What is the secret of effective cross-selling?
If I knew the easy answer to this question I would be a rich woman! Sadly, there is no big secret but the answer lies in the unique culture of professional firms. All professional firms – at management level – seek to provide as many of their different services to their clients. This makes obvious business sense but fails to recognise the very significant human factors that work against the principal of cross-selling in a professional firm. For example, many partners will have a ‘It’s my client’ perspective and be reluctant to share the relationship with their colleagues. Sometimes this is because they do not trust their colleagues to provide the same level of expertise and service that they do, sometimes because they simply do not want to risk jeopardising the relationship. In many firms, the reward system is geared towards individual partners maximising their own clients and time recorded and fails to recognise the value in acting on behalf of the firm or in referring clients to othe
