Professional Service Firm Marketing Tips & Strategies

The Back Of The Napkin - Solving Problems & Selling Ideas with Pictures

I just finished a book that I wish I had read 10 years ago.

Dan Roam's The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, is a wonderful instructional manual that teaches you the power of visual thinking in four lessons - introduction to visual thinking, discovering ideas, developing ideas, and selling ideas.

Dan explains how you don't have to be a "visual person" to take advantage of the power of visual thinking. He lays out a specific four step process of visual thinking that anyone can follow. I can't draw to save my life, but I'm already benefiting from following the process and using my crude sketches to capture and work through ideas.

This is a practical book that provides you with a set of frameworks for solving the different types of problems you will run into in business. Roam also provides simple to follow rules to help you decide which framework to use to solve your particular type of problem and communicate your ideas to your particular audience.

The last section of the book presents an MBA school style lesson. The author presents a walk-through of a complete case study. He demonstrates all the tools outlined in the book and you get to see how one progresses from one tool to the next to first help define the problem, then explore solutions, and then present those solutions to the key decision makers.

In the last chapter, the author walks his talk by demonstrating how to create a picture to describe your new visual thinking toolkit to your colleagues. Using a simple sketch of a Swiss Army knife, he summarizes the 3 basic visual thinking tools, the 4 steps of the visual thinking process, the 5 questions that help us open our mind's eye, and the 6 ways that we see.

Be sure to check out his creative acknowledgements section in the back of the book. This was the longest I've ever spent looking at an author's acknowledgements.

I highly recommend this book. It won't take you long to read, and your problem solving skills will increase so dramatically, you'll wish you read it 10 years ago.

How To Get Your Tax Consultancy Noticed

In this post, a sales and marketing manager for a small tax consultant office asks, "How can I get our tax consultancy noticed?". This post reminded me of a small, but important, mental shift that will improve the effectiveness of marketing your professional service firm. That shift is to stop focusing on what you think is important and focus on what is important to the customer.

I often get questions similar to this quote form that post:

"We are thinking of having some kind of events or such to let people know who we are and what we can do."

All too often I see this "We" marketing - We can do this or that, We have 20 years experience, We have been specially trained, etc. The inference is "because we have these experience and special skills, we can solve whatever problem you may have".

Most professional service firms think that their years of experience and training is what is most important. Touting our credentials is our way of proving our competence. Competence is not a differentiator, it is an expectation.

Every firm says they are experienced. New firms just tell you about all the experience they had before starting their own firm.

Customers do not hire professional service firms using the same criteria that your firm uses to hire a new professional. But you wouldn't know that from looking at most firm's marketing materials.

Your prospects do not want to buy your "wonderfulness". They want someone to solve their problem. So change your focus from yourself to your prospect. Demonstrate that you understand their problems. Tell them about your special 5 step process that prevents this problem from happening in the future. Provide proof (testimonials and case studies) that you have solved this problem for people just like them.

Focus on understanding and solving the problems faced by your ideal customers and you will get noticed. Take care of your customers and let them tell others how wonderful you are - They Will!

Why Professional Service Firms Should Be on LinkedIn

With all of the hype surrounding social networks these days, I often get asked my opinion about the different networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Namyz, etc.) and if they are relevant to professional service firms. LinkedIn has been my favorite social network to date. I was going to write a post explaining why, but then I saw Jennifer Laycock's post Why LinkedIn is the One Social Network I Couldn't Work Without.

Jennifer's post is chock full of real life examples of how she uses LinkedIn. I think this quote from her post sums up LinkedIn perfectly -

"That's when it dawned on me that I was completely missing the boat with LinkedIn. LinkedIn's search feature wasn't about finding contacts I knew, it was about finding contacts I NEEDED to know. The whole "degrees of contact" bubble weren't a fun way to see who knew who, it was invaluable insight into how to make contact with new companies."

I've been telling people that LinkedIn is just a tool for doing something they already know how to do -networking. It just helps you be more efficient and have a wider reach than you would have without such a tool.

There are many other gems in Jennifer's post, so go read it right now.

