Episode #16 - Jen Briselli & Jesse Strawbridge: Splitting Sales From Delivery, Building Trust First, and Surviving a Slow Year

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Jen Briselli

Linkedin | Topology

Jesse Strawbridge

Linkedin | Topology

Transcript

Kyle Soucy:

Welcome to the UX consultants lounge. I'm Kyle Soucy, founder of Usable Interface an independent UX research consultancy. You can find out more about my work and the services I offer at my website, usableinterface.com. I'll be your host here at the lounge where I'll be providing a place for UX consultants to gather, share stories, and learn more from one another.

This is a great, great episode. If you're an independent consultant like me, And you've ever wished you could just have a partner that took care of all the sales and business development, that's exactly the setup that my guests have. Today I'm joined by Jen Briselli and Jesse Strawbridge, co-founders of Topology, which is an experience strategy consultancy that helps teams make sense of complex human systems and figure out what to do next. And I have to say Topology is a pretty perfect name for what they do because so much of their work is about connections, patterns, relationships, and just helping people see the bigger system they're operating in.

Jen is a strategist, researcher, designer, educator, and generalist in just the best possible way. She has this incredible ability to connect ideas across disciplines and help teams make sense of ambiguity and complexity. Jesse is a relationship builder and connector. His focus at Topology is business development, client relationships, and creating the conditions for meaningful work to happen. And honestly, that setup is the reason I wanted to have them on the show.

As independent consultants, so many of us are wearing every single hat. We're doing the client work, writing the proposals, following up with past clients, trying to keep the pipeline warm, marketing ourselves, networking, and then somehow also remembering to sleep. Jen and Jesse have built something different. Jesse focuses on relationships and business development. Jen focuses more on the client work, strategy, and delivery. And I'll admit it, I am deeply envious.

As someone who has been doing this independently for a long time, I felt this conversation in my bones. The constant tension between serving the clients you already have and nurturing the relationships that might lead to future work is very real and can be exhausting What I think really makes Jen and Jesse's partnership special isn't just the division of labor. It's the mutual trust, respect, and genuine admiration they have for what the other person does. You can hear it throughout the conversation.

We talk about how Topology started after Mad Pow, another agency that they worked at, and how they decide which projects are a good fit for them, what the handoff looks like from sales to delivery, why relationships are at the center of their business, and what those of us who don't have a Jessee or a Jen can learn from how they've built their consultancy. So with that, please enjoy my conversation with Jen Briselli and Jesse Strawbridge.

Kyle Soucy: Hi Jen and Jesse, welcome to the UX Consultants Lounge.

Jen Briselli:

Happy to be here.

Jesse Strawbridge:

Thanks for having us, Kyle.

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah. I'm so happy to finally have you both here. And before we dive in, I'd like to share just how we know each other because I think it's one of those small UX world moments. So the three of us all have Mad Pow roots, and for those who don't know, Mad Pow was a very successful experience design agency that had locations in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as well as Boston. And if you haven't listened to my interview with Amy Heymans one of the founders of Mad Pow, I highly suggest you do so because she was very generous with her vulnerability and sharing what it was like to sell that agency. So it's a good one to listen to. But I subcontracted with Mad Pow's research team on and off for about 11 years basically whenever they needed research support and my availability lined up. But meanwhile, both of you two were internal employees there. And what's funny is that after all those years, we never actually worked together. You know, we knew of each other but somehow never crossed paths. and it wasn't until years later, actually last year, that Jesse and I finally met at Boston UXPA conference. And then, at Jesse's insistence, Jen and I had a chance to connect one-on-one.

And after those conversations, I remember thinking, "These two need to come on the podcast." And the reason wasn't simply, because you started a successful, consultancy. It was because of how you built it. Jesse, you've intentionally focused your role around business development, relationships, growing the business. And Jen, you've intentionally focused on leading the client work and delivery. And I suspect every independent consultant listening just now thought, "Wait, I would love that," to have somebody who could just handle sales. I think it would be really great today just to explore what it's actually like to build a consultancy around each person's strengths like you've done.

When they first decided to build a consultancy

Kyle Soucy: I'd love to start at the beginning. so the first question I have for both of you, when did the two of you first realize we should build something together?

Jesse Strawbridge: We met very early. So Jen had been at Mad Pow for several years when I joined, and I think it was my third week in, I was asked to go to a conference down in Miami with Jen. So for one, we sat next to each other. the setup at [00:07:00] Mad Pow had groups of desks together, and so Jen and I were right together.

So I met her pretty early on in my tenure, and then we found ourselves in Miami hanging out over drinks and talking about Mad Pow and talking about the world and all of that. So we had a chance to kinda get to know each other pretty early on, which I think, kind of started things. But, but Jen, I don't know, how would you answer that question?

Jen Briselli: I like that you went straight back to, the very origins. here I am thinking, logistics, "Well, it was probably the end of 2022," and you're like, "Well, the universe was created," and then, yeah. yes to that. I think that makes a big difference that when the circumstances at Mad Pow started to shift, we'd been acquired, things kind of continued to roll along for a couple years in a way that I thought was still, generative and interesting.

but eventually the writing on the wall with any kind of acquisition is an integration. And so at that point, everybody kind of turned their attention to what are we all gonna do next? And because Jesse and I had already been working together, for so long and finding that [00:08:00] when we did collaborate, it was usually pretty good, so we were like, maybe we should sort of think about doing something." So m- yeah, I stick to that answer, end of 2022

Jesse Strawbridge: Well, we u- we used to joke about when we have our own agency, we'll do this. And it was truly a joke at the

time in terms of I, I-- we hadn't had any serious conversations about that, but it was clear that we worked really well together. And to your point about business development, Kyle, opportunities would come in, and there was a handful of pe- I mean, Mad Pow was filled with really intelligent, great people who

could get on a call without much prep and really represent the firm well. But there was, three or four or five people at the firm that were really go-to for the business development team when you had an opportunity, an introductory conversation, a pitch. and certainly f- for me, I would lean on Jen all the time. I mean, she was just a natural in terms of,being able to share stories about the work and, demonstrate, the quality of the work that we were doing at Mad Pow.

[00:09:00] So it, it was kind of a, an easy fit in that way.

Kyle Soucy: Yeah, I was wondering what the strengths were that you saw in each other, and if there was ever a thought that it would be more than just the two of you? Or had... Or was it always from the get-go, "No, it's just gonna be us"?

Jen Briselli: Yeah, I don't think I ever considered anything else. I mean, really for me the question wasn't is it Jesse plus other people that I might join up with? It was more like, is it me solo or do I go, do this with somebody else? Almost all of 2022, to be frank, was kind of an existential reflection on what I might wanna do next. I mean, this is gonna turn into a Mad Pow love fest, but it truly was a special place, right? Those of us who were part of it or touched it in any way, I think know. So I have ultimate gratitude for both the founders and the leaders who made it what it was and everybody I worked with as peers but that made it tough to go, "Okay, well how do I go find that somewhere else?"

And the answer is you really can't, right? Context changes. You can't step in [00:10:00] the same river twice, et cetera. So I really started doing some of that soul searching. So it was really a function of if I want to do my own thing, because I didn't see a lot of opportunities to find something that would feel quite as special as Mad Pow and to-- I liked leading.

I loved leading a big team, but I knew I might have to just give that up for a little while if I wanted to, have access to some of the other things that made it special. So Jesse was just ev- literally because we'd been joking, it was kind of like the obvious choice, but it never crossed my mind.

I'll-- I'm curious your answer, Jesse, but it never crossed my mind like who else should we assemble? There were lots of jokes in that era. people were processing their grief, frankly. and so there

were lots of jokes about maybe we all need to go start our next thing. why don't we all like...

And even to this day, how many years later, we all keep in touch with each other and people still joke "When are we gonna go start our own Mad Pow 2.0?" And I think context changes, but, for me it was like just that was it. It was a no-brainer because of the way that our skills were [00:11:00] complementary.

Jesse Strawbridge: I never really thought about starting my own firm. there were agencies that I was a part of that I potentially had the opportunity to become part of the leadership team and then maybe an opportunity to lead or take over the firm, but that never really materialized. and so I, again, I too just kind of felt a sense of gratitude at, you know, my time at Mad Pow was a very unique environment with a lot of people. And, for Jen and I, when we became part of the leadership team at the end, and then we kind of just came to the realization, I mean, we knew that it wasn't going to be better than what it had been. So we knew that there was a shelf life and we didn't know how long that was gonna be. But the timing in which the two of us became part of the leadership team and things started to decline, it just made natural sense to start talking about it. And so that's all we did. We just started talking about it, and the more we had conversations about it, the more it made sense because of the complementary skill sets, because of the timing. both of us were in a position with, you know, there was a [00:12:00] non-compete. It's not like we could start an agency with a client from another firm. we really had to just make the leap. The two of us just philosophically are very much on the same page. So, so our values very much aligned. So I think there was a sense of trust that had just been built up over the years that, to Jen's point, it just kind of ma- made sense the more we talked about it.

