McKinsey & Co "2/4/8" and no Marketing Department
Adam Lewis, a Director and the Managing Partner of the Australian and New Zealand practices of McKinsey & Company, was one of my co-presenters at the World Masters of Law Firm Management last week, in Sydney.
Adam told us a number of fascinating things about McKinsey, one of the premium consultancies in the world. Among them were two gems:
1) McKinsey & Company has no internal marketing department. (Why not? Because the consultants themselves market the firm.)
2) 2/4/8. Every Director in the firm is required to be working on "2" assignments, be in the process of proposing for "4" more, and in communication with "8" more prospective clients.
Management within McKinsey follows up to ensure that "2/4/8" is a reality.
Some superb marketing professionals in some extraordinary law and accounting firms confided in me that if their fairy godmother granted one wish it would be that their "professionals" would interact with clients beyond just doing the work.
It sounds like McKinsey's "2/4/8" means that the fairy godmother has already visited McKinsey & Company.
Neat mnemonic, but what's it say about McKinsey's strike rate?
I don't think that McKinsey is worried about the strike rate. The strike rate simply illustrates the shape of ones "sales funnel". McKinsey seems to rather focus on the flow of prospects through the funnel.
McKinsey's statement implies to me that 2 active accounts is close to or the practical limit for one consultant. Therefore if the consulting resources are somewhere between 51%-100% deployed, they have four choices:
1) cut down marketing activities to deliver "product",
2) hire more consultants,
3) hire marketing to relieve consulting constraint, or
4) turn away new business opportunities.
I'd love to know how they plan to grow business.