My wife, Sue and I went to a wedding in southeastern Massachusetts last weekend where, in the space of 8 hours, we had three interactions with service providers we will probably never see again (we live far away).  Two interactions were marvelous … and one, horrendous.  It made me wonder how our professional services clients – and even our own firm – treat customers that will never be seen again.

The major positive experience was with an organization that most people love to hate – a car dealership.  Our issue was that the “brake fluid is low” light came on our dashboard as we pulled into our lodging in Plymouth, MA three hours before the wedding.  We had just driven 230 miles and faced a similar drive back the next day.  Plus, the car had been in a fender bender a few days prior, so we wondered if the internal damage was worse than it looked.  Help!  Who do we turn to on a Saturday afternoon?

The answer was Colonial Ford of Plymouth, whose service manager (Dave) told us to come over and he’d see what he could do.  In an hour, he had us in and out and let us know there was no leak and we were OK to drive on Sunday.  He did this all without any monetary gain for his firm because our car was under a parts and service warranty.  Dave even got us out in time for the wedding (barely, more on that below).

The second positive experience was provided by Steven, who drove the bus between our lodgings and the wedding reception.  My wife had to catch a flight to Atlanta Sunday night, so we had to leave the reception early to get up for the long drive the next day.  The hosts had said bus service would be available all night from the reception, but we didn’t know if the 50-person bus would be used for two people.  Steven corrected that thought immediately: “we do what we promise,” he said and he did.

That could not be said for the inn in Plymouth which shall remain nameless.  They had accepted a block of 50 wedding guests for a 3:30 wedding at least 30 minutes away without ever telling the wedding hosts that their check-in time was 3:00 pm and they weren’t making exceptions.  “It’s not our fault you might be late,” they said.  I maintain that they had a duty to ask the hosts when the wedding was to take place.  Net results: guests were still streaming into the ceremony 20 minutes after it was scheduled to begin.

“The people at the inn just don’t care because they’ll never see you again,” my friend said.  That may be true, but the contrast with the service provided by Dave and Steve was stark and inspired this post.

If we’re working on a project for a client that we’re unlikely to serve again, do we consistently come up with our best effort?  Do you always do the best job possible even though there is nothing (money, praise, more business) apparently in it for you?

Equally importantly, how do you motivate people to behave that way?  What do you think?

To reach John:

Phone:  212.840.0444
Email: john@blisspr.com
LinkedIn:  John Bliss

One of the other golden rules I picked up – you can’t be second, or worse, third.  If the goal of the project is to be thought leaders you must be first.  After that first story is written, all other things being equal, there won’t be an immediate story with your client in the lead.

So what do you do when a competitor releases a set of data similar to what you were ready to publicize … a week before you were planning on releasing the information yourself?

This exact scenario, and others like it, is why it’s absolutely vital to have an active social media program in place – now.

In our scenario, after pouring over the data to backcheck your figures and ensuring you can explain any statistically significant differences from your competitor’s results you now roll out Plan B, using your social media program as a platform for information, if traditional outlets seem like an unlikely coverage source.

This properly established social media presence for your professional service client will now be the cornerstone to release your content to the public – the entire public: customers, clients, competitors, press – literally everyone.  Since the thought leaders at your B2B firm have been engaging on the selected platform(s), for at least a little while, they’ll be tasked with tapping the folks within their own digital footprints to spread word.

Parse the available data into appropriate bite sized segments for the blog (video channel, etc.) and redo your editorial calendar.  Decide what data gets published and when, ensure you’re using proper keywords and have good SEO in place so the search engine crawlers get everything they’re looking for and notify the appropriate media and online contacts once it goes live.

This time around it’ll also be your (and your client’s) job to make sure the study has a shelf life.  Link back to the blog posts in message boards, pitches, subsequent press releases, etc.

You might be a day late, but with careful planning your Plan B strategy won’t come up a dollar short.

Image Courtesy Kevin Dooley

On my flight to Cleveland recently for the Worldcom PR Group Americas Region meeting, the attendant turned a routine flight procedure into a memorable experience. How? He came to our aisle and said: “Ms. Rhoads, Ms. Sosnow, what would you like to drink this afternoon?” Seeing our surprise at his request, he said “service isn’t dead in the world, people have just forgotten that it’s part of their job description.” This flashed me immediately to a book I read recently by Fred Lee If Disney Ran Your Hospital; which spent a great deal of time talking about service and loyalty. (Here is a blog post by a colleague talking about building loyalty in the PR profession). I don’t know if our attendant made me a loyal American Airlines passenger, but the experience impressed me enough to share it with a friend at the conference, and with all of you.

