From the boardroom to the client meeting, professional services firms thrive on confidence.
Confidence is built in preparation, yet knowledge gaps can inhibit and undermine that confidence.
It is the theme of the PM Forum’s annual conference on 7 October 2026 in London. We have brought together two of the conference keynote speakers – Ruxandra Radulescu and Alastair Beddow – to give an insight into what delegates can expect.
You are not born with confidence
We are not born with confidence. It is often misconstrued as a personality trait, observable in an individual’s voice, demeanour or willingness to engage in particular situations, writes Ruxandra Radulescu.
My chosen field, decision neuroscience, offers a more useful and nuanced explanation: our brain is continuously estimating whether the evidence supporting a decision we need to make is sufficiently reliable to warrant action. Confidence is that estimate. It is not certainty, and certainly not optimism. It is a forecast. And because it is a forecast, it relies on data.
This makes the idea that ‘confidence is preparation’ more literal than it would first appear, because preparation changes what the actual forecast is based on. It replaces assumption with knowledge and makes possible problems more familiar. In effect, it gives us a greater range of responses when events do not unfold as expected. It cannot guarantee that a decision will be right, but it can make the confidence behind it considerably less fictional.
The same idea applies to companies. A business cannot truly be confident just by using the right words if its market position is based on internal opinions instead of outside evidence, if its strategy is unclear to the people who need to carry it out, or if it promises more than it can deliver. These issues may show up as communication problems, but they start with a lack of preparation.
When companies lack this preparation, the results are evident. At Within International, we see this often. We always start by diagnosing before we create. For the past 20 years, we have worked on the business and creative challenges that shape how professional services firms grow, behave and are perceived and understood. Clients sometimes describe the process and results as ‘magic’ or ‘witchcraft’. But we know that what looks effortless is really the result of careful preparation: business knowledge, neuroscience and creativity all working together from the start.
Business gives us evidence of whether an idea has real commercial value. Neuroscience reveals how people will interpret it, how pressure or group dynamics might affect their judgement, and when something familiar feels more reliable than it should. Creativity shapes these ideas so they can be considered, understood and used. These are not three consecutive stages. Each changes the quality of the others.
The marketing leaders we work with are among the few people in a firm whose roles cross this entire territory. They encounter changing client needs, contribute to strategic decisions and shape how those decisions are understood externally. This places marketing where evidence from the market, judgement within the firm and expression meet. It gives marketing a clear responsibility in preparing the firm to meet the market: bringing external evidence into strategic decisions ensuring that the confidence the firm projects is supported by the quality of its thinking and its ability to deliver.
In practice, that means testing whether a new idea matters outside the firm and tracing every promise back to something the organisation can deliver. Marketing should not simply translate the business for the market; it should use its understanding of the market to improve the business.
This rigorous preparation is more critical now than ever. Artificial intelligence can make an untested idea sound complete. The fluency of the language can create a premature sense of resolution, allowing a firm to become comfortable with an expression of confidence while the underlying tension remains unresolved. As it becomes easier to sound confident, the real difference will be between firms that seem prepared and those that truly are.
A prepared firm knows its market, understands what supports its decisions, and has thought about how to respond when things do not go as planned. Marketing turns this real substance into something clients can see and trust.
What clients experience as confidence is actually preparation made visible. ■
Ruxandra Radulescu is CEO of Within International, an advisory and creative firm working with organisations whose growth depends on credibility.
The rise of the confident firm
Confidence is now a firm’s sharpest edge, explains Alastair Beddow.
In a rapidly changing market, what gives professional services firms, their leaders, fee earners and business services teams confidence? What sets those firms who have turned complexity and uncertainty into growth opportunities apart from those who have struggled to adapt? What signals suggest firms are well placed to succeed in the coming years as the pace of change continues to intensify?
My keynote at this year’s PM Forum annual conference will respond directly to the conference’s theme of frontline confidence by exploring these questions and more. I will draw on insights from nearly 15 years of Meridian West and PM Forum research, and our annual collaborative industry research, the Strategy and Marketing Benchmark, to explore what factors have brought us to 2026 and what trends we can expect to see through the remainder of this decade and beyond.
When I think about confidence in a professional services context, I think of a firm that has a clear point of view and is willing to state it plainly. I think of a firm that knows the kinds of clients it wants to work with, and how it wants to work with them. I think of a firm that isn’t afraid to take difficult decisions about growth, talent development, client experience or its economic delivery model.
However, confidence is most authentic when it is experienced, not just stated.
A confident firm projects expertise, capability and wisdom to the market. But in today’s market, expertise is no longer scarce. Sophisticated AI tools, larger in-house teams and a crowded field of capable competitors have commoditised what was historically a point of differentiation for many firms. This means firms need to find new ways to project confidence to the market authentically. Today’s confident firm focuses on client experience, employee development and developing a clear perspective on the issues that matter.
In my keynote I will explore the routes that successful firms are taking to foster, project and grow that confidence as well as how they are turning confidence into a strategic asset – and an increasingly measurable one. The benefits of firm confidence are undisputed. Confident firms enjoy stronger win rates on competitive pitches and higher client loyalty, a stronger internal cultural and employee retention, and greater financial and operational resilience. Confident firms are better positioned to respond to the unexpected market forces of tomorrow.
During the conference keynote you can expect practical examples and case studies drawn from across the professional services landscape in the UK and around the world. I will walk through the shifts we’re seeing in the data, then work through a short interactive diagnostic live. You will leave with a clearer understanding of what confidence looks like within your own firm, how to identify the gaps in your firm’s current approach, and the opportunities for growth, brand enhancement and client development you may be leaving on the table.
The rise of the confident firm isn’t a trend you should be watching from the sidelines. It is a fundamental shift that is quickly reshaping which firms succeed in our industry today and for the future. This session is about helping you make sure your firm is on the right side of this trend, and I hope you’ll be able to join me on 7 October as we unpack this together and search out answers to the question of what gives firms confidence in today’s rapidly changing market. ■
Alastair Beddow is the Managing Director of Meridian West and a respected commentator and adviser on the strategic and commercial issues impacting professional services and B2B firms
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