That Beautiful New Biz Dance

Here’s the TL;DR summary: the new business challenge should require a lot of internal cooperation and support, but responsibility needs to be very specific. Now let’s talk about that.

It takes a unique (weird?) individual who welcomes the challenge of hunting new business. Part of that, I think, stems from how we define success:

• “Hunting” is something you actively do, and you’re either successful or you aren’t. You leave in the morning with ammunition and a full canteen, and you return at night with all your ammo gone and an empty canteen, and either you’re dragging an animal or you aren’t.
• “Farming” is something that’s not as urgent and you’re just planting lots of seeds and then praying to the weather Gods that the mix of sunshine and rain makes things happen. If it happens, you claim credit. If it doesn’t, you blame the weather.

What else makes the sales process unique? It’s absolutely measurable. Account growth is not as measurable or controllable and there are very few set standards for it. But sales either close or they don’t.

I think these things lead to something.

Weird Creates Weird

All these truths about new business prompt us to do some really weird things:

• We anoint this role as the only one consistently involving some sort of commission.
• Unlike any other role at the firm, we don’t think twice about paying terrific salespeople more than what the principal makes. We hate it so much, and we have such a hard time finding people who are good at it, that we just way “whatever: pay the man.”
• Hire the ultimate freelancer, an outbound businessperson, while essentially we’re just “renting” that person’s contact list, as she brings her clients with her…and takes them to the next firm when she gets tired of you.

And As a Result…

And one last thing we do: we distribute the responsibility to a bunch of people, which means no one is ultimately responsible. To be clear, here, I’m talking about the new business process, which includes marketing to surface leads or outbound to find them, and then closing those leads through sales.

And to be even more clear, a lot of people should contribute to the process, but if new business is not happening, one person’s ass should be on the hot seat. And that ass is the principal, who has:

• Not carved out a courageous positioning that even allows for an efficient lead gen plan.
• Not demanded a lead gen plan to take advantage of that positioning.
• Been letting clients run the shop so that they are more important than the firm’s survival.
• Pursued growth at every opportunity instead of maintaining that life-giving gap between the firm’s opportunity and capacity so that only right-fit clients find a place on the roster.

Here’s what I’m saying. Sales is really hard, and that means:

• One person should be in charge.
• That duty is so important that it probably should be a principal.
• There’s a zero-sum game between marketing and sales, so do some great marketing (this is where a lot of people can help), because that makes sales easier.
• Marketing is easier if it’s built on a tight positioning, whether that’s vertical or horizontal.
• When you’re successful at sales, and the chances are really good if you do these things, hand the new client off very quickly to your brilliant account managers. See below.

One Last Tip

So what do you do when you are successful at landing a great client? Maintain a clear distinction between your brilliant new business person and your brilliant account manager, for three reasons. By handing off the new account very early in the process, right after assessing fit and answering objections, you accomplish these three things:

1. The salesperson won’t get dragged into servicing the account instead of dropping the prize at the cave entrance and heading back out to bag the next trophy.
2. The account person won’t resent the hell out of all the promises that the eager salesperson made to land the account.
3. The client won’t resent the “bait and switch” after they bonded with the salesperson, only to find that they are working with this new person they’ve never met or who is silent in the corner while the salesperson keeps yakking away.

This is really a shame, too, because nothing else matters if you don’t solve your new business problem, and if you do solve your new business problem, you’ll figure everything else out.

Our very best wishes for your continued success.