Saturday, October 11, 2008

Dodging the Economic Bullet


Trying to figure out how your professional services firm can dodge the economic meltdown bullet? (Sorry to mix metaphors.)

The only thing that matters is what your clients need right now. Not what you think they need or might need.

And what your clients need is help in two areas:

1. Cutting costs, fast.

2. Boosting the productivity and effectiveness of key operations, fast.

That’s it.

Don’t pitch them services that do something else. “We help you achieve best-practice in managing employee retention.” Forget it. In a recession, most employees don’t jump ship (unless pushed).

And if you have services that achieve those two goals, speak clearly about how you achieve them, with proof points to validate your claims (i.e., client examples in which you name names and quantify results).

How many of you are doing this? What’s been the result?

If you aren’t doing this, why not? What stands in the way?

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