Happy New Year: 2024 is a time to FOCUS

Happy New Year! 

The holiday season is done and it’s time to get back to work. For many, it can be hard to get motivated, still digesting that last mince pie! 

As your outsourced business development provider, at GSJ, we will tell you it’s no longer the right time to be chasing that last pavlova; you need to FOCUS your business development efforts for 2024.

What does FOCUS look like for 2024?

The core elements of any FOCUS work-out program should include:

Framework

Undertake an audit of your client base to determine which clients consistently provide you with the majority of your revenue (to avoid glitches or transactional matters, it’s best not to do this over short periods of 6 or 12 months but rather, 3 years).

Order

Create order around your client delivery process by creating account teams for each of your top 20 or so clients. Make sure the days of ad hoc service to the client have ended and that you have a unified approach to client service going forward (including around value adds you offer the client, pricing, project management, etc.)

Communicate

Communicate to your top clients that they are exactly that, and that you value the relationship. Make sure you let them know that the whole business is committed to understanding their business better and solving problems more collaboratively going forward. 

Understand

Make sure everyone at your firm understands your client, its business, and its concerns. 

You should also make sure that you regularly communicate internally that this client is important to your business and that nothing should be done to jeopardise this relationship. For example, don’t agree to act against the client because they don’t currently have a matter with you and don’t agree to undercut them on rates to try to win new business from a client that the firm has never acted for before.

Share

Share information you have that can help your client. 

This doesn’t only mean sharing information about what other practice groups your firm has, but if you are aware of an issue that will affect your client’s business, let them know. Become, as they say, the “go to” or “trusted advisor” of your client: the person they immediately think of if an issue arises.

As always, if you need any help with any of this, feel free to reach out to the team at GSJ!