It’s only reasonable to assume that identifying opportunities for work is key to building a pipeline of business. Yet, rather than chasing the work, it may seem counter-intuitive, but it is actually better to identify the key people you need to develop a better client relationship with.
When you’re creating your Business Development, Sales, or Key Client plans, of course, you will look at how much revenue you think you may be able to achieve from those clients you have identified. Hopefully, you’ve also checked whether you feel the work you are investing time in winning will be profitable or not as well.
The next stage that most people will take is to look at the upcoming opportunities for work within the clients identified. It’s only logical and sensible to have a list of potential or known upcoming RFPs and opportunities identified.
However, too much focus on these can take yours and your team’s eyes off of what is really important: building client relationships with the key individuals within the client and gaining a broader and better understanding of what’s important to them.
Only talking to clients or prospects when actively chasing a piece of work can be hugely detrimental to your client relationships.
The “I Want Your Money” Trap
There is a commonly held belief that you have to ask for the work, or you won’t get it. This is interesting as I’ve conducted many client interviews where clients have said, “I like working with X and Y, but I wish they’d stop asking (they often use the phrase begging) for the work. We know they want the work; they are a consultancy, of course, they want the work.”
Put yourself in your client’s shoes. Would you really enjoy having someone pestering you and demanding to get work from you?
Therefore, it pays to build a client relationship and develop trust so that they discuss the work with you and how you can help them. The difference is you want them to ask you rather than you sell yourself to them.
They Only Talk to Me When They Want My Money
This is the ‘opportunity’ or RFP tracking trap. Most professionals don’t know how to talk to their clients once they have completed the work. Having a new piece of potential work coming up means they feel more comfortable talking to their clients, as they are knowledgeable in this area.
However, this means that your clients only see you when you are either earning money from them or talking to them about how you can potentially take more money from them. Therefore, they most likely feel that you only talk to them when there is something in it for you. This is not the basis for a trusted or sustainable client relationship.
Get to Know Your Clients
Which leads to my main point. To build successful client relationships, you need to adopt the right mindset and create the right habits to build and develop those long-term profitable relationships.
This is why the key to success is developing good client relationships with your key contacts. It pays to invest time in getting to know them. This goes beyond social rapport; in a business context, you also need to understand what their overall goals are and what they are working on in totality. By this, I mean take an interest in their business and them as people. Don’t narrow the conversation just to the areas you can help them with.
If they need help you can’t provide, that’s actually a great outcome. You can introduce them to someone within your network or your colleague’s network who can help them.
Make the Right Time Investment
The most valuable commodity in BD or sales is time. You have a finite amount of it. As a professional services practitioner who also provides the services you sell, you have even less of it.
This means that to build a sustainable and successful practice, you need to invest your BD time in doing the most effective activities. Put simply, that’s building strong client relationships with your clients and prospective clients. This helps you become their provider of choice.
By taking an interest in what’s important to them, they will start to share many of their challenges with you, including the ones that you can help them with. They’ll also seek your advice early in the piece, which means you’ll be ideally placed to win the work if they do choose to go to market for it. Of course, if you build a strong enough relationship, it is likely that they will just simply appoint you.
Conclusion – What You Track Determines How You Behave
Firstly, there is nothing wrong with winning work and growing your revenue. That is what all companies need to do. However, successful companies and firms have a winning strategy and a ‘why’ as to what they do and how they do it. When it comes to doing BD or sales in professional services, rather than saying you are client-centric, make your BD plans and activities focus on getting to know and supporting your clients better. That way, not only are you building stronger client relationships, you’re also living and breathing client-centric behaviour.