Better marketing
for professional service firms
Better marketing for professional service firms, that is my mission.
Because, for many professional service firms marketing can and should* be better.
Every day, I work on this improvement.
By enabling marketers, business developers, and subject matter experts to work together.
By making marketing and business development easy to understand, practically applicable, and maybe even fun.
* A Harvard featured study by DCM Insights shows professional service firms experience a sharp decline in client loyalty.
Previously, I worked on marketing & business development assignments for organizations like…
The uniqueness
of professional services marketing
Professional services marketing is different from other forms of B2B marketing.
As in professional service firms, marketing and business development are not support activities.
Instead, they are important key activities. Or at least, they should be.
The value chain of a professional service firm consists of 5 activities:
Delivering services. In which the service itself – interestingly enough – doesn’t make a big difference. After all, your competitors offer similar or even the exact same services.
Acquiring knowledge. Which can be a temporary competitive advantage. However, when you’re an expert in a certain field others will eventually catch up.
Developing tools & methodologies and gathering & making sense of data. Mainly ways to work more efficiently.
Cultivating relationships & trust. The way to make a difference in bringing your services to market.
Your experts are your flywheel
Professional service firms can dramatically improve the results of their go-to-market efforts. By enabling marketers, business developers and subject matter experts to work together.
Usually professional service firms invest heavily in their brand. This makes a lot of sense. As a strong brand and reputation drive a positive feedback loop. One that leads from attention and interest to relevant assignments, success, and an even stronger brand.
Your subject matter experts can speed up this feedback loop. Involve them in your go-to-market efforts and they become your flywheel.
Obviously, their expertise & experience can be used to drive attention from the market.
However, there’s something that is even more valuable: the relationships your subject matter experts have established and the trust they’ve gained from their (prospective) clients.
These give your organization access to relevant players in the market.
At the same time, strong relationships and trust ensure that leads become clients much faster. Since your experts are already known and trusted by them.