Sometimes it’s unclear if modern marketing and sales practices have a place in your professional services business. Professional services businesses are powered by highly-skilled people, selling their expertise, and are also highly relationship-driven. Trust-based business relationships are vital to the delivery of your expertise and services. Traditionally, these relationships built organically – someone you knew well introduced you to someone they knew well. Relationship building has changed. Online marketing and social media have changed the way relationships are built and maintained.
Marketing should assist your business development and your business development strategy needs to focus on strategic relationship-building.
Marketing increases your brand awareness and recognition (what you are known for) and helps create potential opportunities, by creating the optimal environment for your potential buyer to engage with you and your brand (online and offline).
Where is your business on the scale to the right? What is your firm’s overall approach and level of focus on marketing?
If your approach to marketing is ‘receptive’, meaning that you are aware of market conditions and acknowledge that times have changed and you need to do something, you may have employed a junior marketer and you may be “doing some marketing”. The problem is you aren’t seeing results and there is little to no focus. Your marketing function may be ‘considered’, but may still be ‘disorganised’, and not supporting a firmwide strategy. You’ll probably only be growing at your industry average rate (around 2% for Professional, Scientific and Technical Services industries, according to IBISWorld).
To experience consistent and sustainable growth of 20% and above, you need to completely change the way you work with clients, referrers and potential clients. A strategic marketing and BD framework, specific to your relationship-driven business, can increase you and your team’s ability to develop and nurture relationships, engage better with new referrers and prospects, and win more work.
A tailored Strategic Marketing & BD Program will: ★ Review your current marketing approach and focus, including a full Marketing Review and customised Review Report, providing recommendations for key areas of improvement.
★ Develop a strategic, practical and solid Marketing & BD Strategy, including a Marketing & BD Plan for protecting your current client base and growing the business by developing more meaningful new client relationships.
★ Help you with Implementation, depending on your existing resources and requirements.
