4 Things You Forgot To Do In Q4

It’s 2025… now what? 

Well, if you don’t know how your sales and marketing strategy will contribute to revenue in the upcoming year, John and Mark reveal the top four activities you might have overlooked as the year came to a close:

• Talk to your clients
• Optimize your client portfolio
• Update service packaging and pricing
• Create a talent management & development plan

Improve your sales and marketing game this year. 

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Connect with Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhwainwright/
Connect with John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johntyreman/

www.breakingbizdev.com

Transcript

John Tyreman: 0:19

Welcome back to another episode of Breaking Biz Dev and Happy New Year's 2025. Mark, I'm excited to record this podcast with you and uh, be in the ears of our listeners as we kick off the new year.

Mark Wainwright: 0:33

All sparkly and new John. There's nothing but opportunity ahead of us. You know, 2024 is in the rear view mirror and 2025 is here. I almost consider sort of like that September window, sort of the unofficial beginning of the new year, because lots of things start happening that hopefully look forward. I know now that we're here in January. Hopefully the people in the organizations that, listen to this podcast have, paved a smooth path into 2025, but unfortunately many may not have. So today we're going to talk a little bit about now that it's January.

John Tyreman: 1:19

Oh shit. We should have done that last month,

Mark Wainwright: 1:24

So we're going to talk a little bit about that. So yeah, you're planning and organizing for the new year probably should have started a little earlier So we're going to do, yeah, but it's okay. It's a, it's all gonna work out. So, so we'll, that's, what's broken about business development, John, is that everybody thinks that, you know, all right, let's get going. It's January. It's like, no, wait, you should have done it months ago. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to, we're going to break down and beat up this whole sort of, what should you have done to get ready for 2025,

John Tyreman: 2:02

that's right. And we've got four things that you should have done in Q4, but maybe you forgot. But before we get to those four things and what you should have done last quarter I think it's important. And I I've mentioned this before, Mark, but I'm more of a visual learner. And so that's why it was really helpful for to kind of whip together this graphic. And if you're watching on YouTube, I'll overlay it on the screen for you. I call this the marketing strategy pyramid and I liken it to building a house, right? It's like, what is the primary function? Of a house. What is its primary job?

Mark Wainwright: 2:39

uh, It's to, it's to, You know, how's your, how's yourself and your,

John Tyreman: 2:44

right? Shelter. And the roof is the most important part to providing shelter, but you don't build a house from the top down. You build it from the foundation up.

Mark Wainwright: 2:55

I like this. I like where you're going with this. Yeah, I'm seeing it. I'm seeing it right here.

John Tyreman: 2:59

You tracking with me?

Mark Wainwright: 3:00

I'm tracking.

John Tyreman: 3:01

So, this marketing strategy pyramid, the foundation in which you should approach your strategy should always be customer centric. Should always start with the customers and what's happening in the external environment. Of the market that you're serving. And so that's, first of all, that's why it's so important to have a clearly defined ideal client profile. So, you know, exactly. Who your clients are, what they look like. And so that's that foundational layer of the pyramid. Now there's three here that, so that's the foundational layer. The second layer, once you understand your customers, once you understand what's changed, maybe within the last year, what are their alternatives, right? What are the, who are the competitors in the space? Maybe there is a solution that the client could figure out internally. So what are those alternatives and how does that impact your decision making, your strategy, your planning? And then once you've identified all of those external factors, then you can approach, okay, what do I need to change? What do I need to change with my business in order to best serve how the market is reacting? And so that's that top point in the pyramid is your business.

Mark Wainwright: 4:14

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I see this. So the top part is important, right? Looking at your business, but in our conversation leading up to this. That I think is what a lot of firms immediately default to rather than taking that very first step that you just mentioned right there is that building the foundation and we're going to focus on that

John Tyreman: 4:40

Yeah. Yeah. So let's, you know, given that, and with using that as a kind of a context for this conversation. We've organized these four things that maybe you forgot to do in Q4, as you're proactively looking ahead to 2025. We've got, we've listed these four activities that you can do. And so let's start with this first one, Mark, and we've got, talk to your clients as the first thing that you can do. So let's unpack that a little bit.