Maybe there is something to this word of mouth (WOM) marketing.

The good news is, just like American Airlines, your B2B professional services business is taking part in WOM marketing whether you realize it or not. The better news: now that you are aware, you can enhance those conversations to your benefit.

According to an article in the McKinsey Quarterly in April of this year, “WOM is considered the most disruptive factor in marketing and the primary factor behind 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions.”

At that Worldcom meeting, I listened to Ed Keller speak about the power of WOM marketing. He said, “ninety percent of WOM conversations are happening in the real world; only 7% are happening online (3% on email, 3% via text and 1% via social media).” I found that number hard to believe but Keller had statistics to back it up – many of which are in his notable book The Influentials. There are other myths Keller dispelled for me regarding WOM:

1. People only remember the negative comments.  According to Keller this old adage isn’t true. His research: 66% of brand references in WOM conversations are positive. People, for the most part, are looking for positive advice or recommendations.  When you travel – you want to find the best hotels; same in business. If I want to hire a graphic artist, find somebody to help a client build a website, or launch a link acquisition strategy I don’t really care who is bad – I want to know who is great and why. Would I have shared my flight attendant experience if he had simply asked me what I wanted to drink or worse, skipped me – probably not – unless he pulled a Steven Slater! Keller might be onto something.
2. It’s not happening in the B2B Sector. People love to talk…about work. Hang out in a bar around 6:00 on a work night and listen to the conversations happening around you. They are about work, vendors, bosses, deadlines, projects etc. Keller also found that those offline conversations are statistically more positive and more likely to lead to a purchase of a product or service than online ones.

So How Do You Take Advantage of WOM Marketing?

1. Figure out what your story is. This has been the subject of blog posts by my colleague Elizabeth Sosnow and me.  People want stories. Just this week I heard Amy Mitchell from the Pew Research Center talk about the future of journalism. They key to the future success of both the  PR and journalism industry: teach the younger generation how to tell stories in several different and compelling ways.
2. Choose wisely who will tell your story. Then arm them with the tools and training to do it successfully.
3. Facilitate the conversation.
4. Measure the impact. Does WOM lead to positive outcomes for your brand? What is working and what isn’t?

Have you had good luck with WOM marketing? If so, share your story.

To reach Cortney:

Phone: 212.840.1661
Email: cortney@blisspr.com
Twitter: @cortneyr
LinkedIn: Cortney Rhoads Stapleton

When Harry Met Sally is one of my all-time favorite movies. I’m a real sucker for romantic comedies. Plus, there’s something about Meg Ryan’s and Billy Crystal’s unlikely friendship – and ultimate romance – that’s ennobling. It’s a story of growth. Two opposite temperaments learning to understand, befriend, complement and enrich each others’ lives.

The same could be said for the C-suite’s odd couple – marketing and finance. As marketers face a semi-permanent squeeze on budgets, financial measurement has become a critical part of the CMO’s job. And savvy CMOS are eyeing a more integrated partnership with finance.

According to Avi Dan of Advertising Age:

Marketing was traditionally a siloed operation. This is changing. It’s moving from a hands-off

Department to a much more integrated function within companies, whether it’s under sales of customer service. Nowhere is this going to be more evident than in the growing closeness between marketing and finance. CMOS are aware that finance is important to their success. For example, when asked which additional skill they wish they had, the answer I hear most often is:  ‘better understanding of finance.’ (The New Normal for CMOs)

As CMOs  struggle to  crack the code on web analytics – and identify new, more relevant ways to measure outcomes – the relationship between marketing and finance is evolving. For now, the common goal is ROI and efficiencies. But over time, the potential benefits of analytical marketing are enormous. And so are the opportunities for partnership, coordination, integration and growth.

Do you have examples of partnerships between Marketing and Finance in your organization?

