Business

Development
Guide
For Professional
Services
Business Development Guide for Professional Services
Copyright © 2023

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Business Development Guide for Professional Services 2

Table of Contents

4 CHAPTER 1:
What Is Business Development, and Why Does Strategy Matter?

8 CHAPTER 2:
The Ongoing Revolution in Buyer Behavior

13 CHAPTER 3:
Aligning Marketing and Sales for Business Development Success

18 CHAPTER 4:
Building Your Business Development Team

23 CHAPTER 5:
Building a Winning Business Development Strategy

32 CHAPTER 6:
Tips and Tactics for More Wins

43 HOW HINGE CAN HELP

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 3

 Chapter 1

What Is Business
Development, and Why
Does Strategy Matter?

New business is the lifeblood of any professional services

firm. New clients and new work from existing clients drive a
firm forward and provide opportunities for both professional
and business growth.
But for many firms, bringing in new clients can be a major challenge. They simply
don’t have the business development team structure or strategy to support steady,
consistent growth. Billable professionals, slammed with work, “have no time” to find
and develop new prospects. Then the work slows down and panic sets in. There is a
mad scramble to get qualified leads and close new engagements, only to have the cycle
repeat itself.

There must be a better way.

Fortunately, there is, and that is exactly what we’ll be exploring in this guide. It’s called
strategic business development and it ties your business development process directly
to your firm’s growth strategy.

Let’s start by clearing up some confusion around the term “business development” and
explain how you can tie it to strategy.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 4

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DEFINED
Business development (BD) is the process used to identify, nurture, and acquire new
clients and business opportunities to drive growth and profitability.

A business development plan is a document that describes the strategy you will use to
accomplish that goal. In today’s world,
many firms refer to
The scope of business development can be wide ranging and vary a lot from
organization to organization. The model shown in Figure 1 shows how professional the entire marketing
services organizations get new business. and sales process
Figure 1: The Three Stages of the Business Development Funnel as business
development.

Attract Prospects
Attract potential buyers, influencers,
and referral sources.

Build Engagement
Deepen engagement with your prospects and turn
them into educated and qualified opportunities.

Turn Opportunities into Clients

Make the decision easy for prospects that are ready to buy.

The first two stages of the model, Attract Prospects and Build Engagement, are traditional
marketing functions. And historically, the final stage, Turn Opportunities into Clients, has
been a sales function. But roles are changing and what things are called has evolved in
the professional services. In today’s world, many firms refer to the entire marketing and
sales process as business development. That is the definition of business development
that we use in this guide.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 5

 Marketing + Sales = Business Development
Here is how these concepts relate to each other.

Business Development vs. Marketing

Marketing is the process of determining which products and services you will offer
to which target audiences, at what price. It also addresses how you will position and
promote your firm and its offerings in the competitive marketplace. The result of all this
activity should be an increasing awareness of your firm among your target audience—
and a stronger flow of qualified prospects, leads, and opportunities.

Naming conventions and roles have evolved in many companies. In some firms the
business development title has come to encompass many traditional marketing
functions, such as lead generation and prospect nurturing.

Business Development vs. Sales

Sales is the task of converting leads or opportunities into new clients. Business
development is a broader term that often encompasses sales and marketing activities
beyond the sales function, such as lead generation.

Many people who are clearly focused on sales have taken to using the title of
Business Developer. They may do this because their organization believes that the BD
designation avoids possible stigma associated with the concept of sales.

Nowhere is this practice more prevalent than in professional services. Accountants,

lawyers, strategy consultants, and others do not want to be seen as “pushy
salespeople.” This titular bias is firmly rooted—even though developing new business is
an important role played by most senior members at professional services firms.

Since so many clients want to meet and get to know the professionals they will be
working with, the seller–doer model is well established in many firms. The preference
for seller–doers also tends to discourage firms from fielding a full-time sales team.

As an alternative approach to leveraging fee-earners’ time, some firms have one or

more business developers on staff. In the professional services context, these folks are
often involved in lead generation and qualification, as well as supporting the seller–
doers in their efforts to close new clients. In other organizational contexts, this role
might be thought of as a sales support role.

Of course, some firms have a traditional corporate structure, with dedicated marketing
and sales teams. This kind of structure is more prevalent in some industries than
others, such as technology, SaaS, and some kinds of consulting.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 6

The result of this confusing picture is that many professional services firms call sales
“business development” and make it part of every senior professional’s role. They may
also include some marketing functions, such as lead generation and lead nurturing, into
the professional’s BD responsibilities.

It is this expanded role—in which business development encompasses the full range of
lead generation, nurturing, and sales tasks—that we explore in this guide.

STRATEGIC BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT—

A BETTER APPROACH
Not all business development activities produce the same impact. In fact, many of
them are very opportunistic and tactical in nature. This is especially true of many
seller–doers. Caught between the pressures of client work and an urgent need for new
A good business
business, they cast about for something quick and easy that will produce short-term
results. Of course, this is no real strategy at all. development strategy,
well implemented,
Strategic business development is the alignment of business development processes
and procedures with your firm’s strategic business goals. The role of strategic business can drive high
development is to acquire ideal clients for your highest priority services using brand levels of growth and
promises that you can deliver upon.
profitability.
Deciding which targets to pursue and strategies to employ to develop new business
is actually a high stakes decision. A good business development strategy, well
implemented, can drive high levels of growth and profitability. A faulty strategy can
stymie growth and frustrate valuable talent.

Yet many firms falter at this critical step. They rely on habit, anecdotes, and fads—or
worse still, “this is how we have always done it.” Later in this guide we’ll explain how to
develop a strategic business development plan.

But first let’s learn how buyers of professional services are changing. The changes are
significant and wide ranging. Your business development strategy must take this new
reality into account if it is to be successful.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 7

 Chapter 2

The Ongoing Revolution

in Buyer Behavior

There is a revolution under way, and it is reshaping business

development at every level. The behavior of professional
services buyers has evolved dramatically over the years.
Not so long ago, buyers favored local service providers in most circumstances.
Specialists were expected to travel to a client’s site to deliver their services.
Professional services were long considered an industry that was destined to
remain local.

Almost all of that has changed.

There are five major trends that are reshaping what business development looks like
today and into the future.

1. Technology Has Advanced

The continued development of sophisticated online search has also enabled
prospective clients to search for business insights and services without being
constrained by geography. At the same time, it is now easy and inexpensive to have In-person meetings
video conferences with prospects from anywhere in the world. are being replaced by
This technology revolution has not only impacted how services are bought and sold, video.
but also how they are delivered. In-person meetings are being replaced by video.
And when services can be delivered from anywhere, both opportunity and
competition expand.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 8

Advancing technology has also dramatically increased our ability to both manage
business development activities and track their impact. Software tools such as client
relationship management (CRM), marketing automation, and sales enablement make
the business development process easier and much more measurable.

