PROFESSIONAL
SERVICES
MARKETING
How the Best Firms Build Premier Brands,
Thriving Lead Generation Engines, and
Cultures of Business Development Success
MIKE SCHULTZ and JOHN DOERR
MIKE SCHULTZ is co-president of Wellesley Hills Group, a management consulting, marketing, and lead
generation firm which specializes in helping professional services firms grow their revenues. He is an
accomplished consultant and public speaker. Mr. Schultz, a graduate of Babson College, is also publisher of
RainToday.com and the Services Insider Blog.
JOHN DOERR is also co-president of Wellesley Hills Group. He has over thirty years experience consulting
with professional services firms. In addition to acting as a consultant, Mr. Doerr is a public speaker and writer.
He develops marketing and growth strategies for his clients. Mr. Doerr is a graduate of Boston University and
Boston College.
The Web site for this book is at www.whillsgroup.com.
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Professional Services Marketing - Page 1
MAIN IDEA
At one time, professional services firms could grow steadily on the strength of repeat business and client referrals alone. Those days
are likely gone forever. To succeed today, you need to use smart and engaging marketing to grow your firm. You have to get proactive
about bringing a steady stream of new clients into your business on an ongoing basis if you are to survive and then hopefully grow
your business to the size you want. In particular, you need to cover five key areas to succeed today:
Five key
areas for
growing a
professional
services firm
1
Marketing
2
Brand
3
Communicate
4
Leads
5
Rainmakers
Create a customized marketing and growth strategy
Establish your brand and reputation for market leadership
Use marketing communications to generate awareness
Generate leads for new clients to replace those that leave
Grow your rainmakers who hustle for new business
“The first rule of services marketing – a key to revenue and profitability growth – is getting your service right. The more value you
deliver, the more satisfied your clients will be. The more satisfied they are, the more likely it is they will stay loyal to your firm and refer
other clients to you. Get your service right, because the better your firm is able to deliver value to clients, the more marketing will have
an impact.”
– Mike Schultz and John Doerr
“We all know that professional services firms used to rely solely on repeat business and referrals to fuel growth. Long as they might for
the old days when all they had to do was hang out a shingle and all the selling they had to do was answer the phone when it rang,
those days are gone. The ship has sailed. The parade’s gone by. The cheese has moved. And with this change comes opportunity. All
you need to do is take advantage of it.”
– Mike Schultz and John Doerr
1. Marketing – Create a customized marketing and growth strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 2 - 3
When you market effectively, you create four desirable outcomes for your professional services firm:
• You generate new conversations with potential buyers.
• You increase the odds you will win new clients.
• You end up generating more revenue per engagement.
• You enhance your firm’s reputation to potential new talent.
All four of these outcomes are obviously desirable and therefore marketing should be something which is
happening all the time rather than just whenever a business downturn arises.
2. Brand – Establish your brand and reputation for market leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 4 - 5
Having a solid brand in the marketplace increases the effectiveness of your advertising programs,
generates leads and makes it easier for you to charge premium fees. A great brand draws clients to you
and provides more leverage. For these reasons, building your brand should be a key focus of your firm’s
marketing. To grow your business, build your brand.
3. Communicate – Use marketing communications to generate awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 5 - 6
Once you’ve decided what values you want your brand to stand for, you then have the challenge of
announcing who you are to the market in a fresh, compelling and distinctive way. The purpose of all your
communications efforts should be to attract and retain profitable clients and the best way to do that is to
become a thought leader for your industry. Gear all your outbound communications towards establishing
and then maintaining that thought leadership status.
4. Leads – Generate leads for new clients to replace those that leave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 7
Your firm will lose clients all the time for all kinds of different reasons. To replace those clients, you’ll need
to be generating a steady stream of new leads all the time. You need to be creating short-term leads (those
who will make a buying decision in the immediate future), long-term leads (those who will buy when they’re
in the right position and at the appropriate time) and those who are attracted to look you up by your brand
building efforts. To grow your business, approach lead generation in a structured and systematic way.
5. Rainmakers – Grow your rainmakers who hustle for new business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 8
Rainmakers bring new clients and big fees into service firms. They’re passionate about what they do and
some of that passion transfers to their clients. Growing your people until they attain the stature of
rainmakers is a great way to market your firm in an ethical and completely sustainable way. If you can have
rainmakers out there selling with hustle, passion and intensity, your firm can leap to the next level of growth
on the strength of their efforts.
