Fishing for Clients: Is Your Net Big Enough?

Is your networking building business for you? How do you bridge the divide between social media networking and traditional networking?  Younger employees might dismiss traditional for the allure of LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.  A new, one-hour presentation is a compelling journey through the maze of networking possibilities. Is it time you put networking on your meeting schedule.

Networking is a critical element for success in any industry.  It is something that is hardwired into each of us.  We were networking as far back as elementary school.  We have an inherent need to connect with people. 

John Naisbit is the world’s best known observers and analysts of global trends.  His first book, Megatrends was published in 1980.  He coined the phrase "High Tech equals Hi Touch."  He came to this conclusion long before social media.

While everyone is enamored with  social media as networking heaven and are attracting followers on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc, this acceptance of Hi Tech does not get us to Hi Touch.  Naisbitt’s premise was that as our culture becomes more dependent on technology, there will be an equal force causing us to connect more with each other more.

This is where the networking rubber meets the road.  They don’t teach this in college or graduate school.  Effective networking is hard work.  It doesn’t have to be a baptism by fire or trial and error.  Social media should work like a networking magnet, attracting people and clients to you.  But this is only one step in your networking journey.

Today, I want to take you on a journey that will open your mind to the simplicity of networking and the value it can bring to your career. 

How many principals and firm officers believe in the Golden Rule?  He who has the gold makes the rules?

This can be a curse when it comes to networking.  The attitude this presents produces one direction networking.  It is almost a clique type of networking.  You start to network only with people inside your cocoon. I don’t have time to go into the psychology of this, but simply want to say that networking is not your father’s climbing the corporate ladder.  Networking today is like the Double threaded helix of DNA.  It is more complex.  To understand this we need to go back to the beginning.

 

Where did the word networking come from?  It is an ancient word that began as two words net and work. It referred to the craftsman who put fishing nets together.  What is the most important part of a fishing net? There are different sizes of rope used for catching different types of fish.  But the most important part is the connections.  As the size of the rope increases, so does the size of the knots that connect the rope.  The knots have to be placed strategically depending upon the type of fish.  Too much space between knots and your catch gets away. 

Too little space and you catch fish that aren’t worth keeping. You should look at your networking this way.

Let me use LinkedIn as an example.  Your connections are called the first. If one of your contacts is connected to someone,  they are 2^nd.  If that person is connected to someone, the person is third and so on.  The LinkedIn model is really based upon the six degrees of separation. It feels good to be connected directly to 500 people and indirectly to over 100,000.  Are these connections worth keeping?  How many help you secure business?  How many are really active on LinkedIn?

Is your network big enough or strong enough to capture the clients you need the most.  If not, how do you build it?

I worked with a networking genius when I first got into the industry.  He was the vice president of marketing and hired me to sell services in the Midwest.  His training program consisted of handing me a dozen project photos, telling me to learn the names of company officers and stating I would do fine.  I did, but it wasn’t because of that training program. It was because of the networking example he lived. He told me to join some allied industry associations and that I had to get involved.  “You get out of it, what you put into it,” was his motto.  You have to be active on committees and boards and not just attend meetings to hand out business cards. This guy was responsible for national sales for this engineering/architecture firm with nine offices across the country.  The headquarters was in Chicago. He lived in St. Louis. He left his house Sunday night or Monday morning and would return home on Friday.  He spent a lot of time on the phone next to binders of business cards.  He was successful because he kept in contact with people he met. He knew people in every industry but concentrated on developers and commercial real estate. On the outside, he met a lot of people who were not in positions to help him.  He would help the people who needed it the most but deserved it the least.  He was at a party in California playing tennis with Paul Tagliabue, then commissioner of the NFL,( He was a habitual name dropper) when the conversation of a new NFL stadium came up.  Our firm didn’t have any interest in it, but he knew an architect who worked for a firm that designed stadiums.  The architect had also turned him down on a recent proposal. Tabliabue gave him the particulars of contact people at the NFL team who would be looking to hire a design team.  Later that night, he called the architect with the news.  Fast forward three years, Disney is getting ready to expand Disneyland. It will include the largest parking structure in the world.  The architect’s firm has been hired to prepare a master plan and help Disney select consultants.  Disney was not thinking about selecting a specialty firm to design the parking structure, until the architect was called and told about the facility we were doing for Universal Studios in Florida.  We were chosen to design the parking structure at a fee in excess of $6 million or a project value in excess of $150 million. Some would have called this luck, coincidence or chance. I believe that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. It could also be called Networking 2.0.

