The UX Consultants Lounge

Tamara Adlin - The Power of Alignment

• Kyle Soucy • Episode 7

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In this episode of the UX Consultants Lounge, host Kyle Soucy speaks with Tamara Adlin, owner of Adlin, Inc., a consultancy specializing in helping early-stage startups and larger companies with product alignment and redesigns. They discuss her impressive career journey and her profound impact on the field of UX consulting. Tamara shares her experiences transitioning from a corporate role at Amazon to establishing her own consultancy, along with the lessons learned from a brief stint co-creating an agency.

Key Topics Discussed:

  • Challenges and Rewards of Specializing: Insights into the implications of specializing in early-stage startups and how it shapes business prospects and networking.
  • Her Quick Hit Process: Tamara introduces her unique approach to initial client engagements, distinguishing it from typical assessments and emphasizing the importance of alignment before design.
  • Women in Tech: Tamara provides candid advice for female consultants navigating the tech landscape, underscoring the necessity of advocating for proper titles and compensation.
  • Career Coaching and Support: Tamara discusses her commitment to mentoring and coaching. She talks about the importance of having open conversations about career advancement and salary negotiations, highlighting her involvement with the "Never Search Alone" network to support job seekers.
  • New Ventures: Discussion on Tamara's latest podcast, "Corporate Underpants," which delves into how internal politics affect digital products. She also hints at her upcoming book, Align Before Design.

Connect with Us:

  • Host: Kyle Soucy | Usable Interface (https://usableinterface.com/)
  • Guest: Tamara Adlin | Adlin, Inc. (https://www.adlininc.com/)

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Links and Resources Mentioned:


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I can’t wait to have you back in the lounge for our next episode!

Kyle Soucy:

Welcome to the UX consultants lounge. I'm Kyle Soucy, founder of usable interface an independent UX research consultancy. You can find out more about my work and the services I offer at my website, usable interface. com. I'll be your host here at the lounge where I'll be providing a place for UX consultants to gather, share stories, and learn more from one another. My guest today is Tamara Adlin. She is the owner of Adlin, Inc. A consultancy that specializes in helping early stage startups to align and create better products. Tamara also works with larger companies on major redesigns and new products. I've known of Tamara for my entire career, but I've never actually had an opportunity to meet and talk with her until having her on as a guest. Early on in my career, Tamara was known as one of the resources for all things related to UX personas. She co authored The Persona Life Cycle books with John Pruitt and has been consulting since 2005 and she's in the midst of writing her third book now called Align Before Design. Right away, you'll hear in the interview just how amazing Tamara's energy is. It was awesome to sit down and just chat with her. We covered a lot of topics, including Tamara's journey to becoming an independent consultant and how she took a brief detour. and decided to co create an agency with someone else, uh, before deciding that the partnership really wasn't going to work out due to an imbalance in the relationship. When it comes to her client engagements, we discussed what Tamara calls her quick hit process and how it's different from just selling an assessment, which she commented is not really an attractive thing for people to purchase. Since Tamara specializes in helping early stage startups, we discussed what the impact of specializing has been like on her business and her thoughts on how it impacts her networking and essentially her marketing, which she admits is mostly word of mouth. We talked about being women in tech and her advice for female consultants. And lastly, we discussed her new podcast, Corporate Underpants, which explores the impact of internal politics on digital products. You know, I listened to the first episode before we talked and I've really been enjoying it so far. In that first episode, she had Scott Berkun on as a guest and Tamara shared some advice that I think is especially important for consultants. And it's advice that we actually didn't cover in this episode, but I wanted to make sure to mention it because I thought it was so valuable. Uh, she said in that first episode, you have to respect whatever is going on already in the organization and understand it if you want to change it. Barreling in with the solution is never the answer. Wise, wise words. And so very true. I encourage everyone to check out the link in the show notes, to listen to her podcast or join her in a live recording of it. So let me tell you a little bit more about Tamara before we get to the interview. She lives in Seattle, and before launching her own business, Tamara was a user experience lead at Amazon. She has a master's degree in Human Centered Design and Engineering from UW, UW, and has always been fascinated with the problem of getting lots of people with different backgrounds to communicate and work well together. Tamara really enjoys giving back by volunteering her time with Never Search Alone, which is a job search council started by Phyl Terry that helps people find jobs they love. And she does a lot of speaking and writing about practical advice for women who want and need to fight for the right titles and salaries. As always, if you only have a short period of time to listen, I've added chapters for all the different discussions so you can jump around as much as you desire. So let's get to the interview. Please enjoy Tamara Adlin. Welcome to the lounge and, I'll start with just the most important question that you can possibly start with. Do people ever mispronounce your name?

Tamara Adlin:

All the time. Tamara like camera.

Kyle Soucy:

I, always wanna say Tamara for some reason. Okay. I'm not the only one.

Tamara Adlin:

Always. Always, always, always.

Kyle Soucy:

I always get Kyleen or Kylie, because it couldn't possibly be Kyle, and I get that because normally it's not, but

Tamara Adlin:

It's Kyle,

Kyle Soucy:

it is, it is, yep.

Tamara Adlin:

Kylie? No.

Kyle Soucy:

You know, I think people add it because they just can't accept that it's Kyle. So, what I'd love to do to start things off is if you could tell the listeners about your consultancy, Adlin, and the services you offer.