Jen Briselli: Yeah. You know, I'll say this, I feel like there's, maybe more than anything, I think there's a lot of mutual respect and mutual admiration for what the other person does. politeness and friendly chat aside, I mean, early on I remember being struck because Jesse was essentially a sales guy.

You know? For me, the practitioner, my mental model or bucket for all of the biz dev folks was like, "Yeah, they're sales folks." And so I had plenty of great collaboration with lots of growth and new biz and sales folks over my career, but, it always felt a little bit far away from me and what I was interested in, because I was interested in doing the design, not selling it. And as I matured, as I grew in my own career and [00:13:00] experience, and again, credit Mad Pow for putting folks like me in a position to be directly interfacing with clients during the sales process and realizing, "Wait a minute, I actually do enjoy this. I actually really like being able to talk about the rationale and do the storytelling around why this is gonna be a useful f- process or why this is a good fit." But it never had to become my primary skill set when I worked with someone like Jesse, and I actually learned a lot from Jesse in the, first couple years that he was at Mad Pow that sound like silly little dumb things if I, list them out, like using someone's name a lot. I always go back to that, but, there are little things that I started to notice he was doing.

So I think there was really early on a very obvious mutual respect in, the skill that we both have, and that made it a lot easier, 'cause when it got to the point where we were looking to go and do our own thing, it wasn't that I thought, "Okay, now it's time to go independent. Who do I wanna collaborate with?"

It was, "I like being in collaboration with Jesse. Oh, maybe now it's time to go independent." It was the relationship was already [00:14:00] there.

How they've built trust

Kyle Soucy: And the trust required, the, like you mentioned, that's the part that I'm most fascinated by. Jesse, when you're talking with prospective clients, you're representing work that Jen ultimately helps deliver. And Jen, when you're deep in client work, you're trusting Jesse to keep the pipeline healthy.

That's, that just requires a tremendous amount of trust. How do you build that?

Jen Briselli: Well, I think to Jesse's earlier answer to the very first question, it was already being built from that first time we hung out, at that conference they sent us to, and so there was, there were years of that trust building happening. I couldn't see myself starting a business with someone that I hadn't really already worked closely with for several years.

If I look back now, I don't think I'd ever have felt comfortable doing that. But I don't know that I would've identified this upfront. But I do think a big part of it is that we both, in addition to the mutual respect and [00:15:00] admiration, I think that also cuts the other way, which is I don't wanna say I stay in my lane, but I recognize that like Jesse's bringing something that I am nowhere near as skilled at and vice versa.

Like anybody who grows over the years in terms of their leadership, you learn to delegate, but it's not about delegating like assigning. It's trusting someone to know what the hell they're doing.

And so y- at Mad Pow gave us a lot of places to do that. It felt safe to do that because if I said, "Jesse's gonna go represent me on a call," and it doesn't go right, like we were under the protection of an em- an employer.

Like it wasn't on the line for me. It was if that doesn't go well or things don't feel right, at the end of the day, it's a project that Mad Pow loses the revenue on, or it's a project that's just bumpy for me with my peer practitioners, but it doesn't feel as existential. So having a lot of those opportunities, and at every turn, Jesse demonstrated to me as a design practitioner that he actually listened to what I said and he didn't like willingly, misrepresent what we could or would do just to get the sale, [00:16:00] which, anybody who's worked in an agency or professional services who's partnered with sales folks know that's kind of, I'll say it out loud, that's it, right?

Like you, you find folks who will say or do anything to get the sale, and then it sets you, the practitioner, up in a really tough position. And I understand it's a gray area. We all have to do that a little bit in some ways so it's not black and white. But Jesse demonstrated, repeatedly to me like while we were at Mad Pow that he really wouldn't do that.

So it made it much easier to trust him once we got out into the world and said, "Let's do this on our own terms."

Kyle Soucy: Yeah, that is the absolute worst. I've been in that situation numerous times where we can't exactly deliver on what was sold, or it just didn't make sense to, or just a whole bunch of things. So it's interesting to hear that.

How they resolve disagreements

Kyle Soucy: And I'm gonna make an assumption here. I have to assume, having worked together for so long, both through Typology and then also prior to that with Mad Pow, that at some point you've disagreed.

And I'm [00:17:00] wondering, how do you resolve disagreements?

Jesse Strawbridge: That's a tough one. I don't-- There hasn't been many times I feel like that we've disagreed. I don't know. I can't even think of a single example of

Kyle Soucy: Wow. Wow. That says a

Jen Briselli: It's actually, it's making me feel strange that there's not a time we can think of, because if you think about most relationship advice, and Jesse and I have both been married to our respective spouses for a long time, so I was gonna say that anyway. I don't go in for jokes about, a work wife or a work husband 'cause I don't know about you, Jesse, but, that's never felt like the nature of our professional relationship.

we're friends, and then this all works out business-wise. but there's something I think you gain from being in a marriage or other forms of long-term relationships elsewhere in your life, around communication, around expectation, around, just the sort of, emotional intelligence kind of concept, which also I'm not a big fan of, but I'll use it as shorthand here.

So there's something that probably comes from that side that I think both of us are probably of the same [00:18:00] general level of maturity. I think when people are mismatched is when it gets tricky. If someone, just doesn't sort of have the relationship communication navigation kind of style and experience.

But it is strange to me we can't think of it. This would be like if

you were with a partner, a romantic partner for, a long time and you never fought. We know that's not healthy, so I-- maybe Jesse, maybe we need to... We've had

places actually where we definitely, our instincts are different. But almost, I would say before it would even turn into a conflict, we're already exploring it.

Like, I think both of us just, we're just instinctively motivated to be constantly talking about what we're seeing on the landscape of our various practices. We're talking about what our instincts are in terms of what clients or prospects that we're talking to are thinking or feeling or wanting. And then when we have a decision to make or, some kind of, t-tactical kind of s- challenge to solve, we've already been talking about it up to the point where there won't be conflict because we've been, like, kind [00:19:00] of litigating and navigating those potential conflict boundaries, like, all the way through.

So there have been definitely places where we've had different instincts, but one way or another we work through that, or one of us just bulldozes the other. Sometimes it's me.

Jesse Strawbridge: well, well, I was gonna say, Jen has an amazing ability to, because she can't help but be the strategist that she is, she's looking at every scenario that emerges from all angles right away, and she's processing that, and she does that out loud, whether that's through conversation or via Slack.

she is very good, and this is something I've tried to work on getting better at, but the proactive communication about, "This thing happened. Here is how I'm feeling about it. Here are the different ways to look, at it." I mean, I can literally just either have a conversation with Jen or we can go back and forth via Slack, and I have seen around the world how this could move forward.

And so we're [00:20:00] discussing everything with a, with almost like a common playing field where we're going, okay, we've assessed this landscape. We've talked about the pluses and minuses of what these decisions could do," and so it makes decision-making much easier, when you work with somebody like Jen, who's just constantly doing that.

And I know that's both a blessing and a curse for Jen, but it has been a blessing for me because she's processing so quickly, honestly, and diagnosing scenarios, and then we're kind of talking about it with the same set of ingredients before we decide what to do.

Kyle Soucy: Yeah, the talking it out, it sounds to me what I'm hearing is that, there's no arguments because you're just talking through it, before it becomes a big thing. which sounds like such a great relationship, good communication, between the two of you.

Kyle Soucy: [00:00:00] Welcome to the UX consultants lounge. I'm Kyle Soucy, founder of Usable Interface an independent UX research consultancy. You can find out more about my work and the services I offer at my website, usableinterface.com. I'll be your host here at the lounge where I'll be providing a place for UX consultants to gather, share stories, and learn more from one another.

 This is a great, great episode. If you're an independent consultant like me, And you've ever wished you could just have a partner that took care of all the sales and business development, that's exactly the setup that my guests [00:01:00] have.

Today I'm joined by Jen Briselli and Jesse Strawbridge, co-founders of Topology, which is an experience strategy consultancy that helps teams make sense of complex human systems and figure out what to do next. And I have to say Topology is a pretty perfect name for what they do because so much of their work is about connections, patterns, relationships, and just helping people see the bigger system they're operating in

Jen is a strategist, researcher, designer, educator, and generalist in just the best possible way. She has this incredible ability to connect ideas across disciplines and help teams make sense of ambiguity and complexity.

