Marketing & business development success in professional services firms
In professional services, the success of your marketing & business development efforts depends on the extent to which you are able to…
Establish a strong brand & reputation for your firm.
Acquire a distinct position in the market.
Develop the personal brands of your subject matter experts.
Get recognized as a thought leader in your industry.
Cultivate relationships & trust with key clients in the market.
This means, professional services marketing is fundamentally different from other forms of marketing.
There are things you can do. There are things that are best avoided.
Previously, I helped improve marketing & business development efforts at organizations like…
Cultivating relationships & trust;
a key business activity
The reason professional services marketing is unique, lies in the firm’s business model.
The value chain of a professional services firm looks different from Michael Porter’s traditional value chain.
In accounting, consulting, engineering, HR, and law firms there are no raw materials that are turned into tangible products to market or sell.
Instead, these firms offer services.
They help their clients overcome challenges through knowledge, data, tools & methodologies.
In order to market and sell their services, professional services firms rely heavily on another primary business activity:
Cultivating relationships & trust with key clients in the market.
Marketing & BD responsibilities
In many professional services firms, (senior) subject matter experts are responsible responsible for cultivating relationships & trust.
They are also responsible for a variety of other marketing and business development tasks.
Think: spotting business opportunities in the market, creating awareness for their services at their clients, generating demand, selling their solutions, and ensuring client success.
As a result, marketing and business development efforts can only be successful, when marketers, business developers, and subject matter experts work together.
Allow your experts
to become your flywheel
Many professional services firms invest heavily in a strong brand and reputation.
This makes a lot of sense. As brand and reputation drive attention and interest. When a strong brand speaks, the market tends to listen.
Attention and interest can then be turned into relevant assignments.
And, when executed successfully, these assignments lead to an even stronger brand and reputation.
It’s a positive feedback loop.
Your subject matter experts can be the flywheel to this feedback loop, making it spin faster.
Their expertise and experience can be used to drive attention from the market.
However, there’s something that might be even more valuable: the relationships and trust they have with key clients in the market.
These grant professional services firms access.
And positively impact the process of turning leads into clients, since your experts are already known and trusted.