The moral to the story: Your network is only as good as the trust you build with connections. You build trust by helping connections when there is nothing in it for you.  Clients in any industry have an aversion for helping people who always come to them with their hands out.

 

 

 

The complete presentation can be scheduled by contacting Tryst Anderson.  The one-hour program can be completed over breakfast, lunch or dinner during a retreat, monthly meeting or in-house training class.

Chasing Client Loyalty: How to Turn the Hunt into Profitable Business

The client chase just got more interesting.  In a world of changing priorities, more government regulations and musical chairs’ change at the top, our search for client loyalty appears to be shifting once again. Are loyal clients an endangered species?  A training program I developed two years ago, “The Paradigm Shift is Selling Professional Services”, was a harbinger for these changes.

Now this reality is sinking in for most firms.  This is no longer a surprise attack. It can’t all be tied to the economy or social media.  It happens at most firms due to lack of comprehensive planning.  Firms with a “we have always done it this way” approach to business development and marketing are finding a shrinking client base and more difficulty in acquiring new business.   In other words, they are taking the “I want to be forgettable” approach to client acquisition.  Top of mind means you are unforgettable in the clients’ thinking. How do you get there?

What do business development professionals need today to navigate the swamp that is the marketplace? What role does the firm play in creating a navigation process that leads to success?

First, is your social media and web content acting like a magnet to attract clients?  Firing a shotgun out of a window is a difficult way to hunt tigers. There is a lot of sound and fury, but no results. Every hunter will tell you that it is always better to have the prey come towards you rather than trying to track it down in its territory.  The prey can play too many tricks when it stays within its comfort zone.  There is always a sweet spot when it comes to client acquisition. Understanding the sweet spot of every client is a good start. It is only a start.

It is one thing to get a prospective client out of its comfort zone but another altogether to get your firm out of its comfort zone when the hunt is on.  There are too many variables and behavior patterns that can cause us to chase the wrong client at the right time and the right client at the wrong time.  It can be about money, prestige, favors and so on. “Our most loyal client just fired us,” was the tagline for an airline ad a few years ago. The ad went on to show the CEO sending his top executives out on the road to show clients they cared about them. Has your firm ever been in this position?

Expanding your comfort zone during the hunt requires the following:

1. Absolute focus on why this opportunity makes sense for the firm both short term and long term.

2. Although fee is a consideration, the decision can’t be just about fee. Chasing a client solely for revenue doesn’t build enduring relationships, remarkable work or outstanding companies.

3. What will the experience be like, if the client hires you for this project? Is there team chemistry? What is the client’s performance history on other projects or with other firms?  Do you share the client’s vision or do you even know what the client’s vision is?

4. Can your team have fun and laugh with this client?

5. Risk and reward considerations. What resources will be needed? Do you have these in-house now or will you need to expand your services?

If management keeps saying, “show me the money,” your firm is not coming out of its comfort zone.

Client loyalty is a two-way street. It is like respect, it has to be earned. You can’t expect a client to be loyal, if you haven’t shown loyalty yourself.  If you haven’t gone the extra mile in servicing the client. With that being said, you can’t expect a quid pro quo just because you have serviced the client. 

When I headed up the national business development for an engineering/architecture firm, the CEO  at a corporate quality meeting responded to a question about recognizing employees for superior quality this way, “ Their recognition is their paycheck.” Firms and project teams that believe providing good service is enough to ensure client loyalty are treading on thin ice in today’s market reality.  Loyalty then is in the eyes of the beholder. 

Every industry is under attack from healthcare to corporate facilities to higher education and everywhere in between.  Client competitors seeking to expand their operations and start ups looking to create new opportunities which might make your client’s products obsolete, all put pressure on our clients and their loyalty to our teams. Throw in government regulations that impact the bottom line and client loyalty is tested even more. You need to look inside the industry dynamics your clients are facing and help them develop strategies for strengthening their positions.  A trusted advisor is not easily kicked out of the boardroom.

