As AI compresses the technical work, the deliverable itself is becoming a commodity. What still isn’t: how a client feels about working with you. In this session, John Roberson, founder of Advent, shares how his firm has spent 25 years designing immersive experiences for pro sports teams, universities, and real estate developers. John translates what he knows about orchestrating physical experiences into practical moves for boutique pro serv firms whose client contact happens over Zoom, PDFs, and slide decks.
What you’ll get from this session:
- Why the intangibles, not the deliverable, decide most close-vs-lose proposals
- How to replace “”engagement manager plus three”” with named humans, and why that wins deals
- How to package experience as a distinct, premium offering in your proposal, not a throw-in
Why it matters:
- When AI flattens the work, the firm that feels different wins
- Most boutiques under-invest in client experience because they treat it as soft, not strategic
- Experience is a lever boutiques can pull that the big firms structurally cannot
TRANSCRIPT
Greg Alexander: Hey everybody, this is Greg Alexander. You’re listening to the Pro Serv Podcast, brought to you by Collective 54. If you’re new to this show, we aim to do three things, and that is to help you make more money, make scaling easier, and make an exit achievable. And we’re dedicated to a single audience, that is, founders of boutique professional services firms, so if you are in the expertise business. This is for you. And on today’s episode, I have a friend of mine and a long-standing, well-respected, well-liked member of Collective 54, John Roberson, and he is with a company called Advent. And he is a true expert In the world of creating immersive experiences. And John and I recently caught up a few weeks back, and he was telling me about this incredible spear-like thing that he’s creating for his clients, and if you don’t know what the spear is, that’s this new, fantastic attraction in Las Vegas, and he has figured out a way to bring that to his clients. And in that conversation, I was reminded just how brilliant he was. And the area of the client experience. And I reached out to him, and I said, listen. Many of our members right now are kind of under attack of becoming a commodity because of AI. And we have to focus on the things that we as humans can do that the AI cannot do, and I believe one of those things is creating memorable, emotional experiences for clients, and he agreed with me, and he’s gonna do his best to translate his methodology from what he does, and he serves incredible people, like the Las Vegas A’s, and the Dallas Cowboys, and… University of Southern California and Stanford, etc. And what he does is he brings physical experiences to those businesses. And he’s gonna try to translate that to our community, who don’t have physical experiences, but I believe that the principles of a world-class experience remain. So that’s what we’re going to do today. Before I jump into my questions, of which I have many, John, would you be kind enough to reintroduce yourself to our audience?
John Roberson: Sure, well, first of all, I want the audience to know I’m a big fan of Greg Alexander, and the reason that I am is because of… he fulfills that purpose of paying forward his life lessons, his business lessons, to those of us who are in professional services. And encountering Greg and Collective 54 during the pandemic was a lifeline for me. It shared with the community of people. that really go through some of the same challenges that I face, and Greg, I can’t thank you and your team enough. I really appreciate it. In terms of who we are, Advent is a 25-year-old organization, and we focus on, as our purpose statement says, creating experiences that move people. So we’re a team of creative people. We’re in the, strategic creative business. But for our clients, we really try to focus on how do you orchestrate an experience, I’ll define that in just a moment, but that moves people, that persuades. So at the end of a created, choreographed, architected experience, we want the outcome to be persuasion.
Greg Alexander: Okay, very good. So, this is where I want to start, okay? Because I’ve experienced your experience.
John Roberson: Hmm.
Greg Alexander: My niece went to USC, and I walked into their Hall of Fame and was able to put my hands on Heisman trophies and all that, and it was… literally, that was several years ago, and I can almost smell it right now as I sit here and talk to you about it. So, our members are, as you know. are owners of boutique proserv firms, they’re experts, domain experts, and they deliver outstanding work for their clients. But… I don’t think they would describe themselves as delivering outstanding experiences, and in fact, I’m not sure most people know the difference. So, could you help us understand An experience and how it’s different than just delivering great work for a client.
John Roberson: I’ll try my best. You know, we were talking as we were preparing for this call, I grew up in the country, Greg, in East Tennessee, a little town of 5,000 people, 22,000 people in the county. But I was fortunate enough to barely get in Vanderbilt’s business school and barely get out with a strong C average, and I studied there service quality measurement. So, I do remember vividly that framework, and our members, Collective 54 are in the service business. So. The way that you measure service quality is you think about what is the audience’s expectation. How do… how do we measure that? How do we mark that? How do we stratify against that as a baseline? And then how do we deliver something that’s exemplary, that exceeds those expectations? We believe that in those encounters, whether they’re virtual over Zoom, whether they’re over the phone, or whether they’re in person, they start with this idea of an experience. And so, for the audience, a first principle is, you know, how do you define an experience? Well, it’s the process with which we perceive. interact with, and then we internalize what happens to us. That’s an experience. Said differently, it’s this idea of the living moment, right now. The library, the knowledge that we accumulate from that living moment, and then the emotional resonance that we take with us. Effective brands, Choose the stories that they want the audience to perceive, or hear, or remember. In order to guide those perceptions. And that’s really important. It is a way that service quality measurement experts talk about guiding perceptions. Managing perceptions, because if you can manage perceptions, you can manage outcomes. But you and I talk about, well, you know, that was a life-changing experience. Or somebody says, you know, what restaurant would you recommend? Oh, I had an incredible experience with this restaurant. It’s the thing that’s resonating with you because of that at-the-moment encounter that was driven as a result of those perceptions.
