Your Future Firm Starts Now: Success Strategies for Launching New Services – Part 3
October 19, 2016 | The Whetstone Group
We are taking a closer look at a process firms can use to evaluate and develop new services to meet clients’ needs and create new sources of revenue by building a more consulting-based practice. On Sept. 21st we introduced steps 1 and 2 – Research Market Needs and Evaluate and Prioritize. Oct. 3rd we examined steps 3 and 4 – Define the Scope and Go to Market with Your Service. This week we conclude with step 5 – Tracking Results and Measuring Success (including a downloadable guide for the whole process).
Step 5: Measure your results
What gets measured (and reported)…gets done. When you analyzed the costs of building this service capability in step 2, you likely got a feel for the level of revenue you need to reach profitability. Set a specific sales goal for the new service, allowing for ramp-up time to go to market appropriately. Services with high levels of opportunity within your existing client base will become profitable more quickly than those for which you must go outside of the existing client base to find opportunities. Develop a pipeline report to track opportunities associated with the new service – including the stage of the sales cycle, value of the opportunity and probability of closing.
It’s helpful to assign responsibility to an individual or team to be held accountable for reaching the goal, and measure their results regularly throughout the year. Hold regular meetings to evaluate results and discuss what, if anything, is getting in the way of success. As these success barriers are identified, discuss how to resolve or work around the issue and provide support to the service champion/team.
Establish accountability for sales results for your new service by incorporating the goal and results into the individual/team’s annual goal setting, evaluation and compensation discussions.
Conclusion
This series has discussed a 5-step process for successfully introducing new services:
- Research market needs
- Evaluate and prioritize new service ideas
- Define scope and communicate
- Go to market
- Measure results
Addressing each of these steps with the discussed approach will improve your ability to continue meeting your clients’ evolving needs, attract new clients, and sustain profitable growth for your firm.
We’ve summarized the approach described the past few weeks in our New Service Evaluation Checklist. To download the checklist click here.
If you are interested in learning more about how to implement these steps, or how new services fit into your firm’s overall approach to topline growth contact us at info@thewhetstonegroup.com or 319.447.6400 for a no-cost, no-obligation meeting.
Unlock Professionals’ Potential by Redefining Your Firm’s Training Approach
July 19, 2016 | The Whetstone Group
For so long, firms have searched far and wide for solutions to their business development challenges. Young, and not-so-young professionals have participated in what I would, by no scientific means, guess is millions of hours of business development training programs. These programs are touted as creating superstar rainmakers in order to solve the firm’s new business needs and fill the sales pipeline with opportunities. Participants learn tools and techniques to generate leads and close the big sale.
The challenge most professionals have implementing the skills from business development training is twofold: First there is a natural aversion to “sales” the way many professionals think about it—which is going out into the market, telling everyone you meet about all your firm’s services and asking them to hire you. Second, in this context business development becomes an “add-on” skill set, or worse, an added set of responsibilities and tasks on top of what professionals see as their primary job.
When professionals view growth as a secondary responsibility and they have a natural aversion to what they think is required of course the result will be less than ideal. Current partners may perceive this as apathy or a sense of entitlement among the next generation. Young professionals may perceive this as an unrealistic expectation and outdated way of doing business.
The result is often a lack of engagement in activities that lead to organic growth as well as a lack of success in attracting high quality clients. It may cause young professionals to leave the firm, or the profession altogether. It puts pressure on the firm’s ability to fund partner retirements. It may cause a firm’s culture to become production oriented vs value driven.
So rather than as something “extra” let’s look at business development training curriculums for professionals in a new way. Train young professionals to practice their profession in a way that leads to new opportunities—namely the behaviors of becoming a trusted advisor with clients. Start early when young professionals (millennials) are energized, ready to make a contribution and eager to take on responsibility for adding value to clients. Give partners a system for looking at client relationships, expanding opportunities and getting younger folks involved in conversations about clients to share a new perspective based on what they’ve learned in working with the client.
