Professional Services Marketing: How the Best Firms Build Premier Brands, Thriving Lead Generation Engines, and Cultures of Business Development Success

"This book is that rare thing: simutaneously wise, practical, readily accessible, and data driven. A necessary addition to your reading." —David Maister, author of Managing the Professional Service Firm Praise for Professional Services Marketing "Professional Services Marketing will certainly become the bible of the field in short order! Without a doubt, the most useful compendium of marketing insight for the practicing professional services firm executive . . . BRAVO!" —Leonard A. Schlesinger, President, Babson College, and coauthor of The Service Profit Chain "It's no longer sufficient to be a good 'expert for hire'—you need a brand and a powerful marketing engine behind you. Professional Services Marketing is a gold mine of research- based strategies, best practices, and specific techniques that will help you consistently win in the client marketplace and outshine your competition. It's thoughtful, funny, and filled with the how-to so often missing in business books." —Andrew Sobel, coauthor of Clients for Life "Schultz and Doerr offer tactics and information in an easy-to-read, concise, and enjoyable format. Professional Services Marketing should be a required resource in every professional marketer's tool box!" —R. Granville Loar, Executive Director, Association for Accounting Marketing "This book is an excellent resource for anyone involved in professional services. It is especially timely in our current challenging economic conditions, and the ideas and guidance are relevant for the better times to come as well." —Josh Lee, Partner, Monitor Deloitte "Smart. Practical. Comprehensive. This is the one book that won't collect dust on my shelf." —Kevin McMurdo, Chief Marketing Officer, Perkins Coie "Professional Services Marketing is the first book to directly address the challenges of the professional services marketer. This book is filled with practical wisdom and research on best practices and processes specifically for this industry. A must-read for anyone in a professional services firm!" —Paul Dunay, Global Vice President of Marketing, Maxymiser

Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 PART I Strategy and Planning 5 Chapter 1 What Marketing Can Do for a Firm 7 Chapter 2 Marketing Planning 23 Chapter 3 Keys to Building a Terrible Marketing Strategy 37 Chapter 4 The Seven Levers of Lead Generation and Marketing Planning 43 Chapter 5 How to Think about Fees and Pricing 55 Chapter 6 Don’t Worry about Your Competition (Let Them Worry about You) 69 PART II Focus on Branding 79 Chapter 7 Brand—What It Is; Why Bother 81 Chapter 8 Three Elements of Well–Crafted Brand Messaging 93 Chapter 9 Uncovering Your Key Brand Attributes 107 Chapter 10 Your Firm, Your Brand 123 Chapter 11 RAMP Up Your Brand 137 Chapter 12 Differentiating Your Firm 147 Chapter 13 Building Brand and Marketing Messages 157 Chapter 14 On Becoming a Thought Leader 167 PART III Generating and Nurturing Leads 181 Chapter 15 Content Marketing 183 Chapter 16 Marketing Communications and Lead Generation Tactics 195 Chapter 17 Introduction to Lead Generation 241 Chapter 18 Value and Offers in Lead Generation 249 Chapter 19 The Case for Sustained Lead Generation and Relationship Nurturing 257 Chapter 20 Targeting 271 PART IV Making the Sale 281 Chapter 21 RAIN Selling 283 Chapter 22 Creating Essential Relationships 297 Chapter 23 Building a Culture of Business Development Success 311 Chapter 24 Selling with Hustle, Passion, and Intensity 323 About RAIN Group 329 About RainToday.com 331 About Hinge 333 About the Authors 335 Index 339

MIKE SCHULTZ is the Co-President of RAIN Group and coauthor of the bestselling Rainmaking Conversations and Professional Services Marketing. He was named the global Top Sales Thought Leader in 2011 by Top Sales Awards. He is also Publisher of RainToday.com, which was named the Top Sales and Marketing Resource Site in 2010 and 2011. He is frequently quoted in news outlets such as Business Week, Inc. magazine, MSNBC, the Huffington Post, and others. JOHN E. DOERR is the Co-President of RAIN Group and coauthor of Rainmaking Conversations and Professional Services Marketing. John was named the Top Sales Thought Leader in 2011 by Top Sales Awards and has trained thousands of sales professionals, helping them master the complex sale through in-house training and public presentations, both domestically and abroad. LEE W. FREDERIKSEN, PhD, is Managing Partner at Hinge. He has worked with many global brands, including Anheuser Busch, American Express, Capital One, Monster.com, and Yahoo! Lee has been quoted in Fortune, New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Business 2.0, and Advertising Age, as well as numerous trade and professional journals.