The Growth Engine: A Guide to Building a World-Class Business Development Function in Professional Services - Hardcover

by Walt Shill (Author), Andi Baldwin (Author), Erika Flowers (Author)

Your guide to business development maturation in the professional services sector

The Growth Engine describes the main challenge professional services firms face as they grow and shows how to develop a scalable business development effort, covering everything from CRM systems and metrics around utilization, to service development and expansion, to account planning and cross-selling, to winning new clients, to team structure and roles, and to performance management.

This book is supported by extensive interviews with rainmakers in professional services firms including marketing, law, consulting, financial advisory, and IT advisory companies. Interviewees include senior executives at McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Accenture, IBM, AWS, KPMG, Deloitte, Publicis, and Omnicom, as well as a number of Am Law 100 firms. Some of the concepts covered in this book include:

• Identifying buyers, niching services to create awareness and strengthen brand, and using talent to leverage consultants' time and amplify their reach
• Developing new services, aligning sales with marketing, and using tools, processes, and metrics to drive accountability and growth
• Training talent, measuring and managing business development performance, and incentivizing and compensating key roles

The Growth Engine is an essential read for all founders, executives, chief growth officers, marketing leaders and rainmakers in professional services seeking proven strategies to grow, steadily, sustainably and profitably.

Front Jacket

The Growth Engine: A Guide to Building a World-Class Business Development Function in Professional Services is the third in a series of books addressing the need in professional services firms to understand the unique ways in which they drive growth. How Clients Buy asked and answered the question, "How do professional services firms attract new clients?" Never Say Sell asked and answered the question, "How do professional services firms grow existing clients once they have a foot in the door?" A best practices book built on extensive interviews with rainmakers in professional services firms, this book asks and answers the question, "How do professional services firms build and mature the internal muscle to support business development?"

Most consulting firms start out with only a partner or two who begin their practice serving clients with whom they have a prior relationship. As their work grows, however, they are faced with the challenge of how to best enable, support, and grow their business development capabilities. With this comes the introduction of complexity, including the development of new service lines, entry into new buyer markets, the need to hire and develop a larger team and appoint a Chief Growth Officer, the evolution of a new operating model, a need to gain visibility into future sales, a CRM system, metrics around realization and utilization, account planning, and a need to understand win rates, price elasticity, and return on invested capital dynamics.

Written by four seasoned executive leaders from Profitable Ideas Exchange (PIE), this book describes the main challenge professional services firms face as they build, showing how to develop a scalable business development effort. The Growth Engine is an essential read for everyone in the professional services sector seeking a proven blueprint to take their business to the next level.

Back Jacket

SCALE YOUR GROWTH FUNCTION TO A WORLD-CLASS BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MACHINE

There comes a point where firms must move beyond the immediate connections of the founding partners to build a predictable and scalable growth function--The Growth Engine: A Guide to Building a World-Class Business Development Function in Professional Services illustrates how to do just that.

This book reveals a clear business development maturation path over time, outlining best practices for what to do first and how to make the "jump" from a one-person shop operating out of a guest bedroom, to a 700,000-person business development machine like Accenture. Readers will learn about every step in the process, from identifying buyers and niching services, to creating brand awareness and strengthening market position, to developing new services and aligning sales with marketing.

This book is founded on extensive interviews with rainmakers in professional services firms including marketing, law, consulting, financial advisory, and IT advisory. Interviewees include senior executives at McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Accenture, IBM, AWS, KPMG, Deloitte, ZS, and Omnicom, as well as a number of Am Law 100 firms.

The Growth Engine earns a well-deserved spot on the bookshelves of all professional services founders and executives ready to grow their practice or their firm.

"The Growth Engine looks beyond The Trusted Advisor to offer a powerful, organization-wide perspective where trust-based principles don't just survive--they thrive. It brings fresh, practical insights to building client development capability in professional services firms, without losing sight of what matters most to clients--trust, credibility, and human connection. I couldn't be more excited to see this next chapter unfold."
--CHARLIE GREEN, Author of The Trusted Advisor

Author Biography

WALT SHILL had an illustrious career as a partner and growth leader in professional services, including McKinsey, Accenture, and ERM. He is a member of PIE's advisory board and the author of Friday Thoughts, a business blog focused on professional services.

ANDI BALDWIN is the CEO of PIE. She is responsible for setting the firm's growth strategy and ensuring PIE is delivering exceptional work to its premier client base.

ERIKA FLOWERS is PIE's Chief Client Officer, where she leads a team of consultants who deliver business development and client engagement programs for PIE's accounts including AWS, KPMG, IBM, Capgemini, BCG, and other large professional services firms.

JACOB PARKS is the President of PIE. He headed the research team on How Clients Buy, co-authored Never Say Sell, and has facilitated executive roundtable discussions on behalf of CFOs and COOs representing the largest companies across the globe.