One of the most important and often most difficult steps in the process of becoming a true rain-maker is to find that area about which you are deeply passionate. One of the most prominent rain-makers in UHY Advisors FLVS, Inc. is Jeffrey Harfenist, the National Practice Leader for the Fraud & Forensics Practice and a extensively published expert on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and international fraud investigations.
This is his story.
How did your practice begin?
When I started thirty years ago there was no such thing as litigation support in the practice of public accounting. I had my CPA and was an auditor. I knew that was not the challenge I was looking for in my career.
Early on an attorney I knew called me regarding a few cases he had. He wanted help with the financial side to them. We talked and I helped him. Eventually he needed an expert to testify in court on these issues and he hired me. When I landed that very first case I was hooked.
I immediately found that being a litigation damages expert and then working with attorneys on other financial issues involved in their cases or transactions was, and is, intellectually challenging and gives you a great deal of variety.
What characteristics must you have to work in this field?
You have to be fearless – you will be put into situations and asked to analyze things that you may at times not be comfortable with. You have to believe in yourself and do the hard work to get it right and then you must be able to present it in a way that the attorneys, their clients and most importantly, juries, can understand.
It is important, therefore, to know your weaknesses. We all like to do what we are good at, but it is perhaps more important to know what you are not good at. You then have to take the steps to correct that, do the research, practice, ask experts in the area, and whatever it takes to overcome that weakness.
You must be an excellent communicator – both in terms of the written and spoken word. When I was younger I took creative writing classes to help me write more effectively. As an accountant that was not part of the curriculum in college. My target clients, attorneys, are masters of the word so to play in their space I had to learn to write properly and write well.
Speaking. Peoples’ greatest fear is speaking in front of people. It is rated higher than death and cancer. If you are going to practice in this area you simply cannot fear this. You must speak in front of attorneys in depositions and in a courtroom and be able to handle harsh cross-examinations. If you cannot speak clearly in that venue and articulate your points in a way that the non-experts in the jury can understand, you cannot build this practice.
You also build your business by doing public speaking. The potential client in the audience is not only looking at the quality of the material you present, but also at how you are presenting it. Is your presentation knowledgeable and comprehensive yet understandable for the level of the audience? I recommend that young professionals speak as often as possible. I joined Toastmasters where I was forced to speak on rather random topics at a moments notice. This really helped me develop the ability to think clearly on my feet and then present in a cogent manner.
How did you build your business?
Networking, networking, networking.
Once I figured out what I wanted to do, I got out of the office and met a great many attorneys. I built relationships. I listened and cared and followed through for those I met. I used my connections to meet other attorneys. I attended Bar Assn events and secured as many opportunities to present in the CLEs they offered as I could land. I spoke on anything related to accounting and the law.
I believe you have to develop an advocate in each firm. A person who wants you to succeed and is willing to introduce you within the firm and more than that, promote you within the firm. Early in my career I found a person like that in an insurance defense firm. He introduced me around and I started getting small cases where there were lost profits in an auto accident case, for examples, because the injured person owned a business and because of his injuries could not operate it. Tremendous experience for me as a young expert.
My advocate introduced me to others in other firms. I developed more advocates in those firms who introduced me to others. This took many years. I now have several hundred contacts in my network, but I would count only around a dozen as true champions for me. They are all carefully-chosen, cultivated through reciprocity by me in any way I could. They have served me well and I hope I have done the same for them. Start with one person you trust, who trusts you and has at least some influence in his or her firm and build from there.
Your job as an expert witness is not to advocate for the client. That is the attorney’s job. Your job is to take complex financial issues based on the facts that you know, often inserted into economic models, and try to educate a jury as to what they actually mean in relation do this case, which is hard enough. Do not rely on representations from an attorney that you cannot verify are facts. I sat in on a deposition a while back of an expert who relied on representations that her attorneys had provided her. She obviously had not reviewed the facts and the documents. She was destroyed.
When I was just getting started I learned this and other things, the hard way. I was being deposed by a veteran attorney. I was filleted every way possible. I was not quite as prepared as I should have been. I talked too much. I tried to impress him with my brilliance. He spoke softly and guided me into trap after trap after trap. I learned a great deal that day.
As you choose who your clients will be, make very good decisions. Your advocates can be a great help in this regard. Make sure clients have integrity and do things the right way. Have a healthy skepticism. It takes a long time to develop a reputation and only an instance to destroy it.
How did you find that your passion was fraud and anti-corruption investigations?
My path into this profession was somewhat opportunistic and somewhat by design. I reached a point in my career where I no longer found the expert witness work to be stimulating. I wanted something new. Prior to joining UHY Advisors FLVS I had an opportunity to investigate a fraudulent insurance agent. It was a fairly simple but ingenious plot. During that experience, in the late 1980s, I discovered that this was incredibly fascinating. It was many years after that before I got the opportunity to do that again. Early in this decade, UHY Advisors was hired to perform the international investigation of TYCO. I was put in charge of a major portion of the work and that got me started and I have never looked back.
Fraud and corruption investigations are a marriage of everything we know as accountants combined with the study of human nature. What makes someone cross over that line? We are presented every day with opportunities to make bad decisions, but 99% of us never take that fateful step. What causes that 1% to make really bad decisions?
It was stunning in TYCO that someone making $40 million in legitimate annual pay decided to steal from the government and the company. The case began because the CEO refused to pay sales taxes on some paintings he purchased in a public auction. It then mushroomed into one of the largest international fraud investigations in history.
Fraud is solving a puzzle times twenty with human nature injected into the equation and I love it. I love to figure out the puzzle. The more complex the better. I love taking seemingly disparate bits of information and figuring it out so that it all coalesces into an “Ah-hah moment” where you realize “that’s how they did it.” Then you dig and dig until you uncover the entire trail.
You are a renowned expert in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigations. How did you get into that line of work?
Four years ago go, through networking connections and quality work for a firm I got my first shot at an FCPA case. I had done TYCO and other international fraud cases, so the FCPA investigation was a logical next step and that was just heating up at that time. International anti-corruption and fraud cases have all the challenges of the typical fraud or embezzlement case with an international flavor. I love to travel. Added to the traditional human component is local culture and tradition. Corruption has been the way business has been done in most countries for centuries. The puzzles were even more complex. Who are the people and how are they going to accomplish things under the environment they work in?
I have been doing this 30 years. When I look back I think about the experiences I had early on that I thought were a waste of my time. Every one ended up allowing me to develop a very beneficial skill set that I have reached back on. These early exercises build the arsenal of tools that you have in your toolbox to use as the next thing comes along.
How did you become an expert, world class practitioner?
As I mentioned, I spoke anywhere and everywhere on any topic to develop public speaking skills. I went down to the Houston Bar events and spoke as often as possible. Most do not listen, but the key is to speak. Speaking so often made me very comfortable in front of people. I love it now. I consider it a great challenge to convey complex concepts to “ordinary” people. I practiced for hours. I tried to anticipate the questions the audience would ask.
