eTips 2006
Status quo inertia |
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Often we look for justification to do nothing. Hardly surprising that a busy professional comes up with reasons not to do what might be a very good idea, especially when it means running counter to a comfortable tradition or routine ! |
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Resilient business development |
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Resilience is an important quality which helps us to survive - and even thrive - in the face of hardship.
In business development terms, resilience is that precious characteristic which converts an adverse experience [which didn’t kill you] into one which can make you stronger.
Possibly, even stronger than you think. |
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Matching and mirroring |
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People like people like them. “Them” becomes “us”: people like us (PLU).
Clients choose lawyers and professionals who fit the PLU category - those similar in a range of ways are PLU.
If you want to make it to the PLU category next time, check that you match and mirror the client. |
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How is that a solution to my problem ? |
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Clients have problems which professional experts are equipped to solve - that’s our raison d’etre.
Too often, though, professionals fail to make the connection between the expertise they possess and solutions to the problems clients confront. |
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Re-invent yourself |
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It is within the power of professionals who aren’t downright delighted with their current careers to re-invent themselves.
Maybe you’ve noticed others who’ve morphed into strong performers in more appealing areas of professional practice.
You, too, can discover a second wind - even well down your career track. Here are some tips to get underway. |
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Anchored by first thoughts ? |
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eTips frequently emphasises the importance of first impressions. That’s because a first impression carries disproportionate weight and often unduly influences attitudes and decisions.
In making decisions about business development, sales promotion, and profile raising, it’s vital to take account of your mind’s propensity to overemphasise the first information it receives. |
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Acorns grow into oak trees |
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With so much to do - so many opportunities deserving of business development energy - only rarely are professionals truly satisfied that they've done all they should. It's the economic problem: unlimited needs and wants, limited means (and time)… |
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Take control of practice development |
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Many a lawyer is deeply delusional.
They say "I'm in control of my practice", mistaking balance sheet ownership and full partnership with control. |
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Proposal interviews |
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Known as “beauty parades” by insiders, interviews following proposals, tenders, and capabilities submissions are de rigeur in many decision processes - competitive or otherwise.
Areas of probable interest to interviewers fall into several categories. |
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Getting past blame games |
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When business development is not what it should be, it's easy to fall into the trap of blaming others for the situation. |
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Darwin's maxim: adaptability, not strength |
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Clinging tenaciously to the business development and professional selling techniques which have served us well in the past is dangerous. As Darwin showed, a creature's adaptability to changes in its environment serves it best.
And so it is with selling your professional services. |
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Superior service benefits |
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In many spheres, superior service products are readily created by development specialist skills, application of extraordinary knowledge, and skilful marketing.
However, in other areas, distinctive and better services are hard to create and promote. The term "commodity service" describes these markets where it is difficult to build substantive differences. |
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Small differences matter |
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In competitive and highly-crowded professional services markets, even minor differences in service delivery or client experience can be significant to consumers. |
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Perceived advantage |
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Maybe you're one of those fortunate professionals who has such a stand out service to offer that it's clearly technically superior, demonstrably better, and so reported by objective analysts and high-profile "industry authorities". |
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Price too high ? |
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For many prospective clients, the fastest and easiest way to tell you that they're not proceeding with your services is to say "sorry - the price is too high". |
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Niche focus |
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Niche business development strategies are hardly new, but too often they're overlooked in a rush to sell professional services to well-known, large, popular, ready-made market segments. |
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Yellow pages advertising - the case |
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Each year, lawyers and other expert professionals are confronted with a series of decisions around listings and presence in myriad business and professional directories, and the Yellow Pages. |
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Sunk investment traps |
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When choosing how to spend your business development time, and where to make further investments of effort, resources, and money, be careful not to fall into the traps around sunk investments. |
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It's all about framing |
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As any mediator or psychologist will tell you, how we think about and express a problem has a profound influence on the choices we will make to deal with it. And, so it is with selling your expert professional services. |
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Add insight into your marketing |
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Optimal promotion of your expert professional services takes more than a strong foundation of technical skills and a good dose of energy or bravado.
Getting your messages right, and delivering them effectively, depends on insight. |
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Don't dilute it |
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If you're a stand-out professional expert in an area, you only dilute well-founded strong claims by attaching others which are weak.
What does this mean in practice ? |
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Business development forecasting |
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Forecasting business development outcomes - wins - is an important and valuable element of successful professional services selling. But forecasting is tough.
