Expertise Marketplace - Professional Service Firm Marketing Blog

Breaking Out of Old Patterns

I'm about to publish my new book, The Integration Imperative. It's full of examples about how professional service firms (PSFs) are successfully breaking out of old patterns to improve their marketing and selling effectiveness. But I'm always mindful of their traditional cultures. Most PSFs (and many B2B service firms) were built from a partnership structure. Consensus is respected.  

Consider now the article "How to be Indispensable at Work," by Martin Lindstrom, in this past week's Parade magazine.  Lindstrom urges workers to brand themselves, and gives them five fantastic tips to do so. 

As a practitioner in your firm's architecture, accounting, law, or management consulting firm (or other professional sectors), how much encouragement are you getting to define who you are (and who you aren't), become well-known for one thing, or to communicate your personal brand?  Are you being encouraged to create a signature look, or to leave behind your own personal mark? 

The answer is likely you're not.  And, as Simon Philips points out in one of his recent blog posts, copycatting is also rampant at the organizational level.  Then what happens?  Competitive parity.

To build on the copycat theme, I just discovered a wonderful article, written in 2002 by Mark Bonchek, called the "Innovation Imperative." He points out that professional service firms actually discourage the creation of new service offerings.

What's really going on here?

Take yourself back to those days when you were an insecure adolescent. Remember the sheer panic of standing out?  The desperate need to be accepted?  Something like this must occur in a professional firm. Practitioners become more interested in what colleagues think than what clients think.  They become the very thing they must not -- dispensable -- as they work to impress their colleagues, performing to their standards, rather than listening to the marketplace or to clients.

What will it take for professional firms to make themselves indispensable to clients, to stand out from their copycat competitors, or to innovate ahead of the marketplace?

In my book, I found examples of professional firms whose managers understand the imperative to build the "right" revenues, grow meaningful marketshare, and increase their firms' real value to clients.

All I can say is: They have dared to do things differently.

My "fight" with Ford Harding

About 18 months ago, Ford Harding and I had a "fight."

Well, we agreed to disagree in public, in advance. 

Our disagreement was real; it was our bickering that was trumped up. Once we got started, we both got into it with spirit and good humor, and had fun doing it.  We were hoping we could stimulate some important discussion. We didn't really get any comments on our blogs. But recently I learned there had been a significant amount of behind-the-scenes chatter about our "tiff."

People thought we didn't like each other.

Today, Ford and I are laughing about this. But we are also a bit surprised that our "fight" would be remembered, not the points we were trying to make. 

Cyberspace conversations do indeed take on a life of their own, even if it doesn't appear that way at first. I knew this, intellectually, but even I was surprised by perceptions I never thought we could set in motion.

People are naturally intrigued by "public" disagreement. While Ford and I may have been unsuccessful at stimulating conversation in the blogosphere, we certainly did so in people's real lives.

What does this situation say about the power of opposition?  By expressing our opposing views, can we help others learn, clarify their own perspectives, or make changes? Could expressions of alternative perceptions actually be useful to marketers and business developers? 

Could we use our unique viewpoints to help break down the silos that exist in professional firms' marketing and business development?  

Differentiation in professional service firms

I'm often asked to provide examples of professional service firms whose differentiation strategies are visible -- that are manifested, instead of merely messaged. 

I found another one, this time in the management consulting sector. It's AlixPartners, profiled in the January/February 2009 issue of Consulting Magazine.  Fred Crawford, the firm's CEO, states AlixPartners has "no junior-level people." According to Crawford, the firm's entry-level profile is five years in industry, a master's degree and five years in consulting.

What a perfect example of an operationally-supported "only!" 

Getting on the B2B Brandwagon

Harvard's John Quelch offers a summary of his study regarding B2B brands, on his Harvard Business Online blog post here.  His post, titled "How to Build a B2B Brand," cites five characteristics of leading global B2B brands.   They are:

1. The CEO is a willing brand cheerleader, loves the brand heritage and is a great storyteller. The CMO sees his or her purpose as helping the CEO achieve this role.

2. The CEO understands that building brand reputation reduces commercial risk, insulates the company in a crisis and provides the common purpose that can bond all the company’s stakeholders.

3. Efforts are focused on a single, global corporate brand rather than individual product brands.

4. The payback on marketing expenditures is measured rigorously to the satisfaction of the hard-nosed engineers and finance staff who run the typical B2B enterprise.

5. Coordination of company websites worldwide to present a consistent face to stakeholders is the best way to get control of marketing communications that may have become too decentralized.

I'm thrilled to see this conversation, and I added to the discussion in my own comment.  In essence, I said:

1. The earlier adopters of global brand strategies, like Accenture, will enjoy the "ownership" of brand promises, making it harder for other global B2B brands, especially in the same or tangential sectors, to own  brand promises that are even slightly similar.  As B2B and professional service firms increasingly jump on the Brandwagon, developing a valuable differentiation strategy will become critical. 
2. Accenture is nearly singular in its devotion of a significant level of resources (time, money, longevity of effort, etc.) to promulgate its brand message.  I haven't seen many firms devote quite as much focus to brand building as has Accenture.  Not that other firms aren't trying. I recently described in my monthly newsletter, The Marketplace Master, how leading accounting firm Grant Thornton has grown awareness of its own brand promise through a steadily increasing advertising budget; an initiative that has resulted in a corresponding increase in revenues.

What other B2B or professional service firms do you think are branding leaders?  How unique is their brand promise, especially from the brand promise of their competitors?  Who's putting a lot of effort into global branding? 

I'm tracking others' insights - on Value Propositions and Differentiation

A tip of my hat to Brian Sommer for his Services Safari blog, which has a focus on "improving professional services." 

He's got three great posts that all address the links between a firm's distinctiveness, client-perceived value, competitive advantage, and targeted marketplace focus.   Each one has a unique angle:

• Resurgence in Big 8 - Sommer comments on a CFO Magazine table that outlines revenue and staff shifts in accounting firms from 2001 and 2006.  Regarding the table's data on revenue per professional, he remarks:  "Buyers of these services should question though the real value they get from an audit staffer billing out 3-6+ times their fully burdened cost though. I’m not convinced that true value is accruing to the clients and that these costs are appropriate."   Brian, you're looking at the power of well-conceived and well-implemented branding to drive pricing UP!
• What Do Clients Want / Like?  - Here's a real gem for marketing leaders trying to find a way to start a conversation with colleagues about analyzing clients' emerging needs and satisfaction.  Referring to a graphic in Global Services magazine, Sommer says it "shows that offshoring is more satisfactory to executives than outsourcing while the latter is used more frequently."  He concludes, "More consultancies should survey their client base like Bain did if only to find out what clients want and how well their services are satisfying clients."  I think I've died and gone to heaven!  And what if these consultancies and other professional service firms went further than that, and also analyzed the relationship of satisfaction to profit margins, and then to innovation opportunities?  Someone get me the smelling salts.
• Building Moats Around Service Firms -- Sommer unveils a key insight about the cultural influences within most professional service firms.  He says,"Service firms are more often known for fast following of someone else's ideas. In fact, fast followers are experts at breaching someone else's moat."  Oh so right!  When it comes to building a durable and pre-emptive competitive advantage, most professional service firms fall back on copying the first movers, many of which didn't build a big enough edge in the first place.  Why?  Because it's hard, and harnessing groups of people to do hard work takes time and cost (gulp!) money.  But the cost of not building a pre-emptive edge is BIGGER. Sommer also says, "When you do see moat building in professional service firms, it often takes the shape of trying to ingratiate oneself to a client and keeping out other service firms via fawning and client entertainment."  Right on again, Brian.  Client relationship management initiatives are smart business, but can only take a firm so far.  The "value" game always wins. 

Book-title Envy

I stumbled across the best book title I've seen lately:  Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (Random House, 2005), by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.   

The clever title is also supported by some incredibly smart chapter headers and subtitles.  Examples: "If You're So Rich, Why Aren't You Smart?", "Nobody Has to be Competent", and "It is Easier to Buy and Sell Than Fry an Egg".

This is especially intimidating, since I'm contemplating my own next book (there, I said it publicly; now I'll have to go through with it). 

Pay attention to anomalies and other nuggets from a conference

I went to a conference on Measuring Innovation Performance yesterday.  It was the first time in too long that I was an attendee, not a speaker, and so I enjoyed myself immensely. 

Some of the content related to classic business strategy, some to differentiation.  Some of the best nuggets related to professional service firms (PSF) included:

• When assessing the viability of any particular business strategy, make sure you understand the risks involved. There are three types of risk:  1) technical, 2) executional (can I do it?), and 3) market/competitive risk. Ask yourself the risk of pursuing the strategy and the risks of NOT pursuing the strategy.
• Quality is directly linked to innovation.
• Assess opportunities as well as risks. Most companies forget to do this. But when thinking about opportunities, remember there are COSTS to pursuing opportunities. (“This opportunity will cost us $x.  What other things could we be doing with this money that might be more important to us?”)
• Industry knowledge is a key differentiator.
• When thinking about differentiating with your people, hire TALENT over experience.
• Innovation ROI should be thought of more broadly than many firms do:  it’s more than CASH, but also indirect benefits.
• Pay attention to anomalies. (My favorite!)
• Most firms operate from a budget mentality. Too few operate from an investment mentality.

I found, once again, that most of the presenters and examples were product- and manufacturing-focused.  The professional service firms in attendance were left to extrapolate the models, concepts and frameworks.

 

Wouldn't it be great if content could be pertinent and readily available to the global, $3+ trillion professional services sector?  Or that thought leaders would GET it that we are unquestionably in a SERVICES economy?  Maybe I'll have to write another book, or develop an institute targeted especially to PSFs.

Could be fun.   

What should be expected of "marketing experts?" Part VII

I've been ranting in a series of posts lately about what should be expected of marketing experts (and of course what we should expect from ourselves). Fiona Czerniawska's article on thought leadership last week from Mike McLaughlin's fantastic Management Consulting News brought new perspectives. 

