It is shameless to refer to our clients as game animals that we hunt down and eat, but sometimes we are weak.  And I bet our clients sometimes give in to the temptation when talking about their customers. 

So, I don’t worry about the occasional lapse and wasn’t surprised when Peter told me he needed to bag an elephant if he wanted to make partner.  In recent years he had sold enough work to keep himself and two others busy.   But in a meeting with his boss he had been told that he needed to bring in bigger assignments from bigger clients if he wanted to make partner.

“I have a habit of shooting at rabbits.  Bagging a gnu would probably do,” he said, “But if I want to be sure, it better be an elephant.” 

So, we talked through the problem, one that I see at least a couple of times a year.  It might be called The Quick Kill problem, if that weren’t so shameless.  Peter was good, extremely good, at identifying a small need, convincing the client that he could resolve it, and getting agreement to get started.  These assignments averaged about $50,000, which meant that he had to sell about two of them a month.  That he would periodically land matters with associated fees of $150,000 to $200,000, made reaching his targeted annual origination credits easier.

But the firm’s management wasn’t interested in assignments returning less than $250,000 in fees and was trying actively to increase the size of its engagements and the quality of its clientele.  They wanted more elephants.  At this firm that meant assignments worth $500,000 or more.  Peter’s small sales dragged down averages for the whole firm.  And the longer he went after small assignments, the tougher it would be to win any big ones.  Here’s why:

You are mentally in the wrong place.  The whole rhythm of the sales effort, including number of calls and meetings per sale, the number of people both in the client’s organization and in your own that you must work with to make the sale, the amount of competition and the frequency with which you win a new assignment are dramatically different when selling many small projects than when you are pursuing a few large ones.  The large ones require you to make a sale only once or twice a year, compared to the small ones that must be sold once or twice a month. 

Behaviorally and psychologically that requires you to be in different places when trying to win small projects frequently and a big one every once in a while.  It’s hard to ask prospective clients for $50,000 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then ask for $1,000,000 on Thursday.

You get labeled: Clients come to see you as the small projects person, and so don’t think of you for larger ones, or worse, think of you briefly and then rule you out.  Once pigeon-holed that way, getting them to see you as right for the big assignments is hard work.  

You know the wrong people at the account, those who work on small projects rather than those who work on big ones.  Getting past these contacts can be tricky.  The small project people may feel possessive about you and the big project people may see no reason to spend time with you.

You devote precious time on the wrong companies: You’re selling small things to small clients who will never have the resources to retain you for big assignments.  Time you spend on these clients is time you could otherwise spend on developing relationships at big companies.

To get big projects you often need to turn down small ones:  Winning a big assignment often requires convincing a client that the small problem is only a symptom of a large one.  You have to risk coming away empty handed to have a chance of getting work on something bigger and more important.  If you are good at selling big ones, small ones aren’t worth your time.

Peter agreed with all these points and promised to turn away small opportunities in the future.  Two months later he was back to his old habits.  For the first month he had turned away all the small opportunities, resulting in his sales for the month dropping to zero.  When the first two weeks of the second month also produced nothing, he buckled and sold three small projects during the remaining weeks.  “I’ve had my fill of selling nil,” he quipped. 

We talked again about the different rhythms of small sales and large ones, and that several months of no sales is expected by people selling large assignments,  He has again sworn off small sales, and we will see what happens.

*  *  *  *  *

In the interests of transparency and honesty, I am obliged to inform you that Peter is a composite of several professionals I have worked with.  The issues that he had to deal with will be recognized by anyone who has sold professional services for a long time.
 

For 20 years I have heard the complaint that cross selling, the selling of multiple services to the same client, doesn’t work.  There are a number of reasons why cross selling doesn’t live up to expectations.  A principal cause was pointed out by David Maister in his book, True Professionalism: people try to do it when there is no apparent extra value to the client from using the same firm for two services.  Clients are usually good at figuring this out. 

Here I focus on another reason: people treat cross markets as if they are an easier channel to sell through than others.  They aren’t. 

