Many professionals talk about their intellectual capital when they should be referring to it as intellectual property. Ideas don’t become intellectual capital unless you can monetize them. In other words to qualify as capital, an idea must help you do one or more of three things:

• Get you in front of more buyers and so get you more opportunities
• Increase your conversion rate of opportunities to paid work
• Increase the amount clients pay you by allowing you to raise your fees or broaden the scope of your work

A lot of ideas generated by professionals are orphaned by their creators, who go back to their client work after publishing and posting the results of their research. The ideas are never used in a structured business development process and so remain just property, never gaining the stature of capital.

This link will take you to an article about dealing with this problem, entitled Push-Me-Pull-You. It is written by Ford Harding of Harding & Company and Bob Buday of The Bloom Group.

http://www.bloomgroup.com/content/push-me-pull-you-how-turn-intellectual-property-intellectual-capital

In two previous posts, we described the importance of developing appropriate performance standards to succeed at rain making and provided examples of the kinds needed by professionals.
Again, performance standards are measures by which you can determine:
• The degree to which you are succeeding or failing,
• The degree to which you are on track to succeeding or failing,
• How your performance compares to others, and
• Where you should devote your attention to improving your performance, either by doing more or less of an activity or by doing something additional or different.
There are many consequences for insufficient appreciation of rainmaking performance standards. Here we will describe two of them.

The Build It and They Will Come Fallacy
This fallacy occurs when professionals rely on one event or series of events to produce the leads that they need. This can be giving a speech or series of speeches, writing an article, having an exploratory meeting with a potential client’s senior executive or in many other ways. Having had the event, the professional stops further effort and waits for the phone to ring.
Those making this mistake have poorly develop persistence standards (a subset of performance standard), They don’t realize that how low the probability of getting much work from a single event is. They need to understand that follow-up over weeks, months, and years, will probably be necessary to turn up business from the effort. Performance measures in this area might include numbers of relevant new people met through this process and the number followed up with over time.
Both of the authors can cite a few examples of leads obtained through one simple event, but many more from events that were only a part of a longer effort.

Get Them While They’re Hot Fallacy
This fallacy occurs when, after completing a marketing effort, professionals, focus exclusively on hot prospects that are generated, e.g. those who make positive statements of interest in hiring their firm, and ignore all others who showed milder interest. We have seen this often when professionals run an educational seminar for prospective clients. Those attendees who show immediate, keen interest in the relevant service get lots of attention, as they should. But that doesn’t mean everyone else should be ignored. There is often huge, if longer-to-develop, potential in others who attended and were favorably impressed by the workshop, but have no immediate need. A firm which tracks the steps taken to follow up with interested as well as hot prospects after running a seminar, will have more success at developing rainmakers.

Performance standards are a major, if underappreciated, tool for developing rain makers.

By Gary Pines & Ford Harding

In a previous post, we described the importance of developing appropriate performance standards to succeed at rain making.

Again, performance standards are measures by which you can determine:

• The degree to which you are succeeding or failing,

• The degree to which you are on track to succeeding or failing,

• How your performance compares to others, and

• Where you should devote your attention to improving your performance, either by doing more or less of an activity or by doing something else.

Here we will describe three common types of rainmaking performance standard.

Time to Result
Time-to-result measures are common in many fields. In track events, for example, they can be the absolute determinant of success, such as time to finish line in a race, or a contributing factor to success, such as time to hand off the baton in a relay.

In selling professional services time-to-result can also be a potent measure. How long does it take to convert a potential client without an explicit need for your services (or, alternatively, with an explicit need for them) from the date of the first meeting to an authorization to proceed? Many would-be rainmakers underestimate the time required, and so become discouraged with their progress.

A second example is measurement of the time it takes for an associate or manager selling $x amount to increase his sales to $y amount, with $y being the lowest level required of a partner. With this measure an aspiring rainmaker can determine if her originations are increasing faster or slower than others in her position. It can help the firm determine if the development of rainmaking talent is occurring fast enough to meet the its future needs. The measure can also help management focus on bringing high-potential professionals along faster, helping them generate more business sooner.

