DO REAL PROFESSIONALS REALLY DO MARKETING?

Building a Marketing Culture For Fun And Survival

The nagging problem is whether the need to market, and the willingness to do it, has really penetrated the ranks of law and accounting firms, or is it still something done by that person down the hall.

Part of the problem is that there’s no tradition for marketing in professional services firms. A manufacturer, whether it’s IBM or a maker of small gadgets, understands on some level that the business it’s in is marketing. The product is what they make to fill the channels opened by marketing. Moreover, everybody who works in a manufacturing company understands, on one level or another, the role played by marketing, even though marketing may not be his or her specific job. To cite Peter Drucker, they understand that the purpose of a company is to create a client.

There is no comparable attitude in the traditional accounting or law firm. Firms may have their rainmakers – the partner who could go into a telephone booth alone and come out arm in arm with a new client – but in today’s competitive marketplace, one or two rainmakers are not enough. The firms themselves must be turned into marketing machines – to have a culture that understands and supports a marketing effort.

For people in manufacturing firms, marketing and its role in the company is understood on one level or another. For people in professional firms, the relationship between what they do and the outreach to the marketplace is rarely understood, and is tenuous at best.

What makes it more difficult is that in professional services, the final sale that converts the prospect into a client must ultimately be done by a professional who performs the service, even when a non-professional individual generates the lead.

Today, the firms that compete best in the marketplace are those that might be said to have a successful marketing culture, a structure – and more importantly, an attitude – that grants enthusiastic hospitality to marketing.

Defining A Marketing Culture

            A firm may be said to have a marketing culture when it’s professional staff…

·        Understands and recognizes the role that marketing disciplines play in firm management and development.

·        Understands and respects the professionalism of the marketing professional and the marketing staff.

·        Recognizes the relationship between what they do and the needs of the marketplace.

·        Understands and accepts its role in the marketing process.

·        Understands and accepts that non-billable hours spent on marketing are an investment in the future of the firm, and are not simply non-billable hours.

·        Participates in specific marketing activities.

·        Retains and supports competent professional marketing staff.

·        Structures the firm to develop and pursue a marketing program.

·        And ultimately, is managed by people who understand and enthusiastically support the marketing effort.

A firm that meets these criteria is one that will compete successfully, function profitably, and grow.

Building A Marketing Culture

            Building a marketing culture is not done with 1-2-3 steps. It requires….

·        Top management support

·        Good marketing professionals

·        Education

·        A marketing structure within the firm

Ultimately, building a marketing structure may require a measure of behavior modification, which sounds worse than it really is. It’s not a Pavlovian exercise, as much as an understanding that for marketing to succeed in a professional firm, every professional must participate. And every professional must understand the competitive advantages of participating.

Top Management Support

Top management support is crucial. Merely to have the managing partner say, “OK, let’s do it” is not enough. Whatever the management style – lead by example, exhort, mandate – it’s not the same thing as being able to understand and then explain why marketing activities are essential for the growth of the firm; that people will be rewarded for marketing activities; that a measure of non-billable hours applied to marketing is not only acceptable but cherished; that marketing activity is a factor that contributes to measuring partners, associates, and professional staff compensation. Top management support means inculcating into the firm the concept that in all professional activities, the client is at the core – that without clients there is no firm. Without focus on – and attention to – client needs, there are no clients.

Professionalism is not an arcane philosophy that serves the professional alone – it ’s a service that addresses the needs of the clientele – a crucial distinction. Top management support means more than acceptance of marketing – it means leadership.

Good Marketing Professionals

            Someone once said that if you’re smart enough to be a lawyer or an accountant, you’re smart enough to do your own marketing. Sure. And you’re probably smart enough to be a nuclear physicist – but that doesn’t make you one.

            Marketing isn’t nuclear physics, but it is a profession with its own practices, experiences, skills, and techniques. The good marketing professional is trained in the tools and mechanics of marketing, in its ideas and concepts, in its highly focused point of view. Experience tells the marketing professional what may work and what may not work. If the marketer is imaginative and deft in using imagination, you get a program that’s thoughtful and specifically relative to your needs. And the good marketer understands your profession and its needs.

