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Professional Firms feeling the sales pinch
Professional Services Firms are struggling when it comes to keeping and finding business. This on top of the fact that many have to come to grips with the fact they need to sell. The market has definitely changed. You cannot sit there aggressively waiting for the phone to ring anymore. In speaking with one partner from a well respected law firm, he vented his frustration at the lack of action being taken in his firm by partners and their teams in terms of driving the push to find new business in current and new accounts. He stated that some teams were just sitting around with no work to do and no one knows what to do about it.
Taking control of your IT&T career - June 2004
Implementing a successful career management strategy in the IT&T industry has been anything but easy in the last few years. Changing market conditions, mergers, acquisitions, redundancies, retrenchments, and pay reductions have become the common mantra.
GENERATING LEADS, BRAND, RELATIONSHIPS, AND TRUST AT THE SAME TIME
By Mike Schultz Relationships. Trust. Delivery of superb value. These are core ingredients of a successful service firm. Talk to 100 service firm marketers and leaders, and they'll all tell you (and most of them believe it, even if they're wrong) that their firm is in the top of their industry in each of these categories. Why, then, do service firms typically do such a poor job of bringing relationships, trust, and value into their marketing mixes?

TOP 10 LEAD GENERATION MISTAKES MADE BY PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
By John Doerr Williamson: [handing Roma lead cards] I'm giving you three leads... Ricky Roma: Three? No, I count two. Williamson: There's three leads there… Ricky Roma: I'm waiting for the new leads. - Glengarry Glenn Ross, David Mamet 1992 Leads, leads, leads. It seems it is all about leads once the referrals and the circle of family and friends aren’t enough to keep our firms growing. Yet, when it comes to generating leads, most professional services firms get it all wrong in ten very common ways.

WHEN IT COMES TO MARKETING SERVICES: WE DON'T DO MARKETING
By Mike Schultz and John Doerr As we speak with leaders of professional services firms and ask them, "What do you currently do for marketing?" a certain percentage of them reply, "We don't do marketing." What we find, however, is maybe they do more than they think.

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF PROFESSIONAL SERVICES MARKETING AND HOW TO AVOID THEM
By John Doerr The science and art of professional services marketing have come a long way in the last few years. It is no longer impossible to find examples of marketing efforts planned well, executed well, and measured well. Yet, in spite of these great strides, I continue to see the same marketing sins committed over and over again to the detriment of the firms and the people steering the marketing ship. What’s frustrating about these sins is that they are all made by intelligent people who have the good sense and ability to avoid them.

Other professional services firms Related Articles

“A Business Coach’s Top Ten Tactics for Marketing Professional Services”
Marketing professional services is a real and difficult challenge. The challenges of marketing professional services are different from those of marketing products. Two major reasons for the differences are that clients cannot see or touch professional services before they buy them and the professional services are often produced and consumed simultaneously. And another reason is that marketing professional services is split among marketing, sales, professional and management staff instead of a dedicated marketing and sales force. Based upon my research and my own professional experience, I developed a Top Ten Tactics for marketing professional services. My top ten tactics for marketing professional services are:

“A Strategic Approach To Produce A Strong Professional Services Brand, According To Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach”
A professional services firm, just like other types of businesses, needs to develop a strong brand and a favorable impression in the minds of prospects, clients and stakeholders in their business. In smaller professional service firms, there are limited financial resources for advertising as a primary branding vehicle. Therefore, as strategic approach is imperative to maximize the impact of available resources to rand your professional services firm. How do you influence your market in a strategic way that produces a favorable image of your firm in the minds of your prospects, clients and stakeholders? Your strategic thinking business coach recommends the following strategic approach.
Strategies To Increase Fees Performance From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
Professional service firms are still struggling when it comes to increasing their professional fees & improving their performance. Too many firms are doing business basically as outsourced labor & getting paid strictly on number of hours of billable time plus expenses. The missing ingredient is not getting paid for the “value” they are providing to the client, which should always exceed the cost of the billable time. Some readers are already saying that this billing on “value received” will not work & will not be accepted. With that being said, I will attempt to outline some strategies that I believe will enable a professional services firm to increase their professional fees and improve their performance. Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach offers the following strategies:

11.0 Business support and information: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005
The state of BDS provision in Tanzania is not well known. A 2003 SME-Mapping of Tanzania report concluded that existing BDS services are generally designed and financially supported by donors for the micro-enterprise market (and thus, are very basic), or are offered by professional consulting firms at high prices.
Ten Recommended Strategic Actions Needed Prior To Starting Your Professional Services Business
Every day there are multitudes of entrepreneurial spirited people who think about starting his or her own professional service business. And of that multitude, there is some lesser number that actually moves forward and starts their own business to provide professional services off various kinds. Your Strategic Business Coach has worked with numerous entrepreneurs in the startup phase of their professional services businesses and has learned some valuable lessons from those experiences. From those “lessons learned,” Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach offers ten (10) recommended strategic actions that you need to take prior to starting your professional services business.

WHATS MISSING FROM SERVICE FIRM MARKETING STRATEGIES
By Mike Schultz Ask 10 professional service firms to see their marketing strategies and you will get an interesting mix of answers. You might get a 50 page document that would get an “A” in any business school class. Some firms might give you a few pages on the tactics they plan to implement by month or quarter. Many firms would say, “Marketing strategy? We're working on getting it down on paper this year.”

THE TOO SALESY PARADOX WHY PROFESSIONAL SERVICE PROVIDERS CANT SELL AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT
By John Doerr The distress is obvious. The complaints are frequent. The clear disdain for the activity is surprisingly unfiltered. What are we talking about? Selling, or more specifically, selling professional services. In conversation after conversation as I work with clients, conduct seminars, or network with my professional colleagues, I hear the same comments: Selling conflicts with my values as a professional. Selling gets in the way of building strong relationships. You have to have it in your genes - like a used car salesman. I don't sell professional services - I work with my clients to create the best solutions. People won't respect me as a professional if I am selling to them. I can't sell to them. What will they think of me? It (selling) is not what we do around here.

WHEN IT COMES TO MARKETING SERVICES: WE DON'T DO MARKETING
By Mike Schultz and John Doerr As we speak with leaders of professional services firms and ask them, "What do you currently do for marketing?" a certain percentage of them reply, "We don't do marketing." What we find, however, is maybe they do more than they think.

TOP 10 LEAD GENERATION MISTAKES MADE BY PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
By John Doerr Williamson: [handing Roma lead cards] I'm giving you three leads... Ricky Roma: Three? No, I count two. Williamson: There's three leads there… Ricky Roma: I'm waiting for the new leads. - Glengarry Glenn Ross, David Mamet 1992 Leads, leads, leads. It seems it is all about leads once the referrals and the circle of family and friends aren’t enough to keep our firms growing. Yet, when it comes to generating leads, most professional services firms get it all wrong in ten very common ways.

The Challenge of Change for Law Firms
An overview of the strategic challenges facing professional services firms, especially law firms
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