Professional Services Marketing - Page 2
1
Five
key areas
Marketing
Create a customized marketing
and growth strategy
When you market effectively, you create four desirable
outcomes for your professional services firm:
• You generate new conversations with potential buyers.
• You increase the odds you will win new clients.
• You end up generating more revenue per engagement.
• You enhance your firm’s reputation to potential new talent.
All four of these outcomes are obviously desirable and therefore
marketing should be something which is happening all the time
rather than just whenever a business downturn arises.
Marketing is essential for any business which hopes to grow and
prosper. In particular, marketing can achieve four desirable and
measurable outcomes:
1. Marketing can generate new conversations with potential
buyers – it can expand the pool of potential clients you’re
targeting. Marketing should be generating worthwhile leads
on a regular basis and thereby be expanding your client pool.
2. Good marketing will improve your odds of winning new client
engagements – it will make it easier for prospective clients to
respond positively to your proposals. People will move
forward with engagements because they know about your
company and have a degree of confidence you’ll do what you
say you will do. Marketing can also position your firm as the
thought leader in your industry which can be very helpful.
3. Marketing can lead to higher revenue and higher fees – by
increasing the amount of business existing clients and new
clients do with you. When you’re both adding new clients and
increasing the size of the deals simultaneously, geometric
growth can be generated for your firm. This may be a matter
of putting together value-added packages of products and
services or it may be more cross-selling other services.
Marketing can be used to do both.
4. Solid marketing can enhance your firm’s visibility with the
new talent you want to hire in the future – it can establish your
firm as a highly desirable place to work. Ongoing marketing
makes it easier for you to recruit good people and retain their
services. Better-known firms are often perceived as industry
leaders and therefore more desirable places to work than
no-name firms.
To achieve these four outcomes, you have to proactively plan
your marketing programs rather than allowing things to happen
by accident. A workable marketing planning process for
professional service firms typically has seven stages or phases:
Analyze
results and
adjust
accordingly
1
Align with your goals
2
Carry out a marketing audit
3
Brainstorm new ideas
4
Test your assumptions
5
Write a one-page summary
6 Flesh out your marketing plan
7
Implement
1. Align your marketing with your firm’s overall goals – so it
doesn’t happen in isolation. The starting point should be:
“What are our firm’s revenue and growth goals?” Once that is
decided, marketing can then come in at the appropriate level.
2. Look at the current state of your marketing – what’s working
effectively and what is not. Basically here you determine
where your current revenues are coming from and how much
of that business is the direct result of your current marketing.
3. Brainstorm – new marketing ideas and approaches with all
stakeholders. Get everyone onboard with what needs to
happen in order to move your firm forwards.
4. Test your assumptions – and identify where the opportunities
truly lie. Evaluate the pluses and minuses of each potential
marketing approach and look at how the various ideas will
come together. Do fine tuning in an effort to make your
marketing mix the best it can be. Don’t forget to also look for
low-hanging fruit you can access immediately to good effect.
5. Write a one-page summary of your proposed marketing plan
– with the budget and your anticipated outcomes. Step back
and ask: “Does this make sense?” Share the summary with
everyone and ask them to pick holes in your plan, make
suggestions and give their ideas for enhancements. Be very
inclusive in this once over.
6. Flesh out your final detailed marketing plan – and then gain
commitments for the budget and resources which will be
required to make it happen. Explain the plan to all important
stakeholders and seek their commitment. Share the plan
with everyone who has hands-on involvement in making it
happen.
7. Implement – get your marketing plan happening while at the
same time keeping an eye out for better alternatives and
opportunities.
The entire marketing planning process could take anything from
two weeks to three months to complete – depending on how your
firm makes decisions and how it is structured. To keep things
moving forward, you might try and run a few of the phases in
parallel at the same time rather than sticking to a strictly
sequential time frame. If your firm is split into business units,
each unit may need to build their own plan they believe in and
everything can then be consolidated at the end of the process.
Note also ongoing analysis of the results being achieved and
needed adjustments to your plan are also an integral part of
creating your marketing and growth strategy. This regular
feedback keeps your marketing plans in working order and helps
you avoid costly errors. It enables you to fine-tune and optimize
your marketing efforts throughout the year.
“There is no doubt that if marketing were done perfectly, selling,
in the actual sense of the word, would be unnecessary.”
