Before any new market, any campaign, any new name on a list, there is growth sitting in the clients you already have. It is the most cost-effective growth in the firm, because the trust is already paid for, and it comes with names on it.
What if you could see which of your clients buy one service from a firm that offers six, and which of the other five they are buying elsewhere?
What if the contact who left for a bigger job last year, and took their regard for you with them, got a note the week they landed?
What if the accounts no one has rung in a year came back as a short list, with a reason to ring each one now?
What if the next fortnight's calls were already chosen, and the first line of each already written?
How much of next year's growth could come from people who already know what good looks like from you?
Every firm I meet has this growth, and most are surprised by how much. A client that has used the firm for one thing for a decade and never been told, plainly, what else it does. A finance director who moved to a larger group and would gladly take a call. An account that went quiet after a project ended, for no better reason than that no one called. None of it is anyone's fault. Partners are busy with the work in hand, and the work in hand is what pays.
It needs no strategy work first, which is what makes it the right place to begin. The firm already knows these people, they already trust it, and the conversation starts somewhere warm. Compared with winning a new client of the same size, it converts faster, costs less, and takes a fraction of the partner time.
Here's how I take that off your plate
A read of your book is the first piece of work I do for most firms. Fifty accounts at a time, read one by one, with the accounts that went quiet alongside. You get back the accounts worth a call this month, who should make it, and why now, with the opening note drafted for whoever owns the relationship. It needs nothing from you beyond an export and an hour, and the partners leave the walkthrough with the calls to make in the next fortnight.
From there, the growth inside the book is chased on purpose. The quiet accounts come with a reason for each, so a partner knows which ones are worth the call. The clients buying one service are introduced to the second, by the partner they already trust, with a reason that is true. And the champions who moved are followed, because a relationship that took years to build is worth a note when it changes address.
Picture a client who has used the firm for audit for years and never once been told about the advisory side, and whose managing director has just bought a second site. The note that lands in the partner's drafts: "I saw the news about the new site, congratulations. Our advisory team did the funding structure for a similar expansion last year and I think there's something worth a conversation. Could I bring my colleague over for half an hour?" A second service, sold by the person the client already trusts.
You've already paid to win these clients once. The next piece of work from them should be the easiest you ever win.