Know the need, know the cure

There are basically four ways to grow your top line in a sustained and constant manner:

1.    Gain new clients

2.    Sell more services to existing clients

3.    Don’t lose clients to the opposition

4.    Increase your fee rates

No 1 is the hardest and most costly. No 4 can be difficult. No 3 should be easy but often isn’t. Let’s focus on no 2.

The difficulties

• Partners worry about losing control of “their” clients.   
• Reward and recompense is often low or non-existent.   
  
• Bigger firms work in deep silos, neither knowing their colleagues in other service lines nor understanding much of what they do.   
  
• Because they don’t know, there tends to be a lack of trust in others’ capabilities.  
  
• Because they don’t understand, they feel uncomfortable even mentioning other services available.   
  
• They hate selling!

The paradox

A major complaint by clients is “our professionals don’t understand us well enough”; “we have to keep telling them what we’re all about”; “we’d like the relationship to be more rewarding”. It should be so easy in a firm which has lots of different areas of expertise to be able to really know a client and what their needs and aspirations are, and then fulfil them. But the general enthusiasm for offering more services and therefore solutions is, at best, mediocre. Too pushy, too salesy.

If you always think first “What’s in it for the client?”, then you will need to spend more time with them, often on a non-feeing basis. What then happens? Trust. At that point clients will be more interested and amenable to suggestions to increase your offer of help.

Leadership and strategy

If I was head of business development I would stop all activities proactively looking for new clients for, say, six months. Don’t worry, most new business comes anyway from referrals and existing clients without anyone actually doing anything.

I would generate a whole new area of marketing – the internal market – where I would create all sorts of activities to ensure people from different services lines communicated in an informal manner. That way, people get to know others from the different silos and exactly what they do.

Create speed networking evenings, drinks parties (these won’t be unpopular!), get some table football games or other entertainment in, etc etc. The cost in money terms won’t be high but you do need to create a fun atmosphere to attract people in who have to give of their time.

Forget selling

The overall aim is to introduce services and colleagues who can provide those services to existing clients. I think “selling” is an outmoded activity. Modern business development should include:

• Understanding your clients and what they want to achieve   
  
• Asking the right questions  
  
• Listening carefully   
  
• Spotting an opportunity to help
• Offering a solution to their problem
• Solving the cross-selling problems

The main reason for lack of cross-selling and integrated marketing is lack of knowledge. Lack of knowledge of the clients’ needs, lack of knowledge of what other departments can offer and, as importantly, not actually knowing who your colleagues are in those other service lines. Just because you are all badged under the same company name doesn’t mean you’re going to like and trust others with the relationship with your existing connections and clients.

The players and their services

There are four players and (say) two services in the game of integrated business development. In fact eight combinations:

1. You, your area of expertise with an existing client

2. You, your area of expertise introducing a new contact at your existing client

3. You, offering a new service to an existing client

4. You, offering a new service to a new contact at your existing client

5. Introducing a colleague, your area of expertise to an existing client

6. Introducing a colleague, different area of expertise to an existing client

7. Introducing a colleague, your areaof expertise to a new contact at an existing client

8. Introducing a colleague, different area of expertise with a new contact at an existing client

Making the situations work

1. To keep this client, just be totally reliable and manage your client’s expectations. They take it as read you are an expert in your field. You’re a good professional when you do what you say you’re going to do, and do it when you say you’re going to do it. In the eyes of your client you’re a good professional when you promise it for Wednesday and deliver on Tuesday. You’re not good when it arrives on Thursday.

2. It can become dangerous on occasions when your main contact at a client either moves roles or, worse still, moves on. As soon as you know of this change, do everything in your power to set up a three-way meeting for your existing contact to introduce you to their successor.

3. Don’t sell but do, casually, mention that as well as doing A you now do B. Be prepared to answer, “What expertise and knowledge do you have in this new area?” Maybe you will need to do this new work at a lower cost until trust is gained and you really are an expert in doing B.

4. This won’t be easy. You will need to ensure that the bond between you and your existing client is very strong. When it is, it will be that person who can make the appropriate introduction.

5. As you get busier you will want to delegate your work to more junior people. Please don’t just do it; your client will feel rejected. I suggest you introduce this new person in a social setting and watch the body language. At the end of the get-together (don’t set it up as a meeting) be honest with yourself and decide whether the chemistry is right. If it’s not, you don’t want to lose a client, do you? If you feel it may work, check it up with the client after a short time. This is delegation, not abrogation.

6. This will be similar to no 5, but you won’t be in as much control as it’s likely to be a peer you are introducing and an area you are not particularly familiar with. I hope you know and like them (well at least respect them!).

7. Here the pivotal person is your existing contact at the client’s. This can be fraught with danger and needs to be handled carefully. Again, it is best to get together in a social or sporting environment to start building the relationships.

8. This is similar to 7 but you won’t be as close to the situation as it’s another area of expertise.

Helping, not selling

Apart from no 1 above, all the other scenarios are “selling opportunities”. But a word of caution. Stop selling, in the time-honoured sense. No one likes to be sold to, particularly by inexperienced and often unwilling sales people.

Most people in the professional, financial and technical world find business development difficult at best and repugnant at worst. When you spot a potential opportunity, think “help” rather than “sell”. At the end of the day people will only use your service if they have a challenge or issue they can’t sort for themselves. You only get paid for solving that problem. When you have heard something which makes you think, “That person has a challenge there; we can solve it or add value”, you really are a true modern-day all-round professional.

The key skill needed to be an effective business developer and a member of the integrated marketing team is to have knowledge of what other service lines do and ask the right questions. Whether you are involved in scenarios 2-4 or 5-8, use the first meeting as a fact find. Spend far more time being interested rather than interesting. Let the other person do most of the talking; be a good listener; encourage others to talk about themselves. You can’t possibly help anyone unless you hear what their problem is in the first place.

Go away from that meeting with information. It takes time to build relationships, particularly when you take a colleague with you. Spend time on the small talk; get the client to know this new person in their life. It’s only through time that the new person can bond with the client you’ve been advising for a period of time. When you go for the “sell” too quickly, it can spoil a beautiful relationship you built.

Will Kintish practised as a chartered accountant for 30 years until his firm merged with a national firm. He is now a full time professional speaker and trainer, particularly on the vitally important topic of networking. Visit his website www.kintish.co.uk for lots of free and valuable information.