Survey Shows Marketing for Professional Firms is out of sync

The May issue of Practical Accountant features an article outlining the struggles professional service firms encounter with their marketing function. The article is based on a survey conducted by the marketing and research firm The Bloom Group. Here are some of the highlights from the article:

• Fewer than 1/3 of accounting, consulting, and law firms believed they are successful in creating awareness of the expertise and services
• 93 percent of accounting firms considered their marketing efforts only partially in synch with their sales department
• More than 1/3 of accounting firms said their marketing and business development efforts worked off the same timeline
• Most firms reported "little" or "moderate" success at measuring the effectiveness of marketing programs

In my experience, both as a member of professional firms and as a consultant to them, these issues are symptoms of two major marketing mistakes - failing to narrowly define a target market and failing to treat marketing as a system.

Most professional service firms take an all inclusive approach to the clients and services they provide. They tend to focus on the technical aspect of their work, and therefore feel they can provide services in their field to anyone who will pay them (only a slight exaggeration). By having "something for everyone" firms can quickly become special to no one. This makes it very difficult for potential clients determine which firm meets their needs, leaving them to shop for services based solely on price.

Not treating marketing as a system results in internal communication problems as well as inconsistent performance. In my opinion, having a marketing system includes having a written plan. One of the benefits of having a written plan is that it makes it easier to communicate the plan to all members of your firm. Without a written plan, sales and marketing (and everyone else) will work to their idea of what the plan is.

A plan also includes a calendar, which again facilitates internal communications and allows departments to coordinate their efforts. Also inherit with a system is that activities happen on a consistent basis and the results of those activities can be measured, reported, and used to improve the system.

By recognizing that marketing is a business system and taking the appropriate actions to install their marketing system, professional service firms can avoid the struggles outlined in the survey mentioned above.

Make Your Small Business Look Bigger

The June monthly SHBC meeting and luncheon features Kelly Conway of Practical Business Solutions. Kelly will be teaching us how small business owner can leverage technology tools to "do more with less". He will show you how to use technology tools to:

• Make your small business appear larger
• Work efficiently and effectively with remote employees and contractors
• Attract, track, and follow up with leads to turn more of them into happy customers

Come join us this Wednesday, June 18th, from 11:00 - 1:00pm. For more information and to RSVP, visit the SHBC web site.

Small Business Owners Favorite Social Networks

According to a recent survey of 2,036 small-business owners conducted by Warrillow & Co, the most popular social networks for small-business owners are:

• Classmates (18%)
• LinkedIn (15%)
• MySpace (14%)
• Facebook (10%)

Referral Marketing for Massage Therapists

I recently had the opportunity to speak at a conference for massage therapists. As is true for most professionals, word-of-mouth, or referrals, was cited as the most important marketing strategy in building their massage practices. It was also the general consensus that more could be done to receive referrals on a consistent basis. Here are some of the items we discussed that help build a referral marketing system:

1. The importance of having strategic referral partners - many of the participants mentioned how their partnerships with chiropractors and other professionals were key to building their businesses.
2. Rather than trying to get ALL of their clients to give them referrals, those successful with referral marketing tend to focus on those clients that seem to naturally want to give referrals.
3. Those who made referrals a game, usually by providing rewards for multiple referrals, reported nice success stories.
4. Many times, referrals do not fit the therapists "ideal client profile" so it is important further qualify referrals. The more successful practitioners had partners that they could refer these "non-ideal" clients to. This allows them to still help the client and also build their relationships with their referral partners.

These items that came out during our discussion apply not only to massage therapists but equally well to other service based businesses.

Free Duct Tape Marketing Books!

John Jantsch, of Duct Tape Marketing and Infusionsoft will be conducting a 1 hour seminar on June 18th at 3pm CDT called "Infusionsoft & Duct Tape Marketing Reveal the Must-Know Secrets of Small Business Growth".

The webinar is free and there is an added bonus. If you register and attend (yes, you must attend), you will get a free copy of the paperback book - Duct Tape Marketing - The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide.

To register for the webinar and your free book, click here.

Up Your Cash Flow

When I was consulting with small businesses as a CPA, the subject I spent the most time talking about was the difference between cash flow and profits. Knowing the importance of cash and monitoring it on daily basis is the most important thing you can do as a new business owner.

Harvey Goldstein, a CPA and author of several books and software programs, stopped by the Duct Tape Marketing podcast to talk about the importance of cash flow and his software program, UpYourCashFlow.

Click here to listen to Harvey's words of wisdom regarding cash flow.

Help for Start-Ups

Duct Tape Marketing has partnered up with the folks of StartUpNation and ResourceNation to provide a great resource for all of you startup minded folks.

This new tool will pair you up with a consultant who will help you through the startup maze. They will also help you find vendors for thing like legal advice.

Click here to learn more about this tool for starting your own business.