Expertise Marketplace - Professional Service Firm Marketing Blog

PSFs are breaking barriers

I just blogged about how I hope PSFs are using this downturn to address their marketing-to-selling barriers. 

Hurrah - I found one already! It's a Wall Street Journal article about an engineering firm using social networking analysis to break down organization silos.

The upside of layoffs

Layoffs have come to professional service firms. It's painful to see PSFs encounter the inevitable downsides of the economy. 

But there can be an upside: to reconfigure the enterprise's go-to-market approaches so the firm can compete more effectively in the future. (You can bet most PSFs have been marketing and selling under numerous organizational barriers that have impeded their processes, skill sets and administrative supports. That's the subject of my next book.) 

A "good" layoff should include a hard look at the way the firm markets and sells, and should feature new structural frameworks and cultural principles the firm will implement going forward. Things like a reconfiguration of everyone's shared accountabilities for marketing and selling. Things like retooled job descriptions that make marketing and selling expectations more explicit, and re-framing performance expectations. Things like a more modern functional scope for marketing and selling, or a formal professional development pathway to grow tomorrow's marketing and selling competencies. 

In this economic downturn, has your firm begun addressing its marketing and selling silos, its ineffective go-to-market practices? Please, please tell me your firms are taking this layoffs season as an opportunity to retool for the next up cycle! 

Evolving cultural DNA

For the past year, in preparation for my upcoming book The Integration Imperative, I've been writing about the challenges of integrating marketing and business development in professional- and B2B service firms. Not surprisingly, a firm's internal culture plays a large role in either impeding marketing and business development integration, or fostering it. Take a look at the January 2009 issue of my monthly newsletter series. It features a summary of the six main cultural challenges to optimally integrating PSF marketing and business development.

Like me, you probably have heard the theory that it's extremely difficult to change a firm's culture. But to my ears, "the way we do things here" too often sounds like a reason not make any efforts! Yes, culture change takes work, focus and energy. But it can -- and should -- be undertaken when marketplace leadership is at stake. And I don't think cultural DNA is as difficult and slow to change as many of us think.

I just read a Newsweek article about Darwin's theory of evolution that supports my point. Sharon Begley's article reviews the philosophical tussle between the Darwin theory -- that DNA sequences change extremely slowly, over multiple generations -- and the newly reconsidered theories of a biologist named Lamarck. Begley writes "[Lamarck's work] . . . suggests that evolution happens much faster than the Darwinian model implies." He posited that DNA can change from one generation to the next, based on the direct experience of the parents. Modern biologists are now finding evidence to back up Lamarck's theories. The article recounts numerous fascinating examples.

Whether you're interested in science or not, the evidence that biological DNA can flip from one generation to the next is a wonderful reminder that the experiences of one set of leaders in a professional services firm can be directly applied to the very next generation in that same professional services firm.

So much for the adage that an organization's cultural DNA takes a long time to change!

I'm Processing - Part 4

I just talked to a company about a potential speaking engagement for a large group of professional service firm managing partners and marketing directors. Their hoped-for topic is "professional services' consumer behavior in challenging economic times." Basically, their question is: what do professional- and B2B service firms need to understand about the way their consumers behave in a downturned economy?

Now it's no surprise that professional service buyers are increasingly sophisticated. It's certainly no surprise they are even more so in challenging economic times. Money is tight for everyone.

Don't you think, then, professional service buyers would be favorably influenced if their first encounter with a potential service provider -- being engaged in that firm's marketing and selling process -- demonstrated an extremely effective go-to-market machine? Isn't it important for a professional service firm to show evidence of its own business process acumen to its potential clients?

I'd wager the answer is a resounding yes.

Imagine the reaction of a potential buyer of management consulting services, or engineering, or executive search, or any other professional service. How many times have these decision makers received 17 copies of the same white paper, but from different practitioners within the firm? How many times have they encountered a practitioner, trying to develop business with them, who expresses surprise that someone else might have also been in contact with them? Or who spammed them with mass e-mails, even though they opted out months ago? These are tactical examples (there are a host of strategic examples too!), but you get the idea. 

If a potential professional service provider can't even manage its own marketing and business development processes optimally, it speaks volumes to decision-makers about that firm's ultimate ability to deliver excellent services. And in downturned economies, this issue is even more critical than ever. Their perception of value is -- and always has been -- of paramount importance.

