31 December 2009 23 Comments

Guru12: The Top 12 Gurus of Professional Services

OK – there’s a huge risk here that I’m going to put quite a few noses out of joint – including a number of people I know personally.

But I’m going to give it a go anyway. The following is my personal list of the most influential writers, advisors and consultants to the professions – particularly when it comes to strategy, marketing and business development.

I’ve gone for a global list rather than people who have had an influence in specific countries or specific circumstances.

And please, please, please – if you expected your name to be on the list and it isn’t – I can promise you, it’ll be an oversight rather than a deliberate slur. My memory just isn’t so good nowadays.

The list is in no particular order.

David Maister1. Well, I said the list was in no particular order, but who better to start with than David Maister. Since the publication of Managing the Professional Service Firm in 1993, he’s been responsible for pioneering or popularising countless ideas and principles which we now take for granted. Now retired, his body of work (including First Amongst Equals, The Trusted Advisor, Practice What You Preach, True Professionalism and Strategy and the Fat Smoker) and the impact of his personal influence mark him out as the most influential contributor to the professions over the past two decades.

Ford Harding2. Ford Harding literally wrote the book on Rainmaking (as well as Cross Selling and Creating Rainmakers). Harding’s work is characterised by deep, insightful thinking. You won’t find simple “one size fits all” remedies in his books. What you will get is experience, research and critical thinking combined to allow professional firms to develop the unique strategies and approaches that will work for them.

Charlie Green 3. After co-authoring The Trusted Advisor with David Maister and Rob Galford, Charlie Green has gone on to make the “trust niche” his own. He’s broadened his scope by publishing Trust Based Selling, and has become the leading commentator on the importance of trust in business relationships.

Alan Weiss 4. Alan Weiss is perhaps best known as a prolific author and advisor to the independent consultant sector. But his contributions to the professions go way beyond that. He’s published on management, recruitment, work-life balance – and he led the field in driving for value-based fees. He’s often controversial – but always worth paying attention to.

Bruce Marcus5. Bruce Marcus was writing a blog way before any of us knew what a blog actually was. As the author of 15 books from Competing for Clients back in 1986 through to Client at the Core in 2005, and as a Marketing and Public Relations consultant to some of the leading accounting, law, consulting and financial firms, he’s been at the forefront of both defining and implementing leading techniques in Professional Services Marketing. He was one of the early pioneers who highlighted the real differences between services marketing and product marketing and has continued to bring new insights and ideas to bear to this day.

Suzanne Lowe6. Sadly the only female in the Guru12, Suzanne Lowe focuses on the gnarly issue of Marketing Integration: how to get marketing and sales, and professionals and staff aligned and working together on business development challenges – rather than taking refuge in their comfortable silos. While many of us focus on the perhaps more straightforward issues of helping individual professionals and practice areas improve the way they market and sell; Suzanne tackles the sort of problems of cross team and cross discipline integration that bedevil large firms.

Andrew Sobel7. Like Charlie Green, Andrew Sobel is an ex Gemini Consulting VP and expert (or Deep Generalist as he would put it) on Client Relationships. Sobel’s work has focused on how professionals can build trusted advisory relationships with their clients. Latterly, he’s explored how relationships can be deepened beyond individuals to allw teams and entire firms to build long-term partnerships with their clients.

Mike Schultz & John Doerr8. Mike Schultz & John Doerr are perhaps the “New Kids on the Block”. As the authors of this year’s best selling Professional Services Marketing, they’re at the forefront of today’s knowledge of “what works”: from social media, to the web, to good old fashioned seminars and networking. And as publishers of Raintoday.com, they bring the leading thinking from global experts right into the reach of practising professionals.

Robert Middleton9. Robert Middleton was the first “online guru” of professional services. Focusing on independent professionals, Middleton pioneered information marketing approaches (email marketing, teleseminars, etc.) long before the current wave of “experts” jumped on the bandwagon. And his material remains the best and most versatile resource for the sole practitioner and small practice.

