Advisory buyers are choosing judgement they cannot inspect. That is why a named client describing how a decision got made outperforms any statement a firm can make about its own capability — and why the objections below are worth working through rather than accepting.
"Our engagements are confidential."
The confidence is the client's, and they can choose what to say about their own affairs. So the film is built from what the client is willing to describe, and the matter itself stays out of it: the pressure they were under, who they had to convince internally, how the decision got made, what changed afterwards. None of that requires disclosing the work.
In practice we agree a scope sheet before filming — three or four sentences naming what is in bounds — and we do not improvise around it in the room. If your practice is subject to advertising or solicitation rules, have your own counsel review the wording; we work to whatever line they draw.
"Every engagement is bespoke, so one story isn't representative."
Correct, and it does not matter. A client story is not a sample of your work; it is evidence of how you think. A buyer of advisory services is not calculating an average outcome — they are trying to establish whether you have met their kind of problem and handled it sensibly.
Which is why two short stories from genuinely different situations do more than one story generalised into a claim. Specific and clearly singular reads as testimony. Generalised reads as marketing, and gets discounted accordingly.
"Nobody here has time for a production."
This is the one where the honest number helps: about ninety minutes of partner time in total. One call to choose the client and agree the scope, and a short on-camera piece on the day — if the partner appears at all, which is often the wrong choice anyway.
The client interview runs 45 to 60 minutes, at their office, two of us, no lighting truck. We deliberately do not want the partner in the room during it. A client is measurably more candid describing what was difficult when the person who did the work is not sitting behind the camera.
"Our best client will say yes and their comms team will kill it."
This happens, and it is the reason a lot of firms have one abandoned attempt behind them. The fix is not persistence. It is asking for the smallest thing that clears review: a written, named quote with a specific detail in it, agreed by email.
A named sentence from a real client is worth more than an unnamed film, clears in days rather than months, and leaves the relationship intact for a film later — usually with a different client whose review process is lighter. Choose the client by their approval path, not by the size of the engagement.
Across 31 customer-story films we have delivered, exactly one subject has asked us to change the edit. Clients defer — suggest an answer sounded good and you will be handed a tidier, more flattering version. In professional services that is a hazard rather than a convenience: a coached sentence about judgement has to survive the next prospect ringing that client and asking what actually happened. So we ask questions that do not carry their own answer, and we leave the hesitation in. The count, and its limits.
Where a client film earns its keep in a firm
Not on the homepage, mostly. Advisory work is won in pitches and in referral conversations, so the placements that pay are narrower and less public:
- The pitch document. One 90-second film linked from the credentials section, chosen to match the prospect's situation rather than your best-known name.
- The referral ask. A partner forwarding a client's own account is a materially easier ask than forwarding a brochure.
- Panel and RFP submissions, where a named reference with a real quote is often worth marks.
- Lateral recruitment. Senior hires want to know what the work is actually like, and a client's description tells them more than a practice-area page.
How to run the interview is in the customer story method; the questions themselves are in nine interview questions.