Advisory & consulting for Professional services firms

One of the major reasons professional services firms struggle is due to the quality of business decisions. Untimely, postponed, imprudent business decisions create unnecessary hurdles that could’ve been minimized or even avoided.

The tools we apply to reach specific business objectives vary. Often the key areas that require attention are: growth strategy, client management, positioning, teamwork, service offerings, lead generation system, professional career and skills development, culture, and structure.

We’ve identified nine criticial control points (CRICPs) in professional organizations where, due to organizational entropy, loss of useful work occurs. In our advisory services and solutions, we employ proprietary models and frameworks.

Firms that have found and developed their “sweet spots” enjoy 2x higher net profits than the market’s first quartile (Q1) firms.

The top challenges of Professional services firms

Executives and principals of professional services sectors report the following as their biggest challenges:

  1. How to manage and motivate people effectively
  2. Handling budget issues and financial pressures
  3. How to attract better talent and keep them
  4. How to innovate and effectively integrate new ideas
  5. Dealing with changes in business and leadership
  6. How to strategize, plan and follow through
  7. New business development issues
  8. Dealing with growing client demands and expectations
  9. How to remain profitable with better quality and higher costs
  10. Countering competition and slow economy issues
  11. How to make prudent business decisions faster
  12. Choosing which digital marketing channels will work best

Based on proprietary management models, our advisory services and management solutions were developed specifically for professional service firms to tackle the aforementioned challenges.

Solutions
Advisory Services

Specialize and qualify prospects to get better paying clients

Buyers of professional and business services are very confused. The marketplace is filled to the brim with undifferentiated alternatives. No wonder buyers feel like commoditizing service offerings.

As prices inevitably go down so does the quality of work. While some vendors race to the bottom, hard-working professionals whose work ethics forbid them from doing a bad job find themselves struggling. Low profits, overworked employees and a dubious sustainability.

The only way to break the vicious circle is to create a differentiatied professional services firm. This is possible by becoming specialized and by doubling down on expertise.

Not every lead is a good prospect for your firm. Not every opportunity is a good fit either. Well-positioned business services firms know how to qualify prospects. And how to display competence which leads to higher profit margins.

The key to a more prosperious professional services firm rests with managerial competence

A truly deep expertise in a particular discipline sets a well-positioned professional services firm apart from bland vendors. This applies to how the firm is managed, too. Experise doesn’t guarantee absense of competition, rather, the firm becomes less fungible in the market. Playing to ones strengths at a home field at a favorable time increase probability of success.

There’s a threshold to the number of competitors at both ends of a spectrum. Too little competition and the marketplace might be too small for your business. Too much — and your firm would be better off niching down or creating a new category.

Buyers of professional services have different agendas. based on how decision makers behave, there are four primary buyer types. Some of them are looking for a deal regardless of the value you bring. But some are open to conversations about renumeration based on value. Firms that radiate competence are capable of commanding a price premium.

If your team believes in doing the best work for their clients who value competence and gladly pay more for deeper expertise, we can help your team improve the ways it’s being communicated.

As a competitive advantage, culture is often unduly underestimated

A professional services firm with a clearly articulated culture is a rare trove. Somehow senior management doesn’t put that much stock into talking about it.

Different subcultures fit different types of people while don’t sit with others well. New employees and lateral partners can’t know beforehand if they are a good fit for the company (and its culture) and vice versa. Unless the firm is capable of displaying the kind of culture it fosters, and probe the fit prior to hiring.

On the one hand, job seekers who apply to every single firm aren’t ideal candiates. On the other, applicants act in self-interest: they have value they can bring to the table. However, they also don’t have the time to learn deeply about each firm they apply to. To them, most firms look the same.

Well-differentiated firms with the kind of culture that permeates all of their publicly visible actions attract more of the right talent.

Take a look at one of our solutions — Talent Magnet Firm — where, together, we will tackle talent acquisition.

Connect with us to discuss your goals and aspirations

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