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Sales targets - The uncharted territory for professional service specialists

Written by Mark Hood | 28 September 2023 1:41:54 AM

Professional service specialists dedicate the majority of their careers to curating and mastering a certain set of tailored skills in order to become ‘specialists’. 

In a path where exercising duty of care is requisite, the demonstration and application of expertise is the pillar to a successful service. In parallel, these specialists also build a positive reputation for themselves, alongside an wide industry network. 

This trust, credibility, and competence constructed through years of practice enables a higher volume of client referrals, recommendations from channel partners, and general word of mouth. All low-cost high success client-generating avenues. Tapping into these networks and established reputation is an appealing and opportunistic asset for Professional Service Firms. 

However, a significant challenge arises with this approach - these specialists have not devoted years of training to transitioning from client-facing roles to revenue generation and expanding the firm's client base. 

Presented with a sales target for the first time, the question immediately becomes, how do I effectively and efficiently leverage my network and relationships to build firm-level growth and revenue? Faced with the hardship of now being a specialist in the wrong field, without a detailed growth and market engagement plan in place, the question becomes impossible to answer. 

Market engagement plans - How to grow in uncharted territory 

The process of turning professional service partners (previously specialists) into sales and marketing people is a challenging task, especially in an already saturated market. 

To aid in this process and ensure their established networks and relationships are correctly utilised and capitalised on, both the firm and partner need to collaborate and build a personalised go-to-market plan. 

These plans are first built at a company level, tapping into the collective knowledge of all partners at the firm to ensure the market base, their needs, interests, and problems are properly understood. All these inputs then build a tailored, highly structured go-to-market plan specifically for the partner.

Built through collaboration and ready to be delivered by the individual, the documented plan not only instills confidence that the sales target and growth objectives can be met but also provides an opportunity for all parties to build and approve the go-to-market plan.

In a market base where the company and brand messaging relayed to the market is commonly inconsistent, this process presents an unmarked opportunity to collaborate and learn from each other. 

How does GrowSure help Professional services company to grow?

GrowSure is a highly detailed go-to-market process and software assisted by Advisors that captures knowledge and builds actions enabling effective contact and ongoing relationship building with buyers.

We help companies identify who their buyers are and how to engage with them.

You cannot underestimate the importance of messaging to market and one of the biggest mistakes we see is messaging only targeting prospects ready to buy today which excludes prospects not yet at that stage. We build messaging to engage, to inform, and then to nurture so companies are speaking to the market prior to an event such as a tender renewal, a legal incident, or a legislative change in accounting.

GrowSure supports businesses ready to take a strategic, planned, and company-approved approach to growth. To enhance the success of your revenue-generating team's outreach actions, we combine a tested growth process, our team of growth advisors, and an easy-to-use software platform. If you are interested in a personal assessment of your business please get in touch.

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