Two new books of interest to aspiring rainmakers and managers of profession service firms came out this summer.

The first is The Integration Imperative by Suzanne C. Lowe [Professional Services Books, 1990].   It deals with what I believe will be the single biggest issue in business development at professional services firms in coming years, the integration of sales and marketing.  Professional service firms are well behind traditional product firms in this area.  This results, I suspect, from two major causes.    First, selling was a forbidden word in the professions for many years and still is at a few firms.  If you can’t talk about it, you can’t manage it.

Second, marketing has been a poorly defined term in the professions, in part, because it was often used as a euphemism for selling.  When not referring to selling, marketing has been used vaguely to refer to a collection of activities, including public relations, advertising, running seminars and the like.   This is a far cry from the sophisticated understanding of marketing found at product companies where the term refers to the selection and positioning of products in carefully selected markets and the way a company goes about taking those products to the  markets.

Professional firms which successfully integrate sales and marketing will have a big advantage.  Some already do.  Lowe has sought out a number of these firms and studied what they have done.

The book is divided into three parts.  The first covers why integration of marketing and sales is important and the second provides guidance on how to do it.  These are both well worth reading and studying.  Still, it is the third part that I found most interesting.  I am a sucker for case studies, and Lowe has outdone herself in this section by providing detailed studies of eleven firms across the professions.

The second book, Winning the Professional Services Sale by Michael W. McLaughlin [Wiley, 2009], neatly complements the first by providing an in-depth look at how professionals should handle a sales meeting.  It covers both the strategy and tactics of face-to-face selling from how to prepare, draw out the client’s needs, deal with surprises, prepare proposals, present, negotiate and set up the second sale.  McLaughlin also addresses critical subjects that are infrequently written about, such as when to walk away from a sale.

McLaughlin provides practical advice that is clearly based on a lot of personal experience.  For example, early in the first chapter he states that in a sales meeting every client has three burning questions of a professional:

•    Do you really understand what we need?
•    Can you do what you claim?
•    Will you work well with us?

Anyone who has sold professional services knows that these are the fundamental questions.

Though I may not agree with everything McLaughlin says, his arguments are well worth reading and a valuable check on opinions that all of us hold about selling.  This book is a good choice for anyone learning to sell professionals services and also for those interested in refreshing and sharpening established skills.

The fastest place to generate business in a down economy is often by recontacting old clients.  This is true even if they have changed jobs and you have lost touch with them.  Payboxpluginreview.com  provides a number of ways to find a contact you have lost touch with, as well as linkages to other useful sites, including the National Open Records Search Project.  These can be added to those referenced in my post, Rainmaker Resource #4: Tracking Down a Contact.  As before, my prefered way to find a lost contact is to call a mutual friend, which gives me an opportunity to rekindle a second relationship.  For additional suggestions on how to rekindle a relationship see my post of May 5, 2008.

(Blogger’s Note:  Some readers may note that both Ian Brodie and I use the term Rainmaker Resource. I for a category of post and he for the title of a blog.  In case anyone is curious, we are both aware of this sharing of the term and agree that it bothers us not at all.)

Readers use this blog and others to learn how to make rain, stay current with new ideas or to refresh knowledge.  I hope you get those things from this blog and feel honored by your confidence.  It is only fair to tell you that this blog or any other, or any book or newsletter or video isn’t always the best place.

That’s because, as I mentioned in an earlier post, Rainmaking = Doing, if you go somewhere that people network, you can watch them do it and then try it, yourself.  And try it again.  This is what professional associations are for. (Well, one of several things they are for). I was reminded of this in a recent post by Mark Buckshon about the value of working associations to get close to prospective clients.

When I knew nothing . . . nothing about business development, pros like Nancy Cameron-Egan, Karen Randall and the late Oscar Megerdichian showed me how at association meetings.  In an earlier post I described how I observed Dennis Donovan, then a skilled competitor, network with speakers at such events.

When I was first given a senior management position at a consulting firm, I had the good fortune to attend an Association of Management Consulting Firms (AMCF) meeting.  I learned more there about running an office and a practice and helping to direct a firm than I could possibly have learned anywhere else.  I could ask questions and get answers that would have been impossible within the confines of the firm I was with.  If I were a new senior executive at a management consulting firm, that’s an organization that I would make time for.  I make time for it today, too, and don’t regret a minute spent there.  Some of the most senior executives of some of the largest consulting firms also make time for AMCF in their busy schedules.  Something must be happening there, don’t you think?

The Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) is a critical resource for anyone involved in business development at architecture, engineering and construction firms.  I have gone to as many meetings of this organization and to as many of its chapters as any association I belong to.  I don’t believe I have ever come away from an SMPS meeting without learning something of value or without meeting someone helpful to know.  In the built environment professions, where winning a project depends so much on who has better information and who is on the right teams, operating without access to the information and people that flow through SMPS meetings borders on professional business development malpractice.

Different organizations are valuable at different times and in different ways. For example, AMCF is for midsized to large consulting firms, while the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC) is focused more on sole practitioners and consultants at small firms.  When I started my own firm and was struggling with a financial accounting issue, responses to a casual question that I posed over dinner at an IMC meeting provided a raft of information that saved me hours of work and out-of-pocket expenses—and I enjoyed the company and dinner, too.  A small project won on a referral from an IMC member resulted in content that clients find helpful and challenging ten years later.

I don’t know the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) or the Association for Accounting Marketing (AAM), but get favorable reports on them from those who do.

Some clients whom I recommend participating in these associations respond by saying that they could probably give a lot more than they learn at such gatherings.  Maybe so, but I have devoted much of the past thirty years and all of the past fifteen to learning about selling professional services, written three books and dozens of articles on the subject, given many speeches and worked with hundreds of aspiring rainmakers and I feel that what I get from such groups far outweighs what I give.   Maybe it’s a matter of knowing what you are looking for.  I’m a believer!  Can you tell?

Well, now that I have that rant out of my system, it’s time to turn in for the night.

We all have a web presence that others can use to assess our suitability as providers, alliance partners and clients.  It is increasingly important to monitor that presence so that we can manage it. 

One way is to use the free Google Alerts service. Set it up to search your name, your firm, and other search terms and get emails when something new is posted.

The free service doesn’t catch everything, however. If you need deeper searches, use the paid GoogleAlerts service, which even catches obscure web mentions. You’d be surprised at what it uncovers. Like the free service, it sends you an email with results.

As Ben Worthen of the Wall Street Journal notes, “Once information finds its way online, it’s almost impossible to get it off.” His blog post When the Internet Turns Against You contains some tips for what to do when you find negative information about you or your firm.

With the publication of his first book, Managing the Professional Service Firm, David Maister established himself as the dean of the study of the business side of professional firms.

His later books (True Professionalism, The Trusted Advisor (with Charles Green and Robert Galford), and Practice What You Preach) have titles that reflect his increasing conviction that the solution to a firm’s business problems lies in focusing on clients and values. Pay attention to your professional calling and the business issues will take care of themselves, he argues.

His recently published book, Strategy and the Fat Smoker, continues and expands upon this argument. I think this book important enough that I have sent it to some forty leaders of professional firms. But your appreciation of it will depend on your frame of mind when you read it. It is a strange combination of how-to and polemic that the cynics, who make up a significant share of the world’s professionals, may have a hard time with. In his view of the professions Maister fights cynicism.

That is largely a good thing. The title summarizes the weakness in most firms’ efforts to become more professional; the managers are like fat smokers who know that they should eat less and stop smoking, but haven’t the will to do so. This is an apt comparison that applies, in part, to me and to many others. In making this point and suggesting how to address it, he provides many statements that deserve to become standard aphorisms:

The necessary outcome of strategic planning is not analytical insight, but resolve.

An expert’s job is to be right; the advisor’s job is to be helpful.

People will never live up to a higher standard than their manager exhibits.

There are many such jewels.

This quest for greater professionalism as a solution to a firm’s problems sounds idealistic. That may put off readers with a practical bent. If that includes you, I urge you to take another look. There are at least two good reasons for doing so.

First, the concept of professionalism is under threat. It has now become standard for product and service companies to operate professional firms. (Tom Peters recently blogged about this.) While some, like IBM, have succeeded, many others have failed, often because they didn’t understand the implications of running a professional firm.

Also, more and more professional firms are going public. This can force them to think more about shareholder value than professional standards. Some firms are getting so large that they must be managed in ways that put little stress on being truly professional. To avoid the fate of Arthur Andersen it is good for all of us to reflect from time to time on what “being a professional” means. Maister’s research shows that focusing on clients and values isn’t just good practice. It’s also good business.

The second reason why Maister’s idealistic promotion of a truly professional firm warrants attention will surprise the cynics: What Maister extols is achievable, if you adjust for his frequent hyperbole. I have worked in the professions for over thirty years and have had the opportunity to study many firms. At any given time in each profession there are a handful of firms that are doing everything right and growing by topsy. I have the pleasure of having one such firm as a client now.

