Expertise Marketplace - Professional Service Firm Marketing Blog

On overcommunicating

Some of you may have noticed that my blog went silent for a few weeks.  I was on a special 30th anniversary trip with my wonderful husband, and I just returned.  As with any time away from work, I had a chance to reflect on the way things are, and the way they ought to be.   

While I was away, I received a request from a client to share position specs about CMO and senior marketing jobs.  She is reorganizing her marketing structure.  On Monday, I gathered about 6 or 7 new ones that have come across my doorstep, and I forwarded them to her.  My client should be glad she has some good examples from which to build her own position specs, right?  WRONG.

Candidly, I am really disappointed at what I saw.  And concerned for the professional service firms that are hiring for these senior level functions.  They are all heavily focused on the communication aspect of marketing.  (Promote us! Build our positive visibility!  Grow awareness of how cool we are!  Create and tout our brand identity!) 

Not one of these job descriptions (from very prominent global firms, by the way) were asking their would-be CMOs to do anything about:

• Defining and identifying the most strategically important prospects / clients (i.e., segmenting the market, targeting the “right” clients, and prioritizing which clients or industries to pursue or to avoid).
• Acquiring the most strategically important prospects / clients (i.e., establishing a firm’s attractiveness, credibility and thought leadership with the “right” clients and successfully winning new engagements with those targeted prospects / clients).
• Retaining the most strategically important clients (i.e., fostering increasingly significant client / firm relationships, and successfully keeping current engagements with targeted clients).
• Increasing the firm’s amount of revenues with its most strategically important current clients (i.e., known as cross-selling in some sectors, this means increasing each current client’s use of the firm’s entire service portfolio and the firm’s penetration into that client’s available “share of wallet”).

I wanted to yell at the firms who generated these job descriptions.  "IF THESE ARE NOT THE FUNCTIONS OF A CRACKERJACK CMO, THEN WHO THE &^%$#8 IS GOING TO LEAD YOUR FIRM TOWARD SUCCESS AT THESE CRITICAL MARKETING STRATEGIES?"  Are these firms blind to the shifts underway in the marketplace?  Do they not see that successful marketing  means more than awareness building and positioning and branding?  These communication and image-oriented functions aren't bad, but they are entirely too limited for a professional firm that means to seriously compete. 

Why would any really seasoned marketer pursue these jobs?

And why aren't PSF leaders asking themselves more critical questions about who tomorrow's clients really should be, about how they will keep them and about how they will grow their business with them?  These are the kind of initiatives that they should be asking their professional marketers to lead. 

Okay, I know I have new energy from my vacation, but these appear to be significant issues.  Do help me relieve my elevated blood pressure:  if your firm has recently increased the strategic focus of its marketing function (beyond communication, that is) and has a position description to prove it, send it my way and I'll feature it on this blog (cleaned up if you'd like).  If you as a marketer have recently shifted the focus of your own role toward more of these client-focused goals, let me hear from you! 

Are we having fun yet?

I loved B.L. Ochman's recent post that marketers are not having enough fun.  Isn't it the truth!  Sometimes I think we are too harried, stretched too thin from travel, and too grim from internal political machinations in order to simply enjoy the ride. 

I interact with a lot of very successful professional service firm senior marketers and leaders.  I don't see enough spontaneous smiling and laughing.  When I do see it, oh what a relief!  One of my favorite CMOs does a great job of joshing her global marketing team members.  She's light hearted, affectionate and real.  I'm convinced this is partly why she's enjoyed her long tenure at her firm. 

I've also seen a professional firm CEO inject some fun into his very serious work.  He does it through a hilarious form of self-deprecation that instantly makes everyone relax and focus.  Clients and employees alike know it:  it's a refreshing jolt to be with him!

Of course, competition is fierce . . . the stakes are high . . . we have to be politically sensitive . . . yada . . .  yada . . .  But isn't there a place for being real, being lighter, enjoying the roller coaster thrill of business?  Are you having enough fun? 

