(As in prior years, I will posting only once a week in July and August>)

A client of mine is faced with a problem that all of us engaged in selling professional services encounter sooner or later.  She was approached by one of her clients who asked if she could get him a job at her firm.  He had been a good client for several years, and she didn’t want to alienate him as a client or a friend.  Still, hiring someone away from a current account poses ethical problems and she didn’t feel that he was a particularly good fit for the firm, in any event.  How should she handle this delicate situation?

How would you respond to this question that a friend recently asked me?

Ford,

A.

Of we have sent your clients introductory letters and emails to get meetings.  We have reminded the clients that you will see them in meeting confirmation letters and e-mails.  Once you have held meeting, someone must send a follow-up letter.  An earlier post described how to prepare follow-up e-mails and letters. Who on your team should send them?

After a team from a professional firm has a sales meeting with a client, someone often asks who should send follow-up e-mails to whom.  Sometimes that follow-up note is the last communication you have with a member of the client team before the company decides whom to hire.  You want that last communication to be powerful.

Of course, every member of the team can send a note to every person on the client team.  But that isn’t always best.  If the teams are large, the client may feel overwhelmed.  Key members of the client team may also pay more attention to one well drafted follow-up note than to a flurry of paper which will inevitably included many redundancies.

There is no answer to that is right for every occasion, but here are some things to consider when assigning follow-up responsibilities:

• Identify relationships you want to build.  Usually, you want the senior person on the client team to feel close to the client partner or other senior person your team.  So, too, with technical experts from both organizations.  If there is an engagement manager on your team, you want the client’s engagement manager to feel that this is someone he wants to work with.  In short, the members of your team should each, at the very least, send a follow-up note their counterparts in the client organization.

• Respond to concerns and questions with authority.  If a member of the client team has expressed concern or raised a question, she should get a response from the person on your team most suited to address that concern.  If it is a technical question, your technical person should follow-up.  If it is a question about the commitment of the firm, the senior person on your team should follow-up.

• Maintain and reinforce personal relationships.  Anyone on your team who has a business or personal relationship that predates the meeting with a member of the client team should send a personal note to that person afterwards.

• Don’t leave anyone out.  Every member of the client team should get a follow-up note from at least one person on yours.

Don’t let a competitor have the last word.  Send those follow-up letters and emails.

(This is another of our posts from one of our readers seeking advice.  Please feel free to submit questions that you would like help with.)

Ian Brodie, a smart man and rainmaking expert, sent in the following question:

I’m currently puzzling over the question of whether to focus on building a personal brand (my name) or a company brand. I know a couple of local associates who are in a similar position too.

When I first set up my practice a year or so ago I selected a “corporate” name for the business. At that stage I (perhaps lacking in confidence in my own reputation) wanted to give the impression of being an established business rather than just a “one man band”.

However, over the last year it’s become clear that no matter what the name of the business, my clients are hiring me personally – not a company.

With that in mind, I am now wondering whether it would be better to rebrand the business under my own name. That would make it easier for clients to remember and find me (by searching for my name rather than having to remember the name of the company) and also to refer me to others.

Over the long term, I also intend to publish a number of articles, and perhaps a book. This would obviously be under my name rather than under a company name.

A lot of the people I admire in consulting run their businesses under their own name: Yourself, David Maister, Andrew Sobel, etc. Others, however, have a company brand: Charlie Green as Trusted Advisor Associates; Suzanne Lowe as Expertise Marketing.

So the choice doesn’t seem obvious to me. At the moment I’m tending towards rebranding under my name. There would be a degree of administrative pain involved initially, but I guess better to go through that now than in 5 years time.

Any guidance?

(This post in another in our series of Rainmaking Problems. We invite your comments on this problem and would also welcome any problems you would like to s to get comments form other readers.)

I recently met with a client adjusting from the heady days of a boom economy to the current bust. Several of its professionals argued that they hadn’t been in a sellers’ market. Competition for large projects was always tough, they said, and though they had won a lot, they had lost some, too. True enough, but their firm’s major competitors had grown at rates over 20 percent per year and the firm, itself, faster than that, while maintaining or increasing prices. Sounds like a sellers’ market to me.