            The good marketer understands the distinctive nature of lawyers and accountants, and is capable of working well with them. As a professional, the good marketer belongs to, and is active in, the association of law (LMA – Legal Marketers Association) or accounting firm marketers (AAM – Association of Accounting Marketers), benefiting from the experience of peers, and contributing as well. The good marketing professional is also a teacher, who knows how to impart the meaning and techniques of marketing skills to professionals who are not themselves trained marketers. The good marketer is a leader, capable of leading professionals in marketing activities and concepts, and of managing marketing staff.

Remember, the tools of marketing are available to everyone. What counts, then, is the experience and imagination the marketer brings to those skills. Its more than the sum of the skills and mechanics, it’s the artistry with which they’re used. When you’re hiring a marketing professional, then, don’t hire the mechanic – hire the artist.

Education

            Since the Bates decision, people have been trying to turn professionals into marketers. It rarely works, and it’s never going to happen. And when you try, the professionals dig their heels in defiantly. “I didn’t go to law (or accounting) school to be a salesperson.” What, then, should a professional learn about marketing?

            Nobody can close a deal with a new client but the professional. The marketing professional can build the marketing program that enhances name recognition and reputation, and that can project the lawyer or accountants’ skills and special capabilities, but ultimately, the client has to meet the person who’s going to perform the service. The bond between client and practitioner, the trust needed in a professional relationship, is a personal relationship that no salesperson can engender for a professional.

            But the marketing activities that the lawyer or accountant can do, particularly under the aegis of the marketing professional, are important. For example…

• The professional, with the marketer’s help, can write articles, can run seminars, can make speeches.
• Under the marketer’s guidance, the professional can improve networking skills, particularly under a carefully devised networking program.
• The professional can learn to contribute to such marketing activities as writing articles for a firm or firm practice newsletter.
• The professional can learn how to follow up a contact made by direct mail, by attending firm seminars,
• While the professional who is not an instinctive sales person is not likely to become one, any intelligent professional can learn the selling skills necessary to convert a prospect into a client.
• A professional can learn how to keep a client, once the client is in the house.
• A professional can learn to understand the broader marketing program, and his or her role in it, without having to become a professional marketer.

These are things that merely broaden individual intelligence and education for the practitioner, at no cost to professionalism, and without going beyond the boundaries of normal business practice.

The Structure For Marketing

            If we have learned nothing in the quarter century of professional firm marketing, we’ve learned that with rare exceptions, you don’t market the firm, you market its services and practices.

            Nothing should prevent you from promoting your firm as a firm, but if you do, you’d better be prepared to be confused with every other firm that does exactly what you do. And remember, you can’t say “We do better audits,” or “We write better briefs.” You can’t prove it, it’s unethical, and it’s certainly not credible.

            What you can – and should – do, is promote each skill, each practice, each market segment you serve. While this doesn’t preclude a general marketing campaign that enhances name recognition, presence, and firm prestige, segmented marketing designs programs that go straight to target markets, and give you more latitude in promoting individual firm skills.

            While there are many approaches to structuring a firm for marketing, perhaps the most successful, as defined by Patrick McKenna and David Maister in their masterful book, First Among Equals, is the practice group. For any firm with more than a few lawyers or professionals, the practice group structure is proving to be the most effective way to manage a practice. It recognizes that each practice area has a different target audience, and requires different skills and techniques. The practice group allows the professionals in that group to address the specific practice and marketing problems of the practice, and to manage them effectively. Among the advantages of the practice group are….

·        It’s defined by a specific practice within a firm, or a specific target audience. It could be a real estate group, or a tax practice, or a group offering computer services – anything defined by a discrete market that’s served by professionals within the firm. The advantages are that every member of the group shares a common set of skills with the others in the group, addresses a common market, and most significantly, has the intellectual capability to develop a distinctive marketing program to attract that market.

·        It can enhance the skills of its members, all of whom share a common market, with common needs.

·        It can share the burdon of a marketing effort. For example, if the group publishes brochures or newsletters, each member can participate in writing. Each member can participate in seminars, or speeches. Each member can address one of several organizations that are part of a networking plan.

·        It can be a superb vehicle for communication with other practice groups within the firm, thereby eliminating unnecessary communication, while sharing ideas for a common goal.

