Professional Service Firm Marketing Tips & Strategies

Understanding what your customer really buys

Yesterday, I posted about talking about what you do. An important part of talking about what you do, and marketing your services in general, is understanding what your customer is really buying.

People don’t want to buy insurance. They don’t want to buy legal or accounting services. They purchase protection. They may be buying compliance, relief from worry, the ability to communicate, or the ability to make money and provide for their family.

Not to make this about me, but now one really wants to buy marketing services. They want to grow their business to help them achieve their personal and professional goals. They want more customers and most don’t want to become full time marketers in the process.

In addition to understanding why customers buy your services, you also need to understand why they would buy them from you. I’m guessing that you don’t have a monopoly on the services you provide. So why should someone buy from you vs. the next guy down the road who claims to do exactly what you do?

Is it because you serve others in their industry and have special insights into their needs? Maybe your customers prefer working with you because you don’t speak legalese. Is it how you charge – flat rate vs. by the hour?

Don’t try to guess what is going on in your customer’s head – ask. Start by identifying a handful of customers that you consider ideal (our goal is to find more customers just like them) and find out why they buy from you. Ask them why they selected you in the first place. Why do they continue working with you? Do they refer you to others? Why or why not? You may be surprised to find that what makes you special isn’t your advanced degrees, or your years of experience, or the fact that you have the latest and greatest software.

In fact, it may be the fact that you take time to talk to your customers to find out what is important to them.

How to talk about what you do

I think everyone, newly promoted or not, struggles with this one at some point in their career. How do we talk about what we do and talk about it without boring ourselves and everyone around us to tears.

The default, of course, is to fall back on your title – I’m a banker, I’m an accountant, I’m a attorney, etc. One of the main problems with this approach is that we, as human beings, like to categorize things. It helps us make judgments. So if you tell me you’re a banker, I put you in my mental banker box with all of the other bankers. I have family members who are bankers, I know what they do, so of course I know what you do. This isn’t accurate of course, but it happens.

Being put in a “box” can have a very negative effect, based upon the listener’s experience. I have had financial advisors tell me that they have had people walk away from them at networking events, as soon as they heard who they work for – ouch!

The Commercial

Soon we are told we need a 30 second introduction, a talking logo, an elevator pitch, or (my favorite) a a One-Breath commercial. Whatever you call it, this usually takes the form of a mini-speech, where you provide more detail about what makes you “unique”.

While all of these tools, when used correctly, are useful, I think you will be better off when you can have a conversation (vs. a speech) about what you do.

Your ability to have a conversation will vary with each setting. Even in cases where you can’t have a conversation (when you are going around the room introducing yourselves), you can give your “speech” in a conversational tone.

The Basics

You need to give people enough information to give people context. But that’s enough for now, just context. Your name, your company name, and your general field. You may need to leave out your company or field at this time if it would be detrimental  (see financial advisor example above).

Once you have provide some context, be specific about who you help and the problems you solve. The more specific you can be, the better. Your listener want to know 1) am I that person and 2) do I know anyone like that?

Also, the more specific you are, the more likely they are to remember you two weeks from now when they do run into someone with a problem that your solve.

A lot has been written about 30 second commercials. Rather than re-hashing that info here, I’d like to spend some time discussing how to be more conversational with your commercial.

Questions, questions, questions

When having a one on one conversation, ask the other person to tell themselves about you first. Ask questions to get a clear picture of what they really do (remember, most people are not good at explaining this) and figure out how you can help them.

Another way to be more conversational is to start off your “commercial” with a question. Use a question to see if the person you are talking to identifies with the problems you solve:

“Do you know how there seems to be a lot of questions about health care reform, but not a lot of answers? I work with small business owners to show how the new rules impact them and what they can do about it.”

Another way to use a question to create a conversation is to follow up with “you don’t happen to know anyone who would be interested in that, would you?” More often than not, the person you ask will need to ask you some clarifying questions before they can answer you. This can be a great way to gauge how well your message is coming across.

Even if

Using “even if” can help emphasize a point or help people get over an early objection. I’m sure you’ve heard this one before:

“We can put you in a car, even if they have less than perfect credit.”

Use “even if” to help start a conversation by dispelling common misconceptions about your service or industry.  For example, do most small businesses think they are to small to need your payroll services?

“We work with small businesses to take care of all of their payroll needs, even if they only have 1 employee.”

Maybe you provide sales training to accountants who think sales is just about making cold calls:

“I help accountants close more deals, even if they hate making cold calls.”

Paint a Picture

Using examples can be a great way to create a picture for those listening. Share (in general terms) a recent story about someone you worked with and how you helped them. Let’s pretend I’m an estate planning attorney

“  - for example, I worked with a couple last week who had a will and thought they had everything taken care of. However, if one of them died next week, they would have had a huge, unexpected burden because …”

Some people advocate having several different versions of your “30 second commercial”. I’m not a fan of that approach. If you feel you need to “vary your pitch” I would recommend doing so by using different examples of who and how you help.

