Exceptional Growth Or Exceptional Reputation? Which Comes First?

The days of ‘interruption marketing’ are over. Clients have switched off. Shouting louder just irritates them. Nowadays, people trust referrals, recommendations and the word-of-mouth more than any paid-for sales campaign. In fact, most people believe that businesses lie in the adverts! Reputation management is where the action is!

There is a group of professional service firms (PSFs) that grow nine times faster than the average. They are 50% more profitable than the average. So, what’s going on?

Doing the research, it was easy to see that high-performing service firms are the ones that have clients that believe in them. The ‘positioning’ (and ‘targeting’) talks to clients in a way that the client can relate to and understand. The firm understands the client needs, hurts and wants and has a solution. That is the Grow Your Service Firm ‘ology’.

High performers have always had a particular profile, a reputation; they have always been identified as being different from the average.

So, how do they drive their growth?

High performers could just spend more on marketing and sales. But they don’t do that; they just become qualitatively better at the marketing and sales.

Frederiksen and Taylor point out that the high performers do not spend proportionately the most on marketing and sales because they are already very good at it. They are simply more effective so don’t need to compete by spending the most. Obvious really.

The high performers actually spend (slightly) less than average firms on their sales and marketing activities. Their marketing spend isn’t quantitatively higher; it is qualitatively better. They spend less and get better results.

Every firm says pretty much the same boring thing, selling similar services to similar people using similar straplines and similar people with similar qualifications to sell similar services at similar prices etc, etc. Clients have switched off.

The high performers, meanwhile, focus on client needs and priorities. They are not preoccupied with their own capabilities and expertise. They are not mesmerised by the reflection of themselves like some Greek myth. They focus their limited budgets on specific target customer groups and use a clear and easy to understand message. Simple really.

So, who is in this group of professional service firms that grow nine times faster than the average and are 50% more profitable than the average? How can you join them? What do you need to do?

The starting point I am afraid comes straight out of day one of your Marketing 101 class. You have to create and communicate a clear positioning that demonstrates how you can help your target clients… unequivocally. And deliver on it. A totally compelling proposition is seductive. That is where your reputation comes from.

As a starting point, ask yourself if you consistently communicate:

·        - Your overt business benefit

·        - The real reason you can deliver

·        - The dramatic difference between you and your competitors

I meet very few service firms who have actually done this properly. As a result, they deliver average results and have a mediocre reputation. Those that do deliver on these three points have a stunning reputation both within the industry and, more importantly, with their clients.

Your choice.