Professional service firms sell three things: expertise (unique insights), experience (proven market knowledge), and efficiency (rapid, cost-effective delivery). Leaders can measure performance on each dimension to align their practice model with profit and client value.
Expertise, experience, and efficiency. Those are the 3 E's of professional service practice. David Maestra lays it out in his classic Managing Professional Organizations, and I really think this is something that we should be remembering in technology because all we do is leverage our brains, and that's the essence of a professional service organization. So even what you're doing is selling software, you're really selling one of those 3 things. You're selling expertise. You have insights that that nobody else does about the world, and you can apply them to clients in an innovative way. You have experience, right? You know things about the market, and they're able to trust you with solutions to problems that you've taken care of a bunch of times before, and then you're bringing this out in a way that is of a company-level importance. And third is going to be efficiency, that you can solve problems in a way that is far less expensive and far shorter turnaround than anyone else. Measure yourself on those three dimensions. By knowing what kind of practice you have and what kind of business you have, you will be able to orient and manage for maximum profits.
