Full Sail Partners Blog | Sarah Gonnella (4)

When it comes to proving the value of marketing efforts, often professional services marketers have to prove their worth to the financial department through a language that they understand – Marketing Metrics! This often means a series of pre-determined metrics for measuring marketing ROI (return on investment). 

Marketers are often challenged with measuring marketing ROI. Many times it’s because we are don’t have access to the right type of data or in some cases it’s because we don’t know what to measure. This is where having a good relationship with finance can help you be a better marketer. To better develop the relationship and expectations between marketing and finance, we suggest fostering a relationship of understanding and sharing. 

Having the financial department on your side is one of the greatest feats any marketer can accomplish – If finance buys in, you can be assured that it is only a matter of time until everyone else falls in place! 

No matter how copasetic our relationship is with our financial department, we have to be ready to report on marketing ROI at a moment’s notice so here are some steps to take to gain a better relationship. 

Talking the Talk 

If you are looking at building a better relationship with accounting, in my experience the first bridge to cross is to put yourself in their shoes. When you think about what functions accounting is responsible for, you can easily understand their hesitancy to buy in to the marketing plan without cold hard data to evaluate. Instead of running from this hurdle, attack it straight on! Schedule a kick-off meeting with finance to address the plan, and allow them to voice any concerns. 

The goal during the kick-off session is to ease accounting’s anxiety.  Allow the finance department a chance to express their suggestions and concerns. Continue to reassure the finance team that through the marketing metrics established by your firm, you will be consistently measuring marketing ROI throughout the year to ensure that the marketing team’s plans and efforts stay on track.

Walking the Walk 

The quickest way to gain buy in is to lead by example. You know your job better than finance knows your job. Identify areas that your marketing efforts affect that might not be easily identified.  One way a Marketer can begin to do this on their own is to think about the data that you need to do their job better. Come to the kick off meeting ready to show your finance team that you understand their concerns, by identifying previously overlooked metrics for measuring marketing ROI. This will demonstrate to finance that you are looking at metrics that can help impact the growth of the company and further prove your value to the firm. 

If you are interested in learning more, review this blog article that discusses evaluating your business growth plan with metrics. This introduction can be applied to developing marketing metrics that help identify how your efforts are helping the firm grow. 

Here are important questions marketers can ask accounting to start the conversation on how the firm can start measuring marketing ROI:

1. Retaining & Gaining Clients: I’m looking to understand our total customer growth. Do we have a way to determine by percentage and revenue the amount of our work we’ve received is new vs. existing clients throughout the year?
2. Pursuing the Right Client: I’m been looking at how we can be more strategic in our pursuit of clients. Would it be beneficial to advise you when I see we are pursuing more work with clients that we are having AR issues with?
3. Forecasting and Backlog: Can you help me understand what our break-even is and do we have a way to see what our current backlog is? I’d like to help make sure we have enough business coming in the pipeline for each market or division.
4. Effectiveness: Can you help me better understand how I affect the bottom line? Developing metrics that help you understand the financials behind your results can help you fine tune your approach. 

Often times your finance team is not questioning the value of the marketing team -- they are however questioning the tactics (and results!) being used. Often times as marketers we can get lost down in the weeds and lose sight of the overall firm goals. By proving efforts through metrics and marketing ROI, we start speaking a language that our financial team can understand. 

As professional services marketers, start showing your finance team that you care by measuring marketing ROI, and building better relationships between marketing and finance to demonstrate the value of promotional efforts.

For more information, view the below webinar: 

Budgeting and forecasting is part art, part science. For too many firms, however, it is also a frustrating process that takes a lot of effort to produce less than optimal results.

All too often, the budgeting and forecasting process breaks down because the two parties involved — the executive management team and the operations side — see the challenge from opposite ends of the same telescope. It may be a gross generalization, but from what I’ve seen, management often tends to be more aggressive and optimistic about goals and forecasts. On the other hand, the operational side sees the nuts-and-bolts challenges and logistics required to meet management’s goals, and tends to be more conservative in terms of what they think can be achieved with a given budget. 

