Are we listening?

Are we

Listening?

growth

How to achieve in professional services firms

Contents Are we listening?

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Executive summary

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Contributors

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Part 1 – Are we listening to our clients?

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Partnership with clients

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Clear strategy

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Part 2 – Why does engagement in business development work?

Part 3 – Are we listening to each other? The Client Talk 4Cs model

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How can marketeers and business developers help drive engagement in business development?

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The Client Talk 4Cs model

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How can we use this insight?

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Terminology

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About Client Talk t

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Introduction

Are we listening?

Client Talk wanted to find an answer to the question “what drives growth in professional services firms?”.

We conducted a survey of heads of marketing and spoke to partners in legal and accounting firms, clients of professional services firms, marketing experts and coaches. This report sets out our key findings.

We have called this report “Are we listening?”.

It is the theme that has come out the strongest and resonated the most throughout. It is the question that we believe can unlock so many of the barriers and limitations that this report touches on. From making the gathering of client feedback more than just a tick box exercise, through to engaging professionals in business

development and bridging the “them and us” divide. It is, for us, the question that we should all constantly come back to and strive to improve on.

part 1

In of this report, we explore whether we are really listening to our clients. We discover what drives growth in professional services firms and find out whether being client-centric is enough to outperform our competitors.

part 2

, we look specifically at what it is about In engagement in business development that drives growth. We discover why engagement is the missing ingredient in our growth equation.

part 3

, we explore whether we Finally, in are listening to each other. We think about how marketeers and business developers can engage professionals in their firms and set out our 4C model.

Executive Summary Our findings suggest that it is time to combine what we know about strategy with what we know about people to propel firms to the next level.

We conclude that professional services firms need to start thinking about how marketing strategy reflects the professionals in their firm, and whether it engages them. Indeed, we found that engagement in business development was the term that made the biggest difference to growth.

At the same time, marketing can no longer respond to client needs in a vacuum. Firms need to partner with clients and learn how to adapt with them in order to stay relevant for the future. We discover that the ideal formula for growth is:

(Clients + Strategy) x Engagement = Growth We know that there are barriers and limitations, but we discuss the best way to get engagement from professionals against this backdrop. We set out our 4C model to help marketing teams drive engagement.

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Contributors I would like to thank all of those who contributed to this report for their insights but even more so for their openness, warmth, generosity and time. Some of the people who I spoke to wished to remain anonymous, but they know who they are, so I also want to thank them for their time.

In particular, my thanks go to: Sadie Baron, CMO, Reed Smith LLP. Steve Couch, executive and team coach. Steve spent over 30 years at PwC, where he was a partner and led many international high performing teams.

Mark Duffell, Head of Business Development and Communications, CFG, a specialist PI firm. Mark was formerly Head of Group Communications at Irwin Mitchell.

Helen Goss, employment law partner and head of leisure & hospitality, Boyes Turner LLP. Oliver Hansard, Coach, NED and Consultant. Oliver trained at Magic Circle City law firm Clifford Chance.

After his legal career he had a number of roles at the Tesco owned data science company dunnhumby, his last role being Corporate Development Director. He was Vice President of Data Services at cable company Liberty Global.

David Lamont, Head of Marketing, Blandy & Blandy LLP. Jackie Moody-McNamara, mentor, coach, ambassador of WiHTL and founder of BRILLIANT Women.

Louise Rason, Senior Competition Lawyer, BT. Sarah Williamson, Partner, Lee & Thompson, a specialist creative industries firm.

A General Counsel & Head of Global Legal Operations at a tech company (who wished to remain anonymous – we have changed their name to Matthew for this report).

Alongside these interviews, we also surveyed 17 heads of marketing of law firms ranging in size from turnovers of over £150m down to £5m. Whilst the results of the survey, given the sample size, can only be indicative of any trends, we have sought to test the conclusions drawn through the qualitative research we have undertaken.

Part 1:

Are we listening to our clients?

It is a commonly held belief that successful professional services firms should be client-centric and have a clear strategy.

However, if everyone is doing both of these things, why aren’t all firms exhibiting the same rate of growth?

We assume that all firms have a compelling level of technical expertise. While some firms will be more client-centric than others, is it perhaps that something other than competence in strategy and client-centricity is behind the very high levels of growth exhibited by some of the firms we surveyed?

Key learning • Despite firms saying they are listening; clients still don’t feel listened to and client feedback isn’t informing strategy • Professional services firms should move to a client partnering model, rather than solely aiming to be client-centric • Not all firms have forward looking marketing strategies – for those that do, this isn’t on its own enough to drive growth • It appears that client listening + strategy is not enough to outperform the pack.

