by Robin Dicks | Jul 11, 2016 | Robin's Blog
The world (or at minimum the UK) feels different than it did on 23 June and the result and its’ aftermath of course will have implications for your clients. Much is still uncertain. But it’s an important time to reach out to clients; not just to tell, but to listen. Our thinking is that there are 3 areas worth additional focus on, in the coming months, and asking your clients. These include: What activities and developments are now planned by the client (and how have these changed ?) What is their sentiment, and level of confidence in the business environment? Where do they need more certainty? Where would they value more advice about the potential impact? Asking these questions can enable you to better help individual clients, but also to comment most meaningfully on key issues, and develop your events and communications programme to be most useful to your markets. Comments, or questions, as always welcome on 07940 886677 or...
by Robin Dicks | Nov 3, 2015 | Robin's Blog
Here’s a real-life story about a firm which has recently rebranded with a new visual identity, and lots of messaging about client focus and responsiveness. So what happens when you ring someone? The phone rings… And rings… And rings… No acknowledgement or voice messaging system “kicks in”. This happens if you call a direct line or the switchboard. It’s not just a “one-off” as this has been the experience of a contact of mine on three separate occasions. I’ve no idea how much the “rebranding” cost. But the firm isn’t meeting minimum expectations on this. Maybe some of the budget should have gone on the phone system and making sure staff understand the significance of responding. As I sometimes say –could this be happening in your firm? And if so, how much business might you be...
by Robin Dicks | Aug 18, 2015 | Robin's Blog
Most client feedback exercises get feedback about how the firm performs. Better ones also identify what factors have the greatest impact on the client’s continued use of the firm. But few – still – use the opportunity created by the process to get vital insight into the events and commercial issues seen as most likely by their clients. Knowing this can not only alert you to opportunities with specific clients but also help ensure all your marketing and communications investments of time and money – including events, articles, and social media content – are focused on the issues of most relevance to your clients and prospects. Take a look at this...
by Robin Dicks | Jun 29, 2015 | Robin's Blog
Cross-selling, or as I prefer it to be terms, co-operative selling or successfully extending relationships with clients, requires a number of things to be in place. Fee earners need to be able to answer 5 questions with a “yes”. The link here to the Co-operative selling image shows you what these questions...
by Robin Dicks | Aug 22, 2014 | Uncategorized
For most professional services firms, successful growth remains driven by how well aligned marketing, business development and the activities of fee earners are – and, of course, how well they are executed. But it’s not a perfect world: what is there is a gap in the key activities you cover, or people duplicate effort, or the person responsible for the activity doesn’t have the skills (or desire) to do it? Effectiveness declines. Accountability, ability and appetite. Not all is lost if you don’t have all 3, and people can still drive results. But you do need to understand where people are at and how to maximise the impact of what you do. How can you optimise the effectiveness of all the people involved in the marketing and BD effort? Phil Gott, my colleague in the Winning Firm Alliance, and I have created a diagnostic which very inexpensively and quickly identifies how the whole firm, a practice/team, or an individual can really enhance the results from their activity. Contact me if you’d like more information on 44 (0)7940 886677 or at robin @ thrivingcompany.co.uk ...
