Key Takeaways: Maximizing Relationship Intelligence: The Evolution of the Pursuit of New Business
On March 23, Consulting magazine and Affinity recently assembled some leading industry-leading executives and professionals for an interactive conversation on how to best leverage technology and relationship intelligence in order to maximize our relationship-building efforts and strategically fill our business pipelines.
The panel considered the issue during a roundtable discussion moderated by Consulting's Michael Webb. If you were unable to attend, you may register and access the webinar on-demand here.
What was learned during the discussion? Here is a brief recap of four key takeaways from the discussion:
- Consulting is almost always a relationship sale. Which is fine for established players, but smaller, growth-oriented, firms need information to develop new relationships and break-in.
- Relationship selling is not scalable, and marketing is usually missing or poorly integrated with sales. Excel is no longer enough for successful consulting practices. You must move away from spreadsheets. It's a dead end. A database-based system that links as many business functions as possible and is reportable by non-technical people is critical to building a sound process.
- Any "intelligence" system has to provide *actionable* information. Reporting without action isn't intelligence – just information. Customer Relationship Management is not what CRMs are used for now. In consulting, "farming" is just as important as "hunting" and your CRM systems should be used for tracking referrals as well as using automation boost relationship intelligence through client contact/sales capture, generation of notifications, touchpoints and KPIs.
- Putting together consulting deals is not a linear process. Staying competitive means using every piece of data available to best understand your clients and potential clients. And, as a firm grows, data points increase and are more spread out. You need technology to weave the narrative for you and optimize: who to reach out to; when to do it; what to reach out about. As important as all of the technology, is the soundness of your direct outreach. Whether first contact or ongoing engagement, is your communication of value to them or an annoyance? Why are you contacting them? What are you providing them that they care about? Are you personable and engaging, considerate, deferential to their real needs? Consistent, reliable and honest?
Thanks and appreciation for this valuable discussion go to our esteemed panelists:
- Steve Responte, Director of Customer Success, Affinity.
- Matt Lentzner, CEO, Bizinta Inc.
- Gerry Riskin, Founder of Edge International
If you were unable to attend, you may register and view the webinar on-demand, here.