From Flip to BLIP: On Tuesday we covered The Amazing Flip or how a rainmaker can sometimes flip roles with the prospective client and get the client to try to convince the rainmaker of desirability of her firm as a client. Today, we will turn to BLIPs. BLIP is an acronym for Bottom Line Impacting Project, a term which some firms use to describe the largest opportunities they pursue, the ones most important to win. To classify as a BLIP, a project usually must have a fee above a certain amount.

One international firm limited BLIPs to those projects with fees expected to run over $4,000,000. A friend of mine, whom I will call George, was the head of marketing there. A smart man who knew a lot about selling professional services, George believed in the persuasive value of good data and he analyzed the firm’s sales data carefully. Every year he would determine the win-rate on BLIPs. This was an important statistic in a business where all projects were competitively bid, with four or five firms duking it out as finalists. In its best year, George’s firm won over sixty percent, an astounding number given the competitive nature of the business.

Then George did something interesting. He looked through the firm’s old lead lists, which management used to track opportunities the different offices were pursuing, for the date that each one of the BLIPs first appeared on it. He used this data, to determine how many months the firm was actively pursuing each project. He then calculated the win rate for each one and determined win rates by the length of each pursuit to see if there was a correlation. The results were stunning: For BLIPs the firm had pursued for more than a year the win rate was a jaw-dropping eighty percent. This is like a baseball team playing 750 ball; it’s so rare it’s hard to believe when it happens. In other words, the length of time that the firm pursued a project was a major determinant of success. In essence the analysis showed that if you only learned about an opportunity when the request for proposal arrived in the mail, your chances of winning were negligible.

This will come as no surprise to anyone who has sold professional services for a long time, but I have never seen it so clearly documented. And, just as George had predicted, the data argued persuasively for learning about projects early. Why should this be so?

There are several reasons. Selling is done through an exchange of information. The buyer gives you information on his needs and you give back information on how you can address them. The more you know about the client’s needs, the more accurate the solution you can frame and the more persuasive the words you can use to describe it. This is because the firm that knows about a client’s plans to hire a professional has more time to find out about a need. The team from that firm can talk to more people about what the client wants and talk to them more often. They may even be able to help the client better understand his problem and the kinds of help the client will need to fix it. The client selects the professionals he wants to work with and justifies his choice with logic afterwards. A firm that has early information on a client’s need has more time to develop an emotional linkage.

Also, as the number of people who learn about a pending project goes up, the more formal and limiting becomes contact between the client and the firms competing to win it. This reduction in contact is required by regulation for government projects. Though less formal in the private sector, as the number of professionals want access to the client rises, it becomes harder for the client to get work done. To avoid this, many clients limit access as the decision about whom to hire gets closer.

Anyone who has sold a lot of professional services knows this. I write this for those who haven’t, for those who see an RFP from a client as a much more promising opportunity than the longer and less direct pursuit of an as yet unidentified project by going out and talking to people who have not expressed any specific need, yet. In many cases the RFP is the illusion of an opportunity. The client has already decided which two or three firms it will choose from, and those firms have been pursuing the project for over a year.

To finesse a sale is to maneuver around facts that might hurt your chances of winning the prospective client’s business were she to know the whole truth. Those who know the term use it to describe words or acts which are legal but deceptive. We can legitimately call finessing a sharp practice. Or is it?
The Lowest-Common-Denominator Finesse (hereafter referred to as “the LCD Finesse”) is, perhaps, the most common. Many a rainmaker uses this finesse effectively to win work. They use it most often to make past client work seem relevant to the current prospect when she might not see it that way, if she knew the whole truth. If we are selling to a bank and have limited experience with banks, we might describe work we did at an insurance company as being for “another large financial institution.” When talking with a prospective client from a Zurich-based bank about work we did for a pharmaceutical company based in Geneva, it becomes “another large Swiss company.” By this logic, hotels and airlines are lumped together as travel-based businesses.

A little of this is innocent enough. After all, the descriptions we give are true. But we are withholding information which might make the client uncomfortable with our credentials. How far can this go before we cross the line into unethical behavior? Years ago, while pitching to a precision aircraft parts manufacturer, I referred to a former client in an anecdote as “another metalworking company.” This was an exceedingly low common denominator. The company in my story made the metal straps that tie goods to pallets to for shipping. The two companies had almost nothing in common, and the aircraft parts manufacturer would almost certainly have discounted my story, if I had told him the whole truth.

But the story did have a message, one important for the client to hear and that was relevant to his situation. Was I wrong to tell the story in a way that made it compelling to him? I am not sure. Would it have been better to tell it in a way that made the differences between his company and the one in the story blatantly clear and in doing so risk his rejection of a point that was imprortant for him to hear? That doesn’t feel right either. I can say that we did use the LCD in the story we told, he hired us and later provided us with a good reference many times.

