’t wanna name Bigfoot because that would really damage. Yeah. Yeah, a mythical hairy creature that exists somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. So all right, man. Well, this was good. Thank you.

Jeff McKay (40:53.004)
the hunt for a mythical creature.

Jeff McKay (41:02.126)
You

Jason Mlicki (41:09.998)
Appreciate the appreciate the conversation. This will be helpful.

Jeff McKay (41:12.726)
All right, thanks, buddy. I’ll see you.

Jason Mlicki (41:14.711)
So yeah.