In addition to this fundamental dynamic, another challenge related to budgeting and forecasting is that unless it’s handled well, it can lead to a lack of buy-in on the part of various parties. Even worse, it can result in a budget that ends up sitting on a shelf for the rest of the year, which is not in anyone’s best interest. 

Key strategies for success

Fortunately, there are several strategies that can help an organization improve its chances of a successful budgeting and forecasting process. 

1. Start early. Think about the budget process as one of dialogue and compromise — so allow time for both management and operations to develop their budgets and plans, and then to negotiate an acceptable compromise. If you’re aiming to complete your budget by December 31, for example, consider asking management to commit to establishing and publishing their corporate goals no later than October 31. 

2. Be transparent and clear about the process. If you let everyone know up front that the budgeting process is a dialogue and compromise, there may be more chance that all parties will embrace it and comply with expectations. 

3. Have the management team kick off the process. After all, their vision for the corporate goals and general forecasts should be what drives the organization. In general, it’s a good strategy to use previous years’ results as a baseline, incorporating any relevant data about changing market and economic conditions, new products in development, and so on. Once the management team has published its goals, the operational managers develop budgets for reaching those goals. This is not the order in which it’s always done, but in my experience, it’s a more effective approach and leads to better results. 

4. Have a meeting of the minds. Last but not least, block off some time to bring the two sides together around the budget documents and negotiate a compromise. As in any compromise, it’s critical that both sides understand that they are not going to get everything they want. But by finding an agreeable compromise, the organization can develop a budget and forecast that’s both aspirational and achievable. 

Budgeting and forecasting succeeds when it brings together two very different perspectives of the organization and finds an effective meeting point. Obviously, it needs to help the organization move forward in a strategic direction; but to become a plan that staff can buy into and implement; it also needs to be realistic and achievable. Above all, don’t forget that a realistic, well-thought-out budget is essential to the firm’s financial success. 

You may find it helpful to know that there is no ”right” way to go about evaluating your business growth plan (or knowing that might actually make you even more anxious!). There are however, several reliable tips for getting the most out of the effort. 

Tip # 1. Choose the right metrics

Using metrics to evaluate your business growth plan is a powerful strategy that can bring you greater focus. The key is knowing which key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure — and to do so, you need to really understand your business and what your version of success looks like. Start by considering such basic questions as:

• What are the three or four market forces or trends that will have the largest impact on your organization in over the coming year?
• What are your specific revenue objectives for the year, and for each quarter?
• What are the “soft” (that is, non-financial) criteria for success over the coming year?

Your answers to such questions will provide insights into what matters the most to your business. They’re also a springboard for choosing the metrics that will be most effective at measuring success. 

Small wonder that the use of metrics differs from firm to firm. For example, Full Sail Partners recently conducted a survey of client organizations and asked about which specific metrics they considered to be reliable growth indicators. Almost 9 in 10 (88%) identified revenue, while slightly less (70%) identified profit margin; a much smaller portion pointed to headcount or retention as indicators of growth. 

Tip # 2. Establish yearly and quarterly goals, and measure accordingly.

Create a business growth plan with goals not only for the company, but for each department as well. Ideally, you should measure every component of your business in terms of its performance against goals — your marketing staff, your project managers and teams, support and operations, sales, finance, and so on. 

Tip # 3. Keep your data fresh and reliable.

To be most effective, you need data in as close to real-time as possible. QuickBooks, Excel and other office applications can help in collecting and analyzing current data. Even more effective is a purpose built ERP, like Deltek Vision, that allows front and back office functions to share and collaborate on relevant data. Whatever tools you use to gather your metrics, be sure to automate the process as much as possible — that way, you and your people won’t spend all your time on number-gathering. 

Tip # 4. Get people involved and interested.

In our survey, we also asked firms which functional areas within their organizations took part in the development of KPIs to measure. More than half (58%) said that their finance and operations functions contributed to the establishment of KPIs, while another 17% said that HR also played a role. Don't forget to include marketing so they have visibility on how they can impact KPIs. It’s also a good policy to share metrics and results as you receive them — not only with management, but with all employees. Doing so helps to maintain transparency and leads to a culture where everyone is on the same page and motivated toward unified goals. 

Tip # 5. Keep tweaking.