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Partnership with clients In our recent survey we found that almost all of the marketing directors who took part, said that they had a formal client listening programme in place. However, whilst almost all professional services firms said they were listening to their clients, this didn’t appear to be the main driver of growth. Of those who answered this question positively, some were growing below the industry average of 5%, some were in line with industry averages, whilst others were showing up to double digit growth.

The Chartered Institute of Marketing historically defined marketing as “The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.”

If firms listen to their clients, and they find out what their needs are, logic suggests they will try and meet that need. It’s marketing 101, isn’t it?

In order to achieve that simple statement a lot needs to happen. First, clients need to be properly listened to; second, the person doing the listening needs to have properly understood what the client was trying to say, identified a need and have communicated that back to the firm; and finally, there needs to be a desire or incentive – and ability – to act.

However, it goes further than that. Is the client discussing a current or future need?

If looking to the future that need might change or might not even be in the client’s sphere of consciousness – how do professional services firms respond to that? When we think about listening to clients, what does “listening” mean?

How do we listen? Is listening an exercise which should be rethought?

Whilst some readers will be nodding, we believe that these questions aren’t on the radar of most professional services firms.

Have client listening programmes become another tick box exercise?

If everyone is putting clients at the heart of their strategy, and listening to them, why isn’t this enough? For Matthew, customers (he prefers this term to clients) don’t feel listened to AND they don’t appear to be at the heart of strategy either.

“Firms like to say that customers are at the heart of strategy because it looks good on websites or social media, but when it comes to it, they don’t want to listen. And, when they do, they are afraid and don’t want to act on what they hear.” For Matthew this comes back to egos and history.

“This is the way we have always done it and so will continue to do it this way.”

Putting clients at the centre Matthew had a five-minute question to ask his outside counsel. He sent an email to the firm. Two days later he received a long piece of research and a hefty bill. He continued to insist they call him. They did and in three minutes the query was solved. Writing at the time he said,

“Why do we prefer assuming and wasting valuable time and money writing something we never asked for rather than just picking up the phone and SPEAKING with the customer?

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Is it that scary or are lawyers that arrogant? From where I stand this is just crazy and so disconnected.”

With the passage of time he continues to be dumbfounded. He believes that lawyers don’t understand their value. They aren’t selling time; they are selling expertise and an experience. To do that they have to listen.

How can you help without context?

“Legal providers have to start to put the customer at the centre.

Start there and work backwards.”

Part 1: Are we listening to our clients?

Are firms looking at the wrong KPIs? Do firms focus on counting the number of clients listened to, rather than seeking to understand clients to find out what, at times, may be uncomfortable truths. Are the professionals who are receiving the feedback open to hearing what has been said and are they able to act on it?

One marketing director, who did not want to be named, told the story of a listening exercise conducted at their firm. The client liked the firm but didn’t like the client relationship partner.

Nobody had the guts to tell the partner. Not even the senior partner (who was aware). The partner had received similar feedback in the past and hadn’t acted on it. The billings he was getting helped the firm – and his – bottom line.

Changing client relationship partner would have upset the politics. He stayed on and the firm lost the client.

Who do professional services firms serve?

Jackie believes leaders in general must adapt because when they step up, their role is no longer to serve themselves, but rather to serve their employees and their clients. This must apply equally to professional services firms. Serving the client and the employees in the example above would have resulted in the partner putting aside his ego, serving the client by recognising he wasn’t the right fit and serving his employees who would have continued to work with the client.

Sometimes, recognising what is right for the client is hard to achieve on a personal level.

However, to be meaningful, a listening exercise should serve the client. Feedback may be given that seeks to improve the relationship, which is personal to those delivering the service (he doesn’t understand my business, the reports he write are too long), rather than factors relating to the firm itself (too expensive or the firm has no video conferencing facilities). The latter are easier to raise and fix – the former is likely to make the biggest difference.

Professional services firms need to be brave.

What greater waste of time and resource to ask for feedback and then not act on it?

Some firms are doing it right. One City firm we spoke to recognised that feedback did sometimes result in changes to team members, or other uncomfortable comments being shared

and considered. They have managed to create an environment where it is safe to do this, and individuals aren’t bruised as a result. However, caution is exercised and multiple views from the client are taken. Balance was also a key theme in this firm’s approach. “Collaboration also doesn’t mean giving the clients everything they want, it’s a conversation” said the business developer we spoke to.