Czerniawska reported on her research about the comparative amount of thought leadership activities of several global consulting firms. Her remarks triggered my renewed focus on the differences between a firm's publishing for volume's sake versus (IMO) the more competitively potent thought leadership that uniquely benefits a firm's clients.  Czerniawska agrees: 

In a crowded market it’s important to be a thought leader rather than a thought follower—to find the topics or angles that others haven’t considered—the white space.

This is where the rubber meets the road for marketing experts: to know the difference between a puffed up writing activity ("let's publish a white paper!") and competitively advantaged intellectual capital.  Marketers (and a firm's practitioners) should have the professional bravery to ask themselves: 

"Do I have the the intellectual heft and internal political influence to tell my fee-earning colleagues that they need to develop more cutting-edge intellectual capital than they currently have?"

"Do I have an excellent grasp of three things:  our clients' access to beneficial solutions; the state-of-the-art thinking in their industry; and the thought leadership output of our competitors?" 

There are a few firms who have made thought leadership a central part of their competitive strategy.  Czerniawska's research focuses on the management consulting arena; McKinsey, Booz Allen, and Bain among others.  For those of us who follow the marketplace of management consulting firms, it's a no-brainer to see the cutting-edge thought leadership output of these and a select few others.  Czerniawska's work (thought leadership itself) will provide further clarity on what is and is not thought leadership.

No matter what professional service sector we may consider, though, it takes client- and competitor-savvy marketers to drive their firms toward the embrace of powerful thought leadership (and not just noise). 

For a firm that wants to tap "the thought leadership white space," it will take

• a marketer who is extremely well grounded in that firm's service portfolio, and who knows where those services fit in the panoply of intellectual capital and services that the clients can access. 
• the firm's management to support the marketer's deep interaction with the firm's practitioners, to both mine the knowledge that resides in the practitioner's' heads and to prod and push where it appears that intellectual capital is dated. 
• a firm's management to support that marketer's contact with clients to gain new perspectives about what's really new and simultaneously beneficial.

These marketers are what I would call "experts."   

Retiring a brand icon

Last spring, I learned that I'm a distant cousin of Mississippi civil rights and education pioneer James Meredith. Today, I returned from attending the dedication of a statue and monument honoring him on the campus of Ole Miss, which finally admitted him as its first black student in 1962 after a firestorm of white opposition.  The ceremony was tremendously moving and inspiring, with amazing keynote speakers like actor Morgan Freeman and Georgia Congressman John Lewis.  Each speaker lauded Meredith for the significant changes that his actions brought about in propelling the University of Mississippi toward integration and greater education opportunities for all.

But the back story is almost more fascinating.  Before yesterday's dedication events, Meredith explained to me and my husband John that he plans to retire the brand character he called "James Meredith," and return to the original brand -- his real name, J.H. Meredith.  "For the last 25 years I have been trying to find the right time and occasion to bury 'James Meredith' since his mission has been completed."   

He recounted the day when, as a teenager, he tried to get a driver's license.  The young white clerk, he explained, refused to give him a driver's license with the initials that were shown on his birth certificate: J.H.  So, right there, he made up the name "James Howard," and for nearly the next five decades, he intentionally used the "James Meredith" brand character to achieve his aims in every way he could.  Since 1962, the brand icon "James Meredith" has represented the work of a courageous black man to seek equal first-class citizenship and educational rights on par with white citizens.

I don't think it will be easy for Meredith to retire the brand icon "James Meredith."  It has powerful and deeply historical meaning for generations of blacks and whites alike.  But Meredith's desire to evolve his powerful brand character is a deeply personal one, and arguably, a more important one. 

We professional service marketers often think about evolving a brand or a brand character, seeking compelling reasons to move our organizations to embrace the changes we believe are appropriate.  How many of us have as compelling a reason as J. H. Meredith?

The State of Co-branding

The co-branding arrangement between Bob Woodward and his home base, The Washington Post, illustrates the classic symbiotic relationship between star professionals and their "homebase" firms.  When The Post's competing newspaper, The New York Times, leaked Woodward's new book, State of Denial, before The Post could begin its own promotional campaign, I thought we'd hear an ugly war of words that might weaken a rather delicate balance between two brands -- the Post's formidable brand versus the individual brand of arguably the biggest star reporter that ever lived.  The headline in today's New York Times is called "A Reporter Who Scoops His Own Paper," (registration may be required) calling Woodward "a hood ornament on the enterprise." Uh oh, I thought.

Instead, in that article I read about Woodward's praise for The Post, calling it "a great newspaper," that has "the best owners and the best editors."  He declared, "being there helps me a lot and . . . I do my best to help them in return."

One has to wonder if Woodward and The Post will have to renegotiate the conditions of his being housed under the tent.  Woodward could just walk away and be a solo brand -- an independent book author like David McCullough or Doris Kearns Goodwin.  This is beginning to look like the case of the star practitioner whose work and reputation ceases to provide benefits to the enterprise.  Woodward's praiseworthy comments about The Post remind us that even stars like a constellation of lesser lights against which to shine more brightly. 

But are his nice public comments enough?  What else should a star professional like Woodward do when it's starting to look like the brand has outgrown its home?