Always remember, if you don’t have a seat at the table, you are probably on the menu.  Every firm should take their business development and marketing staff through the proven steps toward improving client loyalty.  And, then don’t put baggage in their way as they move your existing clients into the client advocate categories.  Every CEO would agree that the world would be a better place if all their clients were client advocates. There is no magic wand or secret formula for securing client loyalty.  It is a mind set and attitude that pervades the organization from the top down.

The Seinfeld Rules of Business Development

Jerry Seinfeld is one of the wealthiest Hollywood stars mainly because he participated in a popular sitcom about nothing.  Every producer has a formula for making a profitable sitcom and none of them until Larry David, the producer/creator of Seinfeld, thought they could be successful doing a 30 minute weekly sitcom about nothing.

I am not saying that because business development in professional service firms is the most ambiguous business discipline your plan can be about nothing.  Business development at a very basic level must be defined in your firm and your people must know how it works. Since business development is different in scope from everything else your firm does, it is important to define it. For example, does everyone in your firm know the difference between marketing and business development?  Every firm in the country will benefit if they understand and employ the Seinfeld Rules of Business Development.

What are the Seinfeld  business development rules?

                1.  Just because it used to work doesn’t mean it will work in the future.

                2.  Every leader needs a committed team.

                3.  Skill alone can only take you so far.

                4.  Rely on bold ideas to separate yourself from the competition.

                5.  Sell a story people can relate to.

 

Successful firms in our industry have a deep understanding of all business functions and often try to put the square function of business development into the round hole of other business functions.  Inherent in successful business development is the ability to leverage all your firm’s capabilities so a client will see success in selecting your firm.  Not only a successful project, but also personal, team and organizational wins.

The reason business development efforts lose effectiveness over time is because most firms simply keep using the same tactics that worked in the past for the challenges they are facing today.  Although there is a need for old school thinking in a business development strategy, keeping tactics because your don’t need to “recreate the wheel”, is the first step to failure.  If you understand the concept of zero-based budgeting, you will understand my concept of zero-based business development planning.  Management has a hard time forgetting what has worked in the past.  Therefore, it takes a confident business development/marketing group to move management away from proven strategies to something new and different. When was the last time you took a bold business development idea to management?

This brings us to the second rule: Every leader needs a committed team.  Jerry Seinfeld had an above average stand up career before he took off with Seinfeld.  Suffice it to say that he would not be worth $800 million today, if he had relied on a touring standup comedy career. Although Seinfeld was about nothing, the characters had depth and had interesting interactions between each other.  The actors were grood comedians in their own right, but Jerry was the star.  When the leader starts out with humility and is not worried about who gets the credit, the team excels.  The team is committed.  The problem for firms with uncertain business development success is a management and/or a business development team that is not committed or a leader more interested in self-promotion.

 After Jerry Seinfeld was committed to the show, Larry David could have sought out other highly talented, established comedians to fill the roster.  However,he understood that skill alone can only take you so far.  There is a chemistry needed for success in business development as there is a chemistry needed for comedy to work.  Too much of any individual ingredient spoils the whole thing.  How is the chemistry working in your firm?

Does your firm promote project managers to business development because they are good with clients?  Many firms do this and are disappointed when goals are not achieved.  Skills can only take you so far, especially when the skills are not connected directly to business development or marketing.  This is where training can reap huge results.

In small firms, marketing and business development might be managed by one person.  It might be a firm principal rather than a marketing services professional.  Larger firms are capable of supporting separate departments.  These are the firms where team chemistry is extremely important.  However, even small firms need to look at the chemistry connection.

