The Eighth Mile Consulting officially launched in January this year (2019) and our team has been on an exciting roller coaster ever since. Modeled on a belief of ‘Good People, Helping Good People’, we have stepped out into the world seeking to find positive people and support community serving projects.

The purpose of this report is to provide a mechanism to communicate all of the lessons we learnt along the journey so far. In doing so, we hope that it serves other teams and removes the need to learn the same mistakes the hard way. We also hope that it helps them to capitalise on opportunities which we have identified.

This follows a six-month report which we published in August this year, called “Our no BS review of The Eighth Mile Consulting – 6 Months in”. It also includes many lessons that might be of merit to others.

Snapshot

• Our team has grown from 2 to 11 people.   
• We have achieved our first-year brand recognition targets. 
• We achieved our financial targets. 
• We exceeded our organisational growth targets by 30%. 
• We have set all the conditions for our next phase in 2020.

Now that we have that out of the way these are the lessons we learnt or have had reinforced throughout our short journey…

Lesson 1: Only supporting positive projects is financially viable

We have conclusively proven that supporting positive projects is a viable business methodology, but it requires consideration of a number of factors to remain sustainable.

Project funding models need to be discussed early in scoping stages and need to be leveraged off of a Return on Investment (ROI) for the customer. The customer needs to feel that they are supporting something which will provide a positive legacy for them, the community and their brand. But, it needs to be clear that the project is ‘for profit’ as we have staff to pay and administration costs to attend to.

Many positive industries are still in the early stages of development. This means that they have not yet fully embraced the idea of consulting being used in support of their existing organisational structures. This can make conversations difficult when trying to find middle ground that will ensure value for both organisations, whilst also delivering positive projects.

The best approach is to be clear, transparent and upfront about everyone’s expectations.

Lesson 2: Plan to scale and grow quickly

All the strategies in the world will not determine how it plays out on the ground. Always have a reserve or something in the back pocket in order to deal with unforeseen contingencies.

We spent significant time preparing a methodology for scaling our services, based on a number of growth assumptions. As it turns out, what we thought were ambitious growth targets were only half of what was required in reality (a good problem to have). A rapid increase in demand required that our strategy be accelerated in areas in order to accommodate the number of projects which were required in a short time.

We are now in a great place with good projects and initiatives in the pipeline, supported by a proportionately growing staff pool. For the meantime we have found the right balance, but admittedly there were some late nights trying to figure out how we can ensure services were provided to the standard we hold ourselves to.

Lesson 3: Leave your ego & pride at the door. Don’t go down with a sinking ship.

It is not always clear what initiatives will land and which ones will not. Linking back to our military careers there was a popular saying among leaders, “time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted”. The same rings true in business.

The time spent conceptualising new ideas, creating a plan for market, and then probing out to determine its value is essential in ensuring your relevance with other client organisations.

This being said, do not put all your eggs in one basket, and do not keep whipping a dead horse. Probing, by its very nature, is used to confirm, validate or deny facts and assumptions. If the data comes back that it isn’t worth the continued effort in a certain area. Stop, learn/adapt, reorientate, and then move again.

Lesson 4: The Sunshine Coast is very difficult to establish in.

One of our aims has been to base The Eighth Mile Consulting out of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland Australia. The reasons for this were based around a growing economy, an acceptance of small businesses, lifestyle, community, technology advancements and great infrastructure.

As it turns out the vast majority of our clients are based in Brisbane. It has been very difficult to break into the cliques associated with the Sunshine Coast despite many efforts to find relevance in the community. In many ways we have found it easier to provide services to other countries such as the USA.

Our company is very keen to support The Sunshine Coast in a more formal capacity but something is going to have to give. It might be a matter of time and pressure making diamonds, but it also might be a venture which is not viable long term. Time will tell.

Not known for stalling, we have a number of initiatives we will test. Depending on the viability of the outcomes we will make decisions whether to officially base our efforts out of Brisbane or Sunshine Coast.

Lesson 5: Build a high performing team, and clients will magnetise towards it.

We are fortunate in that we have access to a unique pool of extremely high performing leaders in which to create our staff base. We have made a deliberate choice to grow the team, prior to knowing all the problems. In doing so, we have actively sourced people which we trust, and we know can deliver incredible services to organisations that need it the most.

The beauty of having access to such people is that they are able to remain flexible and adapt their style, approach and methodology to suit the client and the target audience. The second advantage is that the more high performers we draw into the pool, the more appetising it is for other candidates who may have been fence sitting prior. In essence, it generates its own momentum and energy.

Lesson 6: We remain methodology agnostic

From our inception we have been, and remain, project methodology agnostic.

Due to our tertiary qualifications and history of project management we have developed a strong understanding of different project methodologies. We can use them if requested/required, but you will not see us heavily pushing a specific approach.

Instead, we are strong advocates on developing customised solutions for clients after listening intensively to their stories and determining their needs. We do not subscribe to a one solution fits all approach and we will continue to work under this design. It works for our clients, and it works for us.

Lesson 7: Keep having fun

Throughout this journey we have grown our team, fought through the challenges and have done so with a big smile on our faces. We revel in the complexity and the uncertainty and it has only served to cement many of our friendships in even stronger foundations.

We enjoy going to work and being around our team. We learn and professionally develop from each other and we are good at what we do. I can’t wait to bring in some more equally positive people to the company.

Lesson 8: Continue removing single points of failure

Until now there has been a misconception that The Eighth Mile Consulting team is the ‘Dave and Jono’ experience. This is a perception we need to rectify, as we feel it directly undermines the amazing work being provided by our ever-growing team.

Significant effort will be placed in the next cycle to demonstrate the amazing and unique skillsets which our team provide on a daily basis.

The plan moving forward

Keep trying to find good people by teaming up and partnering with more like-minded and motivated individuals, teams and organisations. 

Continue to scale our services into new industries (watch this space). 

Continue to find our relevance in the Sunshine Coast until it becomes overtly obvious that it is no longer viable. 

Continue supporting veterans, emergency services and first responders as part of an enduring effort across multiple projects. 

Continue to organically grow our follower base on Linkedin without the use of sending requests from the Company page. We believe in creating a community of people who want to be involved, not those who felt pressured to join us. 

Continue growing our team at a rate commensurate with our service demand. 

Continue providing value for free online platforms like LinkedIn, websites and Business magazines in order to help other people, whilst concurrently demonstrating our team’s knowledge base.