Doug Fletcher - How to Win Client Business When You Don't Know Where to Start

A new client could have met us ten years ago at a conference, grown to respect our professional expertise over time, and developed a belief that we are trustworthy, but didn't have an interest in working with us at the time. It may be years later before they find themselves searching for the right person to assist them with an important problem. Such is often the nonlinear path of the client's buying decision journey.

If we have a better understanding of how clients buy, we can be sensitive to where the prospective client is in their thought process. And if we understand where the client is in their journey, we can do a better job of providing them with the things they need to become more confident in their decision. In doing so, we increase our chances of success at winning client business.

The seven elements framework also helps us assess how well we are doing, as individuals and as organizations. We can gauge how well we are doing at building awareness, better understand how well we are doing at helping others understand exactly what we do best, and determine how successful we are at demonstrating our professional credibility to others in ways that build respect for our capabilities.

Walt Shill is the managing partner and global commercial director of ERM. ERM is a leading global provider of environmental, health, and safety consulting services, employing over 5,000 consultants worldwide. Walt's as close as anyone I've ever met to being a guru in the profession of management consulting.

He has spent over 30 years in the field as a partner at McKinsey & Co., Accenture, and now in his senior leadership role at ERM. If Walt ever gets around to writing a book on lessons learned over his career, I'll be the first in line at his book signing. I met Walt a few years ago when Tom and I were conducting the research for How Clients Buy . One of the most insightful things I learned from Walt was the importance of understanding the risks clients face in choosing to hire us.

One thing I always underestimated – that I now value the most – is that in many cases if you hire a consultant, it's a career risk, and the bigger the prize, the bigger the risk.

Risk is an important component in the client's buying decision journey. So much of what clients are trying to do, consciously or not, is mitigate the risks they face in choosing which expert to hire, or even if they should bring in outside help. Risks are one of the key drivers in why buying our services is so much harder than buying a product.

Here are just a few of the risks clients face:

Competence risk: Are we really good at what we do?

Culture risk: Are we a good cultural fit?

Performance risk: Will we actually follow through on doing what we say we will?

Integrity risk: Will we do what's best for the client at all times?

Reputational risk: Will this hurt my firm's reputation if the project ends poorly?

Financial Risk: Will this impact our firm's financial performance if things don't go well?

Career risk: Will my career be derailed if this project goes badly?

Going back to our original thought experiment from the book's introduction, I think client risk is one of the key reasons why it's relatively easy to buy a home, but very difficult to choose an architect.

Buying a product, even an expensive item, feels less risky to us. Even if we can't verbalize it, we feel more secure in buying a product. We can touch it, sit in it, or walk through it. It's a real thing, and it's not hard for our brains to imagine what it will feel like in owning it.

Buying services, on the other hand, feels risky to us, even if we can't quite articulate it. This discomfort sits in the pit of our stomach. We can't easily see a person's expertise or the intentions in their heart. We often don't know. So we grasp for straws in an attempt to sort out who the true experts are, the honorable from the scammers, the reliable from the flaky.

Understanding client risk is incredibly important in helping us become more successful at winning client business. We can assist prospective clients by doing specific things that give them more confidence that:

We are good at what we do.

We will deliver on what we say we're gonna do.

We have their best interests at heart.

And, in the end, they'll have a wonderful experience in working with us.

It's often said in the world of professional services that our industry has a long sales cycle. In other words, it's not a quick sale. Some products – a new mobile phone, for example – are often a quick purchase. We walk into Verizon and an hour later we walk out with a new smart phone. It took us all of one hour to scan all of the options and find the one that best meets our needs and budget.

Professional services are not easy to buy. We need to know someone. We need to respect their expertise. We need to trust that they are honest and ethical. These are not things that can be easily discerned in one hour's time, or a day, or a week. Even if a client is highly motivated and ready to buy, they will often struggle for months in deciding which person or organization to work with.

As I've come to better understand how clients buy, and the many risks they face in choosing to work with us, I've become much more sympathetic to their situation. I understand now why it often takes a very long time to sign a work agreement: it's a long buy cycle . And the client is doing the best that he or she can do to pick the business partner who will maximize their chances of a positive outcome, and mitigate the risks that make them lose sleep at night.

Understanding the client's buying process helps us become better partners in their journey. And it also helps us appreciate why it's so much easier to hire us the second time. Or why a recommendation from a friend is so helpful.

Before we begin learning the rainmaker skills, we're going to first take a look at the key client pathways – where clients come from. I know, you're thinking: just tell me what I need to do to win client business. As the kung fu master says, Patience, grasshopper . It doesn't work if we simply jump to the “what to do” part. In order for the rainmaker skills to make sense, we have to first build a solid understanding of the consumer behavior and human psychology at play in how clients buy.

1 John Senaldi story: Interview by How to Win Client Business research team, 2020.

2 The 7 Steps of the Client's Buying Decision Journey: Tom McMakin and Doug Fletcher. How Clients Buy: A Practical Guide to Business Development for Consulting and Professional Services. John Wiley & Sons, 2018.

3 Walt Shill Story: Interview by How Clients Buy research team, 2017.

History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes.

—Mark Twain, writer

I received a knock on my office door today. It was a financial advisor from Edward Jones. Her name was Molly and she was prospecting door to door in an attempt to drum up business.

“How long have you been with Edward Jones?” I asked.

“About a month,” Molly replied.

“How's it going?” I asked.

“It's going all right, I suppose. I'm just getting started,” she explained.

“Have you landed any clients?” I asked.

“Yes, actually – I've landed two clients over the past four weeks,” Molly beamed, “a young guy who recently graduated from college who wanted to get started saving, and a middle‐aged woman who was looking to roll over her 401(k).”

“Well, congratulations,” I said, “that's a good start.”