EPS 56 - The Value of Framing Your Services as a Product with Ellen Grace Henson

Erin Austin: Hello, ladies. Welcome to the Hourly Exit Podcast. Thank you for joining me today, and thank you. I have Ellen Grace Henson who's joined me for today's episode. Hi. Hi. So this is a special one for me 'cause Ellen Grace and I go way back and we've even done some, productized services together.

And so this is, going to be an interesting one today since she is a. Very experienced management consultant who has, really studied some of the issues that are involved with creating a business that can operate independently from the owner and providing value to clients other than selling your time.

And so we are gonna dig into all of that today. But first, Ellen Grace, can you please introduce yourself to the audience?

Ellen Grace Henson: Hello audience. I wanna give Erin some props. she mentioned that we did some work together on productizing services and it was one of the highlights of my professional career working with Erin Austin.

So if you have an opportunity to work with Erin Austin, I encourage you to take it. Wow, thank you. So, absolutely, Ellen Grace Henson. My company's name is Marketing Mechanics, and I've been consulting in business strategy, product strategy, and product management for upwards of 18 years. My company helps our clients better understand their markets and customers so they can build better products, more successful businesses.

And uniquely, we help teams align around a shared understanding of the customer. I. One of the top points of failure for teams is a lack of shared goals and alignment, and I like to say that one of the most natural and neutral areas for alignment is a focus on the customer. So when you have team members sharing and understanding of the customer, collaboration becomes easier.

Shared goals become easier. So that's part of the work I do. Yeah, I mean that,

Erin Austin: directly feeds into the idea of instead of thinking about the inputs, 'cause departments are inputs, right? We're thinking about the outputs and the results we're providing to our clients, which is of course, customer focused.

I. And so that is where the greater value is. So yeah, I'm very antis silo, which is obviously what you work against. And if you're all working towards that same goal, which is the outcome we're providing, the value we're providing for the client, then we are all working towards the same,

Ellen Grace Henson: goal.

That's right. Can I build on that a little bit? Please? Because one of the outputs also when people have the understanding that they have shared goals, They also then have better connections with other people on the team. So what I see a lot in tech is some jobs are more highly valued than others inside the company.

And, um, we forget sometimes that it's not just the product. While the product and the technology are core to the value that we deliver, if. Operations isn't in alignment and understanding what the customer needs, there's a potential point of failure. Mm-hmm. If marketing is not in alignment with the understanding of the customer, if there's a misalignment between product management and marketing on who the customer is, there's a potential point of failure.

And I actually had a client who brought me in, in part because their team wasn't aligned There was a lot of role contention. Whose job is it anyhow? And ultimately there was a disconnect between what product was building and what sales was selling. Mm-hmm. And it wouldn't have mattered how good that product was when customers received it.

It wasn't what they expected. It's like, I need A new pair of fancy shoes for a party I'm going to, and the company ships, ships me hiking boots, and while they might be the most awesome hiking boots in the world, I can't wear them to the party I'm going to. Right? So and that company had been like number one in market share and this disruption or challenge in delivering value to their customer.

Cost them a lot of customers, cost them a lot of money and cost them significant share in the market. It gave their competitors an opportunity to jump into the market. So alignment is not just a nice thing to have. It's critical for success. It is. Absolutely.

Erin Austin: And we're gonna talk about value in a second, but I just wanted, as you were, telling us that story, it reminded me of a kind of concept idea that I had when I first started thinking about like how to pivot away from working just with big corporations, which was.

Basically looking at the entire customer journey and looking at how all the places that legal and contracts are impactful everywhere along from, the time that we're talking to them, to the sale, to the close, to delivery, including maximizing the long-term value of that client relationship.

And, I never quite. Got there. It's still the hanging out back there, but it is, to your point, all these things have to align to maximize that value. Both what we give and what we get from that relationship.

Ellen Grace Henson: So, absolutely. And you have the risk of going off on a big tangent.

I'd be happy to brainstorm on the role of legal, but I also wanna say, I think legal and finance are two of the most under leveraged. Groups in the company for understanding the value our customers need and for creating unique value inside the company. Right. So especially now, I mean the legal environment is much more complex than, with, security and management and identity management, all those things.

