In this episode, John is joined by Adrian Hands, an experienced sales leader who has spent more than three decades in roles across technology, SaaS, media and e-commerce. Adrian now works as part of Positive Momentum, a group of seasoned consultants who run their own practices while sharing support, tools and common ways of working under the Positive Momentum umbrella.

Growth comes up frequently in John’s conversations with professional services leaders because balancing client delivery with maintaining a healthy pipeline is a challenge most firms never fully solve. In this conversation, Adrian brings a refreshingly down-to-earth approach to a challenge that can often feel harder than it needs to be.

They discuss:

• What Adrian calls “bloody good questions” and why the quality of discovery
• conversations determines the quality of everything that follows
• The simple weekly habit Adrian uses himself: five non-live prospect conversations every week, or what he calls “coffee to cash” conversations
• How to make selling more systematic and build a genuine growth engine in a professional services firm
• Where even the best-designed growth approaches come unstuck because human beings are involved
• The Positive Momentum model and why it offers a genuinely interesting alternative to traditional consulting firm structures

If you are leading a professional services firm and wrestling with how to keep the pipeline healthy without compromising the quality of your client work, this episode is well worth your time. If you enjoy conversations like this, follow the show so you do not miss future episodes.

Host: John Howard, Partner at Garwood Growth
Guest: Adrian Hands, Positive Momentum