Clients want to be asked for feedback, in fact they are shouting out to be heard. Oliver says,

“As a General Counsel I was always astonished that I was never asked to give feedback to my lawyers for the services they provided. I would always have given honest, challenging opinions but it would have made the relationship stronger and their service better.”

“Lawyers should never be afraid to find out what their clients really think of their service – it’s good for them and their client relationships”.

What is happening to the feedback?

Our study uncovered another worrying trend. While all firms said they had listening programmes in place, not all said that client feedback informed their strategies. This raises questions around what purpose collecting feedback serves. Surely it should inform the firm’s marketing strategy; to identify current and future need and any gaps the firm has delivering against that need.

This statistic is not one that surprises Matthew.

He has spoken to many firms who gather insight as part of expensive client listening programmes and then do nothing with it. Matthew wonders whether firms are using the best people available to listen – and that probably isn’t partners.

“I met recently with a partner of a firm I worked with. I wanted to discuss ways of creating a new kind of partnership. She told me that they were innovative and proceeded to present me with a lengthy explanation of how they listen to their customers, but then just explained at great length how they work and why they shouldn’t change anything about how they work. She just would not listen. I then met independently with the head of business development.

He had a completely different mindset.

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Part 1: Are we listening to our clients?

He was open-minded and willing to listen and try something new. He should have been at the meeting. I needed him there.”

Are firms really listening?

Oliver notes that,

“Effective listening is the key to any enduring relationship”.

What is effective listening? Perhaps the answer can be found in the words of Matthew and Oliver: partnership and relationship. Steve credits PwC’s success to partnership with clients saying,

“It has evolving relationships with its clients. It listens well. In the legal sphere, lawyers weren’t listening well enough and PwC was able to deliver what the clients wanted.”

Clients want firms who can deliver in collaboration with them. They want to walk the path together.

It’s not about one party just taking, or about the other working in a vacuum. Perhaps we need to bring in learning from systemic coaching and move from being client-centric to partnering with our clients.

Effectively listening to and partnering with clients is the first part of our growth equation.

Clear strategy At the start of this chapter we set out two factors that are commonly linked to growth. One is client-centricity. The second was strategy.

What did our research find here? It found that High Growth Firms said that they had a marketing strategy that looked forward more than two years.

Why might a forward-looking strategy drive growth?

A marketing strategy that only looks 0-2 years ahead, is perhaps better thought of as a tactical plan to confront the here and now. It will contain some of the features of a strategy, but in lacking the long-term vision, it is more focused on quick returns and is arguably less effective at building a brand.

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David agrees,

“By the very definition strategies should be medium to long-term. Plans otherwise run the risk of becoming purely tactical, reactionary and short term. A spot-on quote that I once read said that ‘a strategy is a fancy word for coming up with a long-term plan and putting it into action’.”

So, whilst it is important to have a plan that keeps the business surviving in the short term, our survey suggests that if you want significant growth you need to invest in the long-term.

A marketing strategy should, at its core, identify target customers and their needs and create a competitive advantage. It should support the broader business objectives of the firm.

Steve warns of the dangers of falling into the trap of inflexibility in betting on the long-term,

“The more specific a strategy the less open you become to future opportunity. The VUCA [Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous] world that we are living in means that you can’t have a strategy for more than twelve months. You need to be able to anticipate changes.”

Perhaps Steve’s warning needs to be incorporated into a long-term strategy.

If a marketing strategy is about anticipating client needs, and those needs are changing; the marketing strategy needs to provide a way to deal with that. This is perhaps pronounced in professional services firms, where strategy can take a long time to come to life.

We believe that a good marketing strategy, in defining a target market, helps everyone focus on who they need to partner with and listen to. Indeed, that market might not even exist today but might be an emergent one. By being forward looking firms can look to the future and think about who the client of tomorrow is and what the client of tomorrow wants.

Having a forward-looking marketing strategy is the second part of our growth equation.

“Effective listening is the key to any enduring relationship”

Part 2:

Why does engagement in business development work?

Having a forward-looking strategy (whether informed by clients or not) was not by itself enough for a firm to outperform the market. High Growth Firms all had one feature in common that made a big difference – engagement of their professionals in business development.

Key learning • Engagement of professionals in business development is vital • Engagement provides strength in numbers; it helps bring a strategy to life; and, it elevates the client experience • Engagement helps the client voice be heard – it helps us move from being client-centric to client-partnering.

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Vital term

All High Growth Firms had a long-term vision, they also had one other feature in common. They all strongly agreed that “the professionals in my firm are engaged in business development”. Not only that, but engagement helped firms who didn’t have a forward-looking strategy to do better.

