Tactics to enhance Client Value   Dictate and transcribe summary of all meetings and significant phone conversations and send copy to client same or next day. Involve clients in process through - brainstorming sessions, give client tasks to perform. Give client options and let client choose. Explain clearly and document what is going to happen, make sure process is understood in advance. If appropriate, develop printed booklet laying this out. Make meetings more valuable   Establish specific Agenda and goals prior to meeting Send info, reports in advance - save meeting time for discussion, not presentation Find out attendees in advance, research them Always establish next steps for both sides Call afterwards to confirm that goals were met Make report more valuable   Get client to instruct the firm on format, presentation Provide summary so client can use it internally, without modification Have all reports read by non-project person prior to delivery to ensure readability, comprehension Provide all charts, tables and summaries on overheads for internal client use Write progress summaries in a fashion that client can use internally without modification Help client use what is delivered   Assist client in dealing with others in client organisation Empower client with reasoning steps Advise on tactics/politics of how results should be shared inside client organization Tactics for dealing with the people crisis Productivity Strategies   Speed up training process so that costly resources can handle higher value work Reward partners explicitly for good coaching Change engagement staffing, so that all are put to "highest and best use" Use technology to enhance productive capabilities of staff members Increase expected billable hours from staff Change pay schemes to reward performance differentials Reduce Need Strategies   Withdraw from some services and markets that cannot support new salary levels Drop " up-or-out" system to reduce turnover Rethink fast growth strategies Emphasize profitability more, volume of fees less Substitution Strategies   Use more Trainee professionals Use technology to substitute for labor Hire "non-traditional" candidates and offset by training Hire people for "jobs" instead of "careers" Accommodate part-time, flextime, alternate "life- style" workers Tactics for improving profitabilit (In descending order of impact on profit health)   One: Raise Prices (i.e. Fee Levels)   Earn higher fees through specialization, innovation, adding more value Use marketing knowledge to get "better" work Speed up skill-building process in staff Invest in new (higher- value) services   Two: Lower Variable Costs (Delivery Cost for each Engagement)   Improve engagement management performance Increase leverage in the delivery of services Make greater use of Trainee professionals Develop methodologies to avoid duplication of effort   Three: Fix Under Performers   Apart from above a third type of project, the Procedure Project usually involves a well-recognized and familiar type of problem. While there is still a need to customize to some degree, the steps necessary to accomplish this are somewhat programmatic. The client may have the ability and resources to perform the work itself, but turns to the professional firms because the firm can perform the service more efficiently, because the firm is an outsider or because the client's own staff capabilities to perform the activity are somewhat constrained and are better used elsewhere. In essence the professional firm is selling its procedure, its efficiency and its availability. Procedures projects usually involve the highest proportion of junior time relative to senior time. Deal with under performers Drop non-remunerative services Drop non-remunerative clients   Four: Increase Volume   Increase utilization (billable hours per person)   Five: Lower Overhead Costs   Leverage and Profitability Improve speed of billing Improve speed of collections Reduce space and equipment costs Reduce support staff costs Lessons for Individual Professionals   Lesson One   What you know now and are able to do now, what your current success is built on, will unavoidably depreciate in value unless you actively work on learning new things and building new skills. Continual professional development is a lifelong requirement, not an option. There may have been a time when once you got good at something, may be "made partner", you could live off that for the rest of your career. If those times ever existed, they are gone now. The minute you start thinking you know how things work, you are dead.   Lesson Two   The health of your career is not dependent so much on the volume of business you do, but the type of work you do (whether or not it helps you learn, grow, and develop) and who you do it for (whether or not you are increasingly earning the trust of some key clients). In any profession, the pattern of assignments you work on is the professional development process - you just have to learn how to manage it.   Lesson Three   No matter how busy you are, you still owe it to yourself and to your career to get involved with and take charge of your own practice development activities (marketing and selling). If you let others in your firm generate the business you work on, you are putting your career development in other people's hands - a risky move at best. If you rely on business flowing to you unsolicited, then, with high probability, it is going to be "asset milking" rather than "asset building". What marketing and selling are about is truly practice development: Influencing the qualitative nature of what you work on, so that you use your work experience to continue to build your career.   Lesson Four   Since asset building is about managing your affairs for the long-term health of your career, you would better take charge of it yourself. Do not wait for your firm to establish formal policies to reflect concern about the balance sheet as well as the income statement. It probably should, but whether it does or not, it is in your own interest to get started yourself.   Lesson Five   Also you cannot automatically assume that what your firm "asks you to do" will always be the right thing to build your asset. For example, if you are already experienced in a certain area, chances are that others in the firm will turn to you every time an issue comes up in that area. If you don't take charge, others will exploit your asset. You have got to be a good corporate citizen, but you have also got to learn to balance that with what makes sense for your own development.   Lesson Six   Among the worst mistakes a professional can make is under investing in marketing to existing clients. Existing clients are not only more likely to give you new business, but the business they will give you (if you work to earn) is likely to promote the value both of your skill asset and your client relationships asset.   Previous