Our client, a professional services firm with 25+ offices nationwide, developed a strategic growth plan with its primary lever being lateral acquisition of firms and solo practitioners with existing books of business. Successful execution needed an aligned definition of a qualified acquisition target, and the organizational capabilities and resources to support the Principals tasked with the work across all the markets.
We developed a customized relationship management program to identify and attract pre-qualified target firms. The first step was to build a profile of the ideal acquisition target with an understanding of how likely the firm would be open to the conversation as well as the assets/revenue it would bring. We did this by engaging industry professionals to research and outreach to targets narrowing the prospect list from 200k to 10k. From the qualified prospects we developed personalized background dossiers and talking points for the Principals in each market. Leveraging the dossiers the Principal would then begin the process of developing a relationship with the prospect over multiple of meetings. Each Principal was having four meetings a month and managing 50 relationships over time. Additionally, we rolled out an internal tracking system to log interactions, trigger follow-up and generate reporting across the organization.
The customized acquisition target list and standardized process allowed the Principals to effectively focus their time on recruiting rather than prospecting. The internal buy-in to the program was strong with testimonials from the Principals on their success building relationships and achieving targets. The program enabled firm to deliver its lateral acquisition goal, a critical lever in the growth plan.