To reach Meg:
Phone:  212.840.0095
Email: meg@blisspr.com
Twitter: @megwildrick
LinkedIn: Meg Wildrick

• 35 YEARS OF BLISSPR – War Stories & Lessons Learned
• FINDING THE WIZARD OF OZ – Public Relations Demystified
• DRIVING THE GROWTH ENGINE – How to Develop New Business
• HOW TO CREATE THOUGHT LEADERSHIP – Online, Offline, Integrated

 Abby Carr, Meg Wildrick and Elizabeth Sosnow take turns in giving the courses with me.  The title of this blog, “Herding Cats,” was the subject of the fifth course, and they thought some of the highlights might be useful to our readers.

First, what’s different about leading a professional service firm?  The obvious answer is that our primary assets – people – go down the elevators every night.  They are fluid, not fixed.  Since our firm deals with very smart people in management consulting, law, accounting, executive search, asset management, insurance and other professional and financial services, our people have to be smart.  And, because our clients occasionally have healthy egos, our people have to have healthy egos too.

In short, the leader of a professional firm cannot treat people the way one might treat a machine that manufactures widgets.  Machines don’t ask “why?”  Our people almost always do, which means you should give them the answers before they ask the question.  Leadership becomes much more an exercise in developing consensus, as anyone who has been in any kind of successful partnership (e.g., marriage) can readily attest.

Second, as a recent president said, there’s the “vision thing.”  Now let me go on record and say that I am not a big believer in VISION STATEMENTS and MISSION STATEMENTS.  I think too often they waste hours of executive time – and lots of dollars – to produce something that is designed not to offend and is thoroughly non-differentiable from the competition. 

But leaders do need vision lest they sound Alice in Wonderland, to whom the Cheshire Cat said: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road can get you there.”  Or worse they can sound like a long forgotten “leader” in the French Revolution, who John F. Kennedy famously quoted as saying: “there go my people; I must find out where they are going so I can lead them.”

Your people need better, and you need not hire consultants or establish task forces to figure it out.  I do not believe a vision needs to be grand – our vision in our early years was survival.  Once we got some critical mass, the vision had three primary components.  We wanted:

1. Measured growth.  You have to grow to create opportunities for your people, but you want to grow at a pace you can manage, one that will not burn you out or your people.
2. A great place to work.  Check.  We have been voted that in the Holmes Report four of the last six years.
3. To enable individuals to grow – including the management team – which has been together now roughly 20 years.

Our vision was achievable, a critical characteristic, and we communicated it regularly and measured ourselves against it. 

We’ll offer some other thoughts on a leading a professional firm in the weeks ahead.  Meanwhile, what do you think are the critical elements?  What do you think of vision and mission statements?

To reach John:

Phone:  212.840.0444 
Email: john@blisspr.com
LinkedIn:  John Bliss

How immersed are you in the industry you publicize? In today’s world, attending industry events brings great value to public relations programs – for both agency and corporate public relations professionals. Beyond networking, events bring unique value to understanding the context of industry media coverage, and getting to know what issues keep the decision-makers up at night.

Here are some tips and video on how to get the most value from business networking events.

BlissPR Tips: Leveraging Industry Events for PR Advantage

1. Leverage events to get to know your industry. There’s an old PR saying that you should be, “a mile wide and an inch deep.” Not true for B2B public relations. B2B PR is a knowledge-based business (instead of a product-based business), and to truly understand our clients, we must be a part of their world. Attending industry events gives us an avenue to immerse ourselves into the industry’s culture and learn the language. In the following video, hear more about using events to get to know your industry, from BlissPR’s Margy Sweeney, Lindsey Schober and Berj Alexanian:

But don’t take our word for it – here’s more on the importance of events, from a company that organizes them “for a living”. In this segment, BlissPR’s Berj Alexanian takes us behind the scenes immediately after the Bisnow Chicago Real Estate Summit for an exclusive interview with Michael Farber, Bisnow Vice President of Expansion, to talk about the importance of networking events in the real estate industry.

More BlissPR Tips: Leveraging Industry Events for PR Advantage

Here are three more tips for getting the most out of industry events for PR pro’s, including more video “Live from Bisnow-Chicago” with more context from our BlissPR Chicago professionals.

2. Mine the events for pitch and story ideas. Industry networking events are prime places to pick up a new pitch or story idea. Pick attendees’ brains about new industry trends and ask questions about what’s top of mind or what’s keeping them up at night.

