Last week, Bain published a simply brilliant article in the Harvard Business Review exploring what B2B clients really care about. There are so many rich insights and applications for law and accounting firms, including five practical ideas described in this post.

40 Value Drivers

The Bain framework presents 40 ways in which your firm can create value for its clients, categorised into five areas: Table Stakes; Functional Value; Ease of Doing Business Value; Individual Value and Inspirational Value.

Five practical ideas to use in your firm

Idea #1: Have value conversations

Sit down with your client, take out the 40 Value Drivers diagram and ask them to identify the most important value drivers for them personally, their team, their procurement department and their organisation more broadly, and why?

During the conversation explore which value drivers are likely to be more important in two years time.

Get your client to evaluate your firm’s current service offering and relationship and how it compares with key competitors. Use it to explore opportunities to create more value and to test ideas for new offerings. Ask what they’d be prepared to pay more for? Ask what they’d prefer not to have if it meant a lower overall cost?

Idea #2: Re-clarify your value proposition

Your value proposition (VP) is your promise of value to clients. Your VP should be perceived to be superior to clients’ other choices and deliver a sustainable return.

At a firm level, you may wish to explore which of the 40 drivers are core to your firm’s VP or brand promise. Do you go wide and promise lots of things, or go deep and promise one or two things better than anyone else?

Next time you’re pitching for work or writing a tender document, use the framework to get real clarity of your unique selling proposition or USP.

Idea #3: Reassess your firm’s purpose

How does your firm’s current purpose statement measure up in the Inspirational Value category? Does it inspire and truly resonate with stakeholders?

Your firm is a combination of a private enterprise delivering profits to its owners and a social enterprise delivering a broader community benefit. There is an emerging generation of clients and staff that connect much more deeply with a firm purpose that reflects both social and financial outcomes.

In an era where true differentiation based on service and quality is almost impossible, there’s a good chance Inspirational Value will become the battleground of the future.

Idea #4: Foster creative thinking

Running a hackathon, design thinking or ideation workshop? Go through each of the 40 value drivers and explore three or four fresh ideas in each. Deep diving around the client and their needs is always a great place to start.

Idea #5: Update your CRM

Tweak your CRM to make sure you capture insights around what your clients really care about and what drives value for them. Add five new fields to your CRM around the five categories of value creation with drop-down menus of each element and comments.

Your ideas

I’d love to hear your ideas on how to use this brilliant new model.