There is good reason to clarify this point, because recognizing when one is tipping from a sellers’ to a buyers’ market or vice verssus has important implications for many professional firms. That’s because the price of many professional services is quite elastic with demand. Boom turns to bust quite suddenly (see my post, Selling Professional Services in a Downturn, for an explanation of why), and you have to drop prices quickly, if you want to keep winning work. The market teaches this quite effectively, when too many firms compete for too few projects or assignments and clients play them off against each other to get the best deal.

When the tide turns to boom again, clients aren’t nearly so quick to help you see that you can raise your rates. This means that prices tend to go up more slowly in good times than they go down in bad. The firm which recognizes when it can charge its clients more generates much higher profits than its competitors.

My question is, how will we know when this downturn is over and we can begin to push up rates?

(This post in another in our series of Rainmaking Problems. We invite your comments on this problem and would also welcome any problems you would like to s to get comments form other readers.)

An attorney, whom I will call Larry Polonisen, has sent in the following problem, one common enough in networking and well worth reflecting on.  How can he continue to take, if he has nothing to lend?  What would you do?

Hello, I am a faithful reader of your blog.

I have a suggestion for a post there (which I need to frankly admit is also a request for free advice).  The question is what to do when a contact gives you a couple of good referrals of business, and makes known (appropriately) that he expects referrals in return, but such reciprocal referrals are unlikely to ever happen (for lots of reasons not the least of which is that other better sources are in line for reciprocals before this person).  

The choices seem to be 1) tell the referral source that reciprocals are very unlikely, 2) actively search for things to refer, 3) assure the person (honestly) that if something comes along that can be referred to him it will be.  The first choice seems good in the abstract but horrible in the real world as it likely cuts off a referral source.  The second is again great, except that there is a higher priority for any referrals in this area and also because I get hardly any of matters in the referrers area (or I would be in that area myself).  The third seems the best, but if nothing gets referred, the referring lawyer ends up feeling taken advantage of.

I suppose that there might be a fourth choice (at least in my jurisdiction) is to offer the referrer a (legal) referral fee (perhaps coupled with the explanation under alternative 1).  What do you think?

Thanks very much.  I enjoy and use the information on you blog.

(This post is another in our series of Rainmaking Problems.  We invite your comments on this problem and would also welcome any problems you would like to submit to get comments from other readers.)

I received the following question from a reader in Singapore.  He was responding to Rain Making Problem #9: Lead Generation when Your Back is to the Wall to which he refers several times.  What would you suggest?

Hi all,

Ford, I just want to say first that I think what you’re doing is great. I was so unhappy with my previous firm, I set up my own practice last year with just one client. From what the client told me before I quit, I was going to be extremely busy just servicing them. However, for various reasons they have sent me only about one-quarter to one-third of the work they indicated they would send me before I quit, so your books and your website have been a life saver for me.

I’m sorry that I don’t have any tips for Lenore, but I do have a question which relates to Mel’s point on focusing on serving rather than winning. I like to think I provide first-rate service. I’m not aware of anyone else in my geographical region and area of practice who provides service and does work to the standard I do. The only trouble is, how does one show that to a potential client? The way I see it, the scope for doing this is pretty limited: you can only go so far in writing proposals, and you may be limited to just one, or if you’re lucky, two meetings with the potential client to talk over their needs, etc. Otherwise, “We’re great. Our service is awesome and we’re much better than everybody else” just sounds like another sales pitch that the potential client also heard from the competition. It is only when you actually land the work that you can show what you do.

So, do you have any tips to share on focusing on servicing during the sales process? Thanks in advance if you do.

In a sling in Singapore,

Willem

Of course, I am responsible for the in-a-sling close. Forgive me Willem; I couldn’t stop myself.

(This post is another in our series of Rainmaking Problems. We invite your comments on this problem and would also welcome any problems you would like to submit to get comments from other readers.)

