Rainmaking Problem #9: Lead Generation When Your Back is to the Wall
(This is part of my series on Rainmaker Problems. I hope you will leave a comment with your thoughts on a solution to this problem.)
At any one time a professional in a mature practice is usually pursuing several opportunities. That not only diversifies risk, but also reduces pressure to win any one of them. To get to this state a professional building a practice almost always passes through a period when there is only one big lead. The pressure the professional feels to win it can be counterproductive.
Lenore is the primary salary earner in her family, juggling the demands of being a mother and a professional. She joined a new firm eighteen months ago. At the level at which she was hired, she is expected to bring in about $1 million in fees a year. The year is not off to a promising start, and she feels tremendous pressure to generate business quickly. Her client base from her former firm is largely irrelevant to her current situation.
Lenore’s most immediate problem is lead flow. Two weeks ago she had
leads for two assignments, each worth about $250,000 in fees, and having potential for significant add-on work. She lost one two a small competitor, and so is down to one. That one she generated at a meeting with the CEO of a client company to discuss a current assignment. She introduced a subject not on the agenda and found he was looking for help in that area. She will be making a competitive presentation on her firm’s approach to this problem and its capabilities in a couple of weeks. Afterwards, win or lose, her lead count will drop to zero, unless she can turn up some more in the interim. That fact intensifies her need to win this client to a degree that does not help her.
What can she do to reduce the pressure or to deal with it effectively?
(Got a problem selling professional services? Feel free to email me your problem and it may become a future “Rainmaking Problem of the Week.”)
February 4th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Hey Ford,
Great question, dealing with a situation I’m sure is becoming much more common these days. For me the biggest transition I made in my career as a professional service seller was when I shifted the focus from winning to serving.
The interesting thing about traditional selling, especially in the professions, is that it wears on both seller and buyer. In a bad economy, the pressure is even greater. When we think in terms of “pursuits” and “capture plans” the focus is clearly on us and our needs. The downside? Well, customers in general are turned off by the seller’s evident self-interest. That’s at the heart of why selling is among the least respected professions.
It creates an almost adversial relationship where the client becomes challenge to overcome in order to win. And the fact that you really need to win multiplies the pressure. That pressure makes it all the more likely that your self-interest will show. A vicious cycle.
When I decided to abandon the traditional predatory sales approach, I both relieved much of that pressure and became more successful at generating new business. My focus shifted to who can I help and how? Even when I lost opportunities, I still felt the client had benefited from our association and I looked forward to other opportunities to help that client.
That’s not to suggest that I jettisoned my competitive ways. But rather than trying to prove that my firm was best, I worked at out-serving the competition during the sales process. That strategy has worked more often than not.
So that would be my suggestion to Lenore: Stop worrying so much about winning and focus on serving. That may not ensure success on this immediate opportunity, but ultimately both she and the clients she encounters will be well served.
Mel
February 4th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Lenore needs to get back to basics of using her network and reaching out to new prospects via cold calling using her network to warm up these calls.
February 4th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Generating leads and winning business fast is always tricky in professional services. For most services, most client needs arise relatively infrequently; and the trust and credibility needed to win a sale take time to build up.
So if you want to fill a pipeline quickly, it implies that you need to be marketing/selling to clients who are already aware of a need (so you don’t have to make them aware of it or nurture it over time - although there’s a risk here that they may have predefined ideas and/or be working with a partner already); and ones where you already have a pre-established degree of credibility and trust.
Normally that means selling to existing clients, or getting referrals from existing clients or close partners (who can be aware of a potential client with a pressing need, and can give a stong endorsement).
It sounds like Lenore doesn’t have a large existing client base with her new firm which she can leverage. But I’m guessing that in 18 months she will have at least have built up a reasonable contact network of people who trust her and her firm’s capabilities. An active campaign to get referrals from these folks could help. The usual rules apply: be very clear on who you’re looking to get a referral to, and why introducing you would be helpful to them and the person being referred to. Researching and targeting specific firms likely to need her services can help the referrer rather than being generic in the description of who she would like a referral too.
Starting networking or other activities like public speaking, article writing, PR etc. from scratch sounds like they would take longer than Lenore has available to pay off in terms of opportunities (excellent approaches though they may be).
The much maligned approach of cold calling may actually help if the conditions are right. If client needs are visible from outside the firm (or the trigger events which cause the needs - perhaps a merger, or a new manager joining) or if Lenore’s services are valuable pretty much all the time (e.g. cost reduction consulting services) - and the size of a win justifies the long hours that are going to have to be put in to actually get through to someone and get a meeting - then it can pay off. To be frank, having your back against the wall is potentially the best position for cold calling - if there are other options then the pain of repeated rejection is often too painful to deal with.
Ian
February 4th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Ian and Clifton,
As you say, one way for Lenore to reduce the pressure is to get more leads. She works at this, though they are harder to come by than they were eighteen months ago.
Mel
The suggestion to focus on service is a good one. It is important to remind ourselves that one determinant of who is a professional is service by always putting the client’s interest first. That mindset may help Lenore.
Still, there are bills to pay.
Ford Harding
February 4th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Hmmm - I think I see what you’re hinting at Ford.
In terms of purely reducing pressure to allow Lenore to perform well at the upcoming pitch, there are probably three factors to think about:
1) The real pressure her boss is exerting on her to hit the numbers.
2) The perception she has that her boss is pressuring her to hit the numbers (which may be more than the real pressure).
3) The degree to which this pressure is affecting her focus on the upcoming pitch.
For 1 and 2, a productive discussion with her boss about the upcoming pitch, and Plan B if they don’t win will at least help her understand what the real pressure is. It may be that her boss will be fine with her bringing in the leads later. It may even be that she can enlist his help with other lead generation activities. Either way, at least she will know where she stands and it may well be less of a make-or-break pitch than she thinks.
In terms of not allowing the pressure to win to put her off her game - I’ve always found that (similar to Mel) if I focus on working with the client to design the very best solution for them (rather than pitching how good I am) then I can get so engrossed in that intellectually that I somewhat forget the pressure to win. And focusing on what’s best for the client usually helps me win.
Ian
February 5th, 2009 at 6:46 am
Ian:
Excellent suggestions. It is easy to infer more pressure than is intended in today’s environment. And keeping one’s professional perspective is important, if hard when you are a breadwinner, too.
Any thoughts on breathing exercises? Managing one’s physical self is a part of the issue.
Ford
February 5th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Hey Ford,
I certainly didn’t intend to ignore the need to generate more leads. But let’s consider why professionals don’t generate enough leads and, even worse, fumble or neglect most of the leads they do uncover. The primary hindrance in my experience of working with professionals is a general discomfort with selling. I’ve witnessed that when professionals shift the focus from selling to serving, sales activity increases–sometimes dramatically. Research indicates that the biggest obstacle to effective selling is one’s mindset, not method or markets. I suspect that’s the main reason Lenore finds herself in such a precarious position.
Mel
February 5th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Gosh Ford, breathing exercises suggests that Lenore/you suspect that the pressure will have an impact on her performance once it’s “showtime” on the day rather than just keeping her mind on the preparation (which is what I’d been thinking of).
I wonder then, if there is also an element of performance anxiety mingled in there too - and that may be something to address.
I must admit, “stage fright” has never been a big issue for me (quite the reverse) so I don’t feel really qualified to comment too much on this area.
In my spare time though, I have been through quite a bit of training in the performing arts. It might be interesting/useful for Lenore to look there for inspiration. Correct breathing is one important factor (breathing from the diaphragm rather than the inter-costal muscles) and I learned a basic technique for good breathing before going “on stage” which can be used before presentations or whenever stress sets in too. The basic technique is :
* Breathe in slowly, for a count of four
* Hold it for four beats
* Breathe out slowly, for a count of eight
* Hold it for four beats once more before you breathe in again
Keep your shoulders level while doing this rather than letting them rise.
Breathing like this helps in two ways - it apparently effects hormone release (and gets more oxygen into the blood) - and it also takes your mind of the problem because you’re focusing on your breathing. It also really helps the sound of your voice!
There are also mental exercises performers run through which help them to ease the stress. A good example is: http://www.davidleisner.com/guitarcomposer/noname.html
Hope this helps
Ian
February 5th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Mel:
I think your initial comments were right on point as I do your followup. My concern for Lenore is that the pressure she feels has, at times, been counter productive. Your suggestion to focus on serving is one way to help with this problem. Whether it will be sufficient by itself–and you may not have been suggesting that it will–time will tell.
My goal is to identify as many avenues as possible to help her deal with the stress she feels so that it doesn’t get in the way of her succeeding. My suspicision is that she will need to do a number of things. Focusing on service and making sure she knows where she stands with her boss are two good ones. Are there more? (I ask this last question more generally, not just of you, Mel.) One of the benefits of blogging is the potential to access many perspective and ideas quickly. The longer the list of ways to help Lenore, the better the chances of finding the ones that will work in her specific case. I have an analagous case at another firm, with a man I will call Chester. He is a different person in a different firm, and I suspect the answers for him will differ from the best ones for Lenore. But, the answers can be found in the same broad list of options. It is the options list that I want to assemble and enhance. You and Clifton and Ian have all helped in doing that.
Thanks for the comment.
Ford Harding
February 6th, 2009 at 2:12 am
Hi Ford, two things jump out at me.
The need to identify, clarify and manage expectations. Upwards management is a skill in itself.
The second is the need to feel positive - which includes (on a mini-level) breathing exercises - but there is much, much, much more to it. The best time to win a pitch is just after you have won another pitch. The client can smell the success.
On the flip-side, the client can also smell desperation or fear or failure.
If there are no “other successful” pitches to focus on, she needs to reframe past successes (they don’t all need to be in business) and take that mindset into the room.
Confidence is key in selling professional services - these people don’t have the time or the patience for any timidity, uncertainty or need. They only want experts who are sure of themselves. They must need you - otherwise the conversation will be over soon!
February 6th, 2009 at 7:14 am
Ian:
Most helpful. Thanks for the link, too.
Peter:
The visualizing success suggestion is another good one. You are dead right about the need for assurance.
Ford Harding
Peter’s blog is a visual knockout for anyone who hasn’t seen it.
FH
February 10th, 2009 at 6:57 am
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