A perfect place to get junior professionals (and other marketing novices) involved is with existing clients. Frequently, firms attempting to obtain greater involvement in practice development find that there is less resistance to (and more enthusiasm for) learning the best ways to maintain good client relations than there is to learning “how to sell.” Yet the skills are the same. Professionals who are good at client counseling are the same ones who excel at selling. Both areas require the same set of skills: understanding the client’s business, listening, asking the right questions, persuading, and following through.

If firms wish to get more people involved in practice development, they should reward marketing experimentation and not just successful experiments. Anyone learning a new skill will suffer early failures and temporary setbacks. To encourage perseverance, firms should concentrate as much on praise and recognition for the quality of effort as they do for immediate results. In doing so, they help breed the activity that builds skills and hence leads to future success. Managing efforts rather than results means that marketing cannot be “managed by the numbers.” A structured, highly personal and interpersonal program must be devised.

Excerpted from ‘Managing the Professional Service Firm’ by David Maister, page 136