How Clients Buy: A Practical Guide to Business Development for Consulting and Professional Services

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

The Problem

Chapter 1: A Curious Problem

Rainmaking

The Promise of How Clients Buy

The Breakthrough

Our Method

Onward

Chapter 2: Finders, Minders, and Grinders

Consulting

I'm Not Even in That Universe

The Ladder

Up or Out

The Three-Legged Stool

The Commercial Imperative

The Rest of Us

Okay, I Need to Sell; How Do I Do That?

Obstacles

Chapter 3: Beyond Pixels

Selling Consulting and Professional Services Is Hard Because Our Clients Have to Trust Us Before They Buy from Us

The Three R's

How Services Are Different

Systemic Hurdles

Chapter 4: Obstacle #1: What They Didn't Teach You in B-School

Universities

Why Business Schools Do Not Teach How to Sell Professional Services

Chapter 5: Obstacle #2: But I Don't Want to Sell

Why We Can Never Imagine Being Salespeople

The Birth of Management Consulting

We Are the Product

Chapter 6: Obstacle #3: Things Aren't What They Once Were

A Changing Landscape

The End of the Ban on Advertising

The World is Flat

Firefly Ideas

More Players

Chapter 7: Obstacle #4: A Blizzard of Bad Advice

Traditional Sales Training

The Science of Yield

The Myth of the Perfect Pitch

Better Personality

Why This Model Doesn't Work for Consulting and Professional Services

How Clients Buy

Chapter 8: The Secret to Selling

Never Say Sell

Design Thinking Meets Business Development

Chapter 9: Element 1: I Am Aware of You

To a Land Where You Are Not Known

Introducing Yourself

The Awareness Trap

200 People You Need to Know

Tactics—What Works

Chapter 10: Element 2: I Understand What You Do

Lessons from 55 BC

How Clients Remember You

Clients Have to Understand Who You Are

Shrink the Pond

The Bottom Line

Hone Your Elevator Pitch

Tactics—What Works

Chapter 11: Element 3: I Am Interested

Driving in the Right Direction

Making a Meaningful Difference

Tactics—What Works

Chapter 12: Element 4: I Respect Your Work

Track Record

Are You Legit?

Establishing Credibility

Can a Client Rely on You to Get the Job Done?

Tactics—What Works

Chapter 13: Element 5: I Trust You

Trust

Trust Is the Whole Ball of Wax

Tactics—What Works

Chapter 14: Element 6: I Am Able

Ability

A Miscalculation

The Magic Formula

Return on Investment

The Right Level

Tactics—What Works

Chapter 15: Element 7: I Am Ready

Frustration

Bumps in the Road

Tactics—What Works

Putting the Seven Elements to Work

Chapter 16: A Chain Is as Strong as Its Weakest Link

The Right Measure: Three Types of Service Firms

Using the Seven Elements as a Diagnostic Tool

Focus on Where You Need to Improve

Chapter 17: Getting to Work

Do Great Work

Become Your Own Chief Revenue Officer

Build Your Network

Develop Your Own Style

Dedicate Time for Business Development

Stay Persistent and Positive in the Face of So Many No's

Whatever You Do, Don't Call It Selling

Chapter 18: All Business Is Local

Making Sense of the Global-Local Paradox

The Future of Decision Making

Chapter 19: Our Vision of the Future

A Life Worth Living

Important Work

Three Imperatives for a Better Future

Imperative 1: You

Imperative 2: The Organization

Imperative 3: The University

How Clients Buy

Notes and References

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Illustrations

Figure 8.1

How Clients Buy

A Practical Guide to Business Development for Consulting and Professional Services

Tom McMakin

Doug Fletcher

Cover design: Wiley

Copyright © 2018 by Thomas McMakin and Wade D. Fletcher, Jr. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750–8400, fax (978) 646–8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748–6011, fax (201) 748–6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: McMakin, Tom, author. | Fletcher, Doug, author.Title: How clients buy : a practical guide to business development for consulting and professional services / by Tom McMakin, Doug Fletcher.Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : John Wiley & Sons, Inc., [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2017057356 (print) | LCCN 2017058946 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119434726 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119434757 (epub) | ISBN 9781119434702 (cloth)Subjects: LCSH: Consultants--Marketing. | Professions--Marketing. | Customer relations.Classification: LCC HD69.C6 (ebook) | LCC HD69.C6 M3975 2018 (print) | DDC 001--dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017057356

Tom dedicates this book to Harry Wallace and the crew at PIE for their fellowship and inspiration.