It's a much more complex environment and there's various points in time or various points along the customer experience where companies are gathering information about prospects and customers. You need a legal check on that. Yes. Mm-hmm. And not just a legal check, but also are we doing it in a way that makes it easy for our customers to engage?

sometimes when I'm asked about cookies, it's very simple. I can set a couple of things and great. Other times I. When a website asks me about cookies, they tell me to go read this comple. If I wanna, limit the cookies that are used. Yes. They tell me to go read this complex document and contact this third party.

I find that actually insulting. Why do they wanna make it difficult for me to have a positive experience with their company? Yeah. It is.

Erin Austin: Well, things have gotten very complicated with cookies, with data privacy, certainly when you're dealing with international businesses, G D P R, but you're right, that is, a long, detour, but I.

I will take you off on, thinking about how these two things work together another day. Yes, absolutely. So we wanna talk today about, the types of value that we as expertise-based businesses with corporate clients, how do we provide value, for our clients? And you have some ideas around that.

I'd love for you to share them.

Ellen Grace Henson: Absolutely. So I wanna make it clear when we talk about not just selling your time, sometimes when, people start out first in a consulting or contracting business, they charge per hour. All right? And. Sometimes that's appropriate, but as you grow in the value that you deliver, you might rethink that and that's a sidebar we can take up a little bit later.

So there are different types of value that as a consultant or a contractor, you can deliver to your clients. One is incremental and incremental means they can get more done, right? So if you're a marketing contractor, you can help get more content written. Mm-hmm. Another is innovative. What can you do that might shift how your client delivers value to their customers?

What insights can you provide? Is it a different take on a market? Is it a different marketing strategy or different sales strategy, a different legal strategy that's contributing innovative value? And then there can also be value that is transformational. That really transforms the way your client does business or that transforms the way your client is delivering value to their audiences.

that might be something along the lines of, I'll talk about this a little bit more later if you want Aaron, but my good friend Jim Harran, when he first started in business, he was a, fractional C F o, chief Financial Officer. Then he created the one page business plan. Oh, okay. Mm-hmm.

Not only did he transform the positioning of his business and make it more compelling, he helped transform the approach companies were taking to generating business plans and tracking their success against that plan where, a business plan. We've all probably seen or worked on business plans that Maybe even hundreds of pages long, 50 pages long, but when you can distill it down to one page that captures the most critical points that can be transformational to how a company thinks about its business and then conducts its business. Okay, so

Erin Austin: to go back over the three types of values, so starting with incremental, I think of that as just being an extra pair of hands, I think is kind of the way.

So you're kind of selling an extra pair of hands, so you are kind of taking orders from your client and you have some skill and, maybe even some expertise, that they don't have, but generally, They are defining what they need and you are filling the order. And so, the innovative one, maybe that's tell me like how do we look at the business model for the innovative type of value?

Ellen Grace Henson: So I had a client where their business model was, um, SaaS. Mm-hmm. And they were getting licensing revenue. Okay? Mm-hmm. What they were missing though, was opportunities for additional revenue streams. Mm-hmm. They had, you know, after working together with them and understanding their priorities better and understanding their customer needs better, we concluded that.

Different types of customers needed different types of support. And so they had an opportunity to kind of shift their business model, not change the fundamentals of their business model, but shift it to expand it, to provide additional services and thus provide more value to their customers. And also, um, capture more revenue for the company.

The other thing that. They were in an opportunity, they were in a position to do because they, you know, one of the things that SaaS model enables is capturing a lot more data on use. Yeah. Of your software product. Maybe this starts to get into transformational value, but when a lot of times the data that gets captured is thought of as an internal asset and what can we learn about how our customers are using the product?

That data can also become, once you perhaps anonymize it and you know, massage it in certain ways, can also become an external asset that can transform the way your customers work, that can transform the way your customers think about their businesses. So, Um, you have assets, you're generating assets that you're not even aware of, that your customers, your clients are probably generating assets that, that they're not even aware of how they can leverage more fully.

Mm-hmm. So, part of the role of a consultant, Might be able to say, Hey, here's value that you're leaving on the table, or, here's incremental value that you can give to your customers, and then take incremental revenue from, so that shifts from just, I'm an extra pair of hands to help get things done to. I'm a high value thinker who can contribute to either adding innovation to your process, adding innovation to your business model, or transforming your business model and transforming the value that you deliver to your clients.

