Expertise Marketplace - Professional Service Firm Marketing Blog

PSF Marketing/Business Development Integration – Does it Benefit Clients?

I’m hoping you can help with the fourth and final one-minute survey for my upcoming book The Integration Imperative™: Erasing Marketing and Business Development Silos - Once and for All - in Professional Service Firms. The title of this survey is "PSF Marketing/Business Development Integration – Does it Benefit Clients?"

Our study findings, and those from others’ research, indicate that erasing the functional silos between Marketing and Business Development improves professional service firms’ (PSFs’) go-to-market effectiveness. 

But does erasing Marketing and Business Development functional silos make a positive difference for the clients? 

Take our one-minute survey to find out if other PSFs think the effort to break down Marketing and Business Development functional silos will benefit their clients – and how. 

The questionnaire will be open until May 6.  Once we have the results, we'll post them on this blog and my Marketplace Master™ newsletter.  If you have a blog of your own, you're welcome to post the results.

Take our short survey

P.S. Did you see the results of our first three surveys? Here are the links:

"Hiring fee-earners who WANT to Market and Sell" PDF report   blog post with analysis
“Are PSF Marketing and Business Development Functions Stuck in a Rut?"  PDF report   blog post with analysis
“How well do Marketing and Business Development work with other operations, like Finance, IT, HR, Legal and more?” PDF report  blog post with analysis

How Well do PSF Marketing and BD Work with Other Functions?

The findings from the third of our four mini-surveys dedicated to my upcoming book, The Integration Imperative, are now available here.  In this mini-survey, we asked PSFs how well they are doing at creating formal working relationships between Marketing, Business Development and other operational functions like HR, IT, Finance, Legal and more.

On this issue, unfortunately, for most of our survey’s PSFs, silo’ed thinking and inertia still rule the day. But there is strong evidence of increased effort, both culturally and structurally, to formalize the working relationships among Marketing, Business Development and other operational functions.

And even though most of our survey’s PSFs don’t compensate and/or reward their operational functions for collaborating and sharing accountabilities, there appears to be a dawning awareness that formal functional integration does offer substantive marketplace benefits. “[We] . . . firmly believe that our accountability process has made us more profitable and more focused in our actions.”

Here's my analysis of the findings on the survey's 3 questions:

Q1 In the last three years, has your PSF deliberately structured new formal relationships, reporting lines and/or shared accountabilities between Marketing / Business Development and other functions, including HR, IT, Finance, Legal and more?

A simple review of Question 1’s quantitative answers yields a great big yawn. Together, the "Strongly Agree" and "Agree" responses equal 43 percent. These responses are offset by "Disagree" and "Strongly Disagree" responses that total 56 percent. From this, it's hard to tell what's really happening backstage about how well professional service firms’ Marketing and Business Development functions are working with other PSF operational functions.

The real indicator of what's happening lies in the respondents’ comments (download survey here). Collaborating by "communicating" is hot, and it's a relatively astute early step toward more effective integration among PSF Marketing, Business Development and other operations. But only a few respondents reported progress on what I believe are the higher impact forms of functional integration: recognized shared accountabilities; co-developed job descriptions; clearly delineated reporting relationships; and organizationally supported performance goals.

Now I’m not an expert in organization dynamics, compensation programs or change management. Nevertheless, regarding the concept of "formality" in a PSF’s organizational activities, I’ve developed some distinct points of view, shaped over many years of research. In my opinion, the vast majority of PSF growth and marketing endeavors are “informal” processes that typically commence among proactive individuals who have enough professional bravery to start a new way of working together. But it is only once a PSF’s leaders require some kind of enterprise-wide reporting, documentation or acknowledged shared accountability that growth and marketing endeavors become "formal."

In my opinion, it is only by formally integrating operational functions with Marketing and Business Development that the enterprise can truly gain marketplace traction.

For me, then, the big "aha" of this quick survey relates to the way respondents interpreted the word "formal," whether cultural (commonly understood behavioral norms throughout the firm) or structural (enterprise wide processes, procedures or protocols).

