Professional Services Marketing: How the Best Firms Build Premier Brands, Thriving Lead Generation Engines, and Cultures of Business Development Success, 2nd Edition

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Building a Culture of Business Development Success

There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza.A hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole.

—Harry Belafonte

First question: On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being always and 5 being never, how often do you stick to project schedules and keep commitments you make to clients?

We're guessing that most of you would give yourself a 1 (or a 2). Of course, you make commitments and keep them. What kind of professional would you be if you didn't?

Next question: On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being not challenging at all and 5 being extremely challenging, how challenging is it to implement your marketing and lead generation plans?

We asked 731 marketers and leaders at professional firms this same question in our research study What's Working in Lead Generation. Of the respondents, 76 percent said they found implementing their own plans somewhat to extremely challenging.

Final question: On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being not challenging at all and 5 being very challenging, how challenging is it for you to implement your sales and account growth plans that you put in place at your own company once they're built?

We asked 373 organizations the same question as a part of our Benchmark Report on High Performance in Strategic Account Management.¹ In this research, we separated the respondents into two groups:

1. High performers who had greater revenue, profit, and client satisfaction improvement in their strategic accounts

2. Average and below-average performers ...