is the question ludicrous?
by bruce w. marcus
looking at the question from a different point of view, the international consultant patrick mckenna said, “if you’re trying to determine which of the two professions (lawyers or accountants) are the more advanced in their marketing prowess, i’m sorry but i think the very question is ludicrous.
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be it accountant, consultants, architects or lawyers, it really doesn’t matter. my experience confirms for me that when you think of marketing prowess you can divide any of the individuals or firms, in any of those professions (not by profession but by mindset) . . . into three categories: hawks, doves and ostriches.”
silvia coulter, head of the legal sales and service organization, and a pioneer in selling legal services, agrees with mckenna. “that having been said, if you seek an answer on one side or the other with the assumption of patrick’s response, then i will say accountants, in general, are more in touch with reality — because of the numbers. therefore, whether they choose sexier marketing approaches than lawyers may not matter. it’s who knows the client best and who can best retain and grow client share. lawyers have all the answers in front of them and yet still after all this time, spend countless dollars on marketing people who know little about marketing, ignore those clients who make up 80% of their firms’ revenues only to chase new business, which we all know is far costlier to acquire.
“having the ability to spend significant dollars on advertising, sponsorships, training, etc., does not make a savvy marketer. visiting your clients a few times a year (which costs quite little in comparison) seems to warrant hours of meetings with one another in a law firm to discuss whether or not they should visit clients, ridiculous discussions about what to talk about with clients, arguments (in many, many firms) about compensation and whose client it is, etc. etc.”
larry smith, director of strategy of levick strategic communications, adds, “i have always affirmed that the core of all marketing is value for the client. if that is the case, then it shouldn’t matter that an accountant’s work is drab or a lawyer’s work high-profile. professionals must, in a sense, see beyond the specifics of their practices and focus on what can turn out to be absolutely riveting results for the buyer.”
citing further differences, terry lloyd points out that, “some cpas, the auditors, are supposed to act on behalf of the investing public and not be advocates for their clients. this is particularly true now after the latest round in the accounting scandals and the new rules under sarbanes-oxley. tax cpas on the other hand often start to resemble lawyers as advocates.”
bruce macewen, an astute observer of the legal scene and publisher of the widely read blog adam smith, esq. (www.adamsmithesq.com) adds, “my primary reaction is that marketing — a client-focused exercise — has little or nothing to do with the nature of the actual work done ‘inside’ by cpas and jds. this may appear to miss the entire point of your thinking that accounting is more cut & dried and law more creative & open-ended (to which i heartily concur), but again, i think the aim of ‘marketing communications’ is to connect with the client/prospect in a way that establishes your (cpa firm/law firm) as offering a distinctive value vis-à-vis your competitive set. again, this has as little to do with how your litigators draft briefs as a car ad has to do with the credentials of their mechanical engineers. say i as a client, ‘i want a sexy, growling, red two-door coupe,” or ‘i want to win this case fast, hard and cheap,’ not ‘i need an ivy league me or jd.’ to me, good professional services marketing is good professional services marketing, driven by genuine insight into the client’s ‘need state,’ and speaking to that with benefits that are plausible, ownable (by your firm) and insofar as possible, unique.”
but what of the particulars? how do the differences between law and accounting color the way each profession markets? how does such empirical evidence as the fact that there are infinitely more blogs by lawyers than by accountants, for example, inform the proposition? the consensus of these thought leaders in professional services, then, is that while neither profession has the obvious edge over the other, there are indeed differences in the professions that affect the nature of marketing for each.