Wanted: Brains, Guts and Glory

Since I began my career in professional services marketing twenty years ago, I've noticed a distinct swing of the function's pendulum:  from all "doing" to now a truly challenging balancing act between "doing" and "thinking."  The good news is that many of the services now highly expected from the professional firm's marketing "department," like media relations, meeting planning and client database management, have become commoditized such that they can be fairly easily outsourced -- monitored and managed by in-house Marketing staff.   And, as we saw from our study "Increasing Marketing Effectiveness at Professional Firms," conducted recently with Larry Bodine, PSFs are beginning to develop distinct frameworks around the ways that these and other marketing services can be measured. 

Ah, but what about the thinking part -- the strategic advisory services that are of critical importance to professional firms?  How can we step out of our "execution" shoes to gain critical analytic skills to assess economic shifts and business opportunities, and then to counsel our professional peers to pursue the most appropriate avenues for growth?  I just reviewed a very helpful article written by the folks at strategy + business called "Sharpening Your Business Acumen."  It's a must-read for professional services marketers.  An excerpt from the opening paragraphs follows:

• "No single aspect of managerial skill is more important. If the company’s assessment of the external landscape — how patterns of converging and diverging trends fit together — is inaccurate, the company’s strategic positioning will likely be wrong. Decision makers will be tempted to develop the wrong capabilities, hire the wrong people, or enter the wrong markets.

  Business acumen demands intense mental activity. Seeing how the landscape is evolving requires a high caliber of qualitative logic and the ability to frame, assess, discard, and adopt many assumptions at once. Because that landscape is continuously changing, the task is doubly difficult and always worth revisiting."

The authors call upon business leaders to begin NOW to practice building qualitative models of their future business environments, in order to create solutions to benefit their companies and their clients.  With practice, they say, will come new skills and judgment to make powerful strategic decisions. 

OK, but here's the dilemma:  so many marketers are so busy with the "doing" part of their roles that there is little time left -- if any at all -- to engage in this extremely important modeling.  Ultimately, though, who is best to help shape a company's future directions, if not marketers?  I believe it is imperative that you, the senior marketers and CMOs of your professional service firms, make this the purview of your jobs!  Do whatever you can to gain the skills and the judgment necessary to provide sage counsel to your professional service firm management.  If you haven't already done so, make this YOUR turf, and start building your base to lead here.  You won't own it exclusively, but it's got to be in your portfolio.

The "Sharpening Your Business Acumen" article provides a practical springboard to begin your own education and those of your professional colleagues.  I've excerpted it below, and I urge you to incorporate this framework (or something like it) into your firm's future business planning cycles.   

"One simple way to begin is by asking yourself a series of six questions, exploring the ideas with colleagues and peers:

1. What is happening in the world today?
2. What does it mean for others?
3. What does it mean for us?
4. What would have to happen first (for the results we want to occur)?
5. What do we have to do to play a role?
6. What do we do next?"

In essence, a move like this may require that you begin to reshape your colleagues' expectations of what a marketer should do in your professional firm.  Yes, you'll need to build your brains, you'll need to exercise your courage, and if you can do this, you and your firm are more likely to experience glory.

Am I preaching to the choir?  How many of my blog readers are incorporating this kind of strategic guidance into their functions, and with what results?  If you don't "own" this work, who does and how is it working? 

Marketplace Effectiveness: more fun than the alternative

I submitted a comment on David Maister's blog regarding his post on the Shoemaker's children.  Here it is:

David, you are correct in identifying “the Shoemaker’s children” as a continuing problem in professional service firms.  I think we must be careful, however, not to fall into the trap of assuming that the reasons for this situation are all negative ones. Many would have us believe that these professionals "don't care,” “are too selfish," or as you wondered, that they harbor “a hidden skepticism about the value of their own services.”  I don’t believe that people are that bad, weak, stupid, or what-have-you.

To be sure, these professionals do have the capacity to design the internal management processes and assign the appropriate people to make their firms more efficient and effective. I think, instead, that this “Shoemaker’s children” situation occurs because of a fundamental human condition:  we all like to move from being “doers” to being “thinkers.”  Simply put, professionals like to focus on other people’s problems because that’s where the fun is.  That’s where the brain inevitably goes. 

