Professional Service Development
Professional services are not like running shoes or aircraft carriers; they are inherently intangible, abstract, elusive. Frank Granek works shoulder to shoulder with individual professionals and their firms to build entrepreneurial mindset and practices. He helps them strengthen their value propositions and business models, and expand their client bases systematically, efficiently, and ethically.
Frank’s services incorporate consulting on strategy and processes, one-on-one and team coaching, content collaborations, and leading-edge assessment tools. The focus is on the domains that make, or break, professional service enterprises.
I. Growth of Intellectual Capital
Ultimately consultants and coaches live by their intellectual capital. Frank’s support can help you advance knowledge and skills in your practice area and in the arts of coaching and consulting themselves.
Developing your intellectual capital begins with translating tacit expertise into explicit processes. You can then target and craft works of substance that project thought leadership. Ideally your intellectual capital moves toward an integrated set of knowledge vehicles as diverse as speeches, workshops, teleclasses, white papers, blogs, and newsletters.
For the associate team, you will organize personal and group learning into a knowledge management system that supports collaboration and continuous improvement of practices. For the growing professional firm, you will create an actionable and empowering Strategic Learning Plan to keep your intellectual capital ahead of the competitive wave.
II. Brand and Service Evolution
Complacency is a consultant killer. Frank can help you revitalize the core service identity based on changes in the economy, industry, key markets, and technology.
Your service brand will be assessed at its core. A comprehensive Professional Service Brand Audit ensures your brand value proposition incorporates not only the service’s explicit utility and impact relative to cost, but also the relational, psychological and symbolic benefits that draw clients. It is this tapestry of client value benefits that builds the client list and wins loyalty.
With this clarity you can recast current services and develop new service branches to stay cutting-edge and capitalize on emerging trends, while avoiding consulting service fads.
III. Marketing Strategy and Communications
It bears repeating: as the leader of a professional service firm, you are assuming the mantel of a marketing professional. Frank’s coaching and consulting can help you thrive and enjoy the pursuit.
You will develop a marketing plan that makes effective use of traditional marketing means (such as advertising, sales, and publicity) and modern strategies (such as viral and social media marketing). You will learn to craft written communications that persuade without pushing. Frank will help you integrate core communication works ranging from company name and tag line, to website content, to business proposals.
Service marketing is very much about communication in the moment. You and your team of associates will be guided to systematize spoken and ad hoc communications about the professional service’s process and impact. This skill across the firm will help you differentiate through expertise and unearth client opportunities.
IV. Client Dynamics
Knowledge-based client interactions have their special dynamics. Rather than relying on a vague sense of professionalism and interpersonal savvy, you can ensure all service professionals develop a palpable relational advantage. In essence they will become skilled in multiple roles – including the consultant, coach, change agent, ally, negotiator, and friend – and learn to shift among them artfully.
Your consultants or coaches will prepare for the uncertainties and stressors of the client relational life cycle. The opportunities and risks of client interactions are not left to chance. Your team will prepare to lead clients into transformative dynamics beyond anticipated delivery of expertise: solving so-called wicked problems; clarifying undefined processes and potential; broadening mental models; and developing meta-capabilities, such as learning, knowledge sharing, and adaptability.
V. Associate Selection and Development
Resist the cliché: leading professional service entrepreneurs does not have to be like herding cats.
Frank will help you apply robust selection strategies to build the professional service through associates who consistently deliver results, expand the client base, and raise esprit de corps. Your hiring and development will be based on a comprehensive competency model that defines the differentiating talents of distinct roles. These include service implementer, leader, ambassador, and pundit.
You can develop an orientation program that allows rapid socialization, and above all early client successes. Frank will help you craft a blended learning training platform that substantially raises targeted competencies, boosts performance and strengthens your employer brand – without drawing undue time and energy from the central task of professional service. Your firm leaders will learn to apply competency-focused coaching and mentorship in order to accelerate growth and break through performance obstacles among your associates.
