The 2013 Paradigm Shift in Selling Professional Services

You have passed the mid-point of 2013 and what is happening to your resolution to capture more business this year. This article is intended to create a framework for evolving your 2013 marketing and business development strategies to encompass changes in markets and client preferences. There is still time for your firm to achieve success in 2013.

I propose five themes that impact every engineering, architecture, CPA and law firm. The combined effect represents the 2013 paradigm shift in selling professional services.


1. Sun Tzu Meets Social Media
The Art of War has been the subject of numerous business books over the past 30 years. The strategies and tactics employed by General Sun Tzu have been used by countless professional services firms to defeat competition, gain new clients and win business. Firms today who are expanding their social media presence can benefit from another reading of this book. Sun Tzu believed that strategy was not simply working through an established list, but rather that it requires quick and appropriate responses to changing conditions. Changing conditions are the essence of our markets today. Developing new relationships with prospects is probably the best outcome for using social media to sell your services. Using the Art of War as a map in developing your social media strategy will help guide you to success in winning more business in 2013 and beyond.


2. Training Improves Business Development Outcomes
Training has been down across the board for professional services firms over the last four years. There are two primary reasons why most firms don’t embrace business development training. Management believes, “we have been there and done that and it wasn’t effective.” When professionals tasked with selling are told about another training program, their response is, “here we go again.” The response is related to the process and approach taken by most firms. The process of bringing in a consultant in for one or two days to train key staff and motivate them is not always effective because behaviors and attitudes are not changed. The enthusiasm fades in a couple of days and people go back to the way they have always done things. Business Development Professionals does two things differently. First, we research the company and give the people attending the class a homework assignment prior to the training. Since it takes 30 days to build a habit, we are now providing a 30-Day Training Reinforcement tool. Those two differences along with our customized approach to training, are the keys to our value proposition.

3. It’s 2013, Do You Know Where Your Value Proposition Is?

A number of years ago McGraw Hill ran a print ad promoting their magazines that featured a businessman sitting on a chair in an empty room. The text read, “I don’t know you, your company, or its services. Now what is it that you are trying to sell me.” Do clients see you as distinct from your competitors? In order to be on the top of your clients’ minds, your message needs to be important to them. Finally, your clients and prospects need to believe that you can deliver on your promises. In a recent survey of business-to-business clients, the overall value a firm could deliver was rated number one while cost of services was ranked third on the list of selection criteria. A solid value proposition virtually eliminates fee from the selection criteria and removes your firm as a commidity. Has your value proposition ever changed?

4. Do You Nurture a Business Development Culture?

Almost every professional services firm believes that everyone is responsible for marketing. This is actually code for everyone is responsible for selling and business development. Does everyone in the organization know what your marketing strategy is and what lies ahead in business development? Most firms have a weekly “marketing” meeting where only the marketing/business development staff and a few principals attend. Your internal newsletter might announce new projects, but what about everything that is in the pipeline? What if one of your IT guys happens to live next door to a key decision maker of a firm in your pipeline? Couldn’t he help move your strategy forward?

The other part of the business development culture is in the area of internal communications. Most firms are proud to claim that marketing begins with how the receptionist answers the telephone. That was how it used to be. Today, the telephone systems at many firms go directly to individuals or voicemail. Do you give everyone a script for the personal message on voicemail? Is there any training for how people should answer their phones? The bottom line is helping everyone in the firm take ownership of their role in the business development process.

5. Giving Thanks to Clients

We just finished the holiday season and many firms spent a lot of time and resources in planning what gifts they would give their clients. Some firms invited them to a special party or dinner where they were recognized. These things are great, but are the "one and done" thank you events effective? Every firm does it, so it becomes the cost of doing business. For the past eight years I have been bringing a monthly breakfast and dinner to a homeless shelter. During the Christmas season a few years ago, the director told me that a lot of churches want to do something for Christmas. She appreciated the help, but reminded me that her residents need something to eat every day. Clients need to be thanked more than once a year as well. There are a lot of ways to do this and don’t need to cost a lot of money. If your firm gives back to the community in areas like Habitat for Humanity or other non-profit assistance programs, find out which programs your clients are active with. Instead of simply giving a financial donation in the client’s name, consider sending people to the next project. We have all heard that it is the thought that counts in giving. Your people interacting with your client’s principals on a community project is priceless.

How does this all come together to illustrate the paradigm shift in selling professional services? In our training programs we like to identify the markets the firm is involved with prior to the engagement and their assessment of each market for the next 12 months. Higher education, healthcare, governmental, corporate, and K-12 are the markets we have concentrated on. Our experience in the parking industry spans across all of these markets. We have seen clients looking for specialists or niche firms to provide services as well as larger firms offering all the required services in-house. Here is where we see the paradigm shift for selling professional services:

Existing Paradigm	Paradigm Shift
Sell to the client through a rainmaker	Multiple decision makers touched by many
Marketing performance lacked measurement	ROMI requires measurement and strategic focus
In-House staff training as needed	Corporate BD culture demands outside expertise
Value Proposition as a marketing tool	Value proposition as a key client decision criteria
Client loyalty drives repeat business	Competitors’ strategically attacking
Social Media: an experiment	Social Media: A selling tool
Economic trends cycle markets differently	Culture, socio-economic impacts changing markets

Finally, we welcome your feedback and comments about this article. Our 2013 Fall seminar and training programs will be built around the content of this article. Please contact us, if you want to start a conversation about the services we can provide your firm or whether a seminar is planned for your city.

The 6 Keys to Making Presentations Memorable

What are the chances that the audience or selection committee will remember what you said in your last presentation?  Everyone is challenged when they are faced with creating and delivering a presentation.  When a project is on the line for a client presentation, the consequences are high and nothing can be left to chance. Selection is the only way to verify it was memorable.

It is hard enough to think about how you measure up against the competition, but how about measuring up against the client’s perception of your presentation?  Research shows us that after a 10 minute presentation, your audience will remember only 50% of what they heard.  By the next day that memory will be reduced to 25% and within a week only 10% will be remembered.  Hopefully, the selection committee makes their decision at the end of the first day.  The following 6 keys to making a memorable presentation should help anyone who is tasked with making a presentation and enable firms to raise the bar on the success of their client project presentations.  It goes without saying that you need to know your material and that notes, if used at all, should be minimal.  However, much more is needed to make your next presentation memorable.

I was taught a long time ago that there should only be three parts to a presentation: 

1. Tell them what you plan to say.
2. Tell them.
3. Recap what you told them and give them a call to action. 

Science tells us that the human mind can only retain 3 to 7 points from a presentation in the short term.  Too often in client presentations, principals want to throw in everything, including the kitchen sink.  It is the job of the marketing professionals to reign in the free thinkers and focus the presentation on the client’s needs.

The question still remains as to how you make that process memorable.

It begins with the central message.  You should have one message you want the audience/client to remember.  Although this needs to be concise and short, it must be repeated as the common thread running through the entire presentation.  Is the main point trust, competence, experience, depth of staff, or some other important element?  You need to remember it is one point and not all of the above.

Memorable presentations are easy to understand.  Leave the jargon for industry conferences and complex information for design meetings.  Jargon combined with complexity results in confusion on the part of your audience.  Condensing your body of work into a 30-minute presentation can only confuse a client who was ready to hire you. Don't make it hard for your client to say yes.

Every firm will use visuals in their presentations. Use of visuals takes the retention factor from 10% to 65%.  The key to this statistic is relevant visuals.  I worked with one architect who would fly an airplane over a proposed building site prior to a presentation.  He would take the visuals from that and turn them into powerful elements in his presentation.   Visuals of previous work are worthless unless they clearly leave a positive impression in the client’s mind of what their dream will look like.

I have written several blogs that point out the importance of stories.  Memorable presentations are filled with stories and anecdotes. Stories create images that remind our audiences of their life experiences, challenges and successes.  The audience visualizes your idea without seeing an actual visual on the screen.

I am reminded of a prestigious museum project in the Midwest where some of the world’s most renowned architects were invited to make presentations.  While all the others had a project team show up with dozens of displays, one architect showed up empty handed.  He walked over to where the selection committee was seated, took off his overcoat and scarf, sat down and asked, “Do you have any questions.” They did. He answered and was awarded the job.

When I was the marketing director for a national trade association in the construction industry, I was in charge of the process for selecting an advertising agency.  Three of the agencies came in with polished dog and pony shows and teams of agency professionals.  They presented relevant experience with design and construction firms as well as trade associations. The president of the last firm showed up by himself with a leather case.  After introductions with the selection committee, he sat down at the table and stated, “I don’t do this often.  Most of my business comes from word of mouth.” He spent the next 45 minutes having a conversation with the committee.  Occasionally, he would reach into his case and pull out an example of his work.  Later that afternoon, he was retained as the association’s advertising agency.

Do these examples represent the exception to the rule, or do they show us what happens when creativity meets at the intersection of preference and selection?  You and your firms have thousands of stories to tell.  What do you pull out of the case when a project is on the line?

Next, the presentation has to have movement and action.  If several members of the team have been assigned speaking roles, they all can’t assume the same position in front of the selection committee.  If you are doing a solo presentation in front of an audience, you must leave the comfort of the podium and move across the stage.  Memorable presentations connect with the audience and it is crystallized when the presenter connects through body language and movement.  Pace and pausing for affect are critical in delivering a memorable presentation.  Some of the most memorable speeches have lived on in our memories because of the way the speaker used inflection in delivering the message.  There is no room for a monotone voice in a memorable presentation.  Of course, your audience might remember the monotone, but they won’t remember the message.

Finally, the memorable presentation must include a call to action.  As you recap what you told the audience and hammer home the common thread once again, you must challenge them with something to do.  Winning the job is the real purpose of the client presentation.  It could go something like this:  “We came here today to show you we are a trusted firm in the industry and have shown you a clear process for making your project a success.  You wouldn’t have invited us, if we were not qualified or our project team lacked the experience needed for your project.  We are excited about sharing your dream and seeing it fulfilled. 

When you weigh the pros and cons of the firms interviewed for this project, we want to be the firm chosen to move forward with this project with you.  We simply want to be partners with you on this journey.”  A simple recap and call to action is the way to end a memorable presentation.

On the 150^th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, I would be remiss, if I didn’t end with a reminder of one of the most memorable presentations in the history of our nation.  Without a white board or PowerPoint presentation, Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address four months after the battle that turned the tide on the war.

"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” begins the address.    The visual is a nation at war and a bloody battlefield. It was simple and concise. Lasting only two minutes and less than 200 words, the Gettysburg Address will be remembered for centuries.  Think about this the next time you are conflicted about the fancy graphics, swirling transitions and video clips your are considering for your presentation.  These might make us feel good, but it is the perception of the audience where the rubber meets the road.  When you implement these six steps, you will take a cool presentation and make it memorable.