5 takeaways from the TGS Madrid 2023 Conference

Increasing sustainable profitability for professional service firms

Do you lie awake at night strategizing about how to become the professional service firm of the future?  

Maybe you wonder how to increase profitability and to become a more attractive firm for clients and staff. These are the questions we try to address and answer with our members in each TGS conference. 

70 participants from 27 countries met for the TGS conference in Madrid for an intensive day-and-a-half to share best practice, network and generate referral business. Each participant is now one step (or two steps!) closer to being a more profitable, future-focused and attractive firm. 

TGS has a 5-step improvement process to help our members become a more competitive professional firm thanks to their network membership. Here are 5 key takeaways from Madrid 2023 that highlight our approach to helping member firms network to success. 

One: Have you moved from a compliance to an advisory mindset? 

As a TGS member, the TGS Quality team analyse data about your firm through our TGS Quality Process. We then benchmark your quality against other TGS members (and your competitors) and give you recommendations for improvement. Every year. 

In Madrid 23, TGS launched the beta-version of the TGS Lab Process. This is a diagnostic and advisory tool that TGS members can use directly with their clients. 

In a similar way to the TGS Quality Process, your clients will benefit from an overview of their firm and you will be able to recommend improvement actions and generate new, high value business from your clients. Every year.

The TGS Lab Process includes data about People, Profit, Planet and Leadership and as such is a massively more holistic approach than standard audit and advisory services. Your clients will gain a good idea how their business is affecting society and the environment. They will be happy to be able to do more good as they make more profit.

This is also going to be a more and more useful tool to help your clients prepare for non-financial reporting requirements that are quickly becoming more numerous and more exacting.  

TGS helps you become Future proof, to future-proof your clients, to secure Future profits and make sure Future staff are satisfied and stay with you. 

Two: Are your team Leading Effectively? 

We can often think we are a great leader and promote our technically brilliant team members to leadership roles. Few of us are trained to excel in leadership positions and even fewer of us work regularly on our leadership capabilities. 

It does not take much to increase your leadership skills and you will experience vast improvements with small changes. You can read about how to get fit in a magazine but you will not actually become fitter by simply reading. It’s the same with Leadership. 

TGS conferences are like a gym for developing your business management skill muscles. We’ve been working with Jason to bring TGS member firms up to speed with Sales, Development and Leadership skills. 

As with all TGS inspirational conference events, we follow up with online training sessions to make sure that your conference takeaways become quantifiable improvements. 

Reach out to Andrew if you would like yourself(and your key management team) signed up for our TGS U sessions about leadership empowerment. 

• Make sure you ARE more of a leader each day.
• Make sure you build on what you KNOW about the leadership of your firm.
• Make sure you are disciplined in doing what you need to DO to lead your firm and your teams. 

Three: Are you frustrated with your network membership? 

Members of a traditional network can feel like a frustrated passenger who has to follow what is laid down by the network. You buy-in to a network and you are told what to do. It’s not a good fit for entrepreneurs. 

TGS members have the unique opportunity to become shareholders of the network. More than half the TGS members are currently shareholders and are directly involved in the governance and strategy of the network. TGS is run by and for its entrepreneurial members. 

In Madrid, Fabrizio gave a thrilling and clear presentation of his development plans as TGS Board Member and TGS Regional Leader Africa. We’re about to paint Africa orange, we’re doing it together and we’re doing it now. 

There is currently a TGS team in place at the African Congress of Accountants (@ACOA) on the Ivory Coast where we are meeting representatives from every country in Africa. 

Follow our Linkedin profile for more examples of how TGS members are active in the strategy and success of the network. 

Four: How actively and effectively are you marketing, selling and delivering your services? 

Professional service firms have traditionally been simply producing services for a captive client base who have obligations to comply with regulations. Many professional bodies even preclude the possibility to advertise accounting, auditing or legal services. This is no longer the case.

The temptation (and easiest path) for communication with potential clients is to talk about yourself, how good you are, how qualified you are and what services you offer. However, it’s not about you. Your clients are not thinking about you. They are thinking about their problems and objectives. 

Heather and Ellie from Beesting Digital hosted an inspirational workshop about building effective content strategies for professional service firms. The workshop was based around the PASOS model which starts from your potential client’s ‘pain’, describes how your firm will solve that problem and what the firm will look like after they have worked with you. 

Again, reach out if you would like your key development team member signed-up for our TGS U sessions about content strategy. 

Five: Are you effectively increasing your business through your network membership?  

Networking is a skill that can be learned. TGS has a ‘network to success’ mindset where we are constantly thinking how the work we do can help TGS member firms maximize their investment in TGS. We provide go-to-market frameworks that help members benefit from the brand, the network and the connections we (and other members) have. 

The final workshop of Madrid 23 was about bringing the conference topics together to use the power of a recognised international network to gain institutional recognition. One-to-one networking at a conference is good but one-to-many networking through presentations to super-referrers is exponentially better. 

If you would like to see this in action, follow our Linkedin profile and register for our global conference in Miami from the 9th to 10th November. 

In Miami, we will be showing how we took the TGS Lab Process diagnostic and advisory toolkit, created client-friendly content around it, presented this to super-referrers such as the European Commission, banks and professional bodies who in turn presented the service to many, many potential clients. 

TGS is the professional service network, owned by you, that helps your firm grow profitably and sustainably. 

Our mission statement was aspirational when it was created 10 years ago. Now we do what we say. The next TGS Talks podcast will have a full rundown of conference takeaways and feedback from member firms about how the network is helping them achieve profitable and sustainable growth. 

Follow the TGS LinkedIN profile to be informed when Peter and Andrew will be talking about how Madrid 2023 was a network to success for TGS member firms. 

Join us in Miami to benefit from our go-to-market frameworks for success and to become part of the future strapline as TGS takes a jump in quality and a jump into the future. 

What will your firm and your network look like in 2033?

Listen to Andrew and Peter discussing some of the key takeaways from the Madrid conference: