How Professional Services Firms Can Build  Stronger Sales Plans

Q4 has a way of sharpening the focus. There’s still time to influence this year’s results, but the decisions you make now will also shape where next year’s growth comes from. For professional services leaders, it’s an ideal moment to step back from the day-to-day and ask: Is your professional services sales plan focused on the right opportunities for growth?

Growth strategist Amy Franko shares the key areas to consider as you assess your priorities and build a stronger sales plan for the year ahead.

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A successful sales plan helps define key goals, identify priority industries and service lines, and determine which current and prospective clients deserve -attention. It creates a clearer path for where growth will come from, and where leaders and teams should invest their business development time.

According to Gartner, 61% of executives say their organizations struggle to bridge the gap between strategy and day-to-day implementation. A focused sales plan can help professional services leaders close that gap by translating growth priorities into specific clients, opportunities, and business development activities.

When I think of a day in the life of a top professional services leader or seller, there’s a common theme. They invest their time in the right business development activities. This focus becomes even more important because many professionals are balancing business development and growth responsibilities alongside client delivery.

How can you know which steps will move your firm’s growth priorities forward, help your team build strategic relationships, and accelerate results? Having the right sales plan will help you get there.

What Should a Professional Services Sales Plan Include?

Growth strategist Amy Franko recommends starting by developing a list of key business goals and milestones that align with firm initiatives. Some specific categories can help keep you focused on what you want to accomplish this year and beyond, including:

• Vision
• Revenue
• Profit
• New Client Growth
• Current Client Growth
• Game Changer Goal

Think about what you want your team to accomplish for the year and write it down in three or four sentences. What do you want your firm’s book of business to look like at the end of the year? What are a few of the things that you want to accomplish? What are your revenue goals in key industries, service lines, and client segments?

Which Industries and Service Lines Should Your Firm Target for Growth?

Selecting focus industries and service lines can help accelerate firm revenue growth. Think of it as selecting a major and then some minors. For professional services firms, that focus might be built around specific industries, service lines, client segments, or a combination of the three.

The requirements of business development and client service can be better balanced, especially for those of us who are developing business while also doing delivery, if we can hone in on the areas with the greatest potential. Getting traction in one industry or service line can also create opportunities to expand into adjacent areas.

Some questions professional services leaders should ask:

• Looking at your client set today, where do you see your strongest industries, service lines, or client segments?
• In which areas have you already established expertise?
• Where do you have a passion or interest in going deeper?
• Which industries or service lines will have the greatest opportunities over the next 1–3 years?

How Do You Identify the Right Clients and Prospects for Growth?

What are the top accounts or clients you want to build relationships with? Ideally, this is also tracked in your CRM.

Look at both prospective clients you want to win and existing clients with the potential for deeper relationships and additional growth. Which clients could benefit from additional services or expertise your firm provides? Where are there opportunities to expand relationships across the organization?

Using myself as an example, professional services is my major, and I have three minors—public accounting, insurance, and technology.

What Client and Market Intelligence Should Inform Your Firm’s Sales Plan?

Intelligence is the deep information that we gather through research on our top prospects and clients, and also within the industries and service lines we serve.

• Trends
• Leadership Vision
• Challenges
• Key Initiatives
• Fiscal Year Goals

What are the trends that will be affecting your priority industries and service lines over the next year or the next three years that you need to pay attention to? What are some of the challenges your clients are going to come up against? How can you help your clients and prospects solve those problems with the services and solutions that you provide?

This list is something your team can adapt at the account level to help gather intelligence in a single place. It helps you to think strategically as a leader and understand how you can help your team move prospective and existing client opportunities forward.

A modern seller is someone who’s recognized as a differentiator in their prospects’ or clients’ business, and the value of what they sell isn’t recognized without them as part of the equation.

You and your team’s expertise are a significant part of sales and business development. Investing time in these questions at the industry level and then at the account level is going to help elevate you in the eyes of your prospects and clients.

What Do You Need to Know About Your Professional Services Buyers?

For each priority industry or service line, you may have unique decision-maker personas. The next step in your planning process is to compile and analyze them.

Consider:

• What is the decision maker measured on?
• What are the key challenges facing this decision maker?
• What is happening inside their firm / company?
• What will make change difficult?
• What motivates this decision maker?

Do you have captured in a single place the personas of all of your decision makers? I like to think of it as creative writing, but it is truth-telling about what is on the mind of your key decision makers. It helps you envision them, empathize with them and ultimately align your expertise to the challenges they’re trying to solve.

Which Partnerships Can Help Drive Professional Services Growth?

What are your key partnerships and key alliances that you need to build to accelerate growth in your priority industries and service lines?

These may be through industry associations, business partners, centers of influence, research organizations, and more. The key is to determine the partnerships and alliances that are the best fit for your plan. Then ascertain where you can commit to an investment, whether that investment is financial or time or a combination of both.

How Can Thought Leadership Support Your Business Development Strategy?

Your firm or company may have a marketing strategy, but do your team members have a personal strategy that goes along with it? In my book, The Modern Seller, I talk quite a bit about ambassadors. One of the things that makes ambassadors stand out is building longer-term loyalty and lifetime value.

When your team members have a personal leadership brand, they can tie it to the firm’s priority industries and areas of expertise and help elevate how well known they (and the firm) are in the marketplace.

Here are several areas to consider as team members build their personal marketing plans. Each person should choose the ones that align best with their natural skills.

• Social Media
• Campaigns
• Webinars
• Events/Forums
• Thought Leadership Content
• Website Blogging & Guest Blogging
• Guest Podcasting
• Awards

Want to go deeper on planning for sales success? Amy Franko joined Mark Hunter to discuss how to balance immediate priorities with long-term growth, focus on the metrics that matter, and turn an annual sales plan into consistent action. Listen to the conversation.

How Can You Build a Stronger Professional Services Sales Plan for 2027?

Q4 is an ideal time to take stock of what’s working, identify where your strongest growth opportunities lie, and turn your priorities for the coming year into a focused sales plan.

If your professional services firm is setting its growth priorities for the year ahead, Amy Franko can help you translate them into a practical sales strategy. Connect with Amy to build a focused plan around the right clients, opportunities, and business development activities to drive growth.