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News
Upcoming
Speeches:
Convert
Your Marketing Role into a Strategic Firm Leadership
Position, SMPS-PSMA Build Business 2007
National Conference, Washington DC, August 23,
2007 (details)
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.
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
Be
VERY Afraid . . . NOT! - is the CMO doomed?
Pay
attention to anomalies and other nuggets from
a conference - observations from a conference
on Measuring Innovation Performance.
Lawyers
ahead of management consultants - where are
the women?
See
all the posts at the Expertise Marketplace blog
Subscribe
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Recent
Issues
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Marketplace Masters from Barnes &
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or CEO-READ.
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The
Marketplace Master™ is a monthly email publication
on professional service marketing from Expertise Marketing,
LLC.
A
Change is in the Air
Late
last year, I developed the editorial calendar for this
year's series of Marketplace
Master™ articles. My 2007 theme is highlighting
the individuals who are "doing things differently" in
pushing their firms to take steps toward potential new
marketplace gains. From January through April, I had
relatively little trouble finding people who are exhibiting
professional courage to stoke strategic marketing changes
in their firms.
My
editorial journey for May was much more challenging.
The topic, I had decided, would be "social networking."*
My self-assignment was to interview a person who has
prodded his or her firm toward a programmatic embrace
of social networking (or at least some leading-edge
thinking about the concept). I thought,
"Chat
rooms. Friendster. FaceBook. MySpace. YouTube. These
social media have transformed the way people meet
and relate to each other. Professional firms have
begun to embrace these digital versions of social
networking (mainly through blogs, podcasts, wikis
and more).
If
they’ve begun to employ these participatory,
conversational marketing vehicles, I’m sure
I’ll find a firm that has developed its strategy
about in-person social networking as well! After all,
isn’t ‘social networking’ the strategic
springboard for these interactive channels?"
At
first, my search was truly frustrating. I wondered,
"Is no one leading his or her firm to develop a strategic
approach to social networking? What about all those
professionals who gobbled up Malcolm Gladwell's The
Tipping Point, which illuminated us about the
power of 'Connectors' and 'Mavens?' What about all those
professionals who snapped up Keith Ferrazzi's Never
Eat Alone?"
I
found plenty of examples of professional firms that
have grasped the strategic advantages of "relationship
management," but I found even this concept is being
addressed with a one-way, revenue-based mindset ("Let's
get our clients together and show them how smart we
are! Let's sell them something!").
But
my considerable efforts to find just the right person
with whom to explore the social networking subject were
well worth it. Bill
Matassoni, recently retired marketing leader for
The Boston Consulting
Group, shared with me some fascinating insights
on where he sees social networking heading, and what
this will mean for professional service firms.
The
“lessons learned” for me?
Social
media is a powerful manifestation of community- and
conversation-oriented thinking; this kind of thinking
represents the backbone of social networking. People’s
hearty embrace of social media will cause a strategic
tipping point in professional service firms’ relationships
with clients, and will absolutely change the way
all professional service firms market and sell.
The
sooner the professional service sector understands the
magnitude of this tipping point, and what it signifies
for their marketplace, the sooner these firms will begin
preparations to manage the cultural change that will
be required for them to succeed.
Suzanne Lowe
Author, Marketplace Masters: How Professional Service
Firms Compete to Win
President, Expertise Marketing, LLC
"Contribution,"
not "Credit" -- Social Networking with BCG's Bill
Matassoni
Bill Matassoni
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My
thanks to Mark
Bonchek of Truman
Company for arranging my enlightening conversation
with Bill Matassoni. Matassoni is a veteran of marketing
for management consulting firms - his well-respected
career began at McKinsey
and most recently included Boston
Consulting Group. He has developed a thoughtful
view about social networking that I found very compelling.
In our conversation, Matassoni articulately presented
his case that social networking is a concept whose time
is coming for professional service firms.
Here
is my account of his views, paraphrased from some of
Matassoni's past writing, and from our conversation
last week.
