Extraordinary
For decades, professional services firms have comforted themselves with a reassuring belief: if the technical quality is good enough, clients will find them.
To a point, that has often been true.
Strong technical expertise still matters enormously. Clients want capable lawyers, accountants, consultants, wealth advisers and corporate finance specialists. They want people who know their subject and can solve difficult problems with confidence.
But something fundamental has changed.
Today, many firms are producing excellent technical work while simultaneously struggling to generate a consistent flow of the right work. Not simply more work, but the type of work that is profitable, enjoyable, strategically aligned and likely to lead to deeper client relationships.
When I was made head of the private client department at Simmons I had two babies - I could not work harder I had to be back home for the children by 7.30. If I was to remain a partner of the firmI had to think of ways how to win business strategically which would make City firm profits but within the working day.
I simply could not spend the time networking.
Across the industry there is a quiet frustration that rarely makes its way into conference presentations or annual reports. Partners attend networking events, sponsor dinners, publish thought leadership, invest in CRM systems and encourage cross-selling initiatives, yet still find themselves asking the same questions: how do we get good quality work consistently.
I went to see a long standing friend last week we met at law school and she became a successful family law lawyer. She had to retire early due to health and family issues. I asked her what she liked most about not working she said ‘I don’t worry about where the next client will come from’.
She asked me why I always had such a good flow of work - was I well networked - she asked.
No was my honest answer, just opportunistic by which I meant strategic.
I knew what work I wanted to do and for whom and was strategic in looking for it. I could not see the point of attending conferences if the people who attended them did not have the clients I wanted to work for.
Most professionals work extraordinarily hard at business development and are frustrated that it produces such poor results. This is mainly because they have not been strategic about what work they want and how to get it.
Most firms rely on a few professionals in their firm as the rainmakers of the business. These people spend the hours with other professionals. They know how to stay visible - whether on LinkedIn or at conferences, but without a strategy most of the work they bring in will not be the type of work the firm wants to be more profitable.
A lack of strategy produces what is usually referred to as the Pareto Principle - when 20% of the work produces 80% of the profits - but with a strategy this ratio can and does shift.
The extraordinary thing is that professional services firms are full of intelligent people who understand strategy in almost every other area of their business. They analyse financial performance, operational efficiency, legal risk, succession planning and market positioning in meticulous detail. Yet business development is often approached in an extraordinarily informal way because they did not start out with a strategic review.
Most professionals will only introduce clients when three conditions exist simultaneously:
clarity
confidence
relevance
Clarity means understanding precisely what kinds of clients or issues another professional is ideally suited to help with.
Confidence means trusting not only their technical ability, but also their judgment, communication style and commercial awareness.
Relevance means recognising the right opportunity at the right moment.
Because in the real world, referrals are made quickly, often under pressure and usually based on instinctive recall. The professional who is the most visible becomes familiar and remembered at the point of need.
A firm which relies on rainmakers for new business is fragile - and although the rainmakers may provide a consistent flow of work to keep their colleagues busy it is bit of a mixed bag.
This is why strategic relationship development is becoming increasingly important.
I am now working with firms who want to adopt a more strategic approach to winning good quality work.
We start with a strategic review which focusses on
the issues clients are facing
the opportunities emerging within relationships
when to involve colleagues
and why certain advisers should be thought of first
Interestingly, many clients are also beginning to value this more integrated approach and are much more likely to refer contacts and family and give repeat business.
Fragmentation is costly.
Not only financially, but culturally. Professionals become siloed. Internal referrals weaken. Collaboration declines. Business development becomes associated with pressure rather than opportunity.
And all of this is happening at precisely the moment the market is becoming more competitive.
Artificial intelligence will almost certainly accelerate this trend. As technical information becomes more accessible and certain forms of expertise become increasingly commoditised, relational trust will become even more valuable.
Clients will continue to choose advisers they trust to understand complexity, exercise judgment and coordinate relationships intelligently.
That is why the future of professional services is unlikely to belong solely to the most technically capable firms. It will belong to firms that can combine expertise with strategic thinking or as I said to my long standing friend - look for the opportunities not in the conference hall but right under your nose!
In other words, firms that understand not only how to deliver exceptional work, but how to consistently create the trusted conversations that lead to it.
That shift may sound subtle.
In reality, it changes everything.