I hope you find one or two things in this post that help you feel more comfortable talking about what you do.

Marketing for the newly promoted

Getting promoted in a professional service firm can often feel like a blessing and a curse. A blessing because we all like to be recognized for our hard work. We also like the raise in our salary.

It can often feel like a curse because we are often asked to do things we don’t know how to and probably won’t be trained to do. The two areas that immediately come to mind from my past are 1) leading others and 2) developing business.

Today I created a quick list of business development related topics that, knowing what I know now, I wish I had learned earlier. I plan on using this list for an upcoming series of posts. I’ll update the lists below with relevant links as I go.

• How to talk about what you do
• Understanding what your customer really buys
• Understanding your customers buying process
• Cross selling – spotting other opportunities to help
• Giving Referrals
• Knowing which customers \ business to turn away
• Networking
• Marketing vs. Sales and knowing which role you are in
• Planning and tracking

What have I left off the list?

Do Doctors Who Use Social Media Care More?

USA Today recently ran an article Some doctors join Facebook, Twitter; others wary.

What I found interesting about this piece was what, I perceived to be, the difference in focus between the two groups. As I read the article, the doctors cited who were using social media seemed to be very patient focused. They view providing education as every bit as important as marketing. Decisions about what to include on the sites where heavily influenced by the needs of patients and people like them (see the swimming pool example in the article).

Contrast that with these two quotes from the article:

“doctors usually get paid only for talking to patients in the examining room, giving physicians little financial incentive to reach out to them over the Web.”

and

“They avoid the Internet because they enjoy the benefits of anonymity, privacy, efficiency and legal protection that come with dropping off the grid”

The article brings up the old argument that those who don’t use the tools are in danger of becoming irrelevant. It’s not the tools that will determine your relevancy. It’s not the tools. Doctor or otherwise, unless you have a monopoly on what you do, people need to be able to find you. They need to trust you. You need to talk to them.

Jeff Livingston’s quote at the end of the article sums it up nicely -

"If you go back two generations, doctors came to your house. They lived in your community. They probably went to the same church."

With social media, he says, "what we're really doing is going back and creating a more personal experience with technology."

Communication, community, personal connections – those will keep you relevant.

Blogging lessons after 1,000 posts

Over on the Planning Startups Stories blog, Tim Berry posted his 1,000th post, a very nice milestone. And Tim writes meaningful, thoughtful posts. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Tim a couple of years ago at one of our Duct Tape Marketing Coaches gatherings (the first one I believe) and he is every bit as nice and genuine in person as he comes across in his blog.

In his 1,000th post, Tim shares 10 blogging lessons he has learned. In typical Tim fashion, he not only shares his wisdom and personal stories but he generously recognizes and gives credit to others from whom he has learned.

All of his lessons are great, but I think my two favorites are:

#3 Short and simple – nuff said

#6 Write Often, and keep writing – For me, Tim’s first two sentences say it all - Find your pace. Honor consistency.

Go read the rest of Tim’s 10 blogging lessons here

p.s. - Thanks Tim for all you’ve shared, I know I’ve learned a ton.

Buyer personas - observed behavior or creative writing exercise?

Last week I posted a little about using personas as a tool for marketing your professional service firm. I mentioned that I first ran into personas in the software development world. Today I thought I would share a lesson that took me a little while to learn back then.

One thing I remember from working with personas as a software developer and I see again in marketing is that it is important not to make up your personas.

Personas are not a creative writing exercise. A persona should be created from attributes and behaviors that you observe during your research.

Personas, similar to marketing or business plans, are one of those tools that work on the paradox that we can be more creative and free when we create boundaries for ourselves.

Personas help us create the boundaries of who we are creating content for. We want to base these boundaries on research of actual users. When we “make them up” we are creating fake boundaries. So rather than having limits that help us, we end up rationalizing and moving the boundaries.

You can usually tell if you are making things up when you start making decisions based upon your (and colleagues) opinions, rather than observations. If you are having discussions like “yes, I think that would appeal to someone in that situation” you may need to check yourself.

A well developed persona should help you have discussions like “well Betty Buyer has goals of xyz and we know that in the step 2 of her buying process she does this, so we should create an eBook outlining the top 5 things she needs to be aware of in that situation”.

I’m not suggesting that you will never change or update your personas. Just make sure you make changes based on observation, not on a whim.

When is a persona complete?

Personas are part of your marketing plan, and I don’t believe your plan is ever “done”. The value in the plan is the planning process. (See Tim Berry’s blog for more great info on biz planning).