Doug dedicates this book to his parents, Wade and Mary Lutie, for introducing him to the world of books.

The Problem

Chapter 1

A Curious Problem

Was that you we saw last Friday night at the Seattle airport?

We would've said Hi, but you were on the phone.

We were the guys in blue blazers dragging our roller boards over to Ivar's for a plate of oysters and a Pyramid IPA. You might have seen us pounding out thank-you notes on our phones before the late flight home.

Allow us to introduce ourselves.

Doug leads a business development consulting firm and sits on the board of a midsized consulting firm. Before that, he cofounded a technology-enabled consulting firm that specialized in global web survey projects. He got his start as a management consultant at A. T. Kearney, and before that was trained on GE's leadership development program.

Tom also runs a consulting firm that helps the biggest names in professional services grow their businesses—a kind of consultant to consultants. He was in private equity before that, and in his first big gig served as the chief operating officer of Great Harvest Bread Co.

This is all to say we've spent two lifetimes offering clients consulting and professional services. We've scoped projects, delivered outcomes, wined and dined clients, written white papers, presented at conferences, and relentlessly followed up.

The proof? When people ask our kids what we do, the kids don't know.

They travel a lot, they say.

We've written this book to describe how clients buy consulting and professional services because we think if more people in our industry could get smarter about how expertise meets the opportunity to help, the world would be a better place. We look around and see lots of thorny problems that need solving. We also see lots of smart people ready to help. The challenge facing them both is to connect with each other more efficiently.

Maybe you're an accountant, a lawyer, or an Internet security specialist. Maybe you consult on strategy, human resources, finance, marketing, operations, or procurement. Or you're a freelance designer or marketing expert. You might be part of a large organization, working for the big consultant Bain, the consulting and accounting firm KPMG, or the human resources specialist AON. You might work out of a handsome glass and steel tower in downtown Boston or Chicago. Or you might be just starting out or recently retired, offering procurement, organizational or training advice, working out of your newly converted guest bedroom.

Either way, this book is for you.

Rainmaking

As a consultant or a person working in professional services, all of us know we have to become rainmakers—the people at the top who bring client business into their firms. In most large firms, you have to be successful bringing in new business to be considered for promotion to partner. And, if you're a founder or cofounder in a small to midsized firm, you live and die by the work you bring in to feed your troops.

It's the harsh imperative of consulting and professional services: being smart about something is not enough. You have to know how to engage with potential clients, understand their unique challenges, and scope business. You have to figure out a way to build a bridge from your expertise to those it can most help. You have to make it rain, or you will die in the desert of commerce.

The problem is that selling consulting and professional services is hard. Some would say really, really hard.

It's hard because selling consulting and professional services is different from selling shoes. The former is sold on relationships, referrals, and reputation, while the latter is sold on attributes like size, weight, color, style, and performance. It's the difference between an intangible and tangible sale.

Further, despite the importance of becoming an effective rainmaker, we're never taught how to sell the work we do. We're trained as lawyers, accountants, web developers, financial analysts, engineers, or architects, how to do the work, but not in how to bring in new clients.

Then, there's the inconvenient fact that in our line of work, sales is a dirty word. While researching for this book, we interviewed dozens of rainmaking pros and were struck by how many of them said, Never say ‘sell.’ In fact, they reported that they don't even think about selling. To them, it's counterproductive. Dominic Barton, Global Managing Partner of McKinsey & Co., one of the world's premier strategy consulting firms, put it this way: If I mentioned sales in our firm, I'd be hauled up in front of our professional ethics board. It's just not the way we think.

On top of that, our consulting niches are becoming more specific as they become more global. A client today is just as likely to be in Singapore as San Francisco. A generation or two ago, golf on Saturday was a good way to meet new clients. In the twenty-first century, methods like these are outdated.

Finally, much of what we think we know about selling—the need to generate leads, prequalify them, then pitch and close prospects—is wholly inappropriate to consulting and professional services. What really matters is your relationship with a would-be client, which is formed and nurtured over a lifetime.

Call it the rainmaker conundrum: we need to do business development or we die, and yet we're hobbled by obstacles that keep us from effectively developing this very same business.

There must be a better way.

Chuck McDonald, a senior attorney practicing in Columbia, South Carolina, puts it this way:

The one thing they don't teach you in law school is that the most important thing in private practice is how to get clients. You find out fairly early whether you are going to be able to do that which enables you to climb the ladder within a firm structure. If you're not, you're a fungible good. There are what we call worker bees, but they just don't get the same, frankly, respect within the firm or the same compensation. So, it is a very important component.

