The difference between marketing and selling has been the subject of many text books but in reality, when it comes to professional service firms, it’s quite simple.
A well marketed professional service business is one that is known for what it does best. It is nearly always also synonymous with a number of key professionals (which should hardly come as a surprise, given it is professionals – that is, people - who do the actual servicing). It will typically have some point of difference within its marketplace that sets it apart from competitors and this point of difference will be something the market understands, intuitively. It won’t be a point of difference a business decided on internally because unless the marketplace sees it, they know it’s irrelevant what they think.
A well marketed professional services business should be ‘top of mind’ as the ‘go to’ people in a number of fields and not one trying to be all things to all people. The well marketed business should have a regular communication platform with its marketplace and will use this to reinforce its strengths, emphasising the talents and insights of its key people as it does.
A well marketed professional services business will have identified some strategic growth sectors and will have a plan about how to pursue them. These goals will be shared by a cross section of staff, who work collaboratively to help it get there. It won’t be waiting for the phone to ring or complaining about the successes of rivals, but will be methodically working to an end game.
It will be doing its best to ensure its key people are networking in the right circles and not hiding behind their desks. It will treat every client as one who could leave tomorrow and understand there’s no such thing as a ‘loyal client.’ It probably won’t be too fussed on things like logo designs or the intricacies of corporate design manuals, and will instead focus on valuable content that is of interest to their clients. Messages will be simple, uncomplicated by technical jargon, and if possible well-illustrated. They will treat their prospective clients as busy people who don’t have time for waffle and will get straight to the point.
And even the best marketed business will still have to sell itself. When it comes time to pitch a proposal or justify the fee for a particular opportunity, the selling should be well and truly supported in advance by the marketing. The marketing makes the client want to choose you in the first place. Even if your price is higher than others, the reputational advantage is such that clients may not care.
However, a poorly marketed business will find the selling so much harder. The ground has not been prepared in advance and this business will find itself without a clear identity, with low personal profiles, with little point of difference, weak networks and quite possibly burdened by dated and clumsy collateral which could belong to any of a number of competitors. It may have key staff chasing any number of potential client meetings through cold calls or referrals and - by spinning its wheels - wonder why it is meeting market resistance, or at best polite disinterest. It will confuse activity with outcomes and perhaps not even realise the weakness of its market position because its people are very busy, and it rarely if ever consults the marketplace to understand how they really see the business fitting into the landscape.
This business will find itself selling its services as just one of many trying to do the same thing. They will have fallen into the commodity trap, where the only place left to go is to compete on price. And price competition is a race to the bottom, which is where many of these types of business end up.
That’s really about it, in my view. No magic formulas, just some basic disciplines, strategy and focus. If your main energies are spent on just selling your service without having done what’s needed in marketing, there’s every chance you’re locked into price based competition. But if your marketing has been disciplined, informed and well executed, it should (in theory at least) have you better positioned to compete on reputation, quality and value.
