Journalists needed to be on their beats and visible to their sources in order to get first dibs on a great story. They needed to hang around the courthouse and police station, visit schools and sometimes even the local bar or church to find their stories. They didn’t always come back with a story, but it was expected that they better be in the right place at the right time just in case.

In the same way, professionals of the past had to stay physically visible to their clients, referral sources and potential clients. They attended networking and philanthropic events, went to happy hour and took long lunches at local hot spots. Deals were secured on the golf course and at sporting events. The most successful rainmakers, soon-to-be partners sometimes knew more about their clients’ families than their own.

Today there seems to be less emphasis on being out there and more emphasis on using technology to “stay in touch.” The trends of work-life balance, economic necessity and accelerated deadlines have limited the capacity of both journalists and other professionals to simply hang out and see what comes of it.

Let’s not lament the good old days too much. Professionals can strike a balance between getting out of the office and also leveraging technology for productive visibility.

Even the world of dating has used technology to help busy people market themselves to the most suitable matches. Keeping that in mind, let’s explore the future of visibility for professionals. There are many new ways to get out there and attract your ideal audience.

What’s Your Sign? 

The new buzzword in the world of professional communications is content marketing. Professionals are getting smarter about attracting the right people and managing their reputations by sharing interesting information. But you have to know what to share.

Imagine telling a story about yourself or your firm at a cocktail party. Do you want to be considered “the most interesting man in the world” or just another insurance broker? Do you want people begging for your number at the end of the night or asking themselves why they bothered going out?

For journalists and professionals, the story is critical. Is it news? Is it different? Will people say, “Wow” when they hear it? If not, it’s not a good story.

For Law Weathers, a law firm in Michigan, their story emerged from a long tradition in the community, but also from frequent client comments about their humility and kindness. Truly, in the dog-eat-dog world of law, humility and kindness can draw attention. But it’s not enough to say, “I’m a nice attorney.” Demonstrations of kindness must be shared through client stories and the attorneys’ involvement in the community.

What’s Your Pick-Up Line? 

Now take your great story and test it throughout the various channels available to you. These channels will then continue to share interesting information about you 24 hours a day. When placed correctly, your information will also be shared from one person to another, expanding your visibility exponentially. This includes your website, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, traditional business media, speeches, webinars, videos, advertising and trade media. We call these channels the “three Ps” of media: Pitched, Paid and Proactive.

You choose these channels by understanding your audience — where they hang out and get their news. Keep in mind that your audience is getting younger. (Anyone who is at least 40 has experienced that sad reality.) They are getting their information online and via mobile devices more than ever before.

Craft your story to be consistent, engaging and different from your competition. For Platinum Bank, one of the 50 fastest growing privately held companies in Minnesota, that message is about banking for business. When CEO and Founder David Rom talks — about how he hires people to how he manages the bank portfolio — he is describing a bank for visionary entrepreneurs who want to be 10 steps into the future.

Who Do You Desire? 

Whether you want to attract time-traveling entrepreneurs or female chief financial officers who love sushi, you need to be clear on your audience. Develop a detailed profile of the “A” client or the “A” referral source you want to attract, then investigate how they gather their information. What are their interests? What do they read? Do they gather their information via mobile device or the evening news? What gets them excited? Where do they hang out for entertainment? Who do they trust for reliable updates on industry trends and strategies?

Wherever they go, you need to be seen there. And you need to be seen there frequently…preferably with an entourage. By that I mean that you should have followers, lots of quality connections and people commenting positively on your information and sharing it. Your entourage builds over time, but it doesn’t hurt to have your colleagues and friends talk about you at networking events or share your content with their friends online (or recommend you on LinkedIn).

You can gather this information about your target audiences in time-consuming conversation, or you can hire Ingenuity to do 10 to 15 interviews and gather it for you. The bonus is that we’ll translate the answers into the profiles and themes you need to create your story and “pick-up lines.”

Wait! Do You Still Live With Your Mom? 