But the dramatic evolution of technology isn’t the full story. There have also been
significant changes in buyers’ behavior patterns.

2. The Selection Process Has Changed

Traditionally, hiring a professional services firm was handled by a single decision maker
who selected a firm of their choosing. While that remains the case in some situations,
today’s modern organizations tend to involve multiple people in any significant buying
decision. This has led to the increasing use of requests for proposals (RFPs) and more
formal buying processes.

At the same time, it has also opened up more possibilities to influence the buying
process. When multiple people are involved, there are more opportunities to discover
new service providers and new options that they may have been unaware of before.

And, of course, the whole evaluation process has become more digital in nature.
Figure 2 shows the proportion of the selection process that is now done digitally or by
traditional in-person interactions. Note that almost three quarters of the evaluation
process is already digital.

If you are not present in the digital channels prospective clients are using to evaluate
your firm, you are at an distinct disadvantage.

Figure 2. How Firms Today Are Evaluated

(Source: Inside the Buyer’s Brain Study)

28%

TRADITIONAL 72%
DIGITAL

Let’s turn our attention to how these potential new clients search for insight and
solutions to their challenges in the first place. How can you influence the narrative that
will ultimately drive the sale?

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 9

3. How Prospects Research Business Issues Has Evolved
One of the places this is most evident is where individuals turn for business advice
and solutions. Figure 3 shows the likelihood of using each communication channel for
researching business challenges.

Figure 3. How Buyers Research Business-related Challenges

(Source: Inside the Buyers Brain Study, Fourth Edition)

Ask your peers or colleagues for a recommendation 8.1

Do a general web search 7.9
Listen to an expert speak on a topic 7.1
Read an article or blog post 6.6
Read a research report, eBook, or how-to guide 6.2
Attend a webinar 6.1
Watch a video 5.9
Attend a conference or event 5.5
Look on social media 3.2
0 2 4 6 8 10
Probability of using each channel for learning about a work-related topic.

The first thing to note is that searching online is now on par with asking a friend or
colleague for advice. This suggests that if your business development strategy relies
exclusively on referrals you are likely missing a lot of potential business.
You need to know
While online search is becoming a favorite go-to resource, it is only one of many which channels your
communication channels used by prospects. Listening to subject matter experts speak target audiences
on a topic, reading articles and research reports, attending webinars, and watching
videos are also very prevalent. And these preferences can vary from one audience use if you want to
to another. One of the implications of this pattern is clear. You need to know which be found.
channels your target audiences use if you want to be found.

It’s also clear that simply having a single business development communications
channel is no longer enough. Prospects are likely to explore multiple sources to educate
themselves, learn how experts are solving problems like theirs, and determine who
they may want to work with.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 10

4. Our Clients’ Expectations Have Increased
Alongside the evolution of corporate processes and culture, there has been a parallel
change in buyer expectations. As individual consumers, we have become used to being
able to find the exact product or service we’re looking for online.

We expect to be able to evaluate its quality and understand the features and benefits
of what we’re buying. Then we expect it to be shipped directly to our door with some
sort of satisfaction guarantee. Is it any surprise that many of these same expectations
would influence buying behavior in our professional lives?

Today’s professional services buyers expect to be able to find a provider that can solve
their specific challenge. They expect transparency about what you do and how you can
help them. And the need to be local? The Covid-19 pandemic taught us that work from
anywhere makes geography far less important.

5. Visibility Is Harder to Achieve

Our recent research on professional services buyers shows that the visibility of
professional services brands is at a new low. This is not surprising given the rapid rise
of content marketing and associated thought leadership marketing. The flood of new
content makes it harder and harder to stand out.

One indication of how prevalent this trend is comes from our yearly study of
professional services business development practices. Content creation is the number
one marketing priority. More firms are creating more content than ever before.

To win in this marketplace you need content that is truly valuable in the eyes of your
prospective clients. And that content has to be visible in the channels they favor.
Further, the sales end of the BD process has to reinforce your message. In other words,
all of the elements of your BD process need to be aligned.

WHAT DO THESE CHANGES MEAN FOR BUSINESS

DEVELOPMENT?
The net effect of all of these changes is that your business development process needs
a strategic rethink. Where are your clients turning today for the insight and advice that
they need? Increasingly, the answer to that question is the digital resources that are
right at your fingertips.

As professional service providers, we must reshape our business development

processes and priorities to more closely match where our prospective clients are
looking for help and evaluating options.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 11

FREE CONSULTATION

Ready to Step Up
Your Game?

What if you could model your marketing and business

development programs after the fastest-growing firms
in your industry—firms that achieve extraordinary
success in any economy?

Now you can.

Request a free consultation with one of Hinge’s experts. And

find out how to take your marketing and business development
programs to the next level.

REQUEST A FREE CONSULTATION

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 12

 Chapter 3

Aligning Marketing
and Sales for Business
Development Success

To help you understand why sales and marketing alignment is so important, imagine
that your marketing department is busy developing messaging, content, and collateral
to boost your firm’s visibility to suitable clients. However, the marketing team hasn’t
met with sales to learn about the unique pain points and defining characteristics of the
clients who are the most likely to purchase your services.

This lack of communication between sales and marketing is a problem because it can
produce the wrong marketing messages, attract the wrong leads, and fail to highlight
the most attractive elements of your brand. Similarly, ignoring marketing’s perspective
can produce undisciplined and impulsive adjustments that have no ties to research
or strategy.

Since your sales team connects with clients daily, it makes sense for your marketing
team to work closely with sales when creating customer profiles and fine-tuning its
messaging. Your sales function can also benefit from a strategic perspective that will
help attract and convert the most valuable clients and radically improve all business
development efforts.

Despite the potential benefits of this marriage, a surprising number of professional

services firms don’t try to align their sales and marketing teams. Instead, they allow
their sales and marketing departments to silo themselves, resulting in setbacks to
growth and profitability.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 13

How Sales and Marketing Get Disconnected
In most cases, sales and marketing teams are unaligned for one or more of the
following three reasons:

1. Old habits die hard: Many firms have been operating with disconnected
sales and marketing teams for years—or sales and marketing simply grew
apart as their teams expanded over time—and no one understands that this is
counterproductive.

2. Lack of planning: No processes or intentional activities are in place to support

communication between sales and marketing teams. In other words, decision-
makers have not made sales and marketing alignment a priority.

