Do you have a strategy to win profitable work?

A strategy can move the profit dial up.

Most professionals I have talked to over the summer want to win more profitable work.

But surprisingly few have a clear strategy for doing it.

Instead, business development often consists of doing what everyone else does.

Conferences. Networking events. Breakfasts. Coffees. One-to-one meetings. Introductions.

All of these take time.

But being busy is not the same as strategy.

A shotgun in a blizzard

Professionals spend a great deal of time meeting other professionals in the hope that, at some point, somebody will introduce them to a client.

But there is a problem.

Does the person you are meeting actually know what work you want?

Do they know which clients you most want to work with?

And do they understand the problems you are particularly good at solving for those clients?

If they don't, they have to guess.

And that may be one reason why professionals are introduced to so much work they don't particularly want — work that is too small, poorly priced, time-consuming or simply not sufficiently profitable.

The problem isn't necessarily the quality of your network.

It may be that the people in it don't know what opportunities they should be looking for.

Start with the work you actually want

A strategy starts with two deceptively simple questions:

What work do you want to win?

And:

What type of client do you want to win it from?

Only then does it make sense to think about who might help you reach those clients.

The interesting thing is that the clients you want to work with probably already have relationships with other professionals.

Lawyers, accountants, investment managers, wealth advisers, trustees, family office advisers and many others frequently work with the same types of clients.

So perhaps the question isn't:

How many more people should I meet?

Perhaps it is:

Which people would it be useful for me to know better — and do they understand what I can do for their clients?

Turning relationships into a strategy

We work with professionals to move the profit dial upwards by making business development much more focussed.

The starting point isn't a networking event or another conference.

It is a conversation about where you are now, the work you want to win and the clients you want to work with.

We can then start identifying, with you, complementary professionals who already work with those types of clients.

One way we are putting this into practice is through small, carefully selected groups of professionals who can discuss the concerns their clients face and how each of them helps resolve those concerns.

That creates understanding.

Instead of hoping another professional will remember your job title when a client asks for help, they begin to understand when and why a client might need you.

And you begin to understand the same about them.

That is very different from collecting another business card over breakfast.

The place to start is where you are

There isn't a one size fits all strategy

Your strategy should depend upon what you want to achieve, the clients you want to work with, the relationships you already have and the opportunities around you.

So the place to start is precisely where you are.

When we work with professionals to move the profit dial up we start by asking you:

What profitable work would you like more of?

Who are the clients you most want to work for? and

Who already works with those clients?

The answers can tell you rather more about your business-development strategy than the next networking event in your diary.

If you would like to explore what this could look like for you, let's start with a half-hour conversation about the work you want to win and the type of client you want to work with.

If it isn't for you, what have you lost — other than half an hour?

And if you would like to find out more before you book a conversation, sign up to my newsletter distributed every Tuesday how to win better-quality, more profitable work https://carolines.club.

Caroline