Current meetings

Attendance at all speaker events in the UK is free to members.

Please note that all PM Forum events are member only and are recognised by the CIM for CPD purposes

Brave new world or grave new world?

London - Tuesday 20 January 2009

There is no doubt that there is a great deal of uncertainty and change in the current business environment. Many businesses and business models are coming under pressure, and professional services are certainly not exempt.

How should senior business developers be demonstrating value to management teams who themselves may only have known good times? There just may be opportunities for BD professionals to earn their place as part of the C-Suite and to get attention for some of the things that went undone during good times. The session will cover the following topics:

  • What happens in downturns – key issues and bad behaviours in partnerships to be alert to avoid…the rush to discount, “own-desking” and other value destroyers…
  • What is different this time – scale of problems, pressures on the traditional leverage model, off-shoring and outsourcing and new ways of working such as the “millennial effect” on the billable hour, the pressure to innovate on services and delivery…
  • What is happening at your clients? Some practical opportunities to build relationships, and manage the service and client portfolio more aggressively, some bright spots in the economy…
  • Changing metrics for BD from lag to lead indicators to provide leadership with business-oriented measures…

The aim is to help participants to shape their own agenda for the coming year, take away some easy wins and test their ideas with their peers.

Simon Slater
Having spent 10 years in the sales school of hard knocks with SmithKline Beecham (now gsk) and Pfizer, and a spell in business-to-business brand management with Swedish multinational, SCA, Simon became one of the early pioneers of professional service firm management in 1989.

Over the next 15 years he worked in marketing and general management with the boards of leading practices - DTZ Group plc, Charles Russell LLP (where he was Chief Operating Officer), Eversheds LLP and Taylor Wessing LLP. During this time he developed a reputation for bringing a refreshingly pragmatic approach to the leadership and management of professional firms, be they publicly quoted or private partnership.

As Managing Director of First Counsel Consulting Limited, Simon now provides strategic advice, close counsel and practical support to professional service firm leaders in their quest for sustained growth. He also serves as non executive director of a number of organisations in other industries.

Karen Jones
An experienced Marketing Director at board level, with a highly tuned commercial radar, Karen’s career has spanned the private and public sectors, with a background in Financial Services, Telco, FMCG, and consultancy industries with blue chip multi-nationals, eg. GlaxoSmithKline, HSBC, AVIVA, PwC and BBC, BT, National Savings & Investment - for business to business and direct to consumer. She has held P& L responsibility for turnover upwards £10bn+, budgets £40m+, profit £250m+, teams 100+, multiple products and distribution channels in new and mature branded markets, through recessionary and buoyant market conditions.

Karen’s expertise is in forging new strategic business models, with a particular focus on applying customer targeted commercial strategies. This includes brand positioning, innovative proposition development and introducing new routes to market to access business and personal customers, through new and existing channels of distribution and partnerships and associated tender and bid management of multi-million pound deals. This is achieved whilst simultaneously increasing marketing effectiveness, reducing costs, improving customer retention and increasing sales for profitable growth.

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The Working Effectively Seminar

Nottingham - Wednesday 28 January 2009

Professional service firms are full of intelligent, experienced people capable of achieving valuable outcomes. But how often do we work together effectively and succeed in producing outcomes that are more than the sum of their parts?

Jonne Cesarani of Power & Grace (www.powerandgrace.co.uk) will outline a series of behavioural tools that you can apply in your organisation to enable teams to perform more effectively and deliver better results. Using a ‘down to earth approach that avoids psycho babble’ Jonne will help you and your firm:

  • develop a shared language and approach to problem solving – saving you time and money,
  • determine solutions and clear ownership for decisions so they get to market faster – giving you competitive advantage,
  • maintain communication, avoiding conflicts so that energy is focused on results and improving your profitability,
  • create new ideas and solutions with less effort and improved quality – increasing client satisfaction.

