At a recent RainToday.com webinar that I delivered, someone sent in this question:
Do you have any advice for firms where the majority people or staff are primarily project focused, meaning, they are supposed to be focused on billable work only? Business development isn’t “billable,” where do they find the time?
Here are a few ways I could rephrase the question:
“I work at a firm where innovation is important, but the firm doesn’t invest in innovation and allows us no time to work on it. What advice do you have?”
“I work at a firm where people are our most important asset, but there’s no budget for training, no mentoring or coaching, and no one works in human resources, leadership development, human resource development, or organizational development. What should we do help our people be the best they can be?”
“I work in a firm that needs to compete on having the best processes and systems, but no one works in operations and we have outdated technology. What do we do?”
You get the drift. By and large service firms make money when service providers deliver billable work. Why would you want to devote them as resources to something that you can’t charge the clients for? If you can survive like this, and you have the revenue, profit, and growth that you need just by keeping on keeping on, then you don’t need to do anything else. Don’t bother making time to sell.
If business doesn’t just fall into your lap, you’ll need to find the time.
Firms that find the time…make the time…to market and sell, and devote resources to competing in the market as aggressively as possible, will outgrow the firms that don’t. End of story.
Still, the question is a serious one and deserves a serious answer:
1. If your firm does not value marketing and selling and requires you to direct all of your focus on billable work, then you either need to work around the system and make your own time, or you can leave and find a firm more in line with your goals and work preferences.
2. If you’re at a firm that values marketing and selling but you’ve just never done anything but billable work during the day, here’s some advice for making sacred selling time a part of your routine. If leadership seriously values business development effort, go see them for help. They’ll be thrilled you came asking.
3. If you’re a firm leader and excellence at marketing and selling is becoming critical to your success, make it a priority and start allocating resources and time (including your own) to the effort.
4. If you’re a firm leader and excellence at marketing and selling is becoming critical to your success, and you are unwilling to allocate resources and time (including your own) to the effort, you should step down and give the reins to someone who will.
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