Think about some of the skills that are important to being good at developing new business: relationship development, understanding needs, communication, questioning, problem solving, and trust building. All of these skills apply directly to the process of client service. Teaching these soft skills in the context of working with clients enables young professionals to practice and gain confidence with the skills that will make them great at cultivating new business. At the same time, they are deepening client relationships and creating a more satisfying practice for themselves.
If the firm’s goal is to increase young professional engagement and grow the firm, developing the behaviors of client service that lead to opportunities should be a central component of the firm’s training curriculum.
Firms wrestling with the issue of employee engagement will find that teaching young professionals skills which can be integrated into their core function will reinforce the behaviors sooner—becoming a natural part of the way they practice. The result is professionals who have deeper, more trusted relationships with their clients, create more fulfilling relationships, add more value and derive more satisfaction from their careers. Often this leads to improved retention of rising stars.
Business development doesn’t have to be hard.
July 28, 2014 | The Whetstone Group
Let’s face it – you most likely didn’t work hard to develop your professional service skills and expertise because you wanted to be a sales person. That said, you probably also realize the importance of developing new business so that you can continue to practice your professional skills — it’s a conundrum.
What if I told you the most effective business development tactic you can employ is also the easiest AND least expensive? I’m guessing you’d want to hear more — so here goes. I’m talking about mining your existing client data to identify business development opportunities.
The Tried (and True!) 80/20 Rule
Start by listing your clients in order of the fees they pay you annually — highest to lowest. Then look at the top 20% on the list and calculate what percentage of your total revenue they represent. I’m pretty sure you’ll find that top 20% of your clients represent close to 80% of your revenue. It never seems to fail!
So take a look at those top clients – what makes them your “A” clients — what industry are they in, what size companies are they, is there anything different about the way you serve them? Have you asked these “A” clients for a referral and/or testimonial? They obviously trust you and depend on you for a significant level of service — they will be your best introduction to meet prospective clients.
Based on the profile of your best clients, what types of business development activities should you be doing to bring more of those into the firm? What professional organizations, publications, web sites, etc will put you in front of companies who match the profile of your “A” clients?
Now take a look at the next tier of clients — many times they represent significant growth opportunity. What can you do to move them up to the “A” list? The first step is easy – call them to schedule a lunch or meeting and catch up on their business.
Now take a look at that bottom 80% or so that are only accounting for 20% of your revenues. How many of them are there? What is the average annual fee/client? How profitable is it for you to continue to serve all of these clients? Is it worth referring some of these clients to smaller firms to free up your time to develop and serve more profitable clients?
Develop an Opportunity Matrix
Once you’ve identified your “A” clients and the next tier below the “A”s we’ll call them the “B”s — develop a simple matrix to identify where you have cross-sell opportunities. List these clients down the side of the matrix and list all of your firm’s services across the top. Fill in the cells with one of four statuses:
- Providing/provided — you are already doing this service for the client (or have already done it if it’s a one-time project)
- Proposing — you are already in discussions with the client about providing them with the service
- Not applicable — you can’t provide the service for the client because you are conflicted out our because there is no need for the service based on the nature of their business
- Opportunity — everything else!
Don’t make decisions for your clients, assuming they don’t want a particular service. Anything that isn’t in the first three categories — the Not applicable should only be used for truly non applicable services — should be considered an opportunity.
The opportunity matrix will help you prioritize which clients to meet with (those with the most opportunities) and what to prepare to discuss with them (the services you haven’t yet provided them).
Remember, cross-selling to clients is the quickest, easiest, least expensive way to develop new business. Use your client data to identify the right clients and right services to target for growth. And even though you can’t rely solely on client cross-selling for growth, the data you have about your existing clients can help you identify the right prospects to target and help you meet them through referrals and testimonials.
See? It doesn’t have to be hard — you have what you need right at your fingertips. Good luck!
Make 2013 Your Year to Grow
January 23, 2013 | The Whetstone Group
New Year. New Goals. How will you find growth this year? There are lots of new tools out there to help you market your firm and grow your top line, but sometimes the best new tools are the old tools implemented in a different or better way.
Grow Your Client Relationships
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