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.

Commitment to simplify and improve professional services marketing

How are you breaking through the legacy perceptions of professional services marketing or business development? If organizations are redefining their roles in a disruptive market why aren’t you?

Organizations are in a continual state of reflection, looking for new ways to inspire, lead and shape the right team members to bring the organization's strategy to life battling against a market in near-constant disruption. Audiences are short for time and overloaded with data. A shorter attention span means that brands will need to reflect on the quality of the conversations - these audiences both internal and external want less talk and more quality.

 

Businesses are defining and redefining their marketing focus, responding to the changing role digital, social, marketing technology and content plays in the development and presence of a brand. As a result, professional services marketers are seeing an increasing amount of specialists carving out a niche, but that will require a significant influx of creativity.

 

Professional Services Marketing is in a phase of massive transformation led by empowered clients.  To the extent that marketing knows the client and the market, my personal opinion marketing should be in the forefront of driving the change. Perhaps it’s not yet happening across peers and competitive organizations. Some organizations insist they’re different, but they’re deceiving themselves. They’re worried about the future and trying to avoid change. It is happening in the marketplace, so if it hasn’t touched you yet, it will.

 

Thought out many discussions the role marketing is changing as well. Marketing requires imagination and community – I have defined the role of Marketing, as, “creating and extending relevant conversations and experiences that build a halo for the brand while deepening relationships and revenue growth”.  The biggest challenge for any organization is to consider the multitude of business priorities across all product or service lines – take into account that many have competing priorities, then simplify and improve your focus.  

 

How fast “knowledge” is processed, redistributed and employed throughout organization is one of the key differentiators for any professional services firm. You need to harness the collective knowledge of the entire firm then systematically drive this knowledge into every conversation with the markets, market segments and client.  While this is paramount for professional services it provides a framework in structuring conversations around product marketing as well.

 

1       What are the three ideas you have to simplify and improve the most common daily activities?

2       What is the one activity you can need to start doing differently tomorrow to realize one of your ideas?

3       What are the ways in which you can collect and deploy knowledge more effectively in your organization?

4       How can groups articulate marketing value to internal constituencies? Marketers, business development and knowledge support professionals need to stop telling people how good they are at what they do and start solving problems in order to provide value to the organization.