As I write eTips each week, it’s often the product of business development challenges and behaviours I’ve observed among our clients, or learned second hand. Now, I need your input on the eTips topics you find most relevant, how eTips can improve, and what you’d like more of.

This week, please take this brief, three to five minute survey, and tell me, and the whole JMA team, what you think.

As a thank you, you will be entered into a draw to win a bottle of fine wine.

Of course, if you have any queries or other comments, do get in touch.

Thanks for your support and important feedback.

Linda and the team at Julian Midwinter & Associates

When leading and large clients determine their professional service relationships, one factor influencing their decision is how well prospective service providers fit with their own values, culture, and aspirations. Will your firm governance and management make the cut ?

Sensible clients don’t expect exactly the same standards and processes of every prospective professional adviser.

Just like in corporate life, organisation size is an important determinant of the nature and extent of formal
governance protocols and management practices.

Here’s a guide to what you should implement to make sure that your governance and management don’t put you at commercial disadvantage.

If you are a micro-professional practice or sole practitioner, you need:

· fair employment practices - both in document form and in practice

· a documented policy on conflicts of interest

· preparedness to make disclosures of pecuniary interests to certain public sector clients

· evidence of a management system covering professional and financial functions and workflow

· ethical professional and business behaviour.

For small firms to avoid elimination on grounds of inadequate governance and management, you should also
establish:

· an organisation chart which defines functional roles and accountabilities

· a risk management framework

· a process for detecting and avoiding conflicts of interest

· client service standards

· a framework for eliciting and responding to client feedback

· financial reporting at better-than-average standard as evidence of competent financial management

· formal human resources management practices.

Mid-sized professional practices need to do more, commensurate with their scale:

· self-assessment framework for legislative compliance

· formal systems for identifying and monitoring possible conflicts of interest

· increased emphasis on and evidence of internal monitoring of risk

· a client complaints and disputes management protocol

· policies and procedures which evidence ethical dealings with the wider business community

· movement toward the ASX best practice governance framework.

Expectations of large professional service firms are similar to those of highly regarded ASX-listed corporates.

Compliance with OCED and best practice in annual reporting will get you there.

One size does not fit all - and this is not an exhaustive list. Just as governance and management sensitivities and requirements vary across clients, there is no uniform approach for each professional firm.

The advantages of getting governance and management to these standards are wider than making the cut in
competitive selections. In time, there should be considerable business benefit.

The author gratefully acknowledges the important work of Bob Lewis and Phil Scott from Local Government
Procurement whose recent presentation ‘LPG solutions on improving outcomes for local councils and suppliers’ (2007) stimulated and provided a foundation for this article. Details can be found on their website at www.lgp.org.au.

Copyright Julian Midwinter & Associates

Make sure you set yourself on a course for successful business development in the new financial year.

Listen - especially to unwelcome news. Listen to what your clients say. Listen to unpopular views, and listen extra carefully to what you don’t really want to hear.

Do the research - make sure you gets much input as possible on a subject. Disparate input will help you come to terms with the issues. You need a wide range of information from disparate sources to form a sound basis for the decisions you must make.

Make a business development plan write it down and stick to it. A written plan communicated to everyone is much more likely to succeed than any amount of talk. Review progress against your plan.

- take responsibility for tough decisions. Good decisions are often lonely, and sometimes unpopular. You can’t depend on consensus to make the right decisions in marketing. You will be constantly faced with new opportunities - you can’t pursue them all. So, be prepared to be tough enough to let an opportunity pass

Copyright Julian Midwinter & Associates

“Risk happy” is the only way to describe the many law firms and other professional service providers who allow -
and even encourage - a single lawyer or professional to “own” the relationship with a key client.

Julian Midwinter & Associates research shows that, contrary to the protestations of some “relationship owners”, most clients are far happier, more secure, and reassured by being networked into the firm, rather than just relating to a single professional.

Letting an important client become attached to only a single person in your firm is never a good idea.

Manage the many inherent risks by:

• Developing a service team.

• Making the client familiar and comfortable with the whole team.

• Introducing new professionals through roles as team members on large matters or projects.

• Making key clients aware of your on-going training, recruitment, and development processes.

• Showcasing achievements of all members of your firm to clients.

• Regularly surveying client satisfaction with the service team.

• Encouraging relationship reviews which include your managing partner, marketing director, or an expert external consultant.

Not only are these steps good insurance, but they will help you to cross sell.

Copyright Julian Midwinter & Associates

To be professionally effective, and achieve what you want, you’ll need to be heard.

Sounds simple ? Definitely. So simple that it’s often overlooked in the rush to get into “real business development” mode.

If you can’t easily be heard and then clearly understood, prospective clients and clients mostly won’t bother to bring the problem to your attention. Instead, they’ll just find it easier and more comfortable to spend their time with another competent professional.

Speak clearly. Good diction, clear enunciation, and volume matter. Project your voice. Mumbling, muttering, and lazy speech won’t help you to be heard.

Get the substance across with concise sentences. Illustrate your points with relevant examples.

Stick to the subject. Don’t wander around the issues - be straightforward.

Don’t leave your listener confused. If your purpose is to convey information, say so. If you want someone to do something, say so. Rather than hoping that they’ll eventually get the idea of what you’re after, get to the point - pronto - and make a plain request.

