18 July 2008 7 Comments

Topgrading for Sales: A Review

The folks at the Topgrading team (http://www.topgradingforsales.com/) kindly sent me a review copy of their latest book: Topgrading for Sales – so here’s the review.

A quick caveat: Topgrading focuses primarily on recruitment – and I’m far from an expert in that area. In fact, in my 15+ years working in consulting organisations I managed to studiously avoid the corporate recruitment process whenever possible, And when I was hired by others, it was always as a “done deal” result of headhunting rather than happening through a structured recruitment process. So this review is from the perspective of someone who is coming at it with a fresh pair of eyes.

Philosophy
The first interesting thing about Topgrading for Sales is its simple philosophy. The core concept of Topgrading is that you can and should hire only “A Players” – the top 25% of the population. Topgrading is very stark here; there’s no hiring of nearly-A’s or B+’s and hoping they will make the grade. Yes – try to coach your existing team if they’re not A Players yet, But when it comes to hiring – aim for the top.
There’s an unwritten assumption behind this, of course. It assumes it’s possible to do this. Theoretically, if everyone was Topgrading, there wouldn’t be enough A Players to go around. But my experience is that very few firms are really thorough in how they go about hiring – and certainly not as thorough as the Topgrading process. So in practice you don’t have to worry about a shortage of A Players – especially if you follow the first key piece of advice they give.

Maintaining an A Player “bench”
The first piece of advice in Topgrading which I’d not come across before is to maintain an A Player “bench”. Rather than do what most companies do – ignore the job candidate marketplace until you really need someone – their recommendation is to maintain regular contacts with a “bench” of high performers you would like to hire, and referrers who are able to put you in contact with high performers. This approach makes a lot of sense to me – rather than starting from scratch each time you want to hire you have an active pipeline of high quality candidates already at your fingertips. And if you’ve been keeping in contact with them regularly it will help you sell your organisation to them.

Rigorous Selection Process
The next differentiator of the Topgrading approach is the rigour with which the hiring process is carried out. For example, rather than relying on the candidate’s CV/resume (which is likely nowadays to have been significantly massaged by one of the many career coaches and CV advisors available), the Topgrading approach is to ask candidates to fill in a detailed Career History form – including compensation details, exact dates for each job, the name of previous bosses (hinting that they will be contacted) etc.

The process also includes a detailed “Topgrading Interview” in addition to the normal competency-based interviews (which most people now know about and how to prepare for). This interview is a rigorous career history review – talking about specific accountabilities, achievements and learnings.

The next key step is to get the candidate to set up a call for the interviewer with each of their previous bosses for the last few years. Now, of course, you can’t force the candidate to get you these calls. But the authors’ experience is that the A Players will be happy to set them up – knowing they will get good feedback.

At each stage of the process, of course, there is a filtering and narrowing down of candidates with the final decision being made after the calls with previous managers,

Overall
As you’ll have guessed from the review so far, I rate the book pretty highly. There were a number of new ideas for me – and they reflected my own personal experience of what seems to work and what doesn’t. And I really buy-in to the philosophy of taking recruitment seriously enough and rigorously enough to ensure you are only hiring A Players.

The book is pretty slim – 113 pages – which is both a good and a bad thing. It’s a quick and easy read – but in areas I felt I would need more in order to actually implement the ideas. Over half the pages in the book are forms and checklists which is really helpful. But there’s little information on building the skills needed for successful hiring. For example, there isn’t really anything about interviewing skills, and the coaching chapter really only focuses on the timetable for coaching rather than on how to actually do it well. I think that anyone who buys-in to the Topgrading philosophy should take recruitment seriously enough to invest in books and other resources to make sure they are an A Player at all the skills needed to recruit A Players. In this respect Topgrading for Sales is an excellent overarching philosophy and framework for the way you should recrti sales people – and a starting point for further building your skills at doing so.

Ian

 

 

Filed Under: Business Development Strategy Tagged With: ,
14 July 2008 13 Comments

Business Development for Accountants – is there Anybody Out There?

