Zero to One: Two Months of Building a Professional Services Business

Connecting and listening with clarity, to win through exceptional service

I’ll walk through how I look at building a professional services organization from zero, one relationship at a time, building into meaningful partnerships. This week’s edition has a lot of rough thoughts, but I feel they will get your mind thinking about looking at your business in a different way. I hope you learn or take something away to spark your own growth.

Intentional activity of connection and purpose centered on five core areas:

1. Build

   Build with patience with urgency - take time to build true partnerships the right way up front, with the mindset - you must date before you get married.

2. Confident Focus

   Know and own your focus- understand and articulate what you are and what you are not. Believe in your expertise and value, and take pride in being the best at what you do, and saying no to what you don’t. Saying no to business that isn’t a great fit, is staying available to be a magnet for great business.

3. Fail and Learn

   The more you fail, the more you learn, and the more you increase your chances for winning. The more ‘no' responses you get, the closer you are to the ‘yes’ responses.

4. Customer Solutions

   Drive customer-centric solutions delivering best in class service and quality, being easy to work with and helping drive efficiency, excellence, and value for customers. Building an ecosystem of partners and collaboration for ultimate client delivery, coupled with not dwelling on competitors you rarely directly compete with, has significant value.

5. Efficiency, Value, and Continuous Improvement

   The enemy of growth and business survival lies with complacency about the status quo. Embracing change, transformation, and diverse thought, drives improved growth and trust.

Building: Thoughts From the First Two Months

• Cash in some chips for at least an opportunity to get to the table: who is willing to talk and discuss their needs, who is a willing potential partner based on your expertise or your relationship. Relationships from 15+ years ago are still relevant today, trust doesn’t die, unless you kill it

• When you think opportunities are limited, but you do the work anyway, you find it. Make no assumptions and seek no guarantees. Do the work

• New school and old school - digital marketing advances makes traditional techniques feel out of date, but there is still significant value in an omni-channel approach. Not settling for one way to work best, the top 3-4 methods and focus there and narrow down as it makes sense. No magic bullet, just quality work.

• Credibility and trust through career experience

• Relationships, makes me think if I would’ve cultivated my local and global network more actively and consistently, where I would already be in anything I do.

• Market knowledge - use and build your expertise, and follow the money

• Testing various events and audiences

• Using my powers from leadership and operations to develop business. Many of the same principles exist, and are focused in a different context and with a different audience

• Consider - are you working in the most effective way possible? In my new role it isn’t my time that is impacted as much by the level of work efficiency, but my effectiveness is impacted either way considerably

• Significant opportunity with prospects that are under-served or don’t hear from service providers. There are so many that want a partnership of value, expertise, and delivery

• The progress is found on the edges. The routine work in any role can be mundane, but that work gets you to the edges and finds the success.

Recent Realizations

• It’s so fun to understand and listen to the market, follow the money, understanding investments, companies launching, growing, new development

• Watch facilities closing and new construction

• Trust compounds over time- longer duration and proof of trust = more trust

• Go to who you know and they’ll want to help make warm intros

• Premium quality service delivers value well beyond the “cost”, proving your service is actually an investment

• Talent or service commoditization is caused by mediocrity or perceived lack of value

• Hire talented ‘A’ players building for the future, as they aren’t a commodity, they are rare

• What value are you bringing to your clients, can you explain it?

• Transactional or partnership mindset and delivery

• Unique or commodity - it’s in your court to control this in serviced-based businesses

Considerations For Success

• Taking your capabilities and being able to articulate them explain and operationalize: articulate one clear concise message

• Geography

• Demand

• Supplier echo system

• Reverse planning - initiate conversations, find your PMF, then refocus and get more strategic. Sometimes strategic building requires Action, then Iteration

• Building an org for now or for the future - if you build now, and it isn’t sustainable or built on a good foundation, you’ll be rebuilding later

• Moneyball for talent - determining and building core talent value, and a valuable talent pipeline to fuel your business

• Building a business solutions business - be a business to service business growth. Become the fuel for others to thrive, making yourself essential.

Establishing Trust and Subject Matter Expertise

• Credibility

• Vulnerability

• Reach

• Connection

• Delivery

• Expertise

Guess what, clients want to talk with you the more relevant the conversation. Make it relevant to them, find better ways to explain your work, test your hypothesis. Cater towards your audience, get their view, but stay core to your strengths . Messaging matters.

Examples of Jumping Through Windows

1. I met an HR professional and they asked me about my experience in Construction and A&E. By not BSing, or embellishing, being brutally honest about not being an SME in a specific talent and solution space, I gained trust and respect through being honest and forthright, and it continues to remind me how much energy you bring when you know your one thing, not five things. Potential customers and many clients don’t want you to be all things, to all people, nor do they want you to tell them that you can do all things. They want an expert in one area and if you’re going to leverage that to go into another area, you better have a strong foot on your core area first. Don’t let it get cloudy in your own head or in the market.

2. I grabbed lunch with a former client that I worked with nearly ten years ago. Within 30 minutes of our lunch, he introduced me to HR (primary decision maker and potential client), explained our service, and gave me a strong recommendation. It was effectively a reference letter, stemming from a one-hour lunch, but built by eight years of trust through delivery and collaboration. By reconnecting, I have found the power of trust, connection, and reputation. This was a defining moment in my realization of how much what I have done in my career matters greatly, even if it was from 5, 10, 15 years ago. People remember, and care, and will pay if forward if they can help. I am appreciative for the effort people have gone through to introduce me warmly to their colleagues, former colleagues, and network.

Partnership Ecosystem

It has been great to talk with potential customers, reach out to potential partners, and start to cultivate the beginnings of a true ecosystem. I look at organizations like Salesforce, Toyota, Apple, and Stripe, and see an ecosystem built to generate business, and fuel for innovation and collaboration.

In other words. By using my leadership and operations background to drive consultative conversations with customers, and focusing on a true consultancy approach with partnership at the center of all we do, the more I stay true to my own strengths and style, the more successful I will be at growing business. People want to work with the real me, not me trying to be something I am not.

Hopefully, this added a little value to your business or your career. Thank you for reading. Please repost or share with someone who may benefit from this edition.

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