Routine Ratios
Routine ratios are the quantities of inputs required to achieve a desired result. In track, for example, marathon runners often talk about the number of miles a week they need to run in the months before the race to prepare them for the grueling event. A poor understanding of routine ratios is a major cause of discouragement and failure in aspiring rainmakers. Professionals usually underestimate the number of relationship development emails, calls and meetings they must make per week to generate sufficient leads.

Reliability Measures
Reliability measures indicate the deviation from a set outcome. A track team can better tolerate a sprinter with high deviation in performance, e.g. lower reliability, on solo races than on relays. In the solo event, where the runner competes with others on her own team as well as with those from the opposing team, a poor show does not preclude a win in that race by another member of the team. On a relay, a bad day usually results in a total loss of the event.

Aspiring rainmakers almost always go through a phase with low business generation reliability. This is because in the early phases of development they have few leads, so success or failure hinges on converting one to two opportunities into paid work. One loss can seem more devastating than it need be in this environment than it does to a rainmaker, who typically has a stronger lead flow and so more backup opportunities.

If you accept the importance of rainmaking performance measures, it is natural for you to want comparative statistics to help you develop performance standards for yourself or your firm. They are hard to come by. Just as performance standards vary from one track event to another (average distance per second varies widely by the distance of the race and its nature, e.g. sprints, hurdles, relays), so they do among different firms and even practices. For example, standards for a firm selling a lot of relatively small and short assignments will be quite different from one selling large and long ones. A practice that responds to event-driven needs (crisis management, competitive intelligence, residential real estate contracts) will require different standards from one that sells to an ongoing need (audit work, pension advisory). This means that most firms have to develop their own standards.

Reliability measures can include:

• Meetings schedule compared to meetings held: If cancelations rates increase, it may be the sign of a problem, such as a turn in the economy, a bad reference or weakening of selling skills.

• Time-in-stage measures, such as the time it takes to get from a first inquiry about your services to a meeting, from the first meeting to a proposal, from a proposal to presentation, and from presentation to resolution (win or loss): When time-in-stage increases, it can be a sign of insufficient attentiveness or weak sales advancing skills. (For a firm, it is also an important sign that the economy may be faltering.)

In a final post, we will describe some of the common fallacies that result from a poor understanding of performance standards.

By: Gary Pines & Ford Harding

You don’t have to pay your staff tons to market!  While it has to be fair, it doesn’t drive all behavior.  We have found the same.  Hay Group’s recent study on “Three incentives that actually work” captures this point to some degree.  The article will make you step back and reflect – - are we doing that?  Follow this link for the study:  http://www.bizfilings.com/blog/index.php/2011/02/01/three-incentives-that-actually-work/

When you are asked to speak to a small group of executives in an association what is the first thing you do?

A.  Review some of your other presentations to see if you can reuse some of the material

B.  Begin thinking of a topic that would best showcase your expertise to the executives

C.  Brainstorm topics that the participants find most challenging

While there is no “right” answer and it is likely that most presenters would eventually do all three to some degree, the first step that rain makers would tend to do is “C”.  For a small group, a stand up presentation to potential prospects is a lost opportunity.  Facilitating discussion among the group around a significant topic will likely yield higher participation, greater satisfaction for participants and more follow on discussions with you.

Work is flowing. Clients are active. Demand for services is getting everyone back on track and optimistic about the future. This optimism is reflected in replenished marketing budgets for 2011, but not without a catch. Firm leaders want dollars spent on marketing to be accountable with measurable results. While this seems like an obvious request for product sales managers who can track things like brand advocacy, repeat sales, and price sensitivity, professionals continue to struggle with how to align their marketing spend with results.

