Create Systematic Competitive Advantage or Perish

“When the economy slows down, the pace of decision-making has to speed up, because you can’t put off the tough choices anymore. The companies that are readiest to act on solid information are primed to shoot ahead of the business cycle.”

The current market place gloom creates opportunities for the professional services firm if you are set up to compete, have courage and patience.

We know however from experience when the economy is hurting, that hurt can affect marketing. Traditionally our budgets are one of the first budgets to be stalled or slashed in a cost saving environment. Therefore, we need to be as of yesterday actively looking outward, digging deeper and embedding innovation around the issues our market intelligence is telling us and calling in the affects of our awareness campaigns and establishing our unique competitive advantage.

In my paper entitled "Create Systematic Competitive Advantage or Perish", I outline how you can instigate a marketing intelligence and strategic execution strategy (MISE Strategy) to create competitive advantage and long term growth awareness strategies.

Marketing Inteligence & Strategic Execution Strategy

I spoke at the Marketing the Professional Services Firm Conference today on Selling your Professional Services in Sydney.

The foundation of the presentation was the MISE Strategy (Marketing Intelligence & Strategic Execution Strategy). I was disheartened to witness so much reservation around formalising marketing initiatives within existing PSF's - not so much within the MISE Strategy, but within any formal framework. The opinion was that the work the delegates are doing is good enough, despite the challenges.

When asked what were the most significant issues facing them today, 90% of the issues raised were internal cultural factors, which I agree wholeheartedly are important to successful execution of marketing strategies.

What concerned me the most was that not one delegate raised any concerns over the current shift in the economy and how marketing practitioners can facilitate opportunities within this environment, or how do you ensure your marketing budget is secured and justified in times of economical downturns. There was nothing around digging deeper, implementing innovation or looking outside the organisation at all.

There were a series of questions asked around "how do you remove the focus on partners and make marketing a firm wide effort?", "how do you measure your brand presence?", "how do marketing and business development work together?" Terrific questions, but upon answering them through within the MISE Strategy framework, and through an interactive discussion, there was a complete block from the delegates to take on board the essential task marketing practitioners must undertake in establishing marketing gravity or developing marketing intelligence on clients, competitors, market trends and so forth.

Leaving the conference, I felt not only isolated in my opinions but also disappointed in what appeared to be an acceptable norm to not work within a marketing framework but rather, spending time reacting to internal issues was considered a satisfactory method of generating marketing initiatives, and continuing to do what has been done for years was also acceptable.

I refuse to give up on my position that PSF's must operate within current, systematic and rigorous strategic marketing strategies and frameworks. I will be preparing my presentation into a paper for this blog and developing a series of Podcasts on how PSF's can establish a formalised and measurable marketing strategy.

I look forward to sharing this with you.

Cheers,
Craig

Relationship Marketing - what is it?

I was asked recently, what exactly is meant by relationship marketing? I appreciated this question as there are so many interpretations...similar to that of the term 'leadership'. You could read books for the remaining days of your life on this topic.

To put it simply - often this is the best way - I agree with Richard Batterly, author of Leading Through Relationship Marketing - relationship marketing is a business strategy that will, when effectively implemented and executed, involve all the resources of an organisation in a holistic business strategy aimed at achieving a greater engagement of all key stakeholders.

For relationship markeitng to truely work, you need to involve the entire organisation - the board, the Managing Parther, Marketing, Sales, Finance, IT, Operations, Consulting Practices and Client Services (or equivalent in your Firm). It is not about a consultant working in isolation striving towards their individual KPI's or sales targets without consultation or working with the remainder of the firm.

Further and just as essential, relationship marketing is about never forgetting the customer and going deep and wide to lengthen the relationship beyond what it would organically be, without nurturing it towards delivering a mutually beneficial relationship. It is a balance and it is not a stand alone marketing initiative - it is an incorporated initiative that is a key component of your marketing strategy - it gives you the long view focus.