Mark Wainwright: 5:07

First step, right? So that's, that's the that's the hallmark of a true client centric organization is our future is going to need to be aligned and in sync with our customers futures. So We need to go, go talk to them. And I wrote down some of the questions that I pull out again and again, and again, not just for this sort of annual fourth quarter, looking forward planning stuff, but when we're doing account development plans, when we're creating call plans, when I'm creating call plans for important client conversations with some of my clients, what are these, these. These are kind of evergreen, evergreen questions that, that I turn to again and again. And they are, you know, not focused on the, the, the super details of things. They don't get into the weeds and the nitty gritty, but these are fantastic questions to go and talk to your clients about. And I wrote down what four of them are. So right here. So the first one, what are the biggest challenges facing your business industry organization today? What is that snapshot? What are you seeing today? And the second one is, what are your plans for the future? What are your plans to react to those changes in the market? What do you see happening? And how's your, how's your business going? to change course to stay ahead of those industry challenges. The third one is a little bit of a question about our relationship with our clients.

John Tyreman: 6:55

hmm. Mm hmm.

Mark Wainwright: 6:56

What do you appreciate most about working with us? And you and I batted around the world, word sort of value on this. Value is a tricky word. I don't, I don't typically ask my clients what they value the most. Some people have different perceptions or definitions or just use the word value a little differently. You can, that's fine. But I like to ask people what they like, what they appreciate the most about working with us. Or even, you can even pose the question, what do you appreciate about working with consultants like us? Maybe to make it even a little bit less sort of personal and more just general about, yes, here's the types of things that we really like about working with consultants like you. And the fourth one is almost the, the, the, the antithesis or the opposite of that one. When you work with consultants like us, what do you wish we did differently or better? What could we improve when we work with you? So these are four basic foundational questions. What is your world today? What do you see coming in the future? When you work with us, what do you like and appreciate when you work with us? And maybe others like us, what are things we could do better? You know, these are four fantastic questions to ask that can help you align your services and your offerings with what their future holds or what their future needs are, and kind of bring change or, or, or tweaks to your working relationship with them in the future.

John Tyreman: 8:27

I want to quickly unpack some questions and why they are so good and why they can help not just your approach to selling, but you're also your approach to marketing. So this first question that you have, what are the biggest challenges facing your business today? What that does is the responses from that question, illustrate the range of challenges that your clients face. But then if you, if you go and you ask multiple clients that same question, and then you look at the responses and the distribution of the responses, and then the common categories of responses, you can start to paint a picture of where does the primary challenge that you solve. In terms of the overall business challenges that are facing your client. So it helps you understand a relative kind of priority of where your services kind of stack up and who, who you might be competing against. That might not be a direct competitor.

Mark Wainwright: 9:22

Right. Yeah. No, I, I, you know, if you're, you're, you're the data guy, so that, that, that is absolutely true. And your clients could potentially articulate a number of current challenges, or maybe even opportunities in the marketplace, but you have to take that next step further, like you said, and say, okay, let's rank them. You know, what's, what's Number 1,

John Tyreman: 9:45

And so from, you know, that can obviously influence your brand positioning and messaging. What I like about the third question that you asked, what do you appreciate the most about working with us? We're trying to get at, you know, defining value. That's one of the objection objectives of this question. And then once you understand that value, similarly, if you were to look at the aggregate responses, if you were to ask multiple clients, this question, you'd be able to understand, you know, what are potential differentiators of us? You know, and combined with that other question, you know, what do you, what do you wish we did differently or better? That's kind of like, like you said, the antithesis of that and the Looking at the responses of those two questions. Kind of like together or side by side helps illustrate, you know, what you could be doing differently, what your true differentiators are and where you might want to lean in from a positioning perspective.

Mark Wainwright: 10:39

right? There's some components to this that are very similar to some of the things you do in a SWOT analysis is that, you know, you're trying to maximize the strengths and minimize or eliminate the weaknesses. So, no better way to figure out what those things are. Then just to go talk to your clients.

John Tyreman: 11:00

So before we close this one out, I just want to touch on a few example methods that you can use to extract these insights. So obviously you could schedule synchronous conversations, and that's probably the best way to do it. Right. That's probably the best method of kind of having those conversations and, and getting, pulling that out from your clients surveys are another way to do it. If you, if you are a larger firm and you do have a lot of clients, surveys can be a way to get some quick insights. I will say that a podcast is also a great way. And maybe like an a method that most might not think of for market research, but interviewing your clients on a podcast and telling the client success story in their own words can be very powerful from a marketing perspective and a case story perspective, but you can also leverage that for insights for market research as well.

Mark Wainwright: 11:57

Good. I, I love that. And you mentioned those, those client success stories and, you know, hearing your clients articulate the things that they appreciate or value about you and the work you do with them, you know, that just take that, put some quotation marks around it and throw it up on the billboard. You know, like, that's, that's the stuff. Here's what our clients say about us, right? It's not, here's, here's why we think we're great. That's not it. Right. It's here's why I, our clients love us. Right. And that's the perfect marketing.