When I was compiling Rainmaker Resources I scoured the net for articles, blogs, podcasts and videos of value to business developers in professional services. Most of these resources are, of course, produced by consultants and advisors who aim to help professionals in these areas. I informally categorised the firms and individuals I found, with the intriguing result that they all fell into one of three camps:

  • There are many advisors who cover all types of professional services firms (lawyers, consultants, accountants, architects, engineers, etc.). I fit into this camp, as does David Maister, Ford Harding, Suzanne Lowe, Bruce Marcus, Mike Schulz and John Doerr, etc. (Bracketing myself with those giants of professional services is probably the most egotistical thing I’ve done for ages – as they say in Wayne’s World: I’m not worthy).
  • There are a number of advisors who focus on law firms: Larry Bodine, Gerry Riskin, Allan Colman, etc.
  • Rather fewer advisors who focus on consulting – Alan Weiss is probably the leading name here – others tend to mainly offer training and resources - e.g. SBR Consulting, the Guerilla Consulting team (perhaps consultants don’t like being consulted to).

And for accountants?

Er, nothing really. I drew a blank.

Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places – I’m a consultant by background rather than an accountant. But I’m one hell of a googler. And still I came up with nothing.

So maybe accountants don’t take advice. Or maybe advisors don’t like working for accountants. Maybe there’s a fantastic niche available for anyone willing to specialise.

Or maybe I’ve just got a blind spot when it comes to resources for accountants. So if you know of any – please drop me a line and I’ll add them to the site.

Ian

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , , ,
14 July 2008 8 Comments

Social Media and Professional Services Business Development

An excellent post by Matt Brazil caught my eye recently. It’s provocatively entitled Are Social Networks the Last Nail in the Coffin for Cold Calling?

Now, of course, the increased prevalance of social media (and Matt includes blogs, articles, podcasts, etc. in that group) aren’t going to completely kill off cold calling. But Matt’s point – based on a lead generation experiment he ran – is that for many businesses they may now present a better return on investment than cold calling.

In the case of professional services: article writing, seminars and speeches have always been a fantastic business development device for the larger “names” in the business. They provide advanced clues for potential buyers to the credibility and knowledge of the consultant, lawyer, accountant, engineer or architect who wrote the article or delivered the speech. Given the intangible nature of professional services; those clues are often an immensely powerful lever to at least get the professional engaged in a dialogue with the potential client.

Historically, speech-making and article writing has often been the preserve of the well-known individual or the major firm. Most people read a small number of quality journals so competition for placement was high and the chances of a small firm or unknown individual getting a high degree of visibility was slim.

But like many things in life, the internet has changed all that. Not only is it much easier for good quality content to get published on a plethora of sites and blogs; but potential clients have changed the way they find material. Nowadays they don’t subscribe to a small number of quality journals in the hope that something of relevance will appear every few months – they search for what they want, when they want it.

So equipped with some half-decent SEO and an interesting niche to write about; smaller firms and less well-known professionals can replicate the marketing tactics of the industry giants.

Of course, actually being able to produce quality material that really is going to raise your credibility is a whole different story. But at least today the barriers to publishing and being found have all but fallen.

Ian

Filed Under: Marketing Professional Services Tagged With: , , , ,
8 July 2008 5 Comments

Rainmaker Resources | Links & Resources for Professional Services Partners, Business Developers and Marketers

I spend quite a bit of time scouring the net for high quality resources and information on business development and marketing for professional services. While they have a lot in common with product sales – particularly large, complex sales; there are also a number of unique factors which need to be taken into consideration when marketing and selling professional services. Unfortunately, there are relatively few high quality resources available to give guidance in this area.

Well, the good news is, I’ve created the Rainmaker Resources (www.rainmaker-resources.com)  portal as a guide to some of the best resources on professional services rainmaking available on the net: blogs, articles, podcasts, videos and books.

