Are You Doing Differentiation Right?

Most professional service firms try to differentiate themselves to increase their competitive advantage, but many do so unsuccessfully.

You might be surprised by the results of our research, which reveals that the most often-used differentiation approaches are not necessarily the most successful.

There is also a correlation between the difficulty of several differentiation approaches and their use and success.

What about your firm? Are you choosing the right differentiation strategies?

See the Expertise Marketing web site for information on our differentiation strategy consulting

Benchmark Your Firm's Differentiation Strategies

Take our short Differentiation Assessment Test to help determine if your firm is doing differentiation right. Your results will be completely anonymous; we do not collect this information or save it in any way.

You will see your results instantly.

Which strategies has your professional service firm used to differentiate itself within the past year? Check all that apply.
	Firm Structure
1.	Merged with another firm.
2.	Acquired another firm.
3.	Created new divisions or subsidiary companies.
4.	Reorganized practices or lines of business.
5.	Sold parts of the firm.
	Firm Image
6.	Developed a new positioning.
7.	Embarked on an advertising campaign.
8.	Embarked on a public relations campaign.
9.	Created a new visual identity (logo, letterhead, etc.).
10.	Communicated our firm’s positioning through a new motto or tag line.
	People
11.	Hired specialized individuals.
12.	Trained professionals to follow our proprietary methodologies.
	Service Offerings
13.	Developed new-to-the-world services.
14.	Improved or evolved our current services.
15.	Repackaged current services.
16.	Eliminated services.
17.	Added new-to-our-firm services that are within our industry.
18.	Added new-to-our-firm services that blend into the services of another industry, i.e., accounting firms offering litigation support.
	Relationship Marketing
19.	Developed new risk sharing arrangement with clients.
20.	Implemented a formal relationship management program to strengthen our bonds with current clients.
21.	Entered into joint ventures, alliances or referral networks with firms that extend our services.
	Price
22.	Increased our prices.
23.	Decreased our prices.
24.	Added new variables to our prices.
	Service Delivery
25.	Used new techniques and tools to “deliver” our services (i.e., printed reports now delivered via CD-ROM).
26.	Increased the speed of our service delivery.
	Please click the Submit button to learn if you’re doing differentiation right: Your results will appear in a new browser window.

Benchmark Your Firm's Differentiation Strategies

Which strategies has your professional service firm used to differentiate itself within the past year? Check all that apply.

Please click the Submit button to learn if you’re doing differentiation right:

Which strategies has your professional service firm used to differentiate itself within the past year?
Check all that apply.