Greg Alexander: Yeah. I’m gonna tell a story here, just to bring this to light, and make it relatable to our clients. So when I had my firm, SBI, I had a client, his name was Mike Aviles, and he was CEO of a software company in Austin, Texas called Vignette. And there was this big initiative. And the board told him to hire Bain. And he went against the board and hired my firm, SBI. And when I asked him why, he said to me, Bane is my pain. And I said, what do you mean by that? And he says, Greg, every time I engage with you, I feel differently. You’re on my team, you’re here for my success. Which is quite a remarkable thing to say, because strictly on a specification basis, Bain probably delivered better work than we did. I mean, they were an order of magnitude bigger, they had more resources, etc, but they missed that piece, and that’s why I won. So I just wanted to tell that story, just to make everybody understand That how the client feels. It’s just as important as to what you give them, what they get from the engagement.
John Roberson: And Greg, as you set up this podcast, I would just offer to you that part of the Collective 54 DNA is this idea of boutique. Right? Boutique. And when you think of going to a boutique for apparel, or, you know, a boutique restaurant, or a boutique hotel, you think of something that’s more structured around me. Meaning, just what you said about that client. we’re structuring the experience so that it emotionally resonates with you. And you can do that, right?
Greg Alexander: Yeah. Okay, so you gotta tell everybody about the Immersive Cube. I was blown away when I saw this thing, so tell us a little bit about that.
John Roberson: Well, some have… you started with this idea, some are aware of this incredible orb, this almost ball-shaped or spherical-shaped structure that’s in Las Vegas that’s really redefined the landscape, the nightscape of Las Vegas. It’s this circular video sphere. There’s video on the outside of the sphere, and then there’s video on the inside of the sphere, and so you can go inside the sphere, and you can go to an Eagles concert that’s brought to life by further animation, dynamics. Coldplay concert, or a reimagination of The Wizard of Oz. That’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience, no doubt. It’s theater. It’s like going to Cirque du Soleil or going to Broadway, right? What we wanted to do was to take that and make it available on a commercial basis. We believe that clients Whether they’re in the architectural business, or like many of our clients in the pro sport team business, they need a way to immerse their guests, their audience members, in something in a 360-degree way. We have this theory, Greg, that, you know, the virtual reality goggles that we put on, that’s not… that’s not a shareable experience. And where we have the most heightened emotion, where we have the greatest capacity to remember a moment is when we share it, right? When we share it with another human, because we’re riffing off of each other, we’re saying, wow, look at that, to someone. When we’re in that virtual reality world of those goggles. it’s very difficult to do. It’s a one-way experience. So, we brought to life, again, this almost sphere-like experience. On a commercial application, making it available to real estate developers, making it available to people who are pitching a future reality, people who capture video that needs to be immersive. We want to just captivate the customer and take all the other stimuli away from them. So we developed the Immersive Cube.
Greg Alexander: And I understand, like, in Vegas, the Oakland Athletics are becoming the Las Vegas baseball team, and they’re building a new stadium, and they’re probably trying to sell luxury suites, so if I was a prospect for them, I would walk into this immersive cube and… and almost simulate, like, a game day experience? Is that… is that how to think about it?
John Roberson: Absolutely. In fact, what’s so amazing is, when we talk about architecting experiences, and you can appreciate this, having been a professional consultant. You, you really wanna, throttle or orchestrate information on an as-needed basis. You don’t want to just throw all of the available information at your audience. You want to offer it to them in a way that meets them where their questions are. So, from a sales perspective. We’ve developed content that is based in modules that you can call up on the fly. And if a person says, you know, I have a private airplane, I’ll be flying in to Las Vegas to watch the games, and I’ll land at the private airport. How close is the stadium to the private airport? We can toggle and take you there. We can show you that. If you say, well, I’m curious as to how close it is to the MGM, we can take you there. If you… you say, well, what does the top end of the luxury suite, the owner suite, or the founder suites look like? We can take you there. If you want to know what the… outfield barrel suites look like, we can take you there. If the information exists, we can transport you to that future reality. And we can do it with photorealism so that it feels like you’re actually standing in that location. So imagine a 3D rendering, and you’re standing in that screen.