I am a voracious reader. I subscribe to every business publication there is. I read them in depth. This area changes constantly. You have to see the future and be able to re-invent yourself to be able to manage change. The basic skill sets do not change much – managing an investigation is the same no matter what investigation you are running – but you have to understand what needs to be investigated.
I write lots of articles and get them published in prominent Journals all around the world. You have to get your name out there as an expert and then once you get an opportunity, you have to prove that you really know what you are doing.
Provide world class service. You have to not only perform technically but you have to provide phenomenal customer service so that they come back to you and recommend you to their colleagues and peers. The client is going on faith when they hire you. Speaking a lot and writing a lot helps to give you the shot. Delivering the goods at 110% allows you to get future work.
How critical is it to be passionate about what you do?
There is no way I could be where I am without the passion I feel for the work. You can be good for a sprint, I suppose like I was in damages testimony. To win the marathon you have to be relentless and the only way you can be relentless is to truly love what you are doing.
A few years ago I spoke at a webinar with a prominent Washington DC anti-corruption attorney. I stayed after him for years. I never heard any response from him. Not one word. A couple of weeks ago an associate at the firm contacted me. I mentioned that I had spoken with the attorney several years prior, and the associate told me that it was that attorney who had instructed him to call me. Three years later an opportunity finally came of my effort.
Passion gives you the ability to stay persistent.
How Important are Credentials?
They are more important now than they were when I started, but they will not make you. You hope that having the right ones will help you avoid being disqualified before you even get a chance. If they have three options and the other two have all the” important” credentials and you do not, you may not even get in the game. Some credentials, of course, hold more weight than others.
I am a CPA and an MBA. I will never know, though, how many opportunities I did not get because I did not have some other credentials. Choose those credentials that have true gravitas.
What advice can you give younger professionals about Networking?
Find things you like and join an organization on that topic. If you like photography, join a photography club. There will be potential clients in that club and you will have something in common and can build relationships that way.
Our game is a numbers game. You have to meet a lot of people. The more people you know the higher the likelihood that someone will need you.
The Texas Bar is critical. Go to Bar events.
Join charities. Lawyers sit on charitable boards.
Call attorneys and go to lunch.
Practice your pitch. The more you practice it the more easily it will flow when you find yourself sitting on a plane next to a potential client.
Becoming a rain-maker is not rocket science. It is hard work and dedication. That being said, you simply cannot get there without first finding your passion. You will not do what is required of you long enough if you do not find your true and deep passions. Take your time. You will need it.
Thank you Jeffrey for your time.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Step II: Finding Your Deep Passion
As discussed, to find your business' "Hedgehog" as described in Good to Great by Jim Collins you have to find the intersection of the answers to these three questions.
About what are you deeply passionate?
At what can you be best in the world?
What drives your economic engine?
The First of These is Passion:
The first step in creating your own Great rain-making business is to find what you are deeply passionate about. You cannot become a lasting expert in anything about which you are not deeply passionate. You just will never engage in the level of discipline necessary to get there unless you love what you are doing.
You can become good at things you do not like to do, but being good is the antithesis of being great. One of the most difficult steps to take in life is from good, which is safe and comfortable, to great. The only way to become a true rain-maker is to become GREAT at what you love to do. Become an expert.
Remember, clients hire experts to perform their most important, mission-critical projects. They will seek them out and pay them more. Therefore you have to become an expert to get those projects.
A recreational passion is good, but what you really have to work on is finding what in a business sense you are passionate about. Remember your true passion must overlap with an area where you can become best in the world and that which will drive your economic engine. Finding that intersection, of course, is the difficult part.
Passion is also not based on money. The question is not, "How can I get rich?" You cannot become great if you are not passionate. Your greatness and passion will drive your economic engine. That is where money comes in. One step at a time.
As you do what you do, see what others do and explore on your own, what absolutely turns you on? What would you do if you could only do one thing every day?
Most often these are tasks or functions. Things you like to do. Take all the jobs you like to do. Break them down into tasks and functions. Prioritize them in order based entirely on how much you love the task or function. Identify other tasks or functions you love. Look closely at your recreational tasks, the books you choose, the movies you watch, the discussions you enjoy, the places you like to visit, the types of vacations you choose, etc. What parts of those really light your fire.
Start with a premise. "I am passionate about . . . " List everything you are truly passionate about. Be honest. If you are not passionate about it, leave it off your list. This should be a pretty exclusive list.
Get deep into it. Sometimes finishing this list will lead to an Ah-hah moment and it will be suddenly obvious to you. Sometimes, not so much. Nonetheless, this is the beginning of the process.
The next step is to answer the other questions. Explore and seek out opportunities where you can do things you love. Find areas where you can become best in the world and begin to do the things required to get there. Look at how you can make money doing what you love. Over time you will be able to put meat on the bones of this skeleton. Define it more and find a path that will make you Great.
This is your future. Find your real passion. You have to become and "expert" at something to drive your economic engine in the professional services arena and you will never be best in the world at anything you are not passionate about.
Good luck.
About what are you deeply passionate?
At what can you be best in the world?
What drives your economic engine?
The First of These is Passion:
The first step in creating your own Great rain-making business is to find what you are deeply passionate about. You cannot become a lasting expert in anything about which you are not deeply passionate. You just will never engage in the level of discipline necessary to get there unless you love what you are doing.
You can become good at things you do not like to do, but being good is the antithesis of being great. One of the most difficult steps to take in life is from good, which is safe and comfortable, to great. The only way to become a true rain-maker is to become GREAT at what you love to do. Become an expert.
Remember, clients hire experts to perform their most important, mission-critical projects. They will seek them out and pay them more. Therefore you have to become an expert to get those projects.
A recreational passion is good, but what you really have to work on is finding what in a business sense you are passionate about. Remember your true passion must overlap with an area where you can become best in the world and that which will drive your economic engine. Finding that intersection, of course, is the difficult part.
Passion is also not based on money. The question is not, "How can I get rich?" You cannot become great if you are not passionate. Your greatness and passion will drive your economic engine. That is where money comes in. One step at a time.
As you do what you do, see what others do and explore on your own, what absolutely turns you on? What would you do if you could only do one thing every day?
Most often these are tasks or functions. Things you like to do. Take all the jobs you like to do. Break them down into tasks and functions. Prioritize them in order based entirely on how much you love the task or function. Identify other tasks or functions you love. Look closely at your recreational tasks, the books you choose, the movies you watch, the discussions you enjoy, the places you like to visit, the types of vacations you choose, etc. What parts of those really light your fire.
Start with a premise. "I am passionate about . . . " List everything you are truly passionate about. Be honest. If you are not passionate about it, leave it off your list. This should be a pretty exclusive list.
Get deep into it. Sometimes finishing this list will lead to an Ah-hah moment and it will be suddenly obvious to you. Sometimes, not so much. Nonetheless, this is the beginning of the process.
The next step is to answer the other questions. Explore and seek out opportunities where you can do things you love. Find areas where you can become best in the world and begin to do the things required to get there. Look at how you can make money doing what you love. Over time you will be able to put meat on the bones of this skeleton. Define it more and find a path that will make you Great.
