Services executives and managers within product companies have known for years the added value that their technical experts bring both to customers and to the company when they are able achieve the status of being seen as a trusted advisor by their customers.  The results are stronger relationships and greater satisfaction for the customer with more and better revenue for the customer.  However, almost all past research on this important topic has been aimed at the providers of “traditional” professional services (lawyers, accounts, management consultants).  In this SSPA News article, I am building on this research and exploring the similarities and the differences in what it takes for technical experts within product companies to achieve trusted advisor status, so that services executives can establish practical actions to improve performance and reap the rewards of stronger, more profitable relationships.

During the Summer and Fall of 2006, Alexander Consulting interviewed 80 services executives on this topic.  Almost all participants had identified this issue as an important one for their business and were eager to share their thoughts. Here is a summary of key findings broken down for each main questions discussed:

When it comes to leading and managing your technical experts, what are your top two or three issues?

By far the number one response (about double the next issue) centered around increasing the knowledge and skills of their technical experts.  This touched on a wide variety of capabilities including improving technical competence, but most of the focus was on soft skills—communicating better with clients. The second most important issue to the participants was how to motivate these highly skilled employees.   Next, two issues were of almost equal rate; improving productivity and trying to get technical experts to sell more—either on their own, or in support of the sales force.  As the reader will see, this is an important trend throughout the study.

What (if anything) has changed your expectations of your technical experts in the last two years?

About 80% of the participants expected their technical experts to keep doing what they have been doing plus become better in certain areas and take on more responsibilities.  The top three responses included more need for business savvy so that they could talk and relate more effectively with customer executives, assuming more responsibility to drive revenue, and assume more responsibility for managing both accounts and engagements.

What metrics are you using now to measure the performance of your technical experts?

Three measures were by far the most important, and all roughly equal in importance to the research participants. Sales performance, getting them to help get more good revenue was among those top three.  Utilization (mainly described as billability) was also at the top as well as the traditional metric of client satisfaction.

Which of the following best describes your expectations of your technical experts regarding business development?

The researchers had anticipated that business development would be an important topic of discussion and the responses to earlier questions bore this out.  For this question, participants chose among six business development descriptions from “1” being very passive (focus on fixing problems and meeting services objectives and leaving all business development tasks to sales) to “6” being very aggressive (actively, look, listen, and research customer opportunities, qualify the need, develop the proposal, and present it to the customer).  Service executives placed major importance on having technical advisors actively involved in the business development process as the majority of responses were “5” (actively look, listen, and research opportunities, qualify the need, and work with sales to develop proposals).  As the reader will quickly grasp, for some technical experts, this is a major change in role.

What trusted advisor behaviors do your top technical experts exhibit that your average performers don’t?

The number one response was possessing great communication skills—the ability to deeply listen, probe effectively, acknowledge the customer’s situation, and communicate powerfully.  Second was the attribute of seizing the initiative—whatever the problem or opportunity, addressing it immediately in attempting to add value to the customer.  Third was putting the customer first—even if that cost the company some business at the time. Three other behaviors followed that were roughly equal in value: big picture thinking that linked immediate issues to bigger business concerns, business acumen that demonstrated an understanding of the broader issues important to customers, and finally, acting with extreme confidence and courage—being able to take risk, share opposing ideas, and stand firm when what they felt was the right thing to do.

Reflections on the Findings

The energy surrounding the conversations reinforced the growing importance of this topic to the leaders of services organizations within product companies.  They see the importance of providing additional training to increase knowledge and skills especially around how to improve relationships and increase sales capabilities.  They expect more (a lot more in many cases) of their technical experts (selling, account management, dealing with executives), yet, in analyzing their responses find that they still expect them to do all the other things asked of them in the past.  When dedicated, hard-working people are asked to do more they will respond initially, but burn-out and de-motivation follow if expectations are not lessened in areas while important (e.g., utilization) are not critical (e.g., business development).  This is further exacerbated by metrics that reflect past priorities and not the current drivers of the business.

Another challenge is getting people hired to “fix problems” to become more actively involved in selling.  Some technical experts adopt immediately, most respond well if provided with the proper rationale and appropriate training, but some never accept this new expectation. Services leaders must think through this challenge and how to best deal with it in their organization.

In summary, this study shows the growing importance of the ability to grow technical experts and move them up the continuum of customer performance toward achieving the goal of trusted advisor status.  Quality training must be provided couple with management system changes to support desired new behaviors.  Maybe only a small percentage of technical experts can accomplish this goal of truly being seen as trusted advisors, yet all will benefit by striving toward this worthy objective.

About Jim Alexander…………………………………………………

Jim Alexander is a Partner with Alexander Consulting, a management consultancy that helps product companies create and implement professional services strategies.  He has authored two books, four research studies and over 70 articles targeting ways to improve the performance of professional services organizations within technology companies.  His latest book (available soon) is on the topic of turning technical experts into trusted advisors.