Share your stories about how your firm is working to address its go-to-market processes. What's not working the way it should? How is your firm working to overcome its marketing and selling silos? How has this influenced your buyers, especially in challenging economic times?

I'm Processing - Part 3

This post is my third in a series on the topic of marketing and selling process improvement in the professional services arena. I've made points about how critical it is for PSFs and B2Bs, especially in challenging economic times, to become more effective in marketing and business development. In my research, writing and consulting, I see a multitude of ways professional service firms could improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their go-to-market processes, and how they could eliminate their organizational barriers to better collaborating and sharing accountabilities on marketing and selling.

I guess I'm not the only one thinking about this issue! I just read some news that the United States' president-elect Obama has created a new position in his administration, a "chief performance officer." His pick, a McKinsey consultant, will be tasked with eliminating wasteful processes and improving the efficiency of governmental programs. The "chief performance officer" will be a first-time position in U.S. government.

Is the idea of a "chief performance officer" (even one who is only focused on marketing and selling) too far-fetched for PSF and B2Bs?

Please write me, or comment here, about how your PSF or B2B service firm is working to improve its go-to-market processes. (Or if it's not working on this  issue, tell me why you think this has yet to happen.) What are your lessons learned?

I'm Processing - Part 2

I'm on a bit of a rant about marketing and business development process improvements in the professional services arena. My previous post was about the efforts many PSF and B2Bs are making to improve their marketing, business development and client service processes. If you have any good examples, post your comments to this blog post or send a separate e-mail at slowe@expertisemarketing.com.

Even though there are some good examples emerging about PSFs increasing their go-to-market process effectiveness, there are also some very negative process examples too. For example, I heard the other day about a 250-person professional firm (I'll cloak its industry, but it could be any professional service enterprise) whose managing partner feels compelled to have his firm respond to 100 percent of all the RFPs it receives.

Yes. 100 percent.

His business development and marketing staff people run themselves ragged trying to meet this demand, even when it's clear (even to the managing partner!) that some of the RFPs represent poor fits for their firm. The managing partner holds a philosophy of "quantity," believing that the firm must respond to every single RFP in order to maintain its revenue stream.

This firm's business developers and marketers feel strongly that their process is broken; they are overworked and under resourced, but they keep going, knowing how important it is to maintain quality in the proposals on which they work. Instead, they wish the managing partner would let them review the firm's business development process, and provide input on how to better prioritize the company's response to RFPs. They want to institute a better targeting process that features "Go/No Go" guidelines.

Is your firm's marketing and business development process broken? How? What would you do to fix it?

I'm Processing - Part 1

I'm married to a hospital administration professor, so I hear a lot about process and quality improvement in hospitals. It's an entire field, focused on the critical aspects of delivering high-quality health care services. Of course, it's easy to see why a hospital's focus on improving processes has a direct effect on saving lives and keeping people safe. It's critical!

As I've watched the way hospitals focus on improving their processes, it's gratifying to see professional- and business-to-business service companies beginning to focus on their own process improvements. PSFs' and B2Bs' focus on go-to-market process improvements can be every bit as important to their own survival.

You might say it's easier to institute new effectiveness and efficiencies in hospitals, especially if the services being delivered can be repeatable. You might say the services of many professions are simply too customized to be mapped and therefore streamlined.

I think, instead, the functions of marketing, business development and even client service delivery are ripe for a good long look at the principles of process improvement. Although I'm not saying we need to squeeze out the creativity or flexibility of marketing, business development and client service, it's clear that these functions labor under numerous preventable organizational silos.

I offer two pieces of evidence about the state of the PSF and B2B industry's thinking on these functions' process improvements. First, now that I'm putting the finishing touches on the manuscript for my upcoming book, The Integration Imperative, I can say unequivocally that there are numerous examples now emerging of professional service firms that are making strong strides toward improving their go-to-market process effectiveness. Of the book's 11 case studies about how PSFs and B2Bs are integrating marketing and business development, five cases are about process.

As a second example, take a look at this article showing the work of the Legal Sales and Services Organization (LSSO). LSSO has created a certification program for process improvement in law firms and legal departments. The article gives you a sense of the scope of the process issues that any professional or B2B service firm could work on.

Especially now, with marketplace effectiveness such a critical issue, ask yourself how well your professional firm is doing at implementing its marketing and selling processes. Could your firm be more efficient, more effective?

I'll bet it could.

Share your process improvement successes -- and failures -- with me, either here as a blog post comment, or as a separate e-mail to slowe@expertisemarketing.com.