By Michael W. McLaughlin
Regardless of the current state of the economy, professional services firms face the same challenges as in the recent past, including mounting fee pressure, more sophisticated buyers, and tough competition.
It pays to stop and take stock of the fundamentals of your practice because rewards will follow those who lead in their markets.
Expect the gap between the winners and everyone else to widen as clients become choosier about where they spend their consulting dollars. The result will be rising profits for the winners and unrelenting fee pressure for others.
Fortunately, it’s not as difficult to float to the top as it may seem, especially for competent service providers. Here are four tips to point you in the right direction:
1. Take your own advice.
“Where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign.” - Victor Hugo
Some consultants seem to think the need to create a marketing plan is like a hangover—if you rest and behave for a while, it will go away. One consultant dismissed the idea of a written marketing plan altogether when she said, “Why do I need to write it down? My plan is right here, in my head.”
But when asked, consultants acknowledge that they routinely advise clients to have marketing plans for their businesses. Why wouldn’t you follow your own good advice?
Whatever is happening in your corner of the consulting industry, take time out to tune up or create a dynamic marketing plan. Here are some questions to help you:
If you don’t have a real marketing plan, your first action should be to develop one. Here’s a link to a sample marketing plan to get you started.
2. Walk in your client’s shoes.
Never forget that relationships are the life blood of your business. Few truths are as important to anyone in professional services.
Those vital relationships are based on the interactions you have with clients in sales meetings and proposals discussions, during projects, and at other points. Clients form opinions of you every time they interact with you, even if it’s not in face-to-face meetings. With every interaction, you move the client relationship either forward or backward.
I’ve heard clients complain about the responses they received (or didn’t receive) from consulting firms they contacted. In too many cases, the process and systems consultants use to interact with clients are inadvertently designed for the convenience of the consultants, not clients.
The easiest way to fix that is to ask clients for an honest assessment of their experiences with your firm. Find out what works and what needs improvement. Most clients will be glad to tell you.
Then, step into your client’s shoes. Call your office and find out what your clients experience. With fresh eyes, read all of your marketing materials for clarity and relevance, including those on your web site. Look at your last five written client communications. Can you understand them? Would someone who wasn’t involved with your project understand the communication?
Take this exercise as far as necessary to develop an understanding of what clients see and hear from you.
3. Conduct your project “orchestra” with finesse.
A consultant is like an orchestra conductor who must coordinate the efforts of talented musicians. Just as the conductor must know which instruments are most important at various points in a piece, consultants must know which issues and ideas are critical and when.
You perform a delicate balancing act from the moment a project begins—a client will usually hold you accountable for results, even though you can’t drive an outcome single-handedly.
Your technical knowledge and capability are, of course, fundamental to success. But your consulting process skills, which you might think of as the conductor’s wand, are equally important. The best consultants continually strengthen their consulting process skills to ensure that projects are completed profitably.
Here are twelve areas of the consulting process that impact the outcome of any project. Can you, or your practitioners, improve on these skills?
As you examine your practice, reassess your consulting process skills. Choose two or three from the list above and work on improving those skills throughout the next year.
4. Thrive on uncertainty.
A colleague once said that the secret to success in this business is learning to “get comfortable with being uncomfortable.” We’ll all have our moments of discomfort, especially in client environments. But with an effective marketing plan, a focus on the client experience, and a strong consulting process, you can get your practice on the right track.
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