Sue Cohen
Developing the BEST
Why take part?
I would welcome your thoughts on how professional practices are faring post-recession; I am
therefore conducting a survey looking specifically at how practices are planning growth, managing
costs and using business systems to help manage client acquisition and staff.
This survey will provide the data required for an article I’m writing on: “How to maximise the return
on your investments in your practice.”
As a Thank you for your time, I will send you a free ebook "Guide to LinkedIn" in return. I will also
provide you with a copy of my white paper which will be published in October this year and firms
participating in this survey will be invited to a seminar, discussing the issues raised and potential
solutions.
Introduction to survey
It’s the truth that is barely whispered: “Professional practices don’t get a good return on their
investments” – at least this is the anecdotal evidence I hear as I support my clients manage theirs! I
therefore want to gather data and publish my results – and more importantly provide constructive
advice to those who are struggling. The survey covers three topics:
1. Sales (which includes business development, marketing and client care)
2. People
3. Leadership and culture
Each topic has a number of questions and each question a number of options. Your first intuitive
answer is what we are after – please don’t over-analyse or look for the answer you think I am after.
However if you would like to discuss the survey or your challenges do get in touch – I am seeking a
number of face to face interviews to give added depth to my research.
Thanks in anticipation
Sue Cohen
[email protected]
07971 400653
Please note, all responses will be anonymised and unattributed.
Introductory questions
1 Coming out of the recession, what changes have you seen in your business in the last 1-2 years?
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2 How do you see your business growing in the next 1-2 years?
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Sales, business development, marketing and client care
“Selling” is often seen as something “professionals don’t do”, rather it’s all about “Managing Client
Relationships” which sits firmly within the remit of the partners. This survey addresses a number of
issues which arise within Professional services firms as they work to maintain and grow turnover and
profits in a tough market.
3 How would you describe the way client Relationships are managed within your firm?
Using a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is “Awful; we can’t even get the Christmas card list right” and 10 is
“Fully integrated information on all prospects, clients and invoicing, used by everyone”
__
4 If one of your partners / senior staff was unable to work for a significant time, how confident are
you that the remaining partners and staff would be able to access all information regarding existing
clients, existing contacts, prospects and targets?
 We probably could not find much of the information
 We could find some of the information
 We could find everything with a lot of time and effort
 We could find everything relatively easily
5 How do you approach existing clients with new or existing products and services?
 Different for each partner; we don’t do this systematically
 We send a newsletter every now and then
 We send a newsletter out regularly
 We target all our clients once in a while
 We target specific groups of clients
 We are in regular contact with our clients
 We are in regular contact with our clients and our cross selling success rate is high
 Other …….
6 What processes do you have in place to manage feedback (including complaints and referrals)
from existing clients?






None
Individuals manage their own clients
Occasionally we pass each other the feedback we receive
We put all comments on the system and alert each other
The CRM is fully interactive and we miss nothing
Other ……
© Sue Cohen Limited; Registered in England & Wales, Registration No: 6905126,
T: 07971 400653; E: [email protected]; L: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/suecohen01
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7 What percentage of time do you spend, on average, on business development and marketing
activities?
 []%
 Don’t know
8 What percentage of time do other partners spend, on average, on business development and
marketing activities?
 []%
 Don’t know
9 If you had a magic wand which one of these would you implement?







Review of existing CRM system to improve our use of it
Review of overall process of managing relationships with clients, contacts and prospects
A new CRM system
Recruit or train a guru able to help us increase sales
Training for our staff and/or partners
A marketing campaign to cross sell opportunities to our current client base
None of the above I’m happy with what we’ve got!
Additional comments ….
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
© Sue Cohen Limited; Registered in England & Wales, Registration No: 6905126,
T: 07971 400653; E: [email protected]; L: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/suecohen01
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People
Recruiting, retaining and managing people is key for any professional services firm with staff costs
being the largest ongoing cost for any such business. With recent higher levels of unemployment at
graduate and experienced levels, there is an expectation that it should be easier to find good, keen
staff, yet this does not seem to be true across all firms.