A former client called me to discuss the loss to a competitor of an assignment she had set her heart on winning. She had been told that the competitor was seen as a better fit with the company’s collaborative culture. “It’s not true! I know those people,” she said. The presentation had seemed to go well and she had sensed that the selection committee had been favorably impressed.
There was one awkward moment. She had been asked how updates on progress would be handled. “I told them how we do it, and one of the committee members started pushing for more frequent updates. I said we could do that, though I wasn’t sure too many more were warranted, given the amount of information that we were likely to have to pass on.” She wasn’t sure who the man was.

There are several possible missteps in this description, but what I expect hurt her most was trying to answer a boomerang question. Beware of the boomerang questions. They can cost you the sale.

A boomerang question is one the speaker asks you, hoping that you will ask the same question of him. For example, imagine you are in a sales meeting with senior people from the client organization. One of them comes from the staff of that part of the organization you work with most closely, be that the finance, human resources, information technology, legal or some other department. This person is ten years older than you and will have day-to-day responsibility for the matter you hope to help with. We will call her the engagement manager. You are describing your team, when she asks, “Typically, what is the role of the engagement manager when you work on this kind of issue?”

Answer this question at your peril! A rainmaker will immidiately bass the question back to th client. The chances are high that the prospective client doesn’t want you to answer. Instead she wants to be heard on the subject. Give the wrong answer and you will find yourself in an argument or worse have created a silent enemy who will kill your chances of winning once you are out of the room. An appropriate response is, “That depends a lot on the engagement manager. Do you have any thoughts on the subject?”

Boomerang questions are a subset of a larger group, called recognition questions, used by speakers when they want to state an opinion. Other kinds of recognition questions are much easier to identify. Often they are statements introduced with a short phrase like, “Isn’t it true that . . .” Boomerang questions are a special case, because they are so much harder to recognize.

Here are two more examples:

1. During a discussion of how you will do the required work, someone says, “Have you ever tried . . .?” Look at the prospective client. Does his facial expression suggest that this is an inquiry or does it suggest he has something he wants to say?
2. After meeting the president and CFO of the prospective client, the young staff members who first called and screened you by telephone, asks, “How do you think the meeting went?” You have sensed all along that he wants you to win. Does he really want your opinions about how the meeting went or does he have something to tell you and is simply being polite by starting the discussion this way.

Boomerang questions are common. You probably use them, yourself. (Honey, do you have any plans for Friday evening?) But don’t . . . don’t ever . . . confuse them with a request for information.

Rainmakers aren’t born, they are made. All of our research and experience shows that. And usually there is an event when someone suddenly gets it. They get an insight into selling that allows them to embrace it.

Some people have that experience early in their lives. Rainmaker and civil engineer, Steve Rush, got it one night as a ten-year old selling newspaper subscriptions door to door in Ohio. To win a contest, he had to get fifteen new customers to sign up and he was three short. For three hours he went house to house, but no one was interested. He was ready to quit, but his mother said, “Let’s try just one more.” The next three houses in a row signed up. Steve learned perseverance and the numbers game aspects of business development.

Most people get it later in their lives: Rainmaker and architect, Guy Geier, got it one day on the golf course with a client from a Japanese company. He had had little success at selling his firm’s services until that day. And he suddenly knew why. That day he realized that having the creative and technical skills and track record on similar projects weren’t enough to win. Those things might get you in front of a client or even short-listed for a project. But, in the end, prospective clients go with the firm they feel most comfortable with and that usually means they have a relationship with someone there. He realized he needed those relationships, himself, and could not delegate that part of the effort to a business developer.

A management consultant in her late thirties, whom I will call Naomi for no particular reason, was going through the motions of trying to sell without much success. Following a suggestion, she asked for a meeting with one of her clients, an executive with a Fortune 100 company based in a southern city. She began her meeting by saying, “I’m looking for some advice. I’m at the point in my career when I need to start selling business, and I want to do it the right way. You’ve seen a lot of professionals in your day, and, I’m sure, some of them have sold to you in ways you found appropriate and others didn’t. I want to know what I should be doing.”

The client reflected for a moment and said, “You should ask me more often. I know most of the leading business people in this city, and I would be happy to introduce you, now that I know it would help you. But I’m busy, so it would help if you reminded me from time to time.” And that’s when Naomi got it. Most clients aren’t offended by being asked for business, as long as it’s done appropriately. And many are glad to help, if they know you want the help. Networks are made up of people trying to help each other. But you have to ask.

