Expertise Marketplace - Professional Service Firm Marketing Blog

The ROI Trap

Professional service marketers too often fall into a trap if they pursue the wrong types of ROI measurement. One ROI trap is measuring the wrong things like non-client “events” such as click-throughs on an email campaign, web site hits, or media mentions. These activities are nice to know but not necessarily indicative of future sales.

Another ROI trap is measuring the wrong timing such as a near-term increase in revenues soon after a marketing campaign or event. Professional service clients are not quick buyers. Their sales cycle is too long to try to measure one-off responses like that.

 

The most effective ROI measurements always focus on the client. The simple act of asking questions about a prospect’s or client’s consideration of your firm inevitably leads to that person’s perception of greater value. This is especially true if your firm tweaks its marketing outreach based on the feedback it receives. Qualitative interviews – just asking about a person’s value perception -- is the most powerful type of client engagement I’ve ever seen.

Qualitative interview questions should include questions like, “What about our recent thought leadership materials did you find to be valuable? What would make them more valuable?” From that point on, a client’s consideration will increase, because s/he is engaged with your firm.

Engage the client like this at regular intervals, and the revenues will follow.

 

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Setting up effective professional services alumni relations programs

A CMO of a very well-respected financial services company is considering creating a structured alumni relations program for his firm. I volunteered to reach out to my senior marketing contacts about formal alumni relations programs. If your firm has such a program, we’d be interested in your perspectives on the questions below.

(If I get enough answers to merit another blog post on this subject, I’ll aggregate them and get something out!)

• What are the most successful aspects of your firm’s alumni relations program? The least successful?

• If your firm uses alumni relations for business development, is your approach active (e.g., directly asking for referrals, and/or including the alumnus in your referral outreach) or passive (e.g., saying “we’d appreciate your referrals” but no follow up)?

• What reciprocal benefits do you offer your alumni, e.g., actively promoting them for board positions, or actively helping them develop their own business? 

Can professional service firms learn from Lady GaGa?

I loved Jackie Huba's post on Lady GaGa's loyal fans.

 

Jackie's post outlines some of GaGa's innovative connection techniques, including nick-naming her fans, using a special hand signal, and encouraging her fans to put some of her performances on YouTube.

I realize this is an artist we're talking about. Accountants, lawyers or management consultants may not rush to adopt the exact same loyalty techniques! 

But what could happen if a professional service firm pursued an innovative loyalty program like Lady GaGa's? Think about how raving fans of, say, an architecture firm might proudly call themselves something else as distinctive as Little Monsters (GaGa's name for her fans)?   

Does anyone know of a professional service firm that has embarked on an overt "fan" initiative?

What About Loyalty to Clients?

Did you catch the June 5 New York Times article "A Study in Why Major Law Firms are Shrinking"? The article quotes a White & Case lawyer:

"Market forces have replaced 'the social contract,' a top partner there said: 'camaraderie is 'not terribly strong,' because 'people are very scared.' "

. . . "The loyalty of the institution to its people, and vice versa, isn’t really there anymore — it’s a different animal from what a lot of us were used to. It’s much more of a business now and less of a true partnership. The problem is we’re supposed to all be in this together. But at some point, you stop and think: ‘Well, maybe we’re not.’ ”

This article nails directly many of the points I'll be addressing in my upcoming book, The Integration Imperative: Erasing Marketing and Business Development Silos -- Once and for All -- in Professional Service Firms. 

One thing is clear: Law firms like this, and firms in other professional sectors, allowed the balance between their internal and external focus to become terribly skewed.  In the quotations from the anonymous partner above, there's not one mention of clients and their needs. 

What happens when a professional firm becomes too inwardly focused?  You guessed it -- it gets "surprised" by the marketplace. I'll wager that part of their myopia stems from their internal silos, which kept them from connecting their marketing and selling functions to real client value.

My take: there's nothing wrong with a firm refocusing itself toward astute business goals. These and all professionals can indeed have fun again, and hopefully next time the clients will be a bigger part of the picture.

Astonishing!

. . . or maybe not.

Last week I was a panel moderator of chief marketing officers at the 16th annual Marketing Partner Forum. This well-respected conference is targeted to senior-most marketing officers and partners at law firms. In my session, CMOs discussed their work to increase the effectiveness of marketing and business development, and their "doing things differently" approaches to lead autonomous professionals to make critical changes.

At another panel discussion, featuring corporate law department heads, one of the panelists read his Top 10 list of pet peeves in working with law firms. His list featured a sharp critique of attorneys' insensitivity to their clients' budgets; poor communication on the work being billed; and outright mistakes and inflexibility regarding invoices and fees. He outlined his plans to further protect his company against the insensitivity of legal services providers. His fellow panelists heartily echoed his comments.

A marketer sitting next to me leaned over and whispered, "But we don't have anything to do with the accounting practices of our law firm." I whispered back immediately, "You absolutely must have something to do with the accounting practices of your law firm."

The more I think about her comment, the more astounded I am. At the least, her comment implies she has no idea if this situation exists for her own law firm. At the worst, she knows it does and has decided not to address it. 

Why doesn't she feel more concerned about clients' negative perceptions of law firms? Aren't marketers supposed to be advocates for the client? Why does this senior marketing professional feel so disconnected from her accounting or finance colleagues? What kind of culture exists within her law firm that people feel no mutual accountability for making marketplace gains?

I used to be an in-house PSF marketing professional. I know what happens when professional firms prevent shared accountabilities and impede collaboration between functions. I know how under-resourced most professional services marketing pros are, and how this situation impacts their feelings -- usually negatively -- about leadng change within their organizations.

But, oh, how astonishing and disappointing it was to hear the dismissiveness with which this marketer reacted to the panelist's comments.

Professional service firms must get a handle, right now, on their marketing and business development silos. Client complaints about pricing and accounting practices will lead directly to the commoditization of the professional sector and each firm's marketplace position within it.

Here's my own advice, for all marketers and client-facing practitioners: find a way to integrate your firm's marketing/business development with its firm's accounting or finance functions. It's a competitive imperative.

What compels you?

Since January of 2006, I have been involved on a volunteer basis with a loosely formed group of individuals from four different faith communities in my town to help bring relief to the victims of the Katrina Gulf Coast hurricane.  We concentrated our efforts on Biloxi Mississippi.  From January through October, our group, self named Bridge to Biloxi, has facilitated work teams of more than 150 youth and adults to work with the victims of the hurricane:  removing debris, demolding houses, serving the hungry, and facilitating recovery wherever we can.

In October, our group committed to work directly with our Biloxi partner, Hands On Network Gulf Coast, to rebuild the home of one single family. The response has been overwhelming for everyone involved in our Bridge to Biloxi effort, as well as those individuals with whom we've worked in Biloxi. In short order, this disparate group of people has been able to communicate the compelling message about this family's need for a home, and we have received volunteers from across the country.  It has been a breeze to raise the funds necessary to rebuild this modest home.  Now, with a very successful effort nearly behind us, we are beginning to contemplate our next iteration.  It looks like we have the makings of a brand-new nonprofit, one whose genesis spans religious faith, ages, and any other demographic category you can choose.  The progress is palpable. The rewards are tremendous. The new relationships are deep and strong.

I have watched myself carve out time that I don't have to work on this rewarding project.  I have watched others dig into their pockets to get themselves down to Biloxi, and return wide-eyed with stories of spiritual nourishment and new friendship. 

And yet, in my dealings with my clients and business associates, I am struck by this refrain: mundane accomplishments, enacted routinely, with little or no sense of positive purpose.  No, no, I'm not saying that our marketing jobs are worthless or meaningless or terrible.  But in some of my posts to come in the next few days, you will hear about the lack of professional passion with which many of us go about accomplishing our marketing duties.

I would wager that many of those internal clients with whom we work -- the accountants, lawyers, architects, consultants, etc. -- probably feel a similar sense of the mundane.  With such a lack of motivation, and a lack of a compelling purpose to pursue, no wonder it's a challenge for marketers and their key stakeholders to achieve significant marketplace gains.

Is there something we can do about this?  As professional service marketers, I think we are in a unique position to help our colleagues remember what gets them up in the morning; to help them imagine new and more compelling ways to use their expertise to bring about positive changes. 

Maybe I'm naïve, but there must be some way we can tie our work back to meaningful pursuits and accomplishments that stimulate our professional passion and bring a palpable sense of reward as we collect a paycheck or build equity in firms.  And I can only imagine being the clients who might be the recipients of such professional passion!

Project Runway and professional services marketing

I admit it: I'm hooked on Project Runway.  Each Wednesday night, I'm glued to the TV at 10:00 PM eastern time to find out about the latest challenges, and to see who will be Auf'd next . 

At first I was a little embarrassed by my curiosity about the success or demise of these individual designers.  What, me liking a reality show?  Perish the thought! 

Now, I have begun to see two distinct themes playing out: 1) real-time guidance to professional service practitioners about the importance of listening to clients in their eventual success, coupled with:  2) the judge's requirement that each designer must incorporate into each outfit his or her own distinctiveness in a forward-thinking way. 

Both of these guidelines are entirely appropriate for professional service practitioners, whether they are engineers and architects, actuaries or risk management consultants, lawyers, accountants, you name it. 

In this week's final scene, two designers are left standing.  The judges remarked that one did not listen to his client carefully enough, thus leaving her disappointed in the final outcome.  He was allowed to stay until the next round, and hopefully he'll have learned his lesson about meeting -- if not exceeding -- the client's expectations.  The eventual loser, a designer named Robert Best, had been warned in previous episodes to increase the distinctiveness of his designs -- a reminder of the importance of differentiation if I ever heard one. 

There are elements of the program that I don't like, especially the sniping between designers, and Heidi Klum's voice drives me up a wall.  But, little by little, you can see each designer growing professionally, and becoming a better client servant who offers uniquely valuable creations.  What a great lesson for professional service practitioners! 

Do I hear a call for "Project Runway: the MBA's"?  Or how about "Project Runway:  IT Services Consulting Challenge!"  Hmm . . . . might not be such a bad idea. . . .

Network your way to success? Puh-LEEZ!

