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Luk’s Bi-Weekly 'Think Piece' For Consultants

Edition #56 - August 10, 2022

Dear Younes,

I hope you are all enjoying the summer right now, as I am. Maybe you can relax and take a moment to read my newest experiences and short stories.

As always, I hope I can create a bubble of calmness with my bi-weekly ‘think piece’, a place of stillness in the face of everyday stress. A chance to reflect on what really matters in your consulting work.

Enjoy reading,

Luk

Client discussions

Client questions and case studies from the consulting frontline.

Do not get carried away by the chase after new clients. Focus on generating new business from old and existing clients.

A new client told me: “It is so difficult these days to get new clients – the competition is tough!” Yes, I agree. The market is quite saturated with consulting firms. However, if you do your business development right – rooting it in educating your audience – most of these consultancies will not be your competition.

So many consultancies I talk to focus almost exclusively on generating new leads and clients instead of (also) nurturing their relationships with past and current ones.

It is exponentially more expensive to acquire new clients than retain or upsell an existing one (see 'The Inconventient Number' section below in this newsletter). This is a simple data-backed rule in marketing. It makes sense. Your past and current clients know your capabilities and the types of results you can deliver, and they tell their network.

But then why do so many consulting firms put all their focus into acquiring new clients? As soon as they finish a project, that client gets dropped. Many consulting firms talk about new business and lead gen, but never about maintaining their existing relationships with current and former clients.

My opinion? New business development pipelines can be slow, expensive, and unreliable, contrasting with generating work from past and current clients. That’s the new client topic I’d like to dive into today.

Read in detail why your consultancy absolutely must focus on nurturing and retaining past and current clients.

Would you like to send a question for one of the following newsletter editions? Please send it to me here.

The Irresistible Content

I write a lot. Here's the update from the past 2 weeks.

The latest blog article: The Best Way To Grow A Consulting Firm? Educate Your Audience!

The way clients buy consulting services has changed. It’s time not just to accept it but embrace it! Forever. There is no going back.

I talk to consultancies daily. I see hundreds of websites that go on a never-ending useless bragging. I see brilliant experts refusing to share their expertise as a business strategy. I see marketing specialists trying to sign up their consultancies for every possible event in search of networking opportunities.

Most of the problems I witness consultancies struggle with stem from their failure to adapt to the new B2B buying world we live in. And, considering it didn’t happen overnight, I really don’t get how they missed it.

My other content from the past 2 weeks

TVA blog: The Single Biggest Mistake Consultancies Make: Talking About Themselves

LinkedIn post: What is the number one reason why consulting firms fail?

LinkedIn post: Say YES to all kinds of (unfocused) client requests in consulting: nobody really cares.

LinkedIn post: Too many consulting firms are selling ‘availability’ at too low rates.

LinkedIn post: Buyers of consulting expertise need to know three things.

LinkedIn post: With a fluffy positioning as a consulting firm, you are up for a wild ride.

LinkedIn post: “We were so bad at consulting business development”.

The Authority, previous edition: Edition #55

The Inconvenient Number

Evidence-based learning for consultants.

Find a balance between keeping existing customers and attracting new ones for a healthy business development pipeline.

I see a lot of consultancies hungry for new clients. Which, alright, makes sense. You want to keep your pipeline of projects healthy and active. However, I see a problem when I discover how many of these consultancies put almost all of their efforts into client recruitment to the detriment of client retention.

● It costs 5x as much to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one.

● The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%. The probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20%.

To continuously grow your business, your consultancy, of course, needs new clients. As the number of consultants grows, the number of projects also needs to increase. You also won’t be able to retain every single customer. However, if you are not dedicating a significant portion of your business development efforts to maximizing returning work, you are throwing money out of the window.

Source: invesp

My Inevitable Services

Better consultancy firms, better consultants.

🅾️ Assessing the Consulting Firm's Market Positioning

Many consulting firms make the same mistake – rushing to pitch their services without putting enough effort into their positioning.

It always seems so counter-intuitive to me. It makes growing a consulting business so much harder, such a poor positioning.

Without a strong market positioning, you do not have a proper framework to organize your priorities, client work, and business development. Moreover, your target market has no clear idea of what you do, how you do it, and why what you do is of value.

I can help you assess the consulting firm's strengths and the areas for improvement. So take a piece of paper and a pen and return to the drawing board. Get the foundation right, and the rest will follow.

My assessment takes you through a rigorous process of diagnosing, researching, assessing, and comparing the touchpoints that connect your consultancy with your ideal audience for the years to come.

If you don't assess your positioning every 2 to 3 years, you might have missed a few things on the market.

Interested? Here's a detailed info page.

🅾️ In-company business development workshops for consultancies

Are you seeking help to build and grow the foundations for a solid business development footprint in consulting?

I can help with short virtual interventions, 2-hour virtual workshops, half-day or full-day classes (virtual or live in West Europe), or 2-day boot camps in a retreat format.

Everything is possible.

Interested? Here is further information.

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Previous 'The Authority' edition: Edition #55

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