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Many professional service firms implement one-size-fits-all client
attraction and retention methods, without truly comprehending the
relevant underpinnings of their firms' “personalities.”
As a result, many firms initiate client attraction and retention
methods at which they are likely to fail.
Our findings reveal that a firm’s “personality”
is a predictor of its eventual success or failure in implementing
methods to attract or retain clients. Firms should examine
the marketing and sales strategies and methods at which they succeed,
and then take a step back to see what “culture”
or “personality” those methods appear to spell.
From there, they should implement only those methods
that fit with their cultural predilections.
- Our analysis of more than 500 firms’ methods to get closer
to their clients found they fell into five different
“cultural” clusters: “Prepared,” “Flexible,”
“Rule-Bender,” “Techno-Hunter” and “Accountability.”
Some of these five groups had succeeded at using certain methods,
while others in a different group had failed at the very same
methods.
- Many professional service firms promote to their publics very
broad aspects of their firm’s culture (“honest”
or “dedicated to excellence” for example). Yet every
firm possesses at least some favorably differentiated aspects
of “personality.” Competitively astute PSFs will identify
these distinctions and integrate them into their go-to-market
processes and methods.
Case Studies
Marketplace Masters features three successful firms that
homed in on one critical aspect of their firm’s personality
and then established a marketing infrastructure that truly harnessed
their cultural leanings for the express purpose of achieving a competitive
advantage.
- Marakon Associates – a management consulting firm with
a “Challenge with Empathy” culture. Its revenues per
professional are among the highest in the management consulting
profession. Its clients outperformed their peers by an average
of 100 percent during a five year period ending in mid-2002.
- Egon Zehnder International – an executive search firm
with a “Collaboration” culture. It maintained a balanced
revenue stream (outperforming its global competitors) and a dramatically
lower attrition rate during a recent industry downturn.
- Kepner-Tregoe – a management consulting and training company
with a “Practical Results through Process” culture.
It is recognized globally as being at the forefront of organizational
design, research, and practice. It has an almost 75 percent retention
rate among current clients.
Table 6.1 Clusters of methods that
each group used to become more sensitive to the marketplace
| The
“Prepared” Firm |
- Implement internal training programs
- Implement internal communication programs
- Push responsibility for strategic planning
into deeper and broader sectors of our firm
- Employ career management or leadership
development coaching
- Implement specific client retention
activities
- Utilize primary client research
|
| The “Flexible”
Firm |
- Utilize flexible methodologies and customized
techniques to deliver services
- Co-locate project work and teams (e.g.,
deliberately changing venues to foster new perspectives
between our firm and our clients)
- Require or encourage all personnel
to “switch roles” occasionally, so as to interact
with clients differently
- Co-develop or pilot new services with
clients
- Engage in “co-opetition”
(i.e., collaborating with competitors to win assignments)
- Use trend analysis (of past business
and economic events)
- Sell smaller or more bite-sized
engagements
|
| The
“Rule-bender” Firm |
- Use warnings/disincentives
- Improve service development pipeline,
e.g. an internal incubator or R&D department
- Provide free solutions in order to win
the job
- Use at-risk/revenue arrangements to
sell services
|
| The
“Techno-Hunter” Firm
|
- Use software applications, e.g. CRM
- Work to build our “share of customer”
e.g., cross-selling services to a client
- Using new technologies to get closer
to clients, e.g. extranets, opt-in e-mail, pagers for our
staff, etc.
- Increase efforts and expenditures to
win in final interviews
- Increase intelligence-gathering about
competitor activities
- Utilize secondary client research
- Review economic forecasts of potential
future business and economic scenarios
- Use non-billable salespeople
|
| The
“Accountability” Firm
|
- Use formal project checkpoints as a
means to effectively deliver services
- Use incentives to manage a change in
professionals’ behavior
- Adapt our performance measures to evaluate
our professionals’ sensitivity to clients’ needs
- Use strategic account management plans
- Sell bigger or more multi-faceted
engagements
|
source: Expertise Marketing,
LLC
Table 6.2 The five “cultural”
groups are predictors of firms’ success at getting closer
to clients
Some of the five “cultural”
groups have succeeded at using certain methods, while others in
a different group have failed at the same methods.
Methods
where our firm is “most effective” at becoming more
market-driven
|
The
“Prepared” Firm
|
The
“Flexible” Firm
|
The
“Rule-bender” Firm |
The
“Techno-Hunter” Firm |
The
“Accountability” Firm |
Delivering
services
|
|
x |
|
|
x |
| Managing a
change in our professionals’ behavior |
|
|
x |
|
|
Innovation
|
|
x |
|
|
|
Client relationship
management strategies or tactics
|
|
|
x |
|
x |
| Using new
approaches to compete against our rivals |
|
|
|
x |
|
The “Prepared”
firm reported that it was not effective in any of the methods to
become more market driven. “Techno-hunter” reported
that it was only effective in using new approaches to compete against
rivals. Only “Rule-bender” and “Accountability”
firms reported that they were most effective at managing client
relationships.
source: Expertise Marketing,
LLC
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