Giving people what they want
The PM Forum held its first annual conference in London last month discussing the topic of helping fee earners develop and retain business. Carolyn Bointon and Tamsin Edwards report.
It was a welcome change to attend a conference targeted at professional services marketers where the organisers had taken the time and trouble to find out what their potential delegates actually wanted! All too often I get information on courses available to me on marketing where it is obvious that the organisers have not even considered the first rule of marketing themselves, ie. what do your customers want! Nevertheless, to get over 140 delegates to your inaugural conference is pretty impressive by anyone's standards.
Richard Chaplin, publisher and executive editor of
pm
, opened the seminar with a brief insight into his ideas for the future role of marketing specialists within professional services firms.
INFLUENCING MANAGEMENT
Tony Reiss, marketing director at lawyers Cameron Markby Hewitt, reminded us that even the most super human marketing person is unlikely to transform a partnership single handedly into an all singing, all dancing marketing culture. He suggested that we may still need some help and that the best place to get that is from the management. He also acknowledged that this is not always the easiest of things to do! Tony's firm belief is that marketers should approach the problem by adopting the methodology used by consultants in managing change.
""Tone's top tips"" were his suggestions on ways the delegates could overcome resistance to change from the management. First of all, it is important to identify the leadership styles of key people throughout the firm, and react appropriately. The role of marketers is to build fee earner's confidence, offering them support and inspiration. Tony believes that the management style adopted in most partnerships involves too much stick and not enough carrot. He also believes that the management team needs to lead by example - a firm stands virtually no chance of encouraging partners to commit to business development activities if the senior partners do not lead the way. Tony has also noticed that many projects never seem to get off the ground simply because the wrong people have been appointed to lead them. His tip was that important projects should not be passed down from executive committees to nominated partners and then the partners told to get on with things. It is much better if things are done the other way around. Ask the partners for ideas. Find champions. Support these champions to think the issues through and implement. He suggests that much more would then get done. He recognises that many marketing departments struggle with this idea simply because we want to try and impose what we think is the right thing to do. Marketing departments would motivate more partners if they were less dogmatic - let's face it, there is no magic formula and we should avoid trying to impose one.
This led on to his next tip which for me was the pony in the pile of manure (you had to be there to understand it!) and that is not to have the marketing department do everything. Tony believes that marketing departments should encourage a marketing outlook and a commitment to marketing by partners. There may be times when we do have to load the slides in the carousel and there may be times where we have to write their speeches. However, the firm that is not building the expectation that the partners themselves should be thinking about marketing opportunities in everything they do, is a firm that has failed to understand the scale of changes in our market. Tony's advice was to keep marketing departments small and lean, adding value with high level strategic advice. The partners must accept that marketing is their responsibility.
Finally, Tony's last top tip was to set low hurdles. There is no better way of disheartening partners as far as marketing is concerned than to give them tasks that they cannot hope to achieve. Go easy on them! Set low hurdles. Climb some foothills before you attempt Everest. Tony closed with one final thought. A friend of Tony's recommended he read one of James Gray's books called Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Tony really enjoyed it. It helped explain why men and women sometimes have problems in their relationships - we are from different planets! The book made him realise that partners in professional firms are really from Jupiter and marketers are from Saturn (notice how the partners got the biggest one but the marketers get the pretty one!) The sooner we accept that we are from different planets but respect each other, the better!
BUILDING TEAMS
Octavius Black, a director from Smythe Dorward Lambert, then took the floor to talk about building teams. This was an excellent presentation, and for any of us who were hoping to have an easy day, Octavius soon changed our minds. He involved the audience and really got us thinking about the best way of handling situations, whether we should have a team or solo approach, and the logic and thinking behind our decisions.
He then went on to suggest ways of building and motivating teams, and the roles of key individuals within the teams.
One interesting point that Octavius shared with the audience was that, in fact, the breakdown of body language isn't verbal! Importance in communication is as follows: Words 7%, presentation and style 38%, body language 53%. It seems it is more important to be aware of how you look and sound as opposed to what you are actually saying! A welcome relief indeed for many of our senior and managing partners!
TARGETING PROGRAMMES
Steve Blundell from Coopers & Lybrand then shared his knowledge of targeting programmes. For those of us who have an absolute horror of the word 'database' and shy away from it whenever possible, this was a particularly enlightening view and served as a timely reminder on the importance of effective targeting and how it benefits firms. His emphasis throughout was that smart marketers act as business development consultants... to support fee earners in their targeting and sales activity.
He began by examining what a fee earner actually wants from a potential client:
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Face-to-face meeting
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A high value prospect
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Name recognition (both firm and preferably him/herself)
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Something to talk about
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Something to sell
Steven went on to explain that it was important to verify the target list with a simple telephone call to ensure that the details are up-to-date - how often do we ourselves throw things in the bin that are incorrectly addressed?
ENHANCING THE BRAND
Edward Funnell, the assistant director of Ludgate Communications, gave a presentation on enhancing the brand, which was a particularly interesting subject given that our FMCG counterparts constantly tell us that professional services do not have a brand to market and, as such, do not face the same problems that they do.
He identified a number of current trends in the professional services sector:
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fast growing and major export for UK plc
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highly competitive
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consolidation - Big Players v Boutiques
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Increasing overlap between professions, eg. Accountants and Lawyers
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emergence of new professions
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higher expectation of professional firms
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increasingly demanding clients
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greater need for aggressive marketing and differentiation
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increasing commitment to marketing.
