So, in continuing with my last post on the book, Client at the Core, the fundamental question for any firm is what do your clients really want? Or, put differently, why are clients ever so dissatisfied that they leave one firm to go to another?
In answering the question, the authors detail the main differences between buying products and buying services – people buy milk when they need it. They can be persuaded to try a new kind of cereal, buy a specific kind of car, or subscribe to a new magazine. But a lawyer can’t persuade a happily married person to get a divorce because that’s the service he provides. An accountant won’t persuade a firm to get an audit if a government agency or financial firm hasn’t required it.
As the authors describe
Keep in mind that with notable exceptions, professional services can’t be sold to people who don’t have an immediate need for those services. Marketing professional services, then, is generally not focused primarily on simply selling the services- it addresses instead the attempt to persuade prospective clients that you can better serve their needs than can your competitors. Simply describing the services you perform is not the major objective of marketing. Marketing is the process to communicate your firm’s greater ability to deliver these services.
The point here is that clients come to professional service firms when they have a specific problem that they don’t know how to solve. They are looking to the professional to provide much needed knowledge of law or accounting practices to help them understand what to do in their specific situation.
And because each client’s problem is unique to his environment, there’s no ‘standard’ package you can hand him that will solve his problem instantly. When you buy a product, the product stays. When you buy a service, the consultant/lawyer/accountant stays. There is no tangible thing that they receive. Rather, they receive the knowledge, the guidance, the experience, the service, the relationship their consultant/lawyer/accountant brings to the table. The process by which each professional solves their client’s problem is unique to that professional. Two professionals in the same firm might approach the client’s problem differently – they might provide different methodologies, use different knowledge bases, or provide different levels of service to come to similar conclusions.
Today’s skeptical clients want professionals to understand their businesses. To do so, firms must become “client-centric.” Client-centric firms focus on a specific market and define their practice areas around problems that their particular market faces. Yes, this requires focusing on specific clients while turning away others. Without focus, a firm simply takes on clients and then caters their services to what their client wants. Sooner or later, the firm finds itself with clients that just aren’t profitable or “ideal” to work with. It finds that it dabbles a little in this area and a little in that, but has no true expertise in any particular area. In essence, it is a jack of all trades but a master of none.
In today’s environment, people want specialists – firms that understand their unique situation and can help them solve their most pressing problems. Yet, the idea of narrowing their focus to a select group of people scares many professionals. They have bills to pay and fear that if they turn away clients, their cash flow will dwindle. Quite the opposite is true. By clearly defining what prospects you want to take on as clients, you can focus your marketing efforts on how to reach them. You no longer need the “hope and pray” strategy of a radio ad here and some print advertising there, but have a cohesive understanding of who your prospect is, how he goes about buying your service, where he looks for educational materials, who he gets advice from, why he might be unhappy with his current provider, etc. The better you understand his problem from his perspective, the more effective your marketing will become.
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