If you’re convinced of the value of forming a direct sales organization in your firm, this chapter will help you greatly. While the “Coming Out” scenario might convince your of the challenging nature of the task, the fact is that more and more professional services firms are experimenting with the direct sales model, with wider industry acceptance. In the context of maintaining an awareness of the challenges of instituting a sales organization within the professional services firm environment, this chapter gives you insight and actual tools to enable you to:
• Organize, build, manage, and coach your sales team.
• Understand your sales process and sell effectively.
• Track, measure, and promote your results.
• Choose the systems and technologies that will best benefit your firm.
• Generate revenue!
Whether yours is a firm of 10 or a firm of 10,000, a sales organization is an effective tool for revenue generation and enhanced client service.
Why This Topic Is Important
The professional services industry is marked with intense competition. In the 1990s alone, the United States added a net of 2,600 new accounting firms and 2,300 advertising firms.2 Add to this competitive environment an increased pressure to perform. The partner ownership business model is shifting, and more professional services firms are now accountable to shareholders. Shareholders demand results in the form of increased profits, and this requires new business. On top of these two pressures, the professional services firm faces a unique challenge: Professional services firms traditionally look to their “product,” the experts, as the salesforce. Because of increased pressure to generate new revenue, the professional consultant is faced with a critical question: How do I give excellent client service and grow my practice at the same time?
Exhibit 4.1 shows the answer to this dilemma.
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The Front Office: Driving Sales and Growth
A separate sales organization addresses the “juggling plates” (juggling of client and sales responsibilities) dilemma faced by professional consultants and delivers great benefit at the same time:
1. A sales organization is an effective tool for revenue generation.
2. A sales organization is an extremely targeted, low cost solution to acquiring new business.
3. A sales organization sells the service and the consultants that best fit the client need.
Exhibit 4.1
The Formation of a Separate Sales Organization
A Sales Organization Is an Effective and Essential
Tool for Revenue Generation
• A strong sales organization gives professionals increased sales opportunities—more at-bats.
• A strong sales organization enables professionals to focus on the delivery of your core product— fanatical client service.
• A strong sales organization helps your firm to reach its revenue potential. When integrated with the professionals, your firm, and your clients, you will get the benefit of all playing at the top of their game.
One Door Leads to Four Opportunities
Jeff Litvak, senior managing director at FTI Consulting, Inc., shares a revenue success story related to his willingness to work with the internal sales organization. Jeff ’s involvement on the lecture circuit put him in contact with many legal industry leaders, one of whom was the general counsel for a large retail corporation. A strong practice leader, Jeff was keen to new business opportunities and thus telephoned a particular attorney to request a background meeting. After securing the appointment, Jeff asked a sales professional to accompany him on the call. During the initial meeting, the general counsel referenced a large suit that the corporation was involved in and provided the names of the attorneys FTI would meet to pitch the business. As Jeff tells the story, the sales professional was organized and tenacious about his follow-up, contacted everyone
named in the meeting, and secured meetings with the four key decision makers—translated, he got FTI the next “at-bat.” On his own, Jeff would not have had the time to dedicate to this new business process; he already had too many client responsibilities. The sales professional organized an FTI team appropriate to the needs of the contacts, brought this team on the subsequent sales calls, and managed the process. The quality of the team presented to the client, the sales management, proposal development and follow-up skills of the sales professional, and Jeff ’s willingness to work with the sales organization, resulted in FTI’s closing the deal, forming a new client relationship, and generating revenue.
Sales Management
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A Sales Organization Is an Extremely Targeted, Low-
Cost Solution for Acquiring New Business
Traditionally, professional services organizations acquire business via two methods—marketing programs and consultant sales efforts. Although marketing programs are essential, they can be costly and the return on investment can be difficult to measure; and while consultants possess deep knowledge of their service lines, they must juggle client service with sales responsibilities and are not always trained to sell outside their area of expertise.
When integrated across your firm, the sales organization provides a high return on investment:
• A sales organization is highly trackable. Sales effectiveness can be accurately measured, tracked, and improved with the right tools and
processes.
• If a sales organization targets effectively, it minimizes wasted effort or expense. An advertisement might reach 15,000 individuals, with only a small percentage of those targets being qualified. Sales professionals target only those individuals who buy your service.
• A sales organization is f lexible. Sales professionals can be quickly rede-ployed to launch a new service, unlike consulting professionals who are trained to sell within one practice area.
A Sales Organization Sells the Service and
Consultants That Best Fit the Client Need
A sales organization, composed of professionals who are conversationally competent across a full range of consulting services, can focus on delivering what is best for the client. An effective sales professional will sell the right service and the best consultants every time.
The rewards associated with establishing a sales organization are significant for both your firm and your clients’ business. This chapter outlines the questions to consider and the steps to take to establish a strategic sales organization in your professional services firm. It is not enough to simply hire salespeople and to then expect results; an understanding of management and coaching, sales processes, and technological needs is essential.
Organizing Your Sales Team
If you can find a way to create a sales organization that belongs to the entire company, you will have unbelievable velocity in the marketplace.
The American Marketing Association defines salesforce organization
as an arrangement of activities and job positions involving the salesforce.
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The Front Office: Driving Sales and Growth
The starting point in organizing a salesforce is determining the goals or objectives to be accomplished; these are specified in the firm’s overall marketing plan. The selling activities necessary to accomplish the firm’s marketing objectives can then be divided in such a way that the objectives can be achieved with as little duplication of effort as possible. The organizational structure provides for specialization of labor, stability, and continuity in selling efforts and coordination of the various activities assigned to different salespeople and departments within the firm.3 Two key words to pull from this definition are continuity and coordination—these allude to teamwork.
Many professional services firms have experimented in creating a sales organization, and some have been successful in some places. In general, however, professional services firms that set out to establish a firmwide sales organization have not been very successful. Two common characteristics that plague these organizations are the inability to gain support at a high level, whether at the partner or executive management level, and the inability to figure out how to do it together or, in other words, how to get the professional consultants and sales professionals to partner. Jeff Litvak, who was previously a partner with KPMG, highlights integration between the consultants and the sales professionals as one of the top three critical items in ensuring your sales approach is successful. Litvak observed that while KPMG
had a sales organization, the organization was not as integrated with the professionals like the salesforce at FTI; a level of independence still existed and this sales structure was not very successful. Where increased independence equates to less effectiveness, it is clear that to succeed, consultants and sales professionals must “marry up.” 4
In learning from this experience, we can confidently state that to establish a successful sales organization in a professional services firm, four critical success factors exist:
1. You must have support for your sales organization at the highest level, even if that support lies in only one individual who is willing to keep the objectors away until you have a chance to be successful.
2. Your sales professionals must belong to the entire company. Your sales professionals cannot work for one consultant or one service line. Organizing your sales organization by a particular service line will lead to competition, or “fiefdoms,” and a lack of continuity and coordination in the sales effort.
3. You must integrate your sales and marketing organizations. Branding, creating high quality, relevant content, and reaching the customer via multiple channels is the value marketers bring; however, this can be leveraged only if efforts are closely aligned with sales objectives and an understanding of the buyer.