Subscribe Did a colleague forward this newsletter? Sign up to receive your own copy. News Upcoming Speeches: Measuring Marketing Effectiveness, Control System Integrators Association conference, Sante Fe, NM, April 27, 2007 Convert Your Marketing Role into a Strategic Firm Leadership Position, SMPS-PSMA Build Business 2007 National Conference, Washington DC, August 27, 2007 Articles and Publications: Suzanne Lowe contributed to: Marketing Metrics De-Mystified: Methods for Measuring ROI and Evaluating Your Marketing Effort, by Sally Handley FSMPS, President of Sally Handley, Inc.. Sally is an adjunct faculty member at Pratt Institute in Manhattan, where she teaches Marketing /Communications for design firms. Abstract: Marketers in professional service industries lag behind our corporate counterparts in the ability to definitively measure the return on our marketing investment. While “Jobs Won” is the ultimate criteria for measuring marketing success, it does not help distinguish the elements of your marketing effort that are most effective from those that are inefficient and a waste of time. This book will help you begin evaluating your marketing effort by providing guidelines to develop marketing initiatives that can be measured. Practice Management: Re-evaluate how you evaluate your marketer (PDF), by Suzanne Lowe and Sally Glick for Accounting Today, September 2006 (also published with permission on The Marcus Letter) Why You May Not be Truly Differentiated, Consulting News, September 2006 (available to CN subscribers only) Hallmarks of an Effective CMO (PDF), The Marketer, August 2006 New from the Expertise Marketplace Blog What should be expected of "marketing experts?" Part VII What should be expected of "marketing experts?" Part VI What should be expected of "marketing experts?" Part V What should be expected of "marketing experts?" Part IV See all the posts at the Expertise Marketplace blog Subscribe to the blog's RSS feed for regular updates. (Need RSS help?) Recent Issues Setting "Give-up Goals" to Get Closer to Clients," February 2007 Doing Things Differently – A New Year, A New Direction, January 2007 2006 Thank-You Issue, December 2006 You can order Marketplace Masters from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, your favorite online bookseller, or CEO-READ.

The Marketplace Master™ is a monthly email publication on professional service marketing from Expertise Marketing, LLC.

A marketer's quest: demonstrate differentiation, positioning and branding

Since the new millennium, professional service firms have faced increasing pressure to become more effective in differentiation, positioning and branding. I am struck by how hard firms are working to "get it right" in creating unique value for their clients, in positioning themselves for having the most favorable capabilities, and in branding themselves as delivering the most competitively potent attributes.

And I am struck by how internally focused the job of professional service marketing has become.

Sure, the stakes are high. These strategies are complex. Creating and implementing them requires significant coordination among usually disparate and far flung elements of the firm, and often, significant diplomacy to bring everyone under the tent to align around the most advantageous strategies. Marketing staffers spend a tremendous amount of time devising internal marketing approaches to build momentum, favor and adoption. It’s a huge, and in many cases, a hugely political, job. In most cases, marketing staffers are absolutely up to the task.

But there are unfortunate consequences here: marketers, who are so critically needed to focus EXTERNALLY, become highly INTERNALLY focused. They are inevitably distracted from the marketplace. This is not a good thing.

Here, if anything, is a situation crying out for a "doing things differently" approach. This month’s issue of The Marketplace Master™ examines how one marketer embarked on an independent quest to vividly demonstrate differentiation, positioning and branding to his global enterprise. His professional bravery has sent an electric charge throughout his firm.

Suzanne Lowe
Author, Marketplace Masters: How Professional Service Firms Compete to Win
President, Expertise Marketing, LLC

Marketer on a Mission

Paul Dunay is a Director of Global Field Marketing for BearingPoint, a global management and technology consulting company. Traded under the ticker symbol BE, BearingPoint has 17,000 employees who provide strategic consulting, applications services, technology solutions and managed services to government organizations, Global 2000 companies and medium-sized businesses in the U.S. and around the world.

Paul Dunay

I met Dunay in May 2006 when I heard him make some provocative remarks about technology and marketing at a Boston chapter meeting of The PM Forum. I was intrigued by his unabashed expression of opinions, to which I took some exception in a post on the Marketing Profs Daily Fix blog. I thought, "Isn't it refreshing to encounter a marketing thought leader who says something 'controversial.'"

Since that time, I've watched as Dunay has steadily ramped up his presence in the field of what he calls "Buzz Marketing." I began tracking his blog, Buzz Marketing for Technology, in which he discusses innovative ideas for B2B technology marketers, specifically how to leverage Web 2.0 tools to create "Buzz." I thought, "How rare to see a senior marketer from any professional service firm — even one as prominent as BearingPoint — leading a series of cutting-edge conversations that do not appear to be directed at just his internal colleagues." (The vast majority of B2B or professional marketing observers and commentators are like me: analysts, authors and consultants.)

Imagine my delight when I checked in with Dunay and learned the extent to which he has intentionally begun to "do things differently" and how positively it has benefited BearingPoint. Here is his story:

Leading by Example

What Dunay has done is highly unusual in a professional services environment, especially one as large and far-flung as BearingPoint. His colleagues tolerated, and even fostered, his independent actions. And now his individual "evangelism" has been endorsed organizationally. His colleagues are working collaboratively with him, overcoming internal silos and barriers, to bring germane content to clients in a newly effective way.

Dunay’s leadership by example has set in motion a sea change that will inevitably reconfigure the way this global firm differentiates, positions, and brands itself. This is no small feat, and reflects very positively on BearingPoint.

Find your “Paul” and let him loose!

In recent Marketplace Master™ issues, I’ve talked about the importance of individuals manifesting "professional bravery" and "doing things differently" to help their firms gain new marketplace leadership. Indeed, most marketers regularly do find ways to demonstrate their own kind of courage and innovation.

But it’s rare that I hear a professional service marketer use the word "quest" when describing an internal marketing initiative. This word, "quest," bespeaks of a higher level of personal initiative and risk-taking than what I’ve seen in most professionals (even beyond marketers!). It speaks of the courage to embark on a significant pathway without asking for the organization’s permission . . . the chutzpah to risk being told "no you can't do that" . . . and the professional passion to envision how one’s individual actions can benefit an organization of thousands of people.

What’s your quest?

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