Expertise Marketplace - Professional Service Firm Marketing Blog

How to be an outstanding professional services CMO, Part 2

Here is Part 2 of my 4-part series of observations about Egon Zehnder International's recent Executive Briefings for Chief Marketing Officers. I'll publish parts three and four separately in the coming weeks.

(You can download the 3-page report here. Download G__CMO Practice_2010 IP_CMO Brief #2 (2). Check out page 2 for background on the report's findings.)

I heartily endorse the report's point that outstanding CMOs effectively "introduce new models that successfully transform existing businesses or create new businesses, fundamentally improving the way the company or industry operates."

But does this phenomenon occur in professional service firms (PSFs)?

I've begun seeing evidence of it, especially among sectors that are fairly commoditized, and/or undergoing significant marketplace transitions. The most obvious example is the accounting sector.

Increasingly, we are seeing how greater public scrutiny (Arthur Andersen regarding Enron, and now Ernst & Young regarding Lehman Brothers), as well as continuing encroachment from a host of business consulting firms, has pushed accounting firms to take a hard look at their value propositions, differentiation strategies, positions versus their rivals, and brand promises to clients. 

You can bet the senior-most marketers of these firms are at the forefront of their enterprises' decisions about these issues. It's no accident that PricewaterhouseCoopers has just rebranded itself as PwC, that Grant Thornton initiated a highly successful advertising campaign a few years ago, or that GT's move was followed by BDO's. We'll see Ernst & Young robustly respond to the lawsuit against it. But I wager we'll also see an eventual marketing strategy shift, too. 

What will it take for a PSF CMO to truly "transform" his or her firm? To "fundamentally improv[e] the way the company or industry operates?" And to become outstanding? 

Outstanding professional service firm CMOs will help their firms get serious about their most competitively advantageous marketing strategies (and I'm not talking about simply adopting digital marketing) and differentiated value propositions in the marketplace. 

They will use rigorous analysis (as I said in Part 1 of this series) as a driver of change. 

How to be an outstanding professional services CMO, Part 1

I received a copy of the second installment in a series of Executive Briefings for Chief Marketing Officers based on recent research conducted by Egon Zehnder International involving several hundred senior marketing executives at more than 300 companies worldwide.

The focus of the research was "What differentiates today’s outstanding CMOs from good ones?" The key findings: outstanding CMOs outperform good CMOs most notably in two areas: results orientation and change leadership.

Here's a download of the 3-page report. Download G__CMO Practice_2010 IP_CMO Brief #2 (2)

(There are succinct descriptions on page 2 about how Egon Zehnder International describes the results orientation and the change leadership of an outstanding CMO.)

Of course, professional service firm (PSF) marketers will want to hear my thoughts on this report. (!!) I've broken down my observations into four parts, which I'll publish separately in the coming weeks. This post is my first of the four parts.

I love the point about how outstanding CMOs use "robust analysis and benchmarking." In bigger PSFs, this practice is beginning to happen, especially among enterprises that have gone public. But in anything less than the biggest firms, "robust analysis and benchmarking" are not happening.

Why?

The private corporate structures of most PSFs makes it very hard for CMOs to get any comparative data from rivals, much less their potential and current clients. Most partnership-oriented PSFs operate as confederations of individuals, each watching out for his or her own bottom line rather than envisioning the collective benefits of funding firm-wide initiatives. With partner mindsets like that, even the most respected senior marketers have had a hard time convincing their firms of the necessity for funding substantive market research.

Nevertheless, this Egon Zehnder Executive Briefing correctly underscores the importance of solid fact-based market, competitor and client analysis.

The sooner professional service firm CMOs can begin building substantive data sets from which objective analysis can be undertaken, the better.

And the more likely they will become outstanding.

Reputation versus brand: What this debate says about professional service firm marketing strategy

"Reputation Warfare," in the December 2010 Harvard Business Review, gives professional service marketers a chance to discuss the meaning behind the words "reputation" and "brand." Are they the same, different -- or do they overlap?

I think they overlap.  But some seasoned marketers believe you cannot separate a firm's reputation from its brand. (Take a look at Arthur Andersen, they say. Its reputation -- and brand -- were destroyed once revelations about its Enron business practices came to light.) 

Others believe a firm's brand is not the same as its reputation. They argue that "reputation," meaning the marketplace's confidence in your firm's ethics, honesty, trustworthiness, and quality services, is the core bedrock of any professional firm's ability to do business. These principles sit "below" the brand, which is about a set of attributes and characteristics which must be unique to each professional firm.

To me, these variable opinions are another indication of the increasing maturation of the professional services arena. And it may take a threat, as "Reputation Warfare" author Leslie Gaines-Ross says, in the form of "small-scale antagonists: dissatisfied customers, disgruntled employees—virtually anyone with a personal computer and an ax to grind" to force professional service firms to grow in sophistication about exactly where reputation ends and brand begins.

To see the difference, let's consider Miller Lite's classic brand promise: "tastes great, less filling." Are those promises exactly the same as honesty, ethics, and high-quality beer production processes? I say "No." 

Of course, people do want to rely on the ethics and quality production that results in "tastes great, less filling." But consumers do not instantly question the company's production processes or reputation when they distinguish "tastes great, less filling" from their other beer choices. "Tastes great, less filling" are attributes that separate it from its rivals. That's what a good brand strategy must do, even for professional service firms.

Professional service marketers, ask yourselves: are your firm's brand attributes distinct and separate enough from your firm's bedrock business principles of trustworthiness, honesty and quality? 

If not, watch out. You may be in the same boat as Arthur Andersen, whose brand couldn't stand a significant hit to its reputation. Right now, you should take a hard look at your brand strategy. Get started today to build greater uniqueness into your firm's brand attributes.