Having helped well over 100 organisations to attract new clients and win more business, I have compiled a list of the most common problems they have all had to overcome.
If you are a lawyer, barrister, accountant, engineer, banker, recruiter, agency owner, IT & software or other professional services business you are likely to find some things that resonate with you in the list.
Time for some self diagnosis. How many are you currently experiencing? Get yourself a pen and some paper.
A few partners/fee earners generate the majority of the new business.
2. We have little point of difference other than price and so struggle to stand out in the marketplace as we struggle to verbalise how we are better than similar competing firms.
3. We rely heavily on ‘word of mouth’ to grow revenues and have less than 10 ways to generate new business leads. To make matters worse, staff very rarely ask for referrals as they don’t know how or when to do it.
4. Cross selling is a goal of the practice, but it doesn’t seem to happen.
5. Fee earners consider themselves technical experts rather than marketers or worse, salespeople.
6. We attend and host networking events but achieve very little.
7. We don’t maximise the potential of the latest technologies available such as blogs, podcasts, online video, social media etc
8. The firm does a lot of marketing via seminars, brochures, sports tickets, sponsorships, PR and advertising but can’t track any specific client to the initiatives.
9. The website produces few leads and little new business.
10. We find it difficult to get in front of potential new clients and struggle to turn leads into fee paying work.
11. Many staff are willing to market but don’t know what to do.
12. We have a written marketing plan but struggle to put it into action.
13. The business does not premeditatedly identify industries where it has experience or expertise, with the aim of pursuing specific clients in those industries.
14. We find it difficult to prove our expertise and show our track record in our field so we don’t win as much of the ‘quality’ work available as we should.
15. No formal referral strategy in place with joint venture partners.
16. We are competing in an increasingly price competitive market where we are discounting regularly to win work. Our margins are therefore not as good as we would like.
17. Business Development does not come up in appraisal meetings as it is not part of our firm culture.
18. There are no incentives or bonus for generating new business.
19. Few partners/fee earners have individual business plans in writing.
20. Not running at full capacity due to less frequent or reduced client spend. We do not have much income from proactively reaching out to potential new clients.
How many of these sound familiar to you?
If it is more than half you really need to start finding some answers should you wish to remain relevant, competitive and want to continue to receive sustainable profits.
Take ACTION. Now. There is no time like the present.