“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein

Are cobwebs the only things growing around your “Growth” clients? My recent research indicates many firms have clients they’ve designated as “Rising Stars” or “Future Leaders” or equivalent, but in reality many of these relationships have stagnated or even declined. What’s more it appears many firms are just doing the same things year in and year out and expecting a significant leap in revenue or profits. It’s just crazy to expect different results when you’re doing the same thing over and over again.

Barolsky Advisors has just launched a new service called A Good Hard Look which aims to [1] audit stalled growth client relationships, [2] recalibrate goals and expectations, and [3] advise on the changes to strategy, people and processes necessary to achieve superior outcomes. The ultimate goal of A Good Hard Look is to identify the critical changes necessary to get better results and to make a more informed and honest assessment of the growth opportunity.

A Good Hard Look

You can try A Good Hard Look yourself by examining the firm-client relationship from five perspectives:

1. The context of the relationship, including client industry trends, the client’s corporate and business strategy, their values and culture, their future capex and opex spend, their in-source/outsource strategy, and the nature and intensity of competition faced by the firm.
2. The client’s specific needs and expectations, including identifying the buying unit and influencers, their KPIs, their value drivers, value destroyers, emerging issues and requirements and unstated/unknown needs.
3. The client’s perceptions of the firm, including their views on the firm’s current expertise, service, people, pricing and value (absolute, long-term trend and performance relative to competitors), the strength and breadth of the person-to-person relationships, their willingness to consider the firm as a provider across other practices and locations, and the firm’s potential role in addressing other unmet needs.
4. The strategies and tactics used to develop the relationship, including what’s been tried and what hasn’t, what’s worked and what hasn’t, what the key financial and operations metrics tell us, and the proposed game plan for the next 12 to 18 months.
5. The people and processes involved, including the skills, confidence and drive of the Client Relationship Partner/Relationship Manager and Client Team, and the internal systems and processes used to prepare, execute and review their plan.

DIY or get outside help

Doing it yourselves (DIY) is less costly but having an external independent expert to assist can bring a fresh perspective and relevant benchmarks.  It can also address sensitive political issues that are often a significant cause of the problem.  In addition, some firms lack the time, discipline and/or skills to do a strategic audit of this nature. The Barolsky Advisors approach embodies a co-action style which gets the best out of both parties, optimises spend and transfers key skills and tools. Lessons learnt from a strategic audit of 2 or 3 clients can usually be transferred to other relationships and become imbedded in the way the firm operates as a whole.

Call to action

If you have any stagnated growth client relationships you should intervene sooner rather than later and make the necessary changes. Just keeping on doing the same thing is insane!

Click here to find out more about Barolsky Advisors’ A Good Hard Look or give me a call on 0417 305 880.