Developing profitable business
Claire Dean reports on the PM Forum's 10th annual conference.
The scene was set for the 10th annual PM Forum conference by Richard Chaplin, who introduced the key theme for the day - what really are the drivers of effective business development in professional services firms?
First up was Rosemarie Ghazaros, MD of The Business Development Practice, who gave a holistic presentation of the drivers of BD and began by reminding us that 'selling' is still immature in the professional services market. A show of hands (or not as the case may be) showed that probably less than 10% of BD professionals are doing the selling and only in very few firms are some partners doing less fee-earning to concentrate more on selling. The vacuum that currently exists - partners do not feel comfortable selling but yet do not trust sales people - will only change slowly over time. What we all must concentrate on is not particularly what we are doing but how we are doing it: Are we understanding client needs and thinking client? Are we developing relevant products? Are we setting realistic targets? Are we making the most of client visits and ensuring they are not lost opportunities? Are we training our sales force sufficiently? Making it happen is of course the tricky part and, of course, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink"! Only by building trust and linking the technical and the emotional needs of the client will firms really be able to "make it happen".
Geoffrey Timms, Legal Director for Legal & General, in partnership with Tim Nightingale of Nisus Consulting presented the good, the bad and daft (!) "straight from the horses mouth" (to continue a theme) and gave a real insight into what clients actually want and equally don't want. A few lessons to be learned by all! Know and understand your client, their business, their budgets and their challenges and be prepared to invest in building long-term relationships. We can all take heed and ensure we don't fall foul of the simple mistakes - don't invite a client who doesn't 'do' lunch to lunch; don't send a newsletter to someone who has requested not to receive them and don't invite a client to a hospitality event which is sponsored by one of their competitors!
From turning clients off to inspiring them, Peter Matthews from Ernst & Young and Rob Brown of Gemarco took to the floor and energised the audience. Peter suggested that firms rely too much on the 'push' and not enough on the 'pull' propositions - that is to say that we are not addressing what the clients want, rather we are pushing propositions to the market regardless of client need. What is really needed is a deeper more emotional engagement and understanding of our buyers.
Rob Brown continued by emphasising the need to differentiate through people, knowledge and relationships. In a world of competition and information overload he warned of danger ahead and that differentiation will become even more critical as we move into the age of client control. Rob highlighted that the only way to survive is to share company and client knowledge internally and to go deeper with clients and contacts externally through networking to build that all important bond with clients.
Moving on to more technological matters, Larry Bodine introduced the Blog - a force business cannot afford to ignore! In essence a 'skinny' website, a blog can be an easy and efficient way of communicating stories and comment. Larry also showed how extranet 'clubs' based around a particular sector have become popular in the US. Following on from this, Janet Day, IT Director of Berwin Leighton Paisner discussed how they have developed and branded their extranet facility and use it as a real added value service, both for existing clients and as a selling tool in winning new business.
For the final keynote presentation, the audience had a session at the gym - not however a gruelling run on the treadmill but a workout for the mind with Octavius Black of the Mind Gym. It started with the audience trying to feel how others might feel - as a cat, a thief and a managing partner! The thought process provided some useful tactics in influencing others by beginning to understand how others might feel in certain circumstances. Nobody could help but leave feeling confident that they had learned strategies for influencing and winning people round. Watch out partners!
Finally the infamous Simon Slater chaired a panel session to bring the themes of the day together and to field questions from the audience. Some key points were that, as BD and marketing professionals, we need to understand the fee-earners, focus on our performance and align ourselves with the enthusiasts and do things really well!
Claire Dean is the business development manager at Cobbetts.
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