This is your future. Find your real passion. You have to become and "expert" at something to drive your economic engine in the professional services arena and you will never be best in the world at anything you are not passionate about.
Good luck.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Step 1 - Becoming a Rainmaker: Each Professional is a Business
One of the most significant changes that a young professional must go through in order to begin to become a rainmaker is growing from follower to leader. For most of one's career, the professional does what the firm's rainmakers and senior professionals ask him or her to do. The professional's career is guided less by what one loves to do and more by what the "higher ups" need from him or her. To become a rainmaker, one must break from this mindset and begin to think like the owner of one's own business and career.
In choosing your career, bear two things in mind:
No Service that requires the power of the mind can ever become a commodity.
No excuses.
Clients hire experts for their important work.
They cannot afford not to.
Clients will seek them out and pay them more.
You have to prove you are an expert.
Think like a business owner. Business owners are concerned with how to drive gross revenues (top line growth), control costs, maximize effectiveness and produce efficiently, so that those gross revenues result in high profitability. Finally, a major leap for young professionals is the concern with collections. Clients not only have to generate billings that will create a profit, but their clients have to be sufficiently credit worthy so that collection of those fees is likely. Cash is ultimately king.
Think like a leader. No one will build your business for you. Find your own clients. Build strong relationships with them. Think in terms of leading the opportunities you bring in. Think in terms of building and leading your team. Think in terms of delighting the client.
Bottom line, work on reducing your reliance on others and take personal responsibility for YOUR career.
Good to Great by Jim Collins: My favorite book on how to create a great company is this one. Professor Collins and his team did tons of research and found and then analyzed pairs of companies. Each had 15 years of good and comparable performance. There was a transition point. The comparison company remained good for 15 years. The Great Company outperformed the market by at least 3 times over 15 years and one change in CEO.
Why did this happen? What made these companies different? What made them GREAT?
More important, how does this apply to YOU?
The team found in essence that a strong and special sort of leader (referred to as a Level 5 leader) took over. Rather than designing a strategy and bringing people on board to fit it, they brought on high level people and then worked together to devise the best strategy for the company. As a young professional, you will find your own passion and become best in the world, but the lesson is that generally you cannot do that alone. Find the best like minded professionals around you, explore your passions and figure out where you want to drive your business.
A Level 5 leader has many attributes beyond the scope of this entry (read the book) but one is humility. Take all the blame and defelct all of the credit. As President Harry Truman once said:
“You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit.”
A pretty refreshing comment from a politician.
Discipline becomes the key to becoming great, to becoming a rainmaker. As the leader, be rigorous, not ruthless. Take your time and gather the “right” people around you. Remove those who do not fit quickly, but respectfully. Start a “Stop Doing” List and stop doing those things. Finally, put your Best People on your Biggest Opportunities, not your Biggest Problems.
Face the "Brutal Facts" and encourage your team to bring them up as early as possible. Nothing builds client relationships faster than quick communication of errors, taking responsibility for them, and recovering in a way that makes the client look great in front of the people most important to them.
Hedgehog Concept: Each of the companies, in their ways, went through an interesting and unique analysis which Dr. Collins refers to as the Hedgehog. The intersection of three critical considerations drove the decisions of the companies that became great:
About what are you deeply passionate?
At what can you be best in the world?
What drives your economic engine?
Discipline Over Time: This is not an overnight process. As Sam Walton said about Wal-Mart:
“Somehow over the years people have gotten the impression that Wal-Mart was just this great idea that turned into an overnight success. But it was an outgrowth of everything we’d been doing since 1945 … And like most overnight successes, it was about twenty years in the making”
The process must continue to be a positive one. Come up with ideas consisent with the Hedgehog. Try them. Evaluate those honestly. If they worked, build on them and build momentum. If not, conduct an autopsy without blaming anyone, to see what went wrong and how to make it better. Then, staying committed to your passion, your efforts to become best in the world and your understanding as to how that will drive your economic engine, adjust the strategy and build on what you learned. Move forward.
Failures arise when leaders blame others, constantly change courses and lose site of the Hedgehog.
Your Hedgehog: Find your DEEPEST PASSION. Determine at what, focusing on that passion, you CAN become Best in the World. Define YOUR World. Start with Best in your company. Then your City, Region, State, Country and finally the World! You can make it bigger over time - “twenty years in the making.”
Use your passion and your expertise to drive your economic engine. Adhere fanatically to your Hedgehog. Take charge and make it happen. Become a Rainmaker.
In choosing your career, bear two things in mind:
No Service that requires the power of the mind can ever become a commodity.
No excuses.
Clients hire experts for their important work.
They cannot afford not to.
Clients will seek them out and pay them more.
You have to prove you are an expert.
Think like a business owner. Business owners are concerned with how to drive gross revenues (top line growth), control costs, maximize effectiveness and produce efficiently, so that those gross revenues result in high profitability. Finally, a major leap for young professionals is the concern with collections. Clients not only have to generate billings that will create a profit, but their clients have to be sufficiently credit worthy so that collection of those fees is likely. Cash is ultimately king.
Think like a leader. No one will build your business for you. Find your own clients. Build strong relationships with them. Think in terms of leading the opportunities you bring in. Think in terms of building and leading your team. Think in terms of delighting the client.
Bottom line, work on reducing your reliance on others and take personal responsibility for YOUR career.
Good to Great by Jim Collins: My favorite book on how to create a great company is this one. Professor Collins and his team did tons of research and found and then analyzed pairs of companies. Each had 15 years of good and comparable performance. There was a transition point. The comparison company remained good for 15 years. The Great Company outperformed the market by at least 3 times over 15 years and one change in CEO.
Why did this happen? What made these companies different? What made them GREAT?
More important, how does this apply to YOU?
The team found in essence that a strong and special sort of leader (referred to as a Level 5 leader) took over. Rather than designing a strategy and bringing people on board to fit it, they brought on high level people and then worked together to devise the best strategy for the company. As a young professional, you will find your own passion and become best in the world, but the lesson is that generally you cannot do that alone. Find the best like minded professionals around you, explore your passions and figure out where you want to drive your business.
A Level 5 leader has many attributes beyond the scope of this entry (read the book) but one is humility. Take all the blame and defelct all of the credit. As President Harry Truman once said:
“You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit.”
A pretty refreshing comment from a politician.
Discipline becomes the key to becoming great, to becoming a rainmaker. As the leader, be rigorous, not ruthless. Take your time and gather the “right” people around you. Remove those who do not fit quickly, but respectfully. Start a “Stop Doing” List and stop doing those things. Finally, put your Best People on your Biggest Opportunities, not your Biggest Problems.
Face the "Brutal Facts" and encourage your team to bring them up as early as possible. Nothing builds client relationships faster than quick communication of errors, taking responsibility for them, and recovering in a way that makes the client look great in front of the people most important to them.
Hedgehog Concept: Each of the companies, in their ways, went through an interesting and unique analysis which Dr. Collins refers to as the Hedgehog. The intersection of three critical considerations drove the decisions of the companies that became great:
About what are you deeply passionate?