Tamara Adlin:

Absolutely. Adlin Inc is the company that I started in 2005 when I left Amazon and I chose Adlin Inc because I couldn't find any good URLs. So I took my last name. So in 2005 I left Amazon when my first book came out to start consulting and I had friends who were working at big companies and they said they would give me gigs. And so, that's what I did. And I've been doing that ever since with a brief foray into trying to create an agency. I co-created an agency called fell swoop and realized after a year and a half that creating an agency and having a partner were not the right things for me. Which is a lesson. You only have to learn once. And then I've been consulting ever since specifically I guess my areas of specialty are super early stage startups because I've had a friend and a rainmaker, somebody getting me work. Who's been in. Early stage startups himself, and then also created a couple of venture funds. And then I also love working for bigger companies that are wanting to behave more like startups for some reason. So they're doing a big redesign, or they're doing a, some kind of internal pivot, or they're launching a new product. And I love coming in and doing that as well.

Kyle Soucy:

so many questions just based off of that. So first, what are the services that you offer for these, you know, early stage startups or organizations acting like one.

Tamara Adlin:

Like many consultants, the services I offer exactly the same as I've always offered. I just keep changing their names because that's what we do. So a lot of people know me for personas because the persona life cycle and the essential persona life cycle came out in 2005 and 2010, and those were pretty well known in the UX community. So people who wanted to do persona projects would find me that way. But I haven't done data driven persona efforts since the book came out. And instead I got really focused on. Executive and stakeholder alignment. So what I offer today that I can tell you what I've packaged it as is a quick hit, which is the first project I do with any organization. And then we can talk more about that. And then deeper dives or retainer or advisory relationships that are more long term. And the reason I do that is the same reason I hesitate to tell you what the services are that I offer. But for those of you in UX, in product, which all of you are, what I do is super early stage figuring out what the hell they're trying to build. And honestly, what I really do is untangle the team, and the bosses of that team, if there are some that are trying to figure out what to build and how to build it. So I have a superpower super early in that, although nobody is shopping for that, everybody needs it. And my other set of superpowers lies in being able to look at and coach during the design process. So up leveling the people who are working on the interaction design information design. I don't do that myself I love bringing people in who I know and then also helping that design survive Through the development process.

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah, I saw on your website that you're also doing career coaching, right?

Tamara Adlin:

Yeah, I put that up there. I have a couple of clients. I mean I've been coaching women particularly throughout my career and I never offered it as a service. It's always just something that I've done. And so for people who want a longer, uh, deeper engagement in that, I'm available to do that as well. I've been super involved in job search stuff throughout my career because women in tech have particular set of problems that they need. a tribe of other older women to help them with. And also because recently I've been very involved with Never Search Alone, which is this giant, completely free network for job seekers.

Kyle Soucy:

It sounds amazing. Everything that I've heard about it, I've talked to people that have gone through it and have suggested it. And when we talked earlier, you mentioned too that it's something that even consultants could do and get benefit out of.

Tamara Adlin:

100%. So Never Search Alone is a book that came out, in 2002. It's written by a person named Phyl Terry, who I've known, P H Y L Terry, who 2002, because Phyl had these, Executive counsel still does. That's how Phyl makes money. The company is collaborative game and companies pay to send senior level people to be on these councils of non competitive companies where they can talk about all the stuff they're trying to figure out in their companies together because Phyl is all about the power of community. And then Phyl was coaching people way high level people. And and a lot of job seekers Throughout their career and then finally got never search alone out and I tend to say and sound cultish religious about this because It's free. It's a hundred percent free. It's community based. And so the deal is that this book I mean you buy the book although twice as much as the books proceeds are Phyl's putting back into the network, and then you can join a free job search council. You should think of it like AA, like Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous, but for job seeking. We're not affiliated with any of those groups, but the whole idea is if you put a bunch of people together in the same room or same group who are struggling with the same problem and you give them a process to follow, they help each other through. And that's what this is. It's 100 percent free. You can even just borrow the book from the library. You don't even have to pay for that. And I've. I just love. Love it. And about 15, 000 people so far in the past two years have formed over 3, 000 job search councils and gone through this 11 week process together on their own, with a huge network of 100 percent volunteers supporting them, in doing that. And so it absolutely sounds too good to be true and it absolutely is not too good to be true. It's for real, which is one of the reasons why I've been so excited about. Helping with it.

Kyle Soucy:

Well, I definitely want to check it out and I'm going to put a link in the show notes for anyone else, the Never Search Alone book. So you can find it there

Tamara Adlin:

Let me answer your questions about consultants though, because I skipped that part in my, in my monologue. So I joined a job search council back when the book came out to help Phyl launch this whole thing. And actually I was, I sort of just did it to help, right. But I was trying to figure out whether I wanted to stay a consultant or go back in house because I was hearing about these mythical jobs that people were getting a huge money for in house. And I, I was trying to figure it out. And so this process helped me figure out. what I wanted to do. And the way you can think about it as a UX person is you're UXing yourself. So you are really slowing down to speed up to figure out exactly what, and it's called the candidate market fit is, which is a very specific statement about who you are today, what you want in your next job. But I kind of morphed that into the consultant market fit. And I actually wrote a couple posts about that on my LinkedIn way back. The whole idea of, is what you're offering what people are shopping for? And if they are, how are they describing it? So the same principles, and there are subgroups, there's this huge 10, 000 person Slack channel, and there are subgroups in there that are consultants sort of helping. It's not designed to launch your business, but it is designed to figure out who the hell you are and how you describe yourself. Which all of us need,

Kyle Soucy:

Yes. Yeah. Getting that, that pitch down, just explaining it or even just figuring out the services. And I love how you mentioned how people are shopping for it.'cause you, you mentioned yourself that it's hard to explain exactly what you offer. And also you mentioned that nobody is looking for that, but they all need it. So

Tamara Adlin:

that's a hundred percent true. Like I sell something everybody needs and nobody is shopping for. So I was really excited. For example, when this new book by, Bruce McCarthy and Melissa Appel came out and it's called Aligned. At first I was upset cause I was like, Hey, they wrote my book. But I think the idea of alignment and the criticality of it. Is starting to become part of our vocabulary and part of the business world's vocabulary. Very, very slowly. So I've had to repackage that in all sorts of ways. I mean, often I'm brought in to do personas, but I'm a, I'm a Trojan horse because actually what I do is this alignment workshop that results in what I call alignment personas that has absolutely nothing to do with collecting new data. It comes before all of that, but it's tricky when we do what we do, we do stuff that. It kind of looks obvious once we've done it, which is a huge problem in the world of UX. If you do a good job, it looks like you were never needed in the first place.

Kyle Soucy:

Right. Right. And I love that concept of just slowing down to speed up. think that's important.

Tamara Adlin:

It is. It's really hard to convince. I mean, I can hear the other consultants out there listening to this recording saying, how do you get them to do that? And my favorite way to get people to slow down to speed up is to say that I absolutely 100 percent require clear, measurable goals for any project before I'm willing to start it. And they always say, Oh, we'll send them to you. We don't have to So, and it's kind of hard to say, Oh, this consultant's coming in, wants business goals. And we think that's pointless. I mean, nobody can say that that's a dumb idea. That's the wonderful thing about the word biz. I don't call them UX goals. I don't call them project goals. I call them business goals for a reason, because nobody can say that's a pointless exercise.

Kyle Soucy:

So is that a line that you draw on the sand where if they can't give you those measurable goals You don't take on the work or is that something you'll just you'll work with them on defining that.

Tamara Adlin:

Oh, no, I absolutely. I mean, that's my favorite work to take on. I just say we can't get on with the rest of it until we nail these down and agree with them.

Kyle Soucy:

Gotcha. So

Tamara Adlin:

that's my favorite thing. They just always say that they have them And they never do.

Kyle Soucy:

Now is that what you call the the quick hit process when you have a new client engagement

Tamara Adlin:

So the quick hit process and since You know, it's just between us chickens here listening to this. Here's the deal. Sometimes it's very, very hard to sell what we do because what we do depends. We have a goal in mind, especially for early stage people. Maybe user researchers, it's easier for them to package. I have no idea. But what I'll say is from my perspective, where what I do is a little bit squishier. A lot of people try to sell a, an assessment and that's cool, but that's also really hard to purchase. Like, how do you justify buying an assessment? From the purchaser side, it's oh, we're paying this consultant to figure out what they can sell us. To me, it just never felt smart to buy an assessment. So why should I sell an assessment? And also, because I work with early stage startups, it's really hard for them to get their head around. You know, how do we work together? What's the hourly rate, et cetera. So what I do is I offer a quick hit at a price point below which I will not work for people. Because if you work for people for a small amount of money, the smaller the amount of money, the larger the pain in the ass that client will be. Inevitably.

Kyle Soucy:

so true.

Tamara Adlin:

It's so true. And it's a nickel and diming situation. And those are great. As you're coming up in your career, you figure it out each other together, you get really, really involved. But once you get a little older, you know, you become, I don't know which supermodel said that she wouldn't get out of bed for less than 20, 000 a day. Now I haven't

Kyle Soucy:

Linda Evangelista. I remember that quote. A

Tamara Adlin:

I get it. It's if you're not going to value what I bring to the table, or if I can't explain it to a way in which you are going to put value on it, then it's pointless doing this. Cause I'm not going to have the power. I need to get the work done.

Kyle Soucy:

hundred percent. Now, let's take a, just a step back for a moment, about that journey to becoming a consultant. You mentioned that you first had the, um, co created an agency and realized that was not for you. Could you tell me a little more about that? Why was that not for you?

Tamara Adlin:

So I didn't do it first. What I did first was I went out on my own.

Kyle Soucy:

Okay. Ah,

Tamara Adlin:

And when you're in UX, the UX field, at least for me, I'll just say for me, I bet it's true for a lot of other people, you only offer a piece of the process, right? And for, especially if you're working with early stage companies, they don't know what the rest of the process is. So I haven't done wireframes in, I don't even know how long, it would be absolutely pointless for me to try because I'd be lousy at it. So Back then I started partnering with this person all the time and they would do the wireframes and then we were like, if we're doing this all the time, maybe we should create an agency and everybody goes through this or we should create a virtual agency, which happened. You know, six years later that that conversation all the time. And for some people that may make sense. And like people were, you know, that main Rainmaker that I have that VC was like, Oh, you should figure out how to scale your business. You're so awesome. Scale, scale, scale. So I was like, this is kind of a no brainer, except it wasn't a no brainer. So in 2008. we decided to create this agency together. The best thing that we did was get a prenup with a lawyer. So if you are going to do an agency or partnership, find a lawyer and do a prenup. No marriage ever starts with the idea of divorce. No business partnership ever starts with the idea of we're going to break up. But man, oh man, it is. Not pleasant to break up a partnership. The, so that included, like if I got eight and by an alligator, would his girlfriend get 2% of the company Like, deep, deep crazy specific questions about equity and all this other stuff. And that turned out to be ridiculously useful at the end. So what happened during that agency process is we were getting work and stuff, but I could go deeper into what broke that down if you wanted, but I'm not sure that that's.

Kyle Soucy:

oh, just cu Yeah, just curious why you decided to end that and go back to being independent.

