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1). Love My Dentist This is not so much about how to market a dental practice, as it is an illustration of how smart marketing strategy can permeate every aspect of a busy professional service firm. During my last appointment, Dr. Penski and I talked about her practice and approach to marketing. Here's what I learned: Clear Positioning:... 2). Differentiate or Die Everyone is vying for the same client dollars, whether your clients are consumers, other small businesses, major corporations, or federal agencies. Your target clients are overwhelmed with too much information and too many choices. The bottom line? You still need to stand out from the crowd. Coined by Jack Trout, the father of “positio... 3). Three Easy Lessons to Take Your Online Marketing to the Next Level The common thread? These experiences reinforced several lessons that will help you succeed in attracting the right kinds of clients. Here are ideas and resources to help you take action: Lesson 1: Be yourself when you market. This is particularly true if you offer a really complex or academic service (like the scientists I mentioned) w... 4). Twelve Tips to Make 'Moments of Truth" Count People’s impressions are a result of accumulated experiences or ‘moments of truth’ that the world has with your organization over time. Everything you (and those you manage) do sends a message, impacts your brand image, and is PR – for better or worse. These moments of truth include things like how you… • Handle the recruitment and hir... 5). Be Yourself Let’s look at what the experts advise. By the way, while these tips sound bizarre -- they’re real nuggets, so stay with me: 1. Be an authentic liar. 2. Be your own valentine. 3. Fight bull. Here’s how these successful experts connect with the marketplace – and you can too: Be an authe... 6). Painless Marketing for People Who Hate to Market We don’t have time – we’re busy enough and have to maximize our billable hours. We can’t afford to market – we have no extra money. We have brochures and a website – isn’t that enough? We don’t know where to start, even if we do want to attract more clients. We can’t get key people inside our firm... 7). How to Put Law & Order into Marketing Your Legal Practice Whether you’re frustrated with past marketing efforts that have been expensive, time-consuming, and haven’t paid off…or you think you can’t afford to take a sophisticated, results-driven approach to business development like the big firms do, guess again. While your firm may not have its own in-house marketing expert on staff or the generous market... 8). Shine a Spotlight on Your Professional Service Firm Before the Curtain Rises Well before any performance, dancers invest time building a solid foundation. It’s this foundation – not the costumes, lighting or even music – that enables them to give a persuasive, moving performance that connects with their audience. With effective marketing, the same sequence applies. Before t... 9). Revealing Secrets About the Color of Marketing Kelly: Why should we take color into consideration when it comes to marketing? Karen: Actually, let’s back up. Color is our worldview – it’s instinctive, human and intrinsic to who we are. So we have an emotional, unconscious response to different colors. This is what matters in marketing – the emotional response – and color is a piece... 10). Turbo-Charge Your Rollout with ERM Find the Sweet Spot Embarking on any change initiative, such as a CRM implementation, requires a parallel strategy of ERM - Employee Relationship Management. In helping companies manage change, our experience repeatedly tells us that employees know what the problems to implementation are, usually have strong opinions about them, and ho... 11). Getting Your Services Used Or they may get some attention from prospects as a result of an ad, published article, or speech…but then the early attention kind of fizzles into phone tag and no real client, in the end. So what’s the problem? In most cases, they’re not getting far enough with the prospect to reveal the quality of their work…so it’s not about their p... 12). Three Ways to Invest Time + Money In PR Kelly: When should people consider PR in their marketing efforts? Elizabeth: PR should be included in every marketing plan you develop…from the very beginning of a new product being launched or a policy coming out. Use it heavily in the beginning to establish a brand, then level out over time. It’s also a good tool for handling crisis ... 13). Are You Playing Checkers or Chess? * Attend a networking event and expect it to generate business * Invest thousands of dollars in direct mail and expect prospects to eagerly call about your services * Treat your vendors poorly by not paying them on time or not communicating with them in a timely manner * Misunderstand the differences between a... 14). CRM: Strategic Engine or Just Another Tool? Do you have the right people with the right knowledge and skills? Are you including people across the board, not just in your customer service and call centers? The bottom line is that people skill sets need to be similar to the technology they are using -- information sharing needs to be fast, focused, integrated. 