3. Lack of awareness: Neither team realizes the importance of aligning sales and
marketing. They have not considered the potential benefits of alignment, and
they simply don’t know that the disconnect is hurting the entire company.

IS YOUR FIRM SUFFERING FROM A DISCONNECT?

Disconnected sales and marketing teams can cause poor performance, low sales,
inefficient resource allocation, reduced visibility, and wasted marketing content.
Even worse, misaligned sales and marketing teams can work against each other,
inadvertently blocking each other’s success. Unfortunately, most professional services
firms do not realize that a lack of alignment is the source of these challenges.

If you’re wondering whether your firm is suffering from a sales and marketing
disconnect, listen to what each team is saying about the other. The marketing
department might say, “We’re bringing in plenty of leads but the sales team isn’t
closing the deals.” Or, the sales department might say, “We’re not closing any deals
because marketing isn’t bringing in the qualified leads we need.” Either way, this kind of
finger-pointing is a hallmark sign of a disconnect.

Now that we understand each team’s role, how marketing and sales can grow apart,
and why collaboration is important, the next question is: How can they work together?

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 14

COME TOGETHER UNDER A UNIFIED BUSINESS
DEVELOPMENT MODEL
While the specifics of how firms structure their business development function can
vary, two basic models tend to dominate. The first is the traditional model in which a
billable resource drives business development. We call this structure the Rainmaker
Model.

The primary alternative is a model in which multiple people collaborate to implement

a strategic business development plan. We call this configuration the Team Model.

Figure 4. The Two Business Development Models

RAINMAKER MODEL TEAM MODEL

Who Individual Team

Goal Build Relationships Develop Visibility of Expertise

Positioning Trusted Advisor Visible Expert

Referrals Based On Personal Relationships Expertise

Role of BD Support Rainmaker Lead the Team

Focus My Practice Our Firm

Major Asset Personal Relationships Firm Brand Value

The Rainmaker Model is focused on individual fee-earners. Their goal is to build long-
term relationships and become a trusted advisor to the clients that they bring into the
firm. In turn, these personal relationships will produce referrals to build their practice. The range of talents
In this approach, the role of marketing or business development personnel is to support and activities required
the activities of the Rainmaker, often at the direction of the Rainmaker. The result is a to succeed in both the
portfolio of clients who are loyal to the Rainmaker.
digital and traditional
When you overlay this traditional model on today’s patterns of buyer behavior, the marketspace is
limitations become obvious. The range of talents and activities required to succeed daunting.
in both the digital and traditional marketspace is daunting. How can one billable
professional find the time or acquire the range of specialized skills necessary to
be successful? They probably can’t. And what happens if that person moves to a
competitor? Their personal relationships often go with them.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 15

And, of course, there is that pesky problem of cross selling the firm’s services. Most of
the time, it simply doesn’t happen. Because each Rainmaker is focused on their own
practice, the siloing of practices is almost inevitable. Given these limitations, it is not
surprising that an alternative model has emerged.

The Team Model envisions a business development function where the individual
fee-earning professional is just one member of a team that includes diverse skill sets
and roles. The professional’s primary goal is not to develop individual relationships,
but rather to showcase the firm’s full range of expertise and ability to solve clients’
problems—including emerging issues that might affect clients in the future.

Why expertise rather than relationships? The answer is simple. Expertise is the number
two deciding factor in the final selection of a firm. While many clients certainly value
good relationships, they also value solving their critical business problems. It’s very
One of the biggest
difficult for a jack of all trades to be great at any one thing, much less everything.
benefits of the Team
Every team needs a leader, and in this model that role falls to marketing or business Model is that it builds
development. They assemble and manage the team, planning and coordinating
activities across multiple channels. Members of the team may come from a marketing
the value of the entire
or business development background, or they may be fee-earners themselves. firm’s brand, not just
Importantly, roles within the team are based on skill sets and interest, not titles. a single practice.
The focus of the team is on the firm as a whole, not just a single practice. This allows
the team to make strategic decisions about priorities and resource allocation and not
assume that every practice should be treated identically. What best serves the firm
as a whole? How can our clients benefit from the full range of services we offer? This
concept is often referred to as a “one firm” strategy. No matter which practices they
work with initially, clients have easy access to any of your services with a minimum
of fuss. One of the biggest benefits of the Team Model is that it builds the value of
the entire firm’s brand, not just a single practice. This means that when a professional
leaves your firm, the value doesn’t go out the door with them.

HOW TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN

Let’s take a look at how you can build a team-oriented business development structure
at a firm that doesn’t already have one.

• Present the “Why Change” Argument: A shift from the rainmaker model to
a team-oriented marketing strategy is going to impact a lot of people at your
organization. So you’ll need to present good reasons for the change to others
at your organization. This way, others will join you and support the effort. For
example, what will your marketing team look like after the configuration? Why
are these changes going to be good for the organization?

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 16

 • Get policy buy-in to test the team model first: Some organizations will
immediately see the benefit of the team model. But if that’s not the case at
your firm, we’ve found that it’s a lot easier to get buy-in to conduct a limited
test of the team model than to jump directly into a wholesale change.

• Identify the gaps in skills: When it comes to building the marketing team,
first identify your strengths. Do any team members have good speaking,
writing, or digital design skills? What skills are you missing? Maybe you’re
lacking skills in marketing automation and client research. Write down your
skills gaps and start engaging the resources needed to close those gaps.
Often, those resources are already in your organization!

• Develop an operation plan: Decide which team members will fulfill which
marketing roles and how often. Then iron out any inefficiencies or incentives
that could be working against you. Once you’ve put it all together, you’ll
find that the team-based marketing model is more flexible, resilient, and
productive than relying on rainmakers alone.

The next challenge most teams face is finding the talent they need to staff the new
configuration. That’s where we will turn our attention next.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 17

 Chapter 4

Building Your Business

Development Team

How do you staff the business development function?

Where is the talent going to come from? If you follow the
Team Model of business development, you may already have
many of the required skill sets on your staff. We’ll start by
reviewing some of the key roles that need to be filled.
The firms that grow the fastest and are most profitable tend to use more outsourced
talent. They often outsource hard-to-find skill sets or roles that are needed only
occasionally. You can use the same approach. We’ll indicate which roles are best filled
The firms that grow
with outsourced talent and which ones are usually best kept in-house. Finally, we will
explain how to keep the team on the same page and aligned. the fastest and
are most profitable
tend to use more
KEY BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES AND ROLES
outsourced talent.
The activities required to attract, nurture, qualify, and close a new client can vary
depending on your industry and marketing strategy. We’ll focus on the most common
and widely applicable activities and group them together in a series of roles. In a large,
complex organization, you might have multiple individuals in each of these roles. In
smaller firms, a single individual may function in multiple roles.

The secret is to think of these activities as tasks that can be accomplished in a variety
of ways. You can hire someone, outsource the activity, or train an existing staff
member. Also, don’t get hung up on a person’s title. Their skill and interest are more
important than their formal role. Stay flexible and be willing to adapt to an evolving
business development challenge.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 18

Your business development team structure might look something like this:

Researcher Strategist
Which markets should you pursue? How should The insights that you gain
you price your services? What are your true from research and experience
differentiators? What is the most efficient channel need to be turned into a formal
to reach your target audience? These are the strategy and marketing/
types of questions that you need to answer to business development plan.
reduce your risk and accelerate new business. This plan is what guides your
And the best way to answer them is with research. business development team.
Unless you are a large company, you may need Be careful—good implementers
to outsource this activity. You may also conduct do not always make good
prospect research on individual firms and people planners, and vice versa. This
you plan to meet with. Usually, prospect research activity can often benefit from
is an in-house activity. an outside perspective: a
resource who is not buffeted by
internal politics.

Digital Specialist
With the dramatic growth of the digital space,
it is hard to imagine how a firm can succeed Implementation Support
without specific digital expertise such as search This role is similar in some
engine optimization, website skills, marketing ways to the BD support found
automation, and analytics. Outsourcing some or in the Rainmaker Model.
all of these functions is common, as many of them Sometimes you just need help
are not needed on a daily basis. implementing your plans.
This might include setting up
appointments or preparing a
webinar slide deck. Graphic
design skills are also very
useful. These tasks are
commonly accomplished with
Outreach Specialist
a mix of internal and external
From guest posts to speaking engagements, there resources.
is a need to reach out to and secure placements
and partnerships. Look for a person who is
organized and can be pleasantly persistent. These
activities are often outsourced, as they are not
usually a full-time need.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 19

Business development team, continued...

Subject Matter Expert Writer

This person has the technical expertise that you Not all SMEs are strong writers.
want to showcase and promote. While they have Many firms employ their own
the core knowledge, they may not necessarily writers or engage outside
be good at sharing it or closing the sale. Almost editorial talent to produce
by definition, this has to be an in-house person. compelling content that
However, retaining an outside Visible Expert as conveys expertise.
part of the team can add credibility and trust.

Networker
Presenter Networking has not gone
This person presents their expertise in a live or away. It’s just expanded into
recorded format. A polished presenter can elevate digital channels. Whether you
the content and inspire confidence. Many subject are engaging your audience
matter experts (SMEs) have this skill, but many on social media or at a face-
do not. to-face networking event,
someone has to make the
connections and build visibility
for your expertise. Some, but
not all, SMEs excel at making
these connections. You may
need to look no further than
Proposal Preparation your firm’s junior talent, some
Proposals play a major role in some professions of whom may be eager to
and a small role in others. In those requiring promote your firm’s expertise
significant attention, it is essential to have this online.
skill set on your business development team. If
large, complex proposals come only infrequently,
you may want to hire outside support when you
need it.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 20

Business development team, continued...

Closer Operational Leadership

Closing a sale is a central Last but certainly not least is the need to make
business development activity, all of your business development activities
one that requires skill and happen as planned. This requires someone who
talent. Some firms pair a can shepherd people through the process. This
talented closer with an SME to person must have a clear understanding of the
benefit from both talent sets. strategy and the ability to navigate day-to-day
Closers are typically an in- organizational challenges. While typically an
house person. internal position, this may be outsourced if the
bulk of lead generation and nurturing is also
outsourced.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 21

KEEPING EVERYONE ON THE SAME PAGE
The previous section touched on the range of roles that may be needed in your
business development team. These include many roles that might have been part of a
marketing or sales function.

In this section, we’ll dive into the specific topics that the combined team should
regularly discuss. Holding joint meetings on the following topics is a great way to keep
the team in sync:

• Strategy development meetings: First and foremost, sales and marketing

should continually collaborate on the best strategy to communicate the firm’s
messages, pursue leads, nurture client relationships, and measure the results
The process of
of these efforts.
working together
• Content development meetings: Marketing teams spend a lot of time
developing educational content such as blog posts, social media content, to achieve common
webinars, and whitepapers. When the sales team participates in content goals is a powerful
development meetings with the marketing department, salespeople can
provide valuable topic ideas based on their first-hand knowledge of what motivator of human
resonates with the target audience. behavior.
• Campaign development meetings: Marketing teams also spend time
creating and promoting new campaigns—such as events, ads, and speaking
engagements—to boost visibility and attract new leads. Since the sales team
will be in contact with those leads, they should be involved in marketing
campaign meetings to ensure that the marketing team is attracting the right
clients.
• KPI meetings: Finally, it’s crucial that sales and marketing teams review the
same key performance indicators (KPIs), and they should meet to review them
at the same time and in the same room.

The process of working together to achieve common goals is a powerful motivator

of human behavior. When you harness that power to achieve strategic business
development goals, the impact on your organization and its business development
culture can be profound.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 22

 Chapter 5

Building a Winning
Business Development
Strategy

A Strategic Business Development Plan is a document that

outlines how you implement your business development
strategy and win new business. It can be a plan for an
individual, a practice, or the firm as a whole. Its scope
covers both the marketing and sales functions, as they are
highly interdependent in most professional services firms.
Below are seven steps you can follow to develop and document your plan.

Define Your Target Audience and Business Priorities

1 Who are you trying to attract as new clients? Focus on your “best-
fit” clients, not your entire universe of possible prospects. It is
most effective to focus on a narrow target audience. It is hard to be
successful by offering everything to everyone. But don’t go so narrow that you can’t
achieve your business goals.

Choosing which prospective clients to target is an important strategic decision. To

make the most informed decision, you first may want to conduct a study comparing
the viability of alternative choices to understand what it will take to succeed in
each scenario.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 23

 Research Their Issues, Their Buying Behavior
2 and Your Competitors
The more you know about your target audience the better equipped you
will be to attract their attention and communicate how you can help
them. What are their key business issues? Is your expertise relevant to those issues?
Where do they look for advice and inspiration? What is the competitive environment
like? How do you stack up?

The results of this research will drive many of the decisions that need to be made as
you prepare your plan, as well as reduce your risk. As a matter of fact, our research
has established that firms that do this sort of brand research grow faster and are more
profitable. For more information on research, see this guide.

