Selling services: How to improve partners' BD skills

Business development is now at the top of many law firms' agendas. In the past, firms have introduced myriad initiatives to increase revenues, market size, market share and profitability, but most have failed to develop a self-sustaining sales culture.

The failure to make business development an integral part of the way they 'go to market' is a failure to ensure partners have the business development capabilities they need. Critically, it is a failure to help partners to feel comfortable with operating outside of what they deem to be their technical expertise - something which is clearly related to the make-up of people who self-select into the profession.

People opt to join a professional services firm rather than a commer cial company because they want to be at the forefront of the interpretation of the body of knowledge associated with their profession. Being at the leading edge, together with the desire to serve clients, is what motivates professionals. Their technical knowledge is at the heart of their capabilities and their ultimate success is derived from their understanding and interpretation of it.

Professionals are also high achievers for whom anything less than outstanding performance is unacceptable in any facet
of their work. Being able to access and utilise their deep technical knowledge is precisely what, they believe, gives them the edge over their commercial counterparts.

Understanding what drives professionals helps us to understand that, without a similar belief in their ability to operate successfully in a sales role, professionals, and particularly partners,
will never be as effective as they could
be. It also makes it clear why a self-sustaining sales culture remains elusive.

The 3Cs

So, how can firms persuade their professionals that, although they may never feel as comfortable as they do when they are utilising the body of knowledge associated with their profession, they can, nevertheless, be more effective in a sales role? To do so requires understanding that competence, confidence and credibility¹ - or the 3Cs - are the foundation upon which a professional's success is built.

1. Competence has two components - a deep grounding in the profession's body of knowledge and the continued mastery of the skills required to be effective in the role.

2. Confidence, or self-confidence, is derived from a belief in past achievements, current competence, and the ability to succeed in the future. Confidence, which is experienced by the individual as a sense of internal security, typically appears self-evident to the beholder.

3. Credibility is derived from the client's perception of the quality of the advice received and the manner in which it is provided. The continued creativity and relevance of the advice enhances the professional's credibility which, in turn, gives increased weight to his recommendations. External credibility is also enhanced by association with specific clients, publishing highly-regarded books and articles, and being asked to proffer opinions on important topics.

While the inter-relationship between the 3Cs is clearly not directly linear, it can be helpful to see it as such. Competence, and the increased demonstration of it, generates increasing confidence which, in turn, allows the individual to come across as more effective and, hence, more credible.

The fact that success requires all three of the Cs to be high indicates that the solution to the lack of confidence that partners continue to express within the sales process clearly lies in providing them with an additional body of technical (i.e. sales) competence that they can access and utilise. It is only when partners believe that their standing as professionals is not under threat that they will truly embrace
the sales component of their role.

Sales skills

So, which skills do professionals, and particularly partners, need to develop if
they are to become more effective?
The box 'Sales skills required of partners' provides some suggestions.

 

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Sales skills required of partners

1. Develop relationships

2. Build trust

3. Diagnose the client’s (both the organisation’s and the individual’s) needs

4. Craft effective solutions to the client’s issues

5.  Bring a business perspective

6.  Consider the impact of recommendations on the client’s business performance

7. Bring a ‘firm’ perspective and introduce the firm’s other services and professionals

8. Ask for the assignment

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One of the questions we are frequently asked is whether all partners need to have all of these skills - or, put another way, do all partners need to sell? The answer to this question is, undoubtedly, that all partners need to look for opportunities to sell the firm's services (especially to existing clients), but that not all partners need to be masters at generating business from potential clients.

While the skills required to generate business from existing and potential clients are the same, winning assignments from potential clients can typically require a deeper level of expertise. Working with existing and potential clients, for example, demands the ability to create trust and
to build upon that trust to enhance
the relationship.

However, working with potential clients - where there is usually little or no relationship to build upon - usually requires the partner(s) to be exceptionally skilled at building rapport and trust very quickly. Certainly, the skills involved in building trust are similar, but working with potential clients requires a more acute application.

The problem is that most firms expect their partners to be good at generating business from both existing and potential clients and, while some partners are truly talented at executing both activities, most are not. The example of the partner who finds it extremely difficult to generate business from potential clients, but who never loses an existing client and can sell additional assignments when there are pre-established relationships, is often quoted because it is the reality for a lot of partners.

However, the culture within the majority of professional service firms makes it extremely difficult for any partner to admit to finding any aspect of the role difficult. After all, admitting fallibility is like admitting failure, and admitting failure in a professional environment inevitably damages personal credibility. But, by not admitting fallibility, partners sub-optimise their own and their firm's performance.

To reverse this sub-optimisation, firms must place equal value on all aspects of a partner's activities and not place disproportionate value on sales from potential clients. Reputation, after all, is a function of service delivery, not the promise of it. The truly successful firms know this. Their reward and recognition systems reinforce equality of value, with earnings and the allocation of important internal
roles being distributed in line with their holistic definition of value.

Learning and development

Sales training programmes, on their own, are insufficient to develop the capabilities partners need to be more effective in a sales role. They are undoubtedly a part of the mix; however, for all but a few, they rarely provide the technical grounding that partners need to feel confident and, hence, come across credibly.

The additional development and support that partners receive should include coaching from either partner(s) who are good at sales or a sales director - particularly if it is important for the partner to generate sales from potential clients.

If it is important that the solutions which the firm has developed to respond to the client's issues are contextualised within the client's business, then some additional learning associated with business management is critical. Business knowledge will also help partners in their general discussions with clients' senior personnel as they look for potential opportunities to sell additional services.

Additional training programmes, supplemented by coaching, in developing relationships (which includes building trust) can boost the competence and confidence of partners, who find it impossible to act without the psychological support of their technical expertise for credibility and who find it difficult to relate quickly to others.

Another area in which partners tend to need help (which is often covered in sales training programmes, but where practice is key to professionals, who very often expect their expertise to speak for itself) is actually asking for the assignment.

An inbuilt fear of failure, of not being the best, can be almost impossible for some partners to overcome. A lot of partners can diagnose needs and create really effective solutions, but find it almost impossible to ask for the business in case the answer is 'no'. The areas in which partners typically benefit from additional development can be seen in the box 'Areas of sales skill development beneficial to partners'.

 

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Areas of sales skill development beneficial to partners

1. Developing relationships

2. Building trust

3. Understanding business models and how companies in different sectors make money

4. Asking for the assignment (i.e. the business)

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For the purposes of this article,
we have assumed that activities which are essentially administrative (such as populating a client relationship management process with data) are within every partner's skill set and have not included any development activities related to them. Nor have we included activities like productising services or focused targeting, as we have assumed that they will be carried out by marketing/sales personnel or people with specific expertise in those areas.

With this additional help and support, there is no doubt that all partners can improve their effectiveness. The degree of improvement will always be variable, but with firm capability an aggregation of individual capability, enhancing partners' sales capabilities can only result in firms improving their business generation, lowering their cost of sales and improving their financial performance.

Rob Lees and Derek Klyhn are founding partners of Møller PSF Group and consultants to PSF leaders worldwide (www.mollerpsfgcambridge.com)

Endnote

1. The 3C model was developed by David A. Thomas and John J. Gabarro in Breaking Through: The Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America, Harvard Business Review Press, 1999