At what can you be best in the world?
What drives your economic engine?
Discipline Over Time: This is not an overnight process. As Sam Walton said about Wal-Mart:
“Somehow over the years people have gotten the impression that Wal-Mart was just this great idea that turned into an overnight success. But it was an outgrowth of everything we’d been doing since 1945 … And like most overnight successes, it was about twenty years in the making”
The process must continue to be a positive one. Come up with ideas consisent with the Hedgehog. Try them. Evaluate those honestly. If they worked, build on them and build momentum. If not, conduct an autopsy without blaming anyone, to see what went wrong and how to make it better. Then, staying committed to your passion, your efforts to become best in the world and your understanding as to how that will drive your economic engine, adjust the strategy and build on what you learned. Move forward.
Failures arise when leaders blame others, constantly change courses and lose site of the Hedgehog.
Your Hedgehog: Find your DEEPEST PASSION. Determine at what, focusing on that passion, you CAN become Best in the World. Define YOUR World. Start with Best in your company. Then your City, Region, State, Country and finally the World! You can make it bigger over time - “twenty years in the making.”
Use your passion and your expertise to drive your economic engine. Adhere fanatically to your Hedgehog. Take charge and make it happen. Become a Rainmaker.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Ten Steps to Becoming a Rain-Maker
Professional services are all services provided that require the power of the mind to solve often complex problems or perform analysis requiring specialized talents and skills and rendering a solution to the client. No Service that requires the
power of the mind can ever become a commodity.
Clients hire experts for their important work.
They cannot afford not to.
Clients will seek them out and pay them more.
Therefore, as professionals we have to prove we are experts.
Finally, to become an expert, one must find your passion for you will not expend the time required to become an expert in any area about which you are not truly passionate. Experts immerse themselves in their disciplines.
There are ten steps to developing a professional services practice.
1. You are a Business: Every professional is a unique business.
This is true whether one works for a firm or hangs out her own shingle.
Buyers buy a professional and his or her team.
You must build your business and team.
2. Find Your Passion: As explained in Good to Great by Jim Collins, you must become the best in the world at that about which you are passionate and use that to drive your economic engine.
What are you truly passionate about?
3. Focus: Identify your service or services and create your professional services business.
You must be the expert.
Buyers pay the most in "bet-the-company" situations.
In those situations they want the best.
To get the best they will pay more.
If you are the best, buyers will seek you out and pay you more.
It can be a long road to get there, but worth the trip.
4. Become a True Expert: Once you have identified the services you will deliver through your business, you must develop a "culture of discipline" to become the very best in the world at the disciplines involved.
Read everything.
Pay your dues. Get all relevant certifications and degrees.
Join the right organizations and get involved.
Listen to the current experts.
Take their ideas to the next level.
See the future.
Get published.
Speak often.
Speak with passion.
5. Identify Your Target Market: Who buys YOU and what you do?
Identify your targets with specificity.
Create a detailed list.
Who controls the projects you want to work on?
Research them. Know them.
Determine who else knows them.
6. Marketing: Building your expertise and more precisely the perception of expertise. Tell the "world.“
Network – build many close relationships.
Turn them into Friends/Coaches who will advocate for you.
Create a STRONG CV.
Build a list if references and secure testimonials.
Develop a list of cases you have done or worked on.
Make marketing yourself a critical daily function.
Create strategies to get to your Targets.
Network, Network, Network.
7. Selling Becomes Simple: First – it is NOT selling!
Know the target and what THEY NEED.
What will make THEM look GREAT in front of the people MOST IMPORTANT to THEM?
Who are those people? Use your friends/coaches.
NEVER ASSUME!!!
Listen. Share briefly. Ask good questions and repeat.
Work with them to create a solution.
Show that you want this to result in a Win for THEM.
Adjust/build your Target list.
8. Sell Strategically: Use Your Friends/Coaches.
Who else influences the decision to hire you.
Find them. Research them. Know them. Find out what is important to them.
Create a "Win" for everyone who influences whether you get hired and you will create a big win for YOU.
“Make them look great in front of the people most important to them.”
9. Execute Flawlessly and Professionally: Act with etiquette and manners.
Build your team. Perform flawlessly (as possible).
Provide phenomenal delight-the-customer service.
Communicate everything – especially errors.
Never blame them or those important to them.
Graceful recovery from mistakes builds lifelong friends.
10. Exploit your Successes: Make everyone at the client a new Friend/Coach for you.
Use them to get the next piece of business in that firm.
Use them as a reference to get work in other firms.
Secure a testimonial.
Write an article together and get it published. Speak together.
Find ways to benefit your friends/coaches.
Becoming a rain-maker is not an easy endeavor. It requires vision, dedication, discipline and a desire to get there. It takes years, not months. Most overnight successes were years in the making.
The key to success is finding your path to success.
Ideas for these concepts come from Good to Great by Jim Collins, The New Strategic Selling by Heiman and Sanchez, 95% Share Marketing & Sales by Fanning and Niekamp and other brilliant minds.
power of the mind can ever become a commodity.
Clients hire experts for their important work.
They cannot afford not to.
Clients will seek them out and pay them more.
Therefore, as professionals we have to prove we are experts.
Finally, to become an expert, one must find your passion for you will not expend the time required to become an expert in any area about which you are not truly passionate. Experts immerse themselves in their disciplines.
There are ten steps to developing a professional services practice.
1. You are a Business: Every professional is a unique business.
This is true whether one works for a firm or hangs out her own shingle.
Buyers buy a professional and his or her team.
You must build your business and team.
2. Find Your Passion: As explained in Good to Great by Jim Collins, you must become the best in the world at that about which you are passionate and use that to drive your economic engine.
What are you truly passionate about?
3. Focus: Identify your service or services and create your professional services business.
You must be the expert.
Buyers pay the most in "bet-the-company" situations.
In those situations they want the best.
To get the best they will pay more.
If you are the best, buyers will seek you out and pay you more.
It can be a long road to get there, but worth the trip.
4. Become a True Expert: Once you have identified the services you will deliver through your business, you must develop a "culture of discipline" to become the very best in the world at the disciplines involved.
Read everything.
Pay your dues. Get all relevant certifications and degrees.
Join the right organizations and get involved.
Listen to the current experts.
Take their ideas to the next level.
See the future.
Get published.
Speak often.
Speak with passion.
5. Identify Your Target Market: Who buys YOU and what you do?
Identify your targets with specificity.
Create a detailed list.
Who controls the projects you want to work on?
Research them. Know them.
Determine who else knows them.
6. Marketing: Building your expertise and more precisely the perception of expertise. Tell the "world.“
Network – build many close relationships.
Turn them into Friends/Coaches who will advocate for you.
Create a STRONG CV.
Build a list if references and secure testimonials.
Develop a list of cases you have done or worked on.
Make marketing yourself a critical daily function.
Create strategies to get to your Targets.
Network, Network, Network.
7. Selling Becomes Simple: First – it is NOT selling!
Know the target and what THEY NEED.