Jesse is a relationship builder and connector. His focus at Topology is [00:02:00] business development, client relationships, and creating the conditions for meaningful work to happen. And honestly, that setup is the reason I wanted to have them on the show.

As independent consultants, so many of us are wearing every single hat. We're doing the client work, writing the proposals, following up with past clients, trying to keep the pipeline warm, marketing ourselves, networking, and then somehow also remembering to sleep.

Jen and Jesse have built something different. Jesse focuses on relationships and business development. Jen focuses more on the client work, strategy, and delivery. And I'll admit it, I am deeply envious. As someone who has been doing this independently for a long time, I felt this conversation in my bones.

The [00:03:00] constant tension between serving the clients you already have and nurturing the relationships that might lead to future work is very real and can be exhausting What I think really makes Jen and Jesse's partnership special isn't just the division of labor. It's the mutual trust, respect, and genuine admiration they have for what the other person does. You can hear it throughout the conversation.

We talk about how Topology started after Mad Pow, another agency that they worked at, and how they decide which projects are a good fit for them, what the handoff looks like from sales to delivery, why relationships are at the center of their business, and what those of us who don't have a Jessee or a Jen can learn from how they've built their consultancy.

So with [00:04:00] that, please enjoy my conversation with Jen Briselli and Jesse Strawbridge

Hi Jen and Jesse, welcome to the UX Consultants Lounge.

Jen Briselli: Happy to be here.

Jesse Strawbridge: Thanks for having us, Kyle.

Kyle Soucy: Yeah. I'm so happy to finally have you both here. And before we dive in, I'd like to share just how we know each other because I think it's one of those small UX world moments. So the three of us all have Mad Pow roots, and for those who don't know, Mad Pow was a very successful experience design agency that had locations in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as well as Boston.

And if you haven't listened to my interview with Amy Heymans , one of the founders of Mad Pow, I highly suggest you do so because she was very generous with her vulnerability and sharing what it was like to sell that agency. So it's a good one to listen to. [00:05:00] But I subcontracted with Mad Pow's research team on and off for about 11 years basically whenever they needed research support and my availability lined up.

But meanwhile, both of you two were internal employees there. And what's funny is that after all those years, we never actually worked together.

You know, we knew of each other but somehow never crossed paths. and it wasn't until years later, actually last year, that Jesse and I finally met at Boston UXPA conference.

And then, at Jesse's insistence, Jen and I had a chance to connect one-on-one. And after those conversations, I remember thinking, "These two need to come on the podcast." And the reason wasn't simply, because you started a successful, consultancy. It was because of how you built it. Jesse, you've intentionally focused your role around business development, [00:06:00] relationships, growing the business.

How they decide a project is the right fit for them

Kyle Soucy: And let's talk about how you decide what work is right for Typology.

So what makes a project feel like a good fit?

Jesse Strawbridge: That's a good question. I think because we've worked together for so long, we both have a pretty good understanding [00:21:00] of whether it's the right type of work, and maybe more importantly, is it the right client relationship? I think we've seen all the different flavors of clients over the years. that may be an exaggeration, but we've seen at least a broad spectrum of the type of people that would hire a firm like Topology, and we've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of where that goes. I think ultimately the two of us are very much on the same page with we are not in the business of chasing revenue just for revenue's sake, and that's a bit of a rare thing.

A lot of people that are business owners, I think they have an ingrained sense of, "We need to just go generate some revenue, and it may not be the perfect fit, but we need revenue." And there's a certain truth to that, for sure, of course, like w- we need to keep the lights on. I think part of the, the way that we set up our firm as just with such low overhead, it's just the two of us.

We don't have full-time employees. We don't have an office. That enables us to be a little bit more selective in that way.

So I think we can get a good sense pretty early on if [00:22:00] it will be the type of partner that will be a good fit for us. and, we're looking for strategic partnerships ultimately.

So through the conversations that we have initially, you can get a sense of are they looking for a pair of hands, a vendor, somebody who has a skill set to just do something, or are they looking for really a thought partner to help think through even how you scope the work? I think that goes a long way to it.

Th- I mean, there's a lot m- more to it than that, but I think, because of all these years of working together, we have a pretty good sense of this is gonna go generally well. And all projects don't go perfectly for us by any means. you don't really know until you get into it. Um, you know, and Jen always says you find out what the real project is, two or three or four weeks into the project itself.

There's

Kyle Soucy: Oh, so true.

Jesse Strawbridge: evolving. But, yeah, Jen, I don't know what you'd add to that, but

The other thing I can say, Kyle, too, is we do have a bit of a criteria l-list of questions that we ask. So when an opportunity comes in, we have 10 questions that we go through and attempt to answer those questions as objectively as we can. And they're [00:23:00] yes or no questions, and the goal is answer them honestly, and if you have seven of 10 answers yes, proceed to the next step. and if we have five or six nos, when we go through that list, we know pretty right this isn't really a great opportunity for us. so we're very transparent with each other, and then even with the prospective client early on with really an orientation to is this a good fit for both sides? and that idea of evaluating each opportunity in a really two-way,approach I, I think goes a long way as well. So there is a little bit of a we've got a tool that like if you're on the fence about something, let's go through this process and see where we end up, and that helps as well.

Kyle Soucy: Now this is fascinating. So this 10 question, is this something you actually ask the prospect or is this something you just based on these sales conversations you've had, you can answer for them based off of what you've learned?

Jesse Strawbridge: They're internal questions. Yeah, so

they're [00:24:00] questions for us as topology evaluating an opportunity

and, questions like, is this an opportunity to build an interesting case study? is this in a sector where you're providing some level of good for the humans involved, whether it's the people within the organization or the end customer or end constituent, whatever that is.

there's a number of questions along those lines. there's revenue questions. There's things around just thinking about holistically, is this a good opportunity for us or not? and, trying to be honest about that. and then in terms of communicating to the client, if Jen and I go through that question list and we're not feeling like this is a definite yes, we're very comfortable sharing that with the prospective client and saying, "Here's why we think we may not be a good fit for this."

And so, that whole idea of being transparent with each other about is this good or not, and then being able to share that with the client I think is very helpful

Kyle Soucy: I love having that internal checklist. That's great

Jen Briselli: Yeah. Yeah. and a lot of that is stuff that I would credit Jesse kind of bringing to this process. there are certain [00:25:00] pieces that I think are maybe intuitive, but f- formal... This is the luxury of having a Jesse.

As I meet people who are-- who either go independent or are thinking about starting their firm, everyone is like, "I need a Jesse."

I'm like, "Yeah, you do." But, but I also think th- there's a bit of a fear in that, which when we first launched, I did have people ask me candidly on the side, "Why are you... You're really capable, Jen. You can do the sales stuff really good too. Why are you splitting half your revenue with someone who isn't billable?"

that was the sentiment, right? That I actually

heard from a few people, and I was just like, "Hey, trust me, like this is right for us and for me." So, and now everyone's "Ah, I would a, I would like to have a Jesse."

but I w- I would say that, you know, to kind of yes and a lot of that is I think sometimes folks wanna hear, what's the division of labor.

So, like that example that Jesse gave, like absolutely comes from him and his practice expertise when it comes to relationships and relationship building and then new [00:26:00] business growth, et cetera. But we both now use that process together, and it's really entangled rather than what's yours and what's mine.

Even the selling process, when we get into conversations with prospects, it's not like Jesse sales scopes and writes it completely off in a corner and then just brings me a signed statement of work. The whole process is pretty entangled, and I think that's only gonna work if you actually have the kind of relationship and trust from past working and collaborating together that's gonna make that possible, so.

The red flags they look out for

Kyle Soucy: That's great. And I wanna dive deep into that, the process of how you get from sales to delivery and handoff. before I do, I just wanted to ask, on this topic of, choosing the right work, are there red flags for you two where you're like, "This is not a fit, a definite pass?"

Jen Briselli: I j- I... How do, how to diplomat-- I mean,

A, to be diplomatic, but B, it is so context dependent, right? Some of it is truly [00:27:00] follow your gut. If you've been doing the work long enough, you kind of just know. and maybe post-hoc you could go back and point out what gave you the heebie-jeebies. but I would say that, the short answer for me is listening for clients who have some level of understanding of their own situation.

So sometimes somebody will ask for something or say they look-- they either th- they'll say, "I'm looking for XYZ deliverable," "I want this thing," or, "I want this kind of process," or, "I want this capability." Like they kind of-- people tend to kind of come in with one of three things. "I want a journey map," or, "I want service design," or, "I want, improved employee engagement," right?

