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Meet
the MasterMinds: Mark
Stevens on Why Your Marketing Sucks
 Mark
Stevens is the president of the marketing firm, MSCO,
and the author of Your
marketing sucks. He is also the author of
the bestsellers, The Big Eight and Extreme
Management. Stevens joins us to talk about why
he thinks the marketing of most consultants is a complete
waste of time and money and what they can do about it.
MCNews: You say in your book that most
marketing sucks. How would you rate the marketing of
consultants and other professional service providers?
Stevens: Most of their marketing is based on
follower-ship as opposed to leadership. And consultants
should know that there's not a high premium on being
a follower in the marketplace. Leadership--the ability
to do your own thinking and develop customized solutions--is
the real value of a professional service.
Instead, consultants' marketing tends to mirror
that of other consultants. And that's true for accounting
firms, law firms and other service providers as well.
When it comes to marketing, their first thought is,
let's look at what the other firms in our field are
doing.
There's a fear of commanding the attention of the
marketplace in an effective way. In fact, they are
afraid to market. Whether a firm has a marketing budget
of $50 million or $50,000, they say we'll spend this
budget, but we won't really market.
MCNews: What holds them back from marketing their
services?
Stevens: They're afraid of being unprofessional.
People in service firms believe that they have to stay
in a polite and overly dignified box with everyone else.
They prefer to follow other professionals because it's
safe.
The problem is that it's hard for a firm to get the
attention of the market that way unless it has an enormously
powerful name. But even big-name firms can find it difficult,
for example when they are introducing a new service,
to make a case for why clients should turn to them when
all the firms look alike.
MCNews: What about the pitch some firms use that
"we bring more value than the other firms?"
Stevens: Well, do you believe it when you hear
it? Not only is it not believable, value is not what
clients want to buy. They want to buy great ideas.
That's what the consulting business is all about. If
you have great ideas and you can implement them well,
clients will pay whatever you charge.
Once you market on value, you are in the commodity
game. You're just another person with a briefcase
and a meaningless pitch that doesn't motivate clients
to do anything except try to beat down your fees.
Consulting firms must figure out how to bring powerful
ideas to the marketplace, and then protect and sell
those ideas. You don't need to say value because, if
it's there, clients will perceive it for themselves.
And they will stand in line to work with you.
MCNews: So are marketing departments leading service
firms astray?
Stevens: Most marketing directors at consulting
firms don't know what they're doing or what they're
talking about. They play with newsletters and Web
sites that nobody goes to and with nonsense like "brand
guardianship." The consultants don't respect them
because they don't understand the business.
Marketing is not just about creating press releases
or ad campaigns. A firm will say let's do some marketing--let's
get an ad out there--and then spend enormous sums of
money doing that. They need to understand that often
there is an inverse relationship between the amount
of money you spend and the results you achieve.
Throwing dollars at the marketplace doesn't get the
attention you need to bring clients to your firm.
MCNews: So what should service firms do differently?
Stevens: The CEOs and managing partners of
service firms have to be the chief marketing officers.
The people who run the firms have to step up and act
most forcefully to market them. They have many other
duties, but if they don't stand in front of the firm
and say to the market we are the experts in X and drive
their firms to develop new ideas, then nobody will do
it.
I feel that CEOs and Boards of Directors have a
fiduciary responsibility to monitor the millions of
dollars being squandered by marketing departments and
advertising agencies to make sure they are doing more
than just trying to win Clio awards. The reasoning
seems to be let's pay huge sums of money to entertain
the public with outrageous stuff. It goes unchallenged.
Actually, I see a great opportunity for consulting
firms to create a new service to monitor the relationship
between advertising and sales--to measure the effectiveness
of advertising programs. A few firms have emerged
that are starting to "audit" the work of advertising
agencies and what companies spends versus the sales
they generate on that spending. It's a good idea particularly
now because there is a lot of business media attention
being paid to this.
MCNews: What other changes would make marketing
more effective?
Stevens: Consulting firms tell all their partners
they have to be business generators. But most of them
can't sell anything to anybody, and they don't want
to sell. There are many programs that try to teach partners
and consultants how to sell, but you can't teach anybody
how to sell.
Instead of beating people over the head because
they can't sell, leave them alone and let them dream
up ideas. The few people who are rainmakers--the ones
who can sell--let them do it.
Allow consultants to do what they're best at. Those
who go into hiding when you talk about selling will
never be comfortable with it anyway, so stop wasting
money on tapes and training programs for selling. Instead,
tell them to go develop some ideas for the firm. Then
the people who know how to sell will sell them.
Professional service firms should have somebody paid
just to think because all they sell is ideas.
MCNews: Do you think it's a myth that we don't need
marketing in professional services because we're in
the relationship business, which is based on networks
and referrals?
Stevens: I don't think referral-source marketing
is very effective. Right now around the world, hundreds
of thousands of consultants are having breakfast or
lunch or dinner with referral sources. They exchange
business cards and nothing comes from the effort. It's
a waste.