If you read quickly through all the comments, you could easily conclude that informality and a lack of structure is the overarching paradigm, regardless of the grouping into which respondents assigned their firms. Some respondents protested the need for any kind of structural formality (“We are small enough that we know what everyone is doing”). Others downplayed the need for structure, saying that cultural formality exists in its place. (For example: “We have a strong working relationship with our Finance department personnel . . .;” “everybody understands what’s going on and the level of collaboration is fairly high;” and “We work closely with HR”).

But take a closer look at the theme running through the comments. There is strong evidence of increased effort -- both culturally and structurally -- to formalize the working relationships between PSF Marketing / Business Development and other operational functions. These efforts fall into two categories.

• Communication. A number of respondents are building collaboration and shared accountability through well-recognized communication vehicles. Several respondents made references to regularly-scheduled meetings, often chaired by a leader in the C-suite.
• New policies, assignments and shared objectives. Watch for words that are “code” for formality (I’ve underlined them for you):  “Legal, IT, Finance each have a point person assigned to Marketing.”  “Marketing handles entry-level recruiting.”  “Technology group has designated a ‘Marketing Technology Specialist.’”  Reports are another piece of evidence for formality. One respondent described the reports generated by Marketing and Finance; these are obvious manifestations of shared accountabilities between Marketing and other operational functions.

Some respondents reported that they are formalizing the working relationship between just Marketing and Business Development (and not other operational functions). Even though the scope of this quick survey was broader than just these two functions, certainly we give these respondents credit for taking this step.

But no respondents -- even those who answered “Strongly Agree” to this question -- replied that their firms have taken the ultimate structural step of creating new reporting lines or recognized shared accountabilities among Marketing/Business Development and other operational functions. In other words, while these PSFs appeared comfortable acknowledging their expectation that these operational functions should collaborate, they stopped short of evolving these collaborations further, into formally shared accountabilities. 

And so, with these quick survey findings, we begin to see that PSFs’ pathways toward more effective Marketing and Business Development lie with more formal integration of the operational functions that touch Marketing and Business Development. PSFs will start their journey as many of our respondents have, by encouraging collaboration, often in the form of communication.

But I believe these “good ideas” will be eventually deemed as just too shallow. Once PSFs begin seeing the positive results from collaboration among operational functions, their enthusiasm will begin to pick up speed, and they will shift gears into developing more explicit and more formally outlined shared accountabilities. They will support these integrated functions with organizationally sanctioned incentives, rewards, recognized shared accountabilities and/or co-developed job descriptions.

Q2: Regardless of how you answered Q1, does your PSF compensate and reward its operational functions (HR, IT, Finance, Legal and more) for collaborating and sharing accountabilities on Marketing / Business Development?

Only 32 percent replied “Strongly Agree” or “Agree;” the rest (a whopping 68 percent) said, essentially, “No, we don't compensate and/or reward our operational functions for collaborating and sharing accountabilities regarding working with Marketing and Business Development.” 

It’s always the same:  when money gets mentioned, a person’s or a culture’s real stripes begin to show. And the answers to this question (download survey here), more than those for Question 1, show the deep philosophical underpinnings of how a PSF’s internal operations work together with Marketing and Business Development.

First, do we share “success” with our colleagues, or not? Some firms take a fairly dry view of this issue:  “Hey, we give you a salary and (maybe) allow you to share a piece of the firm’s profit at the end of a year. You shouldn’t need additional motivation!”  There are numerous corollaries to this point of view, but the theme remains the same:  “We won’t reward you for the basic behaviors you’re supposed to display.”   

A second issue is about the structure an organization might need in order to reward for desired behaviors. The notion of structure inevitably raises the specter of measurement. It’s clear that some of these PSF respondents are ready to do the work that measurement requires, but that they’d rather do it simply: compensate and reward for overall teamwork (achievement on functional collaboration and shared accountabilities regarding Marketing and Business Development), rather than go to the effort of unbundling the specific behaviors or accomplishments. There’s possibly something culturally astute about not rewarding individual effort within these many functions. Indeed, once a firm sets the accountabilities or formal collaboration guidelines between Marketing, Business Development or any other operational function, why get into smaller and more detailed achievement points? 

I’ve already acknowledged I’m no human resources or compensation expert, but I can’t help but ask: isn’t it better to have formal expectations, and to formally recognize the achievement of those formal expectations, especially regarding mission–critical initiatives?  Isn’t it critical for any PSF to get its operational act together regarding having every function work optimally with Marketing and Business Development? 

