JSU / Playbooks / Professional Services
How to price your Pro Services sales bottleneck
Run the same math as the JSU Bottleneck Index on your own Pro Services numbers in three steps.
The Professional Services bottleneck prices a single question: what does it cost you per year to be slow and unfocused at first contact? For a typical firm it is around $384,000.
The formula
Annual bottleneck = average deal value × winnable deals lost per quarter × 4. For Professional Services, that is $48,000 × 2 × 4 = $384,000.
Run it on your real numbers
The published figure is representative. Take your own average deal and your honest quarterly loss to slow and generic follow-up. First credible call wins.
- A target hires or loses a key executive
- A funding round or acquisition forces new compliance
- A regulatory deadline nears an unprepared firm
- A competitor raises rates or loses a partner
Then decide if it's worth closing
Once you have your number, compare it to the cost of fixing speed and aim at first contact. In professional services, the leak is almost always the larger figure.
Remember what each variable really represents. The $48,000 is one pro services relationship walking out the door. The 2 losses a quarter are not no-fits; they are deals you could have won had you reached the buyer inside the 2 business days window. Multiply by four and you have a full year of revenue that went to whoever simply answered first. That is the figure to price your fix against.
The bottleneck is rarely effort. It is speed and aim at the first touch.
What does being the second call cost a services firm?
At a $48,000 average engagement, two lost engagements a quarter is $384,000 a year. The first credible expert in the room usually wins the mandate.
Which signals predict a need for outside expertise?
Leadership changes, funding events, audit cycles, and regulatory deadlines at unprepared firms.