Michael McLaughlin10. Another “New Kid on the Block” who’s actually been around quite a while is Michael McLaughlin. Mike wrote Guerilla Marketing for Consultants, one of the most accessible sources which professionals can simply pick up and use. This year he turned his focus to selling with Winning the Professional Services Sale and set about converting professionals from pressing and pushing sales to helping clients buy in a way that works for them. It’s a fun read too!

Richard Chaplin11. Richard Chaplin is a name that many won’t have heard of. He’s not a famous author or speaker. But over the last two decades as founder and chairman of the Managing Partner’s Forum and the PM Forum (for Professional Services Marketing and Business Development) he’s done as much as anyone to promote effective management and marketing in the professions. Richard’s Linkedin connections list reads like a Who’s Who of Professional Services. What Richard doesn’t know about networking (and especially about Linkedin) probably isn’t worth knowing.

Who will be the 12th guru?12. The identity of the 12th Guru is up to you. Drop your nominations into the comments box for who you think should join the other 11 on the Guru12 list and I’ll create a poll to select the final Guru. Or if you’re too shy to comment, drop me an email at [email protected].

PS Thanks to Mary Flaherty of the Raintoday Rainmaker Blog for inspiring this post with her recent excellent posts on the “Best of the Decade” in Professional Services Marketing & Sales.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
27 December 2009 6 Comments

What David Maister can teach us about Twitter

Twitter is a bit of an enigma for most professionals. Can it be used successfully for business development? Is it an effective use of time, or a huge white elephant?

And while many commentators are pointing to the tailing off of Twitter’s previously phenomenal growth rates and the low usage amongst client decision-makers; some professionals are quietly going about their business using Twitter to win new clients.

One of the most common criticisms of Twitter is that “it’s just inane chatter”. People tweeting about what they had for breakfast, how much they enjoyed the latest episode of their favourite soap, or a joke they’ve just heard. And in all honesty, that was my initial reaction to Twitter when I was first encouraged to use it a couple of years ago.

The most common riposte to this criticism is to point out that many people don’t just tweet inanities. They tweet useful commentary or links to resources, articles and blog posts. “People are tweeting sensible stuff” they say, you just need to follow the right people.

But both sides are missing the point to some degree.

The fact is that most adult conversation is “just inane chatter” too. When we’re with our friends down the pub, talking to clients over coffee or colleagues by the water cooler we’re rarely sharing valuable business insights. Most of the time we’re talking about what we saw on TV, our plans for the weekend, what Bill in accounts is doing with Jane in HR.

We don’t build relationships with clients and colleagues by “talking shop” all the time. We do it in the gaps between business conversations. We open up a little and talk about what interests us, our views on the news, what annoys us and what makes us laugh. We talk about our family, our football team, and the funny thing we saw while on the way in to work.

David Maister (who as far as I’m aware isn’t on Twitter himself) sums this up brilliantly when he says “The key to being a good communicator is talking when there’s nothing to talk about”. Whether it’s in your personal or business life, if the only time you talk is when there’s an issue to talk about, then you’re not going to build a relationship. You can see David on video expanding on this and on how to be a good listener here. (By the way, for any readers not familiar with Maister’s work, bookmark this page, head on over to davidmaister.com, and take in the wealth of articles, video and podcasts. I’ll see you back here when you’re done – perhaps in a month or so…)

And it’s exactly the same on Twitter.

Yes, it’s great to post useful tips. You’ll build your credibility no end by sending out links to great articles and blog posts in your niche, including some of your own.

But you won’t build relationships.

Relationships are built by engaging at a human level with the other party. That means two-way communication, not just one-way broadcasting – no matter how great the material you’re broadcasting is.

And two-way communication will inevitably include idle chit-chat. if you’re genuinely interested in the other person then you’ll be interested in their views on the news, what they’re planning for the weekend, and perhaps even what they had for breakfast.