The portal reflects my own personal opinion, of course; but please feel free to add your own favourite links and resources – either directly (it’s a Squidoo Lens) or drop me a message and I’ll add it for you.

Ian

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,
5 July 2008 13 Comments

Becoming a Trusted Advisor

It’s the holy grail of Professional Services – to become a trusted advisor to your senior clients. To be viewed – and sought out – as a source of valued advice and support.

The benefits from a business development perspective are clear: the professional who is the first port of call for a client with a business problem is in a tremendous position to help shape that client’s thinking, to build a deep understanding of the situation, and to establish strong credibility through the discussions. In other words, they will be in pole position to win any related work.

And if the professional has established a position of being able to help across a broad range of business issues – not just in their own specialism – then they begin to advance towards that other holy grail, the ability to cross-sell professional services.

But becoming a trusted advisor doesn’t happen overnight. The position must be earned – and this takes time and investment of effort.

The clues to what to focus on are in the name – trusted advisor. You must establish both a trust-based relationship with your client; and you must be viewed as a source of valuable advice.

Building trust can only be done by demonstrating and proving trustworthiness over time. The client must come to believe that you understand them, you have their best interests at heart, and you will deal with them with candour – always being honest about what you can and cannot do, and taking a long term perspective rather than seeing them as a short-term sales prospect.

When the Huthwaite Group studied client’s perceptions of professional service salespeople, they found that of the key elements of trust (in their words: candour, competence and concern) it was the area of showing concern and empathy for their clients where professionals performed the worst – much worse that their counterparts in product sales. Accountants, lawyers and consultants are trained “to be professional” – to be objective, fact-driven and solution focused. They have been conditioned into feeling they must constantly demonstrate their cleverness and expertise in order to be credible. But all of this mitigates against showing genuine human concern for clients and their challenges. 

It’s not that professionals don’t care about their clients – far from it. But they must learn to express this concern in ways which clients can appreciate. Using our listening skills, for example, not to gather ammunition for our next verbal gem – but to build genuine and deep understanding of a client’s situation.

When it comes to demonstrating that you can provide valuable advice, this again must be demonstrated over time. Every interaction with your senior clients is a chance to either advance their perception of you as a source of valuable insight, or not.

First you must “earn your spurs” – earn the basic right to be listened to by your senior clients. You do this by demonstrating competence in the areas for which you have been hired. Until you have done this, attempts to advise on wider areas will fall on deaf ears – you need to demonstrate your basic capabilities first.

But many professionals stop there. They limit their interactions with clients to talking about the work at hand and the specialism they focus on. Over time, this causes them to be pigeon-holed as merely a technical specialist. Someone who can be relied on to deal with specific topics – but not a trusted advisor who can help with more challenging problems.

To establish your advisor status you must demonstrate that you can give valuable advice outside your specialism. You must demonstrate you knowledge of business in general, and of the client’s business and industry specifically. This means you must do your homework.

As a professional you must know the key issues of the day – in business and industry generally; in your client’s industry more specifically, and if you can, in your client’s company. As you get closer and closer to your client, they will also begin to share issues that are personal to them and their role. But at the start, it’s the more general industry and company issues which you must focus on.

Always make sure you are up to date about industry news – and ask the client about their opinions. Put out tentative hypotheses to gently establish the fact that you have been thinking about their industry and their company. Highlight a recent move a competitor made and ask them how effective they feel it was – and be prepared to give your tentative views too. 

Don’t push this too far, too early. I’ve seen many junior consultants and aspiring partners rush far too fast into trying to “coach” senior clients long before they have earned the right. Instead, recognise where you are in your relationship: Have I established my basic competence? Have I  created an impression of strong general business knowledge? Have I demonstrated useful insights into key business problems? View the development of your relationship as a ladder you climb step by step – and hand-in-hand with your client at every step.

Do this and you will set yourself well apart from the vast majority of professional services business developers.

Do it really well, and you’ll find that the clients you develop your trusted advisor roles with will support you for many, many years.

Filed Under: Business Development Strategy Tagged With: , ,