When it comes to marketing professional services we hear a lot advice about “building relationships” and “building community”. We also hear this advice in the context of blending our online and offline communities to improve our business development efforts. This is...
How you price your services can be a powerful way to differentiate yourself in the marketplace. Over the weekend I ran across a story Gym-Pact. Gym-Pact puts a creative twist on the old model of paying for gym membership by offering what they call motivational fees....
If you are like most professional service firms, early on in your selling process you offer some sort of free initial consultation. There are many ways to conduct this initial meeting. Some firms meet for coffee or lunch. Others may offer a free “audit” or evaluation....
So, it’s time to work on your marketing budget for the new year. Before you jump in and start crunching numbers, make sure you pay attention to the important (and often overlooked) first step of writing down your goals. Without a set of goals, your budgeting...
As a provider of professional services, you spend time trying to generate referrals from customers and strategic partners. You may even have a referral plan. But do you have a plan in place for turning away business? Sounds crazy, I know, But we are all guilty of...
Word of mouth plays an important role in growing a professional service firm. We spend a lot of time and effort trying to influence customers and referral partners to talk about our services to others. When marketing our firms with WOM one question we have to ask is...
We marketers often talk about the perils of competing solely on price and how to create a marketing system that helps you move from competing on price and in many cases, charge a premium for your services. This idea of narrowing your focus and raising your prices is...
The final building block in our marketing tactic model is the Follow Up block. As accountants, lawyers, and other service professionals, we tend to, as my fellow Duct Tape Marketing coach Bill Doerr is fond of saying “meet people by introduction rather than by...
The next block in our model of a successful marketing tactic is the all important Call To Action. Much has been written about the importance of having a call to action in your advertising and marketing materials, so I will just mention my top three reasons for having...
We’ve discussed the building blocks necessary for successfully implementing a marketing tactic. We started by discussing the importance of starting with a sound marketing strategy and using that strategy to help set our goals and expectations for our tactics. Next, we...