Mature workers are the heart and lungs of the TrinityP3 business. They are the engine that makes the business concept work. Let me explain.
When I started the TrinityP3 consulting business two decades ago, it was clear I needed subject matter experts. The disciplines of marketing, media and advertising are too broad for anyone, including me, to bring the required level of expertise to the business. I needed to recruit mature practitioners across a range of disciplines. Production. Media. Finance. Agency Management. Marketing and Advertising Technology. Marketing. And more.
This is not like a typical management consulting firm, where a handful of senior partners fill the ranks with recent graduates, to grind through the consulting work at inflated hourly rates. The TrinityP3 business was a specialist in what was, at the time, a niche. Only consulting on marketing and within marketing, particularly media and advertising.
Therefore, graduates would not cut it. I needed people with hands-on experience. Preferably years of experience, so that they could bring a number of different perspectives and solutions to the problems we were tackling for our clients.
Luckily for me, advertising is an industry that likes to discard subject matter experts just as they build that expertise. It is well noted that it is a young person’s business. So, many well credentialled and experienced practitioners, who do not fit into the predetermined mould of agency management, are regularly let go, sometimes even several decades before retirement age. They often have as many years of profitable working life ahead as they have years of specialist experience under their belts.
What are their choices? The narrower their expertise, the less likely they are to transition to other industries. Even with retraining, they are competing with younger and cheaper people in their chosen new industry. Many will look to provide consulting services themselves. They will set up a company or take sole trader status and look for contract work. This is a trend, not just in marketing and advertising, but across the business world generally. We have seen significant growth in micro-business. These are largely set up to be a vehicle to employ the owner on a casual or contract basis.
But being an expert technician in a particular field does not always equate to running a successful business. As Gerber defines in the book the E-Myth, successful businesses need not just the technician to do the work, but the manager to manage the business and the entrepreneur with the vision and skills to grow the business. While they may successfully win work and projects, day-to-day management, marketing and sales is not what they enjoy. Therefore, the TrinityP3 model allows these experts in their field to focus on doing the work they love, while TrinityP3 manages the rest.
From virtually our first year of operation, I was working with many more subject matter experts I had known during my advertising career. People who, like me had been let go from the advertising industry. But who, unlike me, were not looking to build a business, beyond a consulting practice to ply their skills. There was never any issue around who was in charge because TrinityP3 has never been about hierarchy.
Sure, it is my business. But I know and it is clear that it functions across the breadth of disciplines because of the skills and expertise of those consultants. In my mind and approach, we work together.
In return for providing TrinityP3 with a depth and breadth of capabilities, expertise and skills, the consultants get a sense of belonging. Most projects these days are team efforts, with each expert bringing their knowledge to the task. They also enjoy a high level of autonomy, because while they work within the methodologies and practices of TrinityP3, they also have the flexibility to manage their own time and working locations. There is no point in hiring adults and treating them like children.
Something must be working, because we have consultants who have been working with TrinityP3 for ten years and in some cases up to 16 years. There are even those who have left to go back into full-time employment, only to return to consulting with us. And as long as they are willing and able to provide the knowledge and expertise our clients need, there will always be a place for them at TrinityP3.
This article first appeared in the First5000 on August 14, 2020
TrinityP3 Marketing Management Consultants are industry professionals who have a minimum of ten years industry experience and are subject matter experts in all areas of marketing, media and advertising. You can meet our people here
