Leveraging industry knowledge to boost your professional services career

But beyond technical and behavioural skills, qualifications and being entrenched in your advisory service, it’s empathy and understanding your client’s issues that elevate you as a professional. In the pursuit of specialisation, why is it important to also consider developing your industry expertise, and how can you gain it?

Be a differentiator

Clients approach us because they are facing specific issues – they want financial, legal, risk, investment, strategic or a range of other advice, and as experts, we need to advise them on those issues. 

To boost your career, you need to advise them in the context of their business, industries, issues and opportunities, and all-importantly by demonstrating both relevance and depth of expertise. 

Delivering a great service is no longer enough to remain competitive in the current professional services market. Through research conducted by client experience research agency, Beatons, we know that the biggest driver of brand consideration is how individuals and firms demonstrate their specialisation and experience.

This means your advice needs to be backed by solid industry knowledge and understanding, as industry experience and trust are the predominant factors impacting buying decisions. These insights allow you to you to gain and retain clients by advising them around industry changes, strength and developments, initiatives, innovation and funding. 

Your power is in contextualising relevant information within a particular industry, what regulatory changes they face, how to be on the front foot in a rapidly changing market, and how to support their strategic ambitions. As a result, you’ll add more value to their business than purely being a transactional service provider. You will become a true advisor, sounding board and driver for their organisation’s wellbeing and growth.

Driving relevance and empathy

Early exposure to industry groups within your professional services organisation will help you understand how Partners or senior staff leverage their industry connections and insights to improve client relationships. This exposure, coupled with learning transferable skills, helps you identify areas of specialisation, positively impacting your career growth. 

Once you’ve specialised, it’s important to increase your knowledge through associations, industry bodies, events and peers. You’ll foster a deep understand of what keeps your clients up at night, ensuring you create meaningful interactions that provide value to clients. 

To approach specialisation, Anika Reside, Partner in Indirect Tax, said: “From early on in my career, I became involved in Real Estate & Construction associations including the Property Council of Australia to stay across what organisations face on a day-to-day basis, learn from their operational environment, share expertise in that context and – arguably most importantly – build my network in the industry.”

And you don’t need to be at a Partner or Director level to start getting involved. Primo Danieletto, Senior Manager in Management Consulting said “Out of interest for Retail and having worked in the sector for a number of years, I signed up to relevant newsletters, joined LinkedIn groups and started getting involved in the Retail industry group and meetings within the firm. This exposure has helped me identify what kind of companies I’d like to work with more closely – and which field I’d like to become an expert in.”

By broadening your network in the industry, you can engage with clients in a more purposeful way, empathising with their processes, challenges and opportunities. Rather than needing to be across issues impacting all sectors, having a deep understanding of one industry will help you answer questions with more ease. What issues are they facing? What opportunities are out there? What’s the Government doing? What funding can they leverage?

In addition, while being a generalist often requires bringing in a broader network of experts, being a specialist allows you to tap into a narrower network of well-known, trusted, expert advisors. 
As a result, through skills development using an industry lens, your career will become more tailored to client issues, delivering more meaningful, well-rounded, quality advice and creating competitive advantage along the way. 

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