Case study build

Applies to a finished or clearly successful engagement. Produces the case study and the list of what needs client sign-off before it can go out.

The play

1. Decide what the case study is for before writing it. A piece built to sell one service line is structured differently from a general credibility piece, and a piece built for neither reads like a project recap. If the purpose is unclear, ask.

2. Pull the client's own words out of the record. Call notes, emails, the kickoff. How they described their problem before the engagement is the most valuable sentence available, and it is the one thing a case study cannot be written without. A case study in the firm's voice throughout reads as the firm talking about itself.

3. Write the before with specifics. That they struggled with lead quality proves nothing. The volume, the conversion rate, and what it was costing proves something. If those numbers do not exist, say so rather than writing the vague version and hoping it passes.

4. Write the approach using the firm's named method, in the order it happened, and leave out the routine parts. Every engagement had a kickoff. Nobody needs the kickoff.

5. Write the result with the number, the period it covers, and where it came from. Every number gets a source. A result with no time period attached is not a result, and a prospect who notices the missing period assumes the worst.

6. Pull quotes from what the client actually said, and mark each as pending approval. Never compose a quote and attribute it. If the record has nothing usable, write two or three questions to ask them instead, which is a better outcome than a fabricated quote that gets approved out of politeness.

7. Write the anonymous version in parallel: industry, size, shape of the problem, with the identifying detail removed. Check that it still carries weight without the name, because this is the version that usually ships.

8. Produce the sign-off list as something the owner can forward as-is: the numbers, the quotes, the naming, the logo. Separating approval into one short list is the difference between a case study that goes out this month and one that sits in a folder for a year.

What good looks like

• First thing I check that most people skip: whether we wrote down what we got wrong first. The failure is the part a competitor cannot find anywhere else, and it is what makes the rest of the piece believable. Nobody writes up their mistakes voluntarily, which is exactly why it works.
• The mediocre version: three large numbers, a logo, and no time period attached to any of it. It reads as marketing because it is, and a prospect who has read four of these discounts all of them.
• I know it is right when the before section has a real number in it. Without one there is no distance travelled, only an assertion that things improved.
• Second test: every claim traces to a call, a date or a dashboard. If I cannot say where a figure came from, a prospect will ask and we will not have an answer.
• Red flag: the client has not seen it. A case study drafted and never sent for approval is not an asset, it is a liability sitting in a folder waiting to be published by accident.

Rules

• MUST use the client's own words for the problem, taken from the record.
• MUST attach a number, a period and a source to every result.
• MUST mark every draft quote as pending approval.
• MUST produce an anonymous version and check it still works.
• MUST deliver the sign-off list as a forwardable list.
• NEVER fabricate a quote, including as a realistic-looking placeholder.
• NEVER name a client without confirmation they can be named.
• NEVER round a result up or drop the time period to improve it.
• NEVER write a padded draft when the evidence is thin. Produce the interview questions instead.