John Tyreman: 12:28

All right. So that's the first thing that maybe you forgot to do in Q4. Talk to your clients. So Mark and I, you know, we just broke down how you can do it. What you can ask. So I think that there's a lot of tangible things that our listeners can take away from this conversation. And apply themselves. Let's move to that second thing that folks, maybe they forgot to do in Q4 as a part of a proactive look at 2025, the bullet point here is optimize your client portfolio. So let's break that one down.

Mark Wainwright: 12:57

Yeah. Take a hard look at your, you know, what you have under backlog right now, your existing clients, what's going well, what's not going well. And then obviously, you know, John, I'm the sales guy. It's let's look at the pipeline. Let's, let's get really kind of dig deep. Let's put that under the microscope and see if the pipeline is really the firm you want to be in. Six months, nine months, 12 months, because that's That's what it is. You know, your pipeline is your crystal ball into the future. So we look at, at, at both of those, both of those things. What, what, what are we working on now? Or even what, what, what kinds of things did we, what types of clients, what types of work did we do recently, currently, and then in the future? Yeah, those, those three are, are great, great elements. And I know you had some stuff written down here that was a little more dug into those a little more deeply.

John Tyreman: 13:51

First of all, as you're thinking about your client portfolio and the client, the, the clients that you have. Are they the right mix? Are there some clients that are, that should be pruned, you know, that don't, aren't delivering the margins that you need to be able to grow your business? we've talked about this in the past, that not all revenue is good. And this is a time to, to do that exercise and to do that kind of digging into, you know, are there opportunities to prune clients? And then does that free up bandwidth for your team to be able to take on higher margin revenue work?

Mark Wainwright: 14:30

The account development plans I work on with, my clients. what opportunities are there for, for growth with specific client accounts? having consistent regular revenue that is profitable with certain clients is, is great, but are there particular ones that show? opportunities for growth, can you double or triple your revenue in a profitable way with some of your clients? And can they take you to places that you want to go? Can you be doing the type of work going to certain geographic locations, you know, just, you know, chasing after the same goals together that that sort of thing. So those are, this is a fantastic opportunity or Q4 was a fantastic opportunity to reflect on exactly who those client organizations were and, you know, Let's spend some time on them.

John Tyreman: 15:25

Just as a quick aside, I'm curious as if there will be folks who are listening to this episode in October, 2025.

Mark Wainwright: 15:32

Yeah. Yeah, probably. Or even in the future, right? You know, that's right. This is, this is designed to be kind of a, a, a seasonal, seasonal episode, but I think the, the, the, the ideas are, are absolutely evergreen. So,

John Tyreman: 15:46

Totally. Is there anything else that you wanted to touch on with that second bucket, optimize your client portfolio?

Mark Wainwright: 15:53

going and talking to your clients is, is super important and that will help inform. This they have the ability to look at the marketplace in a slightly different way than you do. And, and maybe when you have that information about what the future holds for their world, then you can make some important decisions on your end. Maybe you're overweighted clients that are focused on a particular market here and, and way too light. With clients that are moving in a, in a a future direction that shows promise and growth. So maybe you need to just alter that. And it's maybe it's less about stopping work with particular clients. Maybe it's more about, you know, how are we investing our time and energy and resources in marketing and in, you know, moving opportunities through our pipeline in certain areas. You know, compared to, compared to others, we should under resource that type of stuff because that's, that's yesterday's stuff. We want to focus on the things that are going to grow tomorrow. So let's over resource that.

John Tyreman: 17:01

I think that's a, that's a good, good point. And it ties back to one of the questions that you recommended asking clients is what are your plans for the future? And what that, what I like about the wording of that question is it opens up the door to You know, potential new opportunities or potential new offerings. And that leads us to the third bucket that we have here. And the four things that maybe you forgot to do in Q4 is update your service packaging and pricing.

Mark Wainwright: 17:35

You're listening to breaking biz dev

John Tyreman: 17:37

the podcast that beats up, breaks down, and redefines business development for the professional services firms of tomorrow. Your hosts are John Tyerman, founder of Red Cedar Marketing, the podcast marketing company for experts and professional services firms,

Mark Wainwright: 17:51

And Mark Wainwright, principal consultant and founder of Wainwright Insight, the fractional sales manager and sales consultant to professional services firms.