If you want action, ask for it. If it’s important, don’t confuse matters with vagaries like “only if that’s OK”. If it’s urgent, the right words are not “when you’re ready” - more like “now, please”.

Focus on the positive. Eventually, it will be hard to be heard if you’re constantly negative or carping.

Be a courteous listener. Let the other party make their point, interpose questions for clarity.

Ease tensions by maintaining your sense of humour - seeing the funny side of a situation is often a good way to improve the emotional environment.

Good-nature and sincere interest will always help you to develop rapport, make connections, and help you to be heard.

Copyright Julian Midwinter & Associates

Lawyers and expert professionals are supposed to be super smart people, but they sometimes make poor business development decisions and often flog dead horses.

Check that you’re not pursuing inappropriate strategies by falling into one of these common traps:

Underestimating uncertainty - we like to believe we can get the full picture and see the range of possible outcomes. Too often, important gaps in what we know mean that actual outcomes are way outside our predictions. The business environment is increasingly uncertain and outcomes unpredictable.

Underestimating chance - we tend to believe that success stems from what we do, when sometimes it’s in spite of what we do. Just because it worked (or didn’t) in the past, don’t assume it will (or won’t) work in the future. Accept that chance, an unpredictable factor, is at work.

Noticing only the data that fits - we often overemphasise the information or results that suit our plans and disregard the unexpected or inconvenient data. Take a hard look at all the data. Be especially open to unwelcome news.

Prisoner of previous strategy - succumbing to (sometimes overwhelming) pressure to continue to invest resources into old strategies and decisions is akin to flogging a dead horse, significantly increasing your cost of production.

Copyright Julian Midwinter & Associates

Here are some key skill areas for effective business development in the professional services area.

Rate yourself on each, and work out what most needs to improve:

Understanding the business development process.

Understanding how clients make decisions.

Presenting your firm’s credentials.

Positioning and differentiating yourself and your firm.

Prioritising your personal marketing efforts.

Winning in the face of direct competition.

Eliminating time-wasters.

Promoting and colleagues’ capabilities.

Asking for commitment to proceed.

If you’re not up to scratch on any or all of these, it’s strongly in your interests to improve.

Possible sources of help and support include:

Your marketing manager.

Colleagues who are outstanding in these areas.

Your sales coach.

Consultants who have the right credentials and a track record of success.

Copyright Julian Midwinter & Associates

Efficiently and effectively converting telephone enquiries - from both prospective clients and established clients - into real, live files is a key competency for every professional.

The rules are simple:

Listen intently - give the call your full attention.

Make notes.

Let the enquirer say his/her piece.

Find out what stimulated him/her to call you at this point.

Ask the enquirer how s/he thinks you maybe able to help.

Establish how important and/or urgent is the issue to the enquirer briefly run through the path forward you propose agree the next step - or “where to from here” - so there’s no doubt.

Opportunities presented by telephone enquiries are far too valuable to squander - make the most of them by following this simple protocol.

Copyright Julian Midwinter & Associates

Strategy is great, but it’s worth little without implementation. Make certain you put the disciplines and resources in place to make your strategy happen.

You’ll find plenty of talk about strategic business development planning, but the increasingly competitive professional services environment, where there is excess supply in many segments and services are becoming commoditised faster, you need to pay a whole lot of attention to excelling at execution.

Get yourself and your team together to perform your strategy - turn your business development aspirations into actions.

Here are some tips:

If you’re team leader, make sure you’re not just recognising and rewarding imagination, inspiration, and excitement - reward getting it done.

Recognise that your success may ultimately depend on micro managing low-level tasks - things like slipping letters into envelopes, spellchecking documents, proofreading, and so on.

Be fierce about prioritising what it is going to get done today, as opposed to what is going to get started, underway, or progressed today - work out what needs to get finished and what that involves.

Make lists to keep priorities firmly in mind. Even the best marketing and business development ideas need to be turned into action. If you don’t execute your plans, clever strategy is worth little - your aspirations must turn into action.

Copyright Julian Midwinter & Associates

With competition getting harder, fields tighter, and clients generally reducing (rather then expanding) their panels of professional service providers, it’s more important than ever to be noticed in a positive way and make it through into the consciousness of clients and prospective clients.

Findings from Julian Midwinter & Associates many hundreds of client interviews, and other industry and academic sources, all confirm that being positively noticed by prospective clients is both more difficult and more important than ever before.

Here are some of the things you can do to grab “share of mind” as a prerequisite to being asked to propose:

Be recognised as a leader in your field - reputation for excellence and distinctive expertise is the best first step.

Become a source of valuable information - whether through articles, newsletters, website, or as a source for the press, being an important source of ideas, analysis, commentary, or industry trends is a great way to get positive attention.

Participate in key forums - speak at appropriate conferences (for small fees if any) - be active in industry and professional associations, network with others to share your professional interests, and be generous with your time and support for initiatives of wide benefit to your consumer community.

Research and innovate - demonstrate “thought leadership” by challenging conventional approaches and developing new and better solutions for the consumer, at lower overall cost or risk, to tough problems.

Don’t just do one thing - do lots of these things often - the effects of any one of these activities, in isolation, is unlikely to be impressive. The cumulative effect of doing lots of these things, constantly, is likely to be great. Indeed, it can multiplicative !

Winning “share of mind” will win you some work. Mostly, it will position you to be given the opportunity to win lots more work.

Copyright Julian Midwinter & Associates