Inside Out - The haze of commoditization

Inside Out - Breaking through the Haze of Commoditization

The business of professional services is to take away problems and or capture benefits.  At the center of professional services is that they work to prepare clients for the future, identify new opportunities, anticipating adversities controlling what can be controlled.

 

The main objective of any professional service marketing organization is to establish a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship with their clients.  This is where experience based marketing and positioning comes into play.  The level of interactions through a number of different endpoints and platforms need to be consistent in order to break through the haze of commoditization.

 

Firms Need Differentiated Strategies for Their Brand to Stand Out - One of the biggest challenges for professional service firms is category parity. Surprisingly many firms lack differentiation not because of their brand necessarily, but because they all have virtually the same business and operating model, the same strategies, and the same mission. The root of the problem with professional services is not brand differentiation but business differentiation.

 

Success of professional services is based equally on the quality of the client relationship and on the quality of the solution to a performance, regulatory or legal issue. But most of all the challenge lies in the fact that advice is often intangible. While it may appear as self-serving, the role of marketing plays a significant role in the context of standing out. Professional services are intangible by the nature of services, so they must excel at branding, marketing and such other processes as business development and knowledge management.

 

Successfully branded organizations base their brand on a core positioning that is uniquely own-able and represents a distinct attribute or capability. This clear definition is supported and reinforced by everything the firm does – requiring all professionals and staff to live the brand every day. This internal dimension of branding is critical to product, services and professional services is becoming top of mind with many organizations.

 

Operationalizing the brand, may appear to be a lofty management consulting term, but think about the implications.  What does it mean to operationalize the brand, to live the brand? It involves the alignment of the brand and its values, long-term strategy, human resources, operations, internal communications, and more, to ensure the right behavior is in place. Obviously branding cannot solve every business performance issue and cannot be applied in all situations, but the transformation of the brand must start from Inside Out.