What will make THEM look GREAT in front of the people MOST IMPORTANT to THEM?
Who are those people? Use your friends/coaches.
NEVER ASSUME!!!
Listen. Share briefly. Ask good questions and repeat.
Work with them to create a solution.
Show that you want this to result in a Win for THEM.
Adjust/build your Target list.
8. Sell Strategically: Use Your Friends/Coaches.
Who else influences the decision to hire you.
Find them. Research them. Know them. Find out what is important to them.
Create a "Win" for everyone who influences whether you get hired and you will create a big win for YOU.
“Make them look great in front of the people most important to them.”
9. Execute Flawlessly and Professionally: Act with etiquette and manners.
Build your team. Perform flawlessly (as possible).
Provide phenomenal delight-the-customer service.
Communicate everything – especially errors.
Never blame them or those important to them.
Graceful recovery from mistakes builds lifelong friends.
10. Exploit your Successes: Make everyone at the client a new Friend/Coach for you.
Use them to get the next piece of business in that firm.
Use them as a reference to get work in other firms.
Secure a testimonial.
Write an article together and get it published. Speak together.
Find ways to benefit your friends/coaches.
Becoming a rain-maker is not an easy endeavor. It requires vision, dedication, discipline and a desire to get there. It takes years, not months. Most overnight successes were years in the making.
The key to success is finding your path to success.
Ideas for these concepts come from Good to Great by Jim Collins, The New Strategic Selling by Heiman and Sanchez, 95% Share Marketing & Sales by Fanning and Niekamp and other brilliant minds.
Friday, January 22, 2010
The Economic Buyer – The Toughest Influencer of All
Make sure the person writing the check for your services will want you to be the provider of those services. Failing to create a true Win for the Economic Buyer can end in a complete loss of a hard-fought effort for quality work. (Read New Strategic Selling, by Heiman and Sanchez.)
Technical Buying Influence: If you have paid your dues and done your homework and have become a true expert in an area about which you are truly passionate, getting past the technical buyer and creating a “Win” for her if you are chosen becomes easier and easier. If you are truly great, then her choice of you will make her look great in front of the people who are most important to her, and that is a Win for her. Keep that up and you are golden with her.
User Buying Influence: If you have perfected your craft, are personable, speak and write well, provide exceptional delight-the-customer service, and are a true expert, you will make the user buyer look great in front of the people most important to him and he will seek you out and pay you more to do it over and over.
Economic Buying Influence: The trickiest buying influencer is the “Economic Buyer.” This is the person who writes the checks. The Economic Buyer may be the User Buyer as well in the case of an attorney selling to the GC, but often the GC answers to the CEO or CFO as additional and important Economic Buying influencers. It is risky to fail to make sure that all those with Economic Buying influence are not addressed in your sales process and that you have created a Win for each of them.
Early in your relationship with the User Buyer, the Economic Buyer is just as important and a great deal more difficult to get to. If the Economic Buyer is comfortable with the User Buyer’s use of another professional, their fee structure, how they are paid and may even have set up eCommerce payment mechanisms, this may be one of the most difficult obstacles to tackle in convincing the User Buyer to change professionals. She may like you. She may even prefer you. But she may not be willing to go to bat for you with the Economic Buyer. In the end she will comfortably go with the professional her Economic Buyer boss is comfortable with and blame the decision on the boss. “I am so sorry. It was just out of my hands.”
So it is up to you to convince her that failure to use you will make her look bad in front of the people most important to her. There is nothing she can afford less. This is her future. This is all that matters to her. How can you make her look great in front of that Economic Buyer IF you are chosen as the professional for this opportunity? Figure that out and you will have a motivated advocate with the Economic Buyer.
Once you have convinced the User Buyer that you are the best option for her, begin to mold her into a coach for you with the Economic Buyer.
She is in charge of this project for a reason. The company/firm/client respects her enough in this field to put her in charge. If she believes that you will create a Win for her. Using this you can guide her through the process to get her to argue for you or even allow you to present for yourself.
User Buyer, “This is my area of expertise. I am ultimately responsible for achieving outcome A. You are relying on me to achieve outcome A and it is important to you. We need a H-type of professional to achieve result A. I have reviewed the credentials of and interviewed several H-type professionals. I believe that professional X is going to help us achieve result A, and do it in the most efficient manner. I realize that we have historically used professional Y, but in this case professional X will provide us the true expertise we need to achieve result A.”
You can see how important it is to the User Buyer that you will deliver. If she is not 100% sure, she will not make this speech.
Work with the User Buyer to understand the things that the Economic Buyer truly cares about. Provide the User Buyer with all the necessary ammunition to follow up on the speech above with undeniable proof that her assessment of you and your competitors is accurate. It is up to you to sell yourself.
If you can convince her to allow you to present to the Economic Buyer, that is ideal. No one sells you like you.
Plan A – Be Prepared: Even if the User Buyer makes this speech in your support, the Economic Buyer may choose to require the use of professional Y for a myriad of reasons, so it is best to get yourself into the same position with the Economic Buyer as professional Y is.
As soon as the opportunity is identified and the Economic Buyer can be identified (often using the Coach), considered directly or through another sales person in your firm, begin to market your services directly to the potential Economic Buyers. It is dangerous for you to appear to be going around your User Buyer, so having another sales person make the entreaties often makes sense.
Many firms have individuals dedicated to selling services designed for corporate buyers (CEOs, CFOs, GCs, etc). They also have individuals selling other services to professionals whose clients are corporations. It is appropriate for the corporate sales team to begin to include the corporate clients of a target professional in their sales and marketing efforts so that when the opportunity arises to provide services to the professional representing a client or target corporation, the Economic Buyer has at least a passing knowledge of our services if we are not already at or near the position previously occupied only by professional Y.
If the firm provides one service within a corporation, use that person as an internal coach to secure opportunities with other parts of the corporation.
Create many coaches. Coach your coaches. Ask good questions. Find out who the Economic Buying Influencers are. Find out what would be a Win for each Economic Buying Influence. Understand what level of influence each person has. Use this information to help the User Buyer and Technical Buyer who believe you will make them look great in front of the people most important to them, convince the Economic Buyer you will provide a Win for them as well.
Bottom line: Do not forget to cover this base. The Economic Buyer is critical to many decisions on complex professional sales.
Technical Buying Influence: If you have paid your dues and done your homework and have become a true expert in an area about which you are truly passionate, getting past the technical buyer and creating a “Win” for her if you are chosen becomes easier and easier. If you are truly great, then her choice of you will make her look great in front of the people who are most important to her, and that is a Win for her. Keep that up and you are golden with her.
User Buying Influence: If you have perfected your craft, are personable, speak and write well, provide exceptional delight-the-customer service, and are a true expert, you will make the user buyer look great in front of the people most important to him and he will seek you out and pay you more to do it over and over.
Economic Buying Influence: The trickiest buying influencer is the “Economic Buyer.” This is the person who writes the checks. The Economic Buyer may be the User Buyer as well in the case of an attorney selling to the GC, but often the GC answers to the CEO or CFO as additional and important Economic Buying influencers. It is risky to fail to make sure that all those with Economic Buying influence are not addressed in your sales process and that you have created a Win for each of them.
