wrong question. ask instead: who puts the client first, and how?
by bruce w. marcus
professional services marketing 3.0
comparing the marketing ability of one practice to another is irrelevant of itself and leads to generalizations that serve no useful purpose. but when the question of which firm is better at marketing is addressed, it raises issues concerning the different nature of each practice.
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“the big four are trying to create a firm brand and firm relationship with the clients,” notes veteran consultant terry lloyd, a cpa and financial analyst. “they minimize the role of the partner and other professionals. while law firms go to lengths to put impressive resumes and contact data on their web sites, it may be almost impossible to find even a list of partners on the sites of the big four.”
larger firms in both professions are obviously more sophisticated in marketing than are smaller firms. they have more services to offer, reputations that are, for the most part, more prestigious than smaller firms, and, certainly, larger marketing budgets. while size, as law firm consultant silvia coulter points out, is no guarantee of the ability to understand marketing, the larger firms tend to hire more experienced and more versatile marketers, which sometimes – but not always – results in better understanding of marketing practices and skills.
but the real differences lie in the nature of the practices themselves. as david urbanik points out the revenue of accounting firms tends to come from routine and generic tasks, while the law firm faces new problems – or old ones in different iterations – each day. both are marketable skills, but the accountants skills lie predominantly in a formalized product, whereas the lawyers tend to address problems of larger dimensions, requiring innovative and distinct solutions. an audit is an audit, and because audit rules are essentially institutionalized, it’s difficult to distinguished the capability of one accounting firm as better than another. lawyers, on the other hand, see either new problems every day, or old problems colored by the nature and context of the client. the accountants must sell the ability to do the same thing meticulously well; the lawyer must sell an innovative ability to understand and apply complex statutes to the benefit of the client. the accountant sells the ability to confirm; the lawyer sells the ability to innovate. and as david urbanik, a law firm coo, so cogently points out, “the lesson to be learned for both professions is not to look to the other for answers. all the answers are with their prospective clients – what do they value and is what they value worth delivering (i.e. can you make a profit).”
in other words, in this new environment, the client, not the profession, is at the core of the practice.
it can be argued that in many aspects of accounting, consulting skills are often required, and they are certainly not static. tax accounting requires not just a knowledge of an arcane body of tax laws, but in many cases, an ability to legally apply tax practice innovatively. but here again, you are dealing with the individual practitioner, and with tax codes that are not as susceptible to interpretation as are most of the matters dealt with by lawyers.
many law firms are better at marketing than many accounting firms, as many accounting firms are better at marketing than many law firms. the nature of the professions, remember is that individuals, or teams of individuals, practice the professions, not corporations. and while firms may be managed so that its partners are highly individualized, or may be, on the other hand, so well in tune with one another as to tend to have a better leavening of quality (what david maister famously calls, “the one-firm firm”), individuals, not corporations, are the practitioners of the professions. it should be remembered, then, that ultimately, marketing is an art form. the skill in marketing resides not in the mechanics, nor in benchmark concepts, but in the artistry of the marketing practitioners.
perhaps the marketing differences between the two professions lie not in the mechanics alone, but in the strategy. and the strategy works best if it’s formulated with particular attention to at least two areas in two areas – the target audience and the content of the marketing campaign – but always with the focus on the needs of the clientele. the view of the differences may be discerned by looking at the services performed, and by looking at the different skills used in the practice of each profession, and the different problems each profession solves and the different opportunities sought by each profession. herein, then, lies the incremental differences that distinguish one firm from another in a highly competitive environment.
experience tells us, then, that three factors work best in marketing professional firms, in distinguishing the difference in professions, and in serving to distinguish (if not differentiate) one firm from another.
they are:
- • market the practice area – not the firm. today’s consumer of accounting and legal services is more sophisticated than ever before. clients will hire the firm – and often the firms — with the best specific practices in areas that serve their needs, which is why so many companies now have several firms to do different things, rather than one firm to do it all. even in accounting, a company may hire one firm to do its audit, and another to do its taxes, and another to supply appropriate consulting services. firm reputation may be a consideration, but even reputations are built on individuals.
- • market the practitioner, not the practice. clients today know that they are hiring individuals or teams, not firms. smith & dale llc don’t do great work, but mr. smith and mr. dale do. firms are distinguished, not by peculiar notions of brand, but by the reputations and skills of individuals.
- • market to the clients’ needs, not to the firm’s view of itself. the more yous in the marketing thrust than wes, the better the marketing. obvious? well, apparently not, judging from most of the marketing being done. and apparently, it takes more skill and imagination to say you, than it does to say we.
this, then, is what marketing professional services in the contemporary environment is about. recognizing this reality, and focusing on it, makes the original questions about differences between professions worth exploring. particularly so, if it leads to more innovative marketing. then, who’s better at marketing, is irrelevant.
what is relevant is which firm serves its clients and itself to better meet the needs of both. that – and that alone – is most important. it’s certainly more important than which profession does it better.
bruce w. marcus is a pioneer in professional services marketing and coauthor of “client at the core.” this is adapted from his new book, “professional services marketing 3.0,” available for purchase here.
copyright 2011. used by permission.