10 A recent article in ICAEW’s Economia magazine states that it is hard to find the calibre of
graduates from the UK education system and asks whether graduate numbers are falling or
academic standards slipping. The article also describes the ideal “good recruit” being sought by
accountants, which is equally applicable to lawyers and other professional services firms. In your
experience, what are the challenges with recruiting new trainees? [choose as many as are relevant]
 Not had an issue
 Not enough school-leavers applying
 Not enough graduates applying
 Not the right core skills particularly in language and numeracy
 Poor non-technical skills eg communication, professional approach, ethical and good work ethic,
open-minded
 Not the right approach / attitude
 Salary expectations too high
 Unable to offer them enough variety of work
 Many attracted by big firms, usually paying premium rates
 Many attracted by city-centre or large firms
 Skills of some of the interviewers
 Time-consuming process
 Don’t recruit new trainees
 Other ……
11 In your experience, what are the challenges with recruiting experienced / qualified staff? [choose
as many as are relevant]
 Not had an issue
 Not enough people applying with the right skills
 Not the right approach / attitude
 Salary expectations too high
 Unable to offer them enough variety of work
 Many attracted by big firms, usually paying premium rates
 Many attracted by moving into industry
 Many attracted by city-centre or large firms
 Skills of some of the interviewers
 Time-consuming process
 Not needed to recruit experienced / qualified staff for more than a year
 Other ……
© Sue Cohen Limited; Registered in England & Wales, Registration No: 6905126,
T: 07971 400653; E: [email protected]; L: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/suecohen01
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12 What do you think are your greatest challenges to retaining staff in the next 12-24 months?
[choose as many as are relevant]
 No issues
 Poaching by competition
 Lack of opportunities
 Salary package
 Lack of training and development
 Staff lacking ambition to develop themselves
 Staff seeing no movement at the level above them, so presuming there’s nowhere for them to
develop to
 Skill of line managers
 Attraction of city centre or large firm
 Attraction of moving into industry
 Other …..
13 How will you change your recruiting practices going forward? [choose as many as are relevant]
 Don’t need to do anything different
 Review salary and benefits
 Increase training and development
 Improve communication of the opportunities within the firm
 Promote work/life balance and flexible working opportunities of a firm like ours
 Make the process more rigorous, including psychometric profiles and assessment centres
 Increase / improve use of agencies and headhunters
 Other ….
14 Auto-enrolment, pension-planning and benefits are key issues in many businesses. When is your
staging date for auto-enrolment?
 Deferred
 2014
 2015
 2016
 2017
 Don’t know
15 How prepared are you for auto-enrolment?
 All done
 Well on the way for our staging date
 Just started and think we’ll be okay
 Will be tough to get everything ready
 Not started
 No idea
© Sue Cohen Limited; Registered in England & Wales, Registration No: 6905126,
T: 07971 400653; E: [email protected]; L: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/suecohen01
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16 What challenges are you expecting with auto-enrolment?
[choose as many as are relevant]
 None
 Finding a suitable pension provider
 Communicating all the information to staff
 Tying this in with existing pensions and benefits
 Cost of providing this
 Extra resources required to deal with payroll
 Not enough management resource to make this happen
17 Working in a flexible manner can mean many things. However, the rules for applying for “Flexible
working” have recently changed and all staff can now apply for flexible working, which all employers
have to consider. What has been your experience so far and your expectations for the next 12
months? [choose as many as are relevant]
 Had some applications and been able accommodate all of them
 Had some applications; mixed results
 No successful applications, so far
 No applications, so far
 Expect similar number of requests in future
 Expect some increase in applications in future
 Expect more unworkable requests
 Other ….
18 How would you describe the overall view of flexible working within your firm? [choose as many as
are relevant]
 Good way of keeping staff
 Helps deal with peaks and troughs in workloads
 Have different types of arrangements which work
 Always had an approach to giving flexibility, some part-time working and this is no different
 Staff like it and seem better motivated
 Clients are well-managed and always know whom to speak to
 Many of them aren’t flexible in return
 Other staff and managers feel under pressure
 Feels like they’re never here when you want them
 It is difficult to manage across the whole department / business
 Clients don’t like it
 Other …..