Case in point: a few weeks ago I engaged in a short twitter exchange with a professional I know reasonably well about karaoke tunes. A couple of other folks he knew joined in. We made fun of each other’s selections, and suggested putting a karaoke band together. Nothing of any “value” was tweeted. No great insights or anything business related. But we all got to know each other a little better. We now have a shared experience: something to make a little joke about next time we meet online or in the real world. We know a little more about each other’s personalities (and our taste in music). Pretty much the same as if we’d been introduced at a party or other casual encounter.

In fact, in some ways, Twitter can provide a real shortcut to building relationships. In the face to face world, it often takes some time to get beyond the “what do you do?” stage of conversation when you first meet someone. But on Twitter, most people seem quite willing to share their thoughts and ideas on a whole range of more personal topics. It’s often possible to get a real insight into someone’s personality, likes and dislikes quite quickly on Twitter – something that would take many meetings, often over months with face-to-face networking.

And because Twitter is still a fairly new channel, many users share a sense of being part of an “early adopter community”. They’re much more willing to interact and respond to messages than they would be on other more established media.

So next time you hear someone complain about how all people tweet is nonsense, just smile and agree. And take note of David Maister’s wisdom: it’s that nonsense which actually builds relationships.

Filed Under: Selling Professional Services Tagged With: , ,
9 December 2009 Leave a Comment

The Business Development Drumbeat

Back in the days when I was managing major business transformation projects, almost the first thing I did on every engagement was to instil a regular project management “drumbeat”.

Not that I particularly viewed myself as a Roman galley slave master. But the metaphor was clear. By establishing a regular cycle of project management reviews we ensured that the whole programme progressed forward in-sync.

Now of course, most consultants hate “bureaucracy”. They like to be self-managing and independent. But in practice, the regular drumbeat reviews always picked up things each team wasn’t doing, or areas where they could integrate or work better with other teams. And they simply kept the pace moving. Knowing the reviews were coming up, each team leader managed the progress of their area better.

Not surprisingly, the same process works incredibly well for business development too.

Now whether you do them as part of a big team or you do them just for yourself, you need to take time out on a regular basis to look at your pipeline and identify actions you can take to improve its position.

A typical agenda for a business development drumbeat review might be:

  1. Review progress executing your Lead Generation tactics:
    • Reviewing progress vs your marketing action plans – i.e. are you successfully carrying out the activities
    • Reviewing the outcome of the tactics – e.g. how many short term leads (usually sales meetings) did you generate? How many long term leads (contacts passed into lead nurturing) did you generate?
    • Reviewing the progress of your Lead Nurturing activities – e.g. How many contacts did you make with your A/B/C clients and prospects vs plan?. How many prospects do you have in each phase of your nurture funnel (if you use one) and how is this progressing? What was the feedback from the contacts with A priority prospects and clients? How many nurtured leads converted into sales opportunities (i.e. a sales focused meeting for a live piece of work)?
  2. Reviewing the progress of your sales activities
    • What does each stage of your sales process/pipeline look like vs target and how is this progressing over time?
    • What was the outcome of your key sales meetings this period: lost sale, “treading water”, progress or sale?
    • What business did you close this period?
  3. Agreeing the critical activities your business needs to focus on in the
    next period

    • Are there shortfalls in the early stage pipeline?
    • Do you need to focus on Lead Generation?
    • Are some potential sales “stuck” and need senior effort to help progress?
    • What support is needed for each professional or business developer to help them progress and close their key opportunities in the upcoming period?
    • Are there any consistently weak areas in the process that need addressing?
    • Are any individuals consistently under-performing? Do they need coaching, support or reassignment?
    • Do we need more or different resources focused on lead generation or sales?

A simple review like this typically takes between 90 minutes to 2 hours and it’s best done weekly (certainly for the first few iterations) or fortnightly.

At first it’ll feel uncomfortable and bureaucratic. But persevere – the results will be well worth it.

Filed Under: Business Development Mindset Tagged With: