stephen kember - 4c958332e7fed1b45fc2131d6c4ee

Scorecard introduction

This scorecard is one of an extensive series of scorecards produced by Stephen Kember to assist the owners of professional service firms to internally assess their performance and to support the taking of strategic business development decisions.

Scores should be entered on the following 0 to 10 basis:

Score: 0 = We do not address this at all!
Score: 1 = We're not at all good at this
Score: 2 = We're weak at this
Score: 3 = We're pretty poor at this
Score: 4 = We're below par at this
Score: 5 = We're about okay at this
Score: 6 = We're just a bit better than okay at this
Score: 7 = We're good at this
Score: 8 = We're very good at this
Score: 9 = We're excellent at this
Score: 10 = We're truly exceptional at this

	Question: Are you really focussed on the vital few things? Scorecard	Score: 0-10	Final score
1	We fully appreciate how we can practically benefit from from a firm-wide focus on 80-20 thinking
2	We fully appreciate how we can make the most of multiplying our highs & minimising our lows
3	We fully appreciate how we should go about identifying and then benefiting from a focus on the ‘vital few’ areas that generate 80% of results
4	We fully appreciate how we should go about identifying, then negating, the 80% of efforts that are largely wasted
5	We fully appreciate how in practice we can we achieve far better results by working less
6	Our Partners fully appreciate how they can personally benefit from their insight in, and application of, 80-20 thinking
7	Our Partners fully appreciate how, in each of their respective departments they can multiply the highs & minimise the lows
8	Our Partners fully appreciate how they should focus on and manage the 'vital few’ areas that generate 80% of results
9	Our Partners fully appreciate what they should do to address the 80% of effort that is largely wasted
10	Our Partners fully appreciate how they can achieve far better results by working less using an 80-20 focused approach
11	We acknowledge and act on the fact that all clients are not equally valuable; as a consequence we enjoy significant differences in profitability client by client for the same service
12	We acknowledge and act on the fact that we attain significantly different levels of profitability from the provision of different services across the firm
13	We acknowledge and act on the fact that we enjoy hugely different levels of profitability from the provision of different services within individual departments
14	We appreciate that much of what needs to be undertaken in our sales & marketing, based upon 80-20 thinking, appears in the first instance to be counterintuitive, but we act accordingly
15	We acknowledge and act on the fact that not all marketing & client care efforts have equal results
16	We acknowledge the importance of 80-20 thinking in respect of client relations' based marketing and that this represents high value, high return on investment activity
17	We acknowledge and act on the fact that the marketplace is fluid and overtime new firms with innovative services enter leading to tighter segmentation and evermore market segments; our response is to become evermore focused on the 20% vital few
18	We acknowledge and act on the fact it is nearly always possible to increase total contribution by focusing effort on those services, market segments & clients where the largest surpluses are generated; by implication we aim to reduce effort on those areas where margins are low or negative
19	We acknowledge using 80-20 principles that it is essential to be on top of what is happening in the marketplace, to understand our market positioning and to be ahead of the curve, ready & able to exploit emerging opportunities and that we must not to be following the crowd
20	We have must defined the optimal approach to servicing the 20% of clients that provide the 80% of profits with an outstanding service
21	We have taken such measures as are necessary to understand exactly what really delights the exceptional 20% of our clients
22	We recognise that our firm can only attain outstanding results by remaining unique in its niche, being at the forefront of thinking and by offering significant added value;
23	we must constantly commit to ongoing radical innovation of the range of services we offer and the way in which they are delivered
24	We know exactly who are the 20% vital few clients, we list the,; our teams know who they are and strive to get to know the people who comprise their teams
25	All our people appreciate the vital value of their respective roles in building client rapport and strengthening client relationships
26	We define for each service, what our ‘vital few’ clients judge to be 'exceptional service' in terms of how it should be put together & delivered; presented, what it comprises, what needs it satisfies; what benefits it brings; what represents exceptional timeliness, how it is best supported and what really makes us different
27	Our ‘vital few’ clients are left in no doubt whatsoever that we aim to provide them with an exceptional level of service well above the norm. We communicate long and hard with them; anticipate their needs; respond with speed when called in
28	Systems are in place to ensure that all under performing service areas are substituted for those that have the potential to bear the same results as those of the best
29	Employment of personnel is undertaken on the basis of recruiting new staff with experience, attitude, skill-set and enthusiasm matching those of existing high performing personnel
30	We have exceptional client care systems enabling us to stick like glue & mature their relations with the most profitable clients whilst releasing our grip on those that are not
31	We consistently seek to identify areas where we can achieve truly exceptional productivity; it is here that we focus our effforts, rather than trying to raise average results across the board
32	We constantly look for short cuts and seek to be selective rather than exhaustive
33	We delegate & outsource as much as possible so leaving us free to focus on the vital few things that matter
34	We focus on doing that which we are best at and which we enjoy doing the most
35	We recognise that it is lack of balance, not equilibrium, that characterises professional sector business development success. It is the small differences we exploit that lead to enormous beneficial consequences
36	We offer a limited number of highly profitable services to a limited number of clients;
37	We focus on further provision of only our most profitable services; if they aren't profitable we pluck them out
38	Our services are provided in the most simple format to a truly exceptional quality standard;
39	We keep management costs to an absolute minimum; we are a flat organisation; with training & coaching reflecting this reality
40	We have reduced overheads by outsourcing so cutting head count & complexity
41	We appreciate that absolutely no dressing of short-term earnings will make up for the huge loss of profits if 'vital few' clients ‘disappear.
42	We acknowledge that growing profits reflect the quality of business relationships; we ensure that no relationship issues arise such that a client might think of leaving
43	We do not allocate significant levels of resource to under performing, low margin areas without there being extraordinary justification
44	We recognise all revenues are not equally profitable and take appropriate action
45	We believe the financial focus should not be on building a bigger, grander firm but rather on building a more profitable one
46	We consider the vital area in our marketing is retaining our focus on the 9 Ps of marketing: Positioning, Packaging, Promotion, Price, Persuasion, Performance, Procedures, People and Processes
47	We have adopted a focused approach to forging a highly appealing, vital few client centred, unique competitive identity, based on the provision of our vital few services
48	One of our vital few credentials is the offer of a hard ‘guarantee’ underpinning our firm’s service offer
49	Another of our vital few credentials is being ‘giving’ not ‘getting’ focused; acknowledging one attracts & one repels
50	Another of our vital few credentials is asking questions & listening more than talking when building rapport
51	Given our vital few focus we are able to reveal extraordinary competence that defines us as a leader in our niche
52	Another of our vital few credentials is our exceptional ability to satisfy client needs, professionally
53	Another of our vital few credentials is getting to understand the specific needs of clients in terms then revealing the relevant benefits of them using our services to address them
54	Another of our vital few credentials is our approach to communicating with clients in a style that they relate to and which they prefer
55	Having defined our vital few areas of service provision we are exceptional at finding prospects that require these services and converting them into clients
56	Another of our vital few credentials is our sustained monitoring of just how good our sales & marketing actually is along with our client service activities
57	We recognise that waste thrives on inefficiency and effectiveness requires simplicity; this is pure 20% vital few thinking
58	We appreciate that only a small percentage of what we do is really appreciated by clients and that which is, is quite often not what we think it is. We therefore go on to make sure we really know what they do appreciate and do not try to dictate what this should be from our professional perspective
59	We recognise that without careful appraissal our firm is at risk of becoming a mix of productive & unproductive services, clients, staff, relationships, procedures, processes and assets; in view of this we regualarly reassess our situation
60	We recognise that most probably quite a lot of poor performance hides behind small amounts of exceptional activity; we are consequently constantly on our guard
61	We adopt a simple philosophy in so far as we recognise that major improvements are always possible by doing things differently, more simply and by focusing on doing less
62	We simplify by eliminating unprofitable activity
63	We focus on just a few drivers of improvement
64	We use comparison of performance as a core evaluation tool
65	We recognise that cost reduction can be expensive so the key is to go for the 20% of reductions that give 80% of results; and to place 80% of our effort there
66	We recognise when reducing costs that this does not equate to enhanced client satisfaction and that where there is a trade off we must favour the client
67	We increase value to clients by ruthlessly focusing on reducing process & service delivery complexity; removing unprofitable services; eliminating time consuming low value services, letting go low value or unpopular clients; radically reshaping our approach to over-demanding, fee-rate sensitive clients; and removing unnecessary management levels.
68	We focus sales effort on a limited number of highly profitable services to highly profitable clients; as opposed to selling many services to a wide array of clients comprising a mix of profitable & unprofitable service & client segments
69	We acknowledge the harm arising from having too broad a spread and or mix of services & clients and of the need to ensure that this is avoided
70	We ensure that we hang on to those Directors, Partners & Sales oriented staff that are generating the 20% of sales that realise the 80% of profits
71	We aim to bring on board more of the same type of persons that perform exceptionally; recognising that personality and attitude are critical here
72	We provide a high level of training & coaching/mentoring support to those 20% vital few staff that are most proficient and who are likely to stay long term and who over time will provide the all important drive and enthusiasm
73	We quarterly review what has happened over the past quarter that might change things for the positive or the negative in the next quarter
74	We watch out for that which we have not been watching that could provide us with an opportunity, or put us at risk
75	We are constantly on the look out for vital areas where things happen which we would not have expected to happen or to work so well
76	What is it that clients really like about us; and are we really sure about this
77	We are on the constant look out for those things that we are unintentionally or unknowingly supplying or doing for clients that they particularly appreciate
78	We work hard at trying to understand what things are happening under the surface that we need to be aware which could be 20% factors. We then look to see how we can benefit from this and turn the situation to our advantage and steal a march on the competition
79	We avoid the development of projects or services: that suffer from organisational complexity’, or where there are a great number of objectives set, or where a huge amount of effort is required to complete the project to a high level of client satisfaction
80	We recognise that typically 80% of the client’s satisfaction with a project overall, as per their own sense of benefit, comes from just 20% of the activities we undertake
81	We impose stretching targets to inspire creativity from our people; in this way we get to the heart of the matter in hand often leading to new and, or radically improved results
82	We ensure that the shorter the time allowed for completion of a project the more time as a percentage of the total, that is given to planning the project
83	We ensure that resources are regularly considered for reallocation from low to high performing, priority areas, segments & clients
84	We take 80-20 thinking through to its logical conclusion acknowledging that whatever we do there will still be waste arising; i.e. after each stage of 80-20 refocusing there will still be 80% of resources that only produce 20% of the total value; meaning there is huge scope for ongoing, cycle upon cycle, arbitrage
85	We fully recognise that that which is working now and represents 'vital few' activities, will not last forever. We do not fear radical innovation or its consequence, but we do recognise the dire implications of failing to innovate by refocussing on changing vital few circumstances
	Final score		0.00

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