Encouraging a client-focused approach
Marketers in professional services firms play an important role in providing advice on how to retain existing clients and win new ones. However, conflict can arise over the differing perspectives on business development between the marketers and the fee earners.
Marketers focus on the market and understanding the needs of clients. They use this information to devise solutions that meet these needs and which require the fee earners to deliver them.
However, the fee earners, who have the technical skills to deliver the solutions, often tend to be driven by internal management requirements and their own approach to using their skills. They are also generally measured on productivity or meeting budgetary demands, not on marketing-related activity.
Fee earners, with their different measurement system and prioritisation on client delivery, tend to not rate marketing efforts highly. The resulting lack of commitment to marketing will have an impact on the success of campaigns, which can create a perception that the marketing advice was poor.
This can quickly turn into a downward spiral for the marketing function when the firm starts to resist marketing efforts and becomes reluctant to finance marketing activities. Gradually, the firm can lose the ability to co-ordinate its marketing efforts and perhaps even lose touch with its marketplace.
A framework to promote marketing activity
To overcome this, marketers can devise a framework (supported by management) that encourages fee earners to take part in marketing activities. Such a framework, supported by appropriate tools and advice, provides marketers with the opportunity to educate and encourage fee earners to participate in activities that will lead to deeper relationships with clients and build contacts in the market to win and retain work.
Fee earners (whether they realise it or not) are an important part of the firm’s public face. For marketing purposes, they are its ‘stars’ and need to be visible and shining to impress existing clients and attract new ones.
Part of the framework should be recognition and reward of fee earners for their efforts in marketing activities. To overcome resistance and the common attitude that such activities do not achieve anything, the fee earners need to be involved in efforts that achieve specific outcomes and meet client needs.
The framework can be useful to ‘ease in’ fee earners who feel threatened by anything called ‘sales’ or ‘marketing’. A documented framework gives them something solid to understand, in line with their technical orientation.
Accountabilities and measurements such as debrief reports, client feedback, sponsorship reviews, evaluation of opportunities, numbers of leads generated or contacts made, tenders submitted or increased fees per client can provide a level of comfort that will reduce the perception that marketing activities are ‘fluffy’.
Tactics, tools and attitude
The framework will need a combination of tactics, tools and attitude to achieve its stated business strategy. These include:
- Identification of key clients and targets and assessments of their service needs. This may involve identifying compelling events or changes within the client or their market that might cause them to seek new advice or solutions. The response might also involve identifying new ways to deliver a solution or approach that can be further leveraged into another client.
- Identifying key champions and encouraging the active participation of leaders to continually promote the initiative, empower fee earners, and communicate success stories of satisfied clients or winning marketing behaviour.
- Defining performance targets and how these relate to business goals. A target might mean that a business unit has to increase billings by 10% or to arrange for introductions to other service lines. Both of these activities can be measured and pose a challenge to fee earners to come up with ways to assist.
- Encouraging better recoveries through billing time for all work performed. Speak with clients on matters such as overruns to manage their expectations, rather than avoid the topic and opt to reduce costs at the billing stage.
- Expanding the scope of engagements. Discuss with the client the value of expanding the brief to deliver higher outcomes than previously envisaged.
- Identifying additional services for the client. Finding issues that are creating problems for the client can provide useful cues and may result in new business.
- Cross selling, which is a great way to gain greater coverage within a client and leverage an existing relationship. Referring work to other practices means that the client will not need to consider a competitor. However, the anticipated fees might sit outside of the service line. Referral tracking across practices is important to recognising efforts and the total worth of a client to a firm.
- Winning new clients, which is always exciting and easily promoted throughout the firm, particularly if further work is anticipated.
Underpinning the framework is the definition of the role of the professional services marketer. The marketer’s role as strategist, communications expert, coach and facilitator can be woven in.
The framework can show how the marketer can add value, rather than fill gaps or react to issues. Importantly, it is an opportunity to define the role of professional services marketer as integral to delivering firm strategy, and that marketers have a professional career in their own right.
It is an important win when the marketers get the fee earners to look at client needs through the eyes of the market, and to willingly take part in marketing-related activities because they know they help retain and win clients. With such a partnership in place, the professional services marketer’s job becomes much more satisfying.
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