Everyone knows how much I’ve harped on the importance of professional service firms building market-driven infrastructures.  I think “the Shoemaker’s children” will be a continuing problem until these firms understand that there is real fun in competing effectively in the marketplace. 

As for the future, I think we will always see examples of “the Shoemaker’s children.” But those of us who observe the professional services industry can already see that there are firms out there that have discovered the thrill of consistently, efficiently, effectively beating their rivals in the marketplace.  I think there will be more of them, and their examples will be obvious.

CMO evaluation forms

A member of my research brain trust has asked me to help her find samples of CMO evaluation forms / guidelines / documents.  I realize these may be specific to each firm, but it’s worth a query to my readers, especially given all the recent attention to the Marketing function’s effectiveness. 

Does anyone have something they can share?  If you do, please reply to me directly at slowe@expertisemarketing.com with your attachment. 

P.S. If you prefer, we can remove labels/logos (and make sure you see what we’ve done) before we forward it to her or share it with others.

Patience is not a virtue

A CMO of a large global professional service firm was recently complimented publicly by a senior manager who extolled this marketer's patience as the leader of the firm's marketing program.  "It was really painful to hear that," the CMO said. "In fact, I am patient, and have had to be so for years."  But patience was not the hallmark that he wished for his tenure at his firm.

How about huge gains in revenue as a result of his astute marketing strategies?  How about firm wide adoption of his well-crafted brand strategies?  How about partners agreeing to measure themselves formally on their marketing and business development activities? 

This CMO's dilemma is echoed in varying forms across professional sectors and geographies.  Of course, new CMOs must bide their time as they build trust.  Of course, "tenured" CMOs know that true change takes time.  And of course, this partner's compliment about patience does reflect his affection and loyalty to his CMO. 

But make no mistake, CMOs who have to be overly patient are actually being hampered from providing their skills and experience to guide their firms toward competitive advantage.  Show me an overly patient CMO and I'll show you a firm that is more vulnerable than it should be to its competitors' moves. 

On growling and denial

My 80-year-old father-in-law has developed a wobble in his walk. He's fallen a few times in the past months, once resulting in a skinned knee and once resulting in a shoulder injury. 

So why is he resisting the idea of using a cane?  He doesn't want to admit that he needs it, even though, when pressed, he growls that he knows he is unsteady.  Meanwhile, family members anxiously exchange glances as he stumbles and falters.  Only occasionally does one of us muster up the courage to suggest that he needs a cane. 

I can't help but make the leap to the world of professional services. As I watch the sometimes tense interplay between marketers and their internal colleagues, it appears to be a similar scenario:  "We need a branding program but I can't get the executive committee to offer much more than lip service;" or "Besides me, no one wants to admit that we need to market differently."  Professionals growl, "What will we get in return if we fund this latest marketing strategy?  Why do we need to spend money on this anyway?"   

I've seen it myself.  Thoughtful and intelligent practice leaders or managing partners of professional firms that continue to underperform in the marketplace (dare I say stumble and lurch?), as 80% of 377 senior marketing leaders told us in our latest study. 

I'd wager that the leaders of some of these firms are in denial that they could navigate with much more confidence, speed and balance. In this case, "the cane" they need to rely on is a more formal market and business development infrastructure, featuring a robust marketing and selling measurement program. 

Does anyone care to comment on why so many professionals resist the infrastructure that could go so far to support their marketplace steps?   

Innovation is like an avocado

I loved reading Sergio Zyman's comments on The Innovation Illusion in the latest e-newsletter from CMO Magazine.   He hits the nail on the head when he says companies "get hung up on core competencies (what they know how to do) instead of core essence (what consumers will buy from them).  Zyman encourages us to think about the innovation issue as if it were an avocado -- a very effective metaphor, actually.

Even though he's talking here about consumer-oriented companies, his point is extremely appropriate for professional service firms as they endeavor to evolve ahead of marketplace shifts.  Yes, an increasing number of professional service firms are designating a specific innovation leader or innovation process.  But innovation, indeed anything related to developing new value propositions for clients, is still significantly under-resourced. 