Attorney Eric Bergner got it over a lunch he had arranged between two friends, one with a major cable TV company and the other a screen playwright peddling a script. Says Bergner, “The two hit it off immediately and it was obvious they would do business together and they were so appreciative. A lot has come back to me from that simple act, which I enjoyed doing. It changed my whole orientation about selling, from looking for things for me to looking for things for other people.”

A Canadian actuary made a call on a prospective client. During the meeting, the client mentioned that the agent at an insurance company, who had been assigned to her company, wasn’t returning phone calls. Knowing the company, the actuary offered to call in her behalf. The next day, when he, too, had not received a return call, he called the switchboard and learned that the man in question had quit. His voicemail had accidentally remained connected. The actuary spoke to the replacement, who promised to call the client. The actuary then called the client, himself, to explain what had happened. She said, “Gee, I mentioned the problem to the actuary we use, and he didn’t offer to help.” At that moment, the actuary got it.

Of course, some never get it. But, it’s a memorable moment when you do.

Some professionals have thinking habits that make it hard for them to succeed as rainmakers. These habits result in logical errors that reflect the professionals’ inexperience. I will address specific kinds of thinking habits from time to time in this blog. The first is what I call the Build-It-And-They-Will-Come Fallacy. People making this error assume that if they make one highly visible effort, business will come. They feel surprised and almost cheated when it doesn’t.

The Brochure and Website Fallacies are, perhaps, the most common versions of this fallacy. They are especially common when professionals start a firm or a new practice. In many such cases professionals rush to create a brochure or a website and then wait for the business to come in. It doesn’t.
Here are a two more examples of such thinking:

• Attorneys from a major law firm made a presentation to the several members of a private equity firm to introduce their services, knowing that deals these people worked on produced millions of dollars in legal fees each year. When no work resulted from the pitch within three months, the head of the Corporate Practice at the law firm declared the effort a failure. Actually, the attorneys had made a good impression on the people they presented to, about all that could be expected from one meeting.
• Several partners at a management consulting firm said that giving speeches didn’t work for their firm. Over the years, they have given many speeches and never turned up any new business from it. They had done little, if any, follow-up work after the speeches, apparently waiting at the phone for calls from prospective clients, who would say, “I heard what you said last week and thought it so wonderful that I was hoping, just hoping, you could come to our company and . . .” When they had an opportunity to speak, these partners often arrived at the events shortly before they were scheduled to speak and rushed back to their clients as soon at their speech was over. When they began to treat speeches as simply one element out of many needed to build relationships with prospective clients, they began to win business.

The illogic of these people may seem laughably obvious, as I describe it here. I assure you that it wasn’t obvious to them at the time, and I see examples of smart, hard-working professionals committing the Build-It-and-They-Will-Come Fallacy all the time. Remember, there are many steps to getting a client to hire you. One event is unlikely to generate business, and if it does, recognize that this is unusual and lucky, rather than the norm. You need persistence to get new clients. 

Oh, I almost forgot to mention; building a stadium in a cornfield in Iowa is unlikely to bring legendary baseball players back from their graves and rest homes to play one last game together. I hope I haven’t broken too may hearts by passing this along.

He charmed everyone.  He greeted you with a glint in his eye and a laugh. His first words showed that he remembered you and made you feel special.  Being with him gave you a lift.  Spend fifteen minutes with this man and you came away all charged up. 
 

He was like everyone’s ideal kid brother, smart and spunky.  That he stood no more than five feet, five inches contributed to the impression.  I remember watching him present to a prospective client and thinking, “I sure like that kid.  I hope he gets it.”  Yet I knew he was almost twenty years older than I was.
 

I used to wonder how anyone could be that charming. That isn’t to say that he wasn’t a tough businessman.  He was.  Or that he was flawless.  He wasn’t, any more than anyone else is.  But the charm was special.
 

One day we were working in his office, when his assistant announced over the intercom that Marie Smith (I don’t remember the real name) was on the line.  He walked to the phone, paused, and put his hand up to signal me to keep quiet.  He paused again, pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, closed his eyes and remained frozen for several seconds.  Then, suddenly animated, he reached for the phone.  He laughed lightly, “Marie! It must be almost a year to the day since we saw you at . . .”
 

He had paused to prepare these few words!  That was when I realized that the personal touch, which made him so special, was something he worked at.
 

So, if you want someone to feel special, pause for a moment to recall something special about them.

After weeks of heavy travel, it feels good to be in the office again.  My chair is familiar.  My mug sits on the shelf where I left it waiting to be filled with tea.  I have easy access to old-fashioned paper files.  Briefly, there are no immediate deadlines or airplanes to catch or sales meetings to get to.  I can wade through a little of the pile of small matters that have accumulated while I have been away.  It’s all comfortable.  Too comfortable!

(more…)