Once you have attracted the right people, it’s important to take them somewhere nice and classy to learn more about you. For your unknown prospects, “A” clients and top referral sources, they’ll often head to your website or your LinkedIn profile to gather more information before they make a decision to take the relationship further. If your website is awful or you only have 50 connections on LinkedIn, that first impression can sour quickly.

The same goes for mentions about you on Google. If a prospect searched for you or your firm name, what would they find? We hope they would find your LinkedIn profile and company page, populated with great status updates and service descriptions. We hope they would find an article written for a popular trade magazine. We hope they would find your affiliation with important networking and trade groups. And we hope they would find an interesting bio, a great photo, a video or white paper about a differentiating service.

The key to visibility today is to know your audience — who you really and truly want to attract for a long-term commitment. Find out where they hang out for important news and information. Start sending them little gifts of insight that rock their world and leave them wanting more.

Once you’ve hooked them (lead generation), then start wooing them (lead nurturing) and drawing them back to your place (website, social media, videos, events). Then let them make the next move.

What you’ll gain is an enhanced reputation with referral sources who feel good about recommending you. You’ll gain loyalty and cross-selling opportunities with your best clients because your visibility and credibility will affirm their decision to stick with you. And you’ll attract the unknown prospect who didn’t realize they needed you so much.

If you’d like to see how this article looks in cool multimedia, contact us at Ingenuity for our soon-to-be-released presentation on Visibility 2012. It’s time to get out of the office and be seen.

• 77% of firms surveyed generate at least some new business online and 15% generate 40% or more of new business leads online.

• The fastest growing firms are generating 40-59% of their leads online. The higher percentage of leads a firm generates online correlates to how profitable that firm is.

• The most used techniques included (listed from more heavily used to moderate use): LinkedIn, email marketing, white papers, eBooks, newsletters, blogging, Twitter, Facebook, webinars and video.

• The techniques described as most effective (from highest to moderately effective) are: white papers/eBooks, blogging, SEO, email marketing, newsletter, Linkedin, and webinars.

• High growth firms were significantly more likely to post new content to their website on a weekly basis and to have redesigned their website in the last 12 months.

[Source: The Online Marketing for Professional Services Firms study from the Hinge Research Institute.] 

Nine out of 10 B2B marketers are using content marketing to grow their businesses. On average, marketers use eight content marketing tactics to achieve their marketing goals. The most popular tactics are:

• Article posting (79%)

• Social media (excluding blogs) (74%)

• Blogs (65%)

• eNewsletters (63%)

• Case studies (58%)

• In-person events (56%)

• Videos (52%)

• White papers (51%)

• Webinars (46%)

• Microsites (31%)

Marketers are using content marketing to support multiple business goals, led by brand awareness (69%), customer acquisition (68%), lead generation (67%), and customer retention/loyalty (62%).

How are firms measuring the success of their content marketing? top answers include: increased web traffic (58%), sales lead quality/sales accepted leads (49%), direct sales (41%), qualitative feedback from customers (40%), and SEO ranking (40%).

The majority of firms (58%) are using a mix of in-house and outsourced content marketing, up from 52% last year.

By far the biggest challenge was producing the kind of content that engages prospects and customers, with 41% of respondents listing that as their top issue.

[Source: The B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends Report by the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs] 

The confusion often begins when a person is hired for marketing services, but quickly learns that the expectation is really to make sales calls and bring in business:

“Maggie just isn’t working out. She does a great job on the newsletter, but we’re not getting any business.”

The opposite can also occur when a salesperson suddenly has marketing added to his or her job expectations. We hear:

“We need to place an ad. Tell Sam the sales guy to do that for us.”

There are certainly professionals who handle both roles in a firm — and handle it well — but it can’t be assumed that the skills and strengths for business development and marketing are interchangeable. Plus, the goals for marketing and business development can be different even if the end result is new clients. Let me try to clear this up for you.

Q: Is marketing the same as business development? 

A: No, each requires different skills and strengths.

Q: Is marketing the same as public relations? 

