Part 9 (2/2)
One component of the firms' intelectual capital is the annual benchmark study of overseas M&A activity While part of the research is available to the general public, the details and certain key components of the research are available only to clients of the firm
In this case, the competitor firm's assets clearly contribute to its ability to deliver It's not difficult to see how
”When acquiring firms, I've always been very reluctant to pay for any sort of future revenue or earnings streaht them because of their assets They have a piece of intellectual capital, a model, or a tool that if ere to develop it ourselves it would have cost us a certain amount of e, for Partner of the strategy business for Accenture Which firm would you want to be? Now that we've completed our short treatise on the definition of components of company capabilities, let's look at how it al applies to building a brand
Infor as overhyped puffery that gets people to buy things Seth Godin didn't help the iuin, 2005) No one wants to be fooled or e they don't want, don't need, or that isn't right for them Like it or not, there's no question that it happens, perhaps often in consuenuous s and seling professional services; but if you're the sel er, you don't want it to work Let's say a consureat car ad and buys an old hot rod on a whi as it's not a lemon, the person who sold hireat shape, purrs like a kitten, and is just like new, then great! If it turns out the buyer needs parts, service, upgrades, and the like, he goes to a garage, not back to the sel er (Even at ets shuffled off to the service department The sales rep has moved on) If you don't like the car or you decide you don't want it any engage roling? Typicaly, you! During your business development process, you set a nu it is likely to take, what the process wil be like, and il happen when you coement If what you promised would happen doesn't match what actual y does happen, your client won't be happy Unlike a car, if the client doesn't like the consulting engagement, he can't sel it to someone else on eBay You just have to face theis si works best when it sets expectations that the firm meets Before you start your market and client research processes, you must do so in the context of the realities of your fire research to find out what es wil resonate with the e are, and adopt thees ing research couched in the reality of your firm, you wil find the intersection of what the market wants and the reality of what you deliver
Marketing amplification effect assume you work at a business law firm, Jones Jones and Jones While you have a broad set of capabilities and can service anizations, you are relatively unknown in the market
One day you're at a yard sale, and you buy an old bottle You give it a few rubs and out coenie, who promptly tels you about your three wishes Since you've been dying to expand yourand your brand, you wish for 100outreach (If you do, you real y need to work on your wish list But back to our exa every decision maker, influencer, and referral source that could be important to you; and you've achieved top-of-et inquiries directly, but so you out by asking around It goes so like this: Scenario 1: Steve is the CEO of a ela, another CEO buddy of his, for golf on Saturday He asks her, ”Have you ever heard of Jones Jones and Jones?” Angela says, ”I have They're terrible Horrible Run for your life They were o; and not only did they , they were miserable people to ith”
Scenario 2: Saela responds, ”I have They're a Fabulous I have heard al the promises that professional services firms make about smarter people, extra service, fair treatotten said benefits, but Jones Jones and Jones is the poster child aht”
Somewhere in the middle (you probably think closer to scenario 2) is the truth about your fir the various stakeholder groups, youroutreach amplifies whatever people actual y think about your fir Circles Before you start co your value proposition to the market-a value proposition you want to resonate with buyers, differentiate your firm, and substantiate your claims-you want to make sure it's true You can only do that if you base your es on a solid foundation of what your firanization once toldtea and plastered it all over the wall
Too bad it was aas I live, and I toldthat beco reflects what the internal organization believes they deliver Do that, and it's going to resonate all the way through the fir, BearingPoint Uncovers opportunities for innovation At al discussion about what the fir Even without research to indicate changing needs or client dissatisfaction, firm leaders often see areas where the firm can improve current services, expand the scope of services, or create new services and capabilities
Ultimately it's up to firm leadershi+p to create an environment where innovation and improvement can actualy take hold And not every iht one to implement If you ask your staff about where the opportunities lie, you , and a nus, that wil make your company th and revenue growth We once worked with a hu firm whose stated value proposition didn't match up with its actual value proposition because of an internal disconnect The value proposition suggested that no ht be, this co and vendors, they could go to co, they could ith this fir, they could ith the fir with creative andprocesses and nitpick, but they don't really focus where they need to: asking themselves, 'Is this really us?' Then they see an advertiseht Have the discipline and honesty-the kind of intellectual and emotional honesty you need-to say up front who you are and who you want to be, and then be consistent about it If it's not reflective of who you are, it will be rejected”