gale crosley, an insightful consultant to the accounting profession and author of many thoughtful articles on accounting firm marketing (www.crosleycompany.com) says, “michael o’horo (who has consulted on law firm practice growth for the past 10 years) and i have discussed this at length, and are constantly doing comparisons, since i only do cpa firms and he only does law firms. we have discovered and debated differences, but have been unable to draw overall conclusions regarding relative practice growth sophistication between these two different ecosystems. however, if we break down practice growth into the three functional components of sales, marketing and product management, i suspect we will find differences, and maybe even significant ones. for example, the big four invested heavily in large opportunity methodologies and training (sales) over the past 10 years. because they dominate the cpa firm landscape, they have set a tone at the top — significant sophistication in opportunity pursuit. at first glance there doesn’t appear to be the same consistent wholesale investment in large opportunity pursuit at the top of the legal profession. however, o’horo could certainly confirm this. within the product management discipline, cpa firms are infused with investment management niches, which often incorporate a ‘packaged product’ orientation from their roots in investment houses and insurance companies. this piece of the cpa firm ecosystem is probably way out in front of the law firms, which may not have a similar influence.”
david urbanik, chief operating officer of halloran & sage llp, points to the specifics. he says, “i have never seen this quantified, but i would suspect that the majority of the revenue earned by the typical cpa firm is derived from what i would describe as routine, generic tasks that are an integral part of the annual business cycle, most notably the annual audit and the annual tax return. the methods and practices used to produce these two major products tend not to vary much from firm to firm and the final work product of one firm on a particular assignment on the face is probably indistinguishable from that which would be produced by a competing firm. of course, accounting firms can and do provide other consulting services. however, i think in the mind of the average business executive, accounting services are thought of as a routine service that you purchase as part of your basic business operations.
“in contrast, i believe most law firms generate the majority of their revenue through what i would classify as more specialized services. invariably, this leads to the ability to carve out and pursue a greater number of unique market niches than i think are available to the accounting profession. even when legal services involve repetitive instances of the same type of service (closing a loan or defending a workers comp claim), each individual matter is in some way unique and the outcome may vary significantly depending on the skill and approach of the individual lawyer. as such, providing legal services generally requires not only the specific base knowledge of the profession but may demand a greater degree of analysis, creativity and ultimately, strategic decision making (or strategic advising) than generally associated with the accounting profession. in addition, many legal services involve a much higher degree of perceived business risk (particularly litigation). given these facts, it is only natural for the typical business person to view lawyers as specialists hired to influence the outcome of a situation whether it be a piece of litigation or a business transaction. as noted above, accountants are typically hired to deliver a defined product.
“given the above distinction, i would expect the two professions to employ very different approaches to marketing. i would expect law firms to be push individual reputations, specific knowledge and demonstrated results more heavily than accounting firms. likewise, i would expect accounting firms to emphasize general experience, efficiency and specific industry focus more so than law firms. thus, many of the things law firms are doing may not even be appropriate to the accounting industry and there may not be many lessons to be learned.
“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)? once you figure this out, the marketing challenge is to pursue those vehicles that will most likely impart information that will lead clients to conclude that you can deliver what they value as well or better than potential competitors.”
to which david maister adds, “maybe, just maybe, the explanation lies at the individual partner level. there, you could make the case that there is more entrepreneurial intuition among lawyers (even in large firms) than among accountants, but i’d bet a lot of money that if this is true, then it’s driven by compensation schemes which are w-a-a-ay more individualistic in law firms than accounting firms. there are many significant differences between the practice of law and the practice of accounting (size of engagements, duty to public v. duty to client, etc.) but it would be a waste of time to list them unless we really knew what we were trying to explain.”
and to which larry smith adds, “the challenge for accountants is to start appreciating how much they are capable of being appreciated. maybe lawyers do have a head start on that, if they’re doing high-level or bet-the-farm work. maybe accountants are weighed down in their creativity by the work they do. but it doesn’t have to be if they can somehow see beyond the daily grind.”
based on the responses from these industry leaders, then, the foundation of the question is ludicrous, but the question itself raises valid issues that are worth exploring.
comparing the marketing ability of one practice compared to another is irrelevant of itself, then, 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. notes terry lloyd, “the big four are trying to create a firm brand and firm relationship with the clients. 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 websites, it may be almost impossible to find even a list of partners on the sites of the big four.”