“Oh, so you kind of help consultants build relationships in the c-suite to sell more work. Kind of like a BD wingman?”
“Exactly.” Andi laughs, having heard this analogy before. “How about you?” she says, trying to pivot away from herself. “What do you do?”
“I’m a sales trainer. I contract with the big ERP software companies.”
This piques Andi's interest. Suddenly she starts thinking time will run short before she gets to ask a few questions. Then she remembers that when Delta lands in Seattle, it feels like you are driving to Canada as they make their way across the tarmac to the terminal. There will be plenty of time.
“I've got a question for you, since you're probably an expert on this.”
“Shoot.”
“In professional services, we always think about the importance of expanding existing client relationships, not just finding new clients. But for some reason, farming existing clients is never as easy as it seems – why do you think that is?”
“Great question. We think what we know about how to win new clients applies to getting more work inside an existing client. But it's not true. It's like that Steve Martin joke, ‘It is so hard to understand the French. They have a different word for everything.’ It's that way when you are trying to do more work for a client. It's a completely different language of selling than you use to bring on new logos.”
We agree with Andi's seatmate. There are, indeed, two different “languages” – or at least two different ways of approaching how we think about our ability to offer our breadths of services to various buyers – and this is the first obstacle. What we know about attracting new clients has little overlap with what helps us expand client relationships.
In our earlier book, How Clients Buy, we discussed the seven elements that lead to success in landing new clients in expert services. Let's find out where there are cognates – and stumbling blocks – as we learn this new language of farming.
The Seven Elements
How Clients Buy unpacked the set of preconditions that have to be present before a client elects to engage with an expert services provider.
Prospective clients must:
1 Be aware of our existence.
2 Understand what we do and how we are unique.
3 Be interested in our service offering. Our services must be relevant to their goals.
4 Believe we have credibility; they must respect our work and be confident in our ability to do what we say we can do.*
5 Trust us to have their best interests at heart.
6 Have the ability to engage with us, meaning they have sufficient authority, budget, and organizational support.
7 Be ready to act. The timing must be right. Sometimes all other conditions are met but some other priority supersedes.
Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive
In 335 BC, Athens was conquered by the Macedonians. Aristotle, then a man of 50, returned to Athens after living overseas. There, he set up a school in the Lyceum outside the walls of the city. He'd lecture in the morning, with a particular emphasis on his great love – logic. The following classic example of a categorical syllogism demonstrates how he thought about logic:
All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore: Socrates is mortal.
Aristotle was particularly focused on what he called “categories” since he believed thinking clearly about how elements relate to each other was the ground from which deduction grew. “Men” is a category. It has a characteristic, called “mortality.” Socrates is a member of the “men” category; therefore, it follows that Socrates participates in that category's characteristic, “mortality.” In the Organon, Aristotle wrote that for categories to be useful, they must be distinct from each other: “Of things said without any combination, each signifies either substance or quantity …” Aristotle is saying that, assuming there is no overlap in categories (that's the “without combination” part), most categories relate to each other substantively or in number.
In 1963, a full 2,298 years later, McKinsey hired Barbara Minto. She was the first woman with an MBA brought on as a professional at McKinsey. Though she only worked for the firm for 10 years, her impact is still felt. Barbara argued, giving due credit to Aristotle, that when describing what has caused a problem, or how it should be fixed, the description of the parts should be “mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive,” what she called MECE. Though this is most commonly pronounced “mee-cee,” Barbara said it should be pronounced “meece,” like “Greece.” As she put it, “I invented it, so I get to decide how it is pronounced.”
For example, if we are asked to list competitors to Ford Motor Company, we would want to include all other car companies (e.g., Chevy, Fiat, Porsche) and not leave any out for the list to be “collectively exhaustive.” At the same time, each of the companies on the list of competitors should be completely distinct from each other, or “mutually exclusive.” Porsche is owned by the Volkswagen Group and Fiat owns Chrysler, Dodge, and Alfa Romeo; so, for the list to be MECE, we'd want to specify whether it is a list of corporations or brands. Barbara argued that when comparing apples, we need to make sure not to add in any oranges or the result will be muddled thinking.
Barbara was our inspiration when asking the question: How do clients buy expert services? Each of the seven elements is logically distinct and together they represent an accurate picture of the whole. For example, a prospect needs to understand what we do in order to engage with us. Separately, they need to be able to buy from us or all the understanding in the world won't lead to them scoping a project with our firm. And the list goes on; in order to buy, all seven elements need to be present.
Any Step Can Be the First
The Seven Elements paradigm is not a series of steps to be climbed. We can enter the set of preconditions from anywhere on the circle. Understanding what our capabilities are does not necessarily precede the need for a potential client to trust us implicitly.
For example, you might have known a woman from church for 10 years, voted for her to join the congregation's leadership council, and thanked her for writing a college recommendation for your son, without ever knowing she was an expert at integrating stand-alone accounting software plug-ins with Salesforce. You trusted her completely as a person before ever understanding what her service offering was (or that she even had one).
The opposite can be true as well. You might have always known there was a franchise attorney the next town over named Frank, but you've never known whether he was any good. Then one day, you're having coffee with the CEO of a housecleaning franchise at the International Franchise Association Annual Convention in Las Vegas, and he raves about Frank. You trust this CEO's opinion. Hearing his description of the excellent work Frank did for them, you can feel your trust in Frank grow, as a potential representative of your own interests. You may have understood what Frank's services were for the past decade, but until now, you wouldn't have known he was the right one to trust with your business.
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