Greg Alexander: It’s unbelievable where the tech is going, and I’m so happy that you guys are pioneering this and bringing commercial application to it. You know, some of our members that are going to be listening to this are going to push back, because they’re going to say, you know, listen, I don’t have physical luxury suites and airports and hotels. They’ve got Zoom calls and slide decks and email threads. So, does the approach still apply in that setting?
John Roberson: It absolutely does apply. You know. I’ve always heard, Greg, that… and I know you believe this, that in the services business, it’s often the intangibles. that allow for differentiation. But the intangibles, those differentiations, have to be points of difference that are meaningful. Right? So I just believe that in the professional services business, the way you differentiate yourself is in the way you present yourself. It is with the experience. And so I would just encourage our audience, think about things like just like you and I are right now, what does your Zoom or your Teams environment look like? What does that… what does that lighting look like? What does the sound look like? If I send a follow-up PDF, how user-friendly is it? How well-designed is it? How thoughtful is it? every sense of engagement and moment and contact, is it thoughtful? You know, again, if you and I go to a really nice restaurant, and the waitstaff were to come out, and they were to say, you know, the chef just wanted you to taste the, you know, appetizer special tonight. We’re just so touched because we weren’t expecting that. It delivers above our expectation. if we go to a really nice hotel room and there’s a note for us from the general manager on the nightstand in the hotel room, those little points of personal contact go exactly back to what you described that separated your firm from Bain, and that is. They feel like that service provider is on their team. They’re a part of their story. They’ve entered into that world by disrupting what is their usual expectation and giving them something that’s more meaningful than what social scientists call elevated.
Greg Alexander: Yeah. You know, in preparation for this interview, I did a little homework on your background, and your time at Vanderbilt came up. And I bumped into Pine and Gilmore’s Experience Economy. And I had never heard about that before, and I was intrigued by it. Could you summarize it for us here?
John Roberson: Yeah, that book is… it’s hard to believe, it’s almost, you know, almost 25 years old now, but what they just said was, you know, past the, you know, industrial revolution, we’re gonna get to… and past the service economy, we’re gonna get to an economy where we choose our products and services based on our experience. And we’re doing it all the time, Greg. You know, how many folks do you know who say, I’m just gonna go to Amazon and find it because my experience is so much easier. Not the selection is better, not the quality is better, my experience is better, or Target’s omni-channel approach to service, or… or Costco’s unconditional guarantee. those things are driving the way we’re consuming, but even more. If I were to say to you that, you know, 7-Eleven or Circle K’s coffee were Shade Mountain Grown. Fair trade, coffee, roasted the same way as Starbucks was, you and I still would shop at Starbucks And pay a premium because our experience is more elevated. It feels more personalized, it feels more customized. We’re doing that all the time. We’re choosing Warby Parker glasses because it’s give a pair when we buy a pair, or, you know, Tom’s shoes. We’re choosing those things because of the service and the experience we have. I have 4 sons, and they’re young adults, and they are commonly identifying with the story of the brand. and their experience with the brand more than they are with the attributes of the actual product. And Pine and Gilmore just foreshadowed that 20 years ago in that breakout book.
Greg Alexander: Yeah. You know, what you’re describing here is a… is the experience as a distinct offering.
John Roberson: Absolutely.
Greg Alexander: And I think this is very important, because… In the boutique professional services space. Many of the prospects that are deciding between hiring Firm A, Firm B, and Firm C, they’re making this decision for the first time. They don’t have a point of reference. So they get proposals, and they try to line them up next to each other, and it’s very hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison. So, we advocate that members put options in front of the customer. Sometimes they’re called good, better, best, small, medium, large, whatever it is. But I think this is an opportunity for our members to have an offering. Labeled the experience offering. And it’s a premium offering. And it explains to the prospect during the purchasing decision. How that firm is different because of the experience. And actually charge for it. And maybe win a deal at a higher price point. But that’s a stretch for many people. They’re afraid of losing a deal over price. What do you think of that idea, as the experience itself, as being a part of the offering?
John Roberson: The reason that I like that, Greg, is because that takes me to the second stage of what happens often in a proposal, and that is negotiation.
Greg Alexander: Yeah.
John Roberson: If, if you are codifying, really articulating that point of difference as an experience variable. You could always negotiate to throw it in if, at first, you establish the value of it. Right? So it can be a point of differentiation. I believe totally in that, and I think you and I are in violent agreement. Again, your main example and comparison really stands tall with this, and that is, there’s this sense in the professional services environment You really have to out-service. You have to outdo. And it doesn’t have to be done with additional effort. But it can be done with additional thinking, with additional creativity. Just like, you know, when we see a meal beautifully presented on the plate. That’s what distinguishes. Arguably, those ingredients on the plate are cooked the same way as a less expensive restaurant down the road, but it’s the presentation, and just like you said, it’s the way that makes us feel. So, in a professional services environment, if that experience layer was the owner. the CEO, the president of the firm, if she was going to come and consult with the board personally, do it! Right? Offer that, because you can… you know that Bain will never offer that.
