Why should professional services firms create assets?
In this article you’ll learn three reasons why professional services firms should create assets and how to use them to grow your business.
Whilst I write it from the perspective of a system integrator, it is just as applicable to in-house SaaS professional services teams.
What is a professional services asset?
An asset covers a wide range of items - generally it refers to something that would assist in the planning or delivery of a project:
A template to help gather data
A process or methodology to describe how the project will run
A framework for delivering a part of the project
A checklist to guide and monitor progress
A piece of code partially or completely built
A configuration partially or completely built
An integration partially or completely built
I call them assets, but you might call them accelerators, templates or any other phrase to denote something that can be re-used but is not a complete product that can be licensed.
In a professional services firm where the value that a client is typically investing in is a service delivered by people, assets bring an element of product to the offering - providing some consistency and repeatability regardless of which members of the consulting team are delivering the project.
I worked at Appirio, a leading Salesforce boutique partner for eight years and our Cloud Asset Library was a huge differentiator.
Let’s look at why.
Improved repeatability and consistency of project delivery
In an expanding professional services firm the talent pool is fluid and growing. The team members working on ‘project b’ are very likely to be different to the team members working on ‘project a’ even if the scope is very similar.
So how do you encourage a consistent delivery and client outcome?
In many smaller firms it relies on who you know. “Helen, what integration did you build for ACME? Do you have any of the notes available?”
Or “let’s make sure we get Ed assigned to this project, he did something similar at ACME”
This need to rely on individual people to deliver successful projects hampers your ability to scale.
You can’t take on new projects unless key individuals become available
You are reluctant to have new starters take on full responsibility until they have learned the collective history of previous projects.
At Appirio, as part of the internal project close out meeting the team was asked “what did you create in this project that could be of use to colleagues in future projects?”
The team would consider any spreadsheets, configurations, code, slide decks, integrations, UI designs that could have applicability beyond the client they just worked on.
The team would then create new draft records in our Cloud Asset Library (which was an object in Salesforce but could easily be in Airtable, Asana, Monday.com - any relational database)
The asset included details of:
Asset type (template, code, configuration, integration)
Vendor technology (Salesforce, Google, Workday)
Useage scenario (ie Sales Cloud Lead Object)
Client details (Name, Industry, Size)
Team details (project manager, asset owner)
Asset instructions (background to how the asset was used)
A Cloud Asset Library team worked in the background to assess all draft assets, enrich them with further details and instructions, and move them through ‘draft’, ‘in progress’ up to ‘available for re-use’.
When a new project was created the asset library would suggest suitable assets depending on the client scope.
It didn’t matter if this was your 1000th day at Appirio or your first, you had the collective knowledge of the global team to support your decision making.
Generating referrals from vendor sales teams
As a scaling technology vendor you know that implementation partners can be the key to a successful go live, a happy customer and quick expansion opportunities, or the route to a failed deployment, a red account and no upsell.
Vendor AEs rely on trusted partner relationships, and trusted individual relationships, to support their opportunities and their customer’s projects.
But with so many potential partners out there, why should they pick up the phone to your team?
Assets provide you with something unique to your firm. Something tangible that a vendor AE can say to their own leadership “this is why I want to bring them into the deal”
At Appirio we’d built an early social intranet on the Salesforce.com platform for Virgin America using Chatter as a way for airline personnel to communicate with each other.
Our team followed the end of project process above and templatised a number of the assets - the UI, the chatter intranet functionality, some intranet widgets.
This was bundled up in an asset called Edgeforce and listed on the website, the YouTube channel, and our Salesforce partner content.
Suddenly our sales teams were on the receiving end of inbound from Salesforce AEs, “can you present Edgeforce at a meeting I’m having with client X next week?”
The asset had made the social intranet tangible - more than a case study. The asset was unique to us - so there was only one firm to call if you wanted your customer to have it.
Presenting the asset library to our vendors, and making it publicly available and searchable by them, was a significant driver of vendor sourced pipeline.
Helping clients to differentiate from your competitors
“Why should we choose you?” asks the sponsor during the oral presentations?
“We have great people!” you reply.
The client rolls their eyes. Its the fourth time they’ve heard that today.
Having great people is not a differentiator.
Everyone believes they have great people (if they don’t - bigger problems)
Competing as a professional services firm has to be about more than your people - it has to focus on the client’s outcome and how you can deliver that outcome with consistency and predictability.
As we were setting up Appirio in Europe we could use the Cloud Asset Library to demonstrate that our UK team had the collective experience of the entire US team at our fingertips.
A key part of our proposals included the suggested assets that we would deploy in our project if we were selected.
This changed the conversation with the customer from day rates and CVs to innovation and outcome.
Publish your assets publicly.
If an asset is locked away in your internal systems, how can your customers see the value in them as a differentiator?
At Appirio we took the most popular “available for re-use” assets and published them to our website in a directory format where customers could search them - a bit like a mini-AppStore.
It helped customers to see this wasn’t our first rodeo and had a huge depth of knowledge in the products we were implementing.
Beware, many of your assets will likely be quite dry and technical - more about how you will deliver a requirement than what the customer will see.
Be sure to include a number of highly visual assets that bring the concept to life for the customer.
Do assets reduce the cost of the project for the customer?
This question was asked every time! If you are using these assets or accelerators, does that mean you go faster and the project costs less?
“It may, but that is not the reason for choosing us.
Each of the assets was created for a specific use case, and yours will be slightly different.
Each asset will need reconfiguring for your scenario - and so whilst it gives us a great starting point it is not a completed product.”
In my experience, if anything the assets increased the value of the project because it gave the client the opportunity to see many more possibilities in their deployment.
Reward your teams for asset creation and re-use
Asset libraries are at risk of becoming stale and a reminder of a one time project if you aren’t careful.
At Appirio we rewarded our teams for creating assets and for their re-use.
Rewards were in the form of points in our company store (where you could get branded Appirio goodies) and mentions of the re-use leaderboard on our all-hands call where you would be recognised for having created an asset that was reused in multiple other project this month.
It kept the Cloud Asset Library top of mind for our team, our vendors and our customers for the full eight years I was there.
Go create your assets!
So there are three reasons why professional services firms (and SaaS Professional Services Teams) should create assets, and a couple of tips to help you on your way.
Enjoy and good luck!
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