by Tony Vidler 
When it comes to practice development the owner must consider 3 general areas which drive the growth and value of the business, and each of those has some sub-sections.
The 3 areas to consider are:
Collectively, these determine how well a practice can go.
Your capacity will largely hold the keys to your business future. Capacity is determined by how you manage financial resources, how you use time, and the level of strategic clarity (or planning). Together, they are the main drivers of how much your business can do.
Technical expertise is closely involved in determining capacity, but it is not a critical element there.
Technical knowledge together with sales skills and the position you have in the market will determine what type of work, or clients, you are able to take on. That is capability.
Leverage or exponential market share growth can then be created, and that is the latent opportunity that many practices never fully realise. This combination of your marketing and positioning, together with your customer engagement processes and the prospecting systems you have developed for creating new clients is what uncovers the opportunities to do more client work and drive more revenue.
By “engagement” I am not simply referring to the initial contact or terms of business. That is part of the engagement process of course, but engagement in this sense is the entire system of how you communicate, service and interact with prospective customers and clients alike on an ongoing business to both attract nerw customers and retain existing ones.
Growing a valuable professional services business requires strategic focus upon each of these areas. Collectively they will determine ultimately what the business will achieve. So when it comes to business planning, consider breaking your thinking and planning down into the 3 core areas for business development to begin with, rather than the conventional focus on opportunity alone.
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