Expertise Marketplace - Professional Service Firm Marketing Blog

How mid-level marketers can provide new value

Suzanne Lowe highlights a popular topic for the Action Learning Projects at the 2014-15 Professional Services Leadership Initiative at the Robert H. Smith School of Business: integrating marketing and sales.

 

Why do marketing and selling disconnects exist between these functions at professional service firms? Part of the reason is that they work at different ends of the business development pipeline.

In many traditional professional services marketing jobs, marketers work at the “beginning” of the pipeline -- defining and building awareness with targeted prospects and clients. (These traditions are changing, however!) Sellers traditionally work at the other end of the pipeline -- acquiring, retaining or building share of wallet with the prospects and clients.

No wonder silos crop up!

To help erase these marketing and selling silos, Lowe suggests marketers and sellers should work to increase their understanding of each other’s tools, processes and, most importantly, motivation.

Please refer me to a pension fund auditing expert!

I have been asked to help update a case study for use in executive education venues and a prominent services marketing text book. I would like to talk to a pension fund auditing expert who could shed new light for me on the current state of pension fund auditing to global clients.  

• The regulatory or legal environment for pension fund auditing: I need to know about any new regulations, laws, or impending changes in the way pension funds are audited, both in the US and globally, especially the Philippines. I know that in the US, there have been numerous legal / regulatory and “conflict of interest” changes in the way companies are allowed to hire out for professional service assistance regarding benefits and executive compensation. “Independence” is a big deal these days. Do these issues affect pension fund auditing as well?
• Providers of pension fund auditing: In today’s business arena, is pension fund auditing a niche business, or more typically one in a palette of services provided by global consulting or accounting firms? Is there a shift underway, with big firms spinning off their pension fund auditing lines of business, or any kind of M&A consolidation going on regarding pension fund service providers?
• Cross-selling of pension fund audits:  Especially for bigger firms, what’s the current state of cross-selling for these services? Especially related to regulatory issues, how easy is it to cross-sell pension-fund-audit services? Is it getting harder or easier? 

I’ll be happy to cite sources, or publish my thanks to the expert. 

Mapping out "sample experiences" for clients

Many of you know Charles Green's substantive Trusted Advisor work. He sent me a new piece recently, in which he says: "The best way for a client to learn how to work with you is to let them work with you. Create a sample experience."

These two short sentences offer an incredibly good articulation of how to integrate marketing and selling. 

Green writes: "Sample selling the services might mean brainstorming; a small project; a lunch-and-learn; a webinar; a series of articles; a series of conversations for which you don’t bill time; sharing of some previous work."

Now read that sentence again.

Green's points raise three huge issues, each of which pertains to the powerful benefits of integrating Marketing and Selling in professional and B2B firms.

1. Marketers and practitioners, working together, can map out a series of well-integrated sample experiences for strategically-targeted clients and prospects. By thinking about offering sample experiences, they are encouraged to let go of old paradigms of what should be in the marketer's purview (webinars, a series of articles) and what should be in the practitioner's purview (conversations for which you don't bill time; a small project).  Instead, they can consider the best outcome of that sample experience: to acquire, retain or build share-of-wallet with strategically appropriate clients.
2. By considering how they might offer different sample experiences depending on the outcome they seek (acquire, retain and build share-of-wallet), marketers and practitioners can begin to break down their notion of what the firm really sells. Is it protected (but hide-bound) methodologies and relationships?  Or is it the dedication to solve the client's problem in a uniquely favorable way?  
3. Too many professional and B2B firms are stuck trying to measure the ROI of tactical marketing or selling programs that are too loosely tied to real marketplace outcomes (acquire, retain or build share-of-wallet with strategically appropriate clients). If they worked together to create sample experiences, they'd more quickly break down these old notions of measuring ROI.  

Write to me and let me know how your firm is doing at creating sample experiences. What's worked? What are your lessons learned?

More evidence: marketing and sales are disconnected

I just read the summary of findings from a recent ITSMA study on sales enablement in B2B technology companies. They wrote:

. . . of the companies we surveyed, just 16% have shared metrics between sales and marketing. Worse, only 25% of companies said that their marketing and sales groups even have an understanding of each other’s goals and metrics. That’s downright shocking.

If we are going to close the gap between marketing and sales and truly reduce the cost and effort to move a prospect through the buying process, it’s time for marketing and sales to get together.

Thanks, guys, for another piece of evidence that marketing and sales are disconnected. Yes, I'm shocked, horrified, deeply dismayed. But also a little impatient (I'm having one of those days...). (Take our instant Marketing Barriers Assessments and you'll be able to see where these disconnects exist at your firm.)

Seriously, folks, these silos are fixable! Let's hear some forward-looking, action-oriented news!

Send me stories about how your firm erased these disconnects.

Packaging for Thought Leadership

In the last two weeks, I've received two very creatively packaged pieces of thought leadership on professional service marketing.  The first was a PDF from wals studios. It was entitled "Meet ROI: Marketing Metrics Survey Results."  Using an illustrated version of a fictitious architect or engineer, Roy, the authors outline their purpose for the document: to identify current uses of and trends in marketing metrics for architecture, engineering, and construction firms throughout the Washington, DC metropolitan area. I was impressed at the excellent targeting for this study -- narrowly focused on a particular sector and limited geographic area.

The second was a high-end print piece entitled "The Little Black Book: a Lawyer's Guide to Creating a Marketing Habit in 21 Days," by Paula Black & Associates. The book takes readers through three priorities to create their marketing and business development plans.  It's one of three of Black's "Little Black Book" series on lawyers' marketing and business development. In particular, Black's book invites readers to drop in at almost any point and gain a valuable nugget of information.

I might take issue with some of the points in these works. Neither does much to break new ground intellectually. But it's hard to deny their visual attractiveness. Of course, one would expect marketers -- even strong designers like these two firms -- to do a good job of packaging and distributing their intellectual capital.

The real reason I wrote about these examples is that they give their authors an eye-catching opening to begin a substantive conversation with their potential clients. I can't help but admire the obvious high quality effort that went into both of these initiatives. 

Are we at the point, though, where "eye-catching" is what it takes to stimulate a conversation with clients? Beyond marketers, who goes go to this much trouble and expense to get a prospect to take notice? Are the clients of lawyers, architects, engineers, or any other revenue-generating professional practitioner, able to get beyond thought leadership packaging? 

I guess I want both -- truly innovative ideas, packaged nicely. 

Rainmaker, Rainmaker, Make me Some Rain

My friend Ford Harding recently asked me to review the newly published second edition of his classic book, “Rain Making: Attract New Clients No Matter What Your Field.”  At the time of his request, I thought:  “Geez, I hold Ford in high regard, but how am I ever going to find the time to squeeze this in?” 

But I discovered how easy it was to open the book at random points, and flip pages to valuable nuggets, sensible tips, practical charts, simple forms and interesting anecdotes.  Literally, every single random page either reminded me of something I haven’t done, gave me a renewed perspective I haven’t considered recently, or illustrated a new insight into ways I myself could become a more effective professional services seller.

So, fear not, you potential readers who feel like you can’t clear the decks to read one more business book.  I’ll bet this one can actually make an immediate improvement in your revenue results.

Here are some of my reactions to some of Harding’s points throughout the book:

He says professional service firms do a poor job of training professionals to market and sell.  He declares: “If you don’t take responsibility for your own development, no one else will.”  My reaction? This statement suggests that professional service firms don’t have to take the responsibility to train their professionals; I believe they do have to take this responsibility (even however much we can debate the efficacy of training as a platform for productivity improvement).  Harding goes on to say “Don’t let the lack of a mentor stop you from learning.  Go out and take care of yourself.”  My reaction?  Yes, smart professionals should learn how to advocate for themselves as part of their own career advancement.  But that's not enough for an entire enterprise to succeed.  Harding (and others who point out the benefits of this kind of entrepreneurial action) should consider making a stronger case for professional service leaders to provide the kind of formal mentoring and training from which most professionals could benefit.   

Harding does everyone a tremendous service in that he speaks plainly throughout the book.  In my own work, I find that so much of what is not working in professional services marketing is the use of jargon that gets adopted from other business sectors, without the appropriate comprehension of the terms.  Take the term “lead generation,” for example.  Harding calls it “getting leads.”  He says, “You need to get face-to-face with a prospect in order to get the sale.”  How refreshing!

I wish the book did more to address the very real presence of the Internet, web-based social networking, or what some call “”conversation marketing.”  For example, in Chapter 8, Harding cites Rule 13: “you must be selective about who you network with.” Doesn’t this seem like a limiting mindset?  Doesn’t it ignore the importance of digital media channels and social networking?  Isn’t it a fallacy that one can be selective about networking, when indeed, especially when using digital marketing channels, a conversation takes on a life of its own?  Certainly, Harding is right to ask people to prioritize and be astute about their networking efforts.  But to assume that one person in a network is “better” than another is a one-way mindset.  Not for the digital age.

Harding offers several visuals, in Chapter 11, that illustrate what he calls the “structure” of networks.  At first, his exhibits made my head hurt!  But in fact, they appear to be quite helpful as segmenting and targeting exercises, as well as for mapping out networking relationships.

Also in chapter 11, exhibits Four and Five are excellent diagrams of the buying cycle for clients (even though that’s not what these diagrams were labeled; it’s what I perceived from them).

Toward the end of the book (on page 235, if you need to know) Harding states, “You will find pricing is the most persistently difficult part of selling.”  If that’s true, why is it addressed so late in the book?  I  understand that Harding is not positioning himself as a pricing consultant, but pricing is indeed the elephant in the room for many professional services sellers.

Ford, great job, once again, on providing real value to the field of professional services marketing and selling! 

