"Who is it for?"
Understanding your audience is critical to winning new work. Explore the D.N.A. model and learn how to communicate effectively with decision makers, advocates and naysayers.
Seth Godin wrote in 'This is Marketing':
"Who's it for?" It has a subtle but magic power, the ability to shift the product you make, the story you tell, and where you tell it. Once you're clear on "who's it for", then the doors begin to open for you.
The same is true here regardless of whether you are selling a product or a service. Only in the case of selling a service, the answer may not be straight forward. Because, in most cases involving complex/mature buyers of services, there are typically multiple layers of "Who's it for?".
In this BD Tips Wednesday post we take a very high-level look at what those layers might look like.
The D.N.A of a client acquisition
If you have been reading my posts for any length of time, you'll know by now that I LOVE a good acronym (I'm also partial to the odd emoji 😁).
This is no different in the case, so let me quickly walk you through the D.N.A aspects of a client acquisition so that you can implement this in your next client pursuit.
D stands for...
"D" stands for the "Decision Makers". These are also known as the "economic buyers" of your services. Bluntly, they pay the bills. The information you give to a Decision Maker needs to be concise, to the point and value driven.
N stands for...
"N" stands for the "Naysayers". These are also known as "procurement" 😁. Two things drive procurement: (1) compliance issues, and (2) cost savings. The Naysayers are not interested in the same message you are giving to the Decision Makers. In fact, if you do feed them the same message as you are giving to the Decision Makers, you'll likely not going to win the work. So make sure to tailor your messaging so that the Naysayers hear what they need to hear (i.e., you are happy to provide monthly reporting and volume discounts!).
A stands for...
"A" stands for "Advocates". Advocates are your client champions. They are the people on the inside trying to help you win the work. They don't need to be told why you are the best in town at what you do, they already know. What they need to hear is how they can convivence people within their organization to support your case. You need to be providing your Advocates with this messaging if you are going to stand any chance of winning the work!
Bringing it all together
Problems start to occur in client acquisition pursuits when the message you tailor is not focused on who the audience is ("Who's it for?"). This can become worse when you think there is only one buyer of your service - whether that be the Advocate or the Naysayer (the Decision Maker is very often left out of this messaging by professional services firms, which is a big mistake).
So the next time you set out on a client acquisition strategy, take a few minutes to write down on a piece of paper: "Who's it for?" and then apply this through the D.N.A lens.
Need Help With Your Business Development?
Get in touch if you want to talk about any of this. We also offer a very affordable BD Audit and Training package.
Answer These 3 Questions And You'll Super Charge Your Business Development Efforts
Business development becomes easier when you understand who makes decisions, what matters to them and how they buy. These three questions underpin every successful growth strategy.
Business development is really easy. All you need to be able to do is answer 3 simple questions:
Who makes the decision to buy?
What are their priorities?
How do they buy?
But, getting the answer(s) to those 3 simple questions isn't so easy. It takes time, planning, insight and an awful lot of legwork.
For this week's BD Tips Wednesday post I'll take a very high-level look at what this means...
Who makes the decision to buy?
More than 50% of General Counsel report directly to the...?
... Chief Financial Officer.
When you look at who makes the decision to buy, it is rarely the person giving you the instruction.
What are their priorities?
The priorities of the 'economic' buyer are rarely the same priorities as the person giving you the instruction. Make sure to canvas both if you want your fee paid!
How do they buy?
Hopefully you are lucky enough to have a client that doesn't use Request for Proposals and Tenders to buy your services.
Hopefully you have a client that still relies on relationships to buy your services.
But, don't depend on 'hope' - know. Ask the question.
Further Reading
Need Help With Your Business Development?
Get in touch if you want to talk about any of this. We also offer a very affordable BD Audit and Training package.
Do You Know Where Your Next Piece Of Work Is Coming From?
Understanding where your work originates is critical to sustainable growth. Explore the four key sources of revenue and learn how to prioritise your business development efforts.
Understanding and knowing where your work comes from is critical to the overall success of your business development activities. Have a good understanding of this process and you'll have a viable, sustainable practice. Miss read the tea-leaves, and all you'll be doing is rounding around in circles.
So, for this BD Tips Wednesday I thought I would provide a high-level overview of the four primary sources of revenue for professional services firms:
Existing clients. Top of the list, without doubt, is existing clients. This is true even in transactional practices. By "existing clients" here I don't literally mean clients you are currently working for - although that does go without saying, but also clients who you have worked with over the past 3 years. That's why I always suggest that when you look at your 'client list', that list be a list of clients you have worked with over a rolling 3-year period. This is the group you should be spending 80% of your business development time, resources and budget on!