Isn't this the exact place where structure should formally support cultural expectations?  If PSFs are so good at compensating and articulating formal expectations for revenue generators to sell their firms’ services, why are they not applying a related set of expectations that operational functions should work with the utmost collaboration and shared accountabilities for Marketing and Business Development? 

I’ll bet I’m not the only one thinking about these issues. Even despite these low percentages, I wager we’ll soon see more PSFs compensating and rewarding their operational functions (HR, IT, Finance, Legal and more) for collaborating and sharing accountabilities on Marketing / Business Development.

Q3:  How’s the effort going?

Only 24 percent of respondents (download survey here) think their PSFs’ efforts are “absolutely fantastic so far” on rewarding and compensating operational and Marketing / Business Development functions for formal collaboration with each other. More than 75 percent answered this question otherwise, with the most enthusiastic being a bland “it’s ok so far.” Talk about a lukewarm endorsement! 

Nevertheless, a few respondents offered glimpses of what I believe will be the future for professional service firms:

“By sharing all relevant information on a regular basis and in a defined manner, we have been able to improve our firm's ability to react quickly and with flexibility to changes in the business and economic landscape. Removing the silos that formerly housed the IT, HR, Finance, Operations and Marketing functions has resulted in improved project management, staffing, planning and profitability.”

It's hard to miss the intention, focus and deliberate commitment behind these remarks. One respondent remarked on the benefits of moving toward formalization, saying that his firm’s initiative has "improved go-to-market activities" and has served as "the key to personal development and new career perspectives."

But, for most PSFs, silo’ed thinking and inertia still rule the day. Some individuals and certain functions will have to be required to work together, for the good of the larger whole. Progress is slow, but there does appear to be a dawning awareness that formal functional integration can offer substantive benefits for a firm. According to one respondent, “[There are] still some thiefdoms to break down, but generally I think people are finding it far more rewarding to work together.”  (I love the mistaken (or maybe on purpose) play on the word fiefdom).

If indeed it requires focus and deliberate intention to direct an enterprise’s attention toward the effectiveness of its internal working relationships, why wouldn’t PSFs want to make working relationships more explicitly tied together, more obviously interdependent?  Even before our survey questionnaire was distributed, PSFs already had implicit knowledge that integrating certain functions together is smart. This would explain why our respondents so broadly endorsed the concept of functions collaborating together.

But now, with these survey findings, we have solid encouragement (beyond my own noisy blathering) toward even more formally integrating a PSF’s operational functions with Marketing and Business Development.

I couldn't say it better than this particular respondent: 

“The integration of Marketing with Strategic Planning immediately promoted a better understanding of strategic objectives by marketing and also better interaction of our marketing manager with business unit directors.”

Although this respondent and others acknowledged the challenges of developing the required formal structures, they assure us that formally integrating Marketing/Business Development with other operations is GOOD.

“Metrics for performance in areas like these are tough to establish, but we're happy with the progress and firmly believe that our accountability process has made us more profitable and more focused in our actions.”

Enough said.

Marketing and Business Development Collaboration with Other Functions

I'm conducting another one-minute survey for my upcoming book. The title of this survey is "How well do Marketing and Business Development work with other operations, like Finance, IT, HR, Legal and more?"

Increasingly, professional service firms’ (PSF) Marketing / BD leaders seek ways to add new value by partnering with their colleagues in HR, IT, Finance, Legal, and more.

Yet often these collaborations are simply “good ideas” forged by proactive people. Typically, these collaborations are not organizationally supported by incentives, rewards, recognized shared accountabilities or co-developed job descriptions.

In the increasingly competitive professional services marketplace, are these “good ideas” good enough?

Take our super-short survey to find out how your firm compares to other PSFs at creating formal working relationships between Marketing, Business Development and other operational functions. We'll give you a chance to see the results before anyone else. (Later, we'll post the results on the Expertise Marketplace™ blog and The Marketplace Master™ newsletter.) If you have a blog of your own, you're welcome to post the results.

Take our short survey

Many thanks,
Suzanne Lowe

P.S. Did you see the results of our first and second surveys? Here are the links:

1. "Hiring fee-earners who WANT to Market and Sell" PDF report   blog post with analysis
2. “Are PSF Marketing and Business Development Functions Stuck in a Rut?"  PDF report   blog post with analysis

Hiring fee-earners who WANT to Market and Sell

The findings from the first of four mini-surveys dedicated to my upcoming book, The Integration Imperative, are now available here. 

