Expertise Marketplace - Professional Service Firm Marketing Blog

Three trends in 2014 for professional services branding

One of the modules in our upcoming November 2014 Professional Services Leadership Initiative will be Global Branding. Check out my newest video about three trends I observe about professional services branding for 2014.

 

The first trend is the way brands are impacted by technology. Increasingly, professional service firms must manage the consistency between the digital and in-person manifestations of their brands. Plus, they must manage this consistency across an array of digital channels, including web, mobile and numerous social media.

The second trend is brand globalization, in which professional enterprises must manage their brand identities across varied cultures, languages, and geographies. Global brand management is also complicated when professional firms merge with or acquire other enterprises. This situation brings up issues regarding brand architecture, and naming, too!

The third trend relates to professional service marketing leaders’ growing interest in determining the brand’s value to the enterprise.

Leaders' retirements mean big changes for professional service firms

Here's another reason why I'm keen to develop a cross-sector educational program to help tomorrow's professional service firm leaders manage and grow their firms effectively: the impending retirements of today's baby-boom generation leaders. How well prepared are the next generation of management consulting leaders to move their firms ahead?

Take a look at my comments about this issue, in the new issue of Consult, Canada's magazine for certified management consultants.

Services marketers: self-taught or formally trained?

Last week, I debuted my Learning to Fly newsletter series about skills growth in professional services marketing, business development, leadership and management. This series is relevant for anyone who has -- or wants to have -- responsibility for leading a professional firm to grow its market share. (Click here if you want to subscribe.) 

I'm not the only one thinking about the issue of training people to grow their service firms.

There's a poll currently underway on LinkedIn (thank you Gary Katz), asking marketers to vote on whether they've been formally trained or self-taught. It's not specific to professional services, but I know some of the respondents, and many are indeed professional service marketers. 

So far, the results parallel what I found in my own research. At this writing there are only 27 votes, but it's a pretty telling pattern so far: 63% say they are self-taught, and 38% say they are formally trained.   

Interesting comments too. One person says: "Down the line we all become self-taught." Well, sure. We shouldn't ever stifle people from continuous learning, or others from continuous informal mentoring. 

But what could the results of this (admittedly unscientific) poll also tell us about formal "grow the service business" education?   

• That a majority of today's service marketers have yet to find an MBA program with a strong service-marketing focus, and so they had to rely on "self-taught" to advance in their careers?
• That their professional firms aren't internally helping them grow their skills, with their own internal "best practices" on services marketing? 

My hypothesis: the issue of self-taught versus formal training -- especially in services marketing -- will soon become a very big issue. That's why I am devoting my 2011 newsletter series to this topic.

Mark my words: As professional service firms increasingly find that their competitive success is on the line, there will be increased interest in formally developing all their people (not just client-facing practitioners, but marketers and other administrative professionals).

"Formal learning" about the best practices of growing and managing professional service firms: that's the future.  

How will we get there?

Come with me. I will show you. 

My new "Learning to Fly" newsletter series

One of the major themes of my latest book was that individuals’ skills growth -- or lack of it -- regarding marketing and business development was a major impediment to their professional firm's effectiveness in competing advantageously. No matter whether people were client-facing practitioners or administrative staff, their lack of knowledge about professional services marketing and business development created significant internal barriers that negatively influenced their firms’ market share gains. 

Some may say developing a common understanding of what it takes to effectively market and sell in a professional services environment is as difficult as learning to fly.

But learn to fly we must, in order for true marketplace effectiveness to be achieved.

And so, for 2011, we will focus on one overarching topic in our monthly articles. We will call this new series "Learning to Fly."

Each issue will explore the state of professional development and skills growth in marketing, business development, management and leadership in the professional services environment. These monthly articles will be based on a series of more than 30 interviews with large global firms, well-established regional enterprises, and prominent boutiques. We asked, "How are your firms building peoples' skills to grow the enterprise?" (Or not building these skills, as the case may be.) 

Here's a link to our inaugural issue. It features a list of topics for the year. Feel free to suggest your own!

Build a mission!

It's about a mission! 

A front-page article in the January 2, 2011 Boston Sunday Globe gave me a perfect springboard to address one of the reasons why so many professional service firms aren't working harder to erase their functional silos. "A Big Experiment in Big Science" describes the integrated approach of the Broad Institute, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biomedical research center. Read the article if you want to get a good picture about how this institution uniquely overlaps its programs, projects, and platforms with the research interests of core faculty and partner institutions. This is silo-busting at its best.

How does this example pertain to professional service firms? After all, many professional service firms are breaking down their internal barriers; they are becoming more effective in making marketplace gains; they are adding value to clients.

But why is silo-busting so hard? 

The difference is in the "mission." And without a mission, what's the point of trying to become more effective in succeeding in the marketplace? The Broad Institute has a simple purpose: improve human health -- cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, and so much more. There's a real reason to work together differently.

But can professional service firms find a similarly compelling reason (mission, purpose) to work together differently, in an integrated way?

We've seen it happen with IBM's "Smarter Planet" initiative. What a fantastic cross-service-line initiative: creating a compelling reason for its people to engage with clients differently, serve them differently, with a new promise for mutual benefit.

If you are someone who works at a law firm, accounting firm, architecture firm, management consulting firm (or any other PSF): what ultimate benefit can your enterprise bring to its clients through a larger, more meaningful purpose? What would make you glad to get out of bed in the morning and want to work with current and new colleagues in a new way? 

It's about that compelling mission. Build it.

Reputation versus brand: What this debate says about professional service firm marketing strategy

"Reputation Warfare," in the December 2010 Harvard Business Review, gives professional service marketers a chance to discuss the meaning behind the words "reputation" and "brand." Are they the same, different -- or do they overlap?

I think they overlap.  But some seasoned marketers believe you cannot separate a firm's reputation from its brand. (Take a look at Arthur Andersen, they say. Its reputation -- and brand -- were destroyed once revelations about its Enron business practices came to light.) 

Others believe a firm's brand is not the same as its reputation. They argue that "reputation," meaning the marketplace's confidence in your firm's ethics, honesty, trustworthiness, and quality services, is the core bedrock of any professional firm's ability to do business. These principles sit "below" the brand, which is about a set of attributes and characteristics which must be unique to each professional firm.

To me, these variable opinions are another indication of the increasing maturation of the professional services arena. And it may take a threat, as "Reputation Warfare" author Leslie Gaines-Ross says, in the form of "small-scale antagonists: dissatisfied customers, disgruntled employees—virtually anyone with a personal computer and an ax to grind" to force professional service firms to grow in sophistication about exactly where reputation ends and brand begins.

To see the difference, let's consider Miller Lite's classic brand promise: "tastes great, less filling." Are those promises exactly the same as honesty, ethics, and high-quality beer production processes? I say "No." 

Of course, people do want to rely on the ethics and quality production that results in "tastes great, less filling." But consumers do not instantly question the company's production processes or reputation when they distinguish "tastes great, less filling" from their other beer choices. "Tastes great, less filling" are attributes that separate it from its rivals. That's what a good brand strategy must do, even for professional service firms.

Professional service marketers, ask yourselves: are your firm's brand attributes distinct and separate enough from your firm's bedrock business principles of trustworthiness, honesty and quality? 

If not, watch out. You may be in the same boat as Arthur Andersen, whose brand couldn't stand a significant hit to its reputation. Right now, you should take a hard look at your brand strategy. Get started today to build greater uniqueness into your firm's brand attributes.

Professional Service Firms' Chain of Command

The phrase "Chain of Command" has been in the news a lot lately, mostly related to war. But a few days ago, I watched an interview with the former CEO of Shell Oil, in which he used "Chain of Command" to discuss the breakdown of communication in the BP Gulf Coast oil well blow-out.