And we all know we're all supposed to be driving towards outcomes, not outputs. but that early conversation is a place where you really have to navigate that. And for me, the red flags are when that changes a lot in the conversation. if they don't really have a level of understanding of what they even... their own current sort of situation. It doesn't have to be detailed, but there's just, there's a little red flag in there when a leader or organization doesn't really have an [00:28:00] idea of what it's even trying to achieve. Sometimes those are still worth pursuing, but those are usually a signal that things are gonna be a little bit funky. And the other one is, Jesse alluded to this, because we are really,strategic partners, thought partners, it's a lot more facilitative than it is production oriented. So if somebody's asking for just stuff, "Could you just come be an extra pair of hands and we'll give you orders and you'll produce something high quality, but we want you to just kind of do what we say." Nobody ever says that explicitly, but you can read between the lines sometimes when that's what someone's looking for. So red flag, I don't know. Maybe just we pass on those. I don't know, Jesse, if there's

more you would say.

Jesse Strawbridge: Yeah. I always get back to our, evaluation's too hard of a word, but, our understanding of the intentions of the person we're talking to. through the conversation you can really get a sense of just value alignment in terms of how you conduct a initial conversation. A lot of times just comes back to a gut feel and an instinct. after [00:29:00] doing this for just so many years, you just have these initial conversations, so you can mentally c- compare it to other ones pretty quickly and kind of say, "This conversation falls within this, section of,types of engagements we've done in the past." So yeah, it's kind of a gut feel.

 I try to stay away from RFPs, and when we have scenarios that are, we are talking to a number of firms, and we are gonna put you through a process where you're gonna answer a lot of questions and talk to lots of decision-makers, and it's a prolonged process, I find that unless you have an inside track relationship in those scenarios, they're not wise to pursue because you're gonna throw a lot of energy into it, and most likely you're not gonna win. so a- again, a- an RFP itself is a flag rather than having a conversation. We're talking to a couple firms. We're trying to get a sense of how you approach this. Have you done work like this in the past? Like the idea of evaluating and trying to find the right fit firm, I have no issue with that whatsoever, but when you get into a very procurement-run RFP process, [00:30:00] flags start popping up.

A lot with the questions that are asked and just the process itself is a flag.

Kyle Soucy: I could not agree more. The RFP process, to me, I take offense to it. I feel like it's the laziest way to try and find, and they're not looking for the right fit typically. It's more like the most bang for our buck. Well, who's gonna come in cheapest? Not necessarily the right fit.

They usually have this crazy, scope that doesn't make any sense for what they're trying to do for their objectives. Yeah, I have huge issues with RFPs.

Jen Briselli: Yeah.

Jesse Strawbridge: Talk directly to the person that's gonna work with you, like that's a problem. that is the core of it, is who are the day-to-day people? Who is my client here? and like get- getting the opportunity to have those conversations and be very open about what this is and what the objectives are and what the working engagement's gonna look like is critical to having a good project.

If you don't have that upfront expectation setting, I mean, there's so many times where I've been through a RFP processes, and even when we've won, you, you-- it's [00:31:00] like starting over because you haven't had that engagement, and then it's like, "Okay, let's re-scope this." Because

so much time has elapsed, so many different opinions and thoughts and different leaders have come in with different perspectives, that we really need to start from scratch.

So again, just having those conversations initially with the people that you're gonna work with is huge.

Jen Briselli: Well, that also highlights another thing that I think is really important, especially probably for a lot of the folks who will be listening to this kind of a podcast, Kyle. you've gotta know who you are and what you're trying to do. So if I'm an agency that's doing something that's relatively commoditized and I'm trying to win on price 'cause I've got a really optimized process, you know, an RFP is gonna be fine 'cause most RFPs, they're gonna be picking based on the lowest bidder anyway or some version of that, right?

Th- they might pretend it's not, but that might be how I plan to win, is to be the low cost or discounted or most efficient solution. And there's, nothing wrong with that. I, I-- but again, I suspect probably more of your audience is kind of at the other end, which is I'd rather win [00:32:00] on my expertise, on the unique perspective or skill set or capability that we're bringing. and that's, that means that a whole batch of ways of doing any kind of sales or pitching process are not relevant, like see RFPs, right? So

it just means you have to point your energy in other places, and in our case, it is at relationships, and it's not relationships that feel transactional or feel like, "Well, I'm friends with you until you wanna do a project together, and if you friend zone me, so to speak, I don't wanna be friends anymore."

Like, it's not... It's gotta be authentic. It's gotta be genuine, which is why

it's helpful to be in partnership with somebody who that's their whole role. 'Cause like you've said earlier, I-- when I'm,deep into a couple projects or on client work, I don't always have the cognitive or social bandwidth to even be, like, checking in and having authentic, opportunities to maintain those relationships with the sheer number of people that Jesse can.

Disagreements about whether to take on a project?

Kyle Soucy: Yeah, that makes me the most jealous of your situation because it's like I forget about [00:33:00] my past clients when I'm knee-deep in it, 'cause hon- there is no bandwidth. There absolutely is no bandwidth. I mean, and it's-- that's why we have the ebbs and flows. So I, yes, I think, it makes so much sense to have this setup that you have.

And before we get into, more of the sales, process, I just have one other question. Have you both ever disagreed about whether to take on a project?

Jen Briselli: There have been times where we've kinda gone back and forth on whether to try for a project or engage, through whatever the conversations look like, versus having it actually be, "Oh, okay, we would like to work with you," and having us decide yes versus no.

There are every once in a while, there are RFPs out there that, for whatever reason, one of us is like, "Eh, why don't we shoot our shot and see? Let's be totally, uh, you know, in the extreme on what we respond with, and then if they want us, then they got us."

But there's, there have been times where one of us has said, "This doesn't feel like it's a good fit," and then the other one is "Ah, but there's some little thing here that's just got me curious. Could we maybe, put some boundaries [00:34:00] on how much energy we put into it, but still try?"

That's about as close as I can think of to, disagreeing outright, but maybe... I want more examples of disagreements.

Jesse Strawbridge: Yeah. We haven't had a fight, Jen. We need a good-- we needed a good fight last week so we could have come in hot. Yeah,

I think for us sometimes, like we don't have disagreements about it, but I think early on we've seen a lot of, smaller firms partner up with other smaller firms and try to go after work together. And I think Jen or, and I are pretty much on the same page with that. But when, you know, last year was a slower year for us, you start going-- You start becoming a little more open to things and you start thinking, "Hey, we could try to do this thing and piece this together." And, I ultimately don't think that's a great formula f-for, at least for what Jen and I are trying to do in terms of we're only two people right now, but we still operate like we're an agency that has people

and then we have staff and all of that.

So I think we're oriented to being more of an agency like we were at Mad Pow, and we kind of operate [00:35:00] in very much the same ways. And so our instincts when it comes to opportunities like that, when you think about piecing things together, is, "Ah, I don't know that this is gonna be a great fit." So again, I don't think Jen and I disagree on that, but those are-- we have discussions about does it make sense to explore that?

Jen Briselli: even though it's just us as the two full-timers though, I mean, there are every-- we pull in all kinds of people to help, so, right? So even if somebody is a subcontractor on a project with me, as far as I'm concerned, the community of people that we invite to collaborate with us on our projects are topology people.

So like I'm still thinking about them like, "What are we getting ourselves into?" I might be scoping a project with Jesse, and I don't yet know who is gonna help me on it 'cause I haven't yet reached out to any number of people who might have availability and interest. So even if I don't know the name of the person, I still have, the shape of a human

in my mind that I'm thinking, "Is this gonna be a good or bad experience for them to be collaborating with me or others on?"

And,I do think though, to Jesse's point about whatever the circumstances are can really change what are your [00:36:00] thresholds for engagement or what you wanna do. I think being open to that and flexible to that is, is another big key, 'cause I

think a lot of folks feel most comfortable when they've got sort of a, either a bit of an internal algorithm or some principles or some rules for themselves, "We will do this, we won't do that," or hard, hard pass versus maybe versus definite yes, or, "Here are the things that we agree if this occurs, we will or won't do that."

And like we have those, formal and informal, but more than any of that, we both are really comfortable with just saying, "Hey, this circumstance is completely different than the ones in which we made those rules, so what do you say we break our own rules and do X, Y, or Z?" And I think being willing to,dare I say it, like sense and respond to the unique situation in which we find ourselves is part of the name of the game.

I mean, it's a big part of our practice in terms of that approach to working with clients. So

Kyle Soucy: Yeah. Being nimble, flexible, I think that's how we're surviving now. I appreciate you saying, Jesse, that, 2025 was [00:37:00] slow. I haven't talked to a single consultant that didn't have a bad 2025. We were all struggling. and I think that it's a testament just, how you deal with that, how you continue on, is really important.

What their sales process looks like

Kyle Soucy: And that being said, I think a lot of consultants listening would love to understand the handoff that you have, between business development and delivery with your setup. So Jesse, let's pull back the curtain a bit. What does your sales process actually look like?

Jesse Strawbridge: I guess I would say that it starts with relationships that are in place. People that we know, people that either Jen or I have worked with in the past, we worked with at Mad Pow. There's a relationship that already exists because for the majority of the US, Topology is an unknown entity. Because of our ties to Mad Pow, there's some power there, and we were able to kind of generate initial conversations because we could talk about being on the leadership team at Mad Pow and Jen being the chief [00:38:00] design strategy officer at Mad Pow. there's some weight there and some credibility there, that we were able to kind of draft off of a little bit, when we started. But I think ultimately we start with the people that we already know and would trust us to do some work, and then start to kind of build out slowly from there. So, there are times where I do reach out to people that, have never met myself or Jen.

I do outreach there on LinkedIn, via email, where I'm trying to, generate an initial conversation. But in those cases, I'm trying to at least build a really good story for why I'm reaching out, whether it's, the work we've done in a certain sector, whether it's a shared connection that we have mutual admiration for, so that you're starting from a place of common ground and understanding.

 I think one of the things that Jen and I did when we started the company is we built kind of a ideal client profile. we tried to describe Who is a client for Topology? Who are the types of people that we wanna work with? And those have both [00:39:00] tangible and un- intangible things there.

there's things that are about who that person is as an individual, and then there are things about even where they went to school or what design agency they worked at previously, that just start to get at some values alignment, and I think that's a big part of it. so to answer your question directly, I mean, I am-- I have HubSpot.

I have a group of folks that, I think are within organizations that could have budget to hire a firm like Topology that I'm reaching out to regularly with either work that we've done, thought leadership that Jen has put out in the world. I mean, I'm so, grateful for-- I mean, Jen, because she is naturally a curious person and is constantly learning about everything, she can't help but generate thoughts, ideas, speaking at conferences, writing papers.

there's so much content, and I've worked at plenty of agencies that don't have any of that,

and you are literally trying to generate relationships based on saying "Well, we did work for this company three years ago. Maybe you should talk [00:40:00] to us." I feel like in the three and a half years that we've been in business, we have built up a perspective and some differentiating approaches to the work we do with our clients that, again, from a sales standpoint, if I didn't have that, I cannot be successful doing new business if I don't have a product that I believe in, services that I believe in, teams that come together to do great work for the clients. so it all starts with that level of confidence in who we are as Topology and the work we're gonna deliver. It gives me the confidence to reach out to somebody I've never met in my life and say, "We might be able to provide value. I don't know if that's true or not, but let's have a conversation about it, and I'd love to hear what you're focused on, and let's stay in touch."

so my approach is certainly very, you know, I'm not trying to be pushy. I'm just trying to make relationships with people, and I think... I'll say this, and then I'll stop talking. I think that the general uncertainty that we've gone through,big picture and even within, design over the last four or five years is a, [00:41:00] is an environment conducive to building relationships because everyone has a sense of, "What's happening?

Where are we headed?" So there's an openness to talking with one another and comparing notes. And so if you take that orientation to it as "I'd love to just hear what you're experiencing, what you're seeing in the world, and I'll do the same," that is a great way to just start building relationships over time.

And you can tell after a couple conversations like d- is this, does this make sense to stay in touch or not? So a lot of what I'm doing is building up, I mean, it sounds like a portfolio of people, relationships that seem to kind of align with who we are as a firm, and let's just stay in touch with those people thoughtfully.

When does Jesse bring Jen into the sales process?

Kyle Soucy: And at what point in the process do you bring Jen in, and what does that look like? Uh, is it during proposal development or after that?

Jesse Strawbridge: No, I would say it's ear- it's earlier than proposal development. To me, my job is to qualify to a certain degree the human being that we're talking to. Where are, where is this person in the world? What company are they at? What are the [00:42:00] problems they're trying to solve? And just to get a general understanding of, is there an opportunity? so I feel like it's my job to do a lot of that work, and then a second conversation or a third conversation where something emerges from those initial conversations that say, "You know what? You should really talk to Jen. we did some work for so and so a couple years back that really feels relevant to this." Jen can tell those stories in so much more of an authentic way than I can because she led the work. She was involved in the work. And so I've always felt as a business development person, within a- any agency setting, the nuance of being able to talk to the dynamics that existed related to a specific project go so far with a client because they will start to... Things will spark in their minds of, "Yes, that's true here at this organization. I run into that same, obstacle." and it just comes from such a place of authenticity as opposed to a new business person saying, "We did this and we did this." It's you weren't, you didn't even run that. You didn't even work on that project.

so it's when I've, [00:43:00] when we've had a conversation that feels good and it's "You really should meet Jen," because Jen's an impressive person. And so when you get the chance to meet Jen, it just, it's that next step towards potentially working together.

And so that's my mind is it's gonna take two or three years for us to work together. There's a long path to that, and you just slowly build up kind of this foundation of trust and I like the way these operate, I like how they communicate with me, I like what I heard from Jen, oh, I heard Jen speaking at this conference. It's that slow process of every time I hear from them, I'm impressed or I like what I hear from... So it's a building process towards something as opposed to, transactional

What Jen needs from Jesse to feel prepared for a sales meeting

Kyle Soucy: Yeah. And Jen, when you enter that process, what do you need from Jesse to feel prepared?

Jen Briselli: Yeah. it's interesting because even when that threshold gets crossed where like Jen's in the v- in the mix now, it, it isn't-- I-- what I find so helpful is that it doesn't suddenly become something that I have to be contributing to,at a high level, like [00:44:00] consistently from there forward. So like Jesse might say to me, "Hey, I met this person," or, "I know this person from some part of my past life. We reconnected. We had a chat. We're gonna chat again, and it would be great if you could join, and talk a little bit about everything Jesse just said." I get on that call, we have a lovely chat, and what is so valuable to me is that I don't have to do anything after that chat

fra-frankly. You know what I mean?

Like all my practitioners, you guys get me out there, right? Because that generates a list of to-dos. you've

got notes you need to type up or if you're using a note-taking tool, whatever. But you gotta do something with what came out of that. You

gotta follow up in some way. You need to asse- and like I don't literally just hang up a Zoom call and be like, "See ya."

But you know, Jesse and I will talk briefly about, "What'd you hear? What did I hear? Oh, he might appreciate this article I wrote two years ago," or, "Oh, she might really like this video that's not mine, but I find valuable. Send it to her. She might..."

whatever. And sometimes there-- we're already at the point where it's like, "What do you think an approach would look like for this?

There's a [00:45:00] project here." and I might throw together some bullets, but like Jesse said earlier, I'm kinda always cycling through those things a-at all times, so having someone that can just take what comes out real time, and then Jesse runs with it from there. Now he won't literally do everything solo after that, but like he'll do the in between, and then maybe there's another conversation, or maybe we get to the point where we're actually drafting a proposal or a sketch or whatever it might be that we would send. That we're still collaborating on. But I guess the way I would answer it simply is Jesse kinda handles all the connective tissue in between the parts where I get to just be, a practitioner and think about the practice and the craft, and he handles all the other stuff, which is so great.

And so it's

less of a like part one is Jesse and then part two is Jen. It's more like Jesse starts and then the two of us kind of, I, you guys, listeners can't see me, but I'm making hand motions of like up and down, right? It's two waveforms going up and [00:46:00] down in a complementary way. So yeah, that's what find the

Kyle Soucy: So awesome. I mean, that, that is really great. And

Jesse's responsibilites once a project is sold

Kyle Soucy: I'm curious, when the project, is sold, they sign off on a proposal, the work starts, so how does that work? Jesse, do you check in with the client throughout the project, or is it just Jen from that point on, or

Jesse Strawbridge: The way I think about it, and we've probably done it a little bit different from time to time, but I like to make it relatively clean in terms of a handoff to Jen leading the work and becoming the primary voice from Topology.

I don't like the dynamic of Jesse's checking in to see how the work is going, because that sets up a weird dynamic between Jen and I.

And so, I'm on the Slack channel, for the project, so I can generally see the chatter related to the work that's going on. So I at least have a vague understanding of like, good, bad, bump in the road here, g- sailing towards the [00:47:00] finish line. what- wherever we are, I have a general sense of that.

 It's not like Jesse went away completely. But I think of myself as continuing from a relationship standpoint. So if we have an in-person session with a client, sometimes Jen will go solo, but sometimes I'll go if there's an opportunity to like grab dinner afterwards or something like that.

I want to look for opportunities to deepen the relationship while not undermining Jen's leadership on the project itself. so I don't know if that- that's how I'd answer it, but Jen, what would you say to that?

