Professional Partnering The Key To Effective Growth For You and Your Clients

If you have been serving business owners for very long you have come to some important conclusions. You only know what you know, you can only see what you see, and there are other professionals with blind spots in different places than you.

Let's face it, if we all knew the same things - most of us would not be needed. And if we had productive relationships with other professionals - those our clients use who services compliment ours, our clients would receive our coordinated ideas and insights. Plus we would be in a position to refer business to these professionals - now that we know how they work, and they would tell their clients about us. This is a perfect scenario all the way around.

Partnering, on a case by case basis or in an ongoing relationship with consultants, financial planners, accountants, coaches, lawyers, and other professionals can be a very good idea indeed.

And of course there are many different workable business models for doing this. For many of us it works best when we to do it quid pro quo basis vs. referral fees. Here are a few quick suggestions that you should consider:

1. Always work with someone you trust. In over three decades working with business owners I have found that if there is any doubt in your mind about the person you are considering working with - no matter how casually or infrequently, do not do it. I am still reminded from time to time, in a nice way - about the time I partnered with the wrong person - years ago.

2. Be the one to give more than you think you have to, in time, money, energy, etc. The other professionals will appreciate it and the law of reciprocity will kick in. The one thing everyone will remember about you is whether or not you did what you said you'd do. If you always deliver more than they expect, and because of your example your project partners do the same - you will all be proud of the results.

3. There are lots of opportunities to work with other professionals these days. I would suggest that you not enter into long-term relationships until you have a lot of experience with each person. In fact you may find that your clients hold you in greater esteem when you become known as the person who can put the right people on the team - no matter the situation, and they may be different people almost every time. You are seen as the go-to person because you are the one with the connections, the one who fits the pieces of the planning team puzzle together.

4. Give, rather than look for, credit. It is as true today as it was the first time someone told me that there is nothing we can not achieve if we do not care who gets the credit. All relationships are give and take. Give more and you'll get more.

5. Think outside the box when choosing your partnering relationships. Naturally if you are in the life insurance business you think of partnering with an accountant and a lawyer, or if you are an engineer you work with architects and people in the construction industry.

If there is anyone you should consider putting on your team, in addition to the usual suspects, it is a workplace conflict resolution professional. Why, because where there is conflict - no matter how far they keep it under the radar, nothing gets done. Wills are not signed and we never know why, estate plans end up in the file cabinet when doing nothing is just dumb.

When nothing happens to your (team's) proposals it is either because of you or the client. If it is you - they don't trust you or your partner's recommendations, that's one thing. You may or may not be able to overcome that.

If it is them, it may be that there are unseen disagreements and conflicts going on that are keeping them from taking action. And you may not about them until later, long after the deal has gone sour and the proposals are taking up space on your hard drive.

When you are putting together your next planning team - add someone who sees what you can't see, both traditional number crunchers and workplace conflict professionals.

About the Author

Successful professionals are always on the lookout for ideas and resources to help them. They are also looking for creative ways of marketing their professional services. If you want to be even more successful in the future than you are today, learn more about marketing professional services and share your insights with others, visit us and join in the discussion.

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Disagreement Can Be the Key to Success

Is the economy slow? I hadn't really noticed. Okay, so that may be an exaggeration - but the point is that I haven't let it get to me, and most importantly I've decided not to agree with the "fact" that all businesses are hurting because of the economy.

It's very easy to say "There's nothing I can do, it's the economy."

But as usual, the easy way is not the best way.  The easy thing to do would have been to pull back, get smaller, cut jobs and blame it on the economy. No one would have judged me poorly. Some may have even commented on what a shrewd businesswoman I was for making the hard decisions. I disagree with them, and with the "fact" that there is nothing I can do.

 

The economy is simply a factor to consider when planning your growth strategies - just like all the other factors you have to consider and plan with. This is the time when you have to dig deep. You have to work harder, and you have to find the things you can control, and delineate what you cannot.  Once delineated, you can figure out your way around those barriers. You have to get creative. You have to take action on plans that haven't materialized. These things will give you control over the course of your sales, even in the current economy.

You can't say you weren't warned. The year ahead may be a bit dicey, but there is absolutely no reason why you can't still show growth. Start by making a plan for 2009. Plan to do the hard thing, the right thing, and take control. There is no greater reward than succeeding while proving the nay-sayers wrong!

If you haven't noticed, I've been hammering in the fact that you need to plan for the New Year and not let the economy determine whether your company grows or not.

I am not suggesting that you simply put your fingers in your ears and yell "La! La! La!" at the top of your lungs, the whole time pretending there is nothing wrong with the economy. What I am suggesting is that you not let the external force of the economy be your excuse to fail!

 

So, guess what? You are 100% responsible for the future of your business. Yikes! If you really consider what that means, it really puts YOU in the hot seat.
Don't spend your valuable time whining about the economy! DO something about it.

Quick story about a buddy of mine who is a "Lemon" lawyer... he basically represents folks who wound up buying a lemon of a car. Well, a bad economy means fewer car sales, which means fewer lemons, which in turn means less business for him! What did he do?  He hired a couple of attorneys that are experts in creditor harassment suits. He put a marketing campaign in place with TV ads, direct mail - the works! He is so excited about 2009 and is predicting his best year ever!