Over the past twenty years a handful of companies have prospered by running what I call lead junkets. A class of corporate manager; human resources managers, facilities managers, financial managers or some other group; are invited on an expenses-paid trip to a resort or on a cruise ship for an event with some educational content. In return they agree to participate in a set number of short meetings with people who would like to sell to them. The sellers pay a fee to attend and also get a set number of meetings with the buyers with additional opportunities to rub elbows with all attending buyers at receptions, meals and the like.

These can be pricey events, costing a seller over $10,000 plus travel expenses.  In return they are promised twenty uninterrupted minutes to pitch their wares to each of the twelve buyers. Though some sorting and matching of buyers and sellers may be done by the organizers, the sellers do not get to pick whom they meet with. Also the organizers restrict attendance by sellers who compete with each other.

The appeal of the lead junket is having prospective clients delivered to you with little effort on your part. It all seems so painless, compared to cold calling, attending association meetings, giving speeches and all of the harder ways to generate leads.

I acknowledge that I have never attended a lead junket and my skeptical view of them is reflected in the term I use to describe them. In my experience, those who want their firms to send them on these jaunts are usually those most uncomfortable with other kinds of lead generation. They are looking for fixes with a minimal feeling of rejection.

I get asked about lead junkets four or five times a year.
My question is, when, if ever, are lead junkets worth the cost? In your response, please note whether or not you have ever attended one. If you have had good or bad outcomes, I would like to hear them.  Please do not name the operator of the event in your comment.  Also, if you work for or are an investor in a firm running this kind of event, please state that in your response.

(This post is another in our series of Rainmaking Problems.  We invite your comments on this problem and would also welcome any problems you would like to submit to get comments from other readers.)

Katy Christ of Design & Build PR posed this problem:

I am a public relations professional specializing in the design and construction industries in the state of Florida. I subscribe to the theory that the phone call to the prospect should be to get the first meeting and the first meeting should be to get a second meeting. Based in Jacksonville, I have a six-hour drive to get to Miami/South Florida, etc.

Are you able to suggest a more efficient way to reach prospects in South Florida or other distant locales? I’m interested in the steps you take to market out-of-town companies and how you determine when to invest in travel.

My initial response was as follows: One of the advantages of consulting is the opportunity to see people in different organizations face similar problems.  What one does may be helpful to others.  We have worked for several consulting firms which work exclusively for the utility industry.  Historically being monopolies with discrete territories, utilities form a geographically dispersed market.  There is usually but one, and rarely more than two based in any city.

Here are a few things these consulting firms do:

• Work the associations.  They go to places where their clients gather, specifically associations and especially the Edison Electric Institute.  They arrange for short meetings with clients at the events in advance and work the crowd.
• Work on site, when possible.  They take advantage of work for a client to get and stay on site for blocks of time.  While there, they meet and stay in front of as many people in the client organization that they can.
• Schlep.  They do the long commute to the client offices when they need to.
• Rely heavily on the phone and email to maintain relationships with a bias towards the  phone, because the real-time exchange approximates the kind of interaction they would have with the client were they to meet in person.

Not too profound, is it?  But it’s what they do and they are pros at it.

What would you recommend to Kathy, based on your personal experience or on what you have seen others do, to win and keep distant clients?

(This post is another in our series of Rainmaking Problems.  We invote your comments on this problem and would also welcome any problems you would like to submit to get comments from other readers.)

In my last post, I noted that curing bad habits is easier if you know what to do, rather than just what not to do. Instead of saying I, say we. Increase your eye contact and you will say uhm less often.

Over the years, the people in our firm have developed lots of prescriptions to deal with common bad sales habits. But I haven’t found satisfactory solutions to others. For example, what would you advise people to do to:

1> Stop talking so fast? I have never found a satisfactory cure to this common malady.
2> Stop selling after a client has agreed to a point? We all know do this, but failure rates remain high. What advice will reduce them?

Are there bad sales habits that you would like other readers’ advice on curing?