Fast Track To Partnership

Professionals are constantly keeping their technical skills up to date, but being a productive and profitable professional requires much more than technical skills. It requires skills to sell yourself, your firm and your services. It also requires skills to maintain your relationship with your clients, especially in the stressful situations that inevitably arise in the world of business, finance and taxes. By developing a range of other skills, a professional can:

• strengthen and broaden their current client base
• maximise the value of their technical skills
• generate more revenue for the firm, and
• develop - and maintain - profitable long-term relationships with clients.

And for extra leverage they work more productively and profitably with colleagues.

What are the steps on the path?

When you catalogue the skills of your professionals, you find they fall into four categories:

Technical Skills

At the technical level, your professionals have solid skills, but they don't have any of the other skills it takes to be a complete professional - the process, people and personal skills.

At this level, professionals are competent;

BUT, they fail to capitalise on opportunities to generate more work from existing clients, and new business with new clients.

Process Skills

At the process level, your professionals think of themselves as more of an income generator. They consciously learn and integrate skills that leverage their time and energy more effectively - like; time management, stress management, marketing, networking, keep in touch, and follow-up processes.

At this level, professionals are able to:

• generate more revenue for the firm - making them more valuable to the firm, advancing their career-path and increasing their personal income;
• broaden their client base and start building stronger client relationships - which is relatively easy when the client is happy and easy to get along with;

BUT, when the going gets tough - when clients are anxious, angry and demanding - they don't have the people skills to adapt the processes to the needs of individual clients in specific situations.

People Skills

At the people level, your professionals learn about universal human experiences that drive behaviour. They develop a deep understanding of the psychology behind the stress and anxieties people experience that typically generate difficult situations. They learn how to handle these situations appropriately in order to maintain the client relationship, even in difficult situations. They learn how to customize 'one-size-fits-all' process skills to the specific needs of the client.

At this level, professionals are able to:

• identify the particular needs of each particular client at each particular point in time;
• choose appropriate behaviours to handle these situations;
• ensure the clients are confident the value of your services is greater than the cost;
• work more effectively with colleagues - meaning less rework, lower write-offs and more profit;

BUT, they don't yet have the personal skills to maximize the value of their technical, process and people skills - in order to deliver the best possible outcomes.

Personal Skills

At the personal level, your professionals develop a greater understanding of their own values, beliefs, and behaviours - and the effect they have on their clients. They learn to expose the stresses that sabotage their performance, preventing them from realising their full potential, and seek to integrate new beliefs and behaviours that support them in generating stronger and even more profitable relationships with clients - leading to more work and more referrals.

At this level, professionals are able to:

• deal effectively with the most difficult and stressful situations;
• step in and resurrect soured client relationships;
• build and maintain strong relationships that withstand the stresses clients may face in relation to business, finance and taxes;
• ensure clients have complete confidence in the work you're doing, and are reassured and appreciative of the value of that work.

Think about each of the professionals in your office. At what level are they operating? What are they doing to advance themselves to the next level? And what are you doing to support them?

Sue-maree is an expert on sales and communication skills for professionals, particularly in the financial services industry - presenting Keynotes, Seminars and Training Programs, nationally and internationally. For more information on Sue-maree and h-spot presentations, check out the details on the website www.suemaree.com. Sign up to the h-spotting newsletter for practical skills that improve communication, reduce stress and increase productivity and profitability.

View details of The Fast Track To Partnership Training Program
Make a booking enquiry