For best results, you should plan on reevaluating and adjusting your metrics as your business priorities change. Every month, quarter, and fiscal year offers a new chance to refine your metrics and your business growth plan in order to drive growth. 

The power of metrics is within your reach!

When you invest time and thought into establishing, measuring, sharing, and refining your metrics, incredible things can happen. You’ll be pleased at how much more in sync you are with the state of your business, and how much more confident you’ll feel in making the critical decisions that can help you take your business to the next level.

In the movie Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart’s character tells his café’s piano player, Sam, that a competing bar has offered to pay him double what Rick is paying him. Sam says he’s not interested, explaining, “I ain’t got time to spend the money I make here.” 

When professional services firms are swamped with work, they can be a bit like Sam the piano player. You might say, "I have too much on my plate, I don't have time to track the results." If you aren't tracking your performance then how do you know it's paying off? To make the most effective decisions, financial and otherwise, it's important to allow time to step back to see the bigger picture. Tracking your firm's performance results provides a number of bottom-line benefits to the firm. Here are our top five: 

1. See around corners.. First and most importantly, it allows you to spot emerging issues before they become major problems. For example, if you’re tracking employee utilization and the numbers start heading south, management can take steps to diagnose and fix the underlying problem, such as setting more realistic targets. Depending on the metric that is underperforming, your management can take other steps to nip problems in the bud.
2. Know who to hire, and when. A related benefit to measuring growth is that it can be crucial to effective resource planning. You can track the status of projects and determine whether you have sufficient staff on board to get the work done, and if not, how many and what type of new employees you need to hire in order to keep the work flowing and deadlines being met. A featured firm, SAGE Engineering, is an example of how this exact topic helped their firm grow.
3. Get more context. Monitoring relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can also provide you with useful data in benchmarking your firm, giving you a context against which to compare your own firm’s performance. Where is your firm in comparison to other firms in your industry allows you to understand what metrics growing firms are doing. Set your sights high! If you want to compete, do you really want to compare yourself to the 'average'?  See what high performing firms are accomplishing and understand what is impacting that growth.
4. Motivate! Don’t forget about the impact of metrics on employee motivation. Many of the top performing firms not only track a specialized set of KPIs, but also make them constantly available to employees. For firms that tie employee bonuses to certain KPIs, this can be a powerful motivator. In addition, the same tools and processes used to measure growth can be used to answer other questions that can affect employee motivation, such as: Are we remaining competitive?; Are we engaging our people?; Do we have loyal clients?; and others.
5. Build your value story. Last but hardly least, measuring growth can be highly beneficial to project based firms that are considering or may be the targets of a merger or acquisition. Deltek Vision provides an excellent solution to this need, by creating comprehensive, auditable paper trails that help a potential buyer or partner see exactly what the financial state of the organization is. 

When things are busy, it may be tempting to keep your head down and pound away at the keyboard (whether at a piano or a computer), with the hope that the financial picture will work itself out. However, you should be measuring growth continually, tracking your performance against your own past history, as well as against relevant competitors and other firms, and using the insights to inform your management decisions. 

Be sure to check out how SAGE Engineers, Inc. (SAGE) used a purpose-built ERP to bring rapid improvements to an organization and track their firm metrics against industry standards:

In keeping up with CRM related forums, someone asked about the best approach to handling and maintaining their CRM system.  It started to make me think about the value of what is communicated in these forums and how much people trust advice from others they believe to be their peers. It made me wonder why people instantly trust others that may or may not have all of the background information that top consulting firms discover when providing their services.  

In this situation, I observed people giving advice as opposed to just sharing experiences.  I found it curious that contributors to the forum assumed many of the variables the person inquiring had not provided and further, the person making the inquiry hoped to find solutions without providing any background or specifics.  

No two companies are alike. Sure there are similarities, but my experience in consulting has led me to believe that if you want a true solution to your issue, you have to take the time to identify the “who”, “what”, “where”, “when”, “why”, and “how” (wwwwwh) questions and the most important question, “What do you need?”.  As the forum conversation continued the inquirer thanked people for their input, but soon added more information as the responses were not really the direction they were looking for.  This occurred to me to somewhat frustrate many of the individuals that had already offered their “advice”.  One such comment was “well if you had told me that when you asked the question.” 