Managing the practice group, as McKenna and Maister point out, requires its own set of management skills, which are masterfully described by McKenna and Maister in First Among Equals.

If, on the other hand, the nature of your firm doesn’t lend itself to practice groups, you might consider designating a partner as the marketing partner, with the responsibility to oversee the program, coordinate the efforts of marketing professionals with the partnership, and act as a monitor and motivator to oversee participation in the program by individuals in the firm.

The Marketing Program

            The tools of marketing are not a program – they are simply tools.

            A marketing program, then, is not simply a catalogue of tools. It’s a plan -- a strategy, and attendant tactics. It’s the sum total of all relevant activities, supporting one another, and not just random activities designed without objective, nor relevance to the needs of the prospective client.

            It begins with understanding the needs and opportunities of the markets you serve. It defines your abilities to meet those needs. It develops a strategy to persuade your market that you can serve its needs. And it formulates the tactics needed to make that strategy functional.

            You have to assess the markets, and your ability or willingness to meet the needs of that market, realistically. The relationship between assessing the market and assessing your ability to serve the market is crucial.

            The major strategy should be to market practice by practice, and service by service.

            Marketing the entire firm, whether it’s through advertising or other means, is necessary to some degree for the name recognition (forget image – it’s a myth and a cliché). But if you want to compete with your skills in expatriate taxation, then you market expatriate taxation, or real estate closings or any other of your specialties. And the firm itself will benefit as well, in the best possible way – with credibility.

            You can’t say, “We have great skills, so hire us.” That kind of statement doesn’t distinguish you from your competitors, nor is it credible. You can’t say, “We believe in client satisfaction” for the same reasons. And that’s why you can’t expect any strategy to market your skills and ability to serve clients by marketing the entire firm. Each practice, each skill set, must have its own marketing program.

            By defining the target audience first, you can devise the strategy to address that audience, by…

·        Defining the needs and opportunities of that market segment

·        Designing collateral material addressed to that audience

·        Writing articles and developing other media activities for media that serves that market.

·        Networking through organizations that serve that market

·        Running seminars for companies in that segment

·        Doing specialized newsletters

·        Using carefully targeted direct mail

Tactics

            Tactics are the most difficult part of a professional firm marketing program, because so much of what must be done depends upon the scarce, non-billable time of partners and professional staff. If the firm management hasn’t made clear that participation is an integral part of recognition and growth within the firm, you can scrap the marketing program.

            The marketing professional can do a great deal. He or she may be able to write an article or a brochure, but needs the input of the practitioner. The marketing professional may be able to design and run a seminar, or arrange for a speech, but the practitioner must supply the content. The marketing professional may be able to place the story in the media, but the practitioner must supply the story.

            The firm that understands this, and participates in it, is one that can be said to have a successful marketing culture.

            And all of these activities must be managed. They must be prioritized. They must be made to happen, whether at the behest of a marketing professional or a partner in charge of marketing. They must be times, and coordinated.

            And the major objective of the well designed marketing program?

            To get the opportunity to meet the prospect face to face, in order to sell. The ultimate objective, and the only ultimate objective, is to get the client.

Client Retention

            In the firm with a strong marketing culture, getting the client is only half the battle. The other half is keeping the client. It’s done with more than just doing good work. In fact, most clients, surveys tell us, don’t really know how good or how bad your work is. Why should they? It’s not the business they’re in.

            Independent studies also show that a large percentage of professional firm clients are dissatisfied with the levels of service from their accountants and lawyers. They are given no basis for understanding what’s being done for them, nor are reasonable expectations defined. What basis do clients have, then, for being satisfied?

The reality is that this new world is competitive in ways that it's never been before. Ask your clients how many times they've been approached by your competitors, and pursued aggressively. And then ask yourself if you can continue to be sanguine about keeping your clients happy, on a day-by-day basis.

            There are, of course, some things that are clearly necessary in client retention. Getting the right client in the first place is important. Doing good work, obviously. Being responsive, obviously. Being timely in delivering promised reports and material. Being polite to clients.

            But these are things that are inherent in the meaning of professional. It's what the client is paying for. You get no credit for doing them, but you lose clients for not doing them.

