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👤 CLIENT: I’ve looked at your website. I understand animation—but I’m not clear on why we would hire you as a strategic consultant. Can you explain what you actually do?

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🧠 LAS: That’s a fair question—and the distinction is important. Leimert Animation Studio designs decision-support systems and uses animation as the medium to make those systems visible, understandable, and actionable. In practical terms: We take complex environments (economic systems, cultural ecosystems, institutional processes) We model how they actually function. Then we translate that model into a visual system your team can see, reason about, and make decisions from. So the value is not “a video.” The value is clarity that ultimately enables improved decision-making.

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👤 CLIENT That sounds good in theory—but we already have analysts, reports, and dashboards. Why do we need this?

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🧠 LAS: You likely have data and analysis. What you probably don’t have is structural clarity that is shared across decision-makers. Most organizations struggle with:

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• Fragmented understanding across teams

• Over-reliance on documents that don’t translate into action

• Inability to see how parts of a system interact

 

What we build is: A shared mental model of your system — made visible. When people can see the system, three things happen:

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1. Decisions become faster

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2. Alignment improves across stakeholders

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3. Strategy becomes grounded in structure, not opinion

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👤 CLIENT Let’s talk about money. How do you justify your pricing? What’s the ROI? 

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🧠 LAS: We price based on decision impact, not production time. So the question becomes: What is the cost of unclear decisions in your organization? For example:

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• Delayed initiatives

• Misaligned teams

• Ineffective programs

• Lost opportunities

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If a clearer system model helps your team:

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• Avoid one failed initiative

• Align faster across departments Or

• identify a high-impact opportunity

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the return typically exceeds the engagement cost many times over. We’re not competing with production vendors. We’re closer to strategy consultants—just with a more effective delivery medium.

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👤 CLIENT Okay—so what exactly would you deliver? Walk me through a project.

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🧠 LAS: A typical engagement has three phases:

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1. We work with your team to identify: Key actors Flows (money, people, information) This is where most of the strategic value is created.

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2. System Modeling: We construct a formal model of your system:

 

• Relationships between components

• Feedback loops

• Points of leverage

 

This becomes the foundation for everything.

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3. Visual Translation: We translate that model into:

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• A visual systems diagram

• A short animation that explains it clearly

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Optional: internal or external communication assets

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👤CLIENT I worry this might oversimplify things. Our systems are very complex.

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🧠 LAS: That’s exactly why this work is valuable. We don’t simplify by removing complexity. We simplify by structuring it correctly. There’s a difference between:

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Oversimplification → misleading Structural clarity → usable

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Our goal is:

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Preserve complexity, but make it intelligible.

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If your system cannot be explained clearly, it usually means: It’s not fully understood yet

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Or it’s not structured optimally

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👤 Have you done this before? Or is this experimental?

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🧠 LAS: The approach draws from established disciplines:

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• Economic modeling

• Systems thinking

• Decision theory

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What’s new is how we integrate them into a visual medium. I’m currently applying this framework to a real-world system:

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a micro-district economic and cultural ecosystem in Los Angeles.

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That project is helping refine:

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• The modeling approach

• The visual grammar

• The decision-making applications​

 

So while the integration is innovative, the foundations are rigorous.

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👤 How long does this take? We don’t want something that drags on.

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🧠 LAS: We design engagements to be focused and efficient.

 

• Typical timeline: 1–2 weeks

• ​Modeling:              1–2 weeks

• Visual translation: 1–2 weeks​​​

 

So roughly 3–6 weeks total, depending on scope. We avoid open-ended engagements. The goal is clarity delivered quickly.

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👤 CLIENT What if our team doesn’t actually use this?

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🧠 LAS: That’s a critical risk—and we design around it. We ensure adoption by:

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•     Building with your team, not for your team​​​

•     Focusing on decisions they already need to make

• ​    Delivering outputs that are: Immediately understandable, Easy to share and Useful in meetings

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If a model isn’t used, it failed—regardless of how good it looks.

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👤 CLIENT:  There are a lot of consultants out there. Why should we choose you?

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🧠 LAS: Because we solve a problem most consultants don’t address: The gap between understanding and action. Many consultants:

 

• Deliver reports

• Provide recommendations

 

But those often fail because:

 

• Stakeholders don’t fully internalize them

• The system isn’t clearly understood

 

What we do differently:

 

• We build the system itself

• Then make it visually undeniable

 

So, instead of telling you what to do… We show you how your system actually works—so the right decisions become obvious.

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🔴 OBJECTION 1: “This sounds like animation. Why is this so expensive?”

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🧠 LAS: This isn’t priced as animation—it’s priced as decision clarity. Animation is just the medium. What you’re paying for is:

 

• Understanding your system

• Structuring it correctly

• Making it usable for decision-making

 

If all you needed was animation, you could get that cheaper.

 

But if you need:

 

•      Alignment across stakeholders

•      Clear understanding of how your system works

•      Better decisions

 

That’s a different category of value.

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🔴 OBJECTION 2: “We can’t justify this budget right now.”
 

🧠 LAS: Understood. The real question is: What is the cost of

 

•      continuing without clarity?

•      Misaligned initiatives

•      Wasted resources

•      Missed opportunities

 

If this work helps you avoid even one misstep, it often pays for itself. If budget is tight, we can scope a smaller entry point—but I wouldn’t recommend doing nothing.

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🔴 OBJECTION 3: “We already have consultants.”

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🧠 LAS: That’s actually ideal. We don’t replace consultants—we make their work usable.

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Most consulting outputs:

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     Live in documents

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•  Are interpreted differently by different stakeholders

• ​We take that complexity and turn it into:​​

• Strategic Consultancy Dialogue​​

• A shared, visual understanding that everyone can act on.

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🔴 OBJECTION 4: “This feels abstract.”

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🧠 LAS: It only feels abstract until you see your system. Once we map:

         

• Who is involved

• How value flows

• Where constraints exist

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it becomes very concrete. Most organizations operate inside systems they’ve never fully visualized. We make that visible.

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🔴 OBJECTION 5: “What exactly do we walk away with?”

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🧠 LAS: You walk away with three things:

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          1. A clear model of your system:

                 

                 How it works

                 Where leverage exists

         

          2. A visual diagram

• Usable in strategy discussions

• Aligns your team instantly

          3. A short animation

• Explains the system clearly: Internally or externally

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But the real deliverable is: A shared understanding your team can actually use. 

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🔴 OBJECTION 6: “How do we know this will work for us?”

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🧠 LAS: We structure engagements to minimize risk:

 

• Tight scope

• Clear phases

• Early visibility into the model​

 

You’re not waiting until the end to see value—you see it as we build.

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🔴 OBJECTION 7: “This seems too simple for our complexity.”

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🧠 LAS: Clarity often looks simple—but it’s hard to achieve. We’re not removing complexity—we’re:

 

• Organizing it so it can be understood.

 

If something is too complex to explain clearly, it’s usually not fully understood yet.

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🔴 OBJECTION 8: “Can’t we just do this internally?”

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🧠 LAS: You can—but it’s very difficult from the inside. Why?

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•  You’re embedded in the system

•  Assumptions go unchallenged

•  Blind spots persist.

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We bring:

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• Structured modelin

• External perspective

• A disciplined process

• Strategic Consultancy Dialogue

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🔴 OBJECTION 9: “What if our team doesn’t use it?”

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🧠 LAS: That’s a valid concern. We design for usage by:

 

• Involving your team in the process :

• Anchoring everything to real decisions

• Delivering something intuitive and usable

 

If it’s not used, it failed—so we build to prevent that.

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🔴 OBJECTION 10: “Why should we trust this approach?”

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🧠 LAS: The foundations are not experimental:

• Economics

• Systems thinking

• Decision theory​

 

What’s new is the integration and delivery. We’re not inventing theory—we’re improving how it’s applied and understood. 

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