Simple Tools

Accountability.  The word alone can conjure negative feelings of “getting in trouble.”  Consequences.  Same thing.  But without accountability – and yes, maybe even consequences – business development activity in a professional services firm is sporadic and results are unpredictable.   So how can you start to integrate accountability into a culture that doesn’t historically embrace the concept?

It isn’t as hard as you might think.  Four simple tools – and how you apply them – can begin the process:

1.       Annually – set the right growth goal, determine what it will really take to reach the goal and whether that’s feasible, and determine where your growth will come from.

2.       Semi-annually – measure your billing results using the same parameters you did in setting your goal to determine if you need to step it up half way through the year and how to set your goal going forward at year-end.

3.       Quarterly – review the referrals given and received by your firm for each referral source to assess whether you’re networking with the right people and effectively implementing this valuable lead generation tactic.

4.       Monthly – analyze your sales pipeline to determine if you are generating enough leads and working opportunities to move them through the sales cycle.

Simple tools – but, like a whetstone, it’s all in how you use them that will determine your success.  Don’t just produce the reports; hold regular business development meetings with all who have responsibility for growth, ask them to report status of results and activity, and watch as eventually accountability starts to work its magic.  Activities are implemented when people said they would be, your people commit to building their skills so they can be more effective, and growth results will follow.

All from four simple tools.

Knowing When to Stand Firm on Fees

With year end work approaching and tax season on its heels, you may find yourself in a conundrum: Good clients who really like working with your firm, love your service and think your fees are fair that just won’t be able to pay your standard fees this year. What should you do when clients ask for a fee reduction?

Start by identifying the A clients you want to invest in. When you know the clients for which, should the issue arise, you are willing to make fee concessions you're more prepared when approached. Be ready with a plan to talk with clients so you are not taken by surprise if they ask.

Don’t discount the fees of a D client in bad times. You'll only perpetuate the pain going forward. Be willing to let some clients go.

When a client asks about reduced fees, first explore changes in scope that can impact the total fee. Will a review be ok for a year or two vs. an audit? Can you do a collateral only audit vs. a full scope engagement? Can you get clients to do more of the work so you invest less time--like assigning a client's employee to the audit team full-time for the duration of the fieldwork to be the “go-fer” in finding information or people, and to get questions answered without the CPAs doing the running around? Can you arrange a term payment plan for the fees to make it easier?

Most importantly, be willing to talk with clients about the subject. Don’t hesitate or act angry they asked or buckle at the first sign the client wants a reduction. Empathize with them, but remember what you are charging for the service you provide is fair. If you choose to invest in a client, make sure they know it is a temporary situation. Let them know you are willing to do it because they are an important client of the firm and you want to help.

Finally, consider proactively approaching clients you know are suffering and invest a little in fee reductions or a temporary change in scope. Your small investment will generate exponential returns by strengthening your client relationship.

'Tis the Season

No, it’s not the holiday season, yet. Although that will be upon us before we know it. It’s lead generation season! It’s time to reap the rewards of all the time and money you’ve invested in marketing and positioning activities throughout the year. All those endless mixers, tradeshows, golf outings, ad campaigns, social media efforts, etc. have led to this.

Marketing and sales, while two separate and distinct disciplines are directly related. Marketing without sales leads to large investments of time and money with little return. Sales without marketing leads to low close rates and lots of frustration on the part of the sales force (partners). A balance is ideal and transition from marketing to sales is critical. See the following illustration:

Marketing (blue line) activity is high when your prospects are just starting to get to know you. Activities that help with this are listed at the far left.

Sales (red line) activity starts after a certain period of marketing. Typical "sales" activities are listed at the far right.

Activities in the middle can help you transition from marketing to sales--assuming you take the necessary step to get face-to-face with a prospect so you can start the process.

Late summer/early fall is one of the most productive seasons for proactive telephone lead generation to help transition your firm for three reasons:

#1: Many of your prospects are starting their budgeting process.

#2: If you’ve been marketing throughout the year, your firm is well positioned to transition to sales by scheduling face-to-face meetings.

#3: Seasonal services such as tax, employee benefit plan audit services and financial planning are top of mind for CEOs/CFOs in the fall.