Too
many professional service firms spend time trying
to capture client work that could be called
"low-hanging fruit." This is simply a me-too
approach to their marketplace. Instead, they
should be aiming for high-hanging fruit—doing
important work distinctively.
Recently
I’ve begun to argue that one of the best investments
in "marketing" a firm can make is
to give its clients four days each year and
use that time for structured, thoughtful dialog
with them—not hallway conversations—about what
lies ahead. I called on my colleagues to change
their perception of what we are trying to do.
I said, "What we are trying to do is not
just cross-sell or penetrate clients like every
other professional firm that has discovered
the basic economics of its business, but build
relationships that are unique for their honesty
and for their commitment to doing what is right
and strategic. To make those relationships the
heart of our brand."
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Matassoni
called for professional service firms to shift from
a culture of credit to a culture of contribution.
Marketing
is highly dependent on—in fact, is an extension
of—a firm's culture. There are benefits to a
credit culture and it certainly reinforces a
strategy focused on revenue growth. But this
culture may inhibit a professional firm’s
ability to innovate and market, because it is
too anxious and too short term in its desire
to judge and assign credit. Maybe professional
service firms need to move to a culture of contribution.
A
contribution culture could significantly enhance
the impact of a firm’s practices, particularly
in their ability to develop people with real
market and client credibility. Could this help
a firm grow people faster and better than competitors?
It could, and this capability could give a firm
a real competitive advantage. But it would take
a change in culture. As long as a professional
firm has a credit culture, decks rather than
people will be the currency of its knowledge.
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In today’s mature service economy, the culture
of most professional service firms is pulled by a powerful
undertow of internal competition. Profit margins are
scrutinized by executive committees. A professional's
quantitative productivity is judged continuously. Cross-selling
goals are set; their achievement is evaluated. "Thought
leadership" is encouraged as a springboard for
selling services ("the babble of management literature"
as Matassoni says). And, of course "gaming the
system" is rampant, but that's for another issue
of this newsletter.
Inevitably,
and mostly because they are rewarded for the internal
focus I've described above, professionals turn their
attention away from clients. And Matassoni's "culture
of contribution," which celebrates inclusion, diversity,
humility, fallibility, and a trust in the power of the
shared "aha" moment, is thwarted.
Matassoni’s
right: a true embrace of the contribution culture represents
a significant cultural clash for most professional service
firms. But, without question, this "contribution"
mindset is at the core of social networking. And a firm
that intentionally engages in social networking will
be a powerful draw for clients because social networking
is so deeply focused on THEIR—not the professional firm's—interests.
A
“Back to the Future” shift
Those
of us of a certain age remember when relationship-building
was less of a database-driven activity, and when the
pace of business was more congenial, less frenetic.
I'm not suggesting that managing relationship information
is inappropriate (it's not), or that we should all return
to the days where golfing and mens’ social clubs
were the preferred way to win business (we shouldn't).
During
my frustrating editorial journey in May, though, I began
to glimpse a "Back to the Future" shift I
think all professional service firms will inevitably
embrace:
-
back to the real meaning of professional SERVICE,
when professionals altruistically understood their
clients' need for connection to smart people and ideas;
-
back to the days when one was encouraged to collaborate
with clients or – gasp - others outside
of the traditional boundaries of the firm;
- back to the days when clients were friends;
-
back to a time when not knowing the answer was understandable,
and it wasn't necessary to hide behind research or
methodologies or thought leadership;
-
back to the days when professionals were organizationally
supported for caring more about their clients' success
than about the firm's revenue growth or their revenue-generating
productivity;
-
back to the days when a deep connection to
people was the real foundation for a firm's competitive
advantage and marketplace success.
We're
already seeing professional firms taking early steps
to gather like-minded people together - facilitating
women's
networks, or entrepreneur-gatherings are a prominent
example.
Let's
hope these and other professional service firms are
equally mindful of the cultural change they will need
to undertake in order to fully realize the powerful
benefits - for themselves as well as for their clients
- of social networking.
* the intentional practice
of building and aligning a community of people that
have like minds and interests.
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©
2007 Expertise
Marketing, LLC All Rights Reserved |