So What Happened?

When we ask a question, individuals drive off of their experience and what worked for them. However, they don’t necessarily provide context of why that worked for them and include those specific reasons. This poses a huge problem to the answers they receive. Many people go directly to wanting a solution without having any true understanding of the context of their question. When the basic “wwwww” are not qualified, the inquirer runs the risk of not addressing their true needs. Even some of the top consulting firms tend to take the same approach with their clients.  In fact earlier in my career I used the phrase, “when I was in industry, what worked for us was…”. 

So why do individuals seek a solution in these forums before building context and clearly defining what they need?  Here are a few thoughts I had on why this may occur:

1)     We seek good ideas from others in the same industry

2)     We crave solutions with little challenge

3)     We need immediate answers

4)     We love FREE advice!

Just like the advice provided by contributors in a forum, consultants sometimes fall into this pitfall of providing quick advice. In order to not challenge a client, consultants may diminish the level of anxiety to both their client and themselves by giving “a solution”.  As a consultant, ready-made solutions give a sense of accomplishment.  But sometimes that solution is short-term because the question asked is out of context of the bigger issue.  Because the question was asked in a vacuum (forum), there is little room for further qualifying discovery. 

Inquiring about what others in industry are doing and or have done allows one to know others experiences.  From this may come ideas that generate further inquiry, but the inquirer should look to put this further inquiry in context of their “wwwww” questions.  The key here is to be able to have these “wwwww” questions already established and to quickly hear the advice against what you already know.  The same preparation should be part of ones working relationship with the consultant. The difference is, one can dynamically interact with a consultant and establish the context.

So an important distinction the next time one works with a consultant: if the consultant is not looking to build the context of your issue, they likely are going to only provide short-term solutions that do not fit well in the long run with your company’s needs. 

Do you have any stories to share about a consultant that applied the “wwwwwh” principals that allowed you to develop a true solution and avoid thinking short-term? Share in our comments section below. 

Every firm is looking for ways to improve workplace efficiency.  Why?  Because the results are happier employees, improved bottom line, and a streamlined work environment.  There are a number of ways to achieve this goal, but what are the top ways to increase business productivity?  Let’s take a look at 5 ways to improve workplace efficiency:

1. Visibility
   Has your firm ever been guilty of making a sales call to the same client as someone else at your firm during the same week or even worse, submitting on the same proposal? When a client calls, do you know within a couple of minutes who the last person was that worked on the job or talked to them, and if there are any previous issues that are unresolved? In order to make quick, informed decisions and have the right information at the right time, it’s important to have real-time access and accurate visibility. Firms with the ability to instantly understand over and underutilization of resources by project and employee are able to quickly re-assign resources to increase productivity. Many firms utilize an ERP system to gain a global view of their company.
   
   
2. Repeatable Process
   Another inefficiency we find are firms that don’t think about developing processes that are repeatable. Firms that take the time to think through processes, document them, and test against them avoid recreating processes and errors each time they are carried out.
   
   Two examples are the execution of a project and hiring a new employee. Both of these should have repeatable processes that everyone knows within your company. What happens when you miss an important step in either of these examples?  You lose money. By not executing the steps outlined during a project, you run the risk of overrun and a project that fails. By not following a hiring process, you run the risk of not having the same standards of candidates throughout the company, which could result in the wrong hire.
   
   
3. Measuring the Right Statistics
   I had an old co-worker that used to create as many activities in the system as they could because that is what was important to their boss. The philosophy was more calls, emails, activities resulted in more sales and opportunities. The problem with this was there were two important factors left out: the quality of the activities and the results of those efforts.  In order to affect results, you have to choose the right statistics then track the results.  Establishing the right measurable goals and expectations help employees understand the value they bring to the company. When setting up metrics for employees remember to:
• Establish goals for the company
• Work with each employee to identify how they will contribute to the success of the firm and gain agreement on those goals
• Measure them at set time periods
  
  
4. Manage Customer Expectations
   Managing customer expectations impacts your long-term relationship with a client. When your customers are happy, your firm spends less time performing tasks that could have been avoided to get the client or project back on track. However, managing those expectations can be difficult to do throughout the project delivery. One way to manage customer expectation is to check-in with the client at multiple times throughout the project. Period check-ins provide your team with the time needed to make adjustments if something is not meeting the client’s expectations. Additionally, handling a small issue is much easier then handling a client that unloads their bottled up frustrations all at once.
   
