Growing Technology and Services Businesses
Most of us didn’t become consultants, lawyers, coaches, marketers, or accountants, only to become sales people. We went into the field because we enjoy the work, the problems we get to solve, and the relationships we form with clients. And yet at most firms, business development is squarely the responsibility of senior level practitioners. There’s … Read more
When we talk about legacy costs, we usually think about aging capital-intensive industries. Car manufacturers have legacy platforms, facilities, processes, or healthcare costs. Airlines have legacy contracts, aging aircraft, or route networks. We assume that professional services firms can’t have legacy costs: there’s no fixed capital, and the people involved are smart, dynamic thinkers. But … Read more
In my work coaching professionals around business development, I’ve found that there are usually three reasons people turn to a coach: 1. Skills When you make partner, your job fundamentally changes: you’re expected to bring in business, not just work on it. But most firms do a poor job preparing associates or managers to become … Read more
The days when clients would engage you to conduct an assessment as part of a ‘paid selling opportunity’ are long over. Instead, clients want you to spend your own time to understand their problem and propose how to solve it. Further, preparing a competitive RFP response requires senior practitioners to spend hours gathering information, responding … Read more
Earlier this week, my seven year old niece taught me how to play Tenzi, a simple dice game. In Tenzi, each player gets ten six-sided dice and has to get all of them to show the same number by rolling as fast as you can. It might be the simplest game I’ve ever played. So … Read more
Whenever I have a conversation about strategy, it’s one of the most common quotes that comes up. Firm leaders want to be like Wayne Gretzky and “Skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.” But in business, there isn’t just one puck, and rather than following a straight trajectory, it’s bouncing … Read more
I just finished reading Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto – a book that has been sitting on my kindle for an embarrassing amount of time, but which I put off because I thought reading the New Yorker article was enough. I was wrong: this is one of the most important books I’ve read for thinking … Read more
Last year, we undertook a research project to examine an under-explored type of professional services firm: research and analytics firms that are tightly held and closely aligned with a parent company like a PR, advertising, or media agency. We call these captive agencies because they’re much more tightly integrated with their parent firm than a … Read more
One of the most common tropes when thinking about business developers is the dichotomy between “hunters” and “farmers”. It tends to crop up when looking at business development styles: hunters going out and finding new business, then quickly move on. Farmers cultivating relationships over the long term. David Maister used a similar distinction to describe … Read more
Warning: There might be some spoilers ahead…but it’s for a Pixar movie, and they all follow the same basic story rules. The key message in Finding Dory, Pixar’s sequel to the 2003 hit Finding Nemo, is a contrast between two approaches to life. On the one hand, careful cautious clownfish Marlon wants to rationally analyze every situation, … Read more