Professional services businesses are built around people, relationships, expertise and the ability to turn that expertise into valuable outcomes for clients.
Utilisation, few income, the quality of the client base, the creation of intellectual property and the development of the team all sit alongside the delivery of excellent work.
Many leaders in this space were promoted for their expertise, not for a grounding in running a business, and build their commercial and leadership capability by doing.
Many senior colleagues progress in their careers through the quality of their delivery, not for a grounding in business development, yet it is their ability to secure fee income that has the most profound impact for the firm.
Development of commercial, leadership and business development capability takes time, can be overly theoretical or purely organic, and can leave important practical areas overlooked.
Here are some thoughts.
The six areas below are a practical high level lens for thinking about the business you are running and the environment you are creating.
'When we're looking to improve our B2B business, I think a good place to start is to consider and, where necessary, take action in these six areas:
-- Firstly, the clarity and appropriateness of our offer in the context of the markets we serve and the resources, both operational and financial, available to us. We don't want to be stretched too thin or applying our efforts in areas that don't suit us or our configuration well.
-- Secondly, the quality of our customer base, paying particular attention to their ability and willingness to pay for what it is we have to offer. The better the quality of our customer base the stronger our business.
-- Thirdly, the environment we have designed, consciously or otherwise, for our people. A good question to ask and to listen carefully and take positive steps in response to is "are we as a team, are we as an individual, easy to work with and easy to work for?"
-- Fourthly, the business and people acumen of each member of our management team. The more adept our leaders are in these areas the likelier they'll set a positive, collaborative and commercial tone for their respective teams and make good decisions.
-- Fifthly, the confidence, consciousness and capability of our sales professionals to engage on a business level with business leaders and other budget holders. The more of an asset our people are to our customers the likelier we succeed.
-- Sixthly, the confidence, consciousness and capability of our non-sales customer facing professionals in building strong productive relationships both externally and internally. The closer we collaborate the stronger our bonds.'
- Rob Evans, Founder Of Outperformance Highway, Based On 35+ Years Working Inside 150+ Businesses Worldwide
Consciously or otherwise, we're always making choices.
And not all choices are equal.
We never have endless reserves of cash, time, energy and attention.
We have many ways to allocate the assets we do have.
Some steps hardly move us forward.
Perfection burns resource.
Bad choices destroy progress.
Sometimes we catch sight of a good outcome with reasonable certainty and modest cost.
We need to really go for it when we do.
How proactive and deliberate are we in finding those big leaps forward for modest investments and risk?
Why is it that so many have to leave their employer to have an opportunity to realise their potential?
Why do many leaders repeatedly feel the need to recruit from outside for senior positions?
What proportion of senior hires from outside work out well?
Could ‘better the devil we don’t know’ be a thing?
What’s more valuable, accumulated knowledge and experience of our business or of other businesses?
Are insiders overlooked for promotion opportunities as a result of poor hiring in the first place, as a consequence of employers having had longer to identify individual failings, or as an outcome of the organisation having had longer to fail to develop it’s people effectively?
Is the impact of the hiring of outsiders into senior roles on an organisation’s culture positive or negative?
How successful is our recruitment, at all levels, and how effective is our internal development?
The answers to human questions matter as much as strategic ones.
Feelings drive behaviours.
What would they say?
About us.
Are we as an individual, are we as a team, are we as an organisation, both energising to work with and energising to work for?
If all the answers are yes, we're in a great place.
If any of the answers are no, why and what are we going to do about it?
Curriculum For Your Short Free Programme
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Introduction
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Recurrent Challenges
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Helping Them
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What Is Good Leadership?
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Ways To Improve Performance
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A Short Session On PPMCLeadership™️
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A Final Word
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About this course
- Free
All of the above is drawn from 35+ years working inside 150+ businesses worldwide. It's not theory, it's what I discovered and observed working and where I saw people come unstuck.
'Luck may play a part but outperformance is never a fluke.'
- Rob Evans, Founder, Outperformance Highway