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The
Marketplace Master™ is a monthly email publication
on professional service marketing from Expertise Marketing,
LLC.
A Year of Doing Things Differently
A
year ago I decided to dedicate the entire year of this
newsletter to one theme: individual marketing leaders
taking steps to do things differently. I'd like
to take this opportunity to thank the professional services
practitioners, marketers and business developers who
shared their thought-provoking stories. Please see their
names below and be sure to read their stories if you
missed them earlier in the year.
In
2008 I plan to continue my theme of Doing Things Differently
and drawing upon the expertise of my readers –
your expertise – for each issue. The
focus will be the same as in 2007, with an emphasis
on increasing professional
service marketing effectiveness. Like the previous
year's stories there will be examples of professional
bravery and innovation; we’ll continue to feature
stories of how “doing things differently”
is helping professional service firms make tangible
strides toward marketplace gains. But in 2008 we plan
to stick to a shorter five-question Q&A format that
will feature consistent questions each month.
Some
of you will be hearing from my newsletter editor Andrea
Harris as she seeks out professional service leaders
who can recount the challenges they’ve faced and
the steps they’ve taken to increase marketing
effectiveness. Let’s face it: no one has got all
the answers on this critical issue, but we learn from
each other by sharing our experiences. Feel free to
email her
if you'd like to volunteer to be interviewed.
As
background for these 2008 newsletter plans, I’d
like to share my own news: I'll be busy working on my
new book, The
Integration Imperative: Connecting Marketing and Business
Development Functions -- Once and For All – in
Professional Services (tentative title). The
book will outline evidence that professional service
firms’ marketing and selling functions are siloed
and disjointed; it will make the case that this lack
of integration seriously hampers them from competing
as effectively as they could. It will call for professional
service firms to move more deliberately to build or
formalize new organizational constructs that integrate
marketing and business development throughout the enterprise.
As 2008 progresses, I’ll provide previews of the
book’s content and key points, so stay tuned.
Best
wishes for a happy holiday season!
Suzanne Lowe
Author, Marketplace Masters: How Professional Service
Firms Compete to Win, President, Expertise Marketing,
LLC
The
Professionals Who Told Their Stories in 2007 - Thank
You!
Many
thanks to the following professionals who shared their
stories in 2007:
January
- Frank Kittredge and Myra
Mengwasser of healthcare consulting firm Noblis
(formerly Mitretek Healthcare) worked together to
develop a completely new integrated service offering
that helped the firm keep pace with their marketplace.
February
- Tom Bennington of law firm Chuhak
& Tecson set "give up" goals when
he was stretched too thin, and implemented a personal
productivity plan that helped him double the revenue
he brought in during the previous period.
March
– Paul Dunay of BearingPoint
demonstrated – by example - what a thought leader
can do in a Web 2.0 world.
April
- Carl Roehling and Susan Arneson
of architecture firm SmithGroup
led the most thoughtfully planned, well coordinated
and deeply integrated embrace of marketing measurement
I have seen for an enterprise of their size.
May
- Bill Matassoni, recently retired
marketing leader for The
Boston Consulting Group, shared some fascinating
insights on where he sees social networking heading,
and what this will mean for professional service firms.
June
- Edward Kasparek of structural design
firm Thornton
Tomasetti shared his story about how he's helped
his colleagues employ never-before-tried techniques
to grow their revenues with targeted clients.
July
- Jim Lanzalotto of talent and outsourcing
services firm Yoh
used three focused techniques to help his colleagues
see the strategic advantages of adopting a portfolio-management
approach to Yoh's services.
August
- Elaine Eisenman, Dean of Babson
College's Executive Education program, shared her
insights about how executive education prepares professional
service leaders to break out of dusty paradigms.
September
- Ed Gates, Sara Crocker,
and Jay Wager of law firm Wolf
Greenfield worked together to reinvent Wolf Greenfield’s
marketing and sales function from the ground up.
October
- Jeff Durocher of RHR
International reported on the solid marketing and
business development results the firm has enjoyed since
he initiated a surprising counter-cultural process to
distribute the firm's marketing content to clients.
November
- Edmond Russ of Grant
Thornton LLP generated and implemented a plan to
create widespread awareness of the firm, and discussed
how to avoid slamming into the "marketing budget
tackling dummy."
I'd
also like to extend a big thank you to those who commented
on our Expertise
Marketplace™ and Marketing Profs blogs during
2007:
Your
feedback is important to us. Please contact
us with your comments and questions.
Call
for interview subjects: Do
you know of a professional service firm that is taking
steps to integrate its marketing and business development
functions and would be willing to be interviewed for
Suzanne’s upcoming book, The Integration Imperative™?
If so, please direct them to this
page on the book for more information.
Take
the confidential, web-based Marketplace Masters professional
service firm differentiation assessment test for
instant feedback on whether your firm is doing differentiation
right.
©
2007 Expertise
Marketing, LLC All Rights Reserved |