A: No, but they are close cousins.

Q: Should we focus on business development or sales? 

A: Both.

In an ideal world, your firm’s marketing, business development and media strategy are integrated — sharing the same messages that lead to…yes, SALES. But achieving that ideal world won’t happen if just one person is left holding all the hats. It requires effort from the entire firm. Just to get things rolling, you may even need an outside perspective.

Rather than fire or hire another marketing sales media business development web assistant director manager, let’s clear up the confusion further.

Marketing is… 

• your promise to the market, crystal clear

• your key differences, tested and validated

• your market position, solidly established

• your ideal clients, qualified and loyal

These four things come into being when marketing is done well. Marketing is not just about logos, ads, newsletters and holiday cards. If you think it’s about doing stuff, you’ll end up with a lot of scattered ideas and confused [or bored] prospects. If everyone in the firm is going off in their own directions with marketing tactics, you waste time and money for very little return.

Before we even discuss stuff, we need to find out why clients should be loyal, what sets your firm apart and what you can promise. It might seem easier to work on a new firm brochure, but then it won’t really be marketing. It will be stuff, and you won’t be certain that your stuff is much different from the other guy’s stuff.

According to strategic growth consultants L. Harris Partners (www.lharrispartners.com), professional service firms with a well-defined market position garner a higher premium fee per partner and manager than firms that compete mainly on price. These firms have clearly defined the value they deliver — and their ideal client base — and they share those marketing messages consistently in their marketing “stuff.”

Business Development is… 

• your consistent focus on generating leads

• qualifying leads as good potential clients

• your consistent focus on nurturing prospects

• converting prospects to clients

Once you know who you really are and what you stand for (through marketing strategy), then you go out and gather the people who want what you’ve got. You take your criteria for ideal clients and match it with the leads you encounter through business development tatics like trade shows, networking, social media and referrals.

You identify their pain. Then you share your market promise and key differences either in person or through your marketing stuff (brochures, newsletters, sell sheets, website content, seminars).

Because sales cycles are longer these days, you need to keep nurturing those qualified prospects with additional touches (see Rachel’s article on 14 touches, next page). Keep your marketing messages consistent, share stories of similar clients who have benefited from your service, develop relationships with others who will refer business. A lead nurturing software solution can assist in tracking the progress of your efforts and keep everyone informed on whether a prospect is just warm or is ready to buy.

Now that you see how marketing differs from business development, but is instead the foundation upon which you pursue stronger business development, let’s add another layer.

Public Relations is… 

• media strategy, planned well

• your firm’s visibility, magnified

• your thought leadership, shared

• your credibility and integrity, enhanced

Public relations is a close cousin to marketing because it requires a clear understanding of the value you bring to the market and your ideal clients. With those established, you can create messages and content to reach your ideal audience.

Ingenuity recently hosted a webinar about new media strategy and how it supports your market position (go to http://bit.ly/ INGwebinar_newmedia). By sharing the thought leadership

or knowledge from your firm in various media (e.g. pitched, paid and proactive media), you magnify your visibility, credibility and integrity in the market.

So public relations supports marketing and business development because it provides vehicles to share your message and expertise. It shares your unique story.

This is important because media vehicles and search engines are calibrated to the quality of information about companies and how it’s shared online (see article on Google Panda, page 4). Consumers are also more selective about the type of information they’ll accept or share. To reach them, your messages have to be focused, relevant and interesting.

And, say it isn’t so, but professionals can’t just be good at their jobs. They have to build an image and reputation of greatness — and deliver on that. That means a focus on clients as well as marketing, business development and media strategy.

And you thought I was only speaking to marketing and sales people. I’m talking to any professionals out there who sell what’s in their big brains. You are the marketing department. You are the sales force. You are the spokesperson.

Get ready to share the hats — and learn what you’re wearing. For any questions about how marketing ties to business development that ties to media strategy, contact us.