Tamara Adlin:

Because it would turn out to be an unbalanced relationship. So at that time, I was further along in my career. I had written a book. I was writing a second book. I was a big fish in a small pond in the UX community. People knew who I was because I was going to all the conferences and everything. Nobody knew who my partner was. My partner was a mid sized fish in Seattle, doing design with talented, but not getting big projects. And also what I do tends to look like me standing in front of a room full of important people and joking around for a couple of weeks. And what they do looks like ass in chair for weeks and weeks and weeks on end doing wireframe after wireframe after wireframe. When that is the case, The power imbalance, the perception of who gets what out of this and the responsibilities get tricky. Some people totally nail it. There was a partnership at blink, with, Kelly and Karen that lasted a gazillion years. They sold at a profit. They amazing business partners. This wasn't that, and when it isn't, it can get super duper messy and it can also start hitting all of your personal buttons because it is this strange relationship you have with another person that is a lot of time in your life, and it's It, you're not married, but it starts hitting a lot of personal buttons for me. It did anyway. And I bet it does for others as well.

Kyle Soucy:

I see. Yeah. What were the, the pivotal moments that led you to say, you know what, I wanna go out on my own, you know, before even creating that, that agency

Tamara Adlin:

You mean when I left Amazon?

Kyle Soucy:

yeah, yeah. What made you wanna be a consultant?

Tamara Adlin:

So when I, apparently even in my interview at Amazon in 2002, I, they asked me where I saw myself in five years. And I said, as a consultant, I don't remember that, but my boss at the time told me that later. Um, I think when you write a book, it's to become a consultant because you establish yourself as knowing a lot about something and you never get the money back just in book sales. Ever. This is so much work. So in Amazon, the book was coming out. It was 2005. One day, somebody walked into my office and asked me for something I should have been able to give them. And I didn't have the resources to do it. And literally like a rubber band just snapped. Meanwhile, other friends had left Amazon and started getting jobs at other companies. And they're like, come over and we'll give you a consulting project anytime. And I was like, okay. So that's, it was a rubber band snapping in my head. It was like, I can't, I can't do this anymore.

Kyle Soucy:

and you were set up perfectly. I think it, it sounds like having the connections writing the book. Yeah. Now.

Tamara Adlin:

That's what I, and people thinking about consulting now, it is a very different world. I was, it was just basically handed to me and it is, and I am not having an easy time now. I will show that with people. So it's not easy.

Kyle Soucy:

I've got to interject. I would not say it was handed to you. You worked your ass off for it. You wrote that book. You put, you know, you definitely earned it. You had the,

Tamara Adlin:

That is a good,

Kyle Soucy:

yeah, You had the,

Tamara Adlin:

have corrected that at any other woman who said that. So thank you for that. Yeah. Yeah. The environment and me met up.

Kyle Soucy:

Yes. Yeah. Now you've been in business over 20 years. As you mentioned, a lot has changed and you know, you were initially the, the persona person. And that's not necessarily what you want to be known for now. So there's been a lot of changes and I'm just curious, You mentioned specializing in, you know, messy startups, and you also specialize in Web3 and blockchain. Is that right?

Tamara Adlin:

I have been for a while, not as much anymore. Because, so I told you there's this rainmaker that I've known for 20 years, started knowing them back. at my Amazon days. And first they were starting up all their own stuff. And then they were creating these, venture funds. And the first venture fund that he created was in e commerce and retail technologies. And then he got into blockchain, and crypto and all of that stuff. And in 2017, I wish I had listened to him then and bought some Bitcoin. I mean, I was like, okay, whatever he was my main guy and he was all into this new technology and I followed him in, blockchain and web three are not yet ready for UX. That's a blanket statement that I. I still kind of stand by today. They're getting there. But whenever any new technology is having money thrown at their faces by venture, they're not ready to slow down to speed up. So that's one of the hurdles that I've hit is that, you know, he still has this venture fund and I still advise them, but it's not quite the right fit for me. And the personas thing is interesting too, because now everybody hates personas. I think what they actually hate is the disappointment of big, expensive, persona, data driven processes, and I kind of agree with that. So it's weird, it's, it's interesting to be as, I think some people who just say, oh, you're the persona person. I'm like, kinda? Yeah, but, you know, my thoughts have changed a lot over the years about. The way personas can and should be used in companies

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah, and as they should, right? You have to change with the times and it's, you're not going to be that person with that, Advice forever. It's got to change. And I'm wondering what has the impact of specializing, been like on your business?

Tamara Adlin:

while specializing in early stage startups is dumb because they don't have any money. Nobody told me that I was joking around with my friend Katie about that. And it's led me to understand that. I have to only work with what I call jokingly called pre disaster founders as founders who have been through the process before, because otherwise they have so much hubris that nobody can tell them anything. I mean the impact, I just, I love it. There's a lot that drives me crazy about it. Often, often, often, I think, God, there's gotta be easier ways to make money. And there probably are getting contracts with big companies, but this is the path I've taken. And. You have to reevaluate if you're consulting, you're consulting business changes every couple of years. Unless you're like one of the giant names, I guess, but what people are looking for. So I, don't even know. I mean, that's the path I took. And so here I am.

Kyle Soucy:

You know, I, we talked about this briefly before and, I know I've talked about it on the show with other guests, I always battle with specializing, you know, it makes perfect sense to specialize because if somebody needs, you know, the e-commerce expert or this expert or medical device expert, they think of you. But I always worry. If it ever feels like it's holding you back cause you can work in other industries, you just specialize in this and you don't want to miss out on other good, interesting work or opportunities. Have you ever found that to be the case?

