Struggling to grow your professional services firm?
Frustrated because you can’t get in front of more interested parties?
Talking to lots of people - but it doesn’t turn into billable work?
It doesn't have to stay this way.
Who We Are
Professional Services Business Development (PSBD) is a Sydney-based consultancy that provides tailored, practical and results-driven business development strategies to professional services firms.
Our hands-on, simple and no-nonsense business development techniques and tools will improve the way you do business and get you results, fast:
✔︎ Leverage your existing client base to secure more work
✔︎ Attract new clients
✔︎ Learn how to market your capabilities - excel in pitching and networking situations.
At Professional Services Business Development, we do more than just practical business development training.
We transform your business culture, taking you from seller to trusted advisor.
Making it easier for people to buy from you, rather than you selling to them.
““Give Alistair 30 minutes of your time and you will want 30 hours of his.””
20 Common Issues We Help Our Clients Resolve
Professional services firms now operate in a highly competitive marketplace, as clients demand more for less. Here are 20 common issues that we have solved for firms like yours. Which of these are familiar?
A few partners/fee earners generate the majority of the new business.
We have little point of difference and so struggle to stand out in the marketplace as we struggle to verbalise how we are better than similar competing firms.
We rely heavily on ‘word of mouth’ to grow revenues and have less than 10 ways to generate new business leads. To make matters worse, staff very rarely ask for referrals as they don’t know how or when to do it.
Cross selling is a goal of the practice, but it doesn’t seem to happen.
Fee earners consider themselves technical experts rather than marketers or worse, salespeople.
We attend and host networking events but achieve very little.
We don’t maximise the potential of the latest technologies available such as blogs, podcasts, online video, social media etc
The firm does a lot of marketing via seminars, brochures, sports tickets, sponsorships, PR and advertising but can’t track any specific client to the initiatives.
The website produces few leads and little new business.
We find it difficult to get in front of potential new clients and struggle to turn leads into fee paying work.
Many staff are willing to market but don’t know what to do.
We have a written marketing plan but struggle to put it into action.
The business does not premeditatedly identify industries where it has experience or expertise, with the aim of pursuing specific clients in those industries.
We find it difficult to prove our expertise and show our track record in our field so we don’t win as much of the ‘quality’ work available as we should.
No formal referral strategy in place with joint venture partners.
We are competing in an increasingly price competitive market where we are discounting regularly to win work. Our margins are therefore not as good as we would like.
Business development does not come up in appraisal meetings as it is not part of our culture.
There are no incentives or bonus for generating new business.
Few partners/fee earners have individual business plans in writing.
Not running at full capacity due to less frequent or reduced client spend. We do not have much income from proactively reaching out to potential new clients.
Despite market conditions, there is always the opportunity to emphasise a firm’s strengths and advantages and reach out to a new clientbase. There is a need to refocus the minds of partners and fee earners on business development and mentor individuals to implement a written individual action plan.
PSBD can be the catalyst to producing the necessary attitudinal and behavioural changes required to see a significant return on the investment made.
Despite its growing importance there is often a substantial gap between contemporary best practice and most professionals’ current approaches to business development bred from experience.
Fine tuning your professionals marketing and business development skills and introducing some new “sales” techniques to expand their repertoire will substantially improve your firm’s capabilities in this core success driver.
To help you to start the learning process, see our #1 Amazon Best-Selling book: GROW YOUR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES PRACTICE: THE PRACTICAL GUIDE TO BD.
