Take a close look at your standard pitch deck, the “about us” section of your website, or your new business materials. Highlight every instance of words like “leading,” “excellence,” and “innovative.”

Your firm’s ability to capture value is dependent on its ability to effectively communicate it. Most professionals devote boundless energy to developing a superior work product but invest precious little time learning how to showcase its true value. Brilliant work doesn’t always sell itself.

If you’re frustrated by your prospective client’s desire to do an apples-to-apples comparison of agencies, there is a simple solution: stop being an apple.

Who determined the price of the car you drive, the mobile phone you use, or the software systems you use? Which internal function inside these companies made the decision about what to charge for their products or services?

In business as in war, the surest way to lose a battle is to send your troops marching in multiple directions. Military leaders know that battles are won by concentrating their forces on a clear objective.

The agencies that stand out are those who innovate and create solutions outside the confines of a client brief. They deliver proactive thinking and serve up ideas without waiting to be asked. They develop their own intellectual property and product ideas.

Have you ever had the frustrating experience of trying to execute a “multi-pronged strategy?” It never goes well for the simple reason that a strategy with multiple prongs isn’t a strategy at all — it’s just a wish list.

Do you present speculative work in new business presentations? Do you get paid for it? Do you prohibit prospective clients from using these ideas unless they hire you and then pay for it? Do you reserve the right to use unpaid-for ideas for another prospective client?

While these unstable times make it infernally difficult to forecast your fiscal year revenue, there is a set of attributes and behaviors that can help foretell your firm’s long-term success. These are leading indicators, meaning they are predictive and diagnostic — the actions and attitudes that produce outsized financial and reputational capital for your firm.

Unless your firm has a business strategy that is crystal clear to every single associate, you are likely wasting valuable resources supporting multiple competing directions.

Most agencies would say their clients are notoriously price-sensitive and obnoxiously picky about their monthly invoices. But let’s remember it’s the buyer’s job to question prices; they want to make sure they’re getting fair value for the money they’re spending with your firm.

Do you know what percentage of serious new business prospects visit your website? 100%. They all do. Because all prospective buyers of your services want to know what exactly what it is you’re selling. And although different marketers might want to know different things about your firm, they’re all ultimately looking to find one thing: expertise.

It’s been said that new business is a numbers game, but the most successful agencies would vigorously disagree. The very best in our business focus their talents in areas where they have a clear advantage and pass on everything else.

Why do formerly successful agencies experience stall-out? It’s almost always because they are busy solving yesterday's problems instead of exploring today’s opportunities.

Like food on grocery store shelves, the services offered by professional service firms have a “sell by” date. There’s no law compelling you to disclose outdated offerings, but if there were, the menu of competencies in many firms might be significantly reduced.

In business as in life, words matter. Relationships can rise and fall based on the language we use with family, friends, and colleagues. So too, the terminology we employ when talking with clients and prospects can produce powerful effects.

Have you ever read a book about pricing? For most professionals, the answer is decidedly no. The people who buy your services, however, have completed entire courses of study around pricing, purchasing, and strategic sourcing.

Have you experienced the “life-changing magic of tidying up” your home? Such is the promise and title of the book by Marie Kondo, who teaches the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing.

Are you unwittingly cultivating less committed professional relationships when you tell the people in your firm that you trust them, then put in place dozens of ways of auditing how they work and spend their time?

Do the people in your firm complain about an overwhelming number of simultaneous priorities? Does every task and client request have an ASAP attached to it?