I'm at the February 2008 Carnival of Trust

My friend Charles Green is using the blog carnival concept (a collection of blog posts that are deemed worthy of a blogger's chosen theme; I think Charlie started his Carnival of Trust in 2006.) 

The theme for the Carnival of Trust is a demonstration of business trust.  Each month, the (rotating) host selects the Top Ten trust-related blog postings from across the web during the prior month.  This month, Michelle Golden is the host, and I'm thrilled that one of my posts was selected as a Top Ten!   

Take a look at some of the other entries.  For me, the most fascinating points included:

• If you proclaim yourself to be a trusted advisor, you may be jeopardizing other's perceptions of you as such.  (Ron Baker)
• Especially In light of the American presidential primary season, Paul McCord's gripping question:  Can trust be marketed and/or sold? 

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.

I told the truth -- and got hired anyway

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

For those of us -- ahem -- seasoned pros, we're supposed to have handled every type of engagement, right?  Our prices are set to match our marketplace tenure, right?   We want to be recognized for our experience, right?   

OK.  Tell the truth.  You HAVEN'T done it all, have you?  There are some types of assignments you HAVEN'T actually worked on.  Professional service marketers and business developers know that seriously UNCOMFORTABLE feeling when a potential client asks: "Have you ever done this type of work before?" or "Have you worked for a firm like ours before?"  (And we know how critically they need us to proclaim, "OF COURSE!")

Last month I had two such moments.  Prior to the inevitable questions, I had made a decision not to try to fake it in any way, but to tell the unvarnished truth.  (Which is good, because I'm a lousy liar.)  I said, "Well, no, I have not worked for a firm like yours before."   

Both times, I forced myself NOT to rush ahead with a too-anxious, too-glib explanation.  I waited and waited, for what seemed like eons, for the inevitable replies, "Uh ... well ... then, what makes you think you could help us?"

Both times, I had carefully prepared my answers.  I tried to think ahead about what would reassure these potential clients that I could indeed help them.  I addressed my shortcomings with my heart in my throat. 

And, incredibly, both times, I got hired for important marketing strategy engagements -- without having to give references (another shocker).

OK all you professional services marketing and selling gurus -- why did these great clients hire me?    

Five Biggest Professional Service Presentation Don'ts

My clients and business associates know I spend a lot of time writing and speaking about differentiation.  Imagine my glee, then, when my friend Ford Harding, author of Creating Rainmakers, wanted to know if I would join him and a consulting friend in coming up with our counsel on a single topic: “The Five Biggest Professional Service Presentation Don’ts” – things you shouldn’t say or do at a competitive presentation of your services to a potential client.

From what angle might we three approach this challenge?  How might our different orientations influence the advice we would give to a client about the same topic?   I said, “Count me in!”   

We are: a) presentation coach Sims Wyeth (www.simswyeth.com/Blog) who can help wet blankets set themselves on fire; b) myself, author of Marketplace Masters: How Professional Service Firms Compete to Win;  and c) Ford Harding, who can bring horses to water and get them to drink (www.HardingCo.com/blog). 

Each of us agreed to post our “Five Biggest Don’ts” simultaneously on our own blogs.  If you want to see the “Five Biggest Don’ts” of the others, just click on their blog links, above. 

To officiate, Ford, Sims and I have assembled a crackerjack panel of fifteen totally objective judges, selected for their diversity along multiple dimensions and their sublime sense of humor.  ;-)

Suzanne Lowe’s “Five Biggest Professional Service Presentation Don’ts”

1. Don’t try to differentiate or position your firm on the spot.  Sorry, pal, your whole firm should have thought of this BEFORE the presentation.  If you find yourself trying to come up with a one-time differentiation or position just for this presentation, it’s evidence your firm really ISN’T that well differentiated or positioned.
2. Don’t promise service offerings or delivery capabilities you aren’t SURE can be delivered, or that are wildly divergent from your firm’s differentiation or positioning strategy.  You’ll regret it later!
3. Don’t copy your competitors.  Your prospects will want you to match your rivals, but this is just asking you to sink to the lowest common denominator. Don't be tempted to go there!  Rather, think of a different, MORE VALUABLE way to delight your prospects.  And make it FIT with your firm’s uniqueness.
4. Don’t forget that one of your bigger competitors may not even be those regular foes you encounter at other presentations.  It may be your own prospects, who may decide NOT to purchase your services if they can do it themselves.
5. Don’t forget to review your value proposition and pricing strategies before you present your fee estimates.  Make sure you substantially challenge yourselves before the presentation to determine where the clients REALLY seek value.  It may be they seek value for something they haven’t articulated.

If you would like to submit additional “Professional Services Presentation Don’ts,” Ford, Sims and I would be glad to pass them on for rating to our totally objective board of fifteen judges.  Just add your comment at the bottom.

(To see a rainmaking expert’s choices for "Presentation Don’ts," go to Ford Harding's blog.  To see a presentation coach’s choices, go to Sims Wyeth’s blog:  www.simswyeth.com/Blog).