The Most Effective BD Strategy: Great Marketing

In professional service firms, marketing and BD strategy is all about enabling practitioners to bring in new clients and revenue. But consider the following:

• A Forrester Research study revealed that according to the executives surveyed, 85% of meetings did not add enough value, and 83% percent of executives say they would probably not schedule a follow-up.
• Reinforcing that research, SiriusDecisions asked client-side executive about the quality of interactions with providers: 90% said potential provider meetings did not provide enough value to warrant the time spent on them, and
• According to Achieve Global research, in the majority of unsuccessful client meetings, providers did not offer sufficient insight into the client’s situation or issues.

What does this tell us? That what most practitioners communicate with clients is not perceived as providing enough value to warrant further conversations, and that there is a high probability that the client will move their decision process to procurement and RFPs.

To be able to maintain ongoing sales conversations with clients, practitioners need to better demonstrate the value they provide by answering the questions ‘why change?’ and ‘why now?’ Rather than just ‘why us?’. And that’s where great marketing can help! Here’s how:

Help Practitioners to Demonstrate Value

The days when prospective clients would call your firm directly, already knowing the value you provided, and would sole source your solution are long gone.  In today’s procurement economy, you need to create opportunities, not wait for them to come to you. Because if you do it will be in the form of an RFP.

Creating opportunities is done through demonstrating value―insights into the clients issues or problems. This is done by communicating “before” and “after” stories. And it’s the contrast between the two that creates a powerful perception of value. The bigger the contrast you can create between the “pain” the clients experienced before your solution and the “gain” they experienced with your solution, the greater the perceived value. This should be baked into marketing communication.

Help Practitioners to Tell a Compelling and Memorable Story

Typically, when practitioners prepare for conversations with prospects, they usually focus on getting all the facts straight about their services. That’s great, but they also need to prepare to connect with clients personally – and the best way to do that is through stories. Telling personal stories, as well as using metaphors and analogies, helps bring your message to life.

Once marketing can help practitioners to share stories as part of the way they communicate with clients, they’ll see client relationships change and become deeper and more rewarding.

Mike Moriarity is the Chair of the Navigating the Procurement Economy Summit Conference 2017 to be held in Toronto on Feb 15, 2017 and is President of WinningNewBusiness.ca an online marketing and business development learning system designed specifically for professional service firms and their practitioners. You can read more of his musings here. You can also find him on Twitter