Jen Briselli: No, I think that's, I think that's accurate. And I, again, as a practitioner, I like leading. I'm comfortable in a leadership role. I like leading a project. I don't mind the extra bandwidth that comes into the project management/everyday things. And on a project, I do have my own relationship with the client. I can see scenarios, I could see firms where it makes sense to have somebody like a Jesse or somebody who plays that maybe like account, director kind of role, to sort of be the handler, which is how I think some people have talked about it. [00:48:00] I know that works for some folks, so like to each his own for sure.

But I don't love that because I don't feel like I'm a zoo animal that needs to be kind of kept at a

safe distance from the client, right? And at sometimes that's the dynamic that emerges even despite your best intentions. So

I think what Jesse described is very much the way. And every once in a while,there'll be some nature to a project whereby it makes sense for Jesse to just stay in the mix more,

or some other kind of arrangement.

So again, it's that flexibility to kind of decide what's right for this context and this client and this work and what have you. But,

I also deeply appreciate that he stays roughly kind of like present in-- or at least even just being immersed in the Slack channel do- does a lot.

Or he and I, we chat every week, so I give him little updates. But if I had to explain to him three weeks of context before something that I wanted him to be aware of, I-- it would-- I would find that too exhausting and I

wouldn't do it. And then we would probably become a little bit more separate from each other in our understanding of the project and then problems arise.

So the fact that he stays... At this point, [00:49:00] it's like he's still spending energy, but it's a little bit more passive and it's a little bit more sort of an ongoing,

and that is helpful to me, even if he's no longer visible to the client. And then when we get close to the end or after we wrap, we-- he's some- there's like a bookend process here where then he reaches out and, we have a,a client satisfaction survey that we give.

We wanna get feedback on how we did. He owns that, so he comes in at the end and is the... He takes the baton back for the relationship at that point.

Kyle Soucy: Yeah. That's so smart to do a satisfaction survey. I've been curious about that myself, like how to check in to make sure the client's happy. sometimes you ask for a testimonial, some will give one right away, others just sleep on it, and you don't wanna be annoying. And it's nice to just get a feeling for what the experience was like for them

Jesse Strawbridge: we found it

to be... and it's not an intensive, it's probably five questions total. So we look at it as hopefully a platform where somebody can share something good or [00:50:00] negative, then we can have a follow-up conversation. So the process essentially goes, a project wraps, Jen will send any final deliverables or, final thoughts, and then I'll hop in with a survey, and then we can see the results of the survey, and then I can follow up and have a conversation.

"Well, I'd love to hear a little bit more color on this." And I think there's a benefit to having it be somebody who wasn't actively on the project doing that,

just because it allows the client to ha- feel a little more freedom to kind of speak more freely, as opposed to not wanting to hurt someone's feelings if something didn't go quite right. so yeah, it's a rarely-- It's a pretty straightforward process, and it doesn't work all the time. sometimes clients move on right away, and you don't get much, and it is what it is. But you've still done that baton back to me, because my job then is to stay in touch with those folks. And Jen will go on to another project, and I can check in three months and just say, "How's that work, s- finding itself in the organization?

Is it being utilized everywhere?" "Let's grab coffee." So again, it's

this never-ending process of just relationship building, that, - [00:51:00] again, it just speaks back to the nature of the way we built the company so that I can do those things. I love doing those things. that's what I've been doing my entire career. So I feel the same, even though I'm a business owner now. I'm doing the same exact things that I did for 25 years at, five different Boston agencies. and Jen is allowed to go back and, focus on what she's doing, whether that's, enhancing her own practice or working on project work,whatever that is.

So it, it is a good balance in that way.

Jen's tips for independents that don't have sales and biz dev support

Kyle Soucy: it's great that you love doing those kinds of things. That's the kind of stuff that I'm just like, "Ugh, I wish someone else could do that."

Jen Briselli: Well, that's the

magic of it, which, we joke, but like when people do,hear from us now versus like when we started and everyone was like: "How's that gonna work?" I think a lot of people, they, when they make their joke about, "I wish I had a Jesse," one of the things I start to think about is, well, if you can't get your own Jesse, what are the alternatives?

And I don't know what they are. I don't... But I ask myself, what would I do if I hadn't partnered with Jesse and I had just gone independent? Like, I certainly wouldn't be doing anywhere near the same level or quality of the things Jesse's [00:52:00] describing. But even the short time I worked with him at Mad Pow would've been enough for me to start to say, "Huh, okay.

What I could follow some of those practices that I learned from him," and frankly from others at Mad Pow, right? As we've mentioned, that place was, an important springboard for a lot of things for a lot of people. But there's ano aspect to this that I think is largely knowing, like you guys both just said, what, gives you energy and what drains you.

So the pieces of the selling, scoping new biz process that give me energy, I would still be doing. and a lot of that is those conversations. I like having the conversations about the work. And then the stuff that I'm like, "Forget it, this just drains me," luckily, that's what Jesse likes to do, but if Jesse wasn't here, I would be finding some way, whether it's fractional support, virtual assistance, some other human support. It just requires me or the person in question to really have a good sense of self to say, "I like this. I don't like that. Can I make a list of the things that I want to happen between and during projects and selling that I don't wanna do, that I can trust in some small way to another human?"

I think there are a lot of people out [00:53:00] there who could find that kind of support.

So anyway,

I just want everyone to have their own Jesse.

Kyle Soucy: yeah. those are great tips

Jesse Strawbridge: stop saying that phrase because everybody who has done new business work like I have for all these years is looking for a Jen. So, again, like from a new business standpoint, it is just, it, I'm so grateful to have,again, somebody like Jen that I can, I don't even have to set context sometimes for Jen, and she can jump into a conversation and fi- and figure it out through the

conversation. that is a very rare thing, to have. So, every new business person out there needs a Jen too.

Jen Briselli: I mean, and I enjoy that, and I think some of that is my history, my background. I was a teacher for a long time before I went back to school and did my design degree and then, moved in. And so being in front, it's not that I like being in front of people.

that's its own separate conversation. But I do have an ease and a comfort in that mode, and I also really relish the opportunity to be a person or be the reason that people get exposed to new [00:54:00] ideas. So I know that makes me tick, but everything you've just described is partly why this partnership and these dynamics work so well.

but that doesn't mean that every design or UX person out there should want to be this way. I think it's perfectly reasonable for someone to be a very, "I just wanna get the head down, do the work here. It's a great thing."

it just creates a different challenge for that person to solve. It's a different shaped puzzle piece that they need to find that matches what they do and don't like, because there are

probably folks like Jesse out there who would happily do more of the client-facing part on that other person's behalf. But again, it, I think it comes down to you gotta identify the contours of your puzzle piece before you can figure out what the other puzzle piece needs to look like. And

none of us really ever are given a lot of time to do that.

I had the luxury of the last year of Mad Pow forcing me to do that. I might not have done that reflection if I didn't have that situation forcing me to really think about what I wanted next.

Jesse's tips for independents that don't have sales or biz dev support

Kyle Soucy: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way to look at it. And Jen, you shared some great tips there for people who don't have a [00:55:00] Jesse. And, Jesse, I am wondering,what would you tell folks that are listening, that are just doing it all themselves like me? What would you want them to understand about building a pipeline?

Jesse Strawbridge: I think part of it starts with understanding who you are and what areas of new business, marketing, sales, whatever you wanna say, does give you some level of energy. Like for me,I'm a natural-born introvert So I don't

like going to a conference and working a crowd and talking to people and h- business cards. So how I approach that is if I am going to a conference, I will try to reach out to people directly to set up one-on-one coffee meetings. I'm much more comfortable in a one-on-one setting being h- just my authentic self with somebody and seeing if there's a fit that way. so I would encourage any solo practitioner who has to do new business to figure out what is it that they do find some [00:56:00] level of energy, what do they appreciate about, whether it's relationship building or may- or maybe it's marketing.

Maybe putting together a dynamic, a podcast like you're doing, or a newsletter or something that's more broad-based marketing that is getting out thought leadership, maybe that's a comfort level. But I think because, to your earlier point, Kyle, about just how little time you have to do things, you have to be super selective. So I think about it in terms of picking a single lane that you feel comfortable with and you think will bear fruit, and really investing time in that and dedicating some time every week. Dedicating a half a day a week, a full day if you could do it, and just saying, "I'm blocking time to do these things."

And even if that is just a message to the 20 people you look up to and have worked with in the past or have some level of respect with that could lead to work in the future, and you just message them or you send them something interesting. doing nothing isn't the strategy. There's gotta be a lane that you pick, and you do some [00:57:00] experiments with it and see how it works.