Identify Your Competitive Advantage and Key Issues

3 What makes you different? Why is that better for your target client?
Are you the most cost-effective alternative, or are you the industry’s
leading expert?

This “positioning,” as it is often called, needs to be true, provable, and relevant to the
prospect at the time they select which firm to work with. Be sure to document this
positioning, as you will use it over and over again as you develop your messages and
marketing tools.

At the same time select a few key issues around which you focus your content. Make
sure each issue is important to your client and represents an area where you can
provide exceptional value.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 24

 Choose Your Overall Business Development Strategy

4 Select a strategy that will allow you to reach, engage, and convert your
prospects. You can start with the list of top strategies provided below.
Chances are, you will need to use more than one of these to ensure you
reach a wide enough audience.

Which strategy fits with the needs and preferences of your target audiences? Which
ones best convey your competitive advantage? For example, if you have superior industry
expertise, a thought leadership or content marketing strategy will likely serve you well.

NETWORKING
Networking is probably the most universally used business development strategy.
It’s built on the theory that professional services buying decisions are rooted in
relationships, and the best way to develop new relationships is through face-to-face
Chances are, you will
networking.
need to use more than
It certainly is true that many relationships do develop in that way. And if you are one strategy to ensure
networking with your target audience, you can develop new business. But there
are limitations. Today’s buyers are very time pressured, and networking is time you reach a wide
consuming. It also can be very expensive, if you consider travel and time away from enough audience.
the office.

Newer digital networking techniques can mitigate the cost and time challenges. But
even social media requires an investment of time and attention.

REFERRALS
The close relative of networking, referrals are often seen as the mechanism
that turns networking and client satisfaction into new business. You establish
a relationship, and that person refers new business to you. Satisfied clients do
the same.

Clearly, referrals do happen, and many firms get most or all of their business from
them. But referrals are passive. They rely on your clients and contacts to identify
good prospects for your services and make a referral at the right time. The problem
is referral sources often do not know the full range of your services. So many referrals
are poorly matched to your capabilities.

Other potentially well-matched referrals go unmade because your referral source

fails to recognize a great prospect when they see one. In addition, many prospects
that might be good clients rule out your firm before even talking with you. This is
where your website and social presence can make a big difference.

Importantly, there are new digital strategies that can accelerate referrals. Making
your specific expertise more visible is the key. This allows people to make better
referrals and increases your referral base beyond clients and a few business contacts.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 25

SPONSORSHIPS AND ADVERTISING
Can you develop new business directly by sponsoring events and advertising?
It would solve a lot of problems if it works. No more trying to get time from fully
utilized billable professionals.

Unfortunately, the results on this front are not very encouraging. Our studies
have shown that traditional advertising is actually associated with slower growth.
Only when advertising is combined with other techniques, such as speaking at an
event, do these techniques bear fruit.

One of the most promising advertising strategies seems to be well-targeted

digital advertising. This allows firms to get their messages and offers in front of
the right people at a lower cost.

PHONE AND MAIL OUTREACH

Professional services firms have been using phone calls and mail to directly target
potential clients for decades. Target the right firms and roles with a relevant
message and you would expect to find new opportunities that can be developed
into clients.

There are a couple of key challenges with these strategies. First, they are relatively
expensive, so they need to be just right to be effective. Second, if you don’t catch
the prospect at the right time, your offer may have no appeal or relevance—and
consequently, no impact on business development.

The key is to have a very appealing offer delivered to a very qualified and
responsive list. It’s not easy to get this combination right.

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP AND CONTENT MARKETING

Here, the strategy is to make your expertise visible to potential buyers and
referral sources. This is accomplished through writing and speaking—producing
content that demonstrates your expertise and how it can be applied to solve With the blossoming
client problems.
of digital
Books, articles, and speaking engagements have long been staples of professional communications, it is
services business development strategy. Many high-visibility experts have built
now easier and much
their practices and firms upon this strategy. It often takes a good part of a career
to execute this approach. faster to establish
your expertise in a
But technology has reshaped this strategy. With the blossoming of digital
communications, it is now easier and much faster to establish your expertise in target market.
a target market. Search engines have leveled the playing field so that relatively
unknown individuals and firms can become known outside their geographical
region. Webinars have democratized public speaking, and blogs and websites

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 26

 give every firm a 24/7 presence. Add in video and social media and the budding
expert can access a vastly expanded marketplace.

But these developments also open firms to much greater competition. You may
find yourself competing with specialists you weren’t even aware of. The impact is
to raise the stakes on your business development strategy.

COMBINED STRATEGIES
It is common to combine different business development strategies. For example,
networking and referrals are frequently used together. And on one level, a
combined strategy makes perfect sense. The strength of one strategy can shore
Under-investment,
up the weakness of another.
lack of follow through,
But there is a hidden danger. For a strategy to perform at its peak, it must be fully and inconsistent
implemented. If you attempt to execute too many different strategies you will
never completely implement any of them. effort are the bane
of effective business
Good intentions, no matter how ambitious, are of little real business development
development.
value. Under-investment, lack of follow through, and inconsistent effort are the
bane of effective business development.

It is far more effective to put the time and energy it takes to deliver a simple
strategy than to dabble in a complex one. Fewer elements, fully implemented,
produce better results.

Next, we turn our attention to the configuration of your business development teams.

Choose Your Business Development Team Configuration

5 Many firms don’t know the range of business development

configurations available to them, and they might not have taken the
time to identify which approaches their sales and marketing teams are
currently using. This can result in the sales team inadvertently choosing an approach
incompatible with that of the marketing team. Aligning your sales and marketing
programs starts with identifying what configurations each team is using now. Next, the
teams should get together and discuss what they’re doing. Then, they can align their
efforts and eliminate inefficiencies to achieve better results.

Here are the most common organizing configurations that sales and marketing teams
are using today:

• Seller–doer configuration: This is the most common configuration in smaller

firms. The person making the sale is the person doing the work. Not only are
they finding new prospects and closing deals, but they are also performing the
actual service.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 27

 • Traditional seller configuration: This approach involves a specific person
who is responsible for creating and closing opportunities. After closing the
deal, another employee—the “doer”—performs the work. In this approach,
the seller maintains a relationship with the client to find and close new
opportunities. This isn’t the most common strategy in professional services
firms because the client can’t evaluate the “doer’s” expertise or establish
trust—which is usually a critical element in closing the deal.
• Seller and expert configuration: This configuration is needed when extensive
proposal and contract negotiation phases are required before closing a sale,
which is usually the case with government contracts and large construction
projects. This approach requires a salesperson who manages the relationship
and an expert who helps create the proposal and contract—and will likely
manage the actual work. This strategy is typically limited to large-budget
projects.
• Business developer and closer–doer configuration: This approach uses a
salesperson to create opportunities and nurture leads, but they don’t provide
an in-depth technical perspective to the client—nor do they close the sale.
Many professional services firms call this role a “business developer” rather
than a salesperson. This approach frees up the doer’s schedule to spend more
time on the work as opposed to finding and nurturing new client relationships.

