How to get the most out of what you have got. (7)

In last week’s newsletter, episode 6, we examined how illogical professionals can be when winning new business from their contacts. I likened their networking behaviour to shooting into a blizzard, hoping they would kill something to eat. 

A better approach would be to identify what you want to hunt, consider where and when to find it and then plan a strategy. The same should be true about how to win business.

Today’s newsletter examines what to do with the resources closer to home.

Let’s start with our clients before addressing colleagues and bolt-ons and in future episodes we will lood at the role of  juniors and alumni.

Winning business from existing clients is called ‘upselling,’ and in my experience, few firms do enough to mine this very rich seam of potential work. 

In next week’s newsletter, we will explore how to build trust with clients, but for now, we will examine some basic steps for keeping in touch.

One small but important fact is that every professional has a copy of their client’s passport on file showing their date of birth. Do you send birthday greetings to your clients every year? 

There are other ways to keep in touch based on the information gleaned from working  with clients. If they own a business—have you set Google alerts to notify you when something significant happens, like an acquisition or lateral hire. 

You probably know the football team your clients support. Do you contact them when their team performs well (or badly). Finding ways to keep in touch should not be difficult.

Why is this important? Your ideal client with whom you have had a working relationship knows you and what you can do for them. These people may wish to change their plans, extend the remit of their working relationship or recommend you to a colleague or friend. This is called upselling.

f you have served them well, your clients should also be your best advocates for what you do. Therefore, it is essential to make sure you are at the top of their mind by finding opportunities to keep in touch. 

Let’s now focus on the knotty issue of cross-selling. Cross-selling occurs when a client engages a professional in a different department for a different service.

Most professional organisations are structured into specialist areas and jurisdictions. As we explored in the last episode, this structure is good for ensuring that the professionals learn from each other and encourage each other to provide the best service in their area of expertise or jurisdiction for their clients.

Social media systems such as LinkedIn serve to emphasise the differences between professionals. They categorise professionals according to their experience, professional discipline, and seniority rather than their similarities in serving similar client types. This is great for job hunting which LinkedIn is good at, but not for business origination, which it is not.

Emphasising the differences between professionals through its structure reinforces the ‘silo’ mentality of many organisations. Professionals fear that if they refer a client to a professional in another department that they will ‘lose’ the client. This fear hampers cross-referral of business across these silos. From my experience, this is a real fear.

Although the executive board can see the sense of cross-referral of clients within the firm, their attempts to cut across these silos through ‘bonding sessions’ and ‘away days’ (or even threats) rarely work because of this fundamental fear of ‘losing’ the client. If this has not been addressed, effective cross-referral of business will not happen.

Caroline’s Club's online training program and coaching sessions, which are available to members, focus on the similarities between professionals who work for similar client types. 

The training introduces a process for colleagues to collaborate to produce highly effective marketing material which each professional is expected to share with their clients. In this way, the bond between the client and the professional with the primary relationship is strengthened.  If a client then decides to use the services of another professional within the organisation, this should not interfere with the relationship the client has with their primary professional, who will continue to send educational information which is relevant and exciting to their client and stay in touch in other ways. 

The more links the client has with professionoals in the firm the less likely they will leave the organisation if one of the professionals with whom they have worked leaves.

The Executive board in preparing for an ‘away day’ for the firm should therefore think of how to create interesting and engaging marketing material by their professionals to send to their clients rather than to listen to an inspirational speaker and get drunk over dinner.

On the away day, professionals could be grouped according to client types called ‘Marketing Clusters’, where they can share and record Case Studies. Working together in this way immediately draws out the connections between the professionals rather than their differences, and they are each encouraged to share the Case Study recordings of their colleagues within their Marketing Cluster with their clients.

This form of bonding creates  collegiate atmosphere where professionals feel supported and nurtured rather than bullied and criticised.

The Exeutive Board could also consider tips from retail such as discounts for other services within the firm, but beware of the temptation to ‘buy one get one free’ unless both professionals share the fee - but more about that later.

Another tricky area that Caroline’s Club addresses is the difficulty when two firms merge or a team is bolted on. Again, if the professionals focus on the client types, through Marketing Clusters to emphasise the similarities between the professionals, differences can be broken down by finding ways to work together.

In next week’s episode we shall look at how to build trust with a client which goes beyond staying in touch while building good working relationships with your contacts,