Philosophy

More than half of the professional services companies (PSCs) we speak with—companies that sell primarily their brainpower—say they either fail to set meaningful marketing goals for the business, or fall disappointingly short of the goals they actually set.

We believe this is a direct result of low expectations.

In the wake of pervasive digital disruption, PSCs still don't always see how technology can help solve their customers' problems more effectively. It's not hard to see, then, how they may overlook using digital marketing technologies and tactics to help differentiate their own offerings. Ironically, these are the firms whose very employees make up the segment of the population who most quickly adopt the latest consumer technology trends.

As a result of their beliefs, PSC leaders fail to set meaningful business goals and invest adequately in achieving these goals.

Let's face it. Leadership often doesn't expect great things to come from adopting and adapting digital technologies and practices, particularly as it pertains to marketing their services. Just as Alice was accused by the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, of losing her "muchness", we think the same could be said for companies that sell and deliver professional services.

Successful professional services firms have defined and can articulate a well-differentiated value proposition. "Good people", or the all-too-common 4-step methodology on your website doesn’t cut it when it comes to differentiating your firm in a competitive environment. True differentiation is the road less traveled, but companies that are most successful are those who sacrifice and make the difficult decisions.

Differentiation permeates every aspect of an organization's operations. It speaks directly to the value you provide. Failure to articulate internally what makes your organization special limits the lengths to which employees can go to support such a vision. Failure to articulate such uniqueness externally is synonymous with poor positioning. You can’t simultaneously present yourself as similar to competitors and also expect to have a strong brand in the mind of your buyers.

It’s of course important to be clear about who the audience is that you serve. Equally important is really knowing and understanding that audience. In other words, being able to identify a target prospect is just the tip of the iceberg. You should strive to understand the needs and objectives of those who buy your services.

Understanding buyers is a key goal, and advantage, of a solid differentiation strategy. By narrowing focus to a more specific audience and their needs, firms tend to achieve a level of depth of expertise that before would not have been possible. This expertise translates to a deeper understanding of problems and paradigms common within a given focus.

The result is bidirectionally advantageous. On the one hand, all other things being equal, firms with a greater depth of expertise deliver better solutions than their competitors. They deliver more value. This fact is not unrecognized by a firm's potential buyers, which speaks to the second advantage. Because common sense dictates that a more knowledgeable firm is in a better position to deliver value, buyers prefer specialists. This translates to a significant edge for firms with deep expertise when it comes to the sales process, from generating leads to closing a sale. Want more power in the sales process? One sure way is pursue a strategy of differentiation.

Assuming a company really knows its customer, the next step is understanding what a prospective customer will encounter on the road toward and beyond making a purchase. While it seems obvious that a company should know this, I can guarantee you that most professional services companies have not taken the time to put themselves in the shoes of their buyers. They haven't seen for themselves exactly what customers experience as they navigate the purchase process, much less the entire delivery cycle. 

You should be asking:

• Where do customers experience friction? 
• Where do they find value?

You can establish a basis for insights by tracing the steps of their customers' journey and identifying each touchpoint along their path. A journey map enables firms to begin asking the right questions in an organized fashion, and puts stakeholders on the same page, literally and figuratively. 

With journey map in hand, successful PSCs will focus on optimizing touch points where opportunities exist to streamline or eliminate them, or to add more value to the touchpoint through the use of digital technology. This will test a team's creativity, persistence, and sanity. 

As the customer experience is optimized, thoughtfully conceived KPIs—those relevant to business and customer goals—will provide the feedback necessary to validate direction or encourage course correction. Testing new ideas will uncover more ways to improve the customer experience. This is a marathon, not a sprint, which makes a commitment to get started all the more critical.