   
5. Develop Engaged Employees
   Did you know that a recent Gallup poll revealed that disengaged employees – least productive employees -- cost the US economy $370 billion every year?  In the review, three types of employees were identified: Engaged, Not Engaged, and Disengaged.  Engaged employees innovate and use their talents to build the company, while disengaged employees tear down the infrastructure by questioning and disagreeing with anything and everything.  Another set of employees are those that are not engaged. They sit back and avoid committing themselves.  It went on to show that of the US workforce, 29% is actively engaged, 55% is not engaged, and 16% is disengaged. So in essence only a third of your firm is operating at their full capacity.
   
   Each employee has different needs or desires. At times, money is important to employees. However, many employees find other things much more important in a firm: flexible work hours, recognition of talent, or an outlined career path. Ultimately firms should establish an open communication with employees and establish trust. Lack of transparency and understanding of the big picture and goals of the company leave employees wondering and concerned about the future.

The key to improve workplace efficiency is to constantly evaluate, adjust, and improve. What are your thoughts? Do you think your firm could benefit from these 5 steps? Try them and see if your overall efficiency impacts productivity and profitability.

Significant investment is required to purchase an ERP software package and so it’s important that firms go into the purchase with eyes wide-open. Many studies have been done on why an ERP system implementation fails, so what should your company know before purchasing an ERP system?  Through our own success and failures, we’d like to share with you eight (8) key areas that impact an ERP system implementation: 

1. Executive Support – In order to get buy-in from employees on the importance of using any system or adopting any process you implement, you first MUST have executive support.  Your firm is investing a lot of time and money into this decision.  The message must come from the top.  If the executives of your firm don’t see the importance, then others will probably feel the same way.  As with any new process or change, it’s important to demonstrate a ROI and the key areas that will be improved within your company.   
2. Establish Goals/Objectives – Make a list of the items that need to be improved within your company.  With that list, apply Pareto’s 80/20 rule to your business.  Focus on the 20% that matters and the other 80% of issues will fall into place.  What information do you need to grow your company?  What processes do you need in place to make things better, faster, and easier?  Be specific.  These goals should drive the functionality of your solution.  
3. Invest in Training – A vital part, commonly overlooked in an implementation, is training.  Training enables and empowers your users.  Taking the “they’ll figure it out” approach is a quick way to discourage users from using the system.  Learning from experts on how to do it quicker, more efficiently, and correctly from the beginning can keep you from feeling you’ve wasted money on a system. The system doesn’t run the process; people do!  The system will only be as good as the information put into it so make sure to support the people within your firm that will help keep the process running smoothly.
4. Choose a Champion – You’ve heard the saying about too many cooks in the kitchen, right?  Designate a consensus-building champion for the implementation.  We recommend identifying three main roles with distinct purposes: Project Coordinator (PC), Executive Sponsor (ES) and Application Administrator (AA).  The PC is involved with every phase of your firm’s implementation. This role will be involved with making key decisions and consider the global impacts of those decisions.  They are also responsible for the schedule, progress, and team communication.  The AA is an individual that develops a thorough understanding of the application throughout the implementation process, later performing the ongoing day-to-day administration, and leads the internal training effort. The ES is responsible for securing commitment from executive management, department/office management, accounting, marketing and project management and should be an individual within senior management.  They are to stay in contact with the PC and consultant to convey any expectations or concerns.
5. Think About the Future – Make sure all areas of your company are talking to one another. Consider your growth plans, customer communications needs, and internal knowledge sharing.  Integration and streamlining processes impact profitability and obtaining/maintaining clients.  Most firms think about the finance side first; an essential part of any business since they handle the money. However, what about the side that brings in those customers or work with them on a day-to-day basis?  Is finance sharing information with them?  Integration can help breakdown the silos and build true customer interaction.  Keep in mind you don’t have to do everything at once, but make sure you think about the next steps.
6. Gain Consensus from End Users – Gaining consensus within the company requires work upfront during the planning process.  Consider the needs of end users and how the process will impact all areas of the company.  Check back with them periodically to demonstrate solution designs to confirm you aren’t missing anything.
7. Demonstrate Key Wins – Identify quick wins that can demonstrate progress with the system and track your results.  The goals established at the beginning should be checked periodically to ensure you are making progress.
8. Take a Phased Approach – By taking a phased approach, the Project Coordinator isn’t burdened thinking about everything all at once.  Remember, this is a job upon a job.  On top of doing their daily duties, the implementation team is taking on a project that requires significant time and dedication.  In addition to spreading out the implementation, training should be incremental. This keeps employees from experiencing information overload.   

