The professional services firms that succeed at cross-selling do three things well. Read on to find out what they are—and why cross-selling succeeds in some firms (and fails in most others).
By Tim Keith
Last year, when we were fully implementing Propense into several firms, I took a step back to consider what actually makes a tool like Propense successful for professional services firms: Culture and change management.
One of the biggest barriers to effective cross-selling is the pursuit of perfection. Some professional services firms delay action until every strategy, message, and internal process is absolutely flawless. It’s simply part of their culture.
But when you’re pursuing something new and transformative, is perfection really the goal? Or is it progress?
Should you aim for the best possible outcome? Definitely. But waiting until everything feels perfect can be the very thing that prevents success in the first place.
My journey with Propense has changed how I view perfection.
First, I learned that execution matters more than anything. Perfectionism becomes a weakness because when you’re trying to be perfect—without even knowing what “perfect” looks like—you delay execution. It’s only through execution that you actually learn what success looks like.
That realization didn’t fully click until last year. As we onboarded and engaged with so many professional services firms—particularly accounting firms—we reached a point where, within a year and a half, we were working with nearly 20% of the market. Over the past three years, we’ve probably talked about cross-selling more than almost anyone in the world. I’d genuinely make that bet. We’ve worked with so many firms and gone incredibly deep in the trenches with them.
Yet, until last year, I didn’t truly understand why cross-selling succeeds in some professional services firms and fails in most others. That understanding came from onboarding firms into Propense and watching where people actually engaged—and where they didn’t—despite clear wins.
Cross-selling is perceived as difficult because professionals are trained to be perfect in every aspect of their work.
In professional services, perfection is survival. If you get an audit wrong, you can get sued. If you get a case wrong, you can get sued (or even go to jail). Over an entire career, professionals are conditioned to believe that mistakes are unacceptable.
But when you’re trying to build a cross-selling culture—and that’s exactly what this is—perfectionism becomes the enemy.
Before diving into what makes a successful cross-selling program, it’s important to define what cross-selling actually is.
When most people hear “cross-selling,” they think about revenue. Growing accounts. Selling more services.
But cross-selling isn’t sales. It’s a service. Cross-selling is all about serving your clients to the best of your ability by identifying unmet needs and connecting them with the right expertise.
Cross-selling also means client retention. Most firms go all out to get new clients and show them the best possible service. Existing clients don’t always get the same treatment; not because of a lack of desire, but due to a lack of time.
Can you imagine walking into a meeting with your new client, only to find your biggest competitor is completing a project for them because they didn’t know your firm offered the same service?
It happens all the time. One of our associates put this idea to the test and asked their current clients how they discover the services their current firm offers. He found that 100% of his clients rely on the firm to tell them about the services they offer and how they can benefit from them. The kicker? If you don’t tell clients about your full range of services, they’ll look to your competitors’ websites to see what else they might be missing.
Because cross-selling is associated with sales, firms often approach it the wrong way. The most successful firms treat it as service-led, not sales-led. Sales is the outcome, not the goal.
Based on what we’ve learned, successful cross-selling comes down to two broad categories:
This piece focuses on culture. Stay tuned for a future post about technology that supports that culture (or get a head start with Propense).
The 3 Pillars of Successful Cross-Selling Culture & Change Management
A true cross-selling culture requires three core elements:
1. Leadership
Leadership must be willing to push through the friction created by perfectionism. This shows up as hesitation:
“The data might be wrong.”
“I don’t know this client well enough.”
“I don’t want to bother them.”
“They might not like this.”
“I don’t know enough about this service to introduce it to a client.” (This one is very common)
“I am not sure the client will need it, and I don’t want to appear vulnerable.”
These objections are natural, but leadership has to set the tone and say: We’re doing this because it makes us better professionals and a better firm. It won’t be perfect, and that’s okay.
Without leadership reinforcing this mindset, the culture never takes hold. We need to be vulnerable in our goal to provide the best client service possible.
Leadership can also create scripts for partners and staff who don’t know how to introduce additional services. It may be as simple as telling them a good intro might be “I was thinking about your business, and I had some thoughts about how you might improve. I want to share some thoughts. I understand they all might not fit, but I am going to err on the side of more services than you might need versus forgetting a service you do need.”
Lastly, if this is important to your firm, invest in tools for partners to narrow down potential options by size, sector, and ownership style. Take the mystery out of the partner's choices and give them more confidence in the suggestions.
2. Accountability
If you’re executing a strategy to better serve clients, there must be accountability. That means holding professionals accountable to the process, not just the outcome:
Where are we with this client?
Did we approach them about this need?
What happened?
What’s the next step?
This looks a lot like a pipeline—but one centered on service, not sales. And yes, this is especially hard in professional services, where partners are independent, own their books of business, and are singularly focused on serving their clients. Introducing centralized accountability is uncomfortable, but essential.
3. Consistency
Some firms say they lack a cross-selling process. That’s rarely true. Every firm already has processes: client intake, delivery, close-out, and ongoing engagement, often varying by practice or industry group.
The best firms don’t invent something entirely new. Rather, they embed cross-selling into existing rhythms:
Consistency creates the structure that enables leadership conversations and accountability. Without it, cross-selling becomes ad hoc and quickly dies.
In Summary
The firms that succeed at cross-selling do three things well:
When these behaviors are in place, cross-selling becomes service-led and sustainable. At Propense, we’ve seen this firsthand.
In a future Part 2 post we’ll be sharing later this year, we’ll dive into the technology side. Stay tuned to learn how the right tools reinforce and scale this culture, benefitting firms, professionals, and clients alike.