Many professional service firms grow initially from the contribution of a few rainmakers. For years, Ingenuity Marketing Group has worked within firms to help their leadership expand the ways in which they do business development — creating more pipelines for growth. Now we’re partnering with an expert in the sales process to help firms uncover the ways they make money and to expand the pipeline.

Amy Mininger developed her tools for consolidating and optimizing a firm’s sales processes during the IT boom. She worked with worldwide global sales for Computer Associates and helped them repackage their products following seven acquisitions and introduce those products to the sales teams. She has coordinated channel partnerships for another large software vendor and created sales and marketing support for hundreds of companies.

Amy is known for her:

Native Understanding of Sales Process. Amy knows how to get to the concrete measures that keep your attention on your firm’s sales goals.

Ability to Create Smart, Simple Systems. The best systems are easy to understand and use. They are flexible, concrete and repeatable.

Tools that Empower Sales. Amy knows that often what sales people and rainmakers need most is an understanding of their audience and how to match their prospects with the right solution. Her tools train people to be better at sales in way that feels natural to them.

A powerful sales process is one that has clearly defined steps, recommended tools and tactics, and measurable outcomes. When you can transition from a disorganized sales process to one that puts everyone on the same page, you not only increase your success rate, but also quickly learn how to repeat wins.

Rainmakers and other business development people are optimists. A strong sales process encourages optimism, but also helps your firm predict revenues so that operations can adjust as needed.

How is this process created? It begins when a sales process development expert comes into your organization and discovers the necessary stages your prospects go through, along with the tools they need at each stage (such as letter templates, demos, proposals) and the verifiable outcome that needs to be met before that prospect can be moved to the next stage.

In addition to mapping your firm’s process, sales process development also involves:

• Creating measures to track success
• Investigating customer relationship management systems (CRM) that could benefit you or looking at how to improve use of your current system
• Training your business development team on how to use the process
• Training personnel on prospect handling and how to customize the services you offer to each prospect
• Identifying and tracking key metrics that your operations team needs
• Weeding out duplicity of vendor relationships to increase cost savings

If you are interested in meeting Amy Mininger for an initial consult on your current sales process, contact Kristy Gusick at 651-690-3358.

I have asked dozens of younger people in CPA firms if they want to be partners and almost every single one said no. I have a theory. Is it because younger people do not want to be partners like the ones they see? Some state specifically they do not want to give up all their personal and family time because a partner’s life does not seem balanced. Some are afraid of developing their own books of business. Some just aren’t sure if CPA firm partnership is their life’s work.

It just does not look like the life they want to lead. Enter CPA Cool. I was inspired by having the wind in my hair on a hot St. Louis day. I was meeting Howard Rosen of Conner Ash for breakfast and he had come to my hotel to fetch me. We walked toward three cars, one of which was the coolest light blue ’56 Thunderbird convertible. I oogled it longingly. Incredibly, he opened the passenger door to this magnificent car for me. We drove off to find a good restaurant for breakfast. Wow.

What would happen if the partners in CPA firms stopped complaining about their workloads and drove Harleys to work? What if you went to a client meeting with your boss in his cool convertible? What if they appeared happy, tan, well-dressed and talked about the joys of their jobs? Do you think more of you would want to be partner?