Early in your relationship with the User Buyer, the Economic Buyer is just as important and a great deal more difficult to get to. If the Economic Buyer is comfortable with the User Buyer’s use of another professional, their fee structure, how they are paid and may even have set up eCommerce payment mechanisms, this may be one of the most difficult obstacles to tackle in convincing the User Buyer to change professionals. She may like you. She may even prefer you. But she may not be willing to go to bat for you with the Economic Buyer. In the end she will comfortably go with the professional her Economic Buyer boss is comfortable with and blame the decision on the boss. “I am so sorry. It was just out of my hands.”
So it is up to you to convince her that failure to use you will make her look bad in front of the people most important to her. There is nothing she can afford less. This is her future. This is all that matters to her. How can you make her look great in front of that Economic Buyer IF you are chosen as the professional for this opportunity? Figure that out and you will have a motivated advocate with the Economic Buyer.
Once you have convinced the User Buyer that you are the best option for her, begin to mold her into a coach for you with the Economic Buyer.
She is in charge of this project for a reason. The company/firm/client respects her enough in this field to put her in charge. If she believes that you will create a Win for her. Using this you can guide her through the process to get her to argue for you or even allow you to present for yourself.
User Buyer, “This is my area of expertise. I am ultimately responsible for achieving outcome A. You are relying on me to achieve outcome A and it is important to you. We need a H-type of professional to achieve result A. I have reviewed the credentials of and interviewed several H-type professionals. I believe that professional X is going to help us achieve result A, and do it in the most efficient manner. I realize that we have historically used professional Y, but in this case professional X will provide us the true expertise we need to achieve result A.”
You can see how important it is to the User Buyer that you will deliver. If she is not 100% sure, she will not make this speech.
Work with the User Buyer to understand the things that the Economic Buyer truly cares about. Provide the User Buyer with all the necessary ammunition to follow up on the speech above with undeniable proof that her assessment of you and your competitors is accurate. It is up to you to sell yourself.
If you can convince her to allow you to present to the Economic Buyer, that is ideal. No one sells you like you.
Plan A – Be Prepared: Even if the User Buyer makes this speech in your support, the Economic Buyer may choose to require the use of professional Y for a myriad of reasons, so it is best to get yourself into the same position with the Economic Buyer as professional Y is.
As soon as the opportunity is identified and the Economic Buyer can be identified (often using the Coach), considered directly or through another sales person in your firm, begin to market your services directly to the potential Economic Buyers. It is dangerous for you to appear to be going around your User Buyer, so having another sales person make the entreaties often makes sense.
Many firms have individuals dedicated to selling services designed for corporate buyers (CEOs, CFOs, GCs, etc). They also have individuals selling other services to professionals whose clients are corporations. It is appropriate for the corporate sales team to begin to include the corporate clients of a target professional in their sales and marketing efforts so that when the opportunity arises to provide services to the professional representing a client or target corporation, the Economic Buyer has at least a passing knowledge of our services if we are not already at or near the position previously occupied only by professional Y.
If the firm provides one service within a corporation, use that person as an internal coach to secure opportunities with other parts of the corporation.
Create many coaches. Coach your coaches. Ask good questions. Find out who the Economic Buying Influencers are. Find out what would be a Win for each Economic Buying Influence. Understand what level of influence each person has. Use this information to help the User Buyer and Technical Buyer who believe you will make them look great in front of the people most important to them, convince the Economic Buyer you will provide a Win for them as well.
Bottom line: Do not forget to cover this base. The Economic Buyer is critical to many decisions on complex professional sales.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Coaches – A Critical Partner
A “Coach” is a person who can help you secure an opportunity. They often are not the direct buyer, but if you can develop a buyer or a major influencer in the purchase of the services you offer, that is the best coach of all.
The Coach’s Role
The Coach will work on your behalf to provide critical information that you would not otherwise be able to find through research. That information may be related to upcoming opportunities not yet public, background and passions of critical influencers, secret influencers such as the CEOs assistant that others might miss.
A critical role as to any specific sales objective is to identify all of the technical buyers, user buyers, economic buyers, the critical issue that will drive a win for each of them and thus their support, and their respective levels of influence over the sales decision. These are all critical pieces of information that will provide you with a fair advantage over your competition.
Finally, a major role of a great coach is to help secure introductions to the various influencers so that you can tell your story to decision-makers already interested in listening to it.
Identifying a Coach
According to Heimann and Sanchez, my experience and logic, a coach must absolutely satisfy three criteria:
1. “The Coach’s Credibility. A good Coach must have credibility with the Buying Influencers for your particular sales objective.”
2. “Your Credibility. A Coach is someone with whom you, the person orchestrating the sale, have personal credibility.”
3. “Desiring Your Success. The crucial distinction between your Coach and the other Buying Influencers is that by definition the Coach wants you to make this sale.”
The New Strategic Selling, Heimann and Sanchez at page 263-4.
Of course, the Coach is useless to you if she has no credibility with the other people you need to get on your side in order to secure the opportunity. Do not underestimate people because of their rank or title. I once secured a major piece of business for a prior firm where the receptionist was one of my incredibly invaluable Coaches. She knew everything about everyone, held the key to getting through to everyone, and they all loved her. She loved doughnuts.
Everyone in the world operates, consciously or unconsciously, on one basic principal:
Will this person make me look great in front of the people who are most important to me?
Your best friend in the world will NOT help you within her company if she does not believe you will make this statement come true for her. She simply cannot afford it. Her career depends on it. She will make excuses like, “Oh, I am so sorry, that is against company policy. My hands are tied.” If you are her friend, you will not ask her to put herself in that position until you are certain you will make this happen for her.
A Coach will not want you to succeed unless you can prove this is true as to him, personally. That means the Coach has to trust you individually. The Coach has to know, not just believe, that you will make him look great or better. It is your responsibility to make sure that the Coach knows that:
You are truly passionate about the service you will provide the company;
You have dedicated yourself to becoming a true “best in the world” expert in the area of the service you will provide the company;
You will provide “delight-the-customer” service throughout the execution of the service for the company; and, perhaps most important,
You will make this a true win for the Coach by understanding what is, and who are, most important to the Coach.
While this is certainly true as to every Buying Influencer, the Coach is arguably the most important influencer and the first one you need to secure in order to make a complex sale. You simply cannot gather enough valuable intelligence to have a truly fair advantage without a Coach to guide you.
Finding a Coach
Some of this is trial and error, but of course you want to be as certain as possible before you rely on a Coach. It is often wise early on to identify more than one potential Coach.
Choose individuals with whom you have credibility. Ideally, you will have done very successful work of this type with him in the past. If your colleague has done the wondrous work, that is a good start but not as ideal. Professional services are based on individual expertise. One person’s expertise does not necessarily translate into trusted expertise in another in the same firm. Least helpful, as we addressed above, you are old friends and he is well aware of your stellar reputation. As you move farther away from a direct on point mutual win with this potential Coach, the more you have to prove in order to secure the required level of personal credibility.
