I'm awarding the "honesty" award to my fellow blogger Barbara Walters Price, who posted the following observation on her blog in response to my latest series of posts that "expert" marketers have got to ramp up on strategic skills in order to help lead their firms, and their own careers, toward greater competitive effectiveness.
"We all give lip service to positioning and differentiating but precious few of us know how to make it happen."
She's right, of course, but my question is, "WHY is this the case?"
Isn't knowing how to develop operationally-rigorous differentiation and positioning strategies (not branding) incredibly critical for a senior marketer to know? Shouldn't fee earners expect that we know how to do this?
Some answers might be:
- There are precious few sources of cogent work on differentiation and positioning for service businesses. I've written about these topics extensively, but that's not enough, I'm sure.
- There is not enough of a focus on the FUTURE in most professional and B2B service firms. Everyone is too busy thinking tactically about today, instead of how to make astute competitive gains for the future (which is where one has to go if one wants to become differentiated or to capture an improved position). This situation makes pursuing differentiation and positioning a political football for marketers; many of us must take care to choose our battles.
Any thoughts, folks?
Karen, you are spot on (pun INTENDED, especially regarding the spit-up coffee!) with your remarks about marketers availing themselves of cross training or actually doing business development work.
Also, I send you "high fives" for your years-long focus on building your own expertise. Good for you for staying the course.
I am a little concerned about the CEO's reluctant agreement however. What would a marketing expert do in this situation? What are his expectations of you, now that he has agreed to follow your recomendations?
Posted by: Suzanne Lowe | May 07, 2007 at 05:01 PM
Suzanne,
Bravo on your five part series discussing what makes an expert marketer an actual expert. I agree with much of what you stated, especially your highlighting of a fellow blogger noting that expert marketers "do it differently". While this is often true, it takes an adventurous professional services executive team to be open to "doing it" differently.
As an example, just last week the CEO of an international utility firm, a client of mine, literally spit up his coffee when I presented my marketing recommendations for the company. He was ghostly white with a stunned look on his face. Predicting this I moved to my next slide, which forcefully stated, "If you want to be perceived as an innovative firm, you have to ACT like an innovative firm". With a little forcefulness from me, he reluctantly agreed to pursue my strategic and tactical plan. I am confident it will produce the results the executive team is demanding.
What seemed to be missing from your series is the concept of cross training. As a professional dedicated to exceptional marketing for professional services firms, I took the time in my career to work on the business development side of the business as well as serving in the role of management consultant. Though it was a time consuming process (several years), it has enabled me to fully understand the frustrations of BD, the challenges of consultants, and of course the limitations of marketing. By spending time in front of the customers while in business development and as a consultant, I was able to gather a wealth of insightful marketing research including the defining of steps necessary to develop the almighty "trust-based relationship". Perhaps, professional services firms would benefit by either encouraging a cross functional training program for marketing, business development and consultants, or if not practical, recruit marketing folks who have business development backgrounds.
Thank you again for your wonderful insights into what makes a marketing expert a true expert.
Posted by: Karen Banker | May 07, 2007 at 04:47 PM