Greg Alexander: Yeah. Right? You know, just to, just to stay on that story, you just, you just, Freed up a memory in my head. So, in that proposal, many of the big consulting firms, when they get to the section of the proposal explaining the team. There’s no name on the team members. And in this proposal, it was EM plus 3. What that meant was engagement manager plus 3 junior people. That was the level of specificity. When we showed up, I showed up, the owner of the firm, with the 3 people. Joe, Bob, and Mary. And the client met those 3 people. And when I asked him to explain to me the experience, he said. Shaking people’s hand, talking to them, doing little mini interview. was a heck of a lot more personal than EM plus 3. Just a simple thing like that. And you know, for a small firm, winning a big deal like that. can make or break a year. So putting 3 people on an airplane now, this was, you know, pre-Zoom and COVID and all that, was an expense, but to me, it was worth it, and it was what cinched the deal. So that’s proof, one example, of course, but that’s proof that How somebody feels can sway… that could be the difference between winning and losing.
John Roberson: And Greg, I would just double down on that, that, you know, Bourdain Brown, our social scientist who, you know, brought us the idea in business of vulnerability, we would go even further and say be vulnerable in those presentations. So instead of those three, kind of, units of labor. Describe the individuals who will be working on this particular project for the client, but with personal Facts.
Greg Alexander: Interesting.
John Roberson: Maybe they’re a mom of three. Maybe they… their hobby is needlepoint. You’re trying to say, these are humans that are going to be bringing you this service, and what you’re hoping for is that in offering those little factoids out there, you’re hoping… this happens to me a lot. I have on my bio, and will include it in proposals, that I like to smoke meat! And I’ll go into a… I’ll go into a pitch, and somebody will say. I… you know, I’ve got a Traeger myself, and it’s just one point of connection that says, those big guys, they’re never gonna do that, right? Yeah. And you’re laughing because that emotion is really what separates… can separate, service in a professional services environment, right? We choose… Often, as humans, from humans, rather than from institutions.
Greg Alexander: Yeah, no question. You know, and I think in this AI world that we’re emerging into. The fundamental, strategic question we all have to ask is. What can I, as a human, do? that the AI cannot do, that the AI will never be able to do. And the human-to-human relationship is the thing that the AI is never going to be able to do. And as a boutique owner. We have an advantage here. Because we’re a small firm, we can make our client feel as if they’re the only client we have. Whereas the big firms just can’t do that. And they don’t try to do that, to their credit, they know that they can’t do that, but that is our advantage, and that’s the advantage that we have to press Okay, one final question for you, and then we’ll save the rest of them for the member Q&A. And if you’re somebody who’s listening to this, and they realize that maybe they’re under-indexed to the experience, and over-indexed to the technical aspects of their work deliverable. How can I get started on this?
John Roberson: There’s a great read by, you know, in football, we talk about the Manning brothers, right? These two twin dynasties of football athletics. Well, in social sciences, in social science, we have the Heath brothers, Chip and Dan Heath. They wrote the book Switch, but they wrote the book, they wrote the book Made to Stick, but they wrote the breakout book called The Power of Moments. And it is how you go about architecting or orchestrating these memorable events that resonate emotionally with people. I recommend that book as a great starting point because If you’re a father, it makes you a better father. If you’re a wife, it’ll make you a better wife. But if you’re a professional services boutique owner, it will help you think about, how do I welcome prospective employees or new employees for the first time? That’s all an experience. And those things can be orchestrated and thought through, and they can be so memorable that they become differentiating.
Greg Alexander: Yeah, that’s a great recommendation, I’m gonna get it today. John, we’re gonna have to leave it here, but this was a real contribution to our collective body of knowledge. On behalf of the members, let me publicly thank you. We’re so lucky to have you in our community, and I look forward to our Q&A session.
John Roberson: Thanks, Greg. Appreciate what you and your peers do.
Greg Alexander: Thank you. Okay, a couple calls to action here for those that are listening. So if you’re a member of Collective 54, and you want to participate in John’s Q&A session, please look for the invitation and sign up and show up for that event. If you’re not a member, and after listening to this, you might want to become one, go to Collective54.com and fill out an application, and we’ll get in contact with you. But until next time, I want to thank listeners for working me into their busy schedule. I appreciate your attention, and I wish you the best of luck as you try to grow, scale, and someday exit your firm.