During my time as a strategy consultant at Deloitte, I worked with many F500 companies. In my role, my projects revolved around working with the client to determine what services we could offer them.

The work on these engagements was largely exploratory/pre-sale. The purpose was to generate a proposed book of work with an associated Net Present Value (NPV) estimate.

The particular case I will present here was with one of the largest players in the agricultural industry. As you could imagine, their processes were very dated and under-optimized.

The project was already 2 weeks deep when I joined the team. I was assigned because the team was struggling and I had built my brand around good finance knowledge and acumen. That was not the strength of the existing manager.

I started myself off by learning what the team had already worked and gathered as much background information as I could. I created some frameworks and models so that we could organize, identify, and project specific data points.

The engagement had dozens of consultants, with different teams responsible for different business functions. I worked with each function to align on what information we needed to obtain. e.g., payments team must know “How much can a new collections system reduce ‘days receivables’ and how much would that system cost to implement?” This is important because you can reduce working capital which reduces the cost of ‘floating’ operations.

After working with all of the leads from other teams, we had identified the core pillars of value that would act as our power law for formulating the value case. The leads got to work to bring back the data points that would be crucial for the team I was on to build our case.

While the other teams were working to gather required data points. Our team started to build out our presentation and associated models so that as data points came back to us we could incorporate the values.

By this point I had established myself as the subject matter expert for the team. People would come directly to me when they needed clarifications and I would often be invited to client meetings to explain concepts. There were many instances where I was able to politely correct the client so that we could deliver the best value case (e.g., WACC estimates, tax sheltering, etc.)

The existing manager was moved to another team and I assumed control. This was exciting opportunity for me because it was my first time leading a team. I really enjoyed sharing knowledge, coaching, and helping the team understand how and why each action we were taking was important.

Our models were built into the PowerPoint presentation so that we could quickly integrate client requests and iterate versions of the presentation quickly with little human intervention. The deck was ultimately presented to the CEO and board of directors by the partner on the project. By the end of the project I had built a relationship of trust with the partner.

Accomplishments

  • Turned around project from disarray

  • Built trust with the client

  • Sold ~ $200MM worth of work

  • Partner referred to my presentation as the “Waldmann Deck” and “Money Slides”

Lessons Learned

  • First time in my career managing others

  • Navigating dicey client conversations

  • Importance of slide work and crafting a digestible story

  • Projecting confidence and honesty is crucial