by Alison Simons | Nov 22, 2017 | Branding & Messaging, Growth
Marketing is one word that means a lot of things. And marketing takes on a lot of responsibility in a professional services firm from branding to online marketing to coaching to revenue generation and client retention. Some marketing activities take a lot of time but don’t cost much money and some are expensive but are easy to execute. This latter bucket is where a lot of professional services firms get into trouble. Don’t fall into these five traps that will spend-down your marketing budget without much to show for your investment. (more…)
by Alison Simons | Oct 27, 2017 | Branding & Messaging, Coaching & Development, Growth, News from Simons Marketing, Online Marketing
Next month I’ll be presenting on the topic of How the Fastest Growing CPA Firms Spend their Marketing Dollars at the MSCPA’s Practice Management conference. If you’re a CPA, I’ll hope you attend!
While the research this article (and presentation) is based on is from CPA firms, I believe the basic principles are true for all of professional services firms, so everyone, please, read on!
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by Alison Simons | Mar 8, 2017 | Branding & Messaging
Professional services firms often serve their clients for multiple years, so client retention is something that deserves intentional focus. Fostering relationships with clients at a time when you’re not “on the clock” is one good way to do this. Here are a few ideas for client appreciate events for professional services firms: (more…)
by Alison Simons | Jan 25, 2017 | Branding & Messaging
What is a brand?
Basically, your brand is the total of what makes you, you. Your brand is comprised of the messages, visuals, and experiences that collectively represent your firm. (more…)
by Alison Simons | Oct 27, 2016 | Branding & Messaging
What will you do when something happens and it’s not “business as usual”? You’re going to feel like you’re jumping hurdles… as soon as you’re over one, another one is right in front of you. It’s exhausting! Here are seven ideas for you to consider when your firm experiences some negative attention from a lawsuit, a client problem, an attack from a competitor, or something else unforeseen. (more…)
by Alison Simons | Apr 27, 2016 | Branding & Messaging
As I have written about and expressed many times in conversation, one challenge of professional services marketing is that most of your clients and prospects don’t understand what you do or how you do it. If they were being honest, they don’t want to know, they just want to have trust that hiring you help them reach their goals.
Since they don’t want to become subject matter experts in order to determine the quality of your work on its merits, they are forced to make a partially illogical leap between what they can see and understand, your marketing, and the quality of your work.
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by Alison Simons | Oct 30, 2015 | Branding & Messaging, Growth
Recently I was reminded that sometimes I (we?) take for granted our understanding of a particular topic and think everyone is on the same page. When that topic is the work that we do, it can be confusing to hear it described incorrectly and, worse, it can lead to missed referral opportunities. For example… (more…)
by Alison Simons | Aug 17, 2015 | Branding & Messaging
Last week the window in my car fell down into the door. Issues like this used to have me making emergency appointments at the dealership and crossing my fingers that I’d get out of there with my wallet intact. Having married a mechanic last year, everything car-related in my life has changed. (more…)
by Alison Simons | Jul 21, 2015 | Branding & Messaging
In professional services we are hired to take care of things for clients that they don’t fully understand. Therefore, the year-round treatment and communications clients receive from your team become how they determine the quality of your work. It may not be logical, but it’s true. We all have email inboxes that constantly full despite heroic efforts to clear them out. But it’s not a race to the bottom. Here are nine email best practices. (more…)