Choose Your Business Development Tactics

6 The line between strategy and tactics is not always clear. For example,
you can think of networking as an overall business development
strategy or as a tactic to enhance the impact of a thought leadership
Make sure that
strategy. Confusing to be sure.
each technique
From our perspective, the distinction is around focus and intent. If networking is your you select fits your
business development strategy, all your focus should be on making the networking
more effective and efficient. You will select tactics that are aimed at making networking
target audience and
more powerful or easier. You may try out another marketing technique and drop it if it strategy.
does not help you implement your networking strategy.

On the other hand, if networking is simply one of many tactics, your decision to use it
will depend on whether it supports your larger strategy. Tactics and techniques can be
tested and easily changed. Strategy, on the other hand, is a considered choice and does
not change from day to day or week to week.

Make sure that each technique you select fits your target audience and strategy.
Remember, it’s not about your personal preferences or familiarity with a tactic. It’s
about what works for your audience.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 28

Also, you will need to balance your choices in two important ways: First, you will need
tactics that address each stage of the business development pipeline shown in Chapter
1. Some techniques that work great for gaining visibility do not necessarily address
nurturing a prospect over time. You need to cover the full funnel.

Second, you need a good balance between digital and traditional techniques (see
Figure 5). Your research should help you determine which techniques are right for your
audience. Be careful about making assumptions. Just because you don’t use social
media doesn’t mean that a significant portion of your prospects doesn’t.

Figure 5. Online and Offline Marketing Techniques

When? How often? Which conferences? What topics? Now is the time to work out the
details that turn a broad strategy into a specific plan. Many plans include a content or
marketing calendar that lays out the specifics, week by week. If that is too much detail
for you, at least document what you will be doing and how often. You will need these
details to monitor the implementation of your plan.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 29

 Specify How You Will Monitor Implementation and Impact

7 Often overlooked, these important considerations often spell the

difference between success and failure. Unimplemented strategies
don’t work.

Keep track of what you do, and when. This will both motivate action and provide a
great starting place as you troubleshoot your strategy. Also monitor and record the
impact of your activities. The most obvious effect will be how much new business you
closed. But you should also track new leads or new contacts, at the bare minimum.

Finally, don’t neglect important process outcomes such as referrals, new names added
to your list, and downloads of content that expose prospects and referral sources to
your expertise.

Here are the most important metrics that sales and marketing should review together:

• Implementation metrics: These figures relate to the various sales and

marketing techniques and technologies your teams are implementing. They
reveal the time, cost, and level of effort required for different strategies. You
might, for instance, track the use of your CRM software—how many team
members are using it, how are they using it, and how much it costs to use.
Or you might track how much time and cost your team expends reaching out
to potential clients with personalized emails and phone calls. You might also
track how well you are implementing your business development plan. Are
you missing your deadlines? Are you carrying out the plan as intended? Or are
you falling short?
• Visibility metrics: These figures reveal how visible your firm and its services
are to the target audience. Examples of visibility metrics include total website
traffic, social media metrics, attendance numbers at events, Google
search rankings for your website, and other stats that reveal how
many people are seeing and interacting with your brand.
• Expertise metrics: These numbers show the degree to which your
potential customers are seeing and interacting with your thought
leadership content. In other words, how successful has your firm been at
demonstrating its expertise? Examples of expertise metrics include blog
views, premium content downloads, guest post metrics, webinar attendee
figures, and attendance at speaking engagements.
• Impact metrics: These figures show the impact and success of your marketing
and sales campaigns. In other words, they tell marketing and sales how
effective their efforts have been. Examples of impact metrics include figures
on new leads and inquiries, sales pipeline stats related to different lead stages
(e.g., raw leads, sales-ready leads, etc.), sales wins and losses, and monthly
revenue figures to show how sales and marketing efforts are contributing to
the bottom line.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 30

Ultimately, if sales and marketing aren’t looking at the same KPIs in regular meetings,
they’re not going to align their strategies to overcome challenges, and they could be
creating more challenges along the way.

If you follow these steps and record your choices along the way, you will end up with
a documented business development strategy and a concrete plan to implement and
optimize it.

Finally, let’s turn our attention to some tips and techniques to improve your business
development results in a number of key areas.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 31

 Chapter 6

Tips and Tactics for

More Wins

We round out this guide with a series of tips and techniques

you can use to make your business development strategy
more effective. We’ve organized these tips around seven
common business development challenges.
Click on the links below to go directly to a topic that interests you:

Building Visibility
Building Trust
Building Value
Building Expertise
Going Digital
Building Your Business Development Infrastructure
Closing the Sale

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 32

BUILDING VISIBILITY
• Test an industry focus. Find an industry where you can deliver exceptional
value. By specializing, you can grow faster because new clients are easier
to find (industries have trade shows, dedicated publications, and are easier
to target). Your specialization also adds credibility and relevance to your
messages.
• Regularly cleanse your database. A clean database is going to generate
a better response rate and far fewer complaints, and it’s a prerequisite for
effective outreach and nurturing. Nothing glamorous about it, but very
worthwhile for BD success.
• Build out segmented lists around industries, roles, or geographies. Targeting
specific segments allows you to use language that is more relevant and
specific, improving open and conversion rates. And when people receive
information that is relevant to them, they are more engaged and much less
likely to unsubscribe.
• Update your personas. The roles that you were targeting before may have
evolved. Make sure you are targeting both decision makers and influencers
and that their profiles are up to date.
• Create individual landing pages for each campaign. Strive to send segmented
email campaigns rather than sending the same message to your entire
database. Remember, this is a time when trust is in short supply. Personalize
and customize where you can. Your emails will perform better.
• Make sure that every email is thoughtful, relevant, and authentic. Avoid the
mistake of making your emails all about what you want. Put yourself in your
prospective client’s shoes. What would you want to receive?
• Establish nurture campaigns segmented by different target audiences. As
you collect new leads, keep in mind that most are not ready to buy. Also, this
might be a great time to re-engage with former clients or prospects that know
your firm but have not thought of you in a while. Bring them up to speed on
Avoid the mistake of
anything new and different. Just because they didn’t have the time or budget making your emails all
in the past to engage with you doesn’t mean their priorities haven’t changed. about what you want.
• Personalize your messaging and tailor your content to specific roles, needs,
or industries. If you have set up your infrastructure correctly, this will be
much easier to implement. This type of tailoring helps with relevance and
efficiency. You are more likely to have a more useful message and less likely to
experience a rash of unsubscribes.
• Spend time establishing a lead scoring process. If you can develop a steady
flow of high-quality leads, you will need a fast and consistent way to prioritize
activities, behaviors, and profiles. You may need to adjust the lead scoring
process a few times in the first year before you get it right—but once you get
there, you will be thankful that you invested the time to set it up.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 33

