Rainmaking best practice in professional services firms (Selling)

November 2, 2023|Kim's Blog, Lawyers, Marketing, Selling, Social Media|

As an fan of Challenger sales (and the variant Insight Selling Insight selling – building on consultative selling models (kimtasso.com) I was delighted to see that one of the originators – Matthew Dixon – turned his focus to selling in professional services. His research on rainmaker best practice is helpful for those providing sales training and coaching to lawyers, accountants and other knowledge-based professionals. The article What Today’s Rainmakers Do Differently (hbr.org) was published in Nov-Dec 2023. Rainmaking best practice in professional services firms (Selling behaviours).

Rainmakers are doer-sellers

Article authors are Matthew Dixon (one of the co-authors of the 2013 book “The Challenger Sale – How To Take Control of the Customer Conversation), Ted McKenna, Rory Channer and Karen Freeman focus on professional service firms where partners are “doer-sellers” and own the entire business-development and service-delivery life cycle.

As rainmakers, they must build awareness of their expertise in the market to generate demand, identify and close new client business, deliver the work, and then renew and expand the relationship over time.

Buyer changes – Less loyalty

They observe there is less client loyalty now. And predict it will continue to decline.

A survey they conducted of around 100 C-level executives revealed that as recently as five years ago, 76% of buyers preferred to buy again from partners or firms they had used in the past. Today, that figure is down to 53%—and over the next five years, it is expected to drop to 37%.

Rainmaker types

In collaboration with Intapp, a cloud software provider to professional services firms and a sponsor of the research (Intapp leads the way with client lifecycle management (CLM) solution (kimtasso.com)), their team conducted a global study of nearly 1,800 partners across 23 firms to identify how they approach business development.

They evaluated more than 108 attributes for their impact on performance and rated partners’ business-development performance using a standard five-dimension scale. They conducted hour-long behavioural interviews with more than 80 top performers from across our sample population and 40 C-level executives from participating firms’ client bases.

The authors identify five statistically determined profiles that professional services partners fall into, only one of which is correlated with positive performance.

The five rainmaker profiles

Expert – Reluctant business developers. Reputation as Subject Matter Experts (SME)
Confidants – Reputation for executing superior work and protective of relationships
Debaters – Contrarians who believe they know best
Realists – Pride in being honest and transparent
Activators – Network builders who identify and engage with prospective clients through tools such as LinkedIn and at industry and firm events

You can see the similarity of the different types of “salespeople” in the Insight Selling model Insight selling – building on consultative selling models (kimtasso.com) of which Challenger is the most successful:

“Challenger” has a different view, teaches, tailors, asserts control
“Lone wolf” follows own instincts and is self-assured
“Hard worker” willing to go the extra mile
“Problem solver” is reliable in responding and detail oriented
“Relationship builder” builds and nurtures strong advocates

They found that four of the five (representing 78% of the partners in the study) are negatively correlated with performance. Only one—the Activator—shows a positive impact on performance and revenue. The move to an Activator model results in revenue-generation increase of up to 32%.

Importance of collaboration for cross-selling

Only 29% of non-Activators frequently introduce clients to other colleagues in their firms (Cross-selling) —compared with 73% for Activators, who sell the collective “we” of their firms rather than just the “me” of their personal expertise.

Traditionally, firms have focused on technical expertise, client impact, and book of business as the criteria for making partner-selection and hiring decisions. But the research suggests that other criteria should be emphasized as well—for instance, a candidate’s proclivity for collaboration.

Three key behaviours for successful business development

They list the three key behaviours of a successful business-development approach (Activators):

Build connected networks of colleagues and clients
Create value through collaboration
Commit to a proactive and consistent business-development routine

They also found that:

Non-Activators spend 37% less time on business developers than Activators.
90% of Activators report they reserve time for BD every week and balance BD time
Activators spend about the same time between 22% new clients and 23% existing clients (whereas others spend 32% on existing and 17% on new clients)
Activators help current and prospective clients by curating information (about regulatory changes, court rulings, economic indicators, news events, and so on) that they need to be aware of. Activators then proactively engage clients in conversations about potential issues and opportunities.

Sales and cross-selling case studies in professional services

They mention the annual self-evaluation memo produced by Baker McKenzie that does things differently. It asks its partners to not just report on their own accomplishments but also point to specific instances in which they’ve successfully collaborated with colleagues. Since switching to a collaborative approach six years ago, Baker McKenzie North America has increased its revenue more than 40%. It seems they have cracked the cross-selling challenge.

Katie Vickery, a partner at the UK law firm Osborne Clarke, has a commitment to her business-development routine that has paid off. She told the authors that she spends half of every workday on business development. She posts on LinkedIn, likes or comments on others’ posts, and keeps track of role changes and personal events. She reads as much as possible, scanning the news in search of valuable updates that she can send to clients. She also creates thought leadership videos. When inspiration strikes, she goes into Osborne Clarke’s in-house studio, records a video in about 20 minutes, and posts it on LinkedIn. Her process nets her roughly one new business opportunity every two to three days.

Eric Tresh, a partner at law firm Eversheds Sutherland, spends most mornings reviewing recent tax-court decisions. He then identifies clients and prospects in his network for which the rulings present an opportunity or a threat. He drafts messages to his connections in those organizations and proposes that they meet to discuss the implications.

McDermott Will & Emery has a unique approach to business development, a key component of which is a global training program for partners on managing their networks. Over the past five years, the firm has trained over 500 partners, resulting in stronger client relationships and helping increase firm revenue. The firm has grown from $800 million to $1.8 billion, making it the fastest-growing law firm in the United States. McDermott Will & Emery encourages healthy competition among its partners by asking them to log at least two business-development activities a week.

Adam Ludwiczak, a partner at Marathon Capital, a financial services firm with a focus on renewable energy projects, told them that he maps out his business-development activities before the workweek begins. Every Sunday night, he writes three categories on a blank sheet of paper: client interactions, deal-specific action items and ways to engage prospects and clients. At the end of each day, he emails notes to his direct reports, who feed them into Marathon’s CRM system. He tags relevant parties on opportunities so that team members can work together to keep the business-development pipeline moving.

Tom Day, a partner at PA Consulting, took that approach with his team to create opportunities with a potential client at a consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) firm. Tom’s team realized that its CEO was active on LinkedIn.

Where there is a deficit of Activators, a smart way to deploy this scarce talent (until others can be hired or trained to be Activators) is to assign them to be relationship managers on the firm’s largest and highest-potential client opportunities—something that a number of progressive organizations, like law firm Faegre Drinker, strive to do.

Firms can significantly boost Activator behaviours by investing in technology. Generative AI, such as ChatGPT and Google Bard, can help partners surface client-relevant insights from massive amounts of publicly available information. CRM systems can prompt partners to proactively engage clients at certain time intervals or when client-related issues arise. Social platforms like LinkedIn help partners identify prospects with whom they should be connected. Internal social-networking tools, such as Slack and Microsoft Teams, help partners identify colleagues with relevant connections. Finnegan, a leading boutique intellectual-property law firm, leverages firmwide experience-management technology to capture deep insights into practices, industries, courts, judges, clients, court filings and the varied technical experience of the firm’s IP professionals.

(I love that the term “Rainmaker” is still in use. When I first worked with law firms in 1989 I was surprised by the use of the term for business development. Especially as I have Native American ancestors. And although I didn’t use the term in my first sales book in 2003, I did use it in the title of a 2014 business development book Rainmakers – business development for lawyers (kimtasso.com)).

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