How do you manage that many touches for each prospect when you already have a full workload? Below is a timeline of 14 touches potentially occurring over six months to a year, leading to an engagement. Investment is minimal. Impact can be huge.

1. You meet your prospective client at an event and exchange cards.

2. You invite them as a connection on LinkedIn and write a short, personal note in the invitation that reminds them where you met or what you talked about.

3. They see a spectacular ad campaign for your firm in a journal they read often.

4. They read an article that your firm wrote for their association newsletter.

5. They get curious about your firm and visit your website where they read a few pages about the firm and look at your bio.

6. You look at their status updates on LinkedIn and “like” or comment on one; they see your name and your comment.

7. You post articles and news updates to your firm’s website and add a link to your LinkedIn status feed. The prospect clicks through one and visits your website for a second time.

8. This time on the website, they sign up to receive your firm’s email newsletter. Every time they receive an issue, it’s another touch. If they haven’t signed up for the newsletter at this point, you might email them a back issue with an article of interest to them and invite them to sign up.

9. They attend an event where you or someone in your firm is a featured speaker, or you invite them to an event hosted by your firm on a topic of interest to them.

10. You invite them to have a conversation with you about the event topic or questions they have after the event.

11. You have a short phone conversation about their questions.

12. You email them a resource or referral pertaining to that conversation.

13. They bring you in for a sales presentation.

14. You send a thank you email.

15. They engage your services and become a client.

If you have questions about how to consistently reach out and increase your visibility with prospects, contact Ingenuity for marketing and media strategies.

Which ad is more memorable? Which ad differentiates the CPA firm?

While only the coolest accountant could pull off wearing lederhosen (many thanks Gary Jackson!) this real example illustrates that professionals can miss an opportunity when they go with the same tired marketing or sales tactics.

People process visual information up to seven times faster than words. While your firm’s key messages are a critical part of your brand, design elements add a whole layer of story that human beings have a visceral and memorable reaction to.

The ways that people present themselves (body language, clothing, grooming) also tell a story about your firm. Great design combined with professional style and presence is a winning combination today. It shows that you care about the details. You have self-respect and a willingness to put in extra effort.

While it’s true that you can’t pick out some multi-millionaires from the average person on the street, the multi-millionaires probably don’t need this article. For those of you who sell trust, credibility and expertise — and want to make millions — read on:

Pumping up Design and Style 

Design includes your fonts, colors, logo glyph, photos, paper and the other visual elements on your business cards, sales kits and website. In most professional service firms, design extends into your office decor.

You know good design when you see it. It’s appealing, welcoming, easy to navigate and compelling. It helps customers find you and want to interact with you.

Most people also know good style when they see it. Shoes, fabrics and impeccable grooming create a distinct first impression. But it’s also the body posture, facial expression and tone of voice that attracts notice.

Visual elements add up to an impression of who you are, how good you are and how much you are worth — whether accurate or not. Perception is reality. Good design and superb style quietly build trust without saying a word.

Nowhere is design and style more important than in mid-sized firms and businesses. Good design and personal style give your marketing and sales efforts a tailwind. Weak design and wimpy style do nothing. When every dollar counts, you need a tailwind to push you along.

This year, Ingenuity had the opportunity to talk about great design at the Association for Accounting Marketing annual summit in Chicago. Rachel Gold, Communications Consultant and Lucas Beck, Art Director, painted some “vivid” mental imagery by discussing the merits of card stock in a skit similar to the game show, “The Dating Game.” We decided to go with a humorous presentation while also sending strong messages, because part of Ingenuity’s style is to promote fun in the marketing process. Here is a sample of the “Dating Game,” conversation (and innuendo) that helped the audience remember that design differences do matter.

Rachel: “So number one, how would you describe your edginess?”

Sample #1: “Well, my edges are kind of rough…Hey! You like it rough?”

Rachel: (looking a bit frightened) “Ok, number two, if you don’t mind my asking…how thick are you?”

Sample #2: (clearly embarrassed) “Oh, um, well I’m just kind of average thickness, so nothing really special.”

