Tom McMakin - Never Say Sell

Maybe you started as a firm doing a ton of Sarbanes Oxley compliance work, but when that was done, you had to reinvent yourselves as a risk consultancy, developing new service offerings that were sold to different parts of client organizations.

Maybe you help companies install and integrate SAP Hana, but it is getting to be a crowded space and margins are dropping. You're thinking of broadening your offerings to include outsourced IT and managed services to be more competitive. The thing is your main relationship in your clients is with IT directors. When you pitch managed services, it's above their pay grade and they don't think it's a company priority, so they push you away. So, you have started approaching the CIO directly, someone you do not know with a service offering you have never done before.

For example, Susie might recognize a need to create executive engagement throughout the year as a supplement to the Thomson Reuters annual conference. Most specifically, the participants of this event mentioned that with forthcoming changes to California privacy law, a monthly podcast with experts discussing the latest legislative developments could be useful. Susie recognizes that this type of engagement requires interviewing to prepare experts, strong facilitation, and incorporation of key themes expressed by the attendees. While this may not be something Susie and her team have directly performed for clients before, Susie feels confident that PIE's skills in facilitation are transferrable enough to make her an excellent fit for this job. She leans on the credibility she's earned in her work facilitating roundtables to INNOVATE with her client: winning new work with a new buyer.

For example, Susie might meet a subject natter expert (SME) from Thomson Reuters during one of the live events she's helped put together for her current buyer in New York. This SME is an expert in California privacy law, and she mentions to Susie during the reception after the event that they're working to put together a weekly podcast featuring their various Thomson Reuters experts, as well as some clients, around the ongoing changes in the California legal landscape. She thinks having a facilitator for the podcast would be helpful; she's noticed Susie's facilitation skills in the context of the virtual peer exchange discussions and asks whether Susie has podcast facilitation experience. While this may not be something Susie and her team have directly performed for clients before, Susie feels confident that PIE's skills in facilitation are transferrable enough to make her an excellent fit for this job. She leans on the small amount of trust she's earned through this one interaction with the SME, as well as the small amount of credibility she's earned through demonstrating tangential skills and good work for Thomson Reuters, to INNOVATE with her client: winning new work with a new buyer.

The Diamond of Opportunity in Action

MORE. Susie has grown the contract to include more of the same work for the same buyer (virtual peer-exchange facilitation).

EXPAND. Susie expanded this relationship by offering an adjacent service (facilitated live events) to her same buyer.

EXTEND. Susie extended this relationship by offering the same work to a new buyer (building a new virtual peer-exchange group in the media and telecommunications space for a new buyer).

REACH. Susie reached to help a new buyer in Thomson Reuters with a research project, a service with which she has strong experience but has never performed for Thomson Reuters.

EVOLVE. Susie evolved her relationship with Thomson Reuters, leveraging the trust she's built with her client and the skillsets she and her team have to find a way to help her current client with something new, something that PIE has not previously done.

INNOVATE. Susie innovated with Thomson Reuters finding a way to leverage PIE's skills in a new way (a service we haven't performed before), to help a different buyer at Thomson Reuters solve a problem.

Although this might seem overwhelming, it is exciting and allows us to ask more precise questions in account planning sessions.

“What are our top-three ancillary services for which we have strong case studies we might introduce to our current buyer (EXPAND)?”

“We have done good work delivering on CPA-driven accounting projects for the baby-care division. How can we do similar work in other divisions (EXTEND)?”

“What does the client need that we do not currently offer but around which we might hire and stand up a new practice (INNOVATE)?”

This new precision also begs the question, “How should we think about force ranking these opportunities?”

To answer this, first we need to understand why Thomson Reuters isn't just calling Susie up and asking her to do more work. Are there systemic barriers that keep us from engaging more fully with current clients and if there are, what are they?

Andi Baldwin is on Delta's Minneapolis-to-Seattle flight, thinking the only benefit of traveling as much as she does is that she inevitably gets Platinum status every year (frustratingly, not quite to Diamond). Her seatmate leans over just as the plane starts its descent and says, “What takes you to Seattle?”

That's the courtesy, isn't it? Begin the conversation as the wheels are about to go down. If you start the conversation at lift off, then everyone's faced with that awkward moment-of-disengagement just as the chime sounds at 10,000 feet, letting you know you can use your laptop.

“I'm in consulting,” says Andi, stowing her noise-canceling headphones in her bag.

Anyone in consulting knows this fact: Saying you are in consulting is an easy conversation killer. No one knows what consultants do. Andi is a partner at PIE and sometimes she wonders if her closest friends know what she does.

But Andi's seatmate persists. He's downed two Dewar's on ice and his mood is expansive.

“What kind of consulting?”

“My company helps expert services firms drive business development, primarily through sponsored peer-exchange discussions.”

“Oh, so you kind of help consultants build relationships in the c-suite to sell more work. Kind of like a BD wingman?”

“Exactly.” Andi laughs, having heard this analogy before. “How about you?” she says, trying to pivot away from herself. “What do you do?”

“I’m a sales trainer. I contract with the big ERP software companies.”

This piques Andi's interest. Suddenly she starts thinking time will run short before she gets to ask a few questions. Then she remembers that when Delta lands in Seattle, it feels like you are driving to Canada as they make their way across the tarmac to the terminal. There will be plenty of time.

“I've got a question for you, since you're probably an expert on this.”

“Shoot.”

“In professional services, we always think about the importance of expanding existing client relationships, not just finding new clients. But for some reason, farming existing clients is never as easy as it seems – why do you think that is?”

“Great question. We think what we know about how to win new clients applies to getting more work inside an existing client. But it's not true. It's like that Steve Martin joke, ‘It is so hard to understand the French. They have a different word for everything.’ It's that way when you are trying to do more work for a client. It's a completely different language of selling than you use to bring on new logos.”

We agree with Andi's seatmate. There are, indeed, two different “languages” – or at least two different ways of approaching how we think about our ability to offer our breadths of services to various buyers – and this is the first obstacle. What we know about attracting new clients has little overlap with what helps us expand client relationships.