by Robin Dicks | Jan 14, 2016 | Robin's Blog
The January football transfer window is pretty bizarre if viewed dispassionately – but in an idle moment it made me think. If your firm were a football team, how would you value your players? Who are your star strikers and which central midfielder would you ideally shift to a lower-league outfit? Perhaps more importantly, what are the characteristics of the players you should recruit, and where are the gaps in your squad? What are your objectives for this season? I’m not suggesting you take this analogy too far but if you’re feeling brave, it might open up an interesting debate with the management team and provoke some creative...
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 ...
by Robin Dicks | Jul 15, 2013 | Uncategorized
Really excited by the online commercial client feedback system we’re developing. It’s intended to help firms generate key strategic and client insight of course, but also identify hidden opportunities with clients, and open the door to further conversations. It also helps marketeers and fee earners manage this feedback better and prioritise key areas for immediate action. Demos and free trials available! If you’d like to see it call 44 (0)7940 886677 or drop me an email at robin @...
by Robin Dicks | Jun 19, 2013 | Uncategorized
Mary Dejevsky, one of the columnists in The independent newspaper, wrote pretty scathingly about process of gaining feedback (see this link). Its well observed and quite funny in pinning the practice of “bog standard” questions which don’t provide real meaning to the firm, don’t give value to the client, and which the firm doesn’t do anything about. It nails the still common practice of using templates that produce measures on things which may not matter. Does your process of gaining client feedback gain the value it could, for you and your clients? We’re happy to provide a free review if you’re not sure. Drop me to robin @ thrivingcompany.co.uk if you think this may...
by Robin Dicks | Dec 18, 2012 | Uncategorized
I think one of the key future activities which will define the continued health of any professional services firm is its ability to gather client knowledge and to use it. We’re hearing a lot about “big data” for good or ill, but what are the inputs of client knowledge that firms can pick up today and use, and how can they use this data to improve their performance in day to day, tangible ways? Budgets are tight. Resources are stretched. So its worth using the processes you have to get the most possible benefit (or adding processes which make an impact on your performance in not just one way but several. You may be able to add to it, but here is at least the beginning of a checklist of the outputs that you can get from client feedback on without a $$$ budget. 1. Better knowledge of overall capability required by clients 2. Better knowledge of demand for individual specialisms and areas 3. Identification of specific opportunities and risks 4. Clarification of best positioning (and killing potentially risky “wrong” positioning) 5. Sales and cross sell opportunities 6. Better pitches and proposals 7. Input into training (to improve marketplace impact of that training) 8. Input into recruitment, job descriptions and personnel specifications 9. Creating the right Key Performance Indicators 10. Gaining testimonials to provide 3rd party evidence of your...
