Barbara Walters Price

It's Really Not That Difficult - A Little Perspective to Begin 2012

I have a friend with metastatic breast cancer and they just found a recurrence. I have another friend who was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor right before Christmas. And I am following the cancer journey of this little 5 year old girl who has captured my heart. She is having a rough time.

Don't "the studies" say that by the middle of January, or at least by the end, that most of us will have abandoned our 2012 resolutions? Big deal. 

This post is not designed to help you keep those resolutions, nor is it meant to depress you (although I'm feeling a bit weighed down at the moment). In the three situations mentioned, 2012 resolutions likely involve staying alive. That makes many of our resolutions seem unimportant – certainly not worth all the time and energy spent talking or writing about them.

Therefore, I write this post to bring some perspective to the new year – for you and, I guess, really for me.

Since this is a marketing blog focused on professional service firms, let me share with you a secret that is not really that secret - marketing is not that difficult. There are countless marketing blogs dispensing "wisdom" which often makes the reader feel woefully inadequate or, at the very least, behind the curve. Let me assure you that you're fine and that you don't have to worry with much of what is written. Just remember these things: 

• Invest what you have to invest (both in time and money) to get good at what you do. This is the most important item on the list. The quality of your work is your greatest marketing edge.
• Pay attention to your clients. While not every client is created equal, the level of service you provide to your clients is your second most important marketing edge.
• Make sure you have a website with helpful content (besides your phone number and email address). Your website is your calling card and it's the first place prospects go to know more about you. Your website can be a source of business if it contains helpful content for people in your target markets.
• Network with your peers. Get to know others in your profession. Learn from them. In turn, educate them. Going it alone makes the journey exponentially harder.
• Figure out what development techniques you are good at and do those. There is no "one size fits all" for business development. Some people are networkers. Some are content developers. Some are speakers. Some are master technicians. Most are a combination of different things. Determine what you're good at and then get better. Don't try to be something you're not. Then, do what you're good at - again and again and again.
• Focus on what's important. Now, to put the five above in proper perspective. Our careers can give us great enjoyment and a sense of purpose – or they can be a weight around our neck (if yours is the latter, get a new career). Give back. Slow down. Deepen relationships with those in your life that value you and nurture you. Move on from those that always take and never give. In the process, take a hard look at yourself to determine if you're a giver or a taker. Be the former.
• Have faith in something besides yourself. Whether or not you believe in a higher power, we all come to the end of ourselves sooner or later. When you find yourself there, on what do you rely? 
• Keep it all in perspective. You are not your career, or the clothes you wear, or the car you drive. You are not defined by your family or lack thereof. Your LinkedIn profile is not the sum of who you are. The length of time we're on earth is but a breath. What will your legacy be? Spend more time thinking about this question and then doing something about it. Don't worry about that which, in the end, doesn't matter.

You may think the final three points don't have anything to do with marketing. You're wrong. In a professional service firm, people do business with people – not brands. Brands may get them in the door but it's the personal connection between service provider and client that is important. Basically, being a jerk is never a good business development strategy, nor a life strategy.  

So, see, it's not that difficult – in theory. In practice it can be damn hard. 

If you're a praying person, I would appreciate prayers for the three people mentioned above.

Let's see what 2012 brings.

"Marketing?" professionals would say, "we've got a girl down the hall who does something like that."

Bruce W. Marcus has written an article that professional service firm marketers and the fee-earners in those firms should read. Titled "Why Professional Services Marketing 3.0 Matters for Your Future - and What To Do About It," the article takes us back to Professional Services Marketing 1.0 (where some firms sadly still live) and the Bates decision (1977) which struck down the ethical rules that prohibited any promotional activity for legal and accounting firms.

Marcus asserts that the Bates decision created the beginnings of the marketing practices used today and it introduced the concept of competition as "the major driving force in not only developing new marketing practices, but in changing the nature of the professional firm itself."