Respondents comments -- and what they DIDN'T say -- provided a rich behind-the-scenes look at the very real silos and disconnects that PSFs face today in effectively marketing and selling their services. 

Here's my take on the answers to the survey's 3 questions:

Q1: Would you like your PSF to make formal efforts to hire fee-earners who want to market and sell?

More than 86% of our survey respondents answered this question positively, with a nearly audible yell, essentially saying:  “Yes, of course we want PSFs to hire fee-earners who want to market and sell!  It’s vitally important for our firm’s success!”

End of story, right?  Nope.  After you download the survey report here, take a closer look at this question’s respondent comments.  Now consider what WASN’T said.  Except for one person’s brief remarks about wanting his firm to hire for “marketing/sales personalities,” not one of the respondents said he wished his PSF would make formal efforts to hire fee-earners who want to market.  All other remarks were overwhelmingly related to business development or selling. 

Why did our respondents so wholeheartedly leave Marketing in the dust?  I think I know why.  But first allow me to introduce an important viewpoint, with humble thanks to my secret friend Sharon for sharing her thoughts.      

Business development (aka selling) is a one-to-one activity.  At the end of the day, the only people who can ultimately sell are a firm’s practitioners; they are the “products” clients are considering for eventual engagement.  But strategic marketing is a one-to-many activity.  It is a nuanced, complex, firm-wide initiative that requires a set of competencies that go deeper than the sales-support or communications mantle many PSFs assign to what they call Marketing. 

Clearly, any PSF needs practitioners who can -- and who want to -- write and speak well.  It’s in collaborating on expertise-based marketing communications (white papers, speeches, seminars) that practitioners can work effectively with their firm’s marketing programs.  But for firm-wide marketing, the potential for boundary breeches and confused accountabilities creeps in when those one-to-one fee-earners want to get involved in the one-to-many aspects of marketing.  Don’t we all know practitioners who think they’re good “marketers”? 

Think about this:  No matter how a PSF implements its marketing program, most senior marketers warn fee-earners away from conducting silo’ed client perception research, developing their own sub-brands, hoarding names in their own personalized database, developing their own brochures or distributing their own press releases.  These initiatives are best managed by a focused unit of professional marketers or senior leaders with an overarching  firm-wide purview.   

So – drum roll – here’s why I think so many of this survey’s respondents called for practitioners who want to sell, but didn’t appear to call for practitioners who want to market.

Most PSF leaders, practitioners and (gulp) even some marketers themselves, are young in their understanding of what marketing is, what it is supposed to do, and the value that it can provide.  In the evolution of professional services marketing today, it’s easier to conceive of the marketing function as sales-support (guiding the development of proposal responses and pitch presentations) or as tactical marketing communications.  These functions are very important, of course, but their prevalent use in PSFs (as opposed to marketing strategy functions) indicates there’s a big learning curve about the broader spectrum of what could be a competitively effective marketing function.  And respondents’ answers to this question reveal the challenges PSFs face in integrating their Marketing and Business Development functions.  I’ll address these challenges in my upcoming book, The Integration Imperative™.

Q2: In the last year, has your PSF made formal efforts to hire fee-earners who want to market and sell?

Respondents’ answers to this question (full report available here) illustrate the ongoing love-hate relationship that exists regarding business development (aka selling) in most PSFs today.  When asked if their PSFs have made formal efforts to hire fee-earners who want to market and sell, respondents’ answers split almost evenly into Yes and No camps.  Intentionally seeking to hire fee-earning practitioners who want to market and sell still appears to represent a frightening cultural hurdle.  For many PSFs, the embrace of overt selling is anathema.   

Moreover, the Yes-No split appeared to be quite dramatic.  On one side of their comments, respondents presented an extreme rejection of “selling” (“[We’d] never do this ... ever!”).  The other side included strongly positive comments, and even ranged to a wholesale embrace of screening practitioners who demonstrate marketing and selling competencies and “fit.” 

In my upcoming book, The Integration Imperative™, I’ll explore the dysfunctional meanings many PSFs have assigned to the terms “Marketing” and “Selling,” to their own – and their clients’ – detriment.