This false expectation manifests itself in several ways.  First, people who don’t know how to sell externally think that, for some reason, they should be able to cross sell.  They are the ones who look for an easy way to get business.  They may be able to close a deal if a client comes to them, but they don’t know how to go out in the market place and find one.  Account teams made up of such people meet monthly to talk about how they will cross sell to a specific client.  They then do little to further the cause, meeting again a month later to talk some more. 

The misconception that cross selling is easy is also manifested in how people talk about it.  Poor cross sellers are quick to tell others what they should be doing, as in “You should be able to get me in there.”  They overestimate what colleagues are able to do, as in “You control the client; you should be able to get me an introduction.”

Good cross sellers are good sellers.  A good cross seller treats the cross market like any other market.  She works hard to service the colleagues she hopes will introduce her to a client.  She talks with them often, building trust over time, helping them learn what words to use when introducing her and her service.  She finds ways to help them sell their own services, too.  She patiently earns their trust and respect.  Of all the people she can sell through, she picks out those who know how to sell and are willing to introduce her, not wasting time on those who can’t or won’t.  She leaves out should statements, relying on firm and practice management to create an environment that she can cross sell in.  In short, she treats the cross market pretty much like she treats any other.

One of the best cross sellers I know, Peter Blatman, who is now with Deloitte Consulting, won over the sales force of the firm he was with at the time.  First, he first demonstrated the power of cross selling by bringing in a huge engagement that required many of the firm’s services.  He then encouraged his consulting team to earn the respect and interest of the sales force.  He got agreement from his team to respond to all calls from members of sales force within 24 hours.  Over three years, revenues of his practice from work originating with the sales force shot up from almost nothing to 70 percent.  In other words, he put as much effort into the cross market as he would any other he hoped to get business from.  And it paid of.

In that respect, cross markets are not so different from any other market.

I recently learned how a management consultant I had worked with four years ago (I will refer to him at the New Rainmaker or NRM) brought in almost $20 million in new revenues in one last this year. This was ten times more revenue than he had produced in any other year and at a firm where a million dollar project is considered big. Many factors contributed to the spectacular increase. Let’s look at one.

Over two years ago NRM went to firm management and said he wanted to devote his full attention to one client where he was working on a small matter and where he saw huge potential. He had a number of reasons for assessing it a good opportunity. He saw focusing his attention on one account as his best chance to bring about a major jump in sales. Management cautioned him that if he focused exclusively on this client and it didn’t give him more work soon, it would reduce his bonus. He took the risk.
The prediction came true; his bonus declined for two years. When I saw him a year ago, things weren’t looking good. He had several proposals in to the client and no one was acting on them. Unbeknownst to him, the client was planning a major change that captured everyone’s full attention. He continued to invest time and effort in the client.The client’s big change was announced and work on it completed. Management returned its attention to the issues addressed in NRM’s proposals. They signed these proposals and asked for more. The dam had burst. The bet NRM had made on getting work from this one client had paid off. It had paid off big.

NRM had been able to make this bet, because he recognized that he had crossed a major financial inflection point. Most people are in a poor position to absorb a major drop in income. If you live in an expensive city and earn $80,000, a thirty per cent drop leaves you with $56,000, a sum that would be hard to live on for, say, a family of four. People whose living costs are high relative to their incomes are naturally income risk sensitive. This is where most of us start our careers.

This isn’t true of someone who earns a lot of money and has kept family spending under control. So, a person earning $800,000, who takes a 30 percent cut, still gets $560,000. If she lives on $200,000 a year this results in no reduction in life style. It just reduces the amount she saves. Wealthier people can accept risk that results in a short-term decline in income but offers a huge payoff a few years later. They are more likely to become risk takers with at least some of their income.

NRM had figured this out and realized that (though he earned nowhere near $800,000) the level of his income relative to his living costs had risen to a point where he could risk a decline for a year or two, if he could get a large enough payoff in the end. Though there were unnerving moments, he won the bet and will reap a stunning financial reward. A lot of people never recognize when they no longer need to be so income risk adverse and make bets accordingly. They sometimes miss big opportunities.