So often it's about identifying multiple uncertainty factors, and estimating the impact of each, plus making judgements about options to influence outcomes. |
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Pitching it perfectly |
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Whether you're presenting, proposing, tendering, or just plain persuading, it matters to get the pitch right: spot on. What you say [or write] matters - lots. How you say it matters just as much. |
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What you know or who you know ? |
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When a competitor's business development efforts succeed, they're frequently dismissed with "it's who they knew, not what they knew" while we tend to attribute our own wins to substantive knowledge rather than connections or networks. So, which is more important: what you know, or who you know, and why ? |
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Smart goals |
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Planning business development shouldn't merely be a long list of activities - rather, effective planning must be based around clear goals. |
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Determined to be different |
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The dream of just about every enlightened professional is to be so different and sought-after that there are few credible alternatives and minimal competition in a distinctive niche - one carved out to fit like a glove.
That dream is reality for a privileged few. It's a far-fetched rainbow-chase for most because they lack the tenacity or commitment (or both) to do what it takes to turn dream into reality. |
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What you want them saying after the meeting |
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Often, too little time is spent working out what you want them - your prospective clients and clients - to say after the meeting. Mostly, the work goes into what you want to say at the meeting, presentation, or interview. |
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Prospective clients - get them talking |
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Because few lawyers and other expert professionals have had professional sales training, they frequently mistake telling the prospective client lots about what they can do for effective selling. Yet, getting meaningful and frank input from prospective client is vital early on, and throughout the process of converting a prospective client to a client. |
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Finding the sweet spot |
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Good marketing starts with the word "no". No, not the right client. No, not the right matter. No, not right fit for us now. In the same vein, great marketing is largely about finding your "sweet spot" - and finding ways to do lots of that work. Better still, only that work. |
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Work on word-of-mouth |
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Good, old-fashioned word-of-mouth marketing, now renamed "evangelism marketing", is being hyped as the tactic of today.
Fact is, it always worked - back then and now. |
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Hone your listening skills |
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Many professionals are good listeners. Some are not. Just about every professional service provider would do well to hone their listening skills. Nearly everyone likes a good listener. In the professional services arena, clients want more than listening, they want action, but careful listening is a great start. Here are a few pointers. |
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Eyes bigger than tummy |
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You may remember that old warning from your childhood: "beware - your eyes are bigger than your tummy". This was occasionally uttered when someone wanted more on their plate than they could possibly finish, but more often when someone took on too large or challenging a task to maintain interest to completion. |
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Drucker's new practice |
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As Peter Drucker, the great management guru once wrote: "When a new venture does succeed, more often than not it is in a market other than the one it was originally intended to serve, with products and services not quite those with which it had set out, brought in large part by customers it did not even think of when it started, and used for a host of purposes besides the ones for which the products were first designed." |
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Tender production - be prepared ! |
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Once you’ve decided that you’re going to tender for work, it's important that production doesn't become the drama that prevents you from submitting your high quality document, on time. Words are vital, but production no less important. Ideas, words, and pictures have to make it print in ways that make impact. Logistics matter. Production matters. Here's a list to get you started. |
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Painful to replace |
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No one is irreplaceable. No expert, no professional, no one. But if you want to push yourself up the continuum towards "irreplaceable" status, here are some things to work on. |
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Jargon busting |
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Don't pollute your communication with clients and prospective clients with unnecessary or unhelpful jargon. |
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Get to grips with client needs |
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Clients have needs and wants. Some needs they recognise, others they don't. Some wants they articulate, others are unspoken [but still wanted]. |
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Evaluator-friendly tenders |
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To maximise your prospects of success, make your tender evaluator friendly. So often, evaluators face a daunting task: confronted with a pile of tenders - almost always more voluminous than expected - it’s not hard to guess that attractive, well-organised tenders evoke a warmer and more enthusiastic reaction than the rest. |
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Price optimisation |
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Pricing is fiendishly difficult.
Lawyers and other expert professionals don't much like talking about it, but service pricing can vary widely. |
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Pictures help people read (more) |
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It's a mistake to think of pictures as mere distractions. In fact, some studies show that the presence of an image can hugely impact how much time people spend reading accompanying copy. |
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Buzzword backlash |
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Many people are tired of the disingenuous management-speak which flows freely in business. Ensure your next meeting or promotion isn’t hung-over with jargon. |
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