My prediction:  over time, as PSFs let go of these out-of-date definitions, and as they become more focused on competing, and serving clients, effectively, the “Yes” side of this chart will increase in size.

Q3:  In the last year, your PSF has made formal efforts to hire fee-earners who want to market and sell. How’s the effort going?

Only 10% of the respondents to this question said the effort was going “absolutely great!”  (See full report here) The vast majority were lukewarm or negative.  A review of their comments revealed a clear subset has been distracted by their firms’ critical need for practitioner talent; understandably, this has diluted their focus on hiring for marketing and business development skills or instincts. 

But their comments also revealed two other critically important nuggets. 

First, it’s a challenge to find the right set of marketing and business development capabilities, especially if the firm has yet to define them for itself!  A firm’s recruiters and hiring staffers need standards to objectively evaluate marketing and business development skills.  They can’t be expected to conjure them up in a vacuum.  This viewpoint repeats a theme that, by now, rings loudly through this entire survey:  there are widely varying definitions of marketing and business development, and a general lack of understanding of the value these functions could deliver in a PSF.  No wonder our respondents rated their firms’ efforts so harshly.   

Second, if there’s no one leading the effort to hire for a specific set of marketing and business development skills and accountabilities, it’s likely not going to be as successful as it could be.  Someone, or at least a well-defined team, has to lead this endeavor! 

Increasingly, PSFs will realize the strategic significance of redefining their marketing and business development into functions instead of roles.  I’ll expand on this in The Integration Imperative™.
 

Do PSF practitioners WANT to market and sell?

I hope you can take a minute to help me with research for my upcoming book.

Are your professional service firm's (PSF) Marketing and Business Development functions operating as disconnected silos? Could these functions be more effective at collaborating and sharing accountability?

Let us know how your firm is doing at integrating its Marketing and Business Development functions, and then find out how your firm stacks up against others on erasing its organizational disconnects in Marketing and Business Development.

Here's the first of our quick surveys whose findings will be featured in my upcoming book, The Integration Imperative™: Erasing Marketing and Business Development Silos - Once and For All - in Professional Service Firms.

Please take this super-short survey and we'll give you a chance to see the results before anyone else. (Later, we'll post the results here and in The Marketplace Master™ newsletter.) If you have a blog of your own, you're welcome to post the results. 

Take our short survey

Where are the clients in Competitive Intelligence?

Last night, I saw a 30-second TV ad called "Business: Inspiration" on Visa's new "Life takes Visa" campaign. Maybe my brain has been cramped these past few days, but I reacted as negatively to this pitch as I did to seeing yesterday the marcom materials for Jeffrey Gitomer's new book.  (And I'm a Visa card holder, too.) 

The spot features several scenes of business people in a meeting; each scene features what appears to be professional services people wondering what another firm would do, supposedly about solving a particular business challenge.  Each spot strongly implies that competitors are being discussed.   

Gag.  My reaction is strongly negative to almost everything about this ad.

• The title of the spot is awful.  There's nothing inspirational about what's going on in these scenes.  Each meeting's attendees look bewildered, and the visual props imply that these business people are only playing catch up.  I've never seen any business professional become inspired by being a copycat. 
• What is Visa's point?  We are supposed to think that "Life takes Visa." After watching the people in the ad ask "What would the other guys do," are we supposed to think that they will rush out and use their Visa cards to beat the other firms at the same game?   It just doesn't make sense. 
• The whole notion of asking "what would the other guys do" implies an orientation toward competitive intelligence.  Yeah, competitive intelligence is a great idea, but certainly not under the circumstances this ad portrays:  last minute, scrambling, clueless.  If I were their competitive intelligence consultant, I'd put a halt to the meeting immediately and try to set them on a more strategic journey about researching competitors.

This whole issue brings me to a larger point about competitive intelligence.  Why, oh why, would any professional service firm undertake competitive intelligence efforts and not include the clients?  So many firms display almost morbid interest in their competitors; it seems they have forgotten where the most valuable intelligence really lies, and that is with clients! "Really," I'd say to anyone interested in undertaking competitive intelligence, "when would any such effort not include client perceptions about the competitors' emerging capabilities and how those competencies match up with the clients' evolving needs?"