Erin Austin: Got it. And so, I mean, at some point I feel like when you were mentioning that transformational, that that can be the value that we provide to our clients, but also, um, transformative within our own businesses when we are leveraging all the assets that we have available, all the data that is available to us.

Ellen Grace Henson: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you and I have talked about this a lot, and that's been part of our productizing services. Mm-hmm. Conversations. Mm-hmm. You know, one of the things, um, so I've been consulting for 18 plus years and I've consulted from startups to global 500 companies, a variety of teams, a lot of different technologies and several different markets.

And one of the things I've discovered along the way is there are common challenges. All of those different, regardless of the, regardless, literally regardless of the team size, regardless of the market, regardless of the company size and the technology at play, there are some common challenges and so I've been able to, in my business, create frameworks and methodologies that are highly adaptable for my clients.

I don't have to start with a blank sheet of paper. Mm-hmm. Every time I engage with a new client. I can start with, you know, the frameworks are kind of baseline and then customize them or maybe more, um, take a bespoke approach in the context of what the client's needs are and the client's specific challenges are now.

So I have gathered all this information from all these different companies that I've worked with to the benefit of all my clients and all my new and future clients. Also to the benefit of my business because I can become more effective and I also have potentially frameworks that I can license to other consultants and grow my business that way as well.

Erin Austin: Absolutely. Now, I know that you, I'm pretty sure that you don't have a niche, and by that I mean that there's a vertical that you work with specifically, but I think that you do have a specialization. Which it sounds like among clients that have this similar problem that you have been able to develop your frameworks and methodologies around, is that fair that, that you seem to come into the same type of problem that you help clients with, even if they're different?

Ellen Grace Henson: I'd say the same. The same. Um,

I don't wanna say type of problem because I think that narrows it a little bit. Yes. Mm-hmm. But organizationally, Um, alignment is a key challenge. Mm-hmm. And it's the rare company that doesn't have a challenge around alignment. You know, we talked about that a little earlier. It's the rare company where everybody, so, so a real simple alignment assessment, right, is go ask five different people in your company who the customer is.

You'll get five different answers. I almost guarantee it. Right. Wow. So, and, and that core problem of alignment then has other challenges. The other, the other piece of it, so my, my, my, my primary area of consulting is product management and, and just like many other, um, areas of expertise, it's a big umbrella.

Mm-hmm. Oftentimes I might help my clients specifically with process work, help them uplevel their process and increase alignment within their process. Sometimes I might help my client with the skill levels of their product management team. Those skill levels can run from, you know, how do you write a business case for a single feature to, how do you improve your ability to influence across the silos in the company?

So that's, that can be pretty far ranging. So, yes. Mm-hmm. You're right. I don't have a market niche. Mm-hmm. I do though, have a, um, range within a particular discipline of work that I. Engage with my clients on.

Erin Austin: Now, was there a time, a pre framework, pre methodology, time in your business, and what did that look like versus your post framework, post

Ellen Grace Henson: methodology?

Yeah, so that would be more the incremental. Mm-hmm. Um, but I, I think I've always straddled early in my career, I think I straddled incremental and innovative. Mm-hmm. Because, Um, my very first, even before I started consulting, my very first product management job, when I was gonna sit down with the engineers to brainstorm on this new product, I invited customer service in.

Mm-hmm. An engineer was like, why are they here? And I said, but, well, they talk to customers every day and I imagine they have some insights to contribute. So one of my first tasks when I started my business, Um, a previous employer called me up and said they needed some help writing some requirements documents for a new initiative, and so I said, great.

I'll work on some requirements documentation for you. Now, on the one hand, that was definitely incremental. They didn't have the bandwidth to work on this. I, I though came in and I said, for a requirements document, I'm not just gonna talk about feature function. We're gonna look at. How might this impact our sales strategy?

How might this impact our operational requirements? How might this impact, you know, documentation and education? How might this impact support? So I've always. Looked at things from that broader perspective, and I'm gratified that that type of conversation now is much more common in the industry. But early in my career, I wasn't aware of anybody else taking that approach.