15). Your Secret Marketing Weapon It seems paradoxical – the more you give away, the more people are willing to pay for your services – but it’s true. This exact approach has worked quickly and effectively for me for years. The key is that it’s got to be good and of high relevance to your target audience. This builds people’s confidence that you consistently know your stuff and tha... 16). Why Smart People Don't Know How to Market But who’s growing your business while you’re busy tending to your clients’ needs? What are you doing to attract and maintain a steady stream of qualified, motivated prospects? How do you find and keep interesting clients who pay you what you’re worth? Like most professionals, you may not be able to answer those questions because the answer involves... 17). How to Take Your Law Firm to the Next Level If you can confidently answer "yes!" to the following metrics, then you’re ready to take your practice to the next level: • Is your firm’s mission perfectly aligned with your market? • Do your marketing efforts create exactly the relationship your customers most want and need? • Are your services well packaged... 18). How Gratitude Works 1. It won’t get tossed out with the rest of the junk mail. 2. It builds a genuine bond with the recipient. 3. It’s personal, a 1:1 “marketing touch,” and customized. 4. It costs less than 40 cents. 5. It takes less than 10 minutes to do. 6. It requires no expensive investment. 19). How to Manage Your Marketing Mix Wrong. And the same goes for generating revenue. Done in a vacuum, none of these tactics will get you what you want. For professional services - where your relationship with your target audience develops based on them trusting you - it's all about layering your "market touches" in a way that incrementally builds trust over time. Too much, too close... 20). The "M-Word" As a matter of fact, expertise can get in the way of being a good marketer. As a highly-trained professional, it's easy and natural to communicate about what you know and how you do it. But it falls on deaf ears and glazed-over eyes when you use words, images, and language that are about your expertise, not about the problems you solve for your tar... 21). How to Earn the Right Think about it: people that you want for clients start out as strangers. They don't know about you and your firm. So you can't expect them to jump into a long-term relationship with you before they move from stranger, to acquaintance, to friend, to lover, and then to loyal partner. I don't need to spell out the analogy to dating in det... 22). Sum of Its Parts "Saltwater taffy, for example, does not taste good. Seagulls are not pleasant birds. Most people look better in clothes – a lot of clothes. But it works. The beach is the ultimate triumph in setting." –from the article, Sea and Be Seen What does this have to do with marketing professional services? A lot. Just like saltwater taffy, sea... 23). How to Up-Sell Change Unless you're willing to wait for a crisis (that usually means someone gets fired), start thinking about "up-selling" change. "Up-selling" change means to persuade your employees that making a personal commitment to the change will reap them personal benefits. Similar to up-selling your customers by informing and sharing the value-add to your produ... 24). Ten Easy Marketing Tasks You Can Do NOW 1. Listen to (and write down!) the questions your clients ask. They're clues to the problems you can help them solve. They're also topics for your next article, talk and e-newsletter. Don't invent this stuff - just listen! 2. Plan and write out your next sales conversation. Got a meeting next week with a hot prospect? Write down the wo... 25). CRM Star Wars: When Marketing is from Venus and IT is from Mars Conflict as a Catalyst Conflict is a fact of work life. It can be especially pronounced when the two parties involved see the world from different lenses, as is often the case with marketing and IT. Conflict can be the catalyst for creativity resulting in innovative, productive teams. It can also be the catalyst for emotionality, polar... 26). How to Turn Strangers Into Lovers Finding and keeping great clients is like dating, courtship and falling in love. You can’t rush it, and you can’t force trust or intimacy for the relationship to work. If your company’s approach has amounted to the equivalent of unsuccessful blind dates and kissing frogs, read on! Whether a new flame or new buyer, there are five predic... 27). The First Rule of CRM for Financial Services The Consumer's Perspective Let's take a look from the consumer's perspective. Financial illiteracy is alive and well, especially with baby boomers. Next, throw in brand confusion—the convergence in financial services has produced new players, company names, and products. Everybody is now playing in everybody else's backyard. Insert the... 28). How to Leverage Your Most Powerful Marketing Tool High Tech is High Touch There are two components to this powerful marketing tool – the website itself, coupled with a well thought-out online strategy. Done right, here’s what a website and online strategy can do for you: • Build relationships. Marketing your law firm is about creating and sustaining a trust-based relation... 29). Bird by Bird Next, you’ve got to figure out how to get it all done. Marketing’s not your regular job, but you could work at it full time, given all there is to do. And don’t forget…how do you stay on track and motivated? Sure, it’s one thing to be inspired during a marketing workshop or by ideas from a book. But then the reality of execution sets i...