Now is the time to start planning how your firm will accomplish that transition to sales. Whether you choose to make the follow up phone calls internally or to outsource, make sure callers are prepared and understand the objective of the follow up call. (Setting up meetings is radically different from selling solutions on the phone.)

Remember that the follow up call also serves as an extension of your firm’s brand, so make sure it’s conducted in a professional manner by a well prepared caller. Prospects will sense anxiety or lack of preparedness with the acuteness of a shark sensing blood. This can reflect negatively on your firm.

Also, be sure the person who will be following up with the leads understands the objective of the first meeting. Meetings from proactive phone follow up feel different from meetings from a referral. Engage in pre-meeting training to ensure the person going on the appointment is prepared for the difference.

With a little time and effort to follow up while the iron is hot, your firm can reap the rewards of lead generation season.

Win More.

We talk about your competitive edge a lot.  It’s in our tagline, our brand promise.  Ever wonder what we’re talking about?  How about an example:  think about increasing your proposal win-rate and getting a higher return on your time invested in proposals.  Now that’s an edge over the competition!  So let’s talk details - take a look at our five sure-fire ways to improve proposals and increase win-rates:

1.       Start with the prospect’s needs – don’t even begin writing the proposal until you have a meeting, phone conversation, or at the very least an email exchange to make sure you know what the prospect is looking for, including both services needed and desired service attributes.  Start your proposal document by restating these needs - you’ll set your proposal apart from the others and let the prospect know you’re listening!

2.       Talk benefits – many of us in the professional services industry love to talk about what we do.  How effective is that in proposals if your prospects don’t understand what’s in it for them?  Of course you have to describe how you’ll meet the prospect’s needs, but don’t stop there – state clearly what result you will bring to the prospect, what will improve in their business, what problems you will solve for them.  And even better?  Quantify the benefits you’ll deliver when at all possible. 

3.       Differentiate – ever notice when you’re looking at your competitors’ Web sites how similar they all sound?  It can be tough to differentiate in a competitive market, but if you don’t…you’re competing on price and price alone.  What makes you the right choice for the prospect?  What are your strengths vis-à-vis your competitors’ vulnerabilities?  Don’t be afraid to point these out directly – but professionally – in your proposal.

4.       Deliver the proposal in person – Don’t email, mail, or even just drop off your proposal if at all possible.  Schedule a face-to-face meeting with your prospect to go through the document and highlight the important elements – this is the only way to make sure your prospect sees all those benefits and differentiators you worked so hard to incorporate!

5.       Follow up – If the decision date passes, don’t give up.  Continue to follow up, offering to help with the decision process or answer any questions that have arisen.  The extra effort will let your prospect know they’d be an important client to your firm and just might tip the decision in your favor.

How Much is Too Much?

I was surprised to learn that a friend of mine had recently changed jobs. He, in turn, was surprised that I hadn’t heard.

“I posted it on LinkedIn yesterday.”

And, indeed, when I looked back through THREE PAGES of older posts I finally saw the indication that he had changed positions. I also checked the digest of my Linked in network activity; it was listed as one of about eight items at the very bottom of a page I had to scroll, scroll, scroll down to find. Past all the updates of the great business books people are reading, past the twitter feeds, past the same blog link posted by three different people at the same company.

As I started thinking about it, I wondered how much information is too much information. What is the right frequency of contributing information in a medium that moves at the speed of light? I had missed something really important, something I really would like to have seen, because it was displaced by so many other pieces of information.

Let me just state that I don’t have a huge network of people. I think I just recently topped 100 connections, and even that seems like too many. How can I possibly keep track of all that information?

There are tools to help manage all the information posted, tweeted, re-tweeted, whose updates you see, whose you don’t. But if I use these settings to hide everything from certain connections, I have to ask myself, why are we connected in the first place?

If I could make one plea to the users of online communication tools, it would be this: Please don’t post for the sake of posting. I call these random acts of posting, and if you are doing it you risk becoming such a part of the landscape that even people you know will stop paying attention to you. You don’t have to share information about your reading list, travel plans, and daily routine just to stay top of mind. The more you do this, the more likely I am to tune you out.

Conversely, there are certain people to whom I ALWAYS pay attention (assuming I see them amid all the junk) because they post so infrequently that if they are making an effort I know it is important. If you have made social media part of your personal business development activity you want to be one of these people. What is the right frequency? I say a couple times a week.

Something else I learned--if you have important information you want people who are professionally important to you to see, make the effort to contact them directly. Send a quick email. Make a short phone call. Mail a note. But don’t assume the world is paying attention to you online 24/7.

A Friendly Reminder about Marketing Budgets

You need one.

Ok, so maybe that wasn’t as friendly as you might have imagined based on the title of this post. But seriously, you need a marketing budget.

Why, you may ask? After all you’ve been getting by ok without one. You’re still marketing. Last year you sponsored 25 different golf holes at 20 different outings (those 5 overlaps were due to an unfortunate lack of internal communication). You have people out networking in the community and serving on boards. You take your clients to lunch and got a sweet deal on your yellow pages advertising. Last year your firm offered a couple of seminars and sent out a few letters. And maybe you even are investing in an email newsletter. Of course, you don't really know if any of this stuff works, but at least you're doing it, right?

So if you have all this activity going on, why do you need a marketing budget?

Here are five reasons:

1. Control spending. The fundamental purpose of a marketing budget is to give firms control over their marketing spending. A budget enables firms to put aside a set amount of money that they would like to invest in growth and manage the way that money is spent each year. It precludes the open checkbook policy that causes firms to end up spending too much (or in many cases, too little) on marketing and sales activities.

2. Avoid random and ad-hoc marketing activities. Creating an effective budget requires some marketing planning to take advantage of the best opportunities for growth. This ensures marketing dollars are being spent in a manner that supports your firm’s growth strategy. Without a budget and this forethought, firms often struggle to reign in their spending. These same firms almost always find themselves engaging in one-off marketing activities that may or may not support a firm’s vision for growth.

3. Leverage investments. A by-product of developing a marketing budget is the ability to leverage marketing investments by creating activities that support each other. For example, investing in an advertisement in an industry journal can also support an investment in telephone lead generation that is also focused on that industry segment.

4. Measure results. Without a marketing budget it is impossible to measure the return your firm is generating from its marketing investments. Measuring results is critical in determining which activities you should continue to implement, and on which activities your firm should not waste your people’s time or firm’s money.

5. Ensure the proper balance between marketing and sales. Firms need to implement the right mix of marketing and sales activities to be successful in meeting their growth goals. By evaluating your firm’s marketing budget you can get a feel for how your firm’s business development efforts are divided among marketing, transition and sales activities to make sure the mix is appropriate based on your firm’s goals.

Yes, five awesome reasons you need a marketing budget. What are you waiting for? Don't know where to start? Visit our website to learn how we can help.

Boring concept. Big payoff.

Last month we posted about the importance of database maintenance—with some guidelines on effective data management.  We made the point that most companies realize they need to segment their target market, but "segmentation" goes beyond just identifying the type of companies you want to target. Not flashy, but pretty darn important.

Shortly after we posted our commentary, we came across a cool report by ITSMA and the good folks at RainToday.com* that details the lead generation best practices of high performing companies. The report is full of great strategies and tactics you can employ to generate more leads and get a higher return on your marketing investments.

Among other things, the report found that the highest performing companies take segmentation a few steps further to figure out the title of the decision maker(s) for their services, and the names of those individuals at each company.

This finding is in complete alignment with our experience.

We've really seen those additional steps make a tangible difference in direct marketing campaigns.  We worked with a client who was skeptical about investing the time and budget to research the names of individuals at their target list of companies. Like many firms, they thought they had a pretty clean list already. But, they were willing to test the scrubbing process. So we divided their list in half. On one half we called to update contact names. The other half we used “as-is”.

The "scrubbed" list produced 2.5 times more appointments (qualified leads), and the total cost per appointment was 50% lower, even with the added cost of scrubbing the list!

So, yeah, we scrubbed the rest of their database before embarking on their year-long lead generation program.

This is just one highlight of what can be found in this great study.  Click here to find out how you can get access to the full report. 

* Lead Generation Benchmark Report: How the Best Firms Fill the Pipeline, 2010 ITSMA & RainToday.com