Rachel: “All right, thank you. No other questions. So number three, if we were in a really dark room together, how would I find you?”

Sample #3: “You would find me really shiny. I was recently embossed.” (wink)

Rachel: (impressed) “Mmm, shiny.”

Design and content can be cutting edge and still professional. Your professional style can also be edgy without tipping toward bawdy.

If your firm — or you — need a visual makeover, here is a process that we have seen work.

1. Limit your decision makers to no more than three of your team.
2. Know your audience, your objective and the message you want to send. Give this information to your designer or personal shopper/stylist.
3. Collect samples of things you like and think are effective. Show them to your designer.
4. Step back and open your mind. Let your designer work.
5. Look at the initial concepts your designer has chosen. Ask the designer to share with you the process and ideas behind each design. If any concepts are a “no,” say so immediately. Blending — taking a font from one design and an element from another — is usually a bad idea. The same goes for blending pearls with flip flops. Leave the beach wear on the beach.
6. Let the design(s) settle in. Think about them for a day or two. Post them up in your office. Show them to a few people whose taste you admire. Warning: I said a few people. Each and every one will have a different opinion and too many opinions, like too many colors, can create what artists call “mud.”
7. If none of the designs is perfect, give the designer feedback on your thoughts. One of the most common pieces of feedback we receive is that the frontrunner is not conservative enough.
8. Consider that conservative, always and in every case, means boring. If you can afford boring, go ahead. If you need a tailwind for your marketing dollars, jump at a fresh idea and be willing to stand out (maybe not in lederhosen, but perhaps in plaid).
9. Listen to your designer. Just as your best clients take your professional advice, be willing to consider the advice of marketing and design professionals.

Our clients tend to be bottom-line people. While many of them respond to clean and crisp design, few of them deal with it in their own firms on a daily basis. Whether your core competency is finance, accounting, engineering or law, making decisions about design and style isn’t second nature. Yet you have to make sound business decisions about websites, brands and advertising. Graphic design makes an impression. A confident style makes an impression. If you aren’t clear on the impression you are making, it’s time to find out.

1. Brand leaders realize higher fees. 

According to a 2008 pricing benchmark report for the consulting industry, brand leaders and “not very well known” firms have similar standard/book rates, but the brand leaders posted higher fees overall:

• Upper-level professionals (VP, New Partner): 11% higher
• Advanced-level professionals (Directors): 29% higher
• Mid-level professionals (Managers, Post-MBA): 20% higher
• Entry-level professionals (Associates): 35% higher

2. Great design attracts more leads. 

In the area of great design, GA Wright Marketing Inc. reported that response rates went up based on specific choices:

• High quality color generated 33% more responses
• High quality color plus high quality paper generated 48% more response
• A well-designed headline and graphic outperformed a flashy, overly bright design by 55%

If you want more clarity around what a brand leader looks like or how to take your design to the next level without resorting to “flash,” contact Ingenuity.

There are other brands that make you think value, consistency and comfort: Target, Chevrolet, Marriott, Keds.

What comes to mind when people think of your firm? Have you ever considered your market position?

Professional service providers around the world talk about the pressures to compete on price while also finding new ways to grow their firms and increase profits. But statistics show that market leaders earn higher hourly rates, have fewer collections issues and garner higher profits compared to their less visible competitors.

Perception influences behavior. If prospects and clients perceive your firm as the best fit for them — and you have shown that you deliver what they want — they will happily write higher checks regardless of the economy or other influencers. Instead of competing on price, you compete on brilliance.

Once they’ve experienced your firm as THE ONE, anyone and anything else pales in comparison.

To establish your market position, there are several things that must happen within your firm and outside of it. They include: clarifying your story, creating messages around that story, determining target audiences, choosing the vehicles that reach those audiences, developing content around your key messages, monitoring response, refining and expanding the messages.

