As I rushed off to my 6am flight from Spokane to Bozeman for a board meeting, my ability to delude myself into thinking a 4am wake-up is reasonable was completely shattered. Luckily, that delusion came back quickly after I got some of that Delta coffee that apparently tastes different in flight than on the ground (airplane coffee). An hour-long nap on the first flight would give me the energy I needed to be productive in afternoon meetings at PIE’s headquarters. Some 40 minutes later, I was awoken by the woman directly across the aisle from me, proclaiming loudly, “I’m a nurse.” In my post nap fog, I half-mumbled “Thank you for your service,” not sure what prompted the proclamation in the first place. Moments later, a concerned voice came over the intercom and said, “Is there a doctor on the plane?” My ears perked up. 

In jest (kind of) during business development coaching sessions, I often tell emerging accountants, consultants, and lawyers they are “doctors on a plane,” and they must think about serving clients with that mantra. A doctor doesn’t walk onto a plane and immediately start handing out their business card, trying to sell their latest surgical procedure as they walk down the aisle. But when someone on the plane needs medical attention, it is their responsibility to help. I believe the same holds true in professional services: we are there to offer our help when we see a client in need. I even went so far as to include this metaphor in Never Say Sell, a professional services practitioner’s guide to client expansion. 

As I heard the attendant on the loudspeaker repeat their request for a doctor, I expected her to quote the book, my thoughts wandering like the clouds outside the plane window.  A change in plane pressure snapped me back into focus when I realized our plane might be landing unexpectedly. As I emerged from my plane-induced drowsiness I realized there was no less than 6oz of sweat on my face, and the woman next to me was saying she’s a nurse because I was in grave medical danger. Next, a doctor was asking me questions and examining me (a word of advice to consultants—a doctor on a plane is truly an unimaginable relief—analogy holds!). Eventually, I explained to him that in my million+ miles of flying I have had three cases of flying sickness, and on each occasion, I balanced out…eventually. If you haven’t heard of it, flying sickness happens when the inner ear, eyes, and body send conflicting messages to the brain about motion. I knew I would be fine but was grateful for the doctor’s care and guidance to ensure nothing else was wrong.  

***

Interestingly, in all of my travels, I had only heard a doctor called one other time before. I couldn’t help but wonder, how does a lawyer find a metaphorical plane full of people in need of IP counsel, or how does an accountant get on a plane with 110 CFOs staring down a material weakness? What happens when you put an expert in front of a problem they are uniquely qualified to solve? They dazzle. The same is not true when you put an expert in a room full of potential prospects to “sell.” Immediately, they feel out of their comfort zone: “I don’t want to be a hacky salesperson,” or “I don’t want to roam a conference ballroom pretending to be interested in the booths as I search for someone, anyone, to talk with.” A select few thrive in this environment, which is great, but it suggests all rainmakers are smooth talkers who can work a room. That is simply not true.  

In our upcoming book, The Growth Engine, we share a framework for various business development styles that puts this smooth-talking rainmaker myth to bed before it becomes problematic. The question that all growth-related support functions (marketing, growth, training, business development, etc.) should ask is, “How do I get my best consultants in front of a problem they know how to solve?” or in my case, “How do I get them onto a 747 full of people who need my team’s expertise to solve their problem?”  

How to Get Your Consultants to be the Doctor on a Plane

Step 1

Get conviction around who you are going to serve. Narrow it by company revenue, geography, industry, executive function/buying committee, and other relevant factors depending on the service. 

Step 2

That first step seems easy, but everybody misses the mark. Step 2 is to return to Step 1 and get real commitment to the ideal client profile, or ICP, that your company serves. A few questions to consider: 

• Do you have a go/no-go process for proposals?  

• When would you say no to a project? 

• Under what conditions would you fire a client?  

• Do you have good data on utilization so that ICP flexibility is a direct result of business needs, not preference or the flavor du jour?  

• Do you have a system for RFPs or is your team the “supplemental bid” to the team that already won it because they have a pre-existing relationship?  

Step 3

Now you have the list of people you want to serve. If it has 1000 people on it, you must return to Step 1. That’s not a defined list; it’s a panacea of possibility.  If it’s true that your projects are won on trust and credibility (and it should be), it is going to take some time to earn trust, display capability, and win work. If a firm is committed to serving this ICP, they should set about building an ecosystem of these people—give them seats on the airplane.  

• Build a community of executives consisting of your existing clients and potential customers within the defined ICP. Add value by bringing them together virtually and in-person and resist the never-ending temptation to present to them. They show up because they want to talk to each other. If you make that happen, you will be the recipient of that goodwill. If you present a 40-slide deck, they will vote with their feet. 

• Utilize this community as the spine of your business development efforts. One of the hardest parts of business development is earning the call that moves you from meeting socially to business opportunity. The community approach gives you another way to stay connected to these executives while adding value by connecting them with peers.  

• Via that community, tailor marketing, communications, and thought leadership to the specific pain points and issues that they are facing.  

• Co-create thought leadership, research, and services along the journey with your customers. This is a big one. If you see 4 consultants in a conference room drawing up new service lines on a whiteboard, it’s a fatal error. Too often, consultants are jaded by the type of work they want to do and can’t see clearly what the client needs. 

• Utilize the trust you build within the community framework to access key executives within the client’s organization for strategic direction and client feedback.  

• Utilize the community to avoid the conference ballroom trap described earlier. When you’ve built a community of specific people you want to serve, you will spend the evening before a large conference in a private dining room while your competitors spam them with automated digital outreach.  AI may, at some point, be a game changer for client service, but heretofore, it has only badly highlighted firms that believe client service is so unimportant it can be outsourced to a primitive robot.  

***

After 30 minutes on the ground somewhere in middle America, I looked a little less like a sweaty cooked potato and the doctor at my side reassured both me and the flight attendants that I was stable enough for the flight to complete its path to Bozeman. I thanked the doctor profusely…still slightly embarrassed at the fuss I’d caused but grateful for their assurance that I’d make it safely to my destination, sweaty but not sick.  

Diagnosing and caring for patients is distinctly different from the work we do to drive business development in professional services, but in both, there is no “easy button.” You must define who you want to serve (easier said than done), get busy building relationships and adding value (really hard), and win work (also hard). But approaching it like a doctor on a plane, rather than a used car salesman, results in happy, and most importantly, healthy clients. 

Written by Jacob Parks