19 The need to work more flexibly, including job shares, part-time working, term-time contracts,
“virtual” teams, client requests outside of “normal” office hours has grown in recent years, and the
new Flexible working regulations are one part of this. This flexible / virtual team approach is here to
stay – how will you make it work? [choose as many as are relevant]
 Not sure it can work in this industry and maintain good client service
 We need to educate clients
 We need to be more open across the firm
 Attitude of younger staff needs changing
 Middle managers need to be more flexible
 Started some initiatives
 Already relatively flexible and works well
 Other …..
© Sue Cohen Limited; Registered in England & Wales, Registration No: 6905126,
T: 07971 400653; E: [email protected]; L: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/suecohen01
Page 6
20 If you had a magic wand which of these would you implement?
 Review of one or more of our existing People management systems (HR, performance
management, recruitment, benefits) to improve our use of them
 Help with auto-enrolment
 Review of overall process of managing staff
 New people management system / process
 Recruit or train a guru able to help us manage staff and related issues
 Training for our staff and/or partners
 An internal communications campaign
 None of the above I’m happy with what we’ve got!
 Additional comments ….
Leadership and culture
21 In a few words or phrases, describe the culture of your firm?
22 Are the members of the management team also fee-earning partners?
 Yes, with about the same size portfolio as other partners
 Yes, with reduced portfolio
 No, although all have come from fee-earning roles
 No and not all have come from fee-earning roles
23 According to many business articles “The so-called job for life may have all but disappeared” and
“The partnership model is broken”. This has been said to impact on finding and developing the next
generation of partners as well as a management team for the firm. How do you find new potential
partners? [choose as many as are relevant]
 Good processes for identifying internal candidates
 Don’t take on new partners from outside the firm, so that’s not an issue
 Advertise as we would for anyone else
 Use specialist external recruiters and head-hunters
 Do it ourselves, using LinkedIn and our website
 Use other online search tools ourselves
24 How do you recruit new partners from outside the firm? [choose as many as are relevant]
 We don’t
 Rigorous interview with a senior partner
 Interview with two or more partners / panel interview
 Technical interview / discussion / case-study
 Use results of psychometric profiles
 Use external assessment centre and process
 Run our own assessment centre
© Sue Cohen Limited; Registered in England & Wales, Registration No: 6905126,
T: 07971 400653; E: [email protected]; L: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/suecohen01
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25 How do you recruit new partners from within the firm? [choose as many as are relevant]
 Use internal performance management records and development discussions
 Rigorous interview with a senior partner
 Interview with two or more partners / panel interview
 Technical interview / discussion / case-study
 Use results of psychometric profiles
 Use external assessment centre and process
 Run our own assessment centre
 Coaching and mentoring programme in place
26 How do you develop senior managers and partners across the firm? [choose as many as are
relevant]
 Development discussions part of ongoing performance management – everyone has a
development plan
 Programme of development including 1 to 1 coaching, internal workshops, events and seminars
 Programme of development including external workshops, events and seminars
 Executive coaching using external coaches
 Up to each person to identify their needs and preferred solutions
 Overall training and development budget for the year, managed centrally
 Departmental / partner-specific budgets for training and development
 Business case has to be made for each external workshop / event or coaching programme
In addition to this, what do you do to build the future leadership team of the firm?
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27 If you had a magic wand which one of these would you implement?
 Find ways to recruit more partners internally
 Find ways to recruit more partners externally
 Review our Partner / potential partner development processes
 Review of overall process of managing partners
 Recruit or train a guru able to help us coach and manage partners and the leadership team
 None of the above I’m happy with what we’ve got!
Additional comments ….
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28 What, whether mentioned above or not, are your most pressing issues for the next 12-24
months?
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Any other comments
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Please enter your details below. You will be sent a priority copy of the finished report, together with
an invitation to a seminar to highlight key issues across the sector:
Email address
Title
Area of responsibility (firm, office/region, department/business area)
Return to [email protected] or print and send to
Sue Cohen Ltd, 14 Broadfields Ave, Edgware, Middx, HA8 8PG
© Sue Cohen Limited; Registered in England & Wales, Registration No: 6905126,
T: 07971 400653; E: [email protected]; L: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/suecohen01
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