Welcome to the first edition of Seasoned!

What I'm Seeing...

I spent the last 18 months focused on a few key clients, so I've been pretty heads down and low key in the usual venues—LinkedIn, conferences, pods— they just weren't my priority. (Sorry, missed you guys!)

I expected some warm welcomes. (Got them—thank you.) I expected a little rust in my posting muscles. (Confirmed.) I expected the algorithm to have changed. (It has, dramatically.) What I didn't expect was the massive interest in the conversation that is unfolding.

I posted a POV about the shift happening in our industry—from selling projects to enabling decisions. Just my opinion, I thought. But within 48 hours, hundreds of people had weighed in, and what struck me wasn't the volume. It was the substance.

Senior people—CEOs, founders, Chief Client Officers at global firms—weren't just agreeing. They were building. Challenging. Extending the argument into territory I hadn't fully explored. A few threads that stuck with me:

On pricing: Multiple people pointed out that you can't sell "strategic value" while clinging to cost-plus pricing. The billable hour model was built for a different era. But if not that, then what? Outcome-based pricing sounds great until you try to isolate your contribution from everything else affecting the result. We don't have this figured out yet—but we need to.

On the word "vendor": I admitted to hating it! But someone commented that "partner" is earned, not claimed—and I agree. But I also think the language shapes the relationship. When procurement treats us as vendors (and we treat them as enemies), we behave like vendors (and are sometimes treated as adversaries). When we behave as collaborators, clients are delighted that we've risen to the challenge. The question is how fast can we move and how do we signal the shift?

On operations: I've always believed operations is the unglamorous superpower of great research companies. Several people echoed this—that the firms winning right now aren't just smarter, they're faster. They've rebuilt their infrastructure for speed and agility, in addition to the expected accuracy.

On asking better questions: One comment stopped me cold: "How can we inspire clients to ask better questions?" We spend so much energy delivering great answers. But if the question is wrong—or too narrow, or too safe—the answer will be anodyne no matter how rigorous the method. For decades, our industry has obsessed over the "right" way to ask questions. Maybe the real skill now is creating the conditions for genuine conversation. With AI handling more of the mechanical work, this human capability matters more than ever.

I share all of this because it reminded me why I love this industry. We argue well. We build on each other's thinking. We're grappling with genuinely hard problems.

It also reminded me why I'm doing this work. Not just to advise on strategy, but to be in the conversation. To synthesize. To push thinking forward—including my own.

If you're wrestling with any of this—how to price differently, how to shift from projects to partnerships, how to make your insights function actually drive decisions—I'd love to hear what you're seeing. Just hit reply.

Trust your instincts,

Eileen