– Peter Drucker
“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
“With professional services firms, investment in marketing
seems like a good idea in the beginning of the year. Then, as
bonus time approaches, they cut back because the investment
comes out of the leader’s pockets. By July, they’re doing nothing
because the senior partners aren’t fully bought into the long-term
investment in marketing.”
– Mike Sheehan, CEO, Hill Holliday
Professional Services Marketing - Page 3
Professional services firms should be aware there are all kinds of
mistakes that can be made when it comes to developing and
implementing a marketing plan. The errors which crop up again
and again would include:
n
Trying to dictate a marketing strategy from the top-down –
rather than letting the people who are responsible build a
workable plan from the bottom-up.
n
Building a marketing strategy without consulting those who
are skilled in this field – which sometimes happens when
partners inject their pet marketing ideas into the plan
unannounced.
n
Using only ideas from your own industry – rather than looking
for successful marketing vehicles and concepts which can be
adapted from other industries or settings.
n
Developing a plan for which you lack the tactical expertise to
get things done – an exercise in wishful thinking rather than
savvy marketing.
n
Not allowing for organizational change to happen – and
therefore new marketing ideas to be required.
n
Worrying excessively about what your competitors are doing
– rather than doing innovative stuff which will provided added
value to your firm’s clients.
n
Continuing to do the same old thing year after year – because
of the mindset “that’s the way we’ve always done things
around here”.
n
Spending money to “generate awareness” of your firm – but
that awareness is among the thousands of people who are not
the best targets for the services your firm offers.
n
Wasting money on vanity exercise – like over-the-top graphic
design or image advertising for example.
n
Relying on just one marketing tactic to do the job – rather than
utilizing the full pallette of possibilities.
n
Giving up too soon – ceasing marketing because you can’t tell
whether or not it is being effective.
When you break your professional services firm marketing
down, there are only seven levers you’re trying to pull with
marketing in order to increase your revenues and profits. Those
levers are:
The
seven
levers of
marketing
1
Increase number of quality of targets
2
Increase number of leads you generate
3
Generate more qualified leads
4
Convert pipeline opportunities to clients
5
Grow revenue per retained client
6
Improve your revenue retention
7
Make each client’s business grow
Everything you do in terms of marketing can and should be
viewed through the lens of these specific levers. Or put another
way, you should not pursue any marketing tactic which doesn’t
move at least one of these levers up or prevent one or more of
these levers from falling. All marketing initiatives and tactics
should have the express aim of moving one or more of these
levers in the right direction.
Taking each of these levers in turn:
1. To increase the number of potential target clients for your
firm – you might launch new services for your existing clients
or make your existing services available to potential clients in
new industries, geographies or industries. You could also
launch new packages for larger or smaller clients.
2. To increase the number of leads you generate – you might
ramp up your brand building activities and introduce new lead
generation tactics. You also might enhance your Web site
with a view towards increasing lead qualification and
conversion.
3. To generate more qualified leads – you may improve your
targeting efforts and enhance your firm’s differentiation
efforts. You might also have your staff undertake sales and
relationship building training.
4. To convert more of your pipeline opportunities into clients –
you could enhance your basic value proposition and improve
your people’s basic sales skills.
5. To grow client revenues – you could look to improve your
cross-selling, revamp your pricing model, become more
skilled at negotiation tactics or jettison low revenue clients in
order to free up time for more high revenue clients.
6. To improve your revenue retention rates – you might work
towards enhancing the quality perception of your services or
move to significantly improve the relationship between your
firm and your clients.
7. To make each client’s business with you grow – you may
improve your communication programs and do things which
will offset opportunities for competitors to make inroads.
In all, professional services marketing needs to be tightly
focused on the seven levers to succeed. You won’t be able to do
everything at once so decide which of these levers are most
important and prioritize. You also need to make decisions in light
of the budget and resources you have available. How long it will
take for your efforts to bear fruit and the opportunity cost of doing
one thing and not another also need to be taken into account.
For many professional services firms, your marketing will need to
be based on decisions about which market niches you target.
Some markets may have poor growth potential and will be well
worth exiting. Others will be a distraction to your core business
model and therefore should be avoided. Not all revenue is
profitable and you most certainly don’t want to get into a position
where you’re spending more than a dollar for each dollar of new
or additional revenue you generate. Savvy marketing will require
that you make deliberate decisions about which market niches to
avoid as well.
When it comes to marketing, your biggest challenge is more
likely to be client indifference rather than your direct competitors.
