Posts Tagged ‘selling’
Many professional service firms put themselves at risk by only focusing on one single approach to business development. It could be networking or SEO, it could be word of mouth and referrals. Typically, it’s whatever they feel the most comfortable with, not necessarily the approach that will actually work the best to bring them in new clients.
When the economy is buoyant and there’s enough work for everyone this kind of strategy works OK. But when times get tougher, or the market changes, firms who are overly reliant on one source of new business can be left high and dry.
I always advise clients to have multiple sources of new clients. usually I suggest they adopt a model which looks at four different types of potential clients:
1. Current Clients: investing in “superpleasing” their highest potential current clients to secure their business, win expansion and extension projects, and get referrals to new clients. Typically this area uses the approaches of Client Relationship Management and Key Account Management.
2. High Probability Potential Clients: targeting 3-5 named companies which meet their core targeting criteria (size, industry/sector, geography, leadership, cultural fit, etc.) and where they have a good chance of winning business (e.g. an ex-client, previous/current contact, a good opportunity for a referral in). Typically, personal approaches are used: direct contact where there is a pre-established relationship, referrals where there aren’t.
3. Ideal Potential Clients: targeting 3-5 named companies who meet all targeting criteria and would be the absolute perfect clients – but where there are no immediate entry routes to establish a relationship. Typically, longer-term relationship building approaches need to be used: for example searching for and courting potential referrers, running a targeted mail campaign sending selected articles and research, offering to run a free seminar for a client organisation.
4. “Bluebirds”: these are clients who are not directly targeted, but who “drop in your lap”. Of course, they don’t drop in your lap randomly. You need to be out and visible to these sorts of potential clients. For example: public speaking at events with a high preponderance of target clients, running a seminar at a large client industry event, optimising your website for keywords frequently used by target clients. The key here is to use approaches which give access to a broad set of potential clients (rather than the more focused approaches discussed earlier which narrow down to a few specific clients – but with a higher probability of success with each one).
Focusing first on current clients is common sense, and should be a core part of any business development strategy. After that, adopting a portfolio strategy like this balances out the short-term potential of the High Probability Potential Clients with the long-term higher gain of the Ideal Potential Clients – while still keeping the possibilities open for serendipitous new business through the use of a “bluebird” channel.
Medium and larger firms can afford to invest more heavily and have more people involved, allowing them to aim for larger numbers of named clients in each category, or perhaps an extra “bluebird” channel.
My advice for most firms though is to always add resources in that order. For many professionals, the “bluebird” channels (e.g. web, speaking, articles) are seductive ones as they offer the hope of attractive new clients without the challenge of personally engaging in the process. Resist the urge to focus too much effort on these channels – the big payoffs are usually in the more targeted, personal approaches.
Get more tips on Business Development Strategy for professional service firms, or find out more about Ian Brodie’s Business Development Strategy Services.