Latest posts
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,...
Where Do You Hire the Best Professional Services Marketers?
Planning on hiring a marketer? Finding the right person for the job can be a challenge any time you hire, so I’m going to make this easier for you. If you’re a firm that belongs to the Growth Marketing School of Thought, then don’t look for a great marketer at another...
The Purpose of a Leader
In my 20 years working with some of the world’s top professional services firms, I have seen firms fly high and I have watched firms crash and burn. All the firms had highly educated people, great client relationships, and money coming in the door, but so many of them...
Are You Building the Reputation You Really Want?
I advise my coaching clients to ask others a peculiar and uncomfortable question for feedback:
How Much Should a Professional Services Firm Spend on Marketing?
This is one of the most popular questions asked among practice leaders and marketers in professional services. An agency colleague told me recently that the correct answer from most marketers is always “more.” Yet, most partners and busines…
Fear and Life Inside the Professional Services Firm
Let’s take a little test about an unseen driver of your firm’s culture and performance.
I am going to give you a list of adjectives that describe you. When you get to one that puts a lump in your throat, makes you sigh, or triggers you to …
Stupid Sh*t Professional Services Marketing Should Not Do
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…