Average growth

Do not strongly agree that professionals are engaged in business development

Strongly agree that professionals are engaged in business development

Strategy: (i) not forward looking (ii) not informed by clients

4%

Strategy: (i) forward looking (ii) informed by clients

8%

3% 3%

It appears that if firms want to see an improvement in their top line, as well as thinking about clients and strategy, they should also be looking at how to engage professionals in business development. Engagement is the vital term of our growth equation.

(Clients + Strategy) x Engagement = Growth

Why does engagement work?

David explains,

For David, engagement works because it amplifies what you are trying to achieve: “I run a small marketing team but often refer to us as a team of more than 100 colleagues because everyone has a part to play in marketing and business development. From frontline staff dealing with client enquiries and welcoming visitors, through to the professionals delivering the service. Unquestionably, where the onus is placed solely or largely on a marketing and business team, the effectiveness and outputs will be lesser.”

“A

There is certainly an argument to be made around strength in numbers. Where those numbers are accompanied by a clear strategy and everyone is rowing in the same direction, the magic starts to happen.

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good marketing strategy is one that reflects your organisation in every sense and sets out realistic but ambitious objectives. It’s about finding your place in the market and owning it. Doing things differently or better than the competition. Share it with everyone in your organisation and avoid management speak and jargon at all costs. Explain the bigger picture but also distil things down so that everyone within the organisation understands their role in the strategy and how important their contribution is. The key is “taking people with you”, otherwise you don’t have a strategy, you just have a chunky document.”

Part 2: Why does engagement in business development work?

So, engagement helps bring a strategy to life.

Growth won’t happen with strategy or theory alone. Engagement is the means to achieve it.

For Helen it’s about increasing your chance at building relationships,

“I believe that clients instruct you because they like you. Building a rapport is important. People engage with different personalities. If you introduce a client to a team, you increase the chances that they find someone they like. You have to tell people to be authentic. You have to market to your skills.”

Does engagement also do something else?

Does it elevate the client experience?

If we take a broad view of what engagement in business development is; if it is more than just selling, and rather everything that effects what the client sees and breathes, it must do.

Mark describes his experience at one firm that he worked with, “the culture of the firm was clear from the moment you walked in. The receptionist made me feel at home. The welcome I received was outstanding and that friendly approach was mirrored with everyone I met.”

When thinking about engagement in professional services, the details can be overlooked. The small parts might not seem important. However, if a firm’s branding is to be “your friendly advisor” and this message is cascaded down, the welcome given when walking through the door could in a heartbeat either confirm or break perceptions. The receptionist is no longer someone who answers the phone – she is someone who engages in bringing to life the firm’s brand.

Perhaps engagement helps client listening and strategy be more effective?

Perhaps engagement in business development helps shift the dial towards partnering with clients rather than merely responding to them. Where more professionals are involved in business development, they become more curious about the client and the strategy. They become more involved in developing the strategy and take ownership of it. Perhaps it is why this missing ingredient drives growth.

Sarah believes there is a connection between strategy and engagement. She notes “Law firms often try to implement business development strategies that are far too wide ranging. Without breaking it down into focused, identifiable strategies, it is difficult to engage lawyers in a truly constructive way.”

What do clients want?

Engagement in business development should get professionals, and indeed the whole workforce, working for the benefit of the client.

For Matthew the world is changing, it is vital that everyone – not just “fee earners” – get involved with the customer. “Experiences that we have as personal consumers have an impact on our expectations as business consumers. We are both. Lawyers need to innovate and provide an amazing experience.”

The legal market is shifting from providing knowledge to providing an experience. How can they achieve that?

“They need to be user-centric. They need to bring the customer voice into firms and let that be the heartbeat.

They need to harness the diversity that exists within them and create real cross-pollination of ideas.”

“As long as we legal providers believe that all we provide is expertise nothing will truly change as we will continue to be isolated and alienated from what our customers need, thinking we know best, and focus inward on us. Once we realise that our expertise is part of an EXPERIENCE that we provide to our customers, now that’s something entirely different and amazing as it means that we understand that what we provide is not about us but about creating an experience for our customers and that this experience needs to be designed and created around and with our customers through collaboration with other non-legal professionals.”

For Louise having everyone engaged in business development drives innovation and creativity in problem solving. “We don’t want a sales pitch. We want a cohesive team, where people are good at all levels. We want people who understand our business and our drivers who are nice to work with. That can’t be achieved by one person.”

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Part 3:

Are we listening to each other?

