Oxpecker | Wingman

Perched on the back of a much larger animal, an oxpecker pays close attention. It removes the irritating gnats and ticks to keep its host healthy. It doesn’t lead the herd, but it serves an essential role. Without the oxpecker, small pests compound into damaging diseases that could kill members of the herd.

Providing a professional service is simply removing pesky problems for our clients. At our best, we go beyond delivering a final product; we can support the perpetual health of our client’s business, home, or life. This symbiotic partnership requires trust and alignment.

How do you find clients you can trust and align with your values?

Meghan Elliot found her clients by solving the ‘extras’ on difficult projects. She works with historic buildings that keep the history of a community alive and growing. As a structural engineer, she readily did her part on projects. But time and again there would be roadblocks in financing or historic review procedures. She decided to build her business, New History, around a smoother process. She didn’t want the roadblocks to stop her clients from rehabilitating and restoring historic properties. She assembled an elite team of diverse professionals who saw a similar vision and together they help clients: design, apply for grants, navigate tax credits, apply for the National Register of Historic Places, comply with historic guidelines, stabilize buildings, and much more.

Only a few of those are ‘core’ professional services. The others are all the pesky parts of the process that a building owner typically needs to learn and navigate. But Meghan is building a stronger symbiotic partnership where she helps clients achieve their end goal in a timely manner. Through her experience she can anticipate and resolve those hiccups before they derail a project.

Meghan finds clients who have a clear goal and a deeper purpose that requires a variety of professional services. Meghan shares their goal. She connects with those clients through educational opportunities. Her firm also advocates for historic preservation publicly through articles and local government.

The oxpecker can be a terrific marketing model when your clients have complex projects. It can be easy to go beyond providing a professional service and become a collaborating - a professional partner who shares their vision. And together, make the world a little bit better place.

It starts by taking care of the little things that we know annoy the clients we care about. And when they ask for something, we get to respond “as you wish.”