I was intrigued to read a recent article published by FORBES/Insights in association with George P. Johnson agency, titled, “The New Rules of Engagement – CMO’s Rethink Their Marketing Mix”.  This 11-page article is an easy read survey summary compiled from more than 300 marketing leaders from companies with annual revenues of more than $500 million. At first glance a professional may opt out of relevance for their own firms based on these hefty criteria, but the surveyed CMO’s challenges while greater in scale are similar to those faced by even the sole practitioner.

The findings of the survey show an increased concentration on connecting more deeply with customers through “engagement”. For their study, engagement is defined as the interactions, experiences and context that create and nurture enduring, profitable customer relationships. See the relevance to all of us? The following quotes from the FORBES/Insight article made me reflect on how professionals approach marketing:

1. “25% (of the big guys surveyed) have no specific strategy related to customer engagement.” - Surprisingly high for their size, but this finding doesn’t make me feel so bad that professional service firms follow. While this is a critical strategy for professionals, the approach is often ad hoc and less thoughtful. I conclude that it should be a more substantive effort for professionals.

2. Marketing budgets don’t always align with engagement priorities – The article described how for many of the “Bigs” print and broadcast ads while lowest on the “engagement “ spectrum make up close to a quarter of their marketing budgets. This made me think about where professionals are spending their marketing budgets. Why is travel to conduct face-to-face meetings with clients and prospects discouraged without a hot lead, when firms easily spend thousands on updating their websites and brand image?

3. Experiential events topped the list with 48% rating it as having the highest engagement. – The part left me hanging – -wondering specifically what the “Bigs” equate to experiential events since the other categories covered Live Event Sponsorship, Trade Shows, Webcasts, and Social Networking Sites?????? - – readers please weigh in here and share.

 4. Using an integrated approach that reaches customers across various media may be the most engaging option.” – Confirmation that what we encourage works. More to say here, but will reserve it for a future blog post.

5. Employee engagement translates into a “delighted customer base.” – This statement gave me the longest thoughtful pause. Most of our clients have told us that their staff is really busy. They are working long hours and being pulled in multiple directions due to delivery, new initiatives, and high client demands. With all of these necessary and justifiable distractions, how are firms equipping their staff to over-deliver to clients? Readers weigh in here too if you have thoughts.

Sometimes interesting reads don’t necessarily provide new information, but make you reflect on its relevance to yourself.

Fall seemed like the best time to start again.  Hello Rain Makers.  We are back after a hiatus of focusing on client work.  Good thing is that our workload is buzzing along as is the case for most of our clients.  Now for thoughts on keeping up the momentum. . .  blog postes and interviews with clients to come!

Fall is a reason to call!

The Fall is a great time to reach out to your clients and contacts to set up meetings.  Here are some wording that several of our other clients are using:

“How was your summer?  With fall starting I thought it would be a good time to reconnect and touch base.  Are you available for lunch on . . .?”

“Somehow this time of year everyone feels re-energized.  I wanted to share with you some things that we completed this summer that may be of interest to you.  Are you available to meet on . . .”

“We are already planning our late fall and winter research projects and white papers.  Since I really respect your perspective on things would you be able to meet me for a quick coffee or lunch next week to share some of your thoughts with me on the issues of greatest concern for . . . companies? 

Think of a good “reason to call” and use it for several of your contacts that you know you should talk to  but haven’t connected with in a while. 

Readers in the construction professions might well find interesting a new book by prolific blogger, Mark Buckshon.    Drawing on his years of experience in construction-related fields, as well as his background in journalism, Buckshon has put together a readable and comprehensive introduction to marketing construction services.  The book, Construction Marketing Ideas, contains chapters on such subjects as:

• Branding
• Selection of marketing mix
• Developing a marketing budget
• Association marketing
• Search engine optimization
• Blogging
• Advertising
• Print media
• Trade shows
• Public relations
• Responding to requests for proposal

and much more.