I'm up to my ears with books about how to become more personally effective in making business connections, building relationships, and networking my way to success.  Why, all of a sudden, are there so many books about relationship-building and "connecting?"  I admit I liked last year's book by Keith Ferrazzi, "Never Eat Alone."  I know Keith, and he has the professional services chops to offer credible tips for accountants, actuaries, engineers, lawyers and other professionals to (gather the courage to) engage people in a personally valuable way. 

So, what pushed my puh-LEEZ button?  It was seeing Jeffrey Gitomer's book "Little Black Book of Connections: 6.5 Assets for Networking your way to RICH relationships" featured on the 800CEOread blog.  This book, among other things is ". . . about how to say the right things to the right people in the right circumstances to make the right impression." 

I admit it: I have never heard of Jeffrey Gitomer ("the country’s #1 sales trainer").  He's probably a fabulous expert.  I could probably learn a lot from him.  But I'm put off by what appears to be glib promises, and packaging that seems a bit over-the-top ("The book is small. The cover is classic black cloth. The four-color text graphics makes it attractive and easy to read ").   

Why am I so peevish about this?  I know that getting professionals to become better "people-people" has never been more important in steering professional service firms to achieve marketplace gains.  Most of the senior marketers I know have, at one point or another, had to offer (even require) training for their experts on building relationships.   (And of course there's the inevitable alternative:  not requiring professionals to network at all ("Our professionals simply need to be the most skilled experts that they can be.  We've created a separate sales team to do relationship building and networking!").  But that's for another post.)

So here's the question:  What's the best book you've ever read about relationship building, networking and the like for your firm's professionals?  Why?  What's the best "take-away?"  

Quality is your best salesperson

One of the most important axioms I ever learn about professional services marketplace leadership was from Carl Bochmann, a former Booz Allen Hamilton partner, who taught me that "quality is your best salesperson."  No matter which professional sector I've advised, be it accounting or executive search, management consulting or architecture, or any other, this lesson applies.  It also applies to my own firm. 

It's especially painful, then, to watch the unfolding events related to Boston's Big Dig.  Last night, twelve tons of cement from one of the Big Dig tunnels collapsed on a vehicle, killing a passenger.  The Massachusetts Attorney General is calling this "a crime scene," and "Reilly's office already has begun issuing subpoenas to those involved in the design, manufacturing, testing, construction and oversight of the panels and tunnel."

You can imagine the unbelievably negative marketplace reputation that will be assigned to the many professional firms that were involved in this huge project.  Your firm -- and mine -- might feel somewhat smug, that at least our work doesn't result in people dying!  But one need only look as far as Enron and Arthur Andersen to be reminded of the massive marketplace shifts that occurred after that scandal -- and those that we are still feeling. 

We could be at the early stages of seeing this happening again in the design, engineering, construction and construction management sectors. 

I don't care what your profession is, or how clever your marketing strategy might be:  quality has got to figure on your company's ground level. 

"At what cost?" Moment-of-Truth Decisions

Last week, with what I thought was reasonable clarity, I made a decision to attend an event.  This week, after having attended the event, I realized that it actually "cost" me more -- not in money, but in the expenditure of personal energy -- to attend than I had originally thought it would.  I regretted my decision.  I vowed to myself that I'll make a better decision next time. 

Wouldn't you know it, I now see several blog posts about the impact of decisions on business success and the exceedingly nuanced question "what will it 'cost' me if I make this decision?"

Clients making decisions:  Just as I fooled myself into thinking I had made a good decision, so too with clients, who may not fully understand the real reasons why they decide to purchase our services or to discontinue them.  It's up to us to understand the basis of their decision-making.  Two blog posts offer interesting perspectives. 

• Michelle Golden urges professional service firms to do a better job of understanding the real reasons why clients decide to switch their loyalties.  Her post debunks the notion that we should accept at face value the reasons we lose or upset clients. 
• David Maister touches on the topic as well, in his post about getting honest feedback, and that people's feelings play a lot more into their decisions than they let on.   

Making decisions for our own firms:  I could spend the next week bemoaning the number of times I've seen professional service firms make horrifyingly bad marketing management decisions.  I'll bet you could offer millions more examples.  Thankfully, some thought leaders are trying to get to the bottom of the decision-making conundrum.  I found two articles, from respected management consultancies Booz Allen Hamilton and Bain & Company, both on decision-making. 

• The latest issue of Booz Allen's strategy + business features an article "Why Managing by Facts Works." The authors say that executives too often ignore the facts, and make "gut" business decisions based on fads or hunches.  They say that evidence-based management leads to competitive advantage. 
• Bain's latest results brief features an article "Who has the 'D'?" The authors examine the findings of their study that only 15% of surveyed companies practice effective decision-making.  Interestingly, they found that high-performing companies do fairly well in making brand positioning decisions. 

if you're in a marketing leadership role at your professional service firm, I encourage you to dig deeper when participating in critical marketing decisions.  Ask yourselves how honest you are being -- or others are being with you.  Examine more than just the shallow areas of impact -- like money or resource allocations -- of your firm's marketplace decisions.  Ask about the other areas of "cost" to you or your firm if those decisions don't pan out.