John Tyreman: 18:01

If you find this podcast helpful, please help us by following the show and leaving a review on Apple podcasts

Mark Wainwright: 18:07

and now back to the show. A lot of firms. I know that, that. We're connected with that, that listened to this engineering firms, architectural firms, and, you know, a number of project based firms like that don't see an opportunity for themselves to product ties. Anything they do, you know, they approach every single. Every single new project has a bespoke thing, right? It's, it's we start from, from step zero. We work our way up you know, it's, everything is new, but that's not necessarily true. Every organization that I work with does things in a sequence or a somewhat predictable fashion, at least for part of the journey together, at least for part of the work. And I think there's always an opportunity, and particularly in Q4. There's always an opportunity to review the things you do and the way you do them and to start to productize them, i. e. Some work that is done very early on that is more sort of, you know, assessment and discovery in nature, kind of just answering a lot of questions early on that are, that your clients, Encounter maybe you can package that a little more cleanly rather than just thinking about it as a, as a, you know, every day is a new day, you know, totally bespoke approach you find opportunities to organize and product ties this type of early work, things get a little confusing and, you know. Later on, you know, things can be a little more bespoke later on, but find opportunities early on in the work that you do with your clients to start to systematize and productize things where your approach to doing the work gets more efficient. More effective the results that the client see in those early steps are more predictable and, and more systematized and they can be profitable. So absolutely. Q4 is a fantastic time to, to reflect on. What parts of what you do can be, a system, a product, a service,

John Tyreman: 20:22

we talked about, you know, there's, there's, there's ways that you can streamline and make a more efficient use of your current processes. I think another thing to think about is how can you structure your offerings. In different ways or package them up in different ways. There are many consultants that I've seen that I've worked with that have kind of like a three tier offering for a very similar service where it's like, do you do it yourself? We'll provide you material where you can go and you can figure all this out yourself. We've provided structure for you. There's a done with you option where maybe a consultant comes in and they collaborate with you. And then there's a done for you option. Where it's completely outsourced whatever that work is. You know, these could be digital courses, learning modules and on that first end and then more tailored customized solutions on the other end of that spectrum.

Mark Wainwright: 21:20

Yeah. You know, and even if those like courses and digital offerings and everything don't, don't apply to, to people's consulting practices or professional services firms that's okay. That, that concept still completely applies. You know, we've talked at length about the importance of a tiered pricing. Structure. I, that it is one of the big things I do with, with the folks I work with and, you know, just rethinking how you might start offering, or, you know, just think through your services in a tiered fashion, a good, better, best, small, medium, large, whatever it is, like you said, you know, do it yourself, do it together, do it for you, whatever concept, any, any, any variation of those three tiers is a, is critical. To implement in your pricing strategy, because that is how professional business to business buyers are buying things. Now, they are buying things in a tiered fashion when they come to you. They're almost expecting that because we buy everything in a tiered fashion. And if you can simply take the time to rethink how would our services and pricing play out. in a tiered fashion. It totally helps your clients because that's how they're getting used to buying things right now. And it gives them the confidence in their buying process because the three tier thing, John, as we know, as you talked about previously, it gives them context.

John Tyreman: 22:44

And I know that we're over indexing a little bit. On the client and their perspective. But I, I don't want to gloss. Well, yeah, you're right. I, it is impossible because that is the North star. I do think that competitive analysis does play a role and I think it's, but not for, you know, emulation purposes. I think that it's more along the lines of just data gathering and understanding kind of the landscape. And which you're operating,

Mark Wainwright: 23:14

Sure.

John Tyreman: 23:15

If you think about that pyramid and if you start at that second level where you're focusing on the competitors. And you're focusing on, okay, what can we do to emulate what they're doing? You all, you're in your, all you're going to do is end up blending in. So, you know, I think that, that there's a time and a place for that. I didn't want to gloss over that because there is, there is value to doing competitive analysis and understanding, you know, what the market is, is charging for services, what the customers are exposed to, that kind of thing. So I just wanted to touch, touch on that.

Mark Wainwright: 23:45

oh, absolutely. You know, that's the that's the 10 page summary of the 200 page Blue Ocean Strategy book, right? That's, that's That's it, right? It's, you know, swim to blue water, you know, and, and, and that is that can't be done in a vacuum. It needs to be done both with your clients and, you know, kind of having a really kind of clear understanding of where you sit in the marketplace and where the opportunities are. So, yeah, if, if, if everybody is moving in one direction, If you want to blend in swim with them, but if you do not want to blend in and you want to find yourself in a place where there's little or no competition, you know, swim to the clear water,

John Tyreman: 24:31

so let's get to the fourth thing that you forgot to do in Q4 to help you proactively plan and strategize for 2025. And that is talent management and development. So we've got here, you know, build a plan for talent management and development. And I think that kind of starts with looking at how your. Business development function is organized.

Mark Wainwright: 24:56

you know, again, and again, when I review job descriptions for. People who, you know, John, we've beat up job descriptions

John Tyreman: 25:06

have, we should do it again.

Mark Wainwright: 25:08

Yeah, we should, we should. It is, it is evergreen, but you know, people who will have some amount of new business development responsibility in their job, it's, it's you know, it's maybe it's kind of casually mentioned or even just implied in their job descriptions. And, you know, fast, fast forward, whatever you fast forward years. You know, and I can sense some resistance in an individual I'm working with about this whole new business thing. You know, they're, they just don't know what's going on. I don't see any kind of good activity, good motivation, whatever else. And I say, what's going on here? What what's, you know, and their default position is always, look, that's not what I was hired to do. So, you know, the best time to rethink uh, rework job descriptions and have them be more explicit about all this new business stuff, about marketing responsibilities, about sales responsibilities, about revenue responsibilities, the best time to do that was last quarter.

John Tyreman: 26:11

Yep, a hundred percent. And we've got an episode coming out in a few weeks around, you know, how to be accountable when you lose. And that, I think that there's a lot of similarities that we can point to here because you want your talent. You want the people within your organization to be continually learning and growing, because especially in professional services, these are people focused business, people oriented businesses. And if your people are learning and growing, then your organization is learning and growing and you really need to have a plan to be able to kind of create a cultural environment and invest in that learning and growth.

Mark Wainwright: 26:50

I mentioned earlier that the, the, the language for those senior. Positions, you know, around sales, new business development, you know, that kind of stuff, that language is often missing. I'd even say that that needs to be introduced early, you know, into the junior positions, you know, maybe you're just kind of hinting at it, but you are showing them a pathway for growth that starts with opportunity. And eventually walks its way to responsibility and accountability, but just presenting the opportunity for younger and younger team members to be involved in and to touch this marketing sales, new business stuff, you know, sets a precedent that this is, this is culturally important for our organization to start early. Constantly present opportunities for growth and then ultimately, you know, have individuals who are stepping forward and who are responsible and accountable and welcome, you know, the, the, all the hard work that comes along with. Sales and new business,

John Tyreman: 28:04

I agree. And we've talked about that before. I believe it was mastering biz dev in your career. Or we talked about how folks from a recent college grad, all, all the way up to, you know, firm leadership in a seasoned executive, how they can contribute to business development. And it, you know, it doesn't matter if you have a centralized business development organization. Or if it's decentralized across, sellers within your organization. I completely agree that business development, people can start contributing to business development right away.

Mark Wainwright: 28:39

Yeah. Yeah. And, there's a lot to know in these various industries, professions, firms, experts, it is not a light load, you know, there's certifications, there's constant training. There's, there's a lot to do, but we always have to keep our eyeballs on this, on this whole new business thing. The other thing, unfortunately, that happens is they reach their, senior point in their career and all of a sudden they're promoted and, handed this wonderful opportunity to go, drive revenue. And they think. Wait a minute. What just happened? I'm not ready for this. So absolutely the best time to start rethinking all of this last quarter, because when you start hiring new people, new team members in 2025, you want them walking in the door, understanding that that's how we do things around here. And that is the expectation of, you know, people who are part of this firm is that we start easy. We start small. And then we grow from there.

John Tyreman: 29:40

That training and that development plan won't have any impact. If it's, if it's not built on the right foundation and that's why it's important. And these are these four things that we mentioned are in a very specific order for a reason, because the strategy and the plans that you develop around that strategy have to be built on a foundation of customer insights.

Mark Wainwright: 30:04

Right. Talk to your clients first, then think about what's happening inside your organization, both from a, you know, service offering, you know, client makeup, and then ultimately look at your business, but don't start with your business first.

John Tyreman: 30:19

Just to wrap things up the four things that you forgot to do in Q4, talk to your clients. Optimize your client portfolio, update your service packaging and pricing, and then finally develop a talent management and development plan.

Mark Wainwright: 30:35

Good. I love it, John. This was, this was a fun episode until next time,

John Tyreman: 30:40

Until next time. Happy new years.

Mark Wainwright: 30:41

happy New Year's.