Can you imagine when Larry David pitched the network about a sitcom that was about nothing.  The executives knew David and Seinfeld, but a show about nothing, really.  One executive took a chance on 13 episodes and the rest is television history.  Do you have a bold idea that is just as big, but you are afraid to present it to your management.  There are four things that can happen to your idea: You sell it to management, it is successful and your firm profits.  You sell it to management and they don’t see your vision and vote against it. You decide not to sell it to management  and nothing happens ( I mean even what worked in the past no longer works).  A competitor comes up with the same idea, gets her management team to run with it and they win the big project.  Would you even tell your management team you had the same idea but you were afraid to tell them about it.  Of course, if they turned you down, you could say, “I told you so!”  The latter is probably not a good response if you plan to work for the firm for an extended period of time.  However, if they turned you down, they might have a better appreciation of your ideas and vision in the future.    Follow the advice of Daniel Burnham, “Make no little plans; They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work…”  Big ideas worked in Chicago.

Finally, the most important rule is to sell a story.  For Seinfeld it was a story that average people could relate to.  It wasn’t just New Yorkers who understood the relationship issues between Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine, it was everybody. 

Your firm’s story is a little different. Your story must be one that a client will invest in.  If your firm has industry experts, use them to tell the story.  Tell project stories from the client’s perspective.  Understand market conditions, how well your firm is prepared for current conditions, your client’s industry and how the client’s history is connected to yours. Then, tell the story.Nothing made Seinfeld the most profitable sitcome in history.  The Seinfeld rules might be just what your firm needs to make its own history.  When you make the bold step, please let us know how we can help by contacting us at tryst@businessdevelopmentpros.org

How Design Professionals Learn to Sell Services

Do you know any architects who grew up wishing they could be used car salesmen?  How about any engineers or lawyers with a similar wish? As a rule, one reason people are drawn to professional services is because of their desire to be as far away from sales as possible.

As I was thinking about this dilemma in professional services, I remembered how Monster.com approached this subject. I was amused by their television commercial that showed children stating what they wanted to be when they grew up. It was a change from normal responses and included children who stated they wanted to become “Yes men and women,” “forced into early retirement”, and “avoid risk at all costs” to mention a few. The ad pointed out the reality of career choice decisions that often don’t turn out the way we planned.

I have delivered messages to people living in a homeless shelter that talk about how nobody ever thinks they will grow up to be an addict, homeless, or broken. When we are young, we aspire for greater things, noble professions, and careers with substance. Then life happens and we are forced to expand our comfort zone.

People who aspire to be engineers, architects, lawyers or CPAs have passion for the profession and talent for honing the skills that are required to succeed. Selling, however, is not one of the attributes on top of the minds of people seeking a career in professional services. Can you name a school of architeture that has an elective course on selling professional services? Many firms won’t even use the word “sales”. They prefer to use business development or marketing, as if these two disciplines were interchangeable. Management understands the need to maintain comfort zones, if the professionals are going to excel at what they do best. However, the bottom line and billable hours usually trump these good intentions.

Architecture, engineering, and law schools don’t teach classes in selling professional services or marketing professional services because it is not integral to the services they are teaching. It isn’t because professionals don’t sell. In fact, changes in all of these professions have caused many more professionals to spend time selling. They didn’t sign up for it. Many inherited it. For others it was a management decision because a person was “good with clients.” Selling isn't taught because it is not technically a needed skill to practice the profession.

Today, most firms need their professionals to be proactive in nurturing clients and acquiring new ones. Does your firm have a sales training program like the one I discovered at an architectural firm I was consulting with? It was client-centric. Meaning that management wanted its project managers to get the next job from the clients they were currently working with. It was a goal without tactics or tools to be used by project managers to move the next project forward. Another firm came up with a plan to boost profits by having project managers spend one extra day cold calling potential clients when they were in a town working on a project. In theory, it was fantastic. The people who know the firm’s services the best, including some industry experts, simply call on clients similar to the one who is being visited and the projects will roll in. Unfortunately, the project managers didn’t buy into the idea and no one ever scheduled an extra day to do the cold calling. Management took a lot of heat on that one.

This is an example of “give someone a fish and he eats for a day. Teach the person how to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life.” Management thought by empowering project managers to stay an extra day, they were providing incentive for project managers to sell more work. Were they given a template showing how to make contact calls? Were they given instruction on how a cold call differs from a project meeting? Were they taught basic sales techniques and how to handle objections? Were they asked their opinion of the idea? The answers to these questions are no, no, no and are you kidding.

Some people have an advantage over the majority who lack selling skills. Charisma, outgoing personalities and life experiences that included selling make it easier for some professionals to accept a limited role in selling. However, even the project executive who can sell ice cubes to Eskimos and is totally at ease in a selling environment still needs to be given some other tools. When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. After all, the Eskimo who was sold ice cubes might have really needed the refrigerator/freezer.

Charisma, for example can go a long way, but might stall out when these selling issues come into play: psychological, personal, political, business outcomes, risk, reward, credibility and trust. My book, “Everything You Need in Selling Professional Services, You Learned in Youth Sports, describes the basics every professional needs to sell their services.

The economy, global markets, government regulations and increased competition have created a new paradigm for selling professional services. Since the hallowed halls of higher education aren’t teaching courses in these disciplines, where do you go? Trial and error or baptism by fire are two options.

Visit Business Development Professionals (www.businessdevelopmentpros.org ) and see another answer. For many firms it is THE answer because of the custom nature of its training programs. It might be your answer as well. The search is free and only takes a couple minutes of your time.

Marketing Rules You Should Depend On

I believe in the leaky bucket theory and 80/20 marketing rules in selling professional services. Many of the younger professionals believe this is “old school” and not important in today’s digital age.

 
If we lived in an ideal world, all of our clients would be loyal and stay with us forever. In addition, these clients would have new projects for us every year. Unfortunately, the market doesn’t work this way.

Clients leave us for a host of reasons. Sometimes it is our fault in the delivery of services or client’s perception that we should have done more. Competition is another reason. However, most clients don’t have a project for us every year. This dynamic is the basis for the leaky bucket theory.

We must be constantly pouring new clients and projects into the bucket in order to grow the business or at least maintain equilibrium with the clients that flow out through the holes. When we understand this dynamic, we can take a careful look at the 80/20 marketing rule. The bottom line is that we need to find 20% of our business each year in new clients. Since the cost of obtaining a new client is upwards of 6 times the cost of keeping an existing client, we devote 80% of our marketing resources to obtaining new clients. Although the percentages will not be the same for every firm, it is safe to say that there are no firms using a 100/0 marketing rule.

Even in the age of social media and technology these rules are still in play. If you disagree, please let me know. That gets me to the point of marketing process. We all want to work smarter not harder. Every firm needs to make effective client touches in order to be successful in obtaining new business and seeing a return on their marketing investment.

An SMPS LinkedIn group had an interesting discussion centered on the question of how many client touches are enough. One of the members questioned the need for client touches.

He implied they were something like window dressing that wasn’t needed if the client gave you his personal phone number or you asked the right questions. There is a big difference between maintaining continuity with an existing client and building a relationship with a new client. Is a tweet a touch?  How about liking something on a Facebook or LinkedIn page?

A county executive once asked me why I needed to know which local architects were in line for an important project. I represented Walker Parking Consultants at the time and was doing research on which architect we should team with. He said, “ You guys are the best in the country. Teaming with any local architect is like rolling the dice.” I replied, “If we don’t team, we won’t have any dice to roll.”

On one level touches are a lot like rolling the dice. I think the member who downplayed touches only saw them on this level. In practice touches are marketing tools like dice that allow us to stay in the game.

Outside of the context of a strategic marketing plan, a single touch doesn’t seem like an effective way to fill the leaky bucket. Combined with a comprehensive marketing plan, client research and a process, each touch brings you closer to top of mind with the client.

The magic number is simply whatever it takes to win the client’s business. It might be three or it might be 23. As you extend the number of touches there comes a point of diminishing returns. First, firms don’t have unlimited resources so decisions have to be made as to the value of pursuing a particular client. When in doubt, go back to the marketing plan. Don’t forget the residual value touches have on other clients you are chasing. Most client touches impact multiple potential and existing clients.

Second, there has to be a method to the madness of client touches. They aren’t something that sounded good at the time the annual marketing plan was being developed. For example, did you know all of the potential new clients and projects that were going forward prior to completing the annual marketing plan? Probably not. Yet, the plan is flexible enough to accommodate new entries. How many marketing plans changed when the “dot com” bubble burst or the real estate bubble burst? Are you prepared for the next bubble to burst?