Former clients. Next up is former clients. These are clients who you have previously worked with but have not done any work with for more than 3 years. The trick here is to work out why you have not worked with this client for more than 3 years and see if you can rectify that. If you can, this is a good source of work because you are a known product. If not, move on.
Referrers. Next up is referrers. Always a good source of work and a very much overlooked group. Again, you are a known product because in most cases you have worked with or for this group previously. This what I like to call your 'Google Review' crowd - those people who would happily leave a great review about you and your services on Google.
Prospects. Last but not least on your list is prospects. What I call the 'Rabbit down the hole' crowd.
It is important that you include prospects in your business development activities; but it is vital that you do not let the possibilities that prospects might offer cloud your business development judgment to the detriment of the other 3 groups, who rightly should have preference.
All too often though, when I'm reviewing the activities of a partner/principal who isn't currently having much success with their business development endeavors, it's typically because they are 80% focused on prospects and 20% focused on existing clients [maybe because they don't have too many existing clients], rather than the other way round!
So, go away, get a piece of paper, draw 4 boxes and write the names of clients and targets in the 4 boxes ranking them according to the above.
What you end up with is something like this:
And what you end up with is a ranked target client list for your next business development campaign.
Need Help With Your Business Development?
Get in touch if you want to talk about any of this. We also offer a very affordable BD Audit and Training package.
The Six Steps of Business Development: A Guide to Growing Your Book of Business
Business development does not need to be a mystery. This practical six-step framework provides a structured approach to identifying opportunities, winning work and delivering results.
Business Development is the lifeline of your practice. Get it right and your practice will prosper, grow and thrive. Get it wrong - or worse, don't do it at all, and your practice will eventually die and very painful death.
To many though business development is an enigma. The 'Dark Art'. To those people, business development is a guessing game - akin to throwing darts in a dartboard and hoping one will stick!
But this doesn't have to be the case. If you follow these six simple steps you'll be streets ahead of your competition when it comes to the success of your business development endeavors.
First of all you need to identify potential leads. These need to be 'genuine' leads, not pie-in-the-sky wish-lists.
So you need to (either yourself or by outsourcing this to someone like GSJ):
Do some market research.
Understand and evaluate market trends - get a lay of the land.
Anticipate customer/client needs.
Determine which customers and industries are likely going to need your help.
You also need to understand what your competitive environment looks like - what we at GSJ call a Competitor Intelligence Analysis (CIA) report.
HINT: Get out your SWOT matrix template.
Step 2: Qualify
Identifying a lead is the easy part, Step 2 on your list is to qualify that lead.
Here you need to consider things such as a 'Who Knows Who' matrix. You also need to be developing your road-map for capturing the lead.
This is probably the most critical part of the lead capture process that most professionals shortcut or simply bypass.
It's here where you need to be saying 'no go' a lot more than you say 'pursue'. By way of example, at GSJ we tell clients to throw 8 out of every 10 genuine lead opportunities - an application of the Pareto principal to business development opportunities!
HINT: Dust off your Strategic Plan template.
Step 3: Engage
As the name suggests, Step 3 is where you need to engage with prospects/customers to establish a relationship with them (if you don't already have a relationship) and to show them that you are the subject matter expert that will help solve all of their problems - both those they know about and those they don't yet know about!
HINT: Network, speak at conference, present client CLEs, write articles, publish to LinkedIn, do client feedback sessions, develop alliances with other businesses who don't compete with you.
Step 4: Pitch
Step 4 and the time has come for you to pitch your services to your target.
Make sure your proposal is tailored to the specific issues of your target and not generic to the problem.
HINT: Make it count: Look to the problem you are solving, not the service you are providing.
Step 5: Close
Step 5 is where you close the deal and get the cigar out!
Only this step is often problematic and can result in all the hard work you have done in the pursuit campaign coming to nothing - especially when procurement teams get involved; As, often, this is where you will be asked to sharpen your pencil on pricing and negotiate contract terms that are not too favorable to you.
HINT: Even after all the hard work, always be willing to walk away from a bad deal.
The last Step is to deliver on what you have promised!
A really important part of this process - and one that is often overlooked by professionals - is to actually ask the customer themselves if they got what they thought they were paying for.
HINT: Do an After Action Review - continuous improvement and refining your strategy will help you with your next pursuit!
Following these six steps doesn't automatically guarantee you a million dollar book of business, but what it will do is create the structure and attitude towards business development that you need to help you identify and growth opportunities in your business and - importantly - how to then capitalize on those opportunities.
Further Reading
Need Help With Your Business Development?
Get in touch if you want to talk about any of this. We also offer a very affordable BD Audit and Training package.