In the early days after the Bates decision (and I would argue up until the 1990s), most accounting and law firms had not begun to adapt and the condescending line quoted in the title of this post was likely often said and heard. (An aside: I know professional service firm marketers today who have been heard such language - even been the subject of it.) These firms were, as Marcus puts it, in the 1.0 stage of professional service firm marketing. 

Stage 2.0 is "the growth and development of contemporary marketing" and Stage 3.0 is "the emerging marketing practice in which professionals fully participate in—and are even beginning to be the initiators of— the marketing process" which further accelerates the change in professional firms, according to Marcus.

Marcus notes that the evolutionary process from Stage 1.0 to Stage 3.0 results in change and that change, "particularly in a dynamic economic environment" makes it difficult to plan for the long-term. Yet, plan we must. He offers steps to planning for a 3.0 firm (or those heading towards 3.0). I have bolded the points that resonated most with me:

• Recognize that competition is one of the most important factors governing the contemporary practice. Anything you do should always be in a competitive context.
  
  
• Recognize that change is inevitable—you can't escape it and still thrive in today's business environment.
  
  
• Recognize the difference between long- and short-term planning. Many of the likely business circumstances are foreseeable in the short term—less so in the long term, which is why long-term planning rarely works out. There are too many random and unforeseeable events that alter plans.
  
  
• Recognize that the key factor in planning is not "What kind of firm do we want to be," but how much you understand about the market for your services. (One of the factors in the recent rash of firm mergers involves law and accounting firms too deeply immersed in a declining industry.) For a manufacturer, long-term planning involves the market as well, but also plant construction and transportation, neither of which looms large in legal or accounting practice.
  
  
• Go as deeply as possible into your clients' business and industries. Look for trends. Read the trade journals and attend industry organizations and conferences. Don't guess. Try to know.
  
  
• Competitive intelligence is crucial in a competitive environment. Innovation is not imitation; it's improvement over what others are doing.
  
  
• Understand that successful marketing is client-based strategy, not a collection of marketing skills and mechanics routinely applied, and that it is client-focused, not firm-focused. "This is what I'm selling" is not the same as selling from a clear understanding of client needs.
  
  
• Understand that change is not an event—it's a process. Its future is rooted in its past, which is why understanding its past is important for understanding its future. Nor is it always a straight line—it's opportunistic. It's responsive to a changing environment, so pay attention to your profession's and your market's environments.

Marcus says it best when he wraps up the article:

Today, there are firms still in 1.0 and firms thundering forward in 3.0. The 3.0 firm is the one that is most likely to survive the future.

This is all part of his new book, Professional Services Marketing 3.0, which I hope to be reading soon.

How to Spot a Liar (Ted Talks Video)

Pamela Meyer, author of Liespotting, talks about how to spot a liar. It is an interesting talk.

Her bio:

Social media expert Pamela Meyer can tell when you’re lying. If it’s not your words that give you away, it’s your posture, eyes, breathing rate, fidgets, and a host of other indicators. Worse, we are all lied to up to 200 times a day, she says, from the white lies that allow society to function smoothly to the devastating duplicities that bring down corporations and break up families. Working with a team of researchers over several years, Meyer, who is CEO of social networking company Simpatico Networks, collected and reviewed most of the research on deception that has been published, from such fields as law-enforcement, military, psychology and espionage. She then became an expert herself, receiving advanced training in deception detection, including multiple courses of advanced training in interrogation, microexpression analysis, statement analysis, behavior and body language interpretation, and emotion recognition. Her research is synthetized in her bestselling book Liespotting.

Best (and Worst) Times to Send an Email

I found this infographic, created by Pure360, at Be Relevant! Email Marketing Blog by Tamara Gielen. Take a look. When do you send your email newsletters? What about client communications? Does the time of day sent affect open rates? According to this, it might.

Infographics in 15 Minutes

Infographics are the rage now. However, for professional services firm, they could be useful for, say, communicating about trends in a particular industry. Take a look at this short presentation by Eloqua. To create your own infographics, there is a slide which lists both free and paid resources.

