ANNOUNCEMENT: POWER OF ONE

While traditional M&A may have slowed, merger activity is alive and well among professional services firms. The promise of these firm combinations is that one plus one will equal three or more. Usually, however, one plus one equals two or sometimes one and a half when it comes to professional service firm mergers. Because of the way post-merger integration is handled, the failure of these mergers is assured from the start. The ultimate driver of merger value is predictable revenue growth…aka business development. Alas, business development rarely tops the list of integration imperatives. Great attention is paid, instead to:

 Firm name, logo & stationary
 Executive leadership
 Practice leadership
 Who Stays/Who goes Staffing
 Compensation
 Back office synergy
 Office management

But where is…

 Business Development (???)

We’re pleased to announce the launch of Creative Growth Group’s Power of One service which ensures successful business development integration when professional services firms merge. Power of One is a complete solution encompassing the strategy, capabilities and execution needs that must be addressed to make one plus one equal three.

 Strategy – To make sure everyone in the new entity is marketing consistently, we sharpen and articulate the merged firms’ collective points of difference for clients and select the best prospects and tactics that take advantage of this differentiation. Then we help make sure everyone across the merged firms is speaking the same language.

 Capabilities – So that business development initiatives run in a smoothly coordinated way, we evaluate the merged firms’ disparate CRM and pipeline systems and select and blend the best of both. Then we equip the firm’s professionals with the skills they need to market.

 Execution – Because knowing what to do and actually doing it are often separated by a large gap, we stay with you and your colleagues to coach and facilitate the business development changes and activities needed to make the merger’s promise of synergy actually pay off.

Please contact andrew@creativegrowthgroup.com to find out how we can help.