And if it's not working, try something else. trust me, last year is slow, like, as the new business side of Topology, you do a lot of reflection around what am I doing wrong here? we are not generating the work that we're supposed to be getting. My job is to generate work. so you know, experimenting with new things, trying new things, and Jen has been so helpful for me in terms of she's not driving me like, "Jesse, w- what's the pipeline report?"

there's none of that with her. it's all self-driven on my part. but in a down year, you have to kind of really find new ways and y- we spent a lot of time with marketing materials last year. We spent a lot of time thinking about our messaging, thinking about packaging up our services in different ways, and just getting creative about how we talk about Topology. And again, did any of those things lead d- directly to revenue? I don't know. But they were helpful, and we find the materials that we generated last year are being useful now. we're putting them, when we have a conversation, we've got some materials that we generated. So I don't know, getting back to your question, I think it's being very focused and dedicating some [00:58:00] time to it, because it's a very difficult thing to do, and new business is always gonna come last when you have active clients.

 How they feel when one of them is busy and the other isn't

Kyle Soucy: Yeah. And, it takes a while, like you said, to sometimes build for the, for those leads to turn into actual work. And,with the division of roles here and responsibilities, how do you both handle or feel about when one of you is really busy and the other one is not?

Jesse Strawbridge: Jen's always really busy you know, she's always, writing something or reading or having conversations with other practitioners. There's never any time where I'm thinking, "Oh, Jen is slacking off." that just doesn't happen. so I don't know.

I don't know if I'm answering your question. I-- And I'm a little different than Jen in that the structure of the day is useful to me, so I structure my days to focus on, more in-depth impact work in the mornings and then more administrative stuff in the afternoon. And I try to structure my days because I-- With new business, because it is such a long game, you have to do lots of little things all the time.

So for [00:59:00] me, a lot of it is not, a lot of it is not even highly strategic. It's a lot of just activities and follow-up and make sure I set a task and, those types of things. So,

Jen, I don't know how you'd answer that question, but

Jen Briselli: Yeah, I think the difference you've described is pretty s- stark to me, that you-- what you're doing is almost kind of an ongoing maintenance type of thing, and then once in a while there's a, an uptick when there's something we're specifically scoping and getting ready to sell and to start, Versus I'm almost always moving in, up and down through different types of things. it's not like ongoing maintenance. It's more like a, oh, there's a rush of something happening or there's this, whether it's a project, or whether it's something else, and then there's like this downtime. And anybody who's worked in an agency setting knows you get that ebb and flow and you just roll with it.

You have to let it flow. You can't fight it. If you have a downtime, you can't get weirded out by the quiet. I've learned to really take advantage of and enjoy the quiet period between active work if, when and if they exist, [01:00:00] because that is where I can do deeper dives into my own stuff and,

learn and grow and talk to other folks, that I don't have time to do when I'm heads down on client work for weeks and weeks at a time.

So the difference in those two styles, again, are complementary, but it also means like I know about myself not to freak out if I feel like I've got a kinda light, open schedule and Jesse is really still regimented, like I don't feel guilty,

and vice versa. there are times where I'm really busy, heads down, and I know Jesse's got a little bit of a lighter schedule, and it's nice to actually have a lot of times those be opposite because it means if something comes in or if something needs our attention, you know, any of the things that have nothing to do with what we're talking about today, but just running a business, some random thing from, the Department of Labor comes, a question about taxes or this or that, some random other thing, it's almost kinda like we take turns by virtue of our working styles being kinda on duty for other stuff because one of us is usually pretty busy and the other one isn't.

So

it works out.

Kyle Soucy: I'm always asked, [01:01:00] "How's it going?" are-- And basically they wanna, like, "Are you busy?" And I always think it's funny, and I said this on a panel just last month, at UXPA Boston Conference about consulting, that I'm never not busy because I should always be doing prospecting, business development.

It never ends. the sales process is all-consuming. and sadly, it stops because of the client work, because you need it to be all-consuming and continuous if you wanna have the consistent pipeline. So it's almost impossible, not to have ebbs and flows. Yeah.

Jen Briselli: Yeah,

I mean, that's... You kinda can't-- If you try to, contain the ebb and the flow to be a little bit more predictable or to work better with what you think it should be, you just shoot yourself in the foot. especially as crea- I mean, not to... I don't know that, again, I buy some of the stereotypes about, creatives, but I think for folks in design and UX and research and a lot of these fields, it's so important that you flow with whatever the energy is.

So if I have, three things I know I need to do this [01:02:00] week, I might tell myself I should prioritize thing A, and, logically on paper, A really does have priority. I learned long ago that I gotta do the thing that I'm drawn to first, because if I want to do B more, but I force myself to do A first, and then B is, my reward for A or something, it just is no good. I have to just trust. It's a leap of faith, but it's in myself. I have trust in myself that I'm gonna do the thing that is drawing me first, and then the thing I really should be prioritizing will come more easily after that. Now, of course, there's a limit to that. I can't keep putting off A forever and ever.

But I think that is way more pronounced when you're a business owner than when you're, working, for someone else, because, those choices and where your, quote, "energy" is pointing you feels like there's higher stakes between your decisions to do A versus B. So anyway, just to

basically say yes, and to what you've said.

that's a big piece of it, is trusting yourself to do what your energy is asking you to do, but know that you'll get what you need to get [01:03:00] done. And that long horizon. A- all the stuff that Jesse's doing is planting seeds, and some of them, I-- we have no clue if they'll germinate. If the soil's no good, if the seeds are dud, we have no clue.

And things will come back years later that we're like, "Wow, that person remembered us? We made an impression on them, and now they wanna do a project? They've moved at three companies over that they're now in a role that's totally different, and we w-" What? and those happen, and you don't know. So it's a little bit like cultivating in, an agricultural sense, an organized way. I think of Jesse as, going up and down the rows and, planting the seeds and then watering them and, doing it with some level of consistency, like on a farm.

And then there's also the part where you just randomly scatter some seeds to the wind and see what's gonna happen and what an animal's gonna pick up and poop out somewhere else.

dude, it's so

random, right? So you just have to know that it's one part agricultural seed planting and cultivating, and it's one part Johnny Appleseed, I guess. I don't know.

What selling means to Jesse

Kyle Soucy: And I don't have, unfortunately enough time in this interview 'cause I could talk to you guys for [01:04:00] hours really.

But I want to put include, in the show notes of this, episode links to both of your Medium,accounts because you guys are really good writers. And, Jesse, one thing I really enjoyed about your writing is that you don't seem to talk about sales as selling.

You talk much more about relationships and trust and authentic connection and just being genuinely helpful. And I think it's good for folks to, to read about that. And just a quick question on that. how do you think about business development and finding new growth opportunities for the company?

Like what, what does selling mean to you?

Jesse Strawbridge: It does start with the relationship for sure. I wrote aboutthe idea of being comfortable with who you are first and foremost, and I think I am somebody that shows up to a conversation and I'm not trying to impress someone. I'm not trying [01:05:00] to build up topology right away.

I try to approach those conversations with real curiosity about what are you doing in the world? what are you struggling with? And I'm very comfortable talking about my own things that I struggle with, so I'm very self-aware in that way, and I think that just opens folks up to just being themselves,

and I think that always leads to good things because if there's times where you're having conversations and there's a performance aspect to it, it's just not, it's not gonna go anywhere necessarily great. so I don't know. I ha- have kind of embraced the idea of sales as a lot of salespeople don't like talking about that they do sales, but I think now that I'm a business owner, it's a necessary part of any business. You have

to go out and sell your work, and you have to get paid or else you don't exist. So I would just encourage people to not think of sales as a four-letter word or feel, feel icky. I know a lot of people have trouble just reaching out to people, and I think I'm lucky because I was in small agencies my whole career, [01:06:00] and I was being asked to do new business when I was right out of college.

So 1999 to now, I've been asked to just s- write an email or call someone on the phone, and I've been able to get comfortable with that, and if you do that in a way that is authentic to yourself and,isn't overly pushy, you can do it, and people understand it because you're part of a business, and that's what capitalism requires, sales.

So, I guess I'll say that.

Jen's thoughts on the tension in consulting around clients needs

Kyle Soucy: Yeah. And Jen, an idea in your writing that really resonated with me was, the idea of leaving clients better than you found them. And I love that because I think there's an interesting tension in consulting. You know, on the one hand, your business depends on clients needing you, but on the other hand, the best consulting often makes clients stronger and less dependent.

So how do you think about that tension?

Jen Briselli: Well, you've just nailed the tension, and I think that the answer to that sort of paradox is that it, it-- if you really [01:07:00] do it effectively, you're not really ever gonna put yourself out of work. I mean, in theory, if I'm such a good consultant that you work with me and then you never need me again, I've like, you know, I'm gonna systematically work my way through a market, no one will be able to hire...