He also gave us a number of tips on using PR consultancies and suggested that when we are choosing an agency it is important to make sure that they have the market knowledge and experience we need and expect, that there is a personal chemistry between the key account's directors and the marketers, that they have the media contacts and a real commitment to the assignment.
In summary, Edward said that professional services marketing is becoming harder and keener as the market becomes more competitive and diverse. He reminded us that marketing needs to be sold as much internally as externally and that a good relationship is based on co-operation, communication and team work.
COACHING FEE EARNERS
After a very welcome and enjoyable lunch, where it was good to see so many lively and heated discussions taking place around the room, we opened the afternoon session with what was for many delegates one of the most important sessions of the day.
Heather Dawson, a director from Alexander, suggested that many of us approach our work believing that one of our roles is to help fee earners develop and retain business. She suggested that in fact we should be coaching fee earners themselves to develop and retain business.
She suggested that before anybody attempted to coach fee earners they should first of all be reminded of her diagnosis for success:
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what is the broad context?
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what do I think this person needs coaching on?
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what are the coachers expectations / readiness?
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how good is our relationship from his/her point of view?
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what is my preferred style/limitation?
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how would that normally be interpreted in this context?
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which circumstances might inform my choice?
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what will I do?
Heather quoted Brook Manville and Nathaniel Foote from McKinsey and Co in that ""knowledge based strategies should emphasise on-the-job learning rather than traditional training. 'Just in time' learning, which takes place in the moment of actual need, not only creates the most value; it also makes the biggest impression on the learner and the organisation"".
This was a most worthwhile session and left the audience feeling that they really could make an impact by coaching their fee earners.
WIN THAT PITCH
The natural progression for the seminar after looking at ways of influencing management, building teams, targeting potential clients and making sure that our image is correct in the market place, is naturally making sure that we are successful in winning the pitch!
Again it is worth remembering that whilst we are talking about developing new business and finding new opportunities it is important to prevent our existing clients from going out to tender.
For new clients the tender document is often not the document that sells our services. John de Forte, from de Forte Associates, suggests that more important than the technical ability is that the firm has an ability to demonstrate empathy with the potential client, an understanding of their personal and company objectives, and a willingness to learn and adapt our procedures to meet these.
He reminded us that 'boiler plate' tenders rarely work and that standard pieces of text jigged around for every tender is not an appropriate way of winning new clients. Too many tenders that he sees are abstract, in that they make generalisations about the firm and what they will do. It is important to tangibilize the text so that the client is aware of exactly what he is getting and the benefits to his company. He also reminded us not to underestimate the value of the covering letter, which is a further opportunity to really sell the services of the firm.
RETAINING CLIENTS
After the tea break, we returned to the Ballroom for the finale of the day.
Anne Marie Stebbings of Simmons & Simmons seized the stage with her fascinating session on retaining clients, Anne Marie grabbed everyone's attention immediately with her hard-hitting, and dynamic style, while her practical advice kept the session riveted.
She began with the overwhelming evidence that the essence of professional services marketing is retaining clients: they are the source of 80% of new files. How is such success achieved ?
Anne Marie recommends a proactive approach to ensure your firm creates delighted clients. The essence of achieving this was developed through presenting the session with a logical framework which highlighted the key areas including understanding each client and your competition; providing an innovative service; and use of specific relationship management techniques, all supported by quality management approaches.
Anne Marie progressed to discuss each specific area in turn providing helpful and practical suggestions and specific tools such as integrated systems and client care teams. She highlighted that such an approach will be less effective without measurement systems to monitor results.
The essence of what Anne Marie suggested requires some substantial changes to the culture and perspective of professional service firms. Senior management commitment, training and alterations to basic firm procedures are essential . However, for success in the future, firms must change their focus to building client relationships, or that leaking client bucket will become very costly.
MANAGING PARTNERS' PANEL
The final session involved feedback from another perspective: the managing partners of several leading UK professional service firms. This revealed how they perceived marketing and its role in their firms.
We began with Michael Corbett of Grimley, property advisors, who stressed the importance of the change to a strategic approach to improve fee earner profitability. He recommended the appointment of an independent marketing director who is in a position to influence the future of the firm. He is supported by a marketing team who constantly monitor and implement external and internal communication. However, he viewed the essence of marketing success as partnership support for the firm's marketing.
Jonathan Lewis of DJ Freeman, solicitors, followed. He outlined what he considered to be ""music to (his) ears"" from competitors : marketing is only about selling and brochures. His firm instead follows an approach which is seeking to achieve a marketers dream, including marketing focus throughout, but he accepts this takes time and a focused approach.
The accounting perspective was presented by Julian Synett of Levy Gee. He outlined what he, as a partner, expected from his firm's marketing department. This covered both development of a strategic firm perspective and management of firm marketing activities.
Their marketing specialist is closely involved with policy development, but also with the strategic co-ordination of both internal and external communication. His firm have recognised the importance of the coaching role of the marketing department, especially in helping partners understand client needs. This strategic approach can then lead to more effective management of all marketing activities.
This panel provided the audience with some insight into the changing management perspective of marketing in some professional service firms. These leading firms have adopted an approach which will encourage their firm to develop a strategic approach to their marketing which is intended to develop their client relationships.
Most importantly, this session revealed an encouraging perspective: these managing partners are 100% behind their firm's marketing efforts.
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