We Set Smart Growth Strategies in Motion

I received an email from a talented, self-described Young Turk marketer named Cannon. He was frustrated, exhausted, and struggling to overcome several onerous Sales and Marketing impediments at his firm. His question had multiple parts, but I’ll address just one here:...

I lament the overuse of marketing brochures as crutches in lieu of purposeful discussions and meaningful client interactions. I simply try to avoid spending marketing time and resources on perfunctory, haughty, worthless marketing collateral.

HOWEVER, if Marketing is going to produce a “brochure,” here is how to write a brochure correctly.

Professional services marketing is like no other.

Professionals services firms market complex, intangible solutions to what are big, public, and potentially embarrassing problems. The solutions are bought by the most sophisticated c-level buyers at top companies around the globe.  And, professionals must operate from Byzantine, matrixed systems in one of the most political and contentious ownerships structures, a partnership. 

One of my more popular and controversial blog posts is “Why Your Marketer Doesn’t Understand Your Firm’s Business.” The title alienates marketers before they get to the first sentence. It satisfies partners because it recognizes what they might think but would never...

If you’re a practice leader or partner, you’ve probably received your sales “number” for this year. Your primary goal is hitting it. If you want your marketing team to improve your chances of hitting it, then stop asking them to do stupid s…

What is Marketing's Role in Your Firm? Every year about this time cyclists ramp up an enduring argument. If you are a cyclist, you know where I am going; it's the great base-building debate. There are two schools of thought. The first is traditional, laid back and...

Professional services marketers fight hard to achieve their titles. Newbies start out as coordinators, move to managers, if they prove themselves, become directors, if they stick around long enough, and often become CMOs when they jump ship and negotiate the title...

When I shop at Target, eat at McDonald's, buy a new bike at a local bike shop or even get my shoes shined, I expect the people I interact with to have integrity, provide great service, give me a quality product and be accountable for delivering what the company has...

“Send it to marketing and have them make it pretty” is a phrase you hear regularly in professional services firms. The “it” in the phrase could be a presentation, a proposal or any other brilliant marketing idea coming out of a practice. Most marketing organizations...

In 2002 Rajat Gupta, then managing director of McKinsey, pushed the firm’s head of marketing and public affairs, Javier Perez, out of the firm. The reason: multiple partners had shared their dissatisfaction with the firm to writer John Byrne in a wide-ranging feature...