So, what can you do right now to counteract the media hype of doom and gloom?

1.       Get Perspective:  Take a few days and get out of your office so that you can take a panoramic, objective view of your business and your industry.

2.       Research:  During those few days, get your wits wrapped around what is occurring in your industry in terms of your competitors.

3.       Set Goals:  Where do your numbers need to be? Break down your income needs. Not just what you need yearly or quarterly, but what you need to bring in on average on a daily basis in order to make your targets.

4.       Implement:  We've all had ideas that have been brushed aside in the fray. Find those ideas and figure out which ones need to be implemented to solidify your sales.

5.       Get Advice:  Reach out for sources where you can learn and get your questions answered. It's possible that as a business owner you have not been through this before, and reaching out to those who have can be a real help.

In the end, no matter what the economy is doing, it's up to you to plan ahead and make the right choices for success. Start 2009 off right and you won't regret it.

About the Author

Using a powerful, simple, extremely cost effective way of communicating with customers has earned Joy Gendusa Inc. Magazine’s recognition as the nation’s fastest growing direct mail postcard-marketing firm with year 2008 revenues close to $19,000,000. Gendusa began in 1998 with zero investment capital. Today, her Clearwater, FL firm called PostcardMania (www.PostcardMania.com), employs over 160 people and prints 4 million and mails 2 million postcards representing 35,000-plus customers in over 350 industries each week. Download the first three chapters of Joy’s book "The Ultimate Postcard Marketing Success Manual" here: (www.PostcardMarketingSuccessManual.com)

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When Marketing Professional Services - Don't Try to be All Things to All People

As a professional solution provider do you try to "specialize" in everything? Or do you specialize with every person in your niche, providing the services each of them require? Let me explain.

Years ago a friend of mine, a multiple lines insurance agent, had what he thought was the opportunity of a lifetime. There was a gas station in his community, on the busiest street in the neighborhood - that had gone out of business. The owner of the property could not find another oil company to lease it so he cleaned up the site and began trying to lease the building as a bakery, pizza shop, or small retailer, anyone really.

It occurred to my friend that this would be an ideal location for his insurance agency. It was on the main drag, there was parking in front, and it was on a corner for easy in and out maneuvering. The building was remodeled, the parking lot was re-paved and the original 15 foot high gas station sign was painted with his logo.

It read, "Suburban Insurance, We Specialize in ALL Kinds of Insurance" in a very professional look. And of course his catchy phone number everyone around there would remember easily. How could he lose? With all those people driving back and forth every day? They would see the sign on their way to work, call for an appointment on the way home.

What did the people driving by think? Who knows, no one stopped. He was trying to be all things to all people and it did not work. For three months he didn't make a sale that could in any way have come from one of those passing motorists. He was faced with the prospect of giving up this really neat space or cutting back elsewhere because he had signed on to a lease based on his untested assumption that people would drive in every day of the week.

During a chance conversation with the owner of an actual gas station in the area a light went on. He realized that he needed to specialize in something, offer something unique or timely - get people to stop in for that one thing, so he could tell them about the other products and services his agency offered.

He returned to his office and found behind the building a portable sign, we've all seen them - the kind gas stations roll out by the curb where the passing motorists can't miss it. He had it painted using his professional theme with the message, "Changing jobs, we have short term medical insurance - don't put your family at risk" and put it out by the corner.

Not being a savvy marketer he did not know that a major employer in the area was laying off a lot of the very people who were driving by his office twice a day.

Within the next two days nearly 20 drivers stopped in, over a dozen of them bought the insurance - they were about to change jobs and had never heard of this kind of insurance and the other picked up brochures for the short term medical and some of his other products.

Every week or so he would showcase another of his products - travel accident, International medical, errors and omissions, etc. Every time he did that, people would stop in. From the relationships he created he sold the other more complex and more profitable coverages demonstrating that his agency actually did specialize in all kinds of insurance.

For the last twenty years I have seen examples where professionals of all types claim to specialize working with home business owners, small business owners, and executives. They think that by covering the entire waterfront they won't miss anyone. The opposite if often the result however.

Too often we try to be all things to all people and lose our credibility. Just because we do a lot of different kinds of consulting or coaching, or offer several different and usually complimentary services - people really only want to know if we have what they need right then.

Start by thinking of your audience those people ideally suited for the services you provide. Maybe a should say audiences. Think about your several audiences vs. your specialties. So, if you are a business coach and do sales training, customer retention, and recruitment within one field that's not bad if you tie them together under one umbrella firm name providing a range of services for a specific audience/category.

On the other hand, if you position yourself as a marketing expert and as engineering expert, you may want to consider your audiences again and use different materials, literature, etc. for each audience. Savvy professionals have several bios or web sites, not linked together - one they use for speaking for instance, those they use when they are emailing to a specific category prospects, those they use for different audiences they serve.

Remember, you can't be all things to all people but you can be different things to different people.

About the Author

Successful professionals are always on the lookout for ideas and resources to help them. They are also looking for creative ways of marketing their professional services. If you want to be even more successful in the future than you are today, learn more about marketing professional services and share your insights with others, visit us and join in the discussion.

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