Wierd isn’t it? (6)

Weird. isn’t it? If you wanted to shoot something to eat, you would not fire a shotgun into a blizzard. You would first decide what you wanted to shoot then you would go to where and when you may find it. 

Most professionals, however, try to win business by shooting into a blizzard. 

In episodes 2 and 3 we looked at why traditional networking provides only a poor return on investment. Most professionals go to an event to ‘network,’ but have done little preparation beforehand as to who they want to meet and why. ‘This is like shooting in a blizzard hoping to kill something to eat’. Hope is not a strategy. 

Caroline’s Club shifts the focus away from what professionals do for their clients to the type of client they want to work with. If you want to shoot rabbits, don’t hang out with deer hunters. 

Caroline’s Club encourages its members to segment their clients into client types through case studies; deer hunters with deer hunters and rabbit hunters with rabbit hunters. 

This strategy immediately brings professionals together, cuts across silos and, creates a collaborative and collegiate atmosphere. For example if  you want clients like Murdoch’s media empire because you are a corporate governance specialist you need to look for professionals who have first-generation international entrepreneurs as clients with adult children.  This could be litigators, trust specialists or succession experts.

Identifying professionals by their expertise alone is like a furrier mixing only with other furriers. This collaboration is great for improving the art of fur making but not great for winning new business. A furrier needs to know the rabbit hunters who hunt rabbits for their meat not their fur. 

Colaborating only with specialists in your own profession leads to a silo mentality. The litigation department in a firm of lawyers for example may not be aware that specialists in the firm’s company and commercial departments are serving their ideal client. 

There is also a fear that if a professional recommends a client to another professional in their organisation that they will ‘lose’ their client. 

This is very real fear. I introduced a significant client to our company commercial department when I was head of the private client department at Simmons & Simmons. He ‘possessed the client’ and when he left the firm took the client with him. This was not good for me, but not good for the firm either. 

This example highlights two problems. First partners need to communicate more effectively with each other as to the type of clients they work with and secondly when they introduce the client to other skills both within and beyond the organisation they must do so in a manner which strengthens their bond with their client rather than losing the client to a different department or firm.

This is like having a rifle but without any safety measures to avoid harming anyone who gets caught in the cross fire. 

In Episode 4, we looked at how to get your message across without resistance called the innate fear of the influence of strangers. 

There are four ways to sidestep this fear:  aggregation, education, reciprocation, and case studies. In episode 4 we got to grips with how to make the sort of bullets professionals need to kill their quarry. 

You need to use all four to nail your client, but as Einstein famously said, to repeat doing what you have always done in the hope of a better outcome is ‘insane’. We need to do things differently. 

Caroline’s Club does things differently. It not only gives our members a rifle with which to shoot their target clients, and the bullets they need to shoot them with, it also guides our members as to which clients they should go after, how to use their rifle, and how to create the bullets they need to nail new business. Caroline’s Club does this through its training program and coaching sessions.

The training program includes audio learning and homework. It covers six modules with two lessons in each. Members can also book coaching sessions which can be tailored for the firm's employees at all levels: executives, professionals, business development managers, and/or junior members. These coaching sessions include practical lessons in how to create engaging, interesting, and memorable marketing material for the club libraries, the organisation's website, and its brochures.

In particular, the training program and coaching sessions show how professional organisations can make the most of what they have, how to cross-sell, upsell, and create ‘perfect pitches’ to network strategically and build excellent working relationships with clients, colleagues and contacts. More about this later but for now, we will focus on how you can use the existing talent from within the firm to win new business.

Many larger organisations have business development managers who are responsible for putting on marketing events, writing brochures, keeping the firm's website up to date, and publishing their events and awards as broadly as possible. The rationale for appointing these experts is to save the valuable fee-earning time of the professionals which could then be better deployed in earning revenue for their organisation. 

Sadly in most cases the dream does not match the reality. The professionals still attend events to network, most brochures are filed in the bin and websites are visited primarily to find telephone numbers and office addresses. 

Despite the skills and experience of the business development managers, most organisations would like to see a more collaborative approach between the BD teams, (or whoever takes on this role within the organisation) and the professionals. 

In the online training sessions and coaching program for the members of Caroline’s Club we start with what preparation work is needed to identify the ideal clients for each professional, their identifying criteria and then to weave this into case studies for marketing as well as analysis. This could be the responsibility of the BD team. 

The BD team could also be responsible for the the submissions of blogs, and podcasts for uploading onto the public libraries for all to see and browse. 

The BD teams could also be responsible for hosting collaborative case study video events with other professionals which we call ‘perfect pitches’ and then distributing the marketing material to existing and prospective clients. 

The activity of the BD team (or whoever else takes on this responsibility) can then be objectively reviewed to see who and what has been successful in winning new business over the year for the organisation.

This strategic approach encourages the professionals within the firm to work together with the BD teams to make the firm more successful. It also supports professionals and makes them better informed. 

Many firms are concerned that the immense pressure on professionals to perform is unhealthy without a strategic approach as to how to deliver what the firm wants. Caroline’s Club not only provides a strategic approach but also provides the professionals with the tools and support they need to deliver. 

Furthermore, Caroline’s Club is a club. 

Each member is given a private entry in the club directory. The entry has a space for satisfied client quotes and a messaging service for other professional members to contact each other. You can see the importance of this in Episode 5.

This entry provides links to their marketing material which is available to the public. There are four libraries the first two to ‘hit the spot’ are ‘educational’. Blogs written by professionals and published in third party publications and podcast interviews with award winning professionals. 

The other two libraries feature case studies: an audio case study library for three-minute audio recordings linked to the professional’s entry and a video case study library for professionals from six different organisations who wish to collaborate with others. This form of ‘networking’ produces strong working relationships, is highly effective in winning business and showcases the professional by the ‘company they keep’. The are also mini aggregation episodes so are highly engaging and interesting, they are also an excellent way to get your message across to a wider audience.

One thing that Caroline’s Club however does not do is to host events for its members. This is why Caroline’s Club works with event organisers. Caroline’s Club compliments the events their members and subscribers like to attend by providing a follow up platform where they can learn more about who they have met and who they would like to meet at events.

If you are an event organiser or like to attend the events of one or more organisers please let me know with name and contact details.

But more about this in future episodes.