What is Marketing?

What is Marketing?

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My wife says that I tilt at windmills when I try to convince the professional services world that Marketing is strategic and more than making things pretty. Alliance partners and business leaders say they have the “strategic stuff” covered. My marketing peers wonder why I expend so much energy and political capital fighting an undefeatable foe.  After all, it’s easier to just ride a horse in the direction it is going.

In the immortal words of John McClane inspired by his love of old-time westerns in the movie Die Hard, “Yipee ki yay,…!”

Here is a typical conversation I have with audiences after my presentations, with prospects, marketing peers, and alliance partners.  There is a theme here.

PODCAST: Responding to the Threat of Content Marketing

PODCAST: Responding to the Threat of Content Marketing

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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...
Are Your Efforts Delivering the Results You Want?

Are Your Efforts Delivering the Results You Want?

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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...
How to Become a More Strategic Thinker

How to Become a More Strategic Thinker

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Immersing yourself in business books will never make you a strategic thinker. Not in million years. Clients and friends often ask me how I developed my “strategic thinking ability”—what they sometimes describe as my way of connecting seemingly disconnected things into...
The Marketing Trend Devouring Your Firm’s Core Business

The Marketing Trend Devouring Your Firm’s Core Business

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There is much talk about digitization’s impact on blue-collar jobs, including job elimination, skill depletion, and role obsolescence. From my vantage point, the risk is just as high, if not higher, for many “white-collar” jobs. The phenomenon is hitting some experts...
Why I am Building a New Firm

Why I am Building a New Firm

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If you have been reading my blog for some time, you know that one of the key tenets of my growth philosophy is that firms must align their core capabilities, market opportunities, and brand relevance if they want to set a smart growth strategy in motion. Today, we are...

How to Make Strategy Live When You’re Not in the Room 

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Quick. Tell me the strategy of your organization. For bonus points, tell me how your team and your role fits into that strategy. And how it affects your actions each day, especially in terms of what you choose NOT to do as a result of the strategy. If you’re like most...

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