And so, it's strange to us that more isn't written about business development in the consulting and professional services trades. A quick Amazon search of books on the topic of leadership generates a staggering 191,348 listings. Yet you can count on one hand the number of books that have been written on becoming an effective rainmaker in the expert services professions.

Consulting and professional services is a $1.7 trillion global industry, with 6.1 million of us in the United States working as consultants or in professional services. As the U.S. economy has shifted from manufacturing to a more knowledge-intensive economy, the consulting and professional services sector has expanded, enjoying growth that outpaces the wider economy. While gross domestic product grew on average 2.2% over the last two years, the consulting and professional services sector grew on average an astonishing 11.5%. That's five times as fast.

It is high time we got smart about how to connect with those we can best serve.

The Promise of How Clients Buy

We will help you understand how clients buy consulting and professional services. This knowledge will increase the number of clients you have and earn you more money. More importantly, it will cause your expertise to find its home, solve more problems, and make the world a better place.

To be clear, this is not a book on the sales funnel, selling techniques, better prospecting, persuasion, closing, or negotiation tactics. Instead we describe the client's buying decision journey, knowing that it is this perspective that can give rise to a business development approach based on service and not manipulation.

Qualities You Do Not Need to Benefit from This Book

A certain size: You can work for a 400,000-person global IT services firm or have recently spun out on your own into a sole proprietorship. The principles of empathy for the customer, which are the foundation upon which increased engagement is built, are the same regardless of scale.

A particular kind of expertise: You grow an HR consulting practice the same way you grow security consulting. Business development for law looks strikingly similar to business development for a strategy consultancy.

A sales personality: It's a myth that only outgoing personalities succeed at building the kind of relationships that produce more engagements. In fact, many of the pros we interviewed reported the opposite.

A big budget: When clients buy services, they do so in similar ways. Those patterns are largely uninfluenced by the size of your business development budget. That's because cash buys you reach and yet services are sold on relationships, which are created one person at a time. While there are useful ways to spend money if you have it, supporting clients as they move through their decision-making journey does not require a lot of cash.

A growing industry: High-growth sectors have challenges where outside expertise is required, but so do more stable industries. Ask any bankruptcy attorney or restructuring consultant if work is slow, and they will disabuse you of the idea that only growing companies hire consultants.

A hot product set: If you bring a product-sales sensibility to services sales, you will be tempted by the idea that new is better, that it is easier to sell the latest generation of phone than one built a decade ago. However, buyers of consulting and professional services are skeptical when expertise is packaged as a new offering. For them, a trusted advisor who solves problems alongside them is more important than something new.

Level of experience: The fundamental business development challenges that face young professionals hoping to show off their commercial chops and make partner and those confronting an old hand seeking to broaden their influence are the same.

A willingness to live on the road: Visiting would-be clients is a tried-and-true approach to business development, but there is a raft of technology-based and phone-based approaches that are equally effective at engaging and establishing relationships with potential clients.

Marketing expertise: You're a designer or an accountant, a technologist or an engineer. You didn't spend a ton of your time in school taking marketing courses. No worries. Most marketing focuses on how to sell products, and as we will learn, clients buy services differently.

The Breakthrough

For us, the breakthrough in understanding how to best sell professional services was when we realized that those who successfully build their consulting and professional services practices are students of how clients buy and work to support that buying journey using very specific strategies and techniques. They aren't focused on sales at all.

These pros tell us there are very specific requirements that must be satisfied before a client pulls a trigger and decides to buy our services, preconditions we call the Seven Elements of How Clients Buy.

Prospective clients become aware of your existence. This might be from an introduction from a friend, an article you wrote, or because they met you at a conference.

They come to understand what you do and how you are unique. They can articulate what you do clearly to others.

They develop an interest in you and your firm. They have goals, set by themselves or others, and they can see how what you do might be useful in their efforts to realize those goals. What you do is relevant.

They respect your work and are filled with confidence that you can help. They look to your track record, to their peers, and to a variety of social clues to determine if you are credible and likely to move the needle on their goals.

They trust you, confident you will have their best interests at heart.

They have the ability to pull the trigger, meaning they are in a position to corral the money and organizational support needed to buy from you.

They are ready to do something. The timing is right inside their organizations, and they have the headspace to manage you.

The Seven Elements of the Client's Decision Journey

Our Method

The advice that we offer in this book around each of these elements comes from three primary sources:

Interviews conducted with over two dozen senior professionals working in a wide range of consulting and professional services, including law,