So it was both incremental and innovative. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I

Erin Austin: will say, and this is I'm sure just me, that I hadn't heard the term customer experience like CX and you know, before five years ago, but I guess it's been, is it fairly. Recent, or did I just miss it before that?

Ellen Grace Henson: No, no, no. I think it's a fairly new Yeah.

Way of talking about the challenge. Mm-hmm.

I don't think there're concepts that came out just five years ago, because again, even from early in my career, I was trying to understand and trying to help the rest of the organization that I was working with. Understand. That it's not just the experience of the customer using the product, it's the experience of the customer engaging with the company.

Mm-hmm. At every step along the way from how they discover. The company, how they define their own need. Mm-hmm. How they discover you as a company, how they first engage with you in terms of, you know, gaining information, getting insight to how your offer might impact them, et cetera. And then engage from a business perspective.

And then an area that I think often gets neglected in product management also is how do, then you might wanna retire that product. Mm-hmm. What's the experience that your customer has while you're retiring that product? And that's. Again, in terms of the, the full experience. So I've always thought that way.

Mm-hmm. And I'm gratified to see now that there's more concern given to that full customer experience. Mm-hmm. All right. Now I

Erin Austin: wanna go back to one of the things that you said about. You know, with your pre framework, pre methodology, business was more on the incremental value side. And so I think, you know, by extension we can say that if we want to graduate from being that incremental kind of extra pair of hands person to think someone who creates higher value, whether, uh, be the innovation or ultimately transformational, that we need to have something that's uniquely ours that we're

Ellen Grace Henson: bringing to the table.

Yes, I agree with that point, and that's a common challenge for positioning. It is whatever, whether you're consulting or you're a company selling products, how do you differentiate yourself? What is the unique value that you bring? How do you instantiate that value and deliver it to your clients? Also, how do you talk about that value?

I mean that's, mm-hmm. This kind of taking me off to a tangent for, um, you know, what are the keys to success? Certainly positioning, differentiation, and delivering high value and developing awesome relationships. Are those keys to success? Um, My frameworks are useless if people don't know about them.

That's

Erin Austin: true. That's true. And at the end of the day, do they need to know about the framework or do they need to know about the value that they get from working with you? Right.

Ellen Grace Henson: That's right. That's exactly right. That's, that's right. The, there's the why and then there's the how. Right, exactly. I know there's these five wss and, but, um, there's the, the y, the who, What in the, how it's for, yeah, I

Erin Austin: thought that was, I thought that was a newspaper thing about, uh, how to write newspaper articles, but yes,

Ellen Grace Henson: but it's also very relevant when you're trying to figure out the value that you deliver and who your audience is and et cetera, et cetera.

Mm-hmm. So, um, anyhow, I think, I think I've gone off track here in my thinking. Bring us back to the point, Aaron.

Erin Austin: Oh, well, just that, um, you know, that having the frameworks and the methodologies that's internal to you, but that's how you get to, you know, providing that value consistently, and that you That's right, are going to get that result for your client that you promised them.

But at the end of the day, Um, client cares about the result and not that, oh, it's your framework. I'm so happy It was your framework. I mean, you know.

Ellen Grace Henson: That's right, that's right. That's right. That's right. It's not, um, theoretical, it's applied. Right, exactly. Exactly. And the application and the results are what matters.

And, um, absolutely. And my clients have. Some pretty good results. Yeah, that, that is fantastic. I talk about that a little bit more if you'd like.

Erin Austin: Well, I, I know that we wanted to talk about, you know, kinda the education for project managers. Is there, tell me, tell us

Ellen Grace Henson: where you'd like to go there. So there's a couple of things.

When I first started in product management, there was no. Training available. There were no classes, there was, there were no schools. And now, I mean, every, every major university offers product management, education and there's a lot of, um, companies that have grown up around product management education.

Erin Austin: And you can be a certified product manager, right? Is that, that's a fit, right? Yes.

Ellen Grace Henson: As a matter of fact, I helped, um, I, I, with the local university, I helped define the certification program for product managers. Oh, cool. Thank you. The the thing though that, um, so when I first started, I wanna go back to that.

I asked the hiring vp, were there guidelines, anything I should do, anything I should follow? And he is like, no. And I said, well, okay, as I learn things or create things, should I document them? He said, no. Which I found so interesting. I found that so interesting. But to me it's really valuable to pass on what we know to pass on what we've learned.