When you speak to marketeers, most have a story to tell about when they have struggled to get professionals to buy-in and support the efforts of business development and marketing. Strategy takes second place to the struggle to get someone to speak at an event; or turn up to networking; or to volunteer a client for a listening exercise.

Many a target list sits gathering dust as professionals struggle to engage with it.

On the other side of the fence, there are the professionals who just don’t know “what marketing does.” They are busy and find business development a necessary evil. It wasn’t what they signed up for when they became a professional.

For both sides there are numerous other barriers such as internal politics, fear, imposter syndrome and egos. Getting professionals to “do business development” has, to some extent, become the elephant in the room.

Key learning • To market and sell professional services firms; marketeers, business developers, the client and the professionals need to be involved • Marketing/business development experts can help drive engagement by using the 4Cs model • The barriers that stand in the way of engagement: cultural divide, limiting beliefs and dysfunctional teams, can all be reduced through the application of our model.

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How can marketeers and business developers help drive engagement in business development?

We asked in-house marketing teams what challenges they faced, as well as asking professionals what it was that helped to engage them. We also asked clients what they wanted to see from professional services firms and spoke to coaches about how to overcome some of the barriers. We used this insight to develop Client Talk’s 4Cs model of working with professionals.

Our model starts from the basis that marketing in professional services firms is a symbiotic relationship between clients, marketeers and professionals. All need to be involved.

Marketing and selling professional services have nuances that don’t exist when marketing and selling products. Clients are buying the expertise of the professions – the technical ability to deliver. Marketing captures the voice of the client and understands how to meet its

Sometimes in professional services firms a full partnering relationship doesn’t need to be built with the service provider before a buying decision is made. Louise draws a distinction between high-volume/low value work, where price is the core driver and higher value strategic work, where the relationship is the key factor. The further work leans into the latter category, the earlier and stronger the relationships need to be and the more important it is for the client to see and know the team delivering the work.

Value of matter to client

Even where a sale is made on price, the client needs to know that what they are getting meets the need. The professional is there, even if sitting behind a piece of content. So, it is only by working together that marketing strategy can be successful.

Importance of relationship

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need. In professional services firms, to give the client what they want and need, there needs to be interaction between marketeers and the professionals. First, the marketeers and business developers need to understand the offering. This includes thinking about which professional is the best fit, as well as understanding what the professional does. Second, clients want to form relationships with their service providers. Seeing a face on a CV is often not enough.

Part 3: Are we listening to each other?

The Client Talk 4Cs model Our 4Cs model sets out four distinct roles that marketeers and business developers need to adopt so as to successfully get professionals “doing business development”. As we have seen, this is vital if the strategy is to come to life and the firm is to experience high growth.

The skill of moving between the four roles is what leads to professionals being fully engaged.

To understand which role is appropriate, the question “are we listening?” once again comes to the fore. Marketeers and business developers serve the professionals in the firm, the client and the broader firm. The needs of all must be heard, understood and balanced.

Conduct

amplifies effort

Coach

develops confidence

barrier – limiting beliefs

Consult

builds credibility

Cheerlead

barrier – competing allegiances

barrier – culture

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Part 3: Are we listening to each other?

The first C –

Consult

Role: The marketeer’s role as a consultant is to present considered options and advise professionals on which course of action to take. Marketing and business development experts have a unique skillset and access to the big picture and data – along with time to analyse that data. They are also the voice of the client in the firm. By viewing the professionals as their clients, as if they were consultants to them, they can provide an independent viewpoint and provide recommendations and challenge.

When to wear this hat: This role should be assumed where a bigger picture or strategic viewpoint is needed. The role is also adopted when creative thought is required.

For example, in setting up a key client programme, business developers will need to act as consultants. They should give advice on what the programme should look like, who should be included, and, crucially on how to gather feedback and what to do with it once received.

For Steve, this ability to take a holistic view, is one of the strengths of marketeers,

“In professional services firms there can be a focus on chargeable hours and specialist knowledge. This creates silos. Marketing professionals are more likely to have at front of mind what the organisation can offer as a whole. Even when they are attached to specialist teams, they work together as a group in a way the specialists don’t. They speak to each other more often.”

This extends to other business professionals.

Marketeers and business developers often know when it is necessary to bring in other internal experts, for example project management or accounts.

How does this role drive engagement: builds credibility In-house marketing and business development teams have skills and expertise that the professionals they are working with don’t have.

They have been hired for these skills and should use them to engage professionals. By acting as a consultant, giving advice and direction,

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they can build credibility for their function and provide challenge.