I read a story recently about a Forumula One racing driver, Mark Webber when he hosted an open wheeler car-racing day at a track just out of Sydney. After the authors few dismal laps, as he puts it, in a totally alien environment, the author came back and asked Mark what he was doing wrong. Mark told him it was simple. That if he kept his eyes and thoughts on the steering wheel, pedals and gear stick I wouldn't be able to look down the track and plot my course. So I would take the wrong line into a corner, have no hope of coming out of it in th eright place on the track, and so I would be right out of position to be ready for the next corner, have no hope of coming out of it in the right place on the track, and so I would be right out of position to be ready for the next corner.

The advice I have taken from this story is if we looked ahead more, down the track, where we are soon going to be, then we would still see what's happening immediately around us in the cockpit, but we would also be able to see ahead and plan the way round the circuit and take the most effective and fastest route forward. This is what relationship marketing is all about.

For the relationships to work however, there has to be a genuine and authentic interest in the prospect and or client. Simply deep diving into a client for the sake of following a model will not provide you with the valuable insight you need to nurture and lengthen a relationship OR move from consultant to trusted advisor.

Relationship Marketing

So much is written about the various styles of marketing available to PSF's. But as Alan Weiss and other collective pieces of knoweldge state the best way for PSF's to develop their long term client base is to form authentic relationships with their clients.

Too many PSF's jump into the lake without checking the depth - the consequence is no different to that of me leaping into the murky waters of a lake without checking its depth - inevitable death or slow or non-recovery of essential limbs. Diving in may create some short term success, but aren't we all in business for the long term?

Lesson Two: Focus on the relationships. This does not mean inviting potential clients over for dinner or a business lunch and expecting instant returns for sharing a bottle of wine or two. It is much much deeper than this. Think deep dive (to keep in with the diving scenario). A deep and well researched dive will pay dividends.

A colleague said to me the other day when going through our Relationship Model:-

Craig, this is surely the long way around to making contact with the prospect. Shouldn't I just send them a letter to get the ball rolling?

A letter about what I asked?

Who we are, what we do, services we have

Big deal, everyone has services, everyone has experts on their team (well they will claim they are - every consultant is good...aren't they?), everyone has a tool or tools...why would we be any different?

What prospect intelligence do we have? What are the challenges they are facing that we can actually provide some useful insight (not advice) too? Without this, and other intelligence, it is not worth your time to contact a prospect. You will be added to the delete file or bin just where your competitors are.

At Mettle I have created the rule that no prospect should be contacted without the following being completed:

1. Business Development Qualification
2. Prospect Intelligence Dashboard
3. Prospect Relationship Map (internal to prospect and within Mettle)
4. Concise letter of introduction outlining why we are contacting them (this is not a hey do we have something for you...)
5. Scheduled strategic follow up strategy

It is surprisingly challenging to get this level of discipline from people undertaking the business development however, once established, it is a powerful way to approach a prospect.

One of our cultural drivers is to always go to a prospect or client armed with value add solutions. Remember however never ever walk into a prospect and start 'consulting'. You are there to establish an understanding of how they work, what their issues are and how you can add value. They don't need to be consulted to - they need to know you appreciate and understand - by you talking their language first and foremost.

Don't be a know it all on the first visit - you will not be asked back.

Professional Service Marketing Benchmarks

When looking at how to best market Mettle, I was hard pressed finding material...until I looked to the USA. Obviously there are a lot more PSF's in the US than there are in Australia - hence the reasoning behind the great materials available.

What is disappointing however is the lack of PSF centric marketing benchmarks. There are one or two best practice casestudies however. Let me know please if you know of any more!

Lesson One: Don't worry about best PSF marketing benchmarks - concentrate on measuring your marketing performance against top performing public or private companies. I am starting to establish benchmarks for Mettle based on those of top 100 ASX-listed companies in Australia. This includes Client Service levels, marketing activities and business development activity benchmarks.