None of these steps directly relate to billable client hours. This is partly why few firms establish a market position and the higher profits that go with it. It’s an exclusive club whose members actively invest time, money and people to achieve their position. But let’s take a look at what these steps really require, and you’ll realize that more firms could have a market position without spending a fortune or sacrificing client service.

Clarify Your Story

Firms become known for certain things. Although their work and experience evolve, their perceived position in the market may not. An accounting firm may be known for its work in telecommunications. Another is known for its work in affordable housing. Law firms may hold a market perception as just a creditor’s firm or a construction law firm, when in fact they offer a full menu of legal services. Construction and engineering professionals are frustrated by RFPs that want to compare firms by project types (school, fire station, senior housing) rather than their skills and knowledge of construction.

Instead of a brand based on knowledge, strengths or thought leadership (brilliance), professionals often acquire a brand based on the types of clients they serve (billables).

To create your true story, you have to find out why your clients choose you. Create a story around strengths and differentiators rather than client types or service offerings. To do this, you need to really understand the experience of working with you through your clients’ eyes. Mere buzzwords like “Excellence” or “Quality” or even “Exceptional Client Service” will not cut it. You need to invest in the research that helps you create valid and powerful stories and messages.

Create Messages

Once you have feedback on the quality of work and knowledge that you deliver to clients, the next step is creating unique and memorable messages about your firm.

These messages might relate to government relations advocacy on behalf of an industry. They might highlight your in-depth analysis or thought leadership on business challenges. They might include your connections and involvement in an industry.

Your messages should focus on the value you bring to your clients and the experience of working with you, not just the services you offer.

Choose Target Audiences

Once you have your story and messages to share, decide who should hear about them. This includes referral sources as well as targeted clients and prospects.

By understanding who you want to sell to and serve, you pinpoint your market position. Your target audiences create a direction for distribution of your story. It’s not for just anyone.

Get Beyond Just Advertising or PR

How do you get your story out to support your market position? The traditional way has been through media. But as you know, media has changed quite a bit.

When choosing media, you no longer have to rely on traditional public relations, hoping that a reporter, editor or radio host features you. You can still share your story with this media — which we call “pitched” media — but you can also choose “paid” and “proactive” media. Pitched media still provides you with targeted visibility and credibility; however, there are more options to share your message — and more control over the result.

• Pitched Media
  With pitched media, you typically create a relationship with a reporter, editor or host and start sending story ideas — hoping that they show interest, pick up the idea and cover it. The result might be a feature article, a quote in a larger article, an opinion piece, a guest interview, a speaking gig or a case study.
• Paid Media
  Paid media is coverage that you gain by paying a fee or subscription. This might include paid articles, ads, sponsorships, paid radio or TV shows or paid distribution of press releases. You broker these opportunities through the chosen media’s advertising channels.
• Proactive Media
  Proactive media is the newest way to establish a market position. You create your own media vehicles such as blogs, web content, videos, social media pages and networking (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter), e-books, workshops and other content that shares your story. This type of media costs more time than money, and results in building credibility, visibility and better search results for your firm website.

Choosing the vehicles to support your story can be quite complex and costly if you don’t have a strategy.

We recommend creating a 12-month media plan that includes a hand-selected menu of media from all three categories — media that fit your audiences and messages. This way, you’re not just buying ads or experiencing the letdown of traditional media rejection.

Provide Premium Content

To leverage pitched, paid and proactive media, develop content that shares your messages and story. The key is to present your story and messages in ways that educate, inform and inspire your audiences. The best content goes beyond purely self-promotional information and establishes your people as experts on particular topics. The quality of your content will determine your success with attracting new prospects, referral sources and clients.

Your content may include op/ed commentaries on current trends, paid advertorials about experts in your firm, press releases on issues or firm news, thought leadership pieces on where you believe an issue is heading, interview videos, client success stories, how-to and tips articles, Top 10 lists, webinars or newsletters.

This is often the place where our clients begin to resist. They have the impression that developing content will take time away from clients and everything else they already have on their plate. They can’t envision how this process will help them create a market position. They aren’t comfortable with the idea of thought leadership on topics that depend on technological, governmental or economic changes outside their control.