Tamara Adlin:

Well, that's okay. So that's an enormous point in Never Search Alone, by the way, and job search councils. The idea of candidate market fit is that, and this is the example I use. If you lose your job in UX, you probably put on your LinkedIn, I'm open to any UX Job that's out there, right? Because you are, so you throw this net. The problem with doing that is if you look at the responses to LinkedIn posts like that, people will be like, anybody would be lucky to have you. And, but they don't say, I'm going to introduce you to George over at Acme incorporated. Because nobody knows what to do with that. I think the same is true with consultants also, Then when you look at the hiring process, some people do put out that they're specialized. So then you're in a competitive environment. Where you're like, I can do it all against somebody who says, I specialized in medical equipment. So who is the medical equipment company going to pick? So Phyl's point is, people are really good at expanding from narrow statements. They're not good at contracting from wide statements. So a wide statement is, I'll take anything in UX or UX research. A narrow statement is, I'm looking to join an established UX research team as a senior. Manager, at a 5, 000 plus person company, advanced stage startup or young company, in the healthcare field. If you are able to say that, then people know who you are,

Kyle Soucy:

Mm hmm.

Tamara Adlin:

and they are actually more likely to introduce you to someone in transportation who has a senior management role open. In a company of that size or to someone in healthcare who has a smaller company, that's looking to grow because they know who you are. So here's the deal. Somebody has to know who the hell you are.

Kyle Soucy:

Right.

Tamara Adlin:

And if it's not you, you're asking your customers to figure that out for you. It can't be avoided. The squishiness has to be handled by someone and if it's not you, then you're asking your potential customers to handle squishiness. I don't know anybody. I mean, I'm sure they're out there who has just put out a marketing campaign and built a consulting business out of that, like with broad statements. So if things come through word of mouth, then, The specificity is also useful.

Kyle Soucy:

And I love that, expanding narrow, statement. It makes a lot of sense. And just to pivot to the, the marketing a little bit, and just finding that consultant market fit, what strategies have been effective for you in marketing your own services and attracting new clients?

Tamara Adlin:

None.

Kyle Soucy:

None.

Tamara Adlin:

I've always been horrible at that. Almost all of my stuff has come through word of mouth. It just, it just has. And I just suck at. I mean, every time I try to think of Oh, I should do this to market myself or that, then I think, or I could do that or, or I could do this, but really I should work on that. And I get totally wrapped around my own axle.

Kyle Soucy:

You described yourself as a a UX vampire, and I loved that term. Can you ex

Tamara Adlin:

So that's not marketing. That's so UX

Kyle Soucy:

No. Yeah.

Tamara Adlin:

say, I say that I have to be invited in. So if you market yourself, you have, you like knocking on doors. Right. But for me, Especially with the work I do at my level, which is hopefully senior and executive level unclusterfucking, somebody inside has to realize that they have a problem and somebody from the outside, not me has to say, you should talk to Tamara. So the job I'm doing now, it came from this startup being fired by a super senior UX designer who had been going around in circles with them for 18 months. And I'm telling you, this woman is. And can handle untangling most things. This was such a big tangle. She was like, you guys need help.

Kyle Soucy:

Mm.

Tamara Adlin:

And that's how they never would have gone shopping for me.

Kyle Soucy:

Right, right. And when you, when they get that message like, oh, you have to talk to Tamara, and you get that invite in, how do you know when it's going to be a good fit? Mm-hmm

Tamara Adlin:

Well, that's another reason to do the quick hit. The reason to do the quick hit is it's dating before marriage, right? For both sides. And also I'm generous with my time before the contract starts. I talk to them a bunch before we signed a contract and I usually often talk to every single member of the management team or several members or something like that before we get started. And that process is also critically important. That's my sales process. My sales process is doing exactly the same thing that I'm so good at, which is Really, really listening and asking questions and identifying their problems, not the problems with the product, the problems with their team, with the process, with the communication. So an example I always use is even when people call me for personas. Within 10 minutes, we're talking about how the VP of product and the VP of engineering hate each other.

Kyle Soucy:

Yep.

Tamara Adlin:

That's the real problem.

Kyle Soucy:

So getting back to that stakeholder alignment, but with just hiring you and defining that scope.

Tamara Adlin:

If they're, stuck, then they don't even know how they're stuck. And they certainly don't know how to solve it. They come up with a solution to go shopping for a consultant because they have to, right? They're like, well, who do we need to hire? An executive coach, a researcher do we need to do a workshop? Do we need to send people to training at Nelson Norman? They already have to figure out what they don't know the solution, but it's like, oh, they, they take a stab at the solution in order to hire the solution, even though. We, the providers will be better at saying, okay, here's where you should go.

Kyle Soucy:

You know, I really appreciate you being so honest with telling me that nothing has been effective with marketing or attracting new clients that it's all word of mouth. Cause I mean, I'm, I'm in the same boat. People ask all the time, like, how do you find new clients? It's like, I don't really know. I try my hardest, but nothing seems to work. You know, whether it's, writing something on LinkedIn, writing an article. Speaking at a conference, I mean, I don't know, I don't know what works, but eventually somehow someone hears about me and, and that's the way in, right? Having the warm lead, you, you've referenced it a couple of times, this person in your network that you call the rainmaker. And I think that that is so important when people are considering consulting, it's not necessarily how. Big your network is right? It's about knowing that right person that hopefully can Spread the word or has good connections and it's you know, are you connected to those rainmakers?

Tamara Adlin:

So there's, in them again, we're, we're mushing together, never search alone in this, but because it makes sense. This is about career stuff, right? In never search alone, before you create candidate market fit, you go on something called a listening tour, which is a structured set of three different kinds of interviews that you do with people in your network. And you're really, really organized about the kinds of questions that you ask. And it's all in the book and in the templates and all that stuff. But part of that process is. also establishing with those people in your network, what it is that you're doing and offering now. And it's another reason to be specific because, Oh, I know somebody who wants a 5, 000 plus person growth stage startup or, Oh my God, I know an early stage person or, Oh, I know someone who does healthcare like top of mindedness. Specificity can help with that and, and different people can have a different concept of your specificity. I mean, someone in your network who's got a lot of friends who are VCs can think of you as early stage, while another set of your network can think of you as healthcare or manager or whatever, right? But I think if you're going to depend on word of mouth, which I think you have to, I think you have to put those words in that mouth. There's a good quote.