• Step back and honestly assess your website. Is it compelling? Is it easy to
navigate? Is it differentiated and memorable? Your website is the gateway
to your firm. It is the place of first impressions. Keep in mind that folks will
be accessing your website at their convenience—even when you may not be
available. This can be a game changer. The decision to work with you may
be influenced by your website. To learn more, download our Lead Generating
Website Guide.
• Invest more time in search engine optimization. If you are not showing up
on page 1 of a Google search, your articles and webpages are rarely being
seen. Even that might not be enough. Spend time every week monitoring your
keyword rankings and try different tactics to improve the performance of your
posts. As long as some (or many) of your posts are moving up, you are making
progress. Your ultimate goal should be to have your piece of content be the #1
or #2 listing associated with a given keyword—whether or not you always get
there. You can use a combination of on-page and off-site SEO techniques to
improve your chances.
• Calibrate your content. Step back and look at your content from your target
audiences’ points of view. Is it benefits-driven or features-driven? Are you
selling or educating? Focus on pushing insights, not pushing for an order.
Remember, the most
Communicate your expertise, not just your name. Remember, the most helpful
content wins. helpful content wins.
• Conduct a blog audit. Use your analytics to see where engagement potential
lies. Now is the time to adjust your calls to action and internal links. Maybe
some posts are out of date and need to be freshened up. Other posts may
have served their purpose and can be quietly put to rest. Managed properly,
your blog posts can be your best performers for many years.
• Co-promote a webinar and other related activities with promotion partners.
Because each partner has its own mailing list, you will get much higher
attendance levels. Make sure the topic is relevant to each of the partner’s
audiences.
• Accelerate your social networking. Many are building more personalized
relationships via LinkedIn and Facebook. Identify common interest areas and
build relationships that do not rely on geographic proximity.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 34

BUILDING TRUST
• Be regular and reliable. Your target audiences are looking for stability. They
are more likely to trust firms that have deep, relevant experience and freely
share their expertise in a variety of channels. Risk is less tolerable these days
and the familiar is more appreciated and valued.
• Develop a “trust multiplier” to help prospects build confidence in working
with you. For example, at Hinge, we explain to clients that if they co-brand a
webinar with us, we can double or triple the normal number of registrations
they receive. Many of them have set new
webinar registration and attendance
records by working with us. That type of
trust multiplier is extremely compelling
and helps a prospect move forward with 4 Pillars of Trust
their decision. 1. A member of my group: Familiarity over
• Recognize the power of authority. Your time, shared contacts, recognition.
prospects and clients are hyper-sensitive 2. Roles and credentials that are
right now about making an expensive trustworthy: You have the right skill set
purchase or long-term commitment. But and formal credentials to be credible.
often, they can be swayed by authority.
3. Recognize the other person’s
For instance, if you have a recognized
challenge: You have the empathy and
expert on your team, they may be able to
industry perspective to understand. You
ease an on-the-fence prospect’s worries
get it.
and persuade them to take a leap of faith.
4. You are reliably helpful: You can
provide helpful insight and are a reliable
partner. You are honest and realistic.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 35

BUILDING VALUE
• Re-evaluate and update your value propositions. If you have not reviewed
them lately, they may well be out of date. Many firms evolve their target
clients or service offerings but forget to update their value propositions. That’s
an oops!
• Understand your competitive environment and identify where you can
create value by being faster, more efficient, or more reliable. Your services
are not valuable simply because you want them to be. You have to provide
that value by doing something in a way that your client sees as more valuable. The fact that it took
Doing it faster or more efficiently are great starting places. you longer to produce
• Determine what your clients are willing to pay for this value. (This is where it does not make it
original research comes in handy to get an accurate read.) Don’t be afraid to
more valuable to your
make this an integral part of the BD process.
client.
• Realize that time does not equal value. The fact that it took you longer to
produce it does not make it more valuable to your client. This is why hourly
billing is losing favor with many clients.
• Appreciate that value communication is just as important as value delivery.
You need to make sure that anyone selling a product or service clearly
understands the value before you ask your prospect or client to accept
the value.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 36

BUILDING EXPERTISE
• Leverage your subject matter experts in video and online formats. Make
sure that these subject matter experts get media and presentation training.
If they are not polished or comfortable on video, consider hiring an actor to
present your content.
• Bring a new research study to your audience. It will provide you instant
credibility and give you a forum to showcase your subject matter expertise
and reach new markets.
• Create once, repurpose many times. Creating original content all the time
can be demanding and frustrating. You may have subject matter experts
on staff, but getting them to produce content (blogs, webinars, etc.) can be
a challenge. When you use original research as content, however, you can
repurpose its component parts into webinars, blog posts, videos, social media,
PDF downloads, PR outreach, and more. Figure 6 shows some of the ways
you can repurpose research. We have had clients use a single piece of original
research in campaigns that spanned most of a year.

Figure 6. Some of the Ways You Can Repurpose Research

• License relevant research. Some research firms license their research to

companies like yours. This is a way for you to access and promote original
research without waiting months to produce your own. For example, if you
were trying to reach the accounting and financial services industry, you could
license existing research into that industry.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 37

GOING DIGITAL
• Think virtual for all of your deliverables.
Try the same content in different channels.
Can you present the content in a virtual Principles of Virtual Delivery
conference with different speakers and
• Remember, expertise now wins over
networking rooms? Can you deliver the
location.
content in a virtual workshop? Can you
provide one-on-one consulting over an • Be sure you are providing deliberate
online video collaboration platform? Can communication and context-setting.
you provide the content in a series of • Identify critical stages in the client
videos and then have Q&A sessions using experience and focus there.
a collaborative Google document?
• Create new products that don’t have
• Create a client-only portal and fill it with to be delivered on location. Look
a wealth of digital content. Create a very for monthly, on-going advisory and
special experience for your clients with consulting opportunities.
this portal.
• Add a couple of digital-only services.
Consider virtual workshops or other
educational products as easy-to-
understand first steps. Learn from these and add some more as you fine tune
your procedures and understand your clients’ preference.
• Add a software + analysis and advice package. These software and service
packages are a great combo. They not only leverage the favorable economics
of software (build once, sell many times), they allow you to sell the expertise
that many clients will need to take full advantage of the software’s capabilities.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 38