In simple terms, you have to convince buyers the services you
provide will add more value than they cost. This should be the
central focus of your marketing efforts. Worry more about how
you convince people of that than you do about how you stack up
in comparison to your competitors. If you’re concerned and
working to provide as much value as feasible to your clients, they
won’t really give a second thought to your competitors. By all
means study your competition and know in detail what they’re
doing but keep that information in perspective. It’s what you
provide that people are paying for, not what they perceive your
competition has to offer.
Professional Services Marketing - Page 4
2
Five
key areas
Brand
Establish your brand and
reputation for market leadership
Having a solid brand in the marketplace increases the
effectiveness of your advertising programs, generates leads and
makes it easier for you to charge premium fees. A great brand
draws clients to you and provides more leverage. For these
reasons, building your brand should be a key focus of your firm’s
marketing. To grow your business, build your brand.
A “brand” can be concisely defined as: “a collection of
perceptions about your firm which exists in the mind of your
clients and prospective clients”. A good solid brand:
• Increase the effectiveness of your sales communications
• Assists you to generate more leads
• Lays the foundation for you to charge higher fees
• Helps you beat the competition
• Enables you to facilitate repeat business
• Assists with your recruitment efforts for quality talent
• Increases the value of your company
Put another way, a good brand will move people through the four
phases all buyers go through before they become your client:
Your assets are what your firm has which help you deliver value
to your clients. Your competencies are what your people are
capable of delivering. Assets and competencies combine to form
your firm’s capabilities – the outcomes you can achieve for your
clients. Your branding efforts should seek to amplify your firm’s
capabilities in the broader marketplace.
What you say
about yourself
Branding is all about amplifying and expanding what lies at the
intersection of what you say about your own firm (in your
marketing materials) and what clients perceive you’re really like.
You communicate your value proposition to the marketplace and
then allow your existing clients to validate that’s what you
actually deliver. A true and accurate value proposition will
resonate with buyers, differentiate your firm and substantiate
your claims.
Good brands based on that intersection between what you say
about yourself and what clients perceive you’re really like:
1
Awareness of your firm
2
Interest in making a purchase
3
Generation of purchase intent
4 Conversion into a pipeline opportunity
Closely aligned to your brand will be your firm’s value
proposition. A “value proposition” is defined as: “the collection of
reasons why an individual or a company will benefit from working
with your firm”. A good value proposition will answer a
prospective client’s questions such as:
• What is the business impact of solving this problem?
• What are the risks if we don’t solve this problem?
• What would be the cost of other alternative solutions?
• Do I trust this firm to deliver what they say they can?
n
Always use marketing which is based on a solid foundation of
the reality of what you deliver.
n
Lead to opportunities to expand into new products and
services on the strength of what the firm currently does well.
n
Generate trust as the foundation for an ongoing business
relationship.
n
Project what your clients and prospects value highly.
n
Accurately portray who you are as a professional services
provider.
Establishing a solid professional services firm brand is a
four-step process something like this:
P
M
Both your brand and your value proposition will be derived from
two basic building blocks:
A
R
1
2
Assets
Competencies
• Your tools
• Knowledge
• Resources of your firm
• Personal skills
• Intellectual capital
• Attributes
• Proprietary methodologies
• Past experience
• Your people
• Client results
Assets
Capabilities
Competencies
What clients
perceive you
are really like
Recognize
R
Memorize
Prefer
Articulate
Recognize – you want your target clients to know who you are
and what you do. This is not just a matter of advertising to get
your name out there which is a total waste. You want to earn
name recognition by making offers which will lead to further
business opportunities in the future. Good brand recognition
will come from getting out into the marketplace and offering:
• Free initial fact finding consultations
• Seminars on how to do things better
• Exclusive access to Web sites with white papers, etc.
• Offers to help people build value in their own operations
• Offers to share your skills and know-how
• Other offers which are focused on potential client benefits
Professional Services Marketing - Page 5
A
Articulate – you want your target clients to know what you do
and how you work with companies just like them. If
prospective clients know what you can deliver, they will also
then know how, where, when and why to apply your services.
There is also the added benefit they are in a position to refer
you to others who could use your services.
M
Memorize – you want to be in the position where if a
prospective client needs your services, your company is the
first option they think of. Your communications have to be
memorable so people will get back to you in time of need.
P
Prefer – finally you want target clients to prefer your services
above all other options. This will only happen if you manage
to create a compelling reason why they should work with you
and your firm.
