The literature on professional services marketing is replete with exhortations to write articles, hold seminars, issue newsletters, send out press releases, make speeches, and use direct mail – all of which are valid and important tools of marketing. Except for one thing. Only in rare instances do these activities, of themselves, produce clients.
There are two reasons for this. First, people rarely hire an accountant or lawyer or consultant from an article or seminar, or even a direct mail piece. This is a major difference, by the way, from selling a product, in which the product’s features tend to speak for themselves.
Second, people cannot be sold a service they don’t need at the moment. Nobody wakes up in the morning and say, ”What I really need today is a good audit,” or “What a great day to sue somebody,” or “Help me solve a problem I don’t have yet.”
If these tools don’t sell, what, then, is their purpose? At best, and with rare exceptions, they build name recognition and reputation – a backdrop against which to ultimately sell your services. They help define your firm, in terms of its expertise and the expertise of its individual practitioners, its quality in the areas in which it focuses, and the overall nature of your practice. With seminars, or in dealing with prospects you may meet under other circumstances, the purpose, other than to display our expertise, is to develop and expand relationships, not to sell.
But most significantly, each of these marketing tools is, ultimately, the first step in networking – in building relationships that lead to the selling process. Properly used, properly focused, these devices should lead to an opportunity to a face-to-face meeting with prospective clients. It is at these meetings that the selling is done. A relatively simple – but important – process. Some caveats…
- The best way to sell a firm is to sell it by its parts – individual skills focused on a single practice -- rather than to try to sell the whole firm. A litigation practice with a strong concentration on risk management, for example, shouldn’t try to sell all of its litigation capabilities to a broad audience, but rather just its risk management capabilities to a targeted audience.
- Each market segment is defined by a need or prospective need for a single service. Don’t try to project your capabilities in risk management litigation, for example to a white collar crime market segment by assuming that any litigation is all litigation. Different audience – different message.
- All marketing activities for the defined audience should be positioned to that group. You may have a great wealth preservation practice, but the risk management audience doesn’t want to see your capabilities in wealth preservation.
- Choose a target audience. Choose a position based upon that audience’s needs and your ability to meet those needs. This is the foundation for all your activities to that target (articles, seminars, newsletters, press releases, direct mail, etc.).
- Clarify your mailing list for each target audience. Not every market segment is interested in everything your firm does at any given moment. Focus.
- Now use your tools to begin a networking process.
How?
- Mail regularly and systematically to the target audience. This is the time to turn your newsletters, advisories on subjects relevant to the target group, reprints of articles you’ve written, or articles about you, or articles from other publications on relevant subjects into real marketing tools. A devise growing in popularity is the e-mail advisory on a relevant issue. Everything you send must pertain to, or spring from, your position relative to the target group.
- Don’t try to sell in your mailing. Your objective – and always keep it in mind – is to get a face-to-face meeting. Trying to sell too soon is a turn-off to prospective relationships that do sell. Let your enclosure to the work. And don’t even include your firm brochure. Just a simple cover note will do, saying, “You may find this interesting. Please feel free to call me if you have any questions.”
- In a second mailing, you may want to include a brief – brief—comment on the material. The same with a third or fourth mailing.
- Following that last mailing, you’re going to call and say, “I’ve been sending you material for a while now. It occurs to me that you now know more about us than we know about you. Can we get together and chat about what you’re doing?”
Does it work? You bet it does. At least ten percent or more of your follow up calls will get you a meeting. The number you sell depends upon how well you sell. But the calls come from someone whose name they now know, and if you’ve done your homework, they go to people who are most likely to appreciate your services.
The point is that merely to rely on the articles, advisories, seminars, etc. to do the job can give you a long wait between new clients.