Helen explains that this is a vital role and one that she responds to,

“I have valued business development professionals where they have been involved in winning work with me. The hands-on approach rather than just telling what to do. I like to be able to say ‘this is what I want to do’ and receive advice on how to achieve it.”

Acting as a consultant doesn’t mean hiding behind jargon or preaching. It means understanding the firm you are in and presenting thoughtful challenge and advice based on your skillset. One business developer summarised this as “having something to sell”.

For Sadie “Most professionals have some sort of understanding about business development which therefore can lead to a negative response when a business development professional comes along and tries to help – the ‘I can do this myself’ approach. My response to this has always been that whilst business development is mainly about a lot of common sense, what a business development professional can do is put themselves in the eyes of the client. We can challenge and question because we are not lawyers or professionals to make sure that whatever is being produced is as clear and concise as possible. Lawyers and other similar professionals are trained to be deep subject matter experts and can get submerged in a topic. Business development professionals can also bring wider experience (say from another industry and practice area) which can lead to a better outcome.”

Sarah agrees, “lawyers’ strengths are their legal expertise, client relationships and sector knowledge, not pure business development skills. Firms need to be aware of their individual lawyers’ skillsets and match those to a business development context. Often time and effort can be spent forcing a lawyer to undertake activities he or she is just not suited to which rarely achieves results and can often demoralise the lawyer. Much better to advise and support the lawyers by coming up with business development strategies that complement their skillset and let them own those strategies.”

Sarah continues “Time will always be precious to a lawyer, so the more practical and creative support marketeers and business developers can provide to help strip away the obstacles to getting them involved, the better.”

Sadie recognises this strength,

“Most business development professionals have a creative flair too which can help and I don’t just mean in terms of pictures or colours, but ideas about the entire approach to a presentation or event.”

Sadly, the time issue is not one confined to lawyers. Sadie notes “business development is still seen as an afterthought in most professionals’ day to day work. However, it really isn’t the case. Every interaction is a chance to do business development. The challenge is then being accessible and available when the need arises. Most professional service firms have fairly lean business development teams, so their ability to be everywhere for everyone is limited.

So often, when the need arises, they are already diverted on another project and the moment passes. I don’t have a magic answer to this but embedding the business development team in sight of your professionals is at least a start.”

Barrier: culture For business developers and marketeers to be successful in the role of consultant the professionals need to recognise the expertise that they have. The biggest barrier to internal experts acting as consultants is culture. It lies in the answer to the following question. Are the skills of in-house marketing/business development teams recognised and respected by all the professionals in your firm?

Whilst in many firms marketing and business development have a “seat at the table”, this is not universally true.

The American Lawyer wrote about the caste system in law firms – them and us. Fee earners and fee burners. Lawyers and Non-Lawyers. For Matthew this just doesn’t make sense. “I work in technology. We don’t have tech and non-tech or developers and non-developers.”

Helen (speaking generally) hints at why this might be,

“Often what you bill is still the most important thing in a law firm. Numbers are valued more than the efforts taken to bring in new clients.”

Helen believes this can demotivate and discourage professionals from doing business development.

An extension of this is that it also drives a “them and us” culture that devalues any role that isn’t a fee earning one. At its extreme, this devalues what the marketing and business development teams are trying to achieve and makes it harder to get engagement across the board.

As someone who is moving the dial in this area, we asked Matthew whether he thought that clients would drive change in this area.

Matthew sees the immense value in having multi-disciplinary teams and speaks to the firms he works with about bringing other professionals into the room, into the work with the customers.

The more progressive firms are changing as a result,

“We have co-created knowledge sessions where we worked with lawyers and other professionals from the firm, with other diverse skills. You see the difference in the outcome.”

We believe that as more clients experience this difference, and as the client voice begins to reverberate in professional service firms, cultures will shift. When firms focus on value and experience rather than on hours billed, the culture shifts further.

The persistence of in-house experts, delivering results, can help win around the most sceptical of professionals. As Sadie concludes,

“You are as good as your last project.

Business development has to deliver time after time after time. That is the only way to win hearts and minds.”

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The second C –

Coach

Role: The role of a coach is to help the beneficiary of coaching to unlock their own answers and reach their full potential. In the context of professional services, marketeers and business developers are often the ones who hold the mirror up to professionals. This might be through challenging questions. It might be by providing an opportunity for the professionals to reflect.

We know that marketeers aren’t necessarily qualified coaches but understanding some of the ingredients of a good coaching conversation can be powerful when adopting this role.

When to wear this hat: This role is useful when the professional holds the key to the solution or where what is needed is for the professional to learn or use a new skill. An example is where business developers work with professionals before a pitch to make sure that they optimise their performance.