It's the first time I've heard "Chain of Command" -- including the implied militaristic respect for hierarchy and obedience -- described in corporate terms. The interview suggested that if BP's employees had followed a "Chain of Command" model, the blow-out disaster could have been prevented.

Professional service firms don't operate like armies. Most are actively trying to encourage more, not less, distribution of leadership. Of course, with patchwork-quilt organizational structures featuring heads of regions, lines-of-business, industries, and more, occasional disasters do occur (remember Arthur Andersen and Enron; Modern Continental Construction Company and Boston's Big Dig). 

But while I have not heard calls for professional service firms to adopt a "chain of command" model, I do think the notion of "shared accountability" offers enormous benefits to a professional firm. From avoiding disasters to participating in the firm's marketplace growth, we can make a compelling argument that shared accountability makes sense.

Does your firm believe in the idea of shared accountability? What does it look like? How is it being led? Implemented?

The Financial Strength of the Service Sector

I always appreciate it when someone points out the financial strength of the service sector, especially in a way that quantifies revenues in context.

Services management or marketing leaders (especially those of you whose focus has been -- ahem -- rather domestically narrow lately), take a look at today's New York Times op-ed piece, "An Order of Prosperity, To Go." Thank you, author Michael Cox!

Among the key points I found noteworthy:

• "Exports of American services have jumped by 84 percent since 2000..."
• "America ... ranks number one in global services by a wide margin."
• "We exported $144 billion more in services than we imported..."
• "Our edge ... was nearly four to one in architectural, construction and engineering services."
• "All told, the United States is competitive in 21 of 22 services trade categories."

For those of you who are globally focused (and good for you if you are), this article also suggests some ideas about how the Obama administration could more favorably position the United States' services exports globally.

Is it really "thought leadership" -- or just great design?

I just read a Booz & Co piece (authored by Munich-based partner Gregor Harter), entitled "Who Would Ever Want to be a CMO?" This white paper is targeted to the consumer goods world. Harter says, "Simply dazzling consumers with great creative is not enough anymore." 

It gets me wondering about how PSF marketers approach the packaging of thought leadership. Stay with me here....

Senior marketers know how hard it is to encourage their revenue-generating practitioners to develop truly cutting edge intellectual capital. And today's hypercompetitive markets require a continuous feed of new thought leadership output for search engines and opt-in marketing programs.

Won't PSF marketers inevitably have to fall back on nifty packaging and cool graphic design to catch clients' attention? Are we distributing thought leadership that really isn't good but sure looks good? Are we about to fall into the same trap that consumer goods marketers did?

What can we do to avoid it?

(I know what I would do .... what about you?)

Pricing: An Elephant in the Professional Services Room?

Kudos to RainToday for launching a study on pricing in professional services (even though it only covers U.S. firms).  Some of the things the study will cover include:

• firms that have been able to charge higher prices to see what they do differently than those with average and lower fees
• how brand recognition affects the ability of firms to charge higher prices

But for me, especially as I dive into writing my next book about erasing the silos between marketing and selling in PSFs, the really big questions are these:  How do firms go about coming up with their fees, and what's the role of pricing research? I wonder how much PSFs are doing, at the executive or practice level, to understand where the market is (clients' feelings about prices, competitors' pricing practices and oh, of course, THE ECONOMY).  Do business developers and marketers actually work together on this issue? 

The answer is, I'll bet: NOT ENOUGH.  Complete the questionnaire and please prove me wrong.

I think the findings will corroborate my own research that there's not nearly enough rigor being applied to this huge marketing and selling integration issue.  Talk about a functional disconnect:  Most PSFs' pricing policies aren't policies at all.  Prices are still set too tactically.  Many hard-working business developers are charged with the huge responsibility of morphing their firms' fee structures on the fly, and justifying their decisions later.  And there isn't enough focus on the marketplace ramifications of shifts in pricing.