And because I didn't have that kinda external training or external opportunity, I did invent and create a lot of things for myself. Mm-hmm. Along the way. And I still find like product management is still a very big umbrella, as I said, and a lot of product managers are. Focused on feature function. Mm-hmm.

And one of the biggest challenges I've had younger product managers bring to me is, you know, the c e o or some other executive is, is insisting that we, um, add this new functionality and we're already maxed out on our ability to deliver against the, um, schedules. So how do I push back? This is where it's very, very interesting to me that most product management people don't seem to understand the business context and don't seem to be able to validate the business context mm-hmm.

That they're working in. Mm-hmm. What does it mean financially to the company? What does it mean to the market, et cetera. So what I've, what I, what I. Came up with was this, this one page, um, business case, right? So how do you write a simple business case? Mm-hmm. The other side of that is how do you think more expansively, these are the types of things I wanna educate other product managers around.

How do you think more expansively about your customer, right? And what is you really, your responsibility as the person who advocates for the customer? It's not just listening. Listening to your customer is really important, but listening to the market, understanding what's possible, understanding things that your customer is not in a position to understand, anticipating future needs, those are all really important, I believe.

Mm-hmm. Because if you're just chasing another anecdote, if I may. Yes. I've done a lot of work on pre-market technology, um, and. What I typically do, you know, you're trying to find the right market fit for a technology, is you come up with different scenarios, potential use scenarios for that technology.

Then you go and you interview people. So I had this particular pre-market technology I was working with. I came up with different scenarios and I interviewed six directors of product management within that space. And I said, do you think this scenario would be interesting to your customers? And every single one of them said to me, nobody's asking for it.

And I. Stunned by. Because nobody could ask for it, because nobody knew that it was possible. Mm-hmm. Right. That's like Steve Jobs, somebody saying, nobody's asking for a camera in their phone. Oh, then let's not do it. You have to anticipating. Yeah. What might be, so I track a lot of different trends in a lot of different technologies because part of what happens and, and I also like to say that opportunities created by the intersection of trends.

So part of what happens is there's this trend coming along, and right now it might not be affecting your market, but if you're not tracking it, you won't see the possibility of when it will affect your market. AI potentially, yeah, yeah. Or various other technologies that we can think about. How are those going to impact your customers even maybe three years, five years down the line?

So when you are, when, so this is, and this is where again, so I also have, uh, courseware in strategic product management. Mm-hmm. Because it's important, again, not just to say what's the incremental improvement we can provide in 6, 12, 18 months? But what's the radical innovation and transformational improvements?

We can look at, we can look forward to down the line. Mm-hmm. Given that we understand these trends, given that we understand the customer needs more than from a feature function standpoint, et cetera, read that

Erin Austin: opportunity is where trends intersect. Intersect.

Ellen Grace Henson: Yes. That is so good. Yes. Okay.

Erin Austin: I think we have our title.

Okay.

We evolved, let's say product manager can provide that transformational value to the clients because they're looking at the trends. They're not just filling orders, but they're looking ahead, seeing where you know the puck is going to be. That's right. Instead to help them be there to meet it, their clients be there to mean it.

Ellen Grace Henson: Right. Right. Another thing I like to say is we can't predict the future, but we can anticipate what might happen. Mm-hmm. So you can't always say, yes, we know the puck's gonna be there in three years. Mm-hmm. But we can say, here's the possible places that that puck might be given. Mm-hmm. You know, different trends and, and potential.

How do we build that agility into our value creation approach? Mm-hmm. How do we. As the trends become clearer, be able to adjust, et cetera. I mean, there's a lot. There's a lot of meat. Wow. Okay. In that conversation right there, That is.

Erin Austin: Yeah. That is very interesting. I didn't even, I, you surprised me with that one.

I didn't know that was very, that's very interesting. I love that. And we are gonna talk about your courseware. Uh, when we, as we wrap up, 'cause I do wanna talk about what. Offerings you have then. But before we get there, um, I want to talk about the fact that this is a very meta podcast. You know, I'm a female founder of an expertise based business that I am hoping to grow, so I can sell it someday.

