ORGANIZING FOR SELLING

Selling and operating will be done by the same person who is a sole practitioner and (potentially) by different people in a large practice. It is in this latter case that problems of organizing the sales function arise because of the variety of people who might be in contact with a client on just a single project. This problem is compounded when there are several projects in which the firm is engaged with a single client and when there are several buyers of consultancy within the client organization - for example, different business divisions.

Should the firm attempt to coordinate all its engagements with the client through one of its own partners or directors? Alternatively, should it have different account managers to deal with the different parts of the business? Managers of consultancy practices have frequently agonized over the type of organization that is best. I know of one firm that tinkered with its structure twice a year in an attempt to optimize its performance - without success; it is now out of business. There are some general principles that can suggest the structure and processes that should be followed.

All Consultants Have Some Responsibility for Selling

Everybody in a consultancy practice should recognize the importance of selling, and should be encouraged to take some responsibility for selling. Usually this is limited at the most junior levels to identifying sales opportunities with existing clients, with greater responsibilities for selling increasing with rank and experience.

Not all Consultants Have the Desire or Aptitude to Sell

It necessarily follows that there has to be some distinction in roles and responsibilities. A practice may distinguish between:

• 'finders' (or 'hunters');

• 'minders' (or 'farmers');

• 'grinders' (the project team).

The targets and expectations of how a consultant allocates his or her time might reflect this. Figure 4.5 below gives an example of this.

		New sales	Extension sales	Fee earning
Finder	Days allocated	120	40	40
	Days sold	600	400	40
	Conversion ratio	5	10	1
Minder	Days allocated	40	80	80
	Days sold	120	400	80
	Conversion ratio	3	5	1
Grinder	Days allocated	10	30	160
	Days sold	30	120	160
	Conversion ratio	3	4	1

Figure 4.5: Targets for finders, minders and grinders

In each case we assume that there are 200 days per annum to be allocated (the rest being given over to holidays, training, administration, product development, etc). The 200 days are invested in different ways according to the role of the consultant. A key figure to monitor is the conversion ratio - the 'return on investment' for time. The figures shown in Figure 4.5 are illustrative only; each practice needs to work out what is realistic according to its experience, but it is worth noting:

• Finders are expected to be more skilled at selling than the others.

• Time spent in extension selling (selling to existing clients) should yield better results than new sales.

• Time allocated to fee earning is fully used as such. This means that selling will be fitted around fee earning for a grinder.

All Consultants Engaged on Projects Should Seek Out and Identify Opportunities for Further Work for the Consultancy Practice

Opportunities can arise from a variety of sources, most often concerning an aspect of a client's business that is causing dissatisfaction or an area for development. When such a possibility arises, the consultant should probe to find out what the real need is. Other points to consider are: Does the client consider the problem important? Does the client need external resources to resolve the problem?

A project team is well placed to identify extension opportunities; this topic should be on the agenda at each progress review meeting. More generally, skill in identifying high-quality extension opportunities should be an aspect against which the performance of all consultants is assessed. They can help in supporting extension selling by providing intelligence and providing introductions to key members of client staff.

Once an opportunity has been identified, you need to decide in what way it should be best exploited. All extension business must go through the same qualification and conversion procedures as new business. Although a particular consultant may have identified the opportunity, there may be others within the practice who are better able to convert the opportunity into a profitable sale.

You Have to be Clear on the Salesperson's Contribution to the Selling Process

Only if you are clear on what you want the salesperson to contribute can you plan how to run the selling function. If the salesperson is simply a broker between the resources of the consultancy and the needs of clients, what is his or her particular contribution? Is it a knowledge of a business sector or a network of contacts? Is it a capability in seeing the applications of, say, business process re-engineering to organizations, or access to particular skills in the firm? Or a combination of some or all of these?

I have come across all these attributes in various amounts in consultancy salespeople in different practices. Each reorganization emphasizes a different aspect; this year we will be organized in market related teams, whereas last year we belonged to mini-practices based on different functional specializations. The danger of frequent change is that in the new organization the salesperson's assets (networks, leads, sales initiatives, etc) built up over the previous period become devalued, and he or she has to start building afresh.

Another difficulty is that the salesperson does not see his or her role in the same way as the firm's management. It is all very well to claim that the salesperson should be the facilitator of the sale, but salespeople like to be heroes. They need their clear successes; facilitation does not provide this, so human nature will resist some types of organizational role.

Wittreich's (1966) rule number 3 (see Chapter 5) states that, 'A professional service can only be purchased meaningfully from someone who is capable of rendering the service. Selling ability and personality by themselves are meaningless.' This means that it will always be difficult to organize a consultancy sales force along the lines of that for a tangible product.

Much of the work in sales management in a firm therefore consists of resolving the tensions between specialist and selling activities.

Resourcing the Bid Process

Bidding requires a finite time. For small assignments, the salesperson and/or prospective project manager may prepare the bid; in larger ones, there may need to be more people involved. Because of the pressure to keep up fee earning time, it can be difficult to get consultants to work on a bid in some consulting practices.

But bidding is a project itself, and should be managed as such. The salesperson must make sure that he or she has the right resources to carry it out. This means in particular having consultants with the technical specialisms needed available to work on the bid. Ideally the bid team should form (the core of) the project team that is to undertake the assignment if it is won.