How does this role drive engagement: develops confidence

“No-one is ever the finished article; having a coach to hold a mirror to your face to enable you to truly understand yourself, your strengths and your weaknesses is a real opportunity” says Oliver.

Jackie agrees,

“Reflection and bringing the unconscious into the conscious mind is why coaching is so powerful.”

One of the most common limiting beliefs that Jackie sees is imposter-syndrome. She believes that most leaders have it, to varying degrees.

Oliver has seen it too, particularly with partners.

“One day you are part of the pack and the next day you are a leader; having a coach to help you with big transitions is invaluable”.

Jackie spoke to us about an experience she had when she was a young leader. Her style was initially directional. Reflecting on that now, she recognises that fear led her to be directional, which didn’t get the best out of people. Jackie now works with leaders to explore their fears and give them self-belief.

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Coaching can help professionals see that they can and should “do business development”.

This helps to build engagement.

Are we listening?

The core skill of any coach is active listening. We have seen that many firms aren’t listening to their clients well enough. Perhaps that observation is true internally too. Sadie and Sarah both draw on how important it is to listen to each other.

In order to get buy in, Sadie believes it’s important to “listen carefully to what is really needed. Using my 20+ years of experience is something I call on every day. You also have to be able to read people and adapt your style to theirs. If you get the chance to speak to clients directly, grab it. Nothing is more powerful than being able to replay back what a client said directly to help shape a project or outcome.”

Sarah agrees “it’s about understanding the people you are working with. For me the best way to get engagement is to think of the individual and then the event or activity that works for them.” With regards to understanding, she thinks that,

“There is a lack of understanding of each other’s roles which can be a barrier to buy-in.”

The key to demystifying roles is to talk. Perhaps as well as rethinking the way we communicate and partner with clients, we also need to think about how we can communicate better internally.

This in turn might help break down the first “them and us” barrier. We are, after all, all on the same team.

Barrier: limiting beliefs For Helen “another reason why professionals don’t do business development is because they see it as ‘a thing’ and believe ‘I haven’t been taught how to do that thing’. That can stop them from doing it altogether.”

Coaching can help build self-confidence and provides a time for reflection. For Jackie, it is this time for reflection that is so powerful.

Thinking about selling, a particular subset of business development, Jackie notices that,

“Lots of the skills needed to sell are similar to other skills that professionals already have. Listening, deciphering, influencing.

If you can help professionals realise where the similarities are, and then provide them with a logical framework which refines those skills, you can help them to do what it was that they were perhaps scared of.”

She continues,

“Coaching provides a heightened awareness.

When you can ask a question like ‘do you already do this?’, you bring skills to the fore.

You can also explore to what extent these skills are valued.”

The third C –

Conduct

Role: A conductor makes sure that an orchestra plays in time and together. More than that, he helps the musicians tell the story that the composer wanted to convey. There are parallels here with marketeers and business developers in professional services firms.

The role of a marketeer is to help the professionals work together as a whole to convey the message that the firm wants to give. The marketeer recognises that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and can help achieve that whole. They have the advantage of being able to see the bigger picture and understand how the parts fit together: to continue the analogy, they know the story that needs to be conveyed.

When to wear this hat: This role should be assumed when you need numerous professionals to work together to deliver. For it to work you need individuals to be bought in and motivated (so it needs to be accompanied by the coach role) and you need to have a light touch so you don’t become too directive (so you need to balance it with the consultant role).

Part 3: Are we listening to each other?

The model in practice A business developer is working with a sector team to promote the firm’s expertise acting for a particular client base. The marketing strategy identifies this sector as a driver for growth.

First, the business developer will have needed to act as a consultant, setting out why the sector is important and building credibility and gaining buy-in to the strategy.

Having a leader assume the role of a conductor isn’t a new analogy. However, in professional services firms the marketeer or business developer isn’t always seen as a leader, making it more challenging to take on this role. If one views a leader as someone who has followers, regardless of title, we can see how adopting the other two roles are important in a different way.

By being a consultant and coach, marketeers can build a following, giving them more authority to adopt the role of conductor.

How does this role drive engagement: amplifies effort Marketeers and business developers can bring out the best in a team and make sure that all individuals are rowing in the same direction. When everyone has a part to play, they each reinforce the same messages and effort is amplified.

At the heart of this is collaboration and teamwork. And, of course, the ability to listen!

Barrier: competing allegiances One of the challenges in professional services firms is that the professionals are involved in multiple teams. They might be involved in business development for a sector team, a practice group or disciplinary team, as well as a client team.