You're also the female founder of an expertise based business. So are you growing your business to perhaps sell it someday?

Ellen Grace Henson: That would be awesome. Mm-hmm.

I agree. Yeah. And, and I'll tell you, meeting you helped expand and solidify my mindset around that. And you know, that's also one of my areas of improvement, right? Is how do I make sure that the work I'm doing is. The work that I'm doing and creating internally mm-hmm. Is done in such a way that it will have value beyond my participation in this business.

Mm-hmm. Nice. So, yes, you and I have explored a couple of things in that regards and certainly I mentioned that a little bit earlier. Being able to license my frameworks and methodologies, being able to train people in those things. Mm-hmm. Um, creating courseware that will. Live on beyond my business that will have value to product managers, hopefully some long-term into the future.

Yeah. Those are things that are really important. Yeah.

Erin Austin: I mean, you're doing, you're doing all the right things, the things that you're doing now to scale your business and having multiple ways of the delivering your expertise. Yes. With one-on-one services, but also through training other consultants and providing other, um, Educational services.

So you're doing all the right things, so I have no doubt you'll get there. So do you have a plan for your next chapter after you sell your business, which we know is gonna happen.

Ellen Grace Henson: That's so interesting because, um, That to me starts to sound a little bit like retirement

Erin Austin: and depends on how you define retirement.

Ellen Grace Henson: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But I enjoy what I do so much that at this point I can't imagine, maybe I can do less of it and start to do more of other things. Right. Maybe I'll spend more time training people and not, I don't know. I really, I. I just love what I'm doing and I wanna do more of it, and I wanna do it better, right?

I wanna increasingly deliver value. I wanna deliver increasing value yes to my clients. Um, I just find this to be great work and I really enjoy it and I. I'm sure there'll be a next chapter, but I don't know when, and I'm not quite sure what shape that will take. Yeah, I I'm with

Erin Austin: you on that. It's hard to imagine just not working and you know, then what, um, but then when you have a, some, a, a skill or a passion that you wanna share, well, you know, maybe don't have to get paid for, maybe you do still.

Um, but Oh, absolutely. There's, there's other ways to continue

Ellen Grace Henson: to provide that, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right. I agree with you. And I do some of that. Mm-hmm. Already. Um, So there's two organizations I'm involved with. Well, you're, you're

Erin Austin: skipping to, you're skipping to, am I going too fast? Yeah.

Ellen Grace Henson: Well, well, let's take this part out then.

I, I thought that was a perfect segue, but we'll wait on that. Well,

Erin Austin: it is, it is the perfect segue, but we're, but since we, we have a way that we do things around here, Alan Grace, so well, we'll come back to this. So, as you know, we believe in creating a world, uh, the, a more equitable economy. So in particular, I believe that wealth in the hands of women can change the world.

And so would you like to share a person or, or would you share a person or an organization that you admire who is helping create a more equitable economy? Oh,

Ellen Grace Henson: okay. So,

I am a little stunned by the question, even though you, you asked it a little bit differently earlier. So I'll talk about two organizations that I'm involved with and I'll also say that I know a lot of really awesome women, yourself included, who are doing great work in that. Um, I, I'm gonna have to publish a list, Erin, because the more that I think about even in the moment, you know, one of the, one of the organizations I contribute to, and we didn't talk about this at all, is Heifer International.

And the thing I love about Heifer International is that they provide, um, uh, economic engines to people they provide, yes. Animals that then can be leveraged, like, you know, goats for milk and then the family sells the milk. I mean, it, it is an incredible, um, organization that provides the opportunity to leverage any donations in an incredible, incredible way.

So I'd encourage people to look at them for, um, you know, donating and they, they, they work worldwide. Um, an organization that I've been involved in for several years is, Women in consulting. Yeah. And while we recently redefined the organization as a 5 0 1 C three, and the reason we did that is because we wanted to have more of a community, a larger community focus.

One of the things women in consulting is working on, in addition to supporting women like ourselves mm-hmm. Who are already participating in, let's say the, the professional class, the economy. Mm-hmm. Um, we wanna be able to reach out to more women who maybe aren't, hadn't thought about consulting or contracting as a possibility, and give them pathways to that new type of work and a more economic security.