“Developing a brand identity without the RAMP methodology
firmly embedded in the beginning of the process often leads to
graphic design and marketing campaigns in a vacuum. You don’t
want logos, web sites, brochures, presentations, and marketing
tactics developed without the end goal in mind: creating a client’s
preference for your firm.”
– Mike Schultz and John Doerr
“There’s a buying cycle. Before anyone is likely to buy, they’ve
got to know who you are. The more aware they are of your name,
the more that awareness breeds familiarity. Familiarity builds
trust. Trust generates brand preference.”
– Ed Russ, chief marketing officer, Grant Thornton
When it comes to building your brand, there are a few marketing
maxims which don’t apply to professional services firms:
ý Don’t aim to be “unique” or “different” – because that’s not
really what people want from their accountants, lawyers or
consultants. Many of the big firms which failed publicly touted
themselves as being unique just before they went down in a
blaze of publicity. Clients want to be with the market leaders,
not those firms which are flirting with breaking the law.
ý Don’t position yourself as the opposite of the market leader –
because being different just for the sake of being different
doesn’t appeal. Have a strong value proposition that
resonates with potential clients.
ý Don’t try and create a new category of services – it doesn’t
make sense for a professional services firm. Do you think the
IRS will accept a new category of tax calculations in order for
your accountant to stand out from the crowd?
ý Don’t worry about any first-mover advantage – again this
doesn’t make sense. You want to provide high-quality
services regardless of when your firm was established.
ý Don’t try and “own” a word in your prospect’s mind – like
accounting, legal or consulting. Again, this piece of
conventional marketing advice doesn’t apply. There is an
abundance of service providers in every service industry and
your potential clients will recognize that. Trying to own a word
will be an exercise in futility and a waste of your marketing
dollars.
ý Don’t worry about being number one in your market – it’s
neither a feasible nor a desirable target for most professional
services firms. You should focus on client loyalty and
reputation by all means but the biggest firms are not always
the most profitable. Grow your revenues and your profits but
going for number one status is just a gimmick.
3
Five
key areas
Communicate
Use marketing communications
to generate awareness
Once you’ve decided what values you want your brand to stand
for, you then have the challenge of announcing who you are to
the market in a fresh, compelling and distinctive way. The
purpose of all your communications efforts should be to attract
and retain profitable clients and the best way to do that is to
become a thought leader for your industry. Gear all your
outbound communications towards establishing and then
maintaining that thought leadership status.
Everyone approaches marketplace communications with the
viewpoint something about their own firm is “different” from the
standard approach used by everyone else. That’s all well and
fine but it’s not really all that helpful. From a positioning
perspective, it would be better to make an emotional connection
with potential buyers than it would be to stress that you’re
different from everyone else.
Instead of worrying about graphic design and copywriting
obsessively, your marketing messages should send four basic
signals to the intended readers:
1. We fit with the way you work and will be the right firm for you to
use and collaborate with.
2. We can help fix your problems and can also help you create a
brighter future.
3. We get what you genuinely need in ways that all the other
firms have no idea what we’re talking about.
4. We can help you do what you’re trying to accomplish
because we’re experienced and successful.
Bearing in mind the purpose of marketing is to attract and retain
profitable clients rather than anything else that may be
mentioned, the five key guidelines worth remembering are:
1. Always keep your eyes on the prize – meaning don’t spend
hours and days worrying about your materials down to the
last comma and the smallest pixel available. It’s not worth it.
Get your messages out there.
2. Design by committee never works – so be judicious about
collaborating with too many people. Too many opinions will
just muddy the waters rather than generate better materials.
3. Never forget the axiom “less is more” – and apply that to all
your creative processes. Try and get less people involved.
Don’t keep going through more design drafts but move on.
Forget about expensive add-ons which won’t make a
difference to clients.
4. Don’t hire experts and then ignore their advice – but take full
advantage of the expertise you’re paying for. Either go with
what the specialists suggest in its entirety or get new experts.
Don’t assume the role of art critic and suggest what has been
designed would work better if it were just a different shade of
green. All you’ll end up doing is diluting the composition.
Utilize the experience you’re paying for.
5. Stop any insanity – don’t dither or postpone. Keep things
simple and focused on winning and retaining clients. If
anything you’re doing is overkill, stop it dead in its tracks.
Save your company from wasting time and energy on stuff
that won’t affect the results.
Professional Services Marketing - Page 6
Ideally you want all your marketing messages to combine to
establish your firm as the thought leader in the clearly defined
market you serve. In practical terms, thought leaders are those
who share their ideas with their target markets and thereby
become prominent and influential. You will find thought leaders:
• Writing books and columns for trade journals and magazines
• Delivering seminars where they expand their ideas
• Leading panel discussions at trade and industry gatherings
• Teaching, inspiring, mentoring and influencing others
Simply put, thought leadership is earned when your thoughts and
ideas resonate with decision makers and influencers within your
defined niche market. Achieving thought leadership depends on
two key things:
1
2
The
quality of
your
intellectual
capital
Exposure
of your
intellectual
capital to
the market
The quality of your intellectual capital will be somewhat
subjective but in general terms, high quality material has eight
distinguishing characteristics:
1. Distinction – quality material can stand on its own as a
worthwhile contribution to the state of the art. Gurus
assemble, package and broadcast good business ideas.
They don’t necessarily develop these ideas from nothing but
the way they assemble and package them is original.
2. Salience – high quality intellectual material thrusts itself into
your attention. It’s contagious like a spark which sets fire to a
pile of kindling.
3. Relevance – great material appeals to a market of worthwhile
size for what you’re trying to achieve. It’s not just an idea only
a few people will be interested in.
4. Consequence – meaning high quality intellectual materials
pass the “so what?” test. The ideas are important enough to
make it on to people’s to-do lists. Decision makers pay
attention to what’s being suggested.
5. Defensibility – great ideas can be defended on their own
merits. They’re not necessarily bulletproof but quality ideas
can stand close examination without any problems.
6. Realism – high quality ideas apply to the real world and are
not confined to theoretical realms. They can be brought to life
because they are practical and workable. For good ideas, the
leap from conception to implementation is not that great.
7. Elegance – quality concepts are refined, efficient and usually
graceful. Most elegant ideas are also breathtakingly simple in
hindsight which is a characteristic of an elegant idea. Elegant
ideas are also easy to be judged as relevant and
consequential.
8. Presentation – high quality intellectual material is always
presented well. When people look at it, they appreciate the
professionalism involved in bringing everything together.
It is true not everyone can or even should attempt to become a
thought leader. Loads of people start out with the best of
intentions to become a thought leader but the reality of the
situation is only a few manage to pull this off. Those who do
succeed as thought leaders tend to have these characteristics:
n
Thought leaders are passionate about what they do and enjoy
it. That generates drive and motivation.
n
Thought leaders feel compelled to mentor and teach others
what they know.
n
Thought leaders enjoy building a reputation and public profile.
They feel validated by their following.
n
Thought leaders are generally edgy and controversial. They
enjoy taking risks with the messages they put out there.
n
While thought leaders are confident about their own skill sets,
they also genuinely enjoy learning from others who have skills
in different areas.
n
Thought leaders in essence are prepared to risk today’s time
in exchange for bigger payoffs in the future as their
reputations grow.
n
Thought leaders never retire. They keep working, making
connections and communicating their ideas long after they
have become well known.
If you can become a thought leader in your industry, the benefits
you’ll derive are:
• You’ll find there is greater demand for your services
• Trade magazines will request interviews and comments
• Your articles will get published more often
• You’ll have a global reach rather than being a local success
• You’ll find it easier to acquire new clients
• You can publish a book
• You’ll find it easier to generate more leads
In all, becoming a thought leader for your industry is smart
business. It lays a good platform for business success and will
make all your marketing initiatives perform better. To pull it off
and sustain it, you’ve got to be able to generate high-quality
material on an ongoing basis and then have effective ways to get
the message out into the marketplace. It’s hard work but the
rewards can be correspondingly impressive.
“Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into
action is the most difficult thing in the world.”
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“I think marketing, at a minimum, should help lawyers become
thought leaders in clearly defined markets, particularly those
markets tightly aligned with a firm’s experience, expertise,
capabilities and growth goals.”
– Kevin McMurdo, chief marketing officer, Perkins Cole
“Rather than push, push, push, I shifted my entire organization to
enticing pull. I figure if content is king, then let it be king. Get
some very interesting content that’s provocative enough to pull
them in.”
– Paul Dunay, global director of marketing, BearingPoint
“What I’ve done over the years is I’ve made a huge investment in
long-term success. All those articles I’ve written that you read, I
didn’t get paid to write those articles. Many of the conferences
and speeches I’ve given, I’ve done it for free. My Web site: I give
away all the materials, and I don’t get paid for that. So I’ve made a
huge investment. Be willing to invest for the long haul. Be willing
to invest when there’s no short-term payoff, and be willing to
make personal sacrifice for long-term positive brand
enhancement. Most professionals are not willing to do that.”
