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International Associations – are you getting good value?

24th Jun 2010
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In the mid sized professional advisor market, the growing requirement to offer clients international advice is most often resolved by joining a global association or network of similarly sized advisors around.

Joining is the easy bit. However membership does not automatically generate an endless flow of new international work and, given that it’s not cheap, you may wish to work a little more actively and creatively to squeeze maximum value.

Here’s just a few things which are working at CBW who is a member of MGI.

1 – Make your competitors your collaborators

When you join an international group of accountants (or lawyers) it’s easy to feel that the other member firms in your jurisdiction are your competitors because, on the face of it, you’re vying for the same inward business.

In some regards this will be the case. However, there are many advantages to be gained from local members working together. These include the opportunity to:

  • have virtual jurisdictional coverage
  • offer a full range of experts (by pooling all the specialists from the member companies)
  • save costs by using staff members from the office closest to the job

2 – Put a full team on the ground

The golden rule of “people buy people” still applies when you join one of these groups. It’s just as important as ever to “meet and greet” as many members as you can.

Although this can be expensive and time consuming, those who are most successful within these groups are always those who know the most people. Often they’ll divide the world into regions and assign one or two people to specialise each region.

If you’re taking a longer term view, consider involving your second tier staff members – Associates and Managers - so that the relationships you build between firms are deep and multi generational. This helps to maintain relationships even when staff leave or retire.

3 – Get the specialists working together

As ever, 'two heads are better than one, so consider sharing your practical and technical knowledge. Some associations will organise regular specialist interest groups (usually based on a specific service line), which meet to discuss and resolve their current issues and to learn from each other. The result is that when any of the members are asked for help in a specialist area they’ll either know the answer or know a man (or woman) who does.

4 – Share costs as well as the benefits

If you’re looking to squeeze even more value, consider which costs you could reduce by either working together to save on bulk buy (eg: licences, training) or by share resources (eg: the Marketing or HR functions).

5 – Demonstrate true international co-operation

When you first join these organisations, it’s easy to believe it’s enough to simply refer out work to other member and, if you’re lucky, receive a few inward referrals. However, such a group could be a hugely powerful business development tool for attracting clients with international interests. Look for opportunities to jointly pitch for these clients and ask your colleagues from the appropriate regions to assist you in the bid process or to visit the prospective client with you.

6 – Patience is a virtue

It takes time to build relationships and to understand the cultural differences that will matter. Take the time to get to know people, to learn about their cultural differences and to appreciate the challenges and opportunities which they face within their own markets.

And, finally, don’t forget to enjoy yourself! Participating in these groups takes a huge commitment of time so you might as well enjoy the adventure and well as the bounty!

Lisa Tesselaar

Marketing Manager CBW (Carter Backer Winter LLP)

Part of the MGI association

www.cbw.co.uk

www.mgi-uk.com

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