In today’s highly competitive Professional Services industry, whether you are an Accounting, IT, Law or Project Management firm, you must always be looking for new opportunities.
As leaders of small or medium sized firms, you are often forced to juggle between client delivery and generating new business. In terms of business development within Professional Services, two approaches are typically used:
- HUNTING: Acquire new clients
- FARMING: Grow existing clientele
Each has different qualities and approach which I will briefly outline below:
HUNTERS
- Often has the title of Business Development Manager.
- Focus is on;
- identifying new prospects,
- uncovering unmet needs,
- Key activities include: emailing, cold calling, organising discovery calls.
FARMERS
- Often have the title of Account Manager or Client Success Manager.
- Focus is on developing and maintaining long term partnerships.
WATCH OUT for B2B Professional Service Firms Today!
It is important to recognise how Professional Service buyers now buy such as:
- Buyers undertaking their own self-education and research without interacting with any type of Sales representative.
- Fact: over 1/3 of Buyers do not want to engage with Sales at all during their research/purchase decision process.
- 70% of Buyers will fully define their needs before engaging with any type of Sales representative.
Given the way in which the buyers of our Professional Services buy, means that adopting a strict Hunting or Farming approach will not work. Maintaining a balance between both can be quite challenging but is critical for the success of your Professional Service Firm.
As Rob Hartnett, B2B Sales Expert and Managing Director of Value Selling Associates says,
“You need to invest first, be strategic about where you fish and for how long you need to grow the fishing pond …not simply fish it to nothing.”
IMPLICATION: What B2B Professional Service Firms Must Do to Succeed!
The focus of your firm must be grounded in providing “AIR”—Advice, Insights and Recommendations to both your current clients as well as prospects based on where and with whom the buyers (i.e those making the purchase decision) go for such insights.
In order to have such a BALANCED business development approach, firms must develop a Buyer “AIR” Driven Go-to-Market Strategy that will enable your firm to generate business simultaneously through new Client Acquisition as well as Client Retention and Expansion.
Benefits of this holistic Go-to-Market strategy:
- Brings together Marketing and Sales working together.
- Aligned view of target clients across the entire firm.
- Planned, strategic coordinated activities for both client acquisition and retention aimed at providing “AIR” to both existing clients and new prospects based on how they now buy.
- Shared learnings across teams about client needs, expectations
To empower your firm with a Go-to-Market strategy that enables you to have balanced Business Development that empowers your firm to both gain new clients as well as generate business from existing ones, join myself and B2B Sales Expert, Rob Hartnett in our upcoming webinar, Mastering Go to Market Strategies for Professional Service Firms.
For details and to register, click here.