A successful ERP system implementation require a collaborative effort amongst your firm’s implementation team. Empower your employees and establish a good relationship with your consultant. Overall, strive to constantly evolve and improve your company in order to ensure you are ready for tomorrow’s challenges. 

Did any of these steps ring a bell during your past implementation? Do you have any suggestions to share? 

Be sure to check out other articles written by Sarah Gonnella. 

When evaluating your professional services firm, understanding your past trends can provide valuable insight into the future.

In a recent, SMPS Technology Committee survey, only 56% of firms stated they tracked this information, which is surprising. This type of report allows you to evaluate the overall hit rate by the firm, a division, the pursuit lead, or other criteria.  You can also evaluate it by percentage or by revenue.  Knowing both provides you a different story.

Take William Apple, who has a 50% hit rate for the number of projects he has pursued.  He pursued 10 and won 5.  Ann Johnson on the other hand only has a 33% hit rate. She pursued 3 and won 1.  Seems like William is doing better, right?  However, if you evaluate them on revenue, William only has a 24% while Ann has a 73% hit rate.  Why the difference? 

Well, the one project Ann won, was a large project worth millions of dollars.  William however, won a lot of smaller projects and lost out on the bigger project. Both are important to the business.  However, if you start to see that William is constantly losing out on the large projects or maybe particular project types, this type of analysis would be valuable information that could be acted upon.

Key metrics like the Win to Loss Ratio allow a quick snap shot to determine if you need to dig deeper.  The historical progress of an opportunity sometimes provides further clues. 

• Were you realistic with your expectations?

• What stage did you lose the opportunity?

• Did you have an established relationship and effective pursuit strategy?

Is your firm able to answer these questions or are you repeating the same mistakes? Let us know how your firm learns from your success and failures and how your firm is improving your hit rate by leaving a comment. Interested in more historical trends information?

It looks like the world will not come to an end! So back at it campers. Let's learn some quick tips about Deltek Vision.

As the first of our Deltek Vision Tips & Tricks Series we would love to hear if you find the information helpful. Recently I came across a question about how to know who modified a record. Of course the audit reports can provide this information, but there are two easier ways to get this information.

In every info center you can hover over the name of the record at the top of the record. It will tell you who created the record and on what date. Additionally, it will tell you who last modified the record and on what date. So in the image below for item #1, the mouse is hovering over the word Paul A. Collier in blue. If you need to know what field was modified then you would need to run an audit report.  

Additionally, you could set-up a field that displays who modified the record. This is accomplished through a workflow. First create a new character field. (Note: An employee field will not work.)  In this example it is named Modified By.  See image item #2 above. 

Then set-up a User Initiated Workflow. Choose the Application, which in this instance will be the Contacts. Click Insert on the Workflows grid. The Workflow Table will be Contact Record and the Workflow Type will be Change. This simply means every time the contact record is changed, the workflow will trigger.

Now on the Actions grid click Insert to add an action. Choose Column (Field) Change for the Actions column. Next, choose the field to update. In this case it is ContactCustomTabFields.CustModifiedBy.  Then set-up a SQL Expression. The expression is simply, a field that already exists: [:Contacts.ModUser]. Find that code and click Add Column. Then click Save. Be sure to add descriptions so you know what the workflow is related to and then Save the workflow. To test it, change something on a Contact record. You should see the users login name filter in.

Check back in 2013 for new blog entries related to Deltek Vision tips. Let us know if you learned something new by leaving a comment. Wishing you a wonderful 2013!

