Commando Consulting: October 2007 - Five Signs of a Smart Client Acquisition Strategy

As the world of consulting is becoming more and more competitive, consulting firms are basically forced to step beyond haphazard and reactive client acquisition techniques, like word of mouth (hope and pray they come) or the local country club. They have to step up to proactively fill their sales funnels with both short- and long-term opportunities. And this change hits medium-sized consultancies the worst.

Large firms and most solo consultants have always had proactive client acquisition programmes to create leverage, and most tiny firms (between 2 and 10 people) are likely to carry on with their current "fly the seats of their pants" approach. But it's middle-sized firms with an ear count of 100 plus that have to make drastic changes to their operations.

They don't have to, but without systematised client acquisition programmes they will be forced into the stressful world of competitive bidding. And we know that bids, issued by the purchasing and procurement departments, focus on price not on value. So, let's see how to avoid these nasty bidding wars by considering the Five Signs of a Smart Client Acquisition Strategy.