GUEST COLUMNIST – TONY VIDLER
Business coach Tony Vidler writes that business capacity, capability, and opportunity, are the fundamental building blocks of any successful advisor practice…
When it comes to practice development, the owner must consider three general areas which drive the growth and value of the business, and each of those has some sub-sections.
The three areas to consider are:
- Creating the physical capacity to ‘grow’ volume
- Developing capabilities of the professionals within the firm
- Creating and seizing opportunities to grow market share
Collectively, these determine how well a practice can go.
Your capacity will largely hold the keys to your business’ future. Capacity is determined by how you manage financial resources, how you use your time, and the level of strategic clarity (or planning). Together, they are the main drivers of how much your business can do.
Technical expertise is closely involved in determining capacity, but it is not a critical element there.
Technical knowledge, together with sales skills and the position you have in the market, will determine what type of work, or clients, you are able to take on. That is capability.
Leverage or exponential market share growth can then be created, and that is the latent opportunity that many practices never fully realise.
This combination of your marketing and positioning – together with your customer engagement processes and the prospecting systems you have developed for creating new clients – is what uncovers the opportunities to do more client work and drive more revenue.
Growing a valuable professional services business requires strategic focus…
By ‘engagement’ I am not simply referring to the initial contact or terms of business. That is part of the engagement process of course, but engagement in this sense is the entire system of how you communicate, service, and interact with prospective customers and clients alike on an ongoing business – to both attract new customers and retain existing ones.
Growing a valuable professional services business requires strategic focus upon each of these areas.
Collectively, they will determine ultimately what the business will achieve. So when it comes to business planning, consider breaking your thinking and planning down into the three core areas for business development to begin with, rather than the conventional focus on opportunity alone.
Business coach and professional speaker Tony Vidler has worked with hundreds of advisers over more than 30 years to help them define and articulate their unique value proposition.