Whenever we create a plan or persona, we have to use assumptions and make judgments based on the best information we have at the time. As things change and we continue to learn, it is important to revisit and reevaluate those assumptions.

Starting from the end and working backwards, we are creating buyer personas to help us identify needs and goals so we can create meaningful, educational marketing materials in order to help them make a purchasing decision. So a persona is “done enough” when you can start addressing those needs.

After that, I believe you should continually review your personas as part of your marketing plan review process.

Learn about health care reform – KC area

The Principal Connections group will be hosting a Panel Discussion on Tuesday, July 20th to discuss how health care reform is going to impact you.

In addition to being a great educational event, you will also have the opportunity to meet a lot of new business owners and professionals and enjoy reconnecting with those that have been coming for the last couple of years.

Here's a little info about your panelists for this event:

Moderator:

Nick Haines of KCPT -Nick is the host of KCPT's primetime public affairs program, Kansas City Week in Review. He is executive producer of Channel 19's weekly food-for-thought-fight, Ruckus. Nick is a former BBC radio news reporter, joining KCPT in 1999. Kansas City magazine has listed him among the "50 People You Ought to Know in KC and he has also won "Best TV Host" in The Pitch's awards.

Panelists:

Robert West of Haynes Benefit -Bob has 20 years of experience as an expert in employee benefits, as well as employment and labor law. Bob's focus is on the design and interpretation of pension, profit-sharing, non-qualified deferred compensation, welfare benefits and other ERISA employee benefit plans.

Mike Foley of Foley Insurance Solutions -Mike is the owner of Foley Insurance Solutions, a benefits management company focused on helping small to mid-sized businesses manage HR resource challenges, employee productivity realities and benefit plan optimization. Mike has over 15 years of experience in the healthcare sector.

Belinda Waggoner of hr-haven, inc. -Belinda has spent 20+ years in lead HR roles for large law firms. Currently, she is the founder and President of hr-haven, inc., an HR organization dedicated to giving small to mid-sized businesses the HR services and advice they need to achieve compliance and avoidance of liability.

Click here to learn more and to RSVP

What is the right amount of content?

Yesterday, when I was writing about using personas in professional service marketing, I was reminded of a “rule” that I either picked up when studying interactive design or was reinforced for me during that time. The rule is include enough (design, features, etc.) to accomplish the job but no more.

I’m often reminded of this rule when people ask “how long should a blog post be?” or “what is the right length for my newsletters?”. My pat answer has always been, pick one point, write enough to make your point and no more.

And another thing… just kidding ; )

Personas and Professional Service Firm Marketing

A long time ago (but still in this galaxy) I used to spend most of my day writing and customizing business software. I probably entered the software development world differently than most at the time - I learned how to write software to help me be a better auditor. I think because of this, I’ve always had a strong belief that computers (and other tools) should help us accomplish our tasks without getting in the way.

As I worked on developing my skills, I became very interested in interactive design. Interactive design (in my mind) is a set of tools and processes for creating software that helps users accomplish their goals. The folks at Cooper were teaching their Interactive Design Practicum and I was fortunate to attend several of their courses and I learned a great deal from them.

One of the tools we used in the program were personas. At the risk of oversimplifying, personas represent archetypes, or models, of people. They are based on observed behavior, represent the needs of many, and generally include the goals the people being modeled want to achieve.

One of the benefits of using personas in software development is they allow you to design for the defined needs of a particular audience. Rather than trying to create something that will please everyone (an impossible task) you focus on helping a person achieve their goals.

Does this sound familiar? In marketing, we talk about narrowing our focus when defining our ideal customer. When we write content (articles, blog entries, etc.) it is helpful to write as if we are talking to one specific person.

Personas can help us in our marketing by clarifying who the people are that we want to be talking to. When we have a clear picture about who we are trying to help. We can begin to put ourselves in their shoes and figure out what they need and how we can help them. This is how we can break the mold of creating marketing materials that try to sell and move towards creating marketing materials that educate.

In software, the goal of the persona was often something like “collect accounts receivable faster”, “fill orders more quickly”, or “make better decisions faster”.

While those things may represent pain points that our products and services address, I believe their is a more fundamental goal to consider when we create our marketing materials. That goal is “how do I get the information that I need to help me confidently move to the next step in the buying process?”

In order to help them meet that goal, we have to answer several questions about our persona:

• Who are they?
• Who helps them with the decision process?
• What is their buying process?
• Based on where they are in the buying process, what do they need to know next in order to move forward?

Now, you may be thinking that each case is different, everyone needs different information. However, I think you will find that as you begin to map the answers to these questions out and you continue to refine your buyer personas, you will begin to see patterns and areas of overlap.

I’ll be posting more about personas soon. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your experience (or questions) about using personas to improve your marketing.