You then have to find out if they can actually help you in this sales objective. Of course you should do your homework. Read their bios, research them on-line, etc. Ask the potential Coaches in the firm the same questions and see if the information you get is the same. If not, you will have to determine who provided the reliable information. You certainly do not want to evaluate multiple potential Coaches in the same company without telling each that you are friends with the other.
Once you have established personal credibility with the Coach and established that the Coach has credibility with the relevant Buying Influencers you have identified, you have to determine how your securing this opportunity can be a major personal win for the Coach so that they will want you to succeed.
Which individuals are most important to the Coach?
How can your success on the project make the Coach look great in the eyes of those individuals?
How is this win for the Coach unique to you as the vendor?
How can you prove this to the Coach?
This same process has to occur as to each influencer as well. Once you have established personal credibility and that the Coach has internal credibility, it is perfectly appropriate for you to ask the individual to be your Coach on the project. The term Coach has a very high level of recognition and reputation associated with it. Sometimes this acknowledgement is a big enough win. To be sure, ask the Coach how this can be a great win for him. Then prove to him that you can make that happen.
As you do extraordinary work for the company, and make your Coaches look great, that relationship will deepen. Make sure that your work and customer service is so extraordinary that each person you work with becomes an internal Coach for the next piece of work. Cultivating Coaches throughout an organization will help you and your firm secure all of their work, all of the time and get them to tell all of their influential friends at other firms about you.
Conclusion
Find one or more Coaches for every significant sales objective. Use the Coach to secure a fair advantage over your competitors through intelligence gathering and introductions to the buying influencers critical to your sale. Build a stable of Coaches in each firm.
The Coach’s Role
The Coach will work on your behalf to provide critical information that you would not otherwise be able to find through research. That information may be related to upcoming opportunities not yet public, background and passions of critical influencers, secret influencers such as the CEOs assistant that others might miss.
A critical role as to any specific sales objective is to identify all of the technical buyers, user buyers, economic buyers, the critical issue that will drive a win for each of them and thus their support, and their respective levels of influence over the sales decision. These are all critical pieces of information that will provide you with a fair advantage over your competition.
Finally, a major role of a great coach is to help secure introductions to the various influencers so that you can tell your story to decision-makers already interested in listening to it.
Identifying a Coach
According to Heimann and Sanchez, my experience and logic, a coach must absolutely satisfy three criteria:
1. “The Coach’s Credibility. A good Coach must have credibility with the Buying Influencers for your particular sales objective.”
2. “Your Credibility. A Coach is someone with whom you, the person orchestrating the sale, have personal credibility.”
3. “Desiring Your Success. The crucial distinction between your Coach and the other Buying Influencers is that by definition the Coach wants you to make this sale.”
The New Strategic Selling, Heimann and Sanchez at page 263-4.
Of course, the Coach is useless to you if she has no credibility with the other people you need to get on your side in order to secure the opportunity. Do not underestimate people because of their rank or title. I once secured a major piece of business for a prior firm where the receptionist was one of my incredibly invaluable Coaches. She knew everything about everyone, held the key to getting through to everyone, and they all loved her. She loved doughnuts.
Everyone in the world operates, consciously or unconsciously, on one basic principal:
Will this person make me look great in front of the people who are most important to me?
Your best friend in the world will NOT help you within her company if she does not believe you will make this statement come true for her. She simply cannot afford it. Her career depends on it. She will make excuses like, “Oh, I am so sorry, that is against company policy. My hands are tied.” If you are her friend, you will not ask her to put herself in that position until you are certain you will make this happen for her.
A Coach will not want you to succeed unless you can prove this is true as to him, personally. That means the Coach has to trust you individually. The Coach has to know, not just believe, that you will make him look great or better. It is your responsibility to make sure that the Coach knows that:
You are truly passionate about the service you will provide the company;
You have dedicated yourself to becoming a true “best in the world” expert in the area of the service you will provide the company;
You will provide “delight-the-customer” service throughout the execution of the service for the company; and, perhaps most important,
You will make this a true win for the Coach by understanding what is, and who are, most important to the Coach.
While this is certainly true as to every Buying Influencer, the Coach is arguably the most important influencer and the first one you need to secure in order to make a complex sale. You simply cannot gather enough valuable intelligence to have a truly fair advantage without a Coach to guide you.
Finding a Coach
Some of this is trial and error, but of course you want to be as certain as possible before you rely on a Coach. It is often wise early on to identify more than one potential Coach.
Choose individuals with whom you have credibility. Ideally, you will have done very successful work of this type with him in the past. If your colleague has done the wondrous work, that is a good start but not as ideal. Professional services are based on individual expertise. One person’s expertise does not necessarily translate into trusted expertise in another in the same firm. Least helpful, as we addressed above, you are old friends and he is well aware of your stellar reputation. As you move farther away from a direct on point mutual win with this potential Coach, the more you have to prove in order to secure the required level of personal credibility.
You then have to find out if they can actually help you in this sales objective. Of course you should do your homework. Read their bios, research them on-line, etc. Ask the potential Coaches in the firm the same questions and see if the information you get is the same. If not, you will have to determine who provided the reliable information. You certainly do not want to evaluate multiple potential Coaches in the same company without telling each that you are friends with the other.
Once you have established personal credibility with the Coach and established that the Coach has credibility with the relevant Buying Influencers you have identified, you have to determine how your securing this opportunity can be a major personal win for the Coach so that they will want you to succeed.
Which individuals are most important to the Coach?
How can your success on the project make the Coach look great in the eyes of those individuals?
How is this win for the Coach unique to you as the vendor?
How can you prove this to the Coach?
This same process has to occur as to each influencer as well. Once you have established personal credibility and that the Coach has internal credibility, it is perfectly appropriate for you to ask the individual to be your Coach on the project. The term Coach has a very high level of recognition and reputation associated with it. Sometimes this acknowledgement is a big enough win. To be sure, ask the Coach how this can be a great win for him. Then prove to him that you can make that happen.
As you do extraordinary work for the company, and make your Coaches look great, that relationship will deepen. Make sure that your work and customer service is so extraordinary that each person you work with becomes an internal Coach for the next piece of work. Cultivating Coaches throughout an organization will help you and your firm secure all of their work, all of the time and get them to tell all of their influential friends at other firms about you.
Conclusion
Find one or more Coaches for every significant sales objective. Use the Coach to secure a fair advantage over your competitors through intelligence gathering and introductions to the buying influencers critical to your sale. Build a stable of Coaches in each firm.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Covering Your Bases
There is a core concept in the book New Strategic Selling, by Heiman and Sanchez, that every person making complex sales must understand. Every sale of nebulous professional services is certainly a complex one. Especially when the effort is, as this blog hopes to help you accomplish, to secure high paying, expert dependant bet-the-company work.