What is your highest priority project right now? Who are the stakeholders? How effectively do they communicate, create new ideas and make decisions? If you could help to improve their skills in these areas, what results could be achieved?

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Is the credit crunch an opportunity to build or a chance to reduce marketing and business development activity?

Bristol - Thursday 29 January 2009

For the last few months the credit crunch and looming recession has been fronting the headlines. For many it is make or break time. So how, in an economic downturn, will your organisation handle its marketing? Will it see it as a window to make cut backs or will it grasp it with both hands and carry on? What should you be focussing on? And how can we as marketers demonstrate value?

Chaired by Hamish Munro of Guildhall Chambers, PM Forum SW will put these and related questions to David Pester, managing partner at TLT solicitors, and Paul Spaven, partner in TFT building consultants, who, from a management perspective, will front a lively debate around how much the state of the economy is impacting on business development in professional services.

Hamish Munro is Chief Executive of one of the UK's largest chambers of barristers, Bristol-based Guildhall Chambers. He has spent 20 years in professional services marketing and business development with accountants BDO Stoy Hayward and lawyers Eversheds, Davies Arnold Cooper and Simmons & Simmons. He has been recognised as one of the top ten marketing directors to law firms (In Brief ). Known as a business development heavyweight, he has pioneered new approaches to knowledge-centred marketing, key account management, successful pitching and new service development.

Paul Spaven
TFT is a 120 strong business of chartered building surveyors, project managers and others totalling 120 people with a £11M+ turnover currently achieving around 30% gross profit. The business operates out of London, Kingston-upon-Thames, Guildford, Bristol, Birmingham and Cardiff.

Paul’s task is to grow the intellectual geographical and physical capabilities of the practice to serve clients’ needs across Europe. The client base is commercial property investors, developers and occupiers, together with providers of social housing, education and healthcare services. The Strategic Growth Partner role includes marketing and Paul has a London based team of three working with him – a marketing executive, internal comms/press relations manager and marketing assistant.

David Pester
"Managing partner David Pester combines “impressive management” with “a high corporate profile regionally." Chambers UK, 2008

Named 'Managing Partner of the Year' in the 2007 British Legal Awards, David is responsible for the firm's strategy and development. He is regarded by market commentators as the driving force behind TLT's exceptional growth, impressive client wins, strong financial performance and growing national reputation.

David is a corporate finance specialist and is recommended as a 'Leader in his Field' by independent guides to the legal sector, Chambers and Legal 500.

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Advanced business development

Edinburgh - Wednesday 4 February 2009

In our current economic climate it has never been more important to focus on developing business opportunities than it is today. So, how can we go about doing this in a way that is both professional and more likely to lead to the outcome we want? The purpose of this seminar is for you to leave with some proven practical ideas and techniques to help you grow business through developing professional relationships with existing clients and prospective ones.

Delegates will leave this seminar with:

  • Proven business development ideas to help increase turnover and profits
  • The ability to deliver bigger value winning pitches by saying less
  • Understanding what to say to your clients in order that they buy off you, not what you think they want to hear in order to sell to them
  • How to stand out from your competition by making sure your selling points work

We cannot guarantee that you will win every pitch or opportunity you go for, although you will be surprised at the amount that you can win after applying the points from this seminar. Using the full system one bank won 18 out of 18 pitches. The content of this seminar is proven to get results with every organisation it has been delivered to including solicitors, accountants and banks. These results have run into millions of pounds for some clients.

Stuart Powell from The Hughes Company is an accomplished business trainer and sales coach working throughout the UK with clients both within and outside of professional services. He has delivered workshops and seminars for Blue Chip companies such as BT, Camelot, Corus and Yorkshire Water to name but a few. Specialising in sales and communication skills, personal effectiveness and team development, Stuart is passionate about helping individuals and companies to optimise their individual performance whilst helping people to grow their existing business, whether he is working 1:1, delivering training workshops or presenting dynamic seminars.

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