Latest posts
How to Evaluate Your Marketing Team
In my last post, How to Evaluate Your Marketing Leader, I laid out a rubric for managing partners to assess the performance of their marketing leaders. My approach delineated between my two schools of marketing thought in the professional services world--the...
How to Evaluate Your Marketing Leader’s Performance
If you're a managing partner, practice leader, sales leader, or chief administrative officer in a professional services firm, you probably have responsibility for “managing” marketing. If this is you, you may be feeling a little uneasy as we approach that dreaded time...
Getting Buyer’s Journey Mapping Back On Track
Well, we’ve reached the point where Marketing has ruined a good thing once again. We did it to social media, buyer personas, podcasting, marketing automation, Christmas, Easter, and Memorial Day. What have we ruined this time? We’ve managed to ruin the critical,...
Measuring Professional Services Marketing Effectiveness
If I were to ask chief marketing officers (CMO) at professional services firms around the world to measure their teams' current marketing effectiveness on a scale of 1-5, I suspect that I might get a lot of 4s. Humility would keep many from saying 5 and ego would keep...
A Professional Services Marketing Self-Assessment
I'm releasing a new Professional Services Marketing Assessment. Here's what makes it different and why it's important. Leaders who seek me out are frustrated with their marketing results. They don’t have enough leads; their brand lacks awareness; a competitor...
Building Consensus in Professional Services
If you find yourself in a partner meeting having achieved consensus on a strategic choice without blood and guts having been spilled on the conference table, then you have probably not made a strategic choice. Professional services firms don't build consensus any...
Why You Need a Selling Philosophy
A firm's reputation begins taking form the moment one of its employees begins interacting with a prospect. A sales meeting is one of the first and most important interactions because prospects understand that "how a firm sell me is how they will serve me." When...
How to Present to Executives
Over my career, I have received, given or simply observed thousands of briefings, pitches, and proposals. There is a clear delineation between effective and ineffective presenters and business-development winners and losers. If you want to be an exceptional marketer...
Ready to Change
In the past, I've manned a suicide hotline. I've worked with troubled youth. I've spent time around 12-Step programs. Today, I work as a grief counselor. I have received much training to prepare me for each of these roles. I’ve been taught to listen, to ask...
8. What Is My Attitude Toward My Life in My Firm? 10 Questions Prudent Firms Ask Themselves
If your career with your firm ended today, would you be satisfied with the life you have led and your work's contribution to it? That's a big question. AND, perhaps one you might answer differently on a given day. Take a minute, look back at your...
Taking the Path of Least Resistance
Human beings love the path of least resistance. We want the easy route to success, fame, wealth or power. Time and effort are for chumps. Managing partners want a brand like Apple. Practice leaders want super-charged growth—today. Business developers want...
Identifying Market Opportunities
A growing number of Americans self-describe as “spiritual, not religious” or have given up on God and religion altogether. In fact, several empirical studies show that America is becoming less religious. For example, Pew Research shows that the Christian population...