In other words, if the mission is to keep the bucket filled, you shouldn’t spend resources chasing projects that aren’t going to happen.

This is why traditional marketing theories and rules are still in play today. Social media is the great connector of people. However, it is still what you do with the connection that counts. More importantly, as far as new business is concerned, it is what you do FOR the connection that makes all the difference in keeping buckets filled, maximizing marketing resources and improving your return on investment.

 

Getting Personal: Are You a Disciplined Marketing Services Professional?

Marketing services professionals have had a lot of experience leading or working on the creation of a strategic plan for their firms. The result, when implemented properly, is intended to help guide the firm’s business over a certain time period. Stating that this task requires discipline is an understatement.

This article is not about your  discipline in creating the firm’s strategic plan, it is about something personal!

 

It is January, 2014 Where is your personal strategic plan? Winston Churchill said, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” That quote applies to any professional who fails to create a personal strategic plan at the beginning of each year. In addition to guiding your professional and personal life, the plan also acts as an anchor to connect you back to when things change or new opportunities appear on the horizon.  People don’t do it because it takes time and discipline.  Does this sound like planning to fail?

The best and most relevant, personal strategic plan is tailored to focus on what matters most to you. Typically, a plan encompasses career issues (i.e. ongoing development in your current role, raised visibility in your field, or a job change), finances, health, and key relationships. However, it is fine to include additional topics that are important to you, such as new adventures, travel, or spiritual development.

Here are six steps for creating your own personal strategic plan:

Step 1 – Find time: During the first few weeks of the New Year to break away from your day-to-day duties and responsibilities and dream about your year and what you want to accomplish.

Step 2 – Do a SWOT analysis on yourself: What are your personal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats? Who could provide you with honest feedback regarding your strengths and weaknesses? What is the forecast for the coming year’s economic realities, both the good and the bad, as they relate to your life and your work?

Step 3 – Clarify your values: What do you value most in your life? It is usually easy to identify the first few (e.g. family, health, happiness), but you need to dig deeper for the purposes of a personal strategic plan. Think carefully about what else you truly value and want to honor in the coming year. Consider leadership roles at your organization or your community, close relationships and connectivity at both personal and professional levels, recognition or greater influence, time, freedom and flexibility, life/work balance or integration, personal growth, new challenges, wealth, service, and meaningful work.

Step 4 – Create your mission statement: This is a brief written statement, just a sentence or two, which is based on the values you want to honor. It is not intended to redefine who you are. Rather, it serves as a reminder of your life’s purpose. Your statement is a valuable touchstone that you can reference throughout the year and use to help guide your behavior and inform your decisions.

Step 5 – Create your goals: As a last step, you should identify goals that align with the core values you identified earlier. For example, if you identified professional growth or leadership opportunities as values, you could include a career-related goal on your list. Under each goal, include specific action steps and a timeframe. Please note that your goals can be broad (i.e. grow my career), but your action steps must be specific and time-limited (i.e. get a new job in 1stQ 2014). I strongly recommend limiting the number of goals and action steps so you can take a realistic approach to what you will accomplish this year. Three to four goals with one to two actions steps under each is doable.

Step 6 – Determine what support you need to stay accountable to your plan: Identifying an accountability partner (perhaps a colleague or good friend) can help you stick to your plan. Agree on a time to check in (could be a 10-minute call every other Friday) or on your own schedule a time weekly, bi-weekly or monthly to review your personal strategic plan and allow for modifications.

Here are some final tips based on my observation of what my most successful clients do:

       A. Plan and focus on what is within your control, as opposed to focusing on things you cannot control, such as the economy or what your boss does or does not do.

       B. Highlight the positive outcomes change will bring as opposed to looking at what you will be giving up, such as moving towards good health versus losing weight.

       C. Reduce your plans rather than over-commit, and take daily actions, even if they are small, to make things happen.

When you take the time and have discipline, creating a personal strategic plan can be transformative. The key is to be patient with yourself and know you are moving in the right direction. Some changes happen quickly while other habits take a whole lot longer to stick.