Over the past years, knowledge-intensive industries have gained significant importance as economic factor, giving rise to professional service firms (PSFs) such as law firms, accounting firms, or consultancies. Following this development, the research interest especially in the strategies pursued by PSFs has grown substantially. However, past research focused mainly on strategies of established, mature PSFs, leaving academics as well as potential entrepreneurs without guidance on what newly founded, entrepreneurial PSFs should pay attention to in order to ensure lasting competitive advantages. Based on an explorative grounded theory analysis of two outstanding commercial law firm spin-offs in Germany, this work advances the research in this field. In addition to a detailed case study report, it offers a comprehensive theoretical framework and argues that PSFs have to employ a set of seven specific entrepreneurial strategies – including for example service delivery, people development, and client acquisition strategies – in order to successfully manage the entrepreneurial phase. In providing examples for the growing PSF industry, the findings on commercial law firm spin-offs also inform entrepreneurship research in other professions

Professional service firms differ from other business enterprises in two distinct ways: first they provide highly customised services thus cannot apply many of the management principles developed for product-based industries. Second, professional services are highly personalised, involving the skills of individuals. Such firms must therefore compete not only for clients but also for talented professionals. Drawing on more than ten years of research and consulting to these unique and creative companies, David Maister explores issues ranging from marketing and business development to multinational strategies, human resources policies to profit improvement, strategic planning to effective leadership. While these issues can be complex, Maister simplifies them by recognising that 'every professional service firm in the world, regardless of size, specific profession, or country of operation, has the same mission statement: outstanding service to clients, satisfying careers for its people and financial success for its owners.'

"Troy Waugh—'the rainmakers' rainmaker'—has provided a well-designed blueprint for selling professional services that skillfully draws upon his more than thirty years in the field. This practical, highly focused guide to the selling process can help our firms achieve sales successes measured not only by effort but also by bottom-line results." —Howard B. Allenberg, vice chairman and CIO, BDO Seidman, LLP Finally, peerless focus on how to break into all aspects of the selling process and the currents of relationship and buyer development. Learn how to build your personal and firm business more successfully. Covers the process of relationship and buyer development. Provides proven strategies from hundreds of the world's successful firms. Order your copy today!

An innovative approach to winning more profitable sales in the growing professional services industry In recent years, professional services providers have had to rethink their sales methods and adapt to profound changes in the way clients buy services. In response, Winning the Professional Services Sale argues for fundamental changes in the seller's mindset and sales strategies. Rather than pressing the sale, salespeople must help clients buy--the way that works best for each client. This new approach gives buyers what they now want in a services seller: a consultative problem solver, change agent, and solution integrator, all rolled into one. Author Michael McLaughlin presents a strategy for winning new business with a holistic approach to each client relationship. Only by fully understanding a sale from every angle, including its impact on the client's business and career, can salespeople thrive in the new era of the service economy.

Over the past three decades the Professional Service Firm (PSF) sector has emerged as one of the most rapidly growing, profitable, and significant in the global economy. In 2013 the accountancy, management consulting, legal, and architectural sectors alone generated revenues of US$ 1.6 trillion and employed 14 million people. PSFs play an important role in developing human capital, creating innovative business services, reshaping government institutions, establishing and interpreting the rules of financial markets, and setting legal, accounting and other professional standards. The study of PSFs can offer insights into the contemporary challenges facing organizations within the knowledge economy, and deepen understanding of more conventional organizations. Despite their significance, however, PSFs have until recently remained very much in the shadows of organizational and management research. The Oxford Handbook of Professional Service Firms marks the coming of age of PSF scholarship with a comprehensive and integrative exploration of current research and thinking on PSFs, featuring contributions from internationally renowned scholars in the fields of organizational and management studies. It is divided into three distinct sections - the professions, the firms, and the professionals that work within them - and covers subjects from governance and leadership to regulation, entrepreneurship, and diversity. Bringing together a broad range of empirical and theoretical perspectives, the Handbook offers many potentially important insights into the contemporary challenges of organizations in the knowledge economy and suggests new lines of inquiry that may shed further light on the activities and performance of PSFs and the professionals who work within them.

ÔProfessional service firms are critical agents of contemporary economies and understanding them has become a central focus of recent scholarship. This very timely and well organized Handbook brings together several leading scholars who explore how we might think and theorize about professional service firms and their entrepreneurial behaviours. The Handbook will become a key source for the growing community of researchers in this area.Õ Ð Royston Greenwood, University of Alberta, Canada ÔFor too long, both researchers and practitioners have presumed that professional service firms follow the status quo when they should better understand how these professionals set the rules for globalization. This Handbook reminds us that professionals are as much the shock-troops of capitalism as the multinational corporations that they serve. As this Handbook shows, the leading firms successfully compete with each other by fostering entrepreneurship and innovation in order to service an institutional system that undergirds the international economy.Õ Ð Christopher McKenna, University of Oxford, UK Professional services are increasingly seen as an important foundation for future economic growth and prosperity. Yet research on innovative and entrepreneurial processes in professional services has been surprisingly scarce. This Handbook provides a collection of original contributions from leading scholars outlining the current stock of knowledge in the area as well as providing directions for further research. The expert contributors discuss entrepreneurship and innovation from a number of different perspectives, including the entrepreneurial professional team, the entrepreneurial firm and the institutional environment. The first part of the book looks at the challenges of entrepreneurship specific to the professional service firm while the second explores the creation and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities in the professional service team. Part III turns to the organization and Part IV to the management and growth of the entrepreneurial professional service firm. The final part discusses the interplay between professions, firms and the institutional environment. Researchers, scholars and PhD students in the areas of entrepreneurship and professional service firms along with advanced students of management will find this volume of great value.