Kyle Soucy:

Right, yeah

Tamara Adlin:

And you have to be the one to do that. You have to make it easy. for others to describe what you do.

Kyle Soucy:

And tell me a little bit about corporate underpants. Is this a marketing effort? Is it just a kind of fun thing or

Tamara Adlin:

Okay. So right now I'm working on a new book called aligned before design, which is about alignment personas, which is an executive alignment sort of workshop process that anybody in UX is going to be able to do. And I'm looking for early readers on that. So people can get in touch with me, about that. And I've also launched corporate underpants, which is. podcast and a live show that I do on LinkedIn. So you can follow me if you want to find that. And it's also launched on podcast networks. I'm only a couple episodes in. So again, you know, writing a book is a way to establish yourself as a strong voice in something like it's always. Interesting to me, the whole idea of thought leader. I mean, I think I fit in that category, but it feels like a very weird thing to say. It's especially weird if all you do is write blog posts all day. So it sort of does that thing that label is supposed to do. Corporate underpants. I have been shoulding on myself for years. You should, should, should get out there and do more presentations or get back, you know, people don't know who I am anymore in UX. Some people do, some people don't. And I'm like, that's irritating. Look at my ego. Corporate underpants is. Really for practitioners and it defines the problem. The problem is that politics in organizations ruin our projects like tornadoes ripping through and a building site, the corporate underpants comes to them, the idea of visible panty lines, ruining an outfit. And it's a blog. It comes from a blog post I did in 2006. That term, not a new idea, but my cute term for it, that's the problem. And this aligned before design is the solution. So corporate underpants, is it marketing? I mean, sure. I don't know. The only way I could start it is by not overloading it with too many, this is what this is criteria. I just had to start doing it and let. You know, cookie crumbs fall where they may. Otherwise, I get too stuck.

Kyle Soucy:

Yep. Yeah,

Tamara Adlin:

So I just, I had to do it. Because I was irritated that other people were talking around this topic, and I have more to say on this than most of them. And I love having an audience, doing a presentation, and I was craving that, so I did it.

Kyle Soucy:

I'm so glad you are doing it and you are so good at it, too. You have so much energy and your interview style is just really fun and refreshing. So I think it's great and I love just a side note that graphic of the corporate underpants with the skyscraper with the underwear on is just hysterical and it's like you have to look at that and be like, what the heck is this about? So it

Tamara Adlin:

Yeah, I'm the only one who's putting like, Oh a bulge on

Kyle Soucy:

right?

Tamara Adlin:

If we need more

Kyle Soucy:

Oh my gosh.

Tamara Adlin:

here you go. Also, the way you can know that you have a new idea is if AI has a hard time drawing it.

Kyle Soucy:

Oh nice.

Tamara Adlin:

So my friend, a friend of mine who's a very great artist and very great sort of wrangler of AI was playing with that with me and came up with that. I'm like, okay, that's pretty good.

Kyle Soucy:

My one kid saw it when it was on my computer screen. He's like, what is that? And I'm like, oh.

Tamara Adlin:

You know, I mean, you know, it's, it's, why not? And also, oh, my God, you guys, if you tune in for one thing, it's for my song. I developed a jingle for it. I wrote the lyrics, and then I put it into an AI music generator, and it created the funnest jingle ever. And so I now have custom music for it. Oh, I'll tell you what the lyrics are. Ready for this? Don't let corporate politics and clusterfuckery ruin all your projects and your sanity. Smooth out those panty lines and make it all make sense. Get experience through osmosis with corporate underpants.

Kyle Soucy:

Oh, brilliant.

Tamara Adlin:

So you've got to have some fun and some, I don't know, cursing in order for, I don't know, for me, I do anyway.

Kyle Soucy:

You know, it, that's awesome. You found a creative outlet, you had something to say on it, and you know, like you said, whether it's marketing or not, it's something you're doing that you want to do and you're passionate about. So excellent.

Tamara Adlin:

way, I'm not all that confident all the time. I mean, the only way I am is like, just to say, I don't care. If people listen to it or not, I mean, literally, maybe there have been eight people on the first couple episodes listening live, who knows how the podcast is going to go. But I don't care because I love the stories and I'm so curious about them. I just do it because I do it.

Kyle Soucy:

And I, I feel the same way with this podcast, is it marketing, I'm definitely helping others, but I just like doing it. And you know, if I get one listener, it's enough to keep doing it, you know, but you hope for more, but.

Tamara Adlin:

No, I think you're doing a really good, sir. And it's the same kind of thing. People need to know real stories. Not Oh yeah, you should be a consultant around the dinner table. You need to hear real stories and know what you're getting into and get some experience by osmosis. That's what you're offering. Kyle, and I think you're doing a great job. So back at you.

Kyle Soucy:

thank you. Thank you. Well, I wanna talk to you about being a woman in tech. Uh, you wrote a great, great article, Elation and Deflation, the Reality and Responsibility of Being an Experienced Woman in Tech, and I thought. It was so well written. You're a great writer and I, I love how you explored the highs and the lows of a career, in tech for women. And I want to read a short snippet of it about what you called the, quote, exhausting truth. So you wrote, for women, the negotiation is never over. We are never fully compensated. We are never sure where the top is, but we are pretty damn sure we haven't reached it. It's very hard to see glass ceilings. It's impossible to compare colleagues at the top echelons of organizations. Who is more valuable? Who should be making what? No one knows. There is no finish line. There is only the very safe assumption that if you are a woman, you are not at the top of any of those piles.

Tamara Adlin:

Oh, that is good. I haven't read that in a while.

Kyle Soucy:

So good. And you went on to say, let's see here. Almost everyone has voices in our heads telling us that we maybe aren't as good as we think we are. Experienced women have another voice in our heads saying, I'm not getting my fair share. And this voice is probably much stronger and certainly more correct for women who don't have the benefits of privilege that I do. It says all the work you've done so far. Isn't enough. And that hit home. Oh my gosh, so much to me. I hear it echoed in my network of women in tech who are powerhouses who are strong, who are amazingly accomplished. But then we're also feeling Like, we're not where we should be, and at first, thank you for writing that, but then also I'm curious to know, what advice do you offer to women navigating similar experiences in UX consulting?

Tamara Adlin:

The best piece of advice I can give you is find other women you can talk about money with and talking about money with other women requires some preparation because, at moments, each of you is going to be in a position that the other one would like to be in. For me, what has ended up working is to say out loud if someone else's Negotiating a job for some ridiculous amount of money. I first have to say out loud, okay, I'm having an envy moment because this is so amazing, but once I say it aloud, then I can say, okay. But that's fine. We'll do me after. Let's do you. But I have to say it. Otherwise it traps my voice, it traps my heart, it traps my ego. And I can't be fully in it. I have to just say it. And once I say it, I feel a little bit better. Which is like the opposite of saying I feel fat, which never makes you feel better. It always makes you feel like you shouldn't have said it in the first place, right? This makes me feel better, saying I'm having a moment of envy. Okay. I've said it out loud. Whatever it is that enables you to talk to another woman fully about money is going to be really important in your career because it's only when you're outside of the position that you can say. No, well, like some of the best advice I've gotten from other women is that email should only be two sentences I've written, you know, paragraphs, they say two sentences, or they say, no, just ask for 50, 000 more, not that I'm doing that right now, but, then just Put a period at the end of that sentence. I think you need that. I think you need that perspective. I think you need that tribe. I think if you're a consultant, you also need that tribe to help you say no when the opportunity is not good. And that's a similar idea to the job search council idea. Never search alone because as a consultant, you're going to have opportunities that something in your head is telling you this is not a good one, but you're. And, often when that's happened, I've called two or three different women and they're like Tamera. Nope. Do not do this. You're going to regret it. I mean, finances being finances, you do what you need to do, but you need that. You need that squad. And in order to have that squad, you have to talk about envy. You have to talk about financial jealousy. You have to talk about ego related to titles. There's somebody I used to mentor who has now gone on to jobs making stupid amounts of money, way more than I've ever made. And I have to process that in order to be what I really am, which is so fully. Supportive and excited by that

Kyle Soucy:

And having that professional support group, I think there's just not enough of that, especially with women, because like a lot of times we look at each other sometimes competitively.

Tamara Adlin:

percent. And by the way, senior women and companies aren't always pleasant to work for either. There's so much that we haven't processed and so many games we've had to play to climb to where we are. there's toxicity swirled into our selves that we have to process. Anyway, going totally agree with you.

Kyle Soucy:

well, it's interesting, I love how you called out, you have to recognize there's envy there. Right? And put that aside. Yeah, sure. Yeah. And you're only human. How, how could you not? But then there's also happiness, right? Because what's good for one woman is great for all of us. You know?

Tamara Adlin:

ostensibly. But even that I hear and I'm like, I

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah.

Tamara Adlin:

mean, it still gives you the same. The reactions are there and you have to have, you have to sort of develop. A strong EQ around yourself as a professional and a money earner and all of those things, which is not easy.

Kyle Soucy:

And I like that you called it a squad. And I think that's more than just, it's not your network. This is a, a group of close people that you can talk frankly with, share things with, that it's not, you know, this is not going to be something you talk about on LinkedIn. It's just something with your close colleagues.

Tamara Adlin:

It's the equivalent of the people that you talk to about shitty stuff that happens in your relationships, right? That you trust not to hold on to them and remember them next time you're back in love again, It's the people you can really be bare with.

Kyle Soucy:

hmm. Mm

Tamara Adlin:

And that you also know that your presence helps them and developing that can take time. You probably already know them, or, or if you suspect it might be a good person, you have to sit down and say, can we have a conversation about talking about money? Because I think I'm going to need. Your ears. And also by the way, I'm pretty open about what I charge and stuff because I really hope that other people will help me figure it out too. So sometimes that's true and sometimes that's not.

Kyle Soucy:

Well, I'm so glad that you wrote that again, and, I think it's a powerful message that, that every woman should have their squad, especially important now, more than ever. And

Tamara Adlin:

when I do coach women, which I'm actually really good at doing, I have control of that in myself now because I've been working on it so long that I can be fully supportive of them. So it's hard when you hear about successes from another person, not to take it personally.

Kyle Soucy:

hmm. Mm hmm.

Tamara Adlin:

Just think about that and notice that next time you're talking to somebody. If you have experience doing that, then you know, like a therapist, it's not about you, it's about them. And them even talking about it with you puts you into a position where it's like you're a good parent who's like listening and strong enough in themselves to be 100 percent there for another person. And with women, we don't understand the value of what we've already done.

Kyle Soucy:

Mm.

Tamara Adlin:

And we don't, we just don't.

