Use a Rifle, Not a Shotgun: Target Marketing in Professional Service Firms

Every firm that provides professional services is different from all others. All professional firms are merely an allegiance of its members’ professional service businesses. Each firm is really many small firms working, sometimes collaboratively, under the same roof.

There Are NO Commodity Professional Services: Each provides services driven by individual brain-power and talent. It is the nature of delivering intellectually-based services that there are no commodity services, though often this is misperceived. The greater the level of expertise required for a service the fewer the number of professionals there are for clients to choose from.

Divorce cases, for example, are fairly straight forward. There are a plethora of divorce attorneys, yet the best divorce attorneys still get the most complicated and lucrative cases. That is because they have made themselves the best and sold this to the market. As a result, they are sought after for the most difficult cases and paid the most to do them.

Strategic Advantage: That difference is a strategic advantage. As this blog has discussed in more detail previously, the successful professional must identify the area in which she is most passionate. One will never spend the time required to become the best without passion.

She must focus her efforts toward a practice that involves doing just that work and on becoming a true expert in that area. She must become best in her world by delivering a higher level expertise with phenomenal customer service, so that she develops a reputation as the go-to professional in that area.

As a result, clients seek her out and pay her more. That should be every professional’s objective. It is the role of the firm to foster this.

Professionals who remain generalists have to work hard to find the next project. They do not get the mission-critical work. They get paid lower rates for the work they do get. They will do pretty much anything for anyone. Advertising works for this work, but who wants this work?

Know and Research Your Targets: Great professionals know their targets because great professionals know in what area they are true experts and who needs this superior talent, skill and passion to solve highly important problems or take advantage of highly lucrative opportunities. These professionals should be able to identify with precision who their target clients are by name, title and company. This is big game hunting and the quarry is quite cunning.

Go right after the target. Identify who they are. Research them in depth on the internet and through any connection you can find. Find anyone who knows them. Use them to gather information, reach people still closer to them and eventually to secure an introduction.

Know which conferences they attend, what groups they are a member of, and which charities they are involved in. Be there. Find and meet them. Find someone in advance to introduce you or create some other excuse. Listen to them as though you care deeply about whatever they are passionate about. Ask good questions about what they are doing. Court them. Woo them gradually.

Afterwards, follow up with an e-mail. Send them information by snail mail. Call them. Set up a follow up meeting.

Be prepared. No one trusts what you say about yourself. Your CV and firm brochure are essentially useless puff. What works are third-party endorsements.

Articles: Well crafted thought leading articles published in a highly regarded Journal indicates an editor who cares what gets into his publication so he can sell it, thinks you are an expert. The article which focuses on your expertise shows you really do know your stuff. Writing with a prominent co-author puts you in their class.

Testimonials: Powerful testimonials from third parties who love your work but receive nothing from your success and have only their own reputations on the line let the target know that you are perceived by many to be just the expert you claim to be. If you cannot secure testimonials, at least create a list of references who the client can call. The more prominent the individual, the more powerful the reference is.

Case Studies: If you have strong, verifiable examples of your work and your expertise, these can be very convincing. They can be verifiable either through access through an on-line independent database, such as CourtLink, or through calling others involved in the matter who have hopefully provided testimonials. Often the case example is integrated into the testimonial.

Any other way you can devise to prove you are an expert to someone who neither knows you or has the time to get to know you, will help you secure that first meeting. Once you get the work, you keep the client with phenomenal more-than-expected expertise and advice and delight-the-customer service.