I'd like to throw this question out to the CMOs who read this blog: what's your involvement in your firm's creation of new value for clients?  Is innovation stuck in a committee of retired practice leaders?  Does your firm's market research incorporate anything related to clients' unmet needs?  Is innovation being managed effectively at your firm?  What are you doing about it? 

A CEO's CMO

In the last six months, I have read numerous articles (too many to cite here) about how CMOs can increase their effectiveness.  In one of them, a retail CMO coins the term "the CEO's CMO." He says a CEO's CMO has three qualities that make the difference between a good CMO and a great CMO:

1. Knows the value chain
2. Is a disruptive innovator
3. Speaks the CEO's language

It seems to me that most professional service CMOs either know or can find out what the value chain is in their firm.  The other two traits are a bit murky.  "Disruptive innovation" feels like a buzz term coined by Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor.  The idea holds some merit, but maybe it's simply about bringing new marketing strategies to fruition before the competition.   

Similarly, "speak the CEO's language" seems like an obvious requirement for being a CMO. Being conversant in finance and economics , IT, business strategy, research, product development, etc. -- as well as, of course, the business of the firm  -- is increasingly the domain of all CMOs.   

Having said this, however, I'm intrigued by the notion that professional service firms could begin to increase the purview and the stature of their CMO position.  Certainly, professional firms increasingly need great CMOs, not just good ones.  Yet too many CMOs are still viewed as master communicators, and either aren't required to become more effective executive-suite strategic partners -- or don't insist on it.      

Does Market-driven DNA exist?

In my book Marketplace Masters, I explored the market-driven processes, policies and protocols that successful professional service firms have used to their competitive advantage.  Now I'm wondering, "What prevents professional service firms from implementing these (and other) well-documented effective approaches?" 

Over the past year, I've been struck by the amount of Marketing-oriented dysfunction that I continue to see in professional service firms, regardless of professional sector:  poor internal marketing communication; diplomatic and political ineptitude regarding garnering leaders' endorsement of marketing strategies; counterproductive and sometimes truly baffling marketing reporting relationships; not implementing client-endorsed differentiation strategies; under-resourced marketing teams; inexperienced marketing partner leadership; and more "ready-fire-aim" marketplace programs than you'd believe. 

What's going on here? 

Some of my past research findings, and the painful Marketing struggles that I've witnessed recently, suggest that for most professional service firms a true Marketing DNA is not a given, and that too little is being done to improve effectiveness in achieving substantive marketplace gains. It surprises me that so few professional service firms have taken to heart the Marketplace wake-up call they received from the recession in the early millennium.

There's something about this "DNA" issue that bears further examination. I'm intrigued by some of the content of Gary L. Neilson and Bruce A. Pasternack's new book RESULTS:  Keep What's Good, Fix What's Wrong and Unlock Great Performance (Crown:  2005).

The authors report on patterns of behavior that prevent companies from getting the results they want.  See if some of the following look familiar: 

• Passive-Aggressive (“everyone agrees, smiles, and nods, but nothing changes”): entrenched underground resistance makes getting anything done like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall
• Fits-and-Starts (“let 1,000 flowers bloom”): filled with smart people pulling in different directions
• Outgrown (“the good old days meet a brave new world”): reacts slowly to market developments, since it’s too hard to run new ideas up the flagpole
• Just-in-Time (“succeeding, but by the skin of our teeth”): can turn on a dime and create real breakthroughs but also tends to burn out its best and brightest

I'm sure we could each articulate our own versions of the behavioral DNA described above. 

It's clear that many professional firms simply don't have a market-driven DNA; they are undoubtedly driving their CMOs and senior marketing leaders crazy as a result.  It's also clear that professional  firm leaders can tap into the other naturally positive aspects of DNA of their firms, in order to develop objective, well aligned and factually supported marketing strategies.  As part of that effort, CMOs and their teams will have to expand their own personal credibility as leaders who should be listened to.  They should also be prepared to wage internal "influence" campaigns in order to harness whatever DNA they can that will help build their firms' marketplace sensibilities.