Creating new opportunities with the ‘scope within the scope’

You’ve dated during the discovery calls (including several follow up calls) 

and have a clear, beautiful contract signed scope of work 

And then… you onboarded the client and saw things you never imagined

You know what I’m talking about… 

It’s the scope within the scope. 

It’s the messy things that: 

• the client actually needs but didn’t know about
• you as the 3rd part expert can significantly influence

You have to carefully balance the scope within the scope because how you respond to this will determine if you will create additional value for the client and revenue for you

or 

fall into scope creep

It is also completely up to you if you want to address the scope within the scope. 

You can just come in there and complete the job you were set to do

Or

You can transform those problems (the scope within the scope) into opportunities

I’m a firm believer that you can get everything you want if you have enough other people get what they want

So if you want to increase value, opportunity and revenue, here’s how I walk through my clients to do it: 

1. Clearly identify and define the actual problems that exist that are related (either by 1st or 2nd degree) to the solutions you provide
2. Hold your expert positioning by creating allies with those affected by these problems by addressing the issues with with them, hearing them out and opening the door to see if you can help solve this for them but not holding yourself subservient to the problem
3. Create leverage by telling the client that brought you (usually leadership or executive team) that 1) this issue that’s happening and 2) that you’re going look for ways to co-create a new solution with them. Ensure you mention that you’ll be focusing primarily on the specific scope that you were brought in for and that this would be something outside of that, to avoid falling into scope creep
4. Collaborate with the executive team or leadership team and co-design viable paths that can help solve the problem, but leaving the responsibility ultimately with the client since it hasn’t truly become your scope of work yet
5. As you work on a solution with the client, if the scope within the scope falls within your wheelhouse, you can then offer to solve it for the client either as an additional work of service or creative bundling of your offering with the existing service that you’re delivering

Even though this is listed out as a step-by-step format, this isn’t formulaic. 

Solving for and winning new business with the scope within the scope depends on how you build relationship and rapport with your clients. 

The extent of your relationship will dictate how far you can go to truly support the scope within the scope.