 

3. Meet the media. Industry specific networking events are a great opportunity to get to know trade media reporters. Make sure to seek them out, and be prepared with questions for discussion (see Tip 5).
4. Personal relationships are key – Industry networking events are often a relaxed and pressure-free place to strike up conversation and deepen personal relationships with peers, clients and reporters. Make sure to introduce yourself to people you don’t know, and don’t be afraid to ask lots (and lots) of questions.

A little coffee and a nosh can be a great beginning to a conversation that would not normally take place otherwise. Here’s more:

5. Do your homework – Any networking event can be overwhelming, especially if you don’t know anyone or are new to the industry. Before you go, do your homework. Develop a plan. Be sure to know the basics of your industry and the current issues. Read the trades and the publications your industry values. Find out who is attending, and pick out three or four people you want to talk with. The goal isn’t to collect as many business cards as possible. The goal is to have a strategy going into the event, so you can gain knowledge and develop relationships that will bring value to your clients and your firm. Please find the final link below where the BlissPR Chicago team stresses the importance of properly preparing yourself prior to a networking event.

What helps you to make the most of events in your industry?

To contact Margy Sweeney:

Phone:  312-252-7314
Email: margy@blisspr.com
Twitter: @margysweeney
LinkedIn: Margy Sweeney

Thought leadership is a hot topic these days. Basically, it means showcasing your brainpower to clients and potential clients through research, articles, speeches, surveys and now blogs. We call it the “marketing of ideas.” The September 11 issue of The Economist ran an article on it and our firm has seen the concept move from professional services into financial services and medical devices.

Where did it come from … and why should we care? Walter Kiechel answers both questions in his excellent The Lords of Strategy (Harvard Business Press, 2010), a history of the management consulting firms that specialize in strategy. They were the first proponents of thought leadership marketing, although they didn’t use that term. As to why we should care – simply because the U.S. and world economies might be far worse off without the consultants. Think Detroit … but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Hardly an apologia for the profession, Kiechel’s book traces the origin of strategy consulting from its roots with Bruce Henderson and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) through the recent financial collapse. Some of the fascinating vignettes include:

• Henderson inventing the “retail marketing of business ideas” to put his fledgling consultancy on the map in the mid-60s
• Bill Bain breaking away from BCG to form his own firm with a unique business model, representing one client per industry, and Bain & Co.’s subsequent foray into what became private equity investing
• McKinsey “waking up” to the strategy opportunity under Fred Gluck and eventually surpassing BCG and Bain

There are informative chapters on Michael Porter, Tom Peters, consultancies expanding into Europe,  core competencies, reengineering and the role of strategy consulting in private equity. To me, the most meaningful section of the book dealt with the one industry the strategy consultants were never able to crack: automotive.

“So arrogant, silo-ridden and inert were the Detroit giants that they never bothered to get their minds around … the strategy revolution, despite much advice to do just that… ‘We never laid a glove on them,’ ruefully admits the head of one of the great strategy consultancies, speaking of both his own firm and that of his competitors … Without strategy and strategy consultants, we could have had broad swaths of U.S. industry look like the automakers.”

If you care about the ideas and theories that drive business, you will enjoy this book.  If you don’t, you won’t. 

Have you read any good business books recently?

To reach John:

Phone:  212.840.0444 
Email: john@blisspr.com
LinkedIn:  John Bliss

Spenser Baretz of Hellerman Baretz Communications LLC helped Ford & Harrison start the blog in 2006, and used it as a case study during the recent Law Firm Media Professionals (LFMP) social media panel discussion. Other panelists at the event included Russell Lawson of Sands Anderson (who also blogs about “Progressive Marketing” here) and the ubiquitous Peter Shankman of HARO; both of whom echoed the value of blogs in marketing for law firms and other professional services organizations.

But why are professional service and law firms such good candidates for blogging as opposed to other forms of social media? Lawson used a popular analogy to describe getting his firm started on social media: “it was like trying to drink from a fire hose.” (For more on this, check out the BlissPR blog post from Elizabeth Sosnow: 11 reasons why law firms should experiment with social media). To make the transition more manageable, Lawson limited the firm’s scope to blogs, and added Twitter and LinkedIn once they got more comfortable in the space. In addition to being perhaps the most manageable first step into the social media world, blogging is also a great medium to promote the ideas that are the backbone of what professional services firms are essentially “selling”.

Baretz also reinforced that social media is about promoting ideas and thought leadership that will be valued by clients. A blog is a great way to do this, as Ford & Harrison quickly found out. According to Baretz, