The Top 3 Things Forward-Looking Firms Do That Typical Firms Don’t

This article originally appeared in the Ackert Inc. Blog and is published here with permission of the author.

At corporations, products and sales are two distinct areas of the business. In contrast, in typical professional service firms, the ones who deliver your firm’s “product” – whether lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, or consultants – are also expected to sell.

Your typical firm relies on successful seller-doers for new business development but avoids the term “sell,” instead referring to its best seller-doers as rainmakers. Unfortunately, very few people have the rainmaker’s unique ability to excel at both client service and bringing in significant business.

Plus, seller-doers must navigate competing directives. While their billing quotas are clear, they have no sales quotas to speak of – just the general expectation they’ll both bill hours and bring in as much business as possible.

Forward-looking firms, however, operate more like their corporate counterparts to maximize business development success. Here are the top three things they’re doing that your typical firm isn’t. Read the article.

Just having a CRM is not enough – you must use it. Forward-looking firms use technology that allows seller-doers to manage their business development contacts and activities. 

                                                                                                                                                                                       David Ackert