PSMG held its hugely successful annual conference in November 2015. The subject was “Going for Growth”. The standout message for me, as the chairman of this year’s event, was the need for management teams and those in the business development and marketing functions to challenge the limiting beliefs which persist in many professional service firms and all too often stand in the way of achieving sustainable growth.
Some of these limiting beliefs are explicit, some implicit. They range from professionals’ unwillingness to share, and so fully develop, their client relationships (perhaps because of their tendency to “protect” them from contact with others in the firm) to the perception of BD teams as marketing “doers”, with limited understanding of either the firm’s business or its clients’ perspective, rather than strategic business thinkers.
Only by overcoming these beliefs will marketing and BD teams be able to play a central role in a firm´s drive for growth. Getting this right provides some serious challenges for inclusion in business development “to do” lists as we go into 2016.
Are you a professional services firm examining its own growth or client strategy for 2016?
Are you considering your service offering or the launch of a new proposition?
Are you focusing on how to strengthen client relationships and guard against economic headwinds?
If so, we invite you to get in touch to continue the discussion and for a free consultation. Email or call Harriet Creamer at Gulland Padfield on hcreamer@gullandpadfield.com
Over the course of the conference, two broad themes emerged for PSF marketing and BD teams:
- the importance of internal engagement: establishing effective relationships with professionals and other business support functions in the firm;
- the importance of external relationships: overcoming professionals’ inability and natural reluctance to share their client relationships in order to realise their true value.
Richard Grove’s keynote made the impact of doing this successfully immediately obvious. Richard is Allen & Overy’s Director of Marketing and Business Development: he took us through a case study based around the firm’s strategic decision to focus on multijurisdictional work. Key to his success in making this a reality were Richard’s understanding of the financial metrics of the firm’s different work streams (multi-jurisdictional work – defined as matters which involved at least 5 jurisdictions - was 30% more profitable than work involving only one jurisdiction), his knowledge of the firm’s clients and his relationships with partners. All of these relied on the effective networks he had clearly established within A&O, involving both partners and other business support functions.
It’s clear to me that the most serious impact of the limiting beliefs I refer to above is that they stand in the way of developing these internal relationships and networks effectively. Marketing and BD teams need to make it a priority to identify and overcome the beliefs prevalent in their firms. If they can do this successfully, they will be able to draw on these networks as they support their firms’ ambitions to grow in 2016.
When it comes down to it, the client´s perception of most professional services firms – particularly those in the legal sector - remains overwhelmingly that they operate in the same sphere, are made up of similar professionals selling similar services in similar ways at (typically) similar prices. Our experience at Gulland Padfield as an advisor to professional firms on their growth strategies, has lead us to the same conclusion. This was echoed in the deliberations and many of the workshops at the conference: namely, that “more of the same” might not get most firms to where they want and need to be. Though it’s important to get it right, sharpening your firm´s brand focus on its own won’t address the fundamental issue of differentiation. Nor, though it’s a crucial part of the mix, will an exclusive focus on developing further the strength and quality of your client relationships.
The implication behind much of the PSMG´s conference discussions is that PSFs now face a new challenge: to focus on what they sell not just how they sell it. In other words, to focus on the “product”. Were all professional firms to adopt this approach, they would be following the successful lead of BD teams in management consultancies and in particular the Big 4, who have enjoyed success in re-thinking the packages of products and services that they offer to clients in their core industry sectors: focusing on what they sell, rather than how they sell it.
Successive speakers at the conference identified that professional services firms are selling people and their skills: but is it time to be more client focused and imaginative about how we package up those people, their knowledge and their skills?
Getting this right means much more than a renewed effort to cross-sell (simply introducing your pensions partner to your client won’t cut it) and it’s about more than being able to demonstrate how well you can marshal a team on an individual deal. It’s also about more than adopting an industry sector, rather than a practice focus, as many firms are making efforts to do: it’s about how you make that focus a reality by bringing services together into a really compelling proposition for clients that will give your firm the stand out revenue advantage.
To do this requires a rigorously client centric analysis of what, from the client’s perspective, makes a package of services appealing – from people and geographies to process and price. The limiting belief which in my view stands in the way of firms approaching the sale of their services in this way, is the view that packaged services necessarily mean ‘productisation´, which in turn means commoditisation and low cost. It doesn’t. It needn’t.
Marketing and BD teams with strong networks within their firms, with both professionals and other business support functions, and outside the firm with its clients, will be able to draw on those relationships and networks in order to overcome this thinking and help their firms deliver a truly client focused service.
One way to kick start a sector package initiative might be to make this challenge the focus of your 2016 partners’ conference. These occasions offer partners an opportunity to step outside the demands of their day to day practice to share perspectives with colleagues from across the firm and agree some long term strategic goals. We’re suggesting that these goals should be focused on identifying packages of services which can be offered to clients in the firm’s key sectors and which are aimed at increasing the firm’s share of individual clients’ legal spend by growing the range of services those clients access. The aim of the conference should be to change the way partners approach client services – sending them away with both a changed mindset towards packaged services and a toolkit which will enable them to make this a reality. In my view this really chimes with the views and opinions expressed at the November conference.
So, for your 2016 to do list, here are some suggestions for you to prioritise:
- Internal engagement: get management’s attention, make your voice heard at the top table and ensure your team’s ability to contribute strategically is recognised. Challenging the belief that internal marketing and BD teams are functional “do-ers” rather than strategic thinkers should be a key ambition for 2016.
- External engagement: it’s an on-going challenge to get beyond the internal client to establish direct relationships with the external client. It’s a dilemma: whether to focus on encouraging and supporting the development of deep client relationships by the professionals in your firm or on developing your own relationships with clients. Our view is that these two approaches are not – and should not be – mutually exclusive. But to get to a position where this is the case in your firm will involve breaking through a whole range of perceptions and behaviours. Challenging these beliefs should be central to your thinking in the coming year.
- Think about your firm’s offer: Use these networks to consider whether there are ways to repackage your people, their skills and the cumulative knowledge and experience of your firm and by doing so, to create true differentiation based on an alignment to clients’ needs.
That, ultimately, may the best path to growth for your firm in 2016.
Are you a professional services firm examining its own growth or client strategy for 2016?
Are you considering your service offering or the launch of a new proposition?
Are you focusing on how to strengthen client relationships and guard against economic headwinds?
If so, we invite you to get in touch to continue the discussion and for a free consultation. Email or call Harriet Creamer at Gulland Padfield on hcreamer@gullandpadfield.com