Relationships are very important for the organic
growth of firms, but they must be proactively integrated
into marketing. If you have an idea or a new service,
tell your existing client base immediately. You should
schedule time to see as many of them as you can. Send
all of them an e-mail and send all of them snail mail.
And make sure your idea is visible to them in the media.
Publicity is the most effective marketing tool for
service firms. If you have new idea or you've dressed
up an old idea, the media will take your idea to market
for you. It would be a good test for a managing partner
to say to consultants, "What are our new ideas?
I want to get them on the front page of the Wall Street
Journal."
MCNews: Let's say a firm has this great new idea
and a competitor is the incumbent consultant with deep
relationships in a client's organization. Do you think
that idea and the demonstrated ability to execute it
will trump the incumbent's relationships?
Stevens: Yes, the firm with the new idea will
take those relationships away from the incumbent; the
client will switch horses immediately. If you think
clients are in love with you forever--forget it.
MCNews: Are any consulting firms successfully differentiating
their services with the new idea approach you are describing?
Stevens: As I said earlier, it's a mistake to
look at what other consulting firms are doing. If
you want to find innovation, look at product companies.
They have to continue to develop newer and better products,
even if the improvement is incremental. Most service
firms don't have that drive to innovate.
But look what happened to IBM's Global Services when
Louis Gerstner--a product guy--took over. He brought
a product prospective and a commitment to innovation
that transformed a troubled company into a huge success.
The business community is always interested in new developments,
and Gerstner wasn't afraid to be "commercial"
about new service lines.
I would add that the great consulting firms got to
be great because they generated new ideas at some point.
They wouldn't be here today if they hadn't.
MCNews: Well, the tax departments of the big firms
certainly generate very creative ideas. And they sell
millions in services on the strength of those ideas.
Stevens: Exactly. But those great ideas are,
for the most part, trapped inside the firms. What's
being marketed is the brand name as opposed to the ideas.
I believe that every time professionals go to see clients
they should bring a new idea. If consultants did that,
they'd have exponentially greater results.
Getting back to the fear of marketing, the reaction
to the title of my book is a good example. When I told
executives within my own firm that I wanted to call
the book Your marketing sucks, you can
imagine the responses--it's inappropriate; it's disgusting;
people will be pissed off, and so on. I said, no, no,
I want to get attention to make a point and that's the
title I'm going with. The book has been a great success
for our business.
If being provocative represents a powerful idea for
service firms, then that's what they should use in their
marketing. Say something that gets the attention of
people who are busy with e-mail, voice mail, work, newspapers
and magazines and everybody making pitches at them.
You want the response to be, "wait a minute--that's
something I've got to hear." So tell the marketing
directors with their newsletters and their brand guardianship
that they can just go take a vacation.
MCNews: What do you think of consultants using celebrity
advertising?
Stevens: It's not as powerful as getting a free,
front page story in the Wall Street Journal announcing
that you have a brand new idea or an old idea you can
implement better than anyone else. The only way to judge
the effective use of marketing dollars is not whether
you think an ad is cool or features someone famous,
but is it growing the business?
There are ways to draw a straight line from your
marketing budget to a measurable response. And you have
to do that. The most successful company in the world,
Wal-Mart, has the least creative marketing. The company
has a great idea--low price leader--and it executes
better than anybody else. That's all Wal-Mart's marketing
says.
MCNews: What do you think about the use of direct
mail by consultants as a marketing tool?
Stevens: I don't have a problem with direct
mail as long it's done right. What's the message? Who
is it sent to and is it coordinated with publicity,
with e-mail and with a phone call? Direct mail can
play an important role, but it has to be woven into
an integrated marketing plan. You are much more
likely to get a response if a client reads about a big
idea in the Journal and then gets a direct
mail piece either before or soon after.
The effectiveness of direct mail also depends on how
it's written. Often, particularly with service firms,
the powerful part of the message is stuck in the fourth
paragraph instead of in the opening line where it belongs.
If you say upfront, "We have a way to help your
company reduce its taxes by no less than 10%,"
people are going to respond to that, especially if it's
from a firm or a name they trust.
MCNews: Last question: What are you reading these
days?
Stevens: I'm just finishing up Flyboys
by James Bradley, which has some great business lessons.
The best business books aren't necessarily about business,
but about life and history. The book is really about
the development of what Bradley calls the third dimension,
which is air power, and how that came to be a force
in war.
MCNews: Thanks for your time today.
Find out more about Mark Stevens and his company and
services at www.msco.com.
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10
Questions to Grow Your Client Base, by Andrew Sobel
Andrew Sobel is a recognized authority
on client relationships and earning client loyalty.
He's a consultant and the author of the bestsellers,
Making
Rain
and Clients
for Life.
In this article, Sobel provides ten insightful
yet practical questions to help grow your consulting
practice this year.
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