Anyone that knows me, knows I love music and sing karaoke.  I was learning one of Adele’s songs and listening to the lyrics: “Should I just keep chasing pavements, even if it leads nowhere?” I started thinking about the things we chase in our own life that lead nowhere. Even though this song by Adele is referring to love, it really can apply to pursuing business or ways to grow business.  Does your firm have a way to analyze if the business you chase is leading anywhere?  Better yet, do you know what efforts are paying off?  Below are things to consider when evaluating the effectiveness of your business building strategies:

Are You Chasing the Flavor?
A recent client described that each week they discuss the potential business everyone is pursuing.  However, each sequential week everyone was chasing the flavor of the week.  She had no idea what happened to the previous week’s pursuits and if anyone was even following up until she received a proposal request.  To avoid chasing the flavor and ensure your firm is following-up on all opportunities, consider these steps:

1. Document All Stages with Action Items: You don’t need a proposal to document the opportunities you are pursuing.  Even if business is in a discovery or assessment phase, documenting these efforts with actions items can remind you to follow-up. 
2. Identify Trends and Outstanding Items: Using an integrated system allows marketing and executives to track the progress of the entire company through reports to identify if there are trends or items that are outstanding.
3. Administrator and Automation: Identifying someone to administer and review your pursuits is critical to ensuring progress. Also look at ways to automate alerts to remind you when you should follow-up.
4. Win/Loss Report: It’s important to know how successful you are. Knowing the history of past pursuits can help future go/no-go decisions and improve your win rate. By developing a win/loss report and evaluating how successful you are by department, opportunity champion, and the type of project can help you make better decisions in the future.

Are You the Nurturing Type?

Many of us attend events, are a part of an organization, and are involved in business development efforts in hopes to nurture business.  However, most individuals and firms don’t know the effectiveness of their efforts.  To ensure your firm is making good use of your time, consider these steps: 

1. Network vs. Attend: Not every event you attend will result in business.  There are many reasons to network.  However, showing up to an event doesn’t equate to networking. After attending an event log who you talked with. What did you discover about the individual and what was important to them?  Think about how you might follow-up with that individual. Maybe there is a subject they are interested in, someone they want to meet, a project they are working on, or you found out something about their personal life. How can you use your knowledge or connections to follow-up?  Social media is making it easier to connect with people and stay up-to-date with their changes. Be sure to personalize your request.
2. Get Involved: If you are a member of an organization, take the plunge and be active.  Think about your audience when you chose an organization and then get involved in a committee, the board, or become a speaker. Volunteering can help you gain exposure, connect you with decision makers, and allow you to demonstrate your expertise. Joining SMPS was one of the best decisions I could have made for my company and career.
3. Return on Investment: We all tend to hear the phrase, measuring Return on Investment related to effectiveness of business efforts.  Another way to look at ROI is ask yourself, if you had to pay for the marketing or business effort out of your own money, do you think it would be worth the effort?  A great way of looking at the marketing effectiveness is to track the time you spend toward business development efforts and compare it to the business you obtained from those efforts.  When you compare the expense vs. the business you received, was it worth the effort? Sometimes efforts take months or even years to pay off. So to determine trade show ROI or events that happen on a yearly basis, allow two years to determine the effectiveness. 
4. Building Business: Most people look at clients as Existing or New.  I would challenge you to look at them as one of three categories: Prospective, Nurturing, and Maintenance. Prospective clients are those you want to do business with, maintenance clients are those you continue to do business with, while nurturing clients are those you’ve done business with or have recently received business from.  Your message and how your firm will gain business from all categories will vary. Keeping in mind that it is seven times easier to maintain an existing client than is to go out and get a new client; moving clients to the maintenance category is the goal.  So where should you spend your time and how do you know when you are effective?  First you need to define what justifies a maintenance client.  Is it the number of projects or dollar amount over a period of time?  With an integrated database system, your data can trigger when the criteria is met and send out an automated report.  This information informs “Client Champions” and executives when client business increases or decreases and provides marketing with insight for nurture campaigns.

I hope my inspiration from Adele will help your firm build business and avoid chasing pavements. Let us know what inspires you and what your firm does to ensure growth. View our webinar: Get the Most from Your Conference.