INNOVATE: Doing new work (that our firm hasn't done before) with a different buyer in the organization
We're consultants, so naturally we wanted to give pithy names to each of these opportunities, and we wanted a diagram to show how they all relate. To us, the Diamond of Opportunity looks like this:
The easiest way to help a client is continuing to do more of what you've proven you can already do, with the buyer who already knows you can do it. This kind of work (MORE) is the base of the diamond. At the peak (INNOVATE) you find the most challenging kinds of opportunities – finding a way to help someone different in the organization (with whom you've never worked) doing a type of work that is new to you and your firm. In these instances, the bar for earning both trust and credibility is extremely high, making these projects tough to win. Between these poles are four other distinct opportunities to help clients; each requires a mix of skills needed to introduce your additional capabilities to clients and establish relationships with new buyers.
Opportunity 1: MORE
The most straightforward way to grow within a client is to capitalize on previous good work with a buyer to do more of that same work for the same buyer. We call this MORE work. It falls at the bottom of our diamond and is the easiest avenue to being more helpful. Same work for the same buyer. Just more of it.
What Might This Look Like for You?
Maybe you recruited diversity and inclusion (D&I) machinist candidates for a client's Seattle manufacturing facility. Your client won a big defense department contract, and you suggested you do more D&I machinist recruiting for them.
Maybe you were asked to do quality of earnings (Q-of-E) calls on behalf of a private equity firm partner in the course of their due diligence around an acquisition. Soon, you were doing Q-of-E calls on all this partner's deals, excited to be doing more of this work for which you are qualified.
What Might This Look Like for Susie?
With Thomson Reuters, PIE began the engagement by convening a group of Am Law 100 CIOs quarterly for our buyer. Due to the success of the engagement, Susie was able to help her buyer with MORE of this work, by expanding the contract to also convene CFOs from the same companies at the same cadence.
The Diamond of Opportunity in Action
MORE. Susie has grown the contract to include more of the same work for the same buyer (virtual peer exchange facilitation).
Opportunity 2: EXPAND
The second opportunity to grow our footprint in a client is to focus on doing different sorts of jobs – ones we have experience doing for other clients – with the same buyer. We call this EXPAND work. Our buyer already knows us, trusts us, and knows the quality of our work. It is natural to do additional work that is not exactly what we have done for them before, but that is adjacent to that work. We're asking our buyer to let us be helpful to them in an additional way.
What Might This Look Like for You?
Maybe you write whitepapers for a utilities practice in a large consulting firm. You also have speechwriting experience, so you decide to ask the partner you work with if you might write a draft of a speech he is scheduled to make at the SEPA Utilities Conference in Las Vegas next year. He says yes.
Maybe you perform outsourced revenue recognition analysis for second-tier telecommunications services (TELCOs). You decide to pitch your clients, who are heads of revenue recognition, on projects that will ready them for the changes they will need to put in place around the management of their collections lists once the California Commerce Act (and its new privacy requirements) is up and running. Your team has already done this for a few firms in different industries. They said they didn't know you did that work, but quickly agree.
What Might This Look Like for Susie?
With Thomson Reuters, Susie has been able to EXPAND the relationship by introducing live events to the scope of work. Susie explains, “After we'd been convening these networks of CIOs and CFOs on their behalf for a few years, the timing was right to discuss how we could make the peer network even more deeply engaged by bringing the executives together in person – incorporating both facilitated discussion and a social event.”
Although our work with Thomson Reuters up to this point had been exclusively virtual events, this was a natural progression, and Susie was able to speak to dozens of case studies that demonstrated how PIE had successfully convened in-person events for other clients.
The Diamond of Opportunity in Action
MORE. Susie has grown the contract to include more of the same work for the same buyer (virtual peer exchange facilitation).
EXPAND. Susie expanded this relationship by offering an adjacent service (facilitated live events) to her same buyer.
Opportunity 3: EXTEND
The third opportunity identified by successful experts to grow key accounts is to do more of what we have already proven we can do for that client, but to do it with new buyers within the client. In a way, this often feels like marching across a client's various verticals or business units to see whether they might also benefit from our help. We call this EXTEND work: helping other buyers – often parallel to our current buyer – in the same way we're helping our current buyer.
What Might This Look Like for You?
Maybe you run a boutique intellectual property (IP) practice that works for the general counsel of an ad firm, and this firm is part of a large public holding company. You ask the general counsel if she'd make a warm introduction to her sister companies. No reason why you can't help with the same type of IP work for them as well.
Maybe you lead a team that stands up a large consulting firm's customer experience summit every year. Over drinks after the last event, you ask the marketing director you work with if you can write up your experience with the summit and pass it around to her marketing event colleagues in the firm's other practices. You're interested in helping make all of their events equally successful.
What Might This Look Like for Susie?
With Thomson Reuters, Susie knows her current client has a specific target audience: Am Law 100 CIOs and CFOs. However, she also knows