BUILDING YOUR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT INFRASTRUCTURE
• Invest in your website. Your website is probably now the most important
digital play you have. It is your firm’s brochure, storefront, and first impression.
You should be doing everything you can to optimize it. It is the gateway to your
marketing, business development, thought leadership, sales, and more.
• Consider chatbots. This automated technology is a great marketing, business
development, and client service enhancement for your website. Keep in mind
that each of your business development and sales staff can only speak to one
prospect at a time. Chatbots, on the other hand, are available 24 hours a day, 7
days a week. They can offer information to anyone around the world any time
they show interest. Chatbots can answer most common questions and even
schedule appointments for BD and sales.
• Take advantage of an email or marketing automation platform (MAP).
This investment should be one of your top priorities, as you will need to scale
and try to reach more people faster. Which system you choose will depend
on what features you think you will need over the next few years. Email
platforms tend to focus primarily on sending out the emails and tracking
them. Marketing automation platforms can be integrated into a marketing
technology stack to deliver sophisticated functionality such as lead scoring,
lead nurturing, multi-touch attribution,
personalization, predictive analytics,
account-based marketing, and more. Now
more than ever, you need to establish a
Secrets of Digital Success
marketing and sales funnel or waterfall
and be able to push out the right content • Digital transformation is about talent,
at every stage of the funnel and every not technology. If you do not have the
touchpoint. right skills and experience in-house for
your technology, you will never get a
• Get a customer relationship management high return on investment.
(CRM) system. This is just as important
• The technologies mentioned here
for your firm’s sales functions as marketing
rely on processes. Without the right
automation is for the marketing functions.
processes in place, your team has no
Ideally, your MAP and CRM should work chance of winning new business. Fix the
hand-in-hand to cover the full span of process before you automate it. You will
your marketing and sales funnel. Your save time and heartache.
CRM will help you manage your sales
• Content drives everything. Without
pipeline and revenue, as well as sales
great content, your marketing
forecasting, operations expense planning,
automation has no strength. Without
and marketing planning. Your marketing great content, you and your website will
team should have access to your CRM look weak in a competitive marketplace.
and your sales team should have access to
your MAP. This ensures better sales and
marketing alignment and accountability.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 39

• Use analytics. Why invest so much time and money into business
development if you are not going to measure the results? Unfortunately, none
of these disciplines is an exact science and it takes a lot of testing to optimize
your results. Each of the above-mentioned technologies has reporting and
analytics capabilities—but that does not mean that they all tie neatly together.
In the beginning, you may need to assemble all your metrics in a spreadsheet,
or you can use an application to bring the key performance indicators into a
single dashboard. Keep in mind that there may need to be an executive-level
dashboard that is focused more on strategic goals and an operations-level
dashboard that is focused more on tactical goals.
• Cut back on approaches with questionable benefits. If you can’t track an
activity’s actual benefits you need to make a judgment call. By cutting back
on marginal programs you will be able to invest more heavily in the proven
winners.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 40

CLOSING THE SALE
• Listen. Listen. Then listen. Understanding the client’s business situation and
challenges are the key to closing professional services sales. Asking relevant
questions is clearly important, but listening well is the secret to success. Focus
not only on the answers but also on the emotion behind the answer. These can
be clues to a client’s real motivations.
• Focus on the relevance of your services. Hinge’s research shows that the
more important your services are to solving your prospects’ key issues, the
more likely you are to be viewed positively. Explain how your services will
address their top priorities. Don’t make the common mistake of assuming that Understanding the
your prospects will understand the value of your expertise and service. client’s business
• Leverage video. You may have dabbled in video, but now is the time to start situation and
using video strategically. You can use it to showcase client case stories,
challenges are
present thought leadership, introduce new products and services, and so
much more. Videos provide a comfortable way for target audiences to get the key to closing
to know your firm and your Visible Experts, and they can accelerate the professional services
closing process. Business development and sales teams are beginning to use
personalized video snippets to introduce themselves or respond to prospective
sales.
clients instead of using email. There are video creation platforms that also
allow you to create playlists of curated video content. You can send the videos,
add a link to book a meeting right from the platform, and push prospect video
engagement data to your CRM.
• Be aware that your prospect or client may be overwhelmed or unfocused
as they try to figure out how to solve the challenge that drew them to your
firm. Remember, that challenge is likely not the only thing they are working on.
This is a time to understand their total situation, as unrelated priorities may
complicate your efforts to close the sale.
• Collaborate, don’t sell. Show empathy and understanding. Recognize your
audience’s vulnerabilities as well as their areas of strength. Collaborate to find
the best fit solution. Most prospects appreciate the opportunity to develop a
solution together.
• Take interest in the person. Ask about topics not related to work. It will help
build a relationship. Have some go-to topics to discuss to avoid awkward
silences as you are waiting for everyone to arrive at the meeting (virtual or
otherwise).
• Stay positive. People will feed off of your energy. Focus on the long term. It is
a marathon, not a sprint. Also, don’t hesitate to comment on all the things that
they are doing well. This is also helpful in relationship building.
• Put a time limit on your offer. Give the person a reason to act sooner rather
than later.

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 41

FREE CONSULTATION

Ready to Step Up
Your Game?

What if you could model your marketing and business

development programs after the fastest-growing firms
in your industry—firms that achieve extraordinary
success in any economy?

Now you can.

Request a free consultation with one of Hinge’s experts. And

find out how to take your marketing and business development
programs to the next level.

REQUEST A FREE CONSULTATION

Business Development Guide for Professional Services 42

How Hinge Can Help

Hinge specializes in branding and marketing for professional services firms. We are a
leader in helping firms grow faster and maximize value.

Our comprehensive offerings include research and strategy, brand building, award-
winning creative, high-performance websites and marketing outsourcing. And at Hinge
University, your team can learn all the marketing skills and strategies they need to take
your firm to a higher level of performance.

In addition, Hinge conducts groundbreaking research on professional service

companies. We have identified a group of firms that grow 5X faster than average. We
can show you how they do it and implement their strategies in your firm.

To view our full library of research reports, whitepapers, webinars and articles,
please visit [Link]/library.

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703-391-8870
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Reston, VA 22191

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