            The larger picture of client retention, on the other hand, is predicated upon recognizing the competitive and changing nature of the marketplace.

            Sophisticated marketers have a strong handle on who the client company is, what the company does, what its needs are, and how to address those needs in marketing approaches.

Which means that if you don't have that same knowledge, and the kind of relationship that means total involvement in the client's concerns, then you're in imminent danger of losing that client.

            Keeping in touch with clients is not – and cannot be – a casual matter. Today’s business is too dynamic, and things change constantly. At the same time, your competitors aren’t resting from pursuing your clients, so you may not rest.

            Client retention, then, requires more than the obvious factors of doing good work and delivering it on time. And in fact, in a dynamic business world, it's often more than a personal relationship. It's at least . . .

·         Being immersed in a client's business and industry. While the professional has a stake in some aspects of arms length relationship, this doesn't preclude knowing enough about a client's business to anticipate problems in your professional area, and to seek new ways in which other of your services can help the client.

·         Visible quality control systems. You may have your internal quality control systems, but if the client doesn't know that, then the client has no reason to believe they exist. More importantly, the quality control systems should relate to the client's business, not yours. This is increasingly pertinent, following the accounting and corporate scandals of the first years of the century, and in many respects, is mandated by such laws as Sarbanes-Oxley.

· Frequent contact points, beyond the engagement. You do, of course, what you've been hired to do. But you help both the client and yourself when you send a brochure on a subject of mutual interest. Or a copy of a clipping in which you've been quoted on a subject the client might care about. Or a simple newsletter, either your own or one of the excellent packaged ones, covering information of interest or concern to the client. The client should know you exist between contracts, between matters, between consultations.

· Maintaining personal relationships. Not just drinking and dining to keep the client happy, but establishing and reinforcing a sense of mutual understanding and trust. The degree to which the client calls on you for business advice is as much a matter of personal trust as it is professional trust.

                   The client-driven, rather than the practice-driven, firm is the only safe way to compete in today's market. The price of ignoring this concept? A major professional firm took a highly conservative position on a matter pertaining to a client's matter. The problem was not the position, but that the position was taken for the firm's protection, and not the client's -- and the client was made aware of this. There went the client.

            Keeping in touch with your client is crucial because needs change. Your services change. By constantly reviewing the client's needs, you not only assure that you're giving the client the best service, and that you're maximizing the relationship, but you're also telling the client that you're concerned.

Regular client surveys help. New York's former Mayor Koch used to walk the streets of the city, asking people, "How'm I doing?" He didn't always like what he heard, but he always knew. Anybody who doesn't take active steps to keep aware of client attitudes toward the firm is somebody who likes unpleasant surprises. A simple one-page survey, annually, goes a long way. Frequent personal conversations with the managing partner are even better.

            Successful professionals are those who've learned the difference between client relations and client service. Both are important, but one is not the substitute for the other. In client retention, you have to have both.         

            It's the peculiar nature of professional services that quality plays little or no role in getting new business, except perhaps in terms of reputation. It plays a crucial role in client retention, on the other hand, if you define quality as giving the client what the client needs, wants, and expects. Most frequently, in order to know what the client needs, wants, and expects, you have to be immersed in the relationship. And you have to ask. Here, quality is not an abstraction or a hollow boast -- it's a reality.

            Those who are most successful at client retention are those who actively work at it. They have programs and checklists. Even small firms that are aware of the need for it have programs that focus on paying attention. They listen. They contact. They understand the economics, and know what kind of return they're getting on their investment in it.

            And they know, at first hand, why it's true that keeping a client is still cheaper than getting a new one.

Living With The Marketing Culture

            Some quarter of a century since the Bates decision breathed life into professional services marketing, the professions have gone from an arcane, firm-centered, elitist culture to the beginnings of an understanding that at the core of every successful practice is the client. We’ve gone from groping to sophistication in marketing, which was as new to the professions in those early days as were the first live pictures from Mars.

            We’ve learned a lot about marketing the modern professional firm. But we’ve learned nothing with greater certainty than that the firm with the best marketing culture is the firm most likely to thrive in the coming decades.

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