Last week I delivered a webinar on the topic of Marketing Strategy, Planning, and Budgeting through RainToday.com. (Repeat performance on December 13.) We had quite a number of questions that came in during the webinar and throughout the Q&A time.
One attendee wrote in:
What’s involved in developing a ‘strong’ look and feel in terms of brand?
When it comes to developing and launching brand identity, think about:
- Your Strategy: I know $1m companies bent on having a world-class look and feel that are gearing up to spend six figures on a project with a designer. Typically, they’re going too far.
Conversely, I’ve seen $20m companies that look like they hired a 13-year-old (and not a particularly talented one) to design their website, logo, and materials. I see companies like this hindered all the time because of their look and feel. Conversations go like this:
o Mr. Prospect: No, I wouldn’t consider them as a service provider?
o Mike: Mr. Prospect, why?
o Mr. Prospect: Well, I looked at their website and I simply don’t think they’re in our league as a company.
In my experience, “in my league” starts with, and sometimes ends with, a first impression based on look and feel.
- Leadership: The company has to be ready to spend the money and go through the process to up the ante on how you look. Sometimes it’s not a matter of money; it’s that leadership doesn’t really think it’s a priority. Regardless of the matter, when something is not a leadership priority, you can find yourself in a losing battle. (Think Sisyphus.)
- Designer: Designers come in all shapes, sizes, and prices. Hire someone “in your league.” A bad designer will say they do the same thing as a good designer “for less.” Good designers cost a pretty penny. And they should.
Vet the designer portfolios carefully. They don’t need to be huge, but you have to like what you see. If you don’t have a good design sense, you’ll just have to trust someone who does to help you make the decisions. (If design isn’t your thing, don’t trust yourself. Smart people with good intentions that have no design sense have succeeded mucking up many a good design with their “helpful feedback.”)
- Design Process: Don’t get bogged down in the details. Graphic design processes at services firms can devolve into pure pain. (Think Kafkaesque morass.) Read this article to learn more.
- Implementation: The new look and feel needs to be in everything you send out. And, of course, the more you send it out, the more effect you’ll get. Just be careful not to get too enamored with the look and feel because it’s such great design. The design is a backdrop for the actual messages you want to get out and actions you want prospects and clients to take. It’s not the message in and of itself.
Last week I delivered the first of two webinars on the topic of Marketing Strategy, Planning, and Budgeting through RainToday.com. We had quite a number of questions that came in during the webinar and throughout the Q&A time.
One attendee wrote in:
How does one generate leads to serve clients that have enough need and finances to take advantage of me, as a solo practitioner with management consulting, financial planning, tax, and accounting expertise? I am not looking for a large practice, 10 to 15 clients that will spend $15,000 to $25,000 or more a year.
If I were to rephrase this question, it might go something like this:
How do I make a quarter of a million dollars as a solo practitioner in my field?
A simple, but broad question. Broad though as it may be, it got me thinking of the basics of building a solid small practice.
First and foremost, you need to be good at what you do. Obvious point, you say? In my experience, everyone thinks their services and their value are all that and a bag of chips. In reality, they’re not that good. Making sure your services are, indeed, top quality is top priority.
Regarding your marketing and lead generation strategy, you need to:
- Know who your target market is, and know as much about them – company by company, buyer by buyer – as possible.
- Know the value of your services; you might want to charge $15k to $25k per year, but someone might not see the value enough to buy it for that much.
- Be able to communicate that value one-to-many, such as in a website, and one-to-one, such as in sales conversations.
- Be able to uncover need, craft solutions, and win business.
- Understand who your real competition is for your services.
- Stick with a program to implement your marketing and lead generation. (Most solo providers that I’ve met haven’t been able to stick with anything long enough to make it work.)
In terms of lead generation tactics, there are many ways up the mountain, especially for solo practitioners. People want to know does cold calling work? What about PR? Should I speak and write to establish myself as a thought leader? How about direct mail and email? Search optimization for my website? Good ol’ networking and referrals? The answers to those questions are…yes in general. And, for you specifically…it depends.
You need to figure out for yourself a) which tactics you are going to use and why, and b) how to get them done well. There’s no simple, good answer or secret lead generation tactic that’s going to work for everyone.
If you’re interested in digging in more deeply and coming up with those answers for yourself, you can start with: this webinar on lead generation, this white paper on lead generation, and this research report on what’s working in lead generation.
Most of the time, I take notes during conversations. Assuming I can read my own writing, my notes help me to remember salient points from conversations, and specific actions that I or other folks commit to taking. This morning, I reviewed all the notes I’ve taken in the past few months.
Service firm leaders seem to be tackling the issue of their companies’ growth and marketing direction for next year (including trying to schedule strategy meetings around senior team members’ client and leadership responsibilities).
Looking at my notes, some questions seem to be the perennial strategic questions leaders — at least the thoughtful ones — ask themselves every year. Some questions are more tactical and timely, reflecting the overall state of business in 2007. Here’s a sample of the questions and comments, both strategic and tactical, that are on the minds of the business leaders I’ve spoken with recently:
- Where are we “excellent,” and where are we “less than excellent” in our service delivery?
- Where is our most profitable business coming from, and how do we maximize profitable growth?
- Everyone has an opinion on what we should do for our marketing, and, if we did it all, it would cost us more money than we have. What should we focus on that will make a difference?
- How much more business should we be yielding from current clients, and how much more can/should come from new clients?
- The front end of our pipeline is the bottleneck. How do we generate more leads?
- How do we win more big deals? (Conversely, some are asking how to reduce their reliance on too many big clients and diversify their base.)
- I need to get my business to $X in revenue in order to become attractive as an acquisition. How do we get there?
- Hiring is tough right now? If we want to grow, how will I find and develop the people we need?
- We’ve spent a lot of money on brand building, but we’re not sure we’re getting the best return for our energy and effort? What do we need to do to build the strongest brand we can?
- We’re known for one area, but have other great areas where we can help clients. How do we influence the thinking of prospects and clients that our services are broader than they think?
- We’ve focused much more resources on overall business development and lead generation over the past few years but haven’t gotten the results we’d hoped for, especially from our sales/business development staff (sometimes due to lack of performance, sometimes due to turnover). Why is this? And what can we do about it?
- I’ve gotten web and Internet marketing advice that’s all over the map in terms of what we should do and what it’s going to cost to do it. What’s the reality and where should we start?
What are the top growth and strategy questions on your mind for next year?
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