Helping new managers grasp the business development challenge……..

BACKGROUND

This large accounting firm (just outside the big 4) has (as every other firm has) a large population of people recently qualified as accountants or tax specialists. That population is characterised as being very intelligent and the individuals have proved themselves by passing challenging professional exams. They reached a point in their careers where they needed to learn to manage others (not the subject of this case study) AND meet the expectations of their Partners such that they rapidly became experts in finding and winning new business.

THE CHALLENGE

Most of these young people are brilliant at their technical skills and had chiefly focused on developing these over 4 or 5 years, and had done so very successfully. The group typically had the most exposure to clients; they were the ones who handled most of the emails and the calls. Clients trust them to do a good job. ​

But if they changed – seemingly overnight – into pushy sales people that hard-earned trust would have broken down. 

HOW THE CLIENT BENEFITTED

They lacked the experience and confidence to have different (non technical) conversations with clients and often reverted to focus on their own areas of specialism rather than their client’s needs.​

So the key here is giving them the confidence to ask challenging questions that gives them the skills to spot, and most importantly, develop opportunities. 

WHAT HAPPENED?

We developed a one day training workshop. The design is flexible enough to accommodate different service lines. We start by getting participants to address their own prejudices about selling and being sold to. This helps them understand the barriers in their own heads to moving forward and helps them build a mental model of how they can manage themselves. ​

We use visualisation techniques to further develop their view of how things can be different. The beauty of the design is it appeals to all. Each person can relate the outputs to where they are in their own business development journey. ​

We tell them about what the deep research says the best do and then get them to apply that to three simple case studies. (Again designed to fit all service lines.) ​

This blend of knowledge transfer with “having a go” in a safe, supportive and challenging environment means confidence levels increase dramatically.  

RESULTS

A number of participants reported that they immediately applied the skills. In one case that was the following day and resulted in spotting an opportunity for ~£90,000 worth of new work which was then further developed into a new assignment for the Firm.​

The workshop continues to get very high ratings. Demand through word of mouth recommendations has tripled.