Open doors to new revenue from existing clients

Cross-selling is the lifeblood of every professional services firm. It's also the bane of accounting firm partners saddled with time-intensive tasks. As with so many critical business activities, the key to changing that dynamic lies in smarter use of data. Clients who need more from their advisors are already sending signals, missing only interpretation and action. 

Professional services firms already keep troves of data from clients in their normal interactions with them. Finding the patterns in that data and matching it up with key signals from the market is one secret to making the cross-selling process easier and more profitable.

In the professional services world, sales are treated like a necessary evil. Climbing the ranks of the firm depends on a partner's ability to bring in revenue. The paradox is very few accountants would say they chose their profession because of a love of sales, but they have a passion for working in their areas of expertise and serving their clients. Cross-selling is a form of client service, however, and repositioning the way we look at the sales task makes a big difference in how professionals approach it. 

Cross-selling in the professional services space is complicated for a multitude of reasons. Firms spend millions of dollars a year trying to educate professionals about the breadth of services the firm can provide. They host dinners and other in-house teaching events to convince their wary employees to approach the clients they're working with day to day. 

But the breadth and scope of services larger firms can provide is so great that it's challenging for any one individual to speak to them all — even if they actually enjoy the sales process. An accountant who's helping their client with tax preparation may not have the insight to ask that client about auditing, wealth management or technology consulting needs. 

That means lost revenue. The firm's posture is reactive rather than running ahead of where their client's business is going. Their firm's inherent functional silos serve to limit the growth of billings and can even set the stage for other firms to get a foot in the door with the client.

There's leverage even in small improvements in cross-selling. A McKinsey study estimated that a 5% improvement in cross-selling could lead to at least 10% growth in firm revenue. But that fear of rejection or lack of knowledge on the part of firm employees too often prevents the effort.   

But the fear is unnecessary. After thousands of customer hours worked, firms should have more than enough data to be able to map and scope what their clients' needs may be, and where the trigger points for new opportunities are, based on the data and experience of other clients at the firm. 

It's the basic concept behind big data: that the needs or desires of a subset of the population can be extrapolated by looking at the trends and patterns that the broader groups they belong to follow. That's the same principle that has allowed platforms like Google and Facebook to become the world's top advertising platforms. 

Here's an example: An accounting firm is working with a construction company and learns that the client needs a new and specific audit element because of a new federal or state regulation. It's not a massive cognitive leap to assume that other construction companies the firm works with may soon need the same service, as they will likely be impacted by the same regulations. 

What's more, their other clients may not even be aware of the need yet, providing the perfect opportunity for the partner to suggest an additional service. That doesn't feel like selling — that feels like keeping the client on top of their game. It's exactly the kind of targeted, timely advice that helps transform the relationship from being purely transactional to becoming a locked-in, long-term trusted advisor.  

These transactional triggers exist throughout the activities of professional services firms. Spotting  the data that show an emerging need among a certain client group paves the way for service advisory suggestions that can work across a whole class of clients. 

Sometimes, this data comes from looking at how billing hours are being distributed. Other times, it can come from a simple note in the firm's CRM platform. If this data, which firms often have in abundance, is aggregated and analyzed, demand trends and the opportunities they represent emerge. 

But there are other, larger trigger points that can create revenue-generating opportunities for professional services firms — broader macroeconomic environmental changes like financial crises, geopolitical conflict, political and regulatory changes, extreme weather events, and so on. Even things like general market trends and interest rates can create these service opportunity triggers if they're systematically incorporated into a firm's business development efforts. 

Combining market data with firm data can create predictive maps for what customer needs will look like. How these indicators impact revenue potential will vary from firm to firm, but only if the data is located, aggregated, analyzed and scored for sales recommendations. 

We live in a world where data is power, and for professional services firms, that power often resides in their client service records. The advent of AI platforms is allowing more to be done with fewer man hours, potentially revealing revenue opportunities to be spotted and acted on quickly. 

Professional services firms have a unique challenge in that they rely on an often unwilling sales force. But modern tools can give professionals a step-by-step handbook to generating more business, and make a complicated and nerve-wracking conversation into one that feels welcomed and valuable — all while keeping competitors at bay.