These firms come as close to Camelot as one can get in the business world. They do interesting and important work for their clients. Growing rapidly, they offer ample opportunity for their professionals to advance. And the money that flows in allows them to treat their people generously. The professionals at these firms have the joy of doing cutting-edge client work, while building the institution of the firm and getting rewarded handsomely. The leadership seeks to build an institution that is more important than any individual partner because of what it does for the profession, for society and for the partners as a whole. These firms are wonderful places to spend at least part of one’s career. Maister shows how to transform your firm into such an institution. It is a worthy goal.

That Maister overdoes his argument is unfortunate, because some readers will reject his overall case as a result. His argument that simply acting professionally will resolve all problems is naïve, if he does, in fact, believe it. It is hard to argue otherwise, when he says things like:

Firms do not need to teach their people how to sell. They need to find out, person by person, what kind of work turns each partner on and what kinds of clients each person could actually get interested in. [Emphasis in the original.]

In other words, put them in front of the right clients for the right kinds of work and their enthusiasm will carry the day. Hogwash! Enthusiasm does increase a professional’s chances of making a sale, but I have seen many enthusiastic professionals lose sales, because they talked too much, moved to solutions too quickly, sold past the close or made any one of a dozen other common sales mistakes that a little training would have cured them of.

Extending Maister’s logic to its obvious conclusion, if you just give your people the right kinds of thing to work on, you don’t have to teach them anything. Enthusiasm is all they need.

This anti-sales attitude is probably a reflection of a long-standing bias that many academics (Maister is a former Harvard Business School professor) and some professionals hold against the subject of selling. As I have noted elsewhere, very few business schools, and none of the leading ones, teach anything about selling. Marketing, finance, and operations are all taught, but not sales. This is all the more bizarre, because it is a sale that defines the existence of a business. Studying business without studying sales makes as much sense as studying biological procreation while ignoring sex. Maister should know this. Professional firms are commercial enterprises. Selling is essential for their success.

Skim past the occasional lapse of this kind and you will find Strategy and the Fat Smoker a worthwhile read.

Tracking down and talking to people you went to school with or worked with earlier in your life can be great fun and generate leads for lots of new business.

This is even more true of old clients. One person I know had consulted to a financial services mega corporation for years, when a sudden change in the CEO put most of his contacts at the company on the street looking for work. He stayed in touch with about ten of the most senior ones who quickly found jobs in other organizations. Three of these brought his firm in with them.

Three years later he took a look at a list of other people he had known at the mega corporation who were no longer there and with whom he had lost touch. He tracked down fifteen more. One of them bought $1,000,000 worth of services this year. The ballot is out on many of the others.

Finding old contacts is easier that it has ever been, because of the power of the Internet. Lifehacker.com has just posted an article entitled, How to Track Down Anyone on Line. This is a valuable source for finding people whom you have misplaced over the years.

But, before we give in and do it the easy way, let’s be sure it is the best way. In the old days (just yesterday, if you are my age), finding a lost contact often meant calling mutual friends who might know where she had gone. You might have to contact three people before finding someone who knew where the contact could be found.

Not as efficient as a Google search, it provided a wonderful excuse to call other people with whom you wanted to reconnect. You can call up someone you haven’t talked with for years and say, “Remember me. I know it’s been too long since we last talked. I was trying to track down Bev Binder and thought you might know how to reach her. But first, how have things been going for you since we last talked?”

In a recent posting, Reasons for Calling, I mentioned that having an adequate reason for calling is a challenge for most professionals just starting out to develop new business. Here is a readymade reason for calling lots of dormant contacts. Don’t let new technology seduce you away from taking advantage of it.

Kristina Haymes has an excellent posting about how to get more revenues, directed at mediators, which with a little imagination can be applied to other professions.

Her blog is well worth a frequent check, even if you aren’t a mediator, because many of her postings are relevant to all professionals.

Readers who are interested in the art of blogging should subscribe to her blog. She has a remarkable ability to build solid content at a continuous, high level. How? I’m not sure. She reads widely, but there is more to it than that. She knows how to reinterpret a wide variety of things she comes across for her audience.

For a good blog on presentation skills go to http://simswyeth.com/Blog/

Sims Wyeth is a presentation coach and trainer who also writes well.

From time to time I will list resources that I feel might be helpful to professionals seeking to develop more business. Here is the first such resource:

The Wiglaf Journal is a free monthly electronic magazine focusing on sales, marketing and entrepreneurship.  It is widely read, because the content is good. It is worth a few minutes to look at it (www.wiglafjournalCom/Journal/)  You can have The Wiglaf Journal delivered monthly to your electronic in-box by e-mailing jberger@jamesberger.net and providing your name, e-mail address and the words “WIGLAF SUBSCRIBE.”