Sarah recognises this tension can be difficult to overcome,

“I have been in firms where there is a tension between a sector and a practice group. It can be hard to balance the two.”

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Acting as a conductor, the business developer can then make sure that what is written by professional A, works with what professional B plans to speak about in a webinar and with the messaging that professional C gives at a conference.

They have the sight of the whole.

However, if C is anxious about speaking, the business developer might need to act as a coach in order to make sure that they are confident in their ability to deliver the presentation.

Balancing and understanding these different allegiances, who each of the teams serve and the connections that exist between them, is at the heart of getting everyone engaged.

The fourth C –

Cheerleader

When in doubt, there is a fourth C – a secret ingredient – and that is Cheerleader. This role helps support all the other 3. Supporting the successes of professionals and shouting about them helps overcome some of the barriers we have set out here.

Helen recognises this explicitly,

“It’s good when you can bang the drum on our successes”.

Neuroscience would tell us that this ingredient triggers the mesolimbic pathway, which links motivation to reward.

Mark believes it brings out the competitive spirit, generating healthy competition.

Whatever the reason, we believe that like all secret ingredients it should be used with thought and consideration. So, sprinkle with care!

How can we use this insight?

By focusing on the individual elements of the growth equation, firms can enhance their performance.

(Clients + Strategy) x Engagement

Clients: Re-evaluate client listening programmes

Engagement: Don’t underestimate its importance

We have seen that firms need to do better when it comes to listening to clients. A good place to start is with existing client listening programmes, and asking questions such as:

We have seen that focusing on engagement in business development can enhance performance more than any of the other factors in our growth equation. We can drive engagement by:

•

Who is listening and do they have the skills needed to listen with empathy?

•

What are our KPIs? Do we focus on the number or frequency of interviews or the quality of the listening? What else could we measure?

•

Who measures effectiveness? Is it internally monitored? Can we get clients to measure the effectiveness of our programmes?

Strategy: Look to the future We have seen that having a forward-looking strategy appears to drive growth. We have heard how this needs to be balanced against an ability to adapt. We can evaluate how well our strategy stacks up by asking some questions: •

Are we thinking about what the client of tomorrow will need and how we will respond?

•

How do we deal with a changing landscape?

•

How do we work with our clients to provide solutions that they want, rather than what we think they want?

•

Carrying out a skills audit to understand what skills can be leveraged and where there are gaps;

•

Encouraging honest conversations between professionals and marketeers;

•

Rewarding engagement and recognising effort at all levels of an organisation; and

•

Marketing teams deploying the 4C model to drive collaboration with professionals.

Are we listening?

There is an overarching action that professional services firms can take that will enhance all three areas. That is to answer the question that we started with. Are we listening? To our clients.

To each other.

All firms should be asking themselves the question: do you have a culture where people are skilled listeners and trust prevails?

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Terminology – words matter As part of our survey we asked marketeers whether professionals were engaged in business development.

“Business development” is a term that can have a broad meaning in professional services. It can be used to cover the whole sales pipeline, it can be used interchangeably with marketing, it can at times be (and indeed in other sectors is) a synonym for sales.

We avoided a definition in the survey, and in the interviews conducted, to try to elicit as much insight as possible.

When we spoke to marketing directors to garner a definition of “engagement in business development” there was broad agreement that it meant everything from being on the front line selling to clients and building relationships; as well as involvement in the broad spectrum of touch points with clients, targets and referrers (e.g. speaking, content creation and networking).

We use the term “professionals” here to describe the specialists or service providers in professional services firms (i.e. lawyers/accountants/economists) rather than the business professionals in these firms who we have called “marketeers and business developers” or “internal experts”.

“High Growth Firms” were firms who had annual growth of more than 5%.

About

Client Talk Ltd was created to help drive growth in professional services firms. It does this through insight at a personal, team and firm level. We focus on the people that make a strategy. We strive to change the conversations that professional services are having with their clients and drive engagement through the use of coaching methodology.

Claire Rason is the founder of Client Talk.

She found her passion for marketing and business development over 13 years ago and has worked in leading global and regional law firms across the spectrum of marketing and business development. She has brought about significant positive change in the organisations she has worked for.

Claire is a qualified lawyer, having trained and practised at Herbert Smith Freehills. She is an accredited coach and holds a postgraduate certificate in Coaching and Behaviour Change from Henley Business School.

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To receive further copies of this report, or to arrange a meeting to discuss any of the themes contained in it, please contact info@clienttalk.co.uk Download a copy of this report at clienttalk.co.uk/are-we-listening

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