Latest posts
Don’t Beg, Don’t Babysit
By the end of my first decade in professional services, I had reached a point where I was able to delineate between serious business people and time wasters. As a result, I had developed a mantra when working with practice leaders, partners, and peers, “I don’t beg; I...
Buyer Persona Shortcomings
Has your firm’s marketing team developed “personas” yet? If you haven’t, please don’t. If you have, please throw them out. I have always had a distaste for the “persona” craze that has gripped marketing during the “content marketing” fad. Sure, I get that writing a...
8 Prudent Questions to Ask Your Intern
Emily’s summer internship at Prudent Pedal ended last week. Before she left she wrote two blog posts, In her first, she shared her learning about Marketing and offered a little advice to future interns. In this post, she answers 8 prudent questions about being a part...
Marketing Internship Advice From a First-time Intern
Hi, it’s Jeff. It’s hard to believe it, but sadly Emily’s summer internship has come to an end. She has been an INCREDIBLE addition to Prudent Pedal. She has all the qualities that top employers look for. She is intelligent, personable, articulate, confident, curious,...
2. What Are Our Goals?: 10 Questions Prudent Firms Ask Themselves
In my last post, I began a series on the 10 Questions Prudent Firms Ask Themselves. Question 1: Who do we want to become? asks us to order our lives because our lives are shaped by what we live for. Question 2 now asks us What are our goals? in order to declare and...
1. Who Do We Want to Become?: 10 Questions Prudent Firms and Leaders Ask Themselves
Who do we want to become? This is the first question prudent firms and leaders ask themselves. They ask this profound question to order their lives. Answering the question provides clarity about the legacy a firm will leave behind, including how the firm, its people,...
PODCAST: Responding to the Threat of Content Marketing
In Episode 3, Responding to the Threat of Content Marketing, Jason and I tackle the approaches professional services firms can use—must use—to defend themselves from the SaaS onslaught and the commodification of "proprietary" intellectual capital. Most firms think of...
Introducing the Rattle and Pedal podcast
Does the world really need another podcast? It does if it confronts the “BS of Professional Services.” That’s exactly what Jason Mlicki of Rattleback and I are doing with our new podcast, Rattle & Pedal™, conceived last year and launching today Jason and I...
How to Identify Your Ideal Client
If you want to grow faster, If you want to be more profitable, If you want to differentiate your company, If you want to deliver exceptional service, If you want to take the single action that would have the greatest impact on your firm, then, you need to identify...
10 Reasons Why Partners Don’t Understand Marketing
One of my more popular and controversial blog posts is “Why Your Marketer Doesn’t Understand Your Firm’s Business.” The title alienates professional services marketers before they get to the first sentence. It satisfies partners because it recognizes what they might...
Are Your Efforts Delivering the Results You Want?
This week two disparate events converged in my mind to provide some useful advice to professional services firms wanting to grow. The first event was the release of a professional services “high growth” benchmarking study. I’m not a fan of this report because I think...
Choose Your Value Proposition Words Carefully
Professional services attract some of the best and brightest people in business. We matriculate to top schools and graduate at the top of our classes. We are star athletes, cheerleaders, debaters, musicians, student council members, and more. We are competitive,...