All for One: 10 Strategies for Building Trusted Client Partnerships

Introduction

Transforming Your Client Relationships

A variety of powerful forces are now creating unprecedented opportunities to partner with clients and add value in new ways. This book presents a road map for capturing these opportunities and building trusted client partnerships marked by depth, breadth, and longevity. It is organized around 10 fundamental strategies that combine to help you create a powerful, all-for-one, client-centered organization. These strategies have been identified and codified through an extensive, multiyear study of large-scale client relationships built by a wide range of highly successful services firms.

Why is this important? For your clients, these enduring, institutional relationships can increase value, reduce risk, and accelerate change. For you and your firm, they are the bedrock of your success. In good times they will fill your sails with wind, and in a difficult economy they provide essential ballast that will keep you on an even keel.

If you're in any type of service business, such as consulting, law, accounting, financial services, advertising, or technology services—you'll benefit from studying these essential strategies for building, growing, and sustaining long-term, trusted client partnerships.

Two analogies can help us to understand the challenge of building these flagship client relationships that usually account for a disproportionately large share of a firm's revenues and profits. Consider, for instance, the number of stars that ...