Shehan Wijetilaka | 12th Mar 2016

A poll of 217 current and former Formula One drivers nominated Ayrton Senna as the Greatest Formula One Driver of all time.

In a glittering ten year career that ended with his untimely death, Senna had 41 Grand Prix wins. He also secured 3 world championship crowns. But what stands out most is his record of 6 wins at Monaco – the narrow street circuit that makes overtaking a treacherous task.

In the rain, Senna’s record at Monaco was even more amplified. Whilst others were slowing down into a corner, Senna was able to delay breaking for much longer and then accelerate out of each corner that much faster.

In other words, thanks to his superior skills at every corner, Senna was able to increase his lead.

Similarly, research shows that in tough economic times that we are in, the demand for professional services can be increased by applying skill to create value during every client interaction – rather than pounding the street and making more client meetings (ie more activity).

Compared to just 12 months ago, clients busier than ever. Hence, it is imperative that each and every interaction with clients be maximized to create value – as the client sees it, through their own lens.

Any missed opportunities, may mean that the door is firmly shut for any future interactions as the client simply does not have time to provide you with a second chance for redemption.

Also, any failure to create value may pave the way for your competitors to create demand for their services as they demonstrate better methods to solve a particular issue for the client and use this to expand their footprint (and value) for that client.

Value Creation

Our research reveals that the most significant way an advisor can create value for client is to help them recognise problems that they don’t see themselves.

Similarly, clients perceive value when a professional helps them realise the significance of problems they do see but whose magnitude they hadn’t previously understood.

How to attract the correct new clients? Martin Blake (KPMG Chairman, NSW)

If you can help your clients in one of these ways, you’re on your way to being differentiated in the marketplace, and have moved yourself (and your firm) into the space where you can now earn a premium on even the most commoditised of professional services.

This means that every meeting with a client has to be thoroughly planned and well executed in a manner that the client is doing most of the talking (ie at least 60% of the time). The best method to get the client talking is to ask questions around problem areas that your firm is best at solving.

Not every question is equal.

For example, asking a client “how many branch offices have you got?” provides high value to the advisor, but little or no value to the client.

In fact, asking too many of these “situational” questions, will send you backwards – it may even begin to feel like an interrogation for that client.

Instead, higher value creating questions have to asked. These are well constructed problem questions that challenges the status-quo and deals with issues related to the client and their span of influence.

For example, questions around implication and knock-on effects that the client may not be aware of are of high value. Also once an explicit need (ie a problem that the client wants to fix) has been established, questions relating to the value of fixing a problem is of high value.

Timing of Questions

A word of caution is that unless the need is explicit in the client’s own mind to a point of wanting to act on it, then this sort of “payoff question” will be met by resistance and ultimately objections will be put forward by the client. Hence, the timing of these questions are also an important consideration.

Advances

The outcome in each meeting is to get the client to knowingly and willingly agree to an action (called an “advance”) that moves the situation forward for both the client and the advisor. More advances will ultimately lead to the letter of engagement being signed at a subsequent meeting – in the fastest possible time, with the fewest meetings.

Good execution requires thorough planning around what is a realistic “advance” prior to each meeting with the client. All of this means that it is better to maintain the same numbers of meetings, but secure advances with well planned meetings (yes, planning does take time) – rather than just crank up the number of meetings until you strike pay-dirt one day.

Re-scoping Skills

Another area of focus to generate demand is to avoid having to withdraw when the client’s stated requirements do not quite match your firm’s sweet-spot nor available professional skills on your bench.

The very best demand creators that we observed apply a technique of helping the client re-look at their problem in a new light, and help them find a better method of solving it. This is called re-scoping. This enables the client to proceed with an engagement with your firm – and also enables your firm to have a higher probability of delivering a good outcome for the client using existing skills.

Skill over activity

In these disrupted times, the buying behaviour has changed forever. It’s the “conversation skill” over “activity” that is important to create genuine client-centric value.

This value creation has to be replicated in each and every interaction to generate demand for your professional services. If successful, you can create a substantial gap in the client’s spend with your firm and gain a premium, compared to your competition.

This applies to value creation even in your paid engagements.

The Model Engagement

In a typical fee-based engagement, your client’s want you to:

1. Take stock of their current situation
2. Advise them of the genuine problems that affect their business area
3. Make them aware of any implications of taking a course of action to solve their problems
4. Help them conclude the value of fixing their problems

The 4 scenarios above require a type of questioning model to help clients come to their own conclusions – rather than be told what to do. This is what the best advisors do to create value when engaged by their clients.

In the best professional services firms, the sales model and delivery model are one of the same.

If not, clients will spot when an advisor is selling to when they are consulting – and may not be all that comfortable with the level interaction between fee-generating and non-fee based discussions.

In conclusion, Aytron Senna used the wet conditions and his superior driving skills to create a larger gap over his rivals at Monaco. Now is your opportunity to take advantage of the disrupted market to increase your market share and generate profitable fee income.