Kyle Soucy:

Yep. So true. Just diminish it. And, I wanted to talk a little bit more about your writing. So you had the two books out, on personas and

Tamara Adlin:

Which I co authored, by the way,

Kyle Soucy:

right.

Tamara Adlin:

with John Pruitt, who went on to a huge career at Dell.

Kyle Soucy:

And this third book, A Line Before Design, I wanted to ask, how do you feel about self publishing versus having a book publisher? Which route are you going to go this time?

Tamara Adlin:

I, you know, I don't know. I have a feeling it's going to be self published. Again, I think all of these things tend to wrap me around my own axle. It's squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. But worse, because dogs chase them and they never catch them. Every time I think about it, I get such in a Like a hair around a vacuum cleaner axle. Like I can't, and I immediately freeze. So what I'm doing right now is writing it. And I think I'm going to put it out there and not put pressure on myself to market it too much. I think it's going to be a word of mouth thing. I think it'll be a relatively in a, you know, 10 or 20 book. And then I think I'm also thinking about putting together templates that people can buy with their work budgets that come with some coaching from me as well. So like you can buy this Align Before Design book and do this workshop because anybody can, although it takes a little finesse. I call it five conversations for executive alignment and you create these alignment personas, which are, you know, getting everybody's assumptions out on the table and into the light. Because, as I like to say, the only assumptions that can hurt your product are the ones you don't know about. But then also there's like templates and like I could coach you and maybe your business can pay for that, you know, that's a little bit more. So I don't even know how I'd go about approaching a publisher at this point. The publisher of my book before Morgan Kaufman and Elsevier, they're more of a bigger books type thing. And this one, I want to be short. I want to be easy and I don't want to think about it too much and I want to be able to update it. So I don't know a whole hell of a lot about what that means. So

Kyle Soucy:

All right, well, I think it's great that you're at that point where you're kind of open to anything and I noticed on your website, there is a place to sign up for updates on the book, so I'll make sure to include that in the show notes as well. I'm anxious to see. What becomes of it?

Tamara Adlin:

me too, I guess I have to write it.

Kyle Soucy:

just to wrap up with our last minutes here, I just have some, some rapid fire questions for you. From your perspective, what makes a consultant good?

Tamara Adlin:

What makes a consultant good, I think is someone who really dives in and doesn't just understand the problem that they were hired to solve, but understand the problem in the organization that required them. To go get help.

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah,

Tamara Adlin:

That's my perspective. Let's say you're a researcher, you can go out and get the greatest data in the world. But if the reason they wanted that data was to solve an argument that you don't know about, it's not going to work. I mean, probably in user research, everyone listening can name a dozen projects over their career, which were great data and totally ignored. In fact, my most recent interview with Jeff Verona is exactly that great research that there was one person who said, what about mobile demolished the whole thing, at the last minute. So to me, it's really about understanding both levels of problem. And often, if you understand the corporate problem, the team, the politics problem, it changes what you. Should and can deliver because anybody who's out there hiring a consultant has a problem. That doesn't mean they know the way to solve it. You are the one who knows the way to solve it. So just saying, yes, I'll do it exactly the way you say, unless it's for some amazing user research team that just needs an extra hand, it's not gonna work.

Kyle Soucy:

Yeah, I love that. And then what's the best piece of business advice you've ever received?

Tamara Adlin:

I think it's just the general idea that word of mouth and personal relationships is. Probably the most powerful thing you can do.

Kyle Soucy:

So you mentioned Never Search Alone as a great resource and I was wondering what, Resources specific to consulting have been most helpful for you.

Tamara Adlin:

Other consultants have been helpful, but also there's a book that I love that I just discovered recently called, Taking the Work Out of Networking. It's by Karen Wickrey, who's this awesome, she calls herself the most connected, hidden person in Silicon Valley and this whole magic of how do you actually talk to people and build your network has always been a bit of a confusing thing to me. And her point is that the purpose of the first meeting is to get the second meeting. And that has really helped me because The thing I realized I've been doing wrong and the piece of advice I would give that's taken from that is don't do the blurt. Don't walk up to people and try to shove your entire resume and history and how great you are into 90 seconds. Nobody likes hearing that, but we all feel like we need to do it to prove our value. Instead, what we need to do is connect with someone about like, I rescue bunny rabbits. Sometimes I say that want to see a picture of my bunny, whatever, anything to get the second conversation. Or, this idea of consultant market fit, this one sentence, even if it's specific, that'll generate some questions or some interest or, Oh, that's cool. That's what you want to do. And then you want to cultivate, those with integrity and non sliminess.

Kyle Soucy:

Absolutely. I will definitely check that book out because that is something I need to work on as well. Networking is always, it's always

Tamara Adlin:

There's also some

Kyle Soucy:

never easy.

Tamara Adlin:

So we do a LinkedIn live, for never search alone. And all those videos are available for free on Phyl. org. So we can put that link up too.

Kyle Soucy:

Great. I will definitely add all those links to the show notes. And Tamara, this has been so fantastic. Thank you so much for just spending your time with us, for sharing your wisdom. I'm so glad you could be my guest

Tamara Adlin:

so much fun and an honor to be here, Kyle. I think what you're doing is great. And, yeah, just keep trying everybody bit by bit, project by project.

Kyle Soucy:

right. Thank you.

Tamara Adlin:

you.

Kyle Soucy:

All right. That wraps up this episode. Thanks for joining me. So do you have a topic or a question that you would like us to explore on a future episode of the UX consultants lounge? Perhaps there's an anonymous consulting story you want to submit. If so, click on the link in the show notes to submit your story or question from the podcast website. Until next time, keep that consultancy going. I can't wait to have you back in the lounge for our next episode.

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