A few days ago Ford Harding received a unique email from a professional, Ivan Hernandez.  It was unique and interesting because it was our firm’s first and unsolicited YouTube video referencing his book, Rainmaking: Attract New Clients No Matter What Your Field.  As I watched it for the first time I was so pleased for Ford that a virtual stranger would be so moved and inspired by the book’s teachings.  As I watched it the second time I chuckled at how this video, made much like those that I have of my kids at their birthday parties can capture my attention and entertain me in an odd way.  As I watched it the third, and so far, last time, I recalled the business trend moving towards video and YouTube mentioned in a recent AMCF social media workshop that I attended with the who’s who in consulting and led by gurus of McKinsey & Company and Bliss PR.  I guess the world is moving beyond email, in concert with LinkedIn, with Twitter and towards YouTube?  I needed more convincing, so I quickly searched the internet for data on YouTube to convince myself that YouTube has gone beyond being able to showcase music videos and personal teenage snip-its.  It has. 

I found a study by Burson-Marsteller that collected social media data from 100 of the largest Fortune 500 global companies.  Here are some of their statistics:  50% of the Fortune Global 100 use YouTube to reach their audience.  Of those, 68% posted 10 videos on YouTube in the past month.  69% of the Fortune Global 100 have YouTube Channels.  What amazed me was the statistics on the channels!  They tracked an average of 38,950 views per channel!  452 average subscribers per channel! And more than half of those with YouTube channels said they get comments from viewers! 

That’s inspired me to try an experiment and ask that anyone who is willing to step up to the plate as a YouTuber, share with us another point of view about the book or our Rainmaking programs please do so via a YouTube video and send it to me.  My request has two purposes, first, it will help me answer the question, “Will sharing these videos with you make a difference for us?”  We’ll track it with metrics and share the results with you.  Secondly I’m wading in to YouTube and would love to see a few more relevant ones before I do my own video clips in the market.  Stay tuned for more on YouTube!

For those of you that are curious, here is the YouTube video that Ivan sent to Ford:   

http://ivanhernandezonline.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/the-great-book-series-rain-making/

By Mimi Spangler, Partner, Harding & Company  (mspangler@hardingco.com)

After you “tweet”, “friend”, “link”, email, or mass mail to gently ease into reconnecting with an old client having some canned conversation initiators can make Step 2 – “The Call” much easier.  Here are five tried and true approaches that have worked for the reluctant caller.  When it’s time to pick up the phone and talk to your contact try these words.  Don’t fake it, find one that’s true to you. 

1.        “I was pleased to reconnect with you via LinkedIn; it made me realize that we haven’t talked in a while.  How are you?”  (My earlier blog post titled “Bag LinkedIn. . .” may have been a bit harsh because it certainly has a place like here to break the ice with old contacts!) – - if they accepted your invitation to join your network, they are now anticipating your call.  Don’t let them down!

2.        “I just reconnected with (person’s name that you both know) and realized that we haven’t talked in a while.  How are things going for you? “– this is a great reason to call lots of contacts from a past client organization who all worked together at one time!

3.       “I just read an article on your firm in (publication) and thought of you.  (Elaborate a bit on the article). . . Just wanted to touch base to say hello and see how you were doing.” – if you read the business press, you know you have thought about individuals from your past when you read articles about their companies, so it’s something you’ve kept to yourself but now you can share!

4.       “I’m going to the (organization) conference in May and was wondering if you planned on attending.  I thought it might be nice to reconnect with you there for dinner.  Do you plan on going?”- This is one of the best because you are being considerate, thoughtful and may end up with an excuse to avoid the rubber chicken dinner! 

5.       “I’m considering writing an article on (topic) and thought of you because I knew you would be a great person to give me a valuable perspective on it.  Could I trouble you to arrange a call to get your point of view on (topic)?” For those of you who have thought about publishing an article, this approach is gold because people are flattered that you think of them to give you advice.  You can collect your research, get valuable market insights and reconnect with an old client!