Never Say Sell

CHAPTER 12Discipline 1: Do Good Work

On the edge of Boston's financial district, Bill Green's offices overlook the neo–Art Deco State Street Bank and Trust building. The legendary former CEO of Accenture is known as the leader who laid the foundation upon which Accenture's current market-dominating position is built.

On a foggy fall day, we ask him how to expand his footprint in clients. Leaning back in his chair, he's frank.

“It's fucking hard. You have to start with that, right?” You have to have your best day … every day.

Smiling broadly, he goes on to explain that at the heart of expanding in a client is doing good work:

At Accenture, the money gets made if we have the two thousand largest companies in the world as our clients, period. You don't need to capture all these little guys. You've got to capture the franchise clients – what we call our diamond clients. Clients that are leaders in their industries and appreciate the value we deliver. They're clients you have for life. We have worked with Caterpillar for thirty years. We've had some of our clients for forty years, uninterrupted. A diamond client is one that is over $100 million in revenue per year … year after year. We built 150 of those.

He has a point. In the expert services industry, more clients isn't necessarily better (in large part due to the diseconomies of scale we outlined in Chapter 8). Better is better. Focusing on a few key clients, and growing work within those clients across the Diamond of Opportunity, ...