The Growth Engine

The Growth Engine: A Guide to Building a World-Class Business Development Function in Professional Services is the third in a series of books addressing the need in professional services firms to understand the unique ways in which they drive growth. How Clients Buy asked and answered the question, "How do professional services firms attract new clients?" Never Say Sell asked and answered the question, "How do professional services firms grow existing clients once they have a foot in the door?" A best practices book built on extensive interviews with rainmakers in professional services firms, this book asks and answers the question, "How do professional services firms build and mature the internal muscle to support business development?" Most consulting firms start out with only a partner or two who begin their practice serving clients with whom they have a prior relationship. As their work grows, however, they are faced with the challenge of how to best enable, support, and grow their business development capabilities. With this comes the introduction of complexity, including the development of new service lines, entry into new buyer markets, the need to hire and develop a larger team and appoint a Chief Growth Officer, the evolution of a new operating model, a need to gain visibility into future sales, a CRM system, metrics around realization and utilization, account planning, and a need to understand win rates, price elasticity, and return on invested capital dynamics. Written by four seasoned executive leaders from Profitable Ideas Exchange (PIE), this book describes the main challenge professional services firms face as they build, showing how to develop a scalable business development effort. The Growth Engine is an essential read for everyone in the professional services sector seeking a proven blueprint to take their business to the next level.