-Mike Sheehan, CEO, Hill Holliday The firm had a centralized business development function that ed with uncovering client need and crafting solutions to iven al the firer at the firm noticed a major variation in how often certain business developuided their clients toward executive education When he looked into it, he found that about half of the business development team had been burned when their clients reported poor experiences with executive education: ”I've sent clients to our executive education programs, and then I had to recover them as clients because they were quite dissatisfied and upset”
Regardless of the reasons behind the underlying problem, the lack of trust from one department to another inside this company (1) made it unlikely this fir huh multiple service areas and (2) hindered revenue flow to the firm by probably several mil ion dol ars a year
As you look seriously at the truth of your service (and don't lie to yourself), you can uncover the barriers to building your brand, such as:Quality issues that create internal lack of trust and inability to deliver on co exaths
Lack of interest in the rest of the company (”Why should I care about the other practices and capabilities? I have numbers to hit”)Morale issues that can dath of any real brand effort
Need for assets to help the firm deliver better to clients
Underutilized assets that wil contribute more to client delivery and nment bethat the firm currently says about itself and the truth about what the company is like and what it delivers
Builds an ar your teae, lack of interest, and other chalenges, as noted earlier Couple staff inclusion in research with internal uide staff behavior, and connect staff to the fires
At ross deficit of staff knowledge of a firm's overal capabilities and value proposition
”There are really three levels of brand The 'big B' brand is the corporate brand, which tends to be identity, tagline, letterhead, web site, overall standards, and the like The 'little b' brand is the specific industry focus, channel, or specialty And the third level is faces of the brandthe people who are walking into client sites every day The trick is getting theether”
-Paul Dunay, Global Director of Integrated Marketing, BearingPoint Don't believe us? Take everyone at your co-and ask them to list every capability the firm has, who the firm serves with that capability, where the firm serves people with that capability, and the major outcomes of that capability We provide a chart format for you to record everyone's answers Perhaps everyone wil do aly wel(But that's rarely our experience) FIRM CAPABILITY CHART
Capability Industry Geography Outco session to 40 or so senior staff at a superregional accounting and consulting fir need over and above the need you're currently addressing and then creating solutions using the firm's overal service set to solve the additional need
The first thing people have to know, then, is what the firm can do We asked them to list on sticky notes the services of the firm and the industries the firm focused on We also requested that they work alone-no peeking at their teammates' lists-and that they put only one industry and one service per sticky note
The company listed 64 major services on its web site and 33 specialty industries Al in, the folks listed about 50 services and 20 industries Not bad-except that that wasn't the average; that was the aggregate of what al 40 people could come up with! The most any individual person could list was 20 services and 15 industries
The original purpose of the training session was to give people the skils to ask questions to uncover need, but what they needed first was the knowledge of what they could actual y do for clients It's not much use to uncover need and then not know if the firm can even help
Froe your team every day to communicate what you can do for clients and what you can help them achieve If they don't knohat that is, or have inconsistent knowledge, you ure 113) Figure 113 Service Firhts reserved
By now, if you have been asking and answering the questions about brand as we have suggested, you should have a good understanding of:What your clients and prospects value
Who you are as a firether to forthening your brand
12
RAMP Up Your Brand The oods he has to sell Will not make as many dollars As the man who climbs the tree and hollers
-Lord Leverhulme As we have discussed, brand perception has a tremendous impact on a buyer's attitude toward a cooods and services In addition, we have sho to craft the right es based on your markets' needs and perceptions of value and your reality as a firm In this chapter, we provide a way to think about your brand goals as you lay out yourResearch Report, How Important Is the Reputation of a Brand Nareed that a company's brand reputation is as i purchased
Specificaly, areed that faood postsale service
82 percent agreed that buying an unfareed that a fa internal stakeholders
53 percent agreed that a faood value for the reed that unfamiliar brands often indicate unreliable coreed that unfamiliar brands are of lower quality
In our own research we found that 73 percent of buyers of professional services stated they are likely to consider engaging service providers of who the top 20 ways buyers searched for providers, ”previous awareness of the provider” was one of the most commonly cited, second only to referrals
Brand works But, as we have stressed,advertising and brand outreach like business-to-consu is an expensive mistake that too many professional services firms make The reason behind thewel -known in your target ns and business-to-business producttactics mislead the professional services fir is fundamental y flawed, how then should a service fir the strongeha it down onto the platforet, a metal cylinder rises up and up-20 feet up the pole until it rings the belOn its way down the pole, the cylinder passes the sauy, athlete, junior, and weakling