Business development fundamentals change slowly, if at all: establishing trust, demonstrating willingness to help, going "the extra mile", focusing on client needs and expectations, and the list continues ...
But shifts do occur in how clients select and assess their professional advisors and collective shifts sometimes become trends.
We discern both related and disparate trends in client behaviour, observed both through our research and in our consulting practice.
There is a wealth of evidence that professional services consumers are clustering around each of these phenomena and making their buying decisions accordingly.
Brand buyers
As in every sphere of shopping, many consumers are increasingly brand conscious and seek status through buying recognised prestigious branded professionals, though not always "big brands". Brand disappointment is a pervasive problem.
Conspicuous consumers
Enough is never enough for some - they want the world to know that they are big spenders on legal and/or other expert professional advice.
Cling to tradition buyers
A subset of clients still want traditional-style professional service, low tech and high touch, sometimes accompanied by considerable formality. They shun new and unfamiliar as too risky.
Experimentation
An emerging niche is the consumer who likes change, enjoys experimentation, and the experience of being wooed by and engaging different professionals on a series of projects over time. This crowd apparently relish the discovery process and learning to work with new professional providers, and are happy to do it over and over.
Techno connectors
One cluster is consumers who spend considerable time in the virtual world and want to connect with their professionals on-line and through technology links. To these buyers, communicating and connecting otherwise is anathema - for them, a hot professional service firm is one out there doing things in the
cyber-world well before the rest.
Co-producers
Many well-educated, younger, and curious consumers choose their professional based on how much participation will be possible and strongly favour the co-production model. For this group, greater and more meaningful involvement is attractive and increases their satisfaction.
Just make it easy for me
A distinct group among the super-busy and successful is the "my life is hard enough without another problem - just make this easy for me - make it go away without nasty surprises" brigade. Strong professional leadership, anticipation of client needs, and making obstacles disappear is their criteria for selection and satisfaction.
Environmental
Now that environmental responsibility is on the agenda of most social, political, and business leaders, a discernable subset of consumers chooses and assesses their professional services based on eco-friendly practices.
Ethical elite
This group makes buying decisions around business practices, corporate social responsibility, pro-bono programmes, and apparent ethics of professional providers.
Buying connections
There was always a group of clients who chose their professional advisors based on the other connections - social or business - which came as a bonus. Now, we are seeing many who overtly make their buying decisions based on the business connections, media attention, social benefits, or “membership” which their custom will earn.
Few clients and prospective clients fit a single category or appoint a professional solely for one of the listed reasons. But in a market which many clients perceive as awash with difficult-to-distinguish professional expertise and offerings, each of these trends is at play. The challenge is to watch and understand the trends, then to connect and communicate in areas where you have an affinity. Work the trends to gain competitive advantage.
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