To review, clients that have mission-critical work often need expertise found outside the firm on a temporary basis, to help them achieve a tremendous opportunity or avert a disaster. This may include achieving the best possible result in a multi-million (or billion) dollar lawsuit. Consummating a highly lucrative acquisition or sale of all or part of a business. Recovering from financial crisis. Addressing fraud or corruption within its domestic or international operations. Achieving greater revenues and exponential growth through focus and discipline. The situations are endless.
Heiman and Sanchez point out that every complex sale involves multiple buyers within the target, or perhaps tangential to it. Failure to create real wins for each of these critical buyers generally results in failure to secure the opportunity. Even if the contract is secured, failure to gain the support from all influencers within the entity will make it extremely difficult to succeed in the work or obtain any future work with that firm. A blessing from the top is seldom sufficient.
The four buying influencers are:
The Technical Buyer
The User Buyer
The Economic Buyer
The Coach
More than one person may fill each role and one person may completely or partially fill multiple roles. The objective is to identify who, within the target, holds the power to say no to your proposal, what their role is, how much influence do they really have, how to get to them and create a win for them so that they do not undermine your efforts. We will address coaches in the next post as they are extremely important and unique in their role in this process.
The Technical Buyer
This role is often filled by a gatekeeper. Often they are younger professionals whose job it is to find the individuals or firms who can be shown to have the necessary credentials to qualify as experts for the project. The role of this influences is to find objective proof that you are the right expert for this project.
Prior work experience – case studies.
Education, certifications, credentials.
Testimonials and references.
Thought Leading Articles, Speeches and White Papers.
Anything else that objectively proves you know this stuff better than anyone else.
The Technical Buyers role often is to narrow the field to the few top experts in the field. You have to stand out to make the cut.
The User Buyer
This role is filled by the individuals whose careers ride on how you perform. Once you have been approved technically, these influencers want to know whether they can work with you, whether you fit the culture of the organization, whether you can work as part of their team. Will you present well to critical third parties such as a jury, judge, Board of Directors, their client, etc.
We know you have the credentials at this point, but:
Are you well-spoken? Are you too well-spoken?
Do you have the right accent for work in Texas or New York?
Do you dress appropriately?
Are you attactive or fit or tall or not, which may be as important?
Do we seem to mesh on a personal level?
Does my team like you?
Etc.
This evaluation tends to be more esoteric and comes down to whether the person who is responsible for the success of this hugely important project can count on you to make him or her look great in front of the people most important to him or her.
The Economic Buyer
This is the person who writes the check to pay you for your work. The greater the support you have from the Technical and User Buyers charged with the success of the project, the more likely the economic buyer will give you the go ahead.
Never, however, take this influencer lightly. The person making this decision is also on the hook should the effort fail. If they do not know you, they may decide that it is safer to choose a highly regarded known quantity. The old saying is very relevant to this person, “No one ever got fired for hiring IBM.” The big name, highly regarded and much more expensive option is also the safest for the economic buyer, even in the face of support from all other influencers. If you fail to create a win for this critical influencer, you have made a critical error in your efforts.
Wins
The goal of your sale cannot just be to secure the work. You must identify each person with influence over the sale and the ultimate work and create a real and positive win for that person within the company and in their lives. You must show each buying influencer that you will make them look great in front of the people most important to them.
If you fail to do this, even if you secure the sale, the path will be fraught with pitfalls, the likelihood that you will fail and be blamed for the poor result and perhaps sued because of it, increase dramatically.
As they say,
“Hell hath no fury like a buying influencer scorned”
or something like that.
Complex sales are complex. It is important to work the whole puzzle. You are not finished if there are still pieces sitting on the table.
To review, clients that have mission-critical work often need expertise found outside the firm on a temporary basis, to help them achieve a tremendous opportunity or avert a disaster. This may include achieving the best possible result in a multi-million (or billion) dollar lawsuit. Consummating a highly lucrative acquisition or sale of all or part of a business. Recovering from financial crisis. Addressing fraud or corruption within its domestic or international operations. Achieving greater revenues and exponential growth through focus and discipline. The situations are endless.
Heiman and Sanchez point out that every complex sale involves multiple buyers within the target, or perhaps tangential to it. Failure to create real wins for each of these critical buyers generally results in failure to secure the opportunity. Even if the contract is secured, failure to gain the support from all influencers within the entity will make it extremely difficult to succeed in the work or obtain any future work with that firm. A blessing from the top is seldom sufficient.
The four buying influencers are:
The Technical Buyer
The User Buyer
The Economic Buyer
The Coach
More than one person may fill each role and one person may completely or partially fill multiple roles. The objective is to identify who, within the target, holds the power to say no to your proposal, what their role is, how much influence do they really have, how to get to them and create a win for them so that they do not undermine your efforts. We will address coaches in the next post as they are extremely important and unique in their role in this process.
The Technical Buyer
This role is often filled by a gatekeeper. Often they are younger professionals whose job it is to find the individuals or firms who can be shown to have the necessary credentials to qualify as experts for the project. The role of this influences is to find objective proof that you are the right expert for this project.
Prior work experience – case studies.
Education, certifications, credentials.
Testimonials and references.
Thought Leading Articles, Speeches and White Papers.
Anything else that objectively proves you know this stuff better than anyone else.
The Technical Buyers role often is to narrow the field to the few top experts in the field. You have to stand out to make the cut.
The User Buyer
This role is filled by the individuals whose careers ride on how you perform. Once you have been approved technically, these influencers want to know whether they can work with you, whether you fit the culture of the organization, whether you can work as part of their team. Will you present well to critical third parties such as a jury, judge, Board of Directors, their client, etc.
We know you have the credentials at this point, but:
Are you well-spoken? Are you too well-spoken?
Do you have the right accent for work in Texas or New York?
Do you dress appropriately?
Are you attactive or fit or tall or not, which may be as important?
Do we seem to mesh on a personal level?
Does my team like you?
Etc.
This evaluation tends to be more esoteric and comes down to whether the person who is responsible for the success of this hugely important project can count on you to make him or her look great in front of the people most important to him or her.
The Economic Buyer
This is the person who writes the check to pay you for your work. The greater the support you have from the Technical and User Buyers charged with the success of the project, the more likely the economic buyer will give you the go ahead.
Never, however, take this influencer lightly. The person making this decision is also on the hook should the effort fail. If they do not know you, they may decide that it is safer to choose a highly regarded known quantity. The old saying is very relevant to this person, “No one ever got fired for hiring IBM.” The big name, highly regarded and much more expensive option is also the safest for the economic buyer, even in the face of support from all other influencers. If you fail to create a win for this critical influencer, you have made a critical error in your efforts.
Wins
The goal of your sale cannot just be to secure the work. You must identify each person with influence over the sale and the ultimate work and create a real and positive win for that person within the company and in their lives. You must show each buying influencer that you will make them look great in front of the people most important to them.
If you fail to do this, even if you secure the sale, the path will be fraught with pitfalls, the likelihood that you will fail and be blamed for the poor result and perhaps sued because of it, increase dramatically.
As they say,
“Hell hath no fury like a buying influencer scorned”
or something like that.
Complex sales are complex. It is important to work the whole puzzle. You are not finished if there are still pieces sitting on the table.
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