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| Loyalty |
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My subscription to the Wall Street Journal expired recently.
I knew well in advance that the renewal date was looming because I was barraged with mailers from Dow Jones offering me a "special renewal rate" for current subscribers. For $249.00, my service would be uninterrupted, at a substantial savings, for the next year.
With time running out, I finally went to the Dow Jones web site, special renewal offer in hand, to extend my subscription. As I navigated through the site, I learned that a new subscriber got a very different deal than my "special" offer. For just $99.00 a year, a new subscriber would receive the same benefits, but the cost was 60 percent lower.
I understand that customer acquisition programs sustain a newspaper operation, but as a long-time subscriber, something just seemed wrong. The company risked upsetting every renewal customer by displaying its rock-bottom, new subscriber offer so prominently on the site.
In our business, client retention is often more important than client acquisition, as most would agree. But it's easy to lose sight of that priority in our zeal to find the next client.
Are your marketing programs targeted toward new clients at the expense of your existing ones? Are you proactively marketing to your best audience--existing clients?
Make sure your marketing tactics emphasize the importance of your current clients. Don't short-change them as you search for your next opportunity because you might just lose them along the way.
Enjoy this month's issue.
And send me an email if you have comments.
P.S. Don't miss the next session in our Path to Profit webcast series. This month's program, Strategic Interviewing: How to Land Top Talent, focuses on the essentials for hiring top talent in today's competitive market. We'll cover strategies for understanding how candidates behave in specific situations but, as importantly, how they really think and whether or not they would fit into your organization.
Mike
McLaughlin
Editor
Management Consulting News is a publication of MindShare
Consulting.
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| MCNews 12 Index of Professional Services |
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As the third quarter of 2007 wrapped up, the MCNews 12 Index pulled into positive territory. But even with a paltry .71% return, half of the companies in the index are outpacing the S+P 500 YTD return.
This month's laggards, which include EDS, Wipro, BearingPoint, and InfoSys, have struggled most of the year. EDS reported a surge in third quarter earnings, but the stock has been depressed for several months. BearingPoint's stock price has fallen more than 40% this year as that firm is still reeling from operational and strategic missteps.
Hewitt, IBM, Satyam, and Watson Wyatt turned in double-digit YTD returns, and Accenture's stock price continues its strong performance.
|
MCNews 12 Index |
YTD
Change |
S+P 500
YTD Change |
| October |
1007 |
.71% |
6.59% |
| Jan to Sept |
979 |
-2.13% |
7.28% |
The MCNews 12 Index reflects general investor sentiment about the state of the global professional services industry.
The twelve publicly-traded companies included in the MCNews 12 Index account for roughly $80 billion in combined annual revenue, and serve clients around the world.
Learn more about the MCNews 12 Index 
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| Interview:
Seth Godin |
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  If you’re not going to get to #1, you might as well quit now.
Seth Godin is a bestselling author on topics such as marketing, the spread of ideas, and managing both customers and employees with respect.
When he isn't working on books, or speaking to audiences, he writes the most popular marketing blog in the world.
Godin invented many of the terms and concepts underlying modern marketing, including "Permission Marketing," "IdeaViruses," and "Sneezers."
His latest book is The Dip, which is about becoming the best at what you do. It's also about recognizing a "dip" and knowing when to quit and when to stick it out.
We asked Godin why "the dip" might be the best thing that happens to you.
Read
our interview with Seth Godin
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| The
Writing on the Wall, by Alan Weiss |
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 Taking a Sharp Right
You escape a rip tide by swimming perpendicular to it (and parallel to the beach). Swimming against a rip tide's seaward current is likely to result in death--even lifeguards have been killed in rip tides.
Counter intuitively, if you swim at a 90° angle, in just a few yards, the water is calm and you can easily swim to shore. Fight it and you may die, but seek a new direction and you will easily live.
Read
the article
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| How to Grow and Sell a Consulting Firm--Part 3 |
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by Paul Collins
 In the first two parts of this series, we looked at consulting firm valuations, the mergers and acquisitions market, and the eight equity levers used in a valuation assessment, which consulting firm owners also use as a tool to increase the equity value of their businesses.
Now we're going to complete the picture by looking at the most important qualitative factors influencing an investor's perceived value of your business, and discuss the key considerations in taking your firm to market.
For further information, download Equiteq's research report, The European Consulting Industry M&A Report 2007.This discusses trends in the market and provides other useful information to owners of consulting firms anywhere in the world.
Read
the article
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| Reality Bytes |
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What Clients Like
In a 2007 survey of services clients, researchers for Global Services Media wanted to know the answers to these questions: What services are most highly used by clients? And what is their corresponding level of satisfaction?
The study focused on the 25 most popular management trends and tools, including Six Sigma, outsourcing, strategic planning, benchmarking, customer relationship management (CRM), growth strategy tools, and knowledge management, to name a few.
The services with the highest rate of use and client satisfaction turned out to be: strategic planning, CRM, and customer segmentation. According to the 1,221 survey respondents, services that haven't really caught on include corporate blogs and RFID.
Clients have tested the waters and used outside service providers to help with knowledge management and balanced scorecard initiatives, but client satisfaction remains low.
The Best Firms to Work for in 2007
Researchers at Kennedy Information published their cut at the top management consulting firms to work for in 2007. For the second year, Bain & Company took the top spot, with The Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey rounding out the top three winners.
None of the top three firms' respondents reported traveling less or working fewer hours than colleagues at other firms. Instead, the top three firms scored well on compensation, career development, and firm culture.
Beyond the top three firms, the results aren't as clear cut. One firm, for example, saw their rankings drop from 2006 in essential areas such as firm culture, firm leadership, and job experience, but that firm moved up in the overall rankings for 2007. Go figure.
The message to recruiters from the study is clear: consultants gravitate to well-paying firms that offer challenging client work in a dynamic environment.
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| Coming
Attractions |
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 "The primary source of job misery and the potential cure for that misery resides in the hands of one individual--the direct manager."
Patrick Lencioni is a consultant, bestselling author, and president of The Table Group, a consulting firm that specializes in executive team development and organizational health.
Lencioni's books include Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars, Death by Meeting, and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. His most recent book is The Three Signs of a Miserable Job.
Join us next month as we ask Lencioni why 77 percent of people surveyed say they hate their jobs and what we can do about the $350 billion that's costing in lost productivity.
Look for the next issue of Management Consulting News on December 4, 2007.
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