So we're working on programs. That will enable us to reach out more to the community and be more effective in helping people broaden their support, their participation in the economy. Yeah, I love that. And then I'm also working with an organization, do I, am I talking too much about it? Edit this. The other organization is how women lead and, um, That organization, to my understanding, started out with a mission of getting more women to serve on public boards.

And as we all know, there's a lot of evidence that shows that when women are serving on boards, companies are more effective and successful and thus people are more successful. Mm-hmm. And effective. Mm-hmm. So, you know, the growth that it provides individuals and the growth that it provides companies and employees.

Can be, um, substantive. So I that's, and, and they, a few years ago also started a program of effectively advising and mentoring women across the world. And I'm actively involved with a entrepreneur in Nigeria. And, and I'll, I'm in the notes we can provide detail on that. Yes. Who has a school for women and girls?

To increase their STEM skills and increase their opportunity to participate in the local and the broader economy.

Erin Austin: That is fantastic. Thank you for that. Yes. We will, uh, create, uh, have links to all of these organizations in the show notes. So you mentioned the courseware that you developed to help educate PMs.

So tell us about it and uh, where people can find it.

Ellen Grace Henson: So it's still in process. I'm happy to offer classes, um, more bespoke. So I have four clients created this course where, and I customize it. So one of the important things when people are learning is to also have examples and exercises to work on. So when I'm doing the strategic product management course inside a company, I integrate examples and um,

That are relevant to what the company's doing today. Mm-hmm. So, you know, they might bring in, Hey, we're, we're working on the business plan for this particular new product that we're gonna launch. Okay. That becomes the foundation then, for some of the exercises that we do in the course. Mm-hmm. Whether it's sizing the market or coming up with specific pricing and packaging, or understanding the investment that's required to make this, uh, product launch successful.

The other thing I'm planning is to do some public webinars. Mm-hmm. Um, which will focus on, you know, the financial skills for product management. Um, How does alignment affect the larger company and what's the role of executives down to individual contributors in helping to ensure alignment and acting as leaders in that type of, um, context, et cetera.

So there's a lot going on, and I'm happy to keep people in the loop as things further develop. Well, great.

Erin Austin: Well, first I'm, I'm going to ask you about where people can find you, but just so I'm clear on the, the target market, your project, Man. Product managers or project managers, sorry, product, product managers.

Is that for people who are in-house and so you're helping them uplevel those skills as an in-house person or as as consultants or both? Yes. Yes. Very good.

Ellen Grace Henson: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, you know, one of, one of the commitments I bring or endeavor to bring to every. Business and perhaps even personal relationship I have is that, you know, I'll offer value.

Mm-hmm. And so I have conversations with people who are considering being consultants. I did a presentation for an organization called Women in Product on Consulting as a career path. So I've been involved with a lot of women who are looking at consulting and how they can bring value to clients, and certainly I work quite actively with product management teams and executives inside of the companies to clients that I, that I work with.

Fantastic. Thank you for that. I, I really think, yeah, I mean, delivering value is, is part of a. Um, belief system in a way, right? Oh, absolutely. And it's not just something that, that I just say, okay, today I'm delivering value tomorrow I'm not.

Erin Austin: That's right. And most of us who are founders of services based businesses, I mean, there's a reason.

That we did this right. There's a reason we, we started our own businesses. 'cause there was something that we wanted to, that was uniquely about us that we wanted to deliver to the world. Right? And so That's right. That is, that's right. All right. So Grace, where can people find you? If they wanna find out more about the work that you do, what you have planned, how can they keep in contact with you?

Ellen Grace Henson: I'm very easy to find on LinkedIn. I'm the only Ellen Grace Henson on LinkedIn. Oh, really? I don't, I don't have that. Yeah. H H E N Ss o n. The only Ellen Grace Henson on LinkedIn. And um, certainly you can find me at E G H for Elon, e g h at. M K T G M E C h.com. That's marketing mec.com. Mm-hmm. And um, okay.

Look at the Women in Consulting website. You'll find me there as well. Absolutely.

Erin Austin: The links for the, all that information will be in the show notes as well. Thank you very much Hung Grace for joining me today. This has been a lot of fun and very valuable.

Ellen Grace Henson: I'm glad. Thank you, Erin, for the opportunity.

You're awesome.