1© 2013 TOCICO. All rights reserved.
TOCICO 2013 Conference
Solving the professional services dilemma
how to “productize” services and build a practice that will scale
Presented By: Justin Roff-Marsh
Date: June 2013
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© 2013 TOCICO. All rights reserved.
TOCICO 2013 Conference
The Entrepreneurial Expert’s conflict
1. Build a consulting business (sell personal exertion)
2. Build a traditional business (sell products or packaged services)
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© 2013 TOCICO. All rights reserved.
TOCICO 2013 Conference
The chasm
• Consulting is profitable
• But it consumes the time you need to build a traditional (scalable) business
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© 2013 TOCICO. All rights reserved.
TOCICO 2013 Conference
This presentation
1. How we crossed the chasm
2. How you can learn from our (often painful) experiences
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© 2013 TOCICO. All rights reserved.
TOCICO 2013 Conference
Then and now
• High-cost projects
• Difficult client relations
• Implementations that didn’t stick (post project)
• Stressful work environment
• Burned-out team members
• Like a drug-addict, looking for the next fix!
• Low-cost engagements
• Appreciative long-term clients
• Stable operations on three continents
• $1.5m in annual sales (and steady growth)
• Throughput: 73%
• Happy team members
Then Now
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© 2013 TOCICO. All rights reserved.
TOCICO 2013 Conference
Three critical realizations
1. Unless you’re working with Fortune 500 companies, selling change-management projects is not a business model
2. There’s an inverse relationship between high fees and client sustainability
3. To earn sustainable profits, you must providing an enduring (packaged) service
4. To scale, you must sell religion (an ideology, not a methodology)
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© 2013 TOCICO. All rights reserved.
TOCICO 2013 Conference
How we transitioned
1. We dreamed about selling engagements
2. We convinced ourselves we weren’t ready (we needed better software, etc)
3. We eventually made a decision and wrote a document describing our service offering
4. To our surprise, companies started saying yes
5. Old project clients started returning and signing engagement agreements
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© 2013 TOCICO. All rights reserved.
TOCICO 2013 Conference
The new model
Outsourced Sales OperationsWe’ll design, build and
supervise your sales environment
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© 2013 TOCICO. All rights reserved.
TOCICO 2013 Conference
The new model
• 25% of one of our consultant’s capacity
• Unlimited access to creative team
• All sales-related technology (including special projects)
• Recruiting services
• Strategic input
• Cost
• $7,700 a month
• Immediate savings
• Smaller field force
• Eliminate field offices
• Fewer managers
• Save money on creative and tech
Client benefit Client value proposition
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© 2013 TOCICO. All rights reserved.
TOCICO 2013 Conference
The new model
• Recruit young smart people with management (not consulting) experience
• Pay them $100,000
• Sell their capacity for $370,000 (4 engagements each)
• Maintain consultants as the system constraint
• Maintain protective capacity in small creative and technology teams (and sales and admin)
• Give away packaged information to build a house list
• Promote webinars to the house list to generate sales opportunities
• Sell two-day Solution Design Workshops via web conference (never face-to-face)
• Deliver SDW face-to-face: sell up to ongoing engagements
• Founder sells (all 3 continents)
Our operations Our sales
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© 2013 TOCICO. All rights reserved.
TOCICO 2013 Conference
12 steps: follow in our footsteps
1. Identify the day-to-day services you could deliver to clients on an ongoing basis
2. Design a value-proposition that ensures clients have no net monthly outlay (from day one)
3. Convert one or two existing clients to new service offering
4. Employ a smart, young person and teach them how to deliver
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© 2013 TOCICO. All rights reserved.
TOCICO 2013 Conference
12 steps: follow in our footsteps
5. Centralize as much work as possible so your consultant becomes more of a facilitator
6. Adopt TOC as your religion (and use existing materials to spread the word)
7. Get yourself an EA and take personal responsibility for sales
8. Use pay-per-click advertising to give away (sample) content and build your house list
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© 2013 TOCICO. All rights reserved.
TOCICO 2013 Conference
12 steps: follow in our footsteps
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© 2013 TOCICO. All rights reserved.
TOCICO 2013 Conference
12 steps: follow in our footsteps
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© 2013 TOCICO. All rights reserved.
TOCICO 2013 Conference
12 steps: follow in our footsteps
9. Use webinars to generate sales opportunities
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© 2013 TOCICO. All rights reserved.
TOCICO 2013 Conference
12 steps: follow in our footsteps
10.Sell Solution Design Workshops and encourage your future clients to redesign their own environments
11.Use the initial change-management initiatives as hooks to secure ongoing relationships
12.Re-calibrate your definition of your market: geography need not be the barrier you think it is
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© 2013 TOCICO. All rights reserved.
TOCICO 2013 Conference
The new model
Questions?