– Dr. Marshall Goldsmith
Professional Services Marketing - Page 7
4
Five
key areas
Leads
Suspects
Generate leads for new clients
to replace those that leave
Leads
Qualified Prospects
Your firm will lose clients all the time for all kinds of different
reasons. To replace those clients, you’ll need to be generating a
steady stream of new leads all the time. You need to be creating
short-term leads (those who will make a buying decision in the
immediate future), long-term leads (those who will buy when
they’re in the right position and at the appropriate time) and those
who are attracted to look you up by your brand building efforts.
To grow your business, approach lead generation in a structured
and systematic way.
Customers
n
Business development – where you convert leads into
qualified prospects by identifying when they are ready to
start using what you offer.
n
Commitment – closing the sale and transforming
prospects into customers.
n
Business enhancement – where you continue to market
additional products and services to your current clients.
Marketing to your existing clients invariably is cheaper.
You’re trying here to increase your wallet share.
Generating an ongoing and steady supply of new leads for a
professional services firm really comes down to three tactics:
Three
tactics of
lead
generation
1
Offer value in your marketing and selling
2
Nurture relationships to fill the funnel
3
Keep improving your targeting expertise
1. Offer value in your marketing and selling – so much so that
people get a taste of what it’s like to be your client before they
become one. By offering people value, you come across as
being credible and distinctive. To offer value, you have to:
• Understand the value you have to offer them.
• Make that value tangible from the client’s perspective.
• Outline your processes and expected outcomes.
• Be professional rather than pressing for a decision.
• Create experiences with you.
To give an example, suppose you sit down with a prospective
client and they say: “Well, I’ve never heard of your firm. Who
are you?” Contrast that with a prospective client who says:
“Well, it’s nice to meet you in person. I really like your Web
site and the assessment methodology you explain there. I’ve
read two of your white papers which I found to be very useful.
I also saw your keynote address at our last trade show and
regularly get your firm’s e-mail newsletter. I’ve been looking
forward to meeting you.” In this second scenario, your sales
job is a little bit easier than in the first.
Offering value in your marketing and selling means to give
people a sneak preview of what it would be like to be your
client. You do this by being a thought leader. If you do this,
you precondition people to respond positively and
demonstrate to people you are trustworthy and valuable.
2. Nurture relationships to fill the funnel – which is something
which needs to be happening all the time. Sustained lead
generation is the key to building a vibrant professional
services firm because it ensures a steady stream of new
business. Doing this effectively also keeps you top of mind.
To keep your sales funnel full, you should be doing:
n
Research – to identify the people who you suspect would
benefit by purchasing your services. This may be a matter
of targeting specific market niches or making a sustained
effort to start conversations with individuals.
n
Lead generation – you keep these people in the
communications loop while you work to build the
relationship. This is a key business development
exercise.
3. Keep improving your targeting expertise – so you can focus
the bulk of your marketing efforts on people who are
predisposed and able to buy rather than those who have no
interest whatsoever in what you have to offer them. Ideally,
you want to target people who:
• Work at the right level in their organizations
• Have the right titles and are decision makers
• Can control or influence the acquisition process
• Work for companies which are the right size for you
Naturally, the better you can become at targeting, the more
efficient your marketing will become. You’ll spend less time
and money talking to people who have no chance of ever
purchasing. Effective targeting also means you can work
more at establishing a strong position in the minds of
potential buyers and less at reaching a wider group of people
Keep in mind when targeting not only do you want to reach
buyers but you also want to get through to the influencers
within customer firms as well. Some of these key influencers
may not work for the target firm – they may be outside
consultants or friends of the key decision makers. Thus, to at
least a certain degree, targeting is about building and
expanding your network of contacts first and foremost.
Targeting is also about building a list of people who are like
your very best existing clients and then finding ways to
establish contact with them and keep in touch until hopefully
they are ready to buy. You perhaps might offer them research
on trends within your industry as a white paper they can
download in exchange for providing more detailed
information about themselves. Or you may be able to get
them to receive your monthly newsletter as a follow-up. The
whole idea of targeting is you spend more time and resources
on those who are likely to buy and less time and resources on
those who are highly unlikely to ever be purchasing what your
firm offers.