Infographics in 15 Minutes

View more presentations from Eloqua

Marketing Info You May Have Missed

• 10 Awesome Google+ Presentations to View Today - Hubspot
• Author Highlighting is a Google Must for Bloggers - Duct Tape Marketing
• Facebook Advertisers Can Target Users by Zip Code - Mashable
• Remove Yourself from Background Check Services - Business Insider
• How to Build Better Relationships - Inc.
• 5 Bad Habits of Experience Speakers - Speaking About Presenting
• How to Create Emails with a 47.8% Open Rate and a 28.3% Click Rate - ProBlogger

101 Awesome Marketing Quotes via Hubspot

101 Awesome Marketing Quotes

View more presentations from HubSpot Internet Marketing

Online Branding ... Yes, It's That Important for Professional Services Firms

Lee W. Frederiksen, Ph.D. of Hinge Marketing posted "Why Online Branding Matters." It's an easy and insightful read. Lee begins the post with:

Online branding may be the most important marketing concept that you never think about. Granted, you may spend your brainpower thinking about online marketing and how you can generate more leads, but online branding is the Cinderella of the digital world.

He then goes on to define online branding and follows that with the question: Why Should You Care? He answers that with this piece of spot-on advice:

This one is actually pretty easy. Let's start with your professional services brand. As I have blogged about before, your firm's brand can be thought of as your reputation times your visibility. The greater these factors, the stronger your brand:

    Reputation x Visibility= Brand Strength

So what is the first thing you do to check out a potential new vendor or business partner? Visit their website? Google them? Read their LinkedIn profile?

Your online presence is arguably the single most important factor shaping people's impression of your firm's reputation and boosting it's visibility. (emphasis mine)

Lee then gives you five places to start to strengthen your online brand. Every managing partner and CMO of a professional services firm should take a few minutes to read Lee's post and then review your online branding efforts. It will be worth your time.

 

Resources to Improve Your Writing

I work in the business valuation profession. Many professionals in this profession are finance and accounting majors, which is great for the Excel portion of a business valuation report. However, a good business valuation report is one that is well-written. The client should recognize his or her company from the report and be able to understand the valuation.

This written part of a valuation report is often a challenge for many in my profession. I once had a business valuation/CPA firm owner, who employs CPAs as valuation analysts, tell me that his firm sends his new valuation hires to outside writing training sessions because they are so bad when they begin.

That is an extreme situation (I hope), but it is true that good writing is a skill. As such, see this post "10 Resources to Improve Your Writing" from Lior Levin, guest posting for Lynn Terry at ClickNews!  Lior says:

Writing is not always easy to master and requires dedicated practice and knowledge. The upside is that good writing skills will be a massive advantage in almost any business model, and can even open up exciting new possibilities for you.

So, where does one go to learn the skills and rules that will make anyone a good writer? The Internet has a treasure trove of writing resources. Here are 10 resources that will improve your writing… (emphasis in original)

If you want to become a better writer, read this post and access the resources listed.

Photo Source: _StaR_DusT_ via Flickr

Marketing Info You May Have Missed

I certainly missed this info while I was on vacation. I'm back now. Enjoy!

• How to Promote Your Personal Brand on Google+ - Bill Hartzer (I'm still playing with Google+ but so far I like it)
• How to Get Journalists to Tell Your Story - Mashable (Good tips here)
• 66% of Professional Services Firms Will Increase Spending for Online Marketing in Next 12 Months - Hinge Marketing (These are initial findings)
• A Guide to SEO Ranking Factors (Infographic) - Hubspot (I'll be using this for a fall speech)
• 11 Must-Subscribe Marketing News Blogs and Websites - Hubspot (Most are already in my RSS feed. Are they in yours?)
• Stop Surprising and Delighting Your Customers - Just Solve Their Problems - Marketing Profs (Yes!)
• Tips and Articles about Google+ for Law Firm Marketing - Larry Bodine's Blog (I like these)
• LinkedIn: Customize What Displays on Your Home Page - New Incite 
• Easy to Read Fonts Improve Site Visitors' Experience - Dianna Huff (Don't let design trump readability)