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The
Marketplace MasterTM
is a monthly email publication on professional service
marketing from Expertise Marketing, LLC.
Welcome
Last
month we asked if your firm’s culture is part
of its marketplace strategy. We said that successful
firms will identify their firm’s “cultural
DNA,” understand its influence on how they go
to market, and align their go-to-market strategies to
it.
In
this month’s feature article, we discuss how to
identify what your firm’s culture might be.
Suzanne
Lowe
Author, Marketplace Masters: How Professional Service
Firms Compete to Win
President, Expertise Marketing, LLC
What is Your Firm’s Cultural DNA?
Did
you know that your firm’s culture can be a powerful
competitive asset? Do you know how your firm’s
culture influences its likelihood to succeed using various
marketing strategies? Sounds simple enough. But before
you can take advantage of the competitively-advantaged
nuances of your culture, you have to think about “culture”
in an entirely new light than you have before.
As
part of a comprehensive five-year study, Expertise Marketing
looked at more than 500 professional service firm (PSF)
respondents’ use and measurement of a variety
of methods to attract and retain clients.
Despite
the fact that we didn’t ask a single
question about a PSF’s culture, our analysis revealed
something that totally surprised us: a firm’s
internal personality or cultural DNA influences its
eventual success—or failure—in using certain
methods to attract or retain clients.
Perhaps
your firm’s cultural DNA is built on taking risks
– providing free solutions, or agreeing to at-risk
revenue arrangements (e.g., a “guarantee,”
or an equity stake in the outcome of your firm’s
work) in order to win an engagement. Or maybe your PSF’s
personality is to be conservative, sticking with the
same kinds of clients year after year. Some firms are
instinctively flexible and comfortable with newness,
which allows them to evolve into new frameworks easily,
such as co-location of work, or switching roles between
professionals occasionally. Still other PSFs naturally
prefer a more introverted approach, which of course
leads them to focus on employee attraction, development,
and retention.
In
our research analysis, we used standard mathematical
algorithms (called “clustering”) to see
if there were any patterns to the way professional service
firms were trying to become more market driven. We found
that respondents’ use of certain methods DID fall
into mathematical clusters.
We
named the groups according to the “cultural”
characteristics or attributes that we noticed from each
of the clusters.
Please
note that the methods used by each group (shown below)
are not mutually exclusive. Firms in every “cultural”
group used methods from other “cultural”
groups. It’s the patterns they fell into that
reveal the power of “personality” in marketing.
-
The Prepared firm cluster of methods
appears quite inwardly focused, with a grouping of
such internally-oriented programs as training and
communication, career management, or leadership development
coaching for a firm’s professionals.
-
The Flexible firm cluster of methods appears
very externally oriented. It combines initiatives
such as the implementation of flexible methodologies
and customized techniques to deliver services, requiring
or encouraging all personnel to switch roles occasionally,
and co-developing or piloting new services with clients.
-
The Rule-Bender firm cluster of methods
focuses on taking risks and features a grouping of
methods like providing free solutions in order to
win an assignment, using at-risk revenue arrangements
to sell services, and even using warnings and/or disincentives
in order to manage a professional’s behavior.
- The
Techno-Hunter firm cluster of methods focuses
on aggressive salesmanship and relies heavily on technology,
such as using new technologies like extranets or pagers
to get closer to clients, increased intelligence-gathering
about competitor activities, and the use of non-billable
salespeople.
-
The Accountability firm cluster of methods
is oriented to preparation and performance. For instance,
it uses incentives to encourage a change in professionals’
behavior, adapting performance measures to evaluate
professionals’ sensitivity to clients’
needs, or using strategic account management plans.
(For
more details on each of the culture clusters, see our
chart
on the methods each group used.)
Match
Methods to Personality
Moreover,
these “cultural” groups are not important
for what they are; another study could have found an
entirely different set of “cultural DNA”
types. The important finding here relates to the role
these personality types play in a firm’s effectiveness
at getting closer to clients. In our deeper analysis
of these clusters, we compared these cultural clusters
with the respondents’ self-rated effectiveness
in attracting and retaining clients. The firms in some
of the five cultural groups had succeeded at using certain
methods, while others in a different group had failed
at the same methods!
It became clear that PSFs’ cultural DNA has a
direct influence on which methods worked and which did
not. Armed with an understanding of its ”personality,”
a professional service firm could be better positioned
to select and implement marketing methods that are more
likely to fit with its instinctive cultural leanings,
and avoid—or stop implementing—those that
are apt to fail.
The
implications of these findings are huge. Just think
about how many PSFs are—right now—implementing
go-to-market methods at which they are likely to fail.
Just think of the wasted time and money to gear up for
a marketing initiative—and then watching the growth
of internal resistance or ennui as it fizzles.
In
these post-recession days, where the functions of Marketing
and Business Development are required to deliver greater
effectiveness, doesn’t it make sense to align
a firm’s go-to-market strategies with its cultural
DNA? You bet it does!
Stay
tuned for next month when we discuss how PSFs can align
their go-to-market strategies with their ingrained firm
“personality.”
Culture
Case Study - Egon Zehnder International
Egon Zehnder International is an executive search firm
with a “Collaboration” personality. By effectively
aligning its marketing approaches to its DNA, this firm
has become favorably differentiated, while maintaining
a balanced revenue stream (outperforming its global
competitors) and enjoying a dramatically lower attrition
rate during its industry’s recent downturn.
Download the
case study (PDF)
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