Like, that's just not, that's not gonna happen, right? I mean, hey man, we went into business so that we could, have some level of control of our own destiny, but also because it's the fastest way to get to do work that I find both intellectually stimulating but also then is helping humans in the way that I think is important and getting to decide what matches our values and stuff like we've talked about. So If I were to actually help a client so much that they would literally never need help from me or any other consultant ever again, I would consider that a worthy cost to pay for having chosen this line of work. That's mission-driven or values-driven to me.

But again, I think realistically it's just never really a danger because if you have built a relationship and you've demonstrated that what you're doing is not meant to build that codependence to do the land and expand and get your claws in, that kind of thing, but rather to [01:08:00] simply be a trustworthy helper, and whether you're doing something specific like apply a design process or deliver an output or just facilitate some process by which you are getting humans together to collaborate in new ways that produce new insights and make new things happen That becomes this like meta thing that is always relevant all the time.

 So I have yet to get to the point where that tension actually means lost work. Maybe that would be like the ultimate dream. But I will also say that it is part of why I've even written about it, right, in the couple places I did, was because it's almost like people are a little bit afraid to say it out loud. Like they're a little bit afraid to say, "I don't want to be like those consulting firms that operate on that standard practice," and,fear being called like naive.

This is not naivety. Jesse and I aren't young. No offense, Jesse, you and I aren't spring chickens, right? Like we know, we've been through it, and [01:09:00] there's an active deliberate choice here. So I like being able to sort of point out that I think a lot of folks feel this way, that I don't... People don't often talk about the idea that maybe I don't want to land and expand. I want to have

a meaningful relationship and help improve some kind of human outcomes, but it doesn't mean that I have to become the thing on which you're dependent. You can really do a lot of forms of liberating work outside of that paradigm.

How they define success for their consultancy

Kyle Soucy: And that gets to really defining success. So how do you both define success for Topology today?

Jesse Strawbridge: F- for us, I think the idea that we built this in a way that we can help the organizations that we work with is great, but we are also doing this for our own lifestyle. And so, when I think about having more of an ability to make choices on where we spend our time and energy, that has been just a wonderful thing in terms of even some of the back and forth that Jen and I have naturally because of the role of our nature.

[01:10:00] it, the role of our job with Typology, it allows us to have that balance in life where there are times where I'm much busier than Jen and vice versa, and it allows me to be with my family and go on a trip somewhere or sit in the backyard and read a book, you know? So I think success is creating,a, an infrastructure that allows us to live our best lives, frankly

Jen Briselli: Ooh, that's a good one. That's-- we gotta hold onto that phrase. Ah, the infrastructure that allows us to... Yes. Well, I, that's basically what I was gonna say, but nowhere near as articulately, right? That it is look, I went to the beach yesterday on a Tuesday in June because I could, 'cause I didn't have any, meetings booked, and I realized two days out, that was the case.

So "Hey, Jesse, I'm going to the beach. I'll be back in the afternoon." And

Kyle Soucy: Nice

Jen Briselli: that is it, right? Or I do that in the winter with snowboarding, where if I can-- I think both of us love a four-day workweek. It's hard in an agency to try to make that a real thing 'cause our clients don't work four-day workweeks, so we can't really do it schedule-wise.

But [01:11:00] I'm a big believer in that, and I would say that success is, do I feel morally, ethically, socially, and intellectually good about the work we're doing? Do I feel like we are somehow materially improving someone else's wellbeing? And can I go to the beach or go snowboarding on a random Tuesday, depending on what season it is?

then yeah. Then that's all, that's it. That's success

Kyle Soucy: That's awesome. And I concur completely. it is just so important that there's a reason why we're independent or why we're out on our own. We're our own boss, and if we don't do those things, then what's the point?

Jen Briselli: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. If you want the security,there are plenty of W-2 jobs out there, but you realize at some point you're a little bit more of a misfit.

there's a nice trade-off to be had

Best piece of business advice they've received

Kyle Soucy: Totally. So just to wrap up here in the remaining minutes we have, I have a few rapid-fire questions for you. one, what's the best piece of business advice you've ever received?

Jesse Strawbridge: Mine was don't [01:12:00] come up with a plan.

You know, don't think about your career as a stepping stool where you do one thing and it leads to the next. Um, about 15 years ago, a guy that I respect very much basically said all of that goes out the window. There's not a lot of truth to that. Work with good people.

Go where your instincts tell you. And that was really helpful to me 'cause it got me off this thought of what should I be doing next?

Jen Briselli: I didn't know that. Mine is something my dad once said to me that I will not share the larger story and the context of it, but this was not business advice, and he was for many years a project manager, for a large construction firm. He's an engineer. And he said to me in the conversation about some weird sketchy things that he was choosing to do to get the job done on time and on budget, and I called him out and I was like, "What if so-and-so calls your bluff?

Isn't this gonna go sideways?" And his words were, "Sometimes, Jen, the key to life is you have to be marginally irresponsible."

so that has carried me since. Sometimes you have [01:13:00] to be just marginally irresponsible.

Every independent consultant should...

Kyle Soucy: Calculated risks. Yeah,

I like that.complete this sentence: Every independent consultant should...

Jen Briselli: Have a Jesse?

Kyle Soucy: Yeah. Can you clone yourself, Jesse? I mean, we're not asking too much here.

Jesse Strawbridge: Some day maybe. I think that's Tom Brady cloned his dog, so maybe

Jen Briselli: Actually, my answer is drop the shoulds. The reason it's hard for me to even finish that sentence is 'cause what is, what is should? To Jesse's point about plans

and everything is so context sensitive, so yeah.

Kyle Soucy: Nice.

Their recommended resources

Kyle Soucy: And last one here. What's a book, podcast, article, resource of any kind that's been just especially influential for you? It could be related to consulting or just your work in general

Jesse Strawbridge: Mine's easy, and it might help, practitioners just from a new business standpoint. there's a guy named Blair Enns that I've followed for a [01:14:00] long time. he has a firm called Win Without Pitching.

and just a lot of the philosophies that, that he has shared over the years have been just very valuable to me in terms of, framing opportunities and the way to go about new business.

So I'd recommend him for sure.

Jen Briselli: God, this is always such a hard question, so I won't even answer it the right way. But, anytime I wanna reach for a book or a podcast, my brain scans back through whatever I've read in the last couple months, and I just am constantly consuming. I love learning. But I actually think the answer is look at literally every person that you interact with as the source of that thing.

So,people over time ask "Well, who have your mentors been?" Or, "Who have you learned the most from?" I'm like, man, my mentors are like the dead authors of books I've read. My mentor is the bus driver that I observed interact with that woman in that weird situation on the bus yesterday. So my answer, which is me being a little bit cute, and I'm sorry about that, but

is not a specific book or podcast, but is just to say, man, [01:15:00] like just everything is a learning experience and every person has something to offer you if you're willing to be like an apprentice to the world kind of thing.

So there you have it.

Kyle Soucy: I love that. No, I listened to someone, I'm gonna blank on his name. I'll put it in the show notes, but he had this way of finding new things to talk about 'cause he was a speaker, and he said, "You have to do homework for life." And every day his homework is to just notice the little things, and it's like a lens that you give yourself just to look at the world in a different way 'cause there's a million stories in every interaction.

So I love that.

Jen Briselli: Totally

Kyle Soucy: Jen, Jesse, this has been so great. I'm so glad to, be able to talk to you about topology. It's very impressive what you've been able to set up here. I think that what you've designed, uh, you know, around your individual strengths, but the fact that you've cultivated this tremendous amount of trust, mutual [01:16:00] respect as you've mentioned, and just that shared philosophy of just how to work, with your clients, I think it's wonderful, and I think our listeners are going to walk away with a lot to think about.

So thank you so much for joining me in the lounge.

Jen Briselli: Yeah, it's my pleasure

Jesse Strawbridge: was fun. It was fun

Kyle Soucy: Great. Well, again, I'll include everything in the show notes. Is there any other, things you wanna mention for folks to stay in touch with you?

Jen Briselli: Only that I love to chat about anything and all things, especially related to the practice. So find me on LinkedIn or email or whatever is easy, 'cause I get sucked into those conversations quite easily and happy to do it.

Kyle Soucy: Great

Jesse Strawbridge: Same. Happy to talk new business anytime

Kyle Soucy: Wonderful. Well, thank you both again. Take care.

Jesse Strawbridge: Thanks Kyle

Jen Briselli: Thanks

Kyle Soucy: All right. That wraps up this episode. Thanks for joining me. So do you have a topic or a question that you would like us to explore on a future episode of the UX consultants lounge? [01:17:00] Perhaps there's an anonymous consulting story you want to submit.

If so, click on the link in the show notes to submit your story or question from the podcast website. Until next time, keep that consultancy going. I can't wait to have you back in the lounge for our next episode.

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