These concerns are absolutely legitimate, but will keep you in the pack of professionals who all look the same from the outside. You will continue to compete on price rather than brilliance.

Monitor Audience Response

These efforts are measurable. You can see over time how your placement and distribution of content in various media plays out — thanks to various measuring and monitoring tools provided by the media and your website host.

For example, you could purchase placement of a thought leadership article on a news page targeted by city, a specific industry and even a specific age group. Once published, your article can be measured by views, click-throughs from the article to your website and article comments or feedback.

Refine your Strategy

As with any marketing effort, developing a market position happens over time. What I am describing here is just part of an overall strategic marketing plan that includes tactics such as networking and building a sales pipeline and coaching your team beyond technical skills. You will learn what works well and what doesn’t fit. You’ll learn which efforts are bringing in the most business and attention from the audiences you prefer.

You will start to see initial results within six months, but a full picture should emerge after 12 months. You will notice that clients and your competition are viewing you a bit differently. You will experience less resistance to fees and advice. You will notice higher quality candidates and prospects connecting with you. You will have more space financially and mentally to choose business opportunities with confidence.

To consciously choose your market position is not an easy path, but membership in this club does have its privileges.

Blend logic and emotion.

Prospects use both sides of their brains when looking for a new firm. They want quality services, but they also want to enjoy working with you. Use emotionally positive words, describe your firm culture and let prospects connect to your people through bios and stories.

Use core concepts.

Professional services are very complex fields. Boil your message down to its core to help busy prospects digest it.

Surprise the reader.

Human brains are designed to tune out the expected and capture the unusual: you forget your drive to work but remember one partner’s outrageous behavior at the office party a year ago. Pleasant surprises stick with us as well as unpleasant, so use unexpected language and unusual examples to make your content memorable.

Tell stories.

Consider fables and legends—stories that are inherently memorable and have survived for thousands of years. Use a few well-chosen stories that illustrate the benefits your firm delivers to clients.

Jack Kolmansberger and Amy Sikorski of Herbein + Company, Inc. in Pennsylvania recently did a bit of marketing wizardry when they came up with a new mascot for the firm, “Herbie.” While we have seen the wonders of mascot marketing in other sectors (who heard of Aflac before that duck?) we have not seen a single CPA firm take advantage of it. Herbie is currently giving out flower seed stakes to clients and is rumored to be willing to show up on reusable grocery bags in the near future.

Speaking of CPA cool, the folks at WithumSmith + Brown, PC had me laughing over my desk-lunch recently when Jack Kolmansberger sent me to their recruiting video. Marketing Director Rhonda Maraziti said it kicked off the all-firm meeting in January. I watched it all the way through, delighted that a group of CPAs would be persuaded to have that much fun. If I were considering offers from several firms including WithumSmith, they would have the hands-down advantage.

Commodity Price Pressure

•  With many more responders to every RFP, the bidding war is intense. Winners are often bidding so low that others wonder how the work can get done.

•  Even your great clients are asking for price concessions, not only because they are cutting costs but because your competitors are promising lower prices than yours.

•  Prospects are eyeing every dollar decision and making sure they shop around. It is much harder to make new sales.

Stagnant Growth

•  Flat is the new up. Firms that formerly grew upwards of 10 percent per year are scratching to grow 2 percent. Firms that had more modest growth during the boom are losing market share.

•  Firms that put in aggressive sales systems, have strong niche marketing and know their competitive differentiation are holding their own. Those that depended on referrals and word-of-mouth are finding it really tough out there as the low hanging fruit dries up.

•  Competitors are calling your best clients and offering some very aggressive pricing.

Transition Planning

•  With growth so hard to achieve, senior partners are wondering how their buy-outs will be funded.

•  Firms that depend on a few senior rainmakers to bring in new work are taking a serious look at the younger generation and wondering where the rainmakers are.

•  Mergers are happening within middle-size firms as small groups of professionals split off to form boutique firms and the rest of the firm merges — the original succession plan scrapped.

What Sells Now

As we have worked through this recession at Ingenuity, we felt the pain of scaling back, but we also invested in sales training boot camp (www.slatterlysales.com) and hired a Director of Growth. We learned a common language and processes that moved us from trying to sell pleasure to selling pain.

Pleasure

What worked in the boom was to sell pleasure: outstanding service, consistent teams, beautiful offices and a pretty website, a fun team with office parties featured on FaceBook, giving back to the community, etc.

Selling pleasure takes the form of lunches, small gifts and information about your company with gentle persistence. You can talk no more than 50 percent of the time during this type of sales conversation. It is about rapport building with the client, but also you and your services and the absolute happiness that the client will experience with you. It is a conversation that requires a medium level of skill.

In marketing, pleasure looks like “happy client” testimonials, an upscale-looking brand and key messages focusing on the talents and service ethic of your people. You can use a lot of advertising because the message is more you-focused. You need lots of sales support materials to hand out at trade shows. You respond to most RFPs that look good because competition is low and you land a fair number of them.

Pain

What works better in a recession is to sell pain. You have to be able to deeply dig into your clients’ or prospects’ psyches and help them identify what really keeps them up at night, their background fears and challenges in this economy. You have to make it safe for them to tell you everything, including how much it might be costing them to keep their current provider. You have to help them feel unsafe with keeping their pain, but safe in handing it over to you. It is a conversation that requires a high level of skill.

In sales, getting at pain takes the form of questions. You have to create intelligent questions that will allow your prospects to think through their issues and fears and then share them with you. If you thought keeping your mouth shut was hard before, pain selling means that you talk for about 10 percent of the conversation, much less than you could when selling pleasure! It is a complete overhaul of most sales systems. The questions have to be non-threatening, but help people open up. If you give them pain statements (“You must have low sales due to the recession”), you can easily make people feel defensive, which means you do not get the sale.

Marketing also takes a shift in a pain economy. Instead of focusing on how nice your people are or their outside interests, it is time to differentiate your firm for being the “best place to turn to” for specific needs. You do this through expertise and niche marketing.

Professional service marketing has always been different from other marketing because you are selling what’s in your head and who you are. In a pain sales process, you want to be visible to the markets you serve — a familiar provider — but also credible. Nothing says you know what you are talking about than authoring an article or being featured in the media about your subject of expertise. This kind of public relations lives on beyond a project press release or firm news because your articles show up on Google and reinforce your knowledge and expert status.

Speaking is another classic way to build your status as an expert. Make sure all your speaking engagements are mentioned somewhere on the Web. If your prospect is looking for a new employment attorney and finds that you have authored 12 articles and given six speeches in this area, your credibility meter rises exponentially. It shows that you are in demand and trusted to provide the right information.

Virtually all prospects now spend some time looking up their next vendors on Google. You cannot afford a dusty website! All those articles and speaking engagements should be featured on your site as well as strong expert-based bios and excellent practice area pages. This is the time to shine on all fronts — your reputation, your personal appearance, your website, your social media, your Google search results.  When people are afraid to spend money, you have to prove you’re worth it.

Niche Marketing

The other tool that is fueling firm growth right now is owning a niche market — not showing up at a trade show meeting here and there, but owning the whole arena. It is easier to build up credibility in certain niches markets than in your whole geographic area because there are usually trade associations, publications and meetings that define the marketing space. It can take years to own a niche, but there are some great shortcuts that include individual marketing plans for your team members (strength in numbers), niche public relations and a sales pipeline coaching process specific to that niche.

The economy is definitely taking an uptick in many areas and we are busy at something besides sales again! It might look like the worst is over, but don’t forget the lessons from 2008 through 2010: Whether the economy is tough or booming, focus on your sales and marketing. Spend money on it; get new training, fresh ideas and more systems. Hone in on the customer base that needs you the most. Step up your game. Contact Ingenuity Marketing if you would like to learn how.