“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”
– Peter Drucker
Professional Services Marketing - Page 8
5
Five
key areas
Rainmakers
Grow your rainmakers who
hustle for new business
Rainmakers bring new clients and big fees into service firms.
They’re passionate about what they do and some of that passion
transfers to their clients. Growing your people until they attain the
stature of rainmakers is a great way to market your firm in an
ethical and completely sustainable way. If you can have
rainmakers out there selling with hustle, passion and intensity,
your firm can leap to the next level of growth on the strength of
their efforts.
“Whether they want to or they must, many professionals are
driven toward making the transition from trusted advisor to
rainmaker. So they look to the sales profession for tips on how to
do it. Unfortunately, some of the tactics the salespeople may use
to sell are counterproductive for aspiring rainmakers. Why?
Because when most salespeople sell, they are selling either a
product or a service delivered by someone else. Professionals
who sell are typically selling something far more difficult:
themselves and their colleagues.”
– Mike Schultz and John Doerr
With this in mind, rainmakers don’t use phony or ethically
uncomfortable sales tactics. Instead, they prepare, they listen,
they figure out how to care about the client’s problems and they
create new futures the client didn’t even know was feasible. To
learn how to become a rainmaker, learn the RAIN sales process:
Rapport
R
Impact
A
Aspirations
Afflictions
I
N
New Reality
R Rapport – form genuine connections with the person you
hope will become a client of your firm. Make them feel
comfortable describing their problems to you because they
realize you’re concerned about their well-being and future
success.
A Aspirations and Afflictions – means to uncover the potential
client’s pain or problems and where they want to go in the
future. This is the diagnostic process where you analyze with
a clear mind what problems or needs the client has at
present. You use this information later on to paint a new and
compelling future where this problem does not exist.
I
Impact – means clarifying what will happen if the affliction
doesn’t get solved. What will get worse? Will profitability
alone be affected or will survivability become an issue? The
greater the impact you can uncover here, the harder it
becomes for the potential client to remain indifferent to what
you have to offer. Impact creates urgency to find a solution by
buying your services.
N
New Reality – is where you help potential clients understand
exactly what they will get by working with you. It also means
conveying this same information to others who are involved
in the buying decision. Great rainmakers craft a new reality
which is intensely alluring and enticing.
Pure and simple the essence of rainmaking is relationship
building. In previous eras, advertising for professional service
firms was unheard-of or even disallowed by regulation. Today,
rainmakers in all professions network to build relationships which
in turn lead to referrals and ultimately new business. If you want
to become a rainmaker, get to be very effective in networking
because this is always your starting point.
The four building blocks of professional relationships are:
1. T r u s t – having r apport with a person and their
acknowledgment you are competent and professionally
qualified to help them.
2. Understanding of their actual needs – taking the time to
accurately uncover and then understand the pain they are
feeling in your area of expertise.
3. Solutions – salespeople offer products or services but
professionals provide solutions to genuine problems.
4. Value – professionals articulate what specific value will be
gained if they are engaged. This value is not always
expressed in dollars but may be in efficiencies, in quicker
resolution of future problems or in many other ways.
Rainmakers has sufficient expertise and empathy to build solid
professional relationships which then lead to more business for
their firms. People trust them enough to explain their real needs
rather than gloss over these details. Rainmakers know how to
put together superior solutions which add lots of value. They can
do this because they have taken the time and effort to build a
network filled with high quality professional relationships.
Rainmakers get out into the marketplace and sell with hustle,
passion and intensity. Most professionals understand the need
to sell their services more and genuinely mean to get around to it
one day but rainmakers get into action. They create
opportunities to generate new clients because they get into the
game. They build their networks and form relationships with
those who may be or become potential clients. In short, they do it
rather than merely thinking about it. When all is said and done,
the greatest key of all when it comes to becoming a rainmaker is:
DO IT.
“Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives,
stop thinking and go in.”
– Napoleon Boneparte
“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”
– Henry Ford
“What makes a good rainmaker? The ability to put yourself in the
other person’s shoes.”
– Ed Russ, chief marketing officer, Grant Thornton
“What do you need to succeed at rainmaking? Interpersonal
skills and analytics, in that order. I’ve hire Rhodes scholars. I’ve
hired brilliant geniuses. All of that is not a proxy for being
successful in terms of getting in front of a client, making an
impact, and making a sale. It’s all around developing trust.”
– Mike May, professor, Babson College and
former global managing partner for Accenture
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