In any professional service there are three key benefits that clients seek: expertise, experience, and efficiency. However, even within the same practice area, the relative priority that a given client places on these elements can vary dramatically. A client with a large, complex, high-risk, and unusual problem will appropriately seek out the most creative, talented, or innovative individual or firm he can find at almost any cost. Prior experience in the clients’ industry, or past exposure to problems of a similar type, may be useful but are secondary to the client’s need for frontier expertise.

While many professionals would like to believe that all client needs fall into this Brain Surgeon category, such clients represent only a small proportion of the aggregate fees spent in any given practice area. A much larger client base exists for what I term Grey Hair approaches to practice. These types of clients recognize that their problems have probably been faced and dealt with by other companies, require less complete customization, and are probably not crisis issues. Accordingly, they will be shopping less for the sheer brain power of critical individuals and more for an organization that can bring past experience to bear in solving these problems. A high level of expertise is still required, and efficiency is not irrelevant, but extensive experience with similar problems is worth more to the client than an extra degree of intellect or a few dollars of savings.

There will also exist within the same practice area a third group of clients, who have problems that they know can be handled competently by a broad range of firms. Rather than looking for the highest possible expertise, or the most prior experience, these clients will be seeking out a professional firm that can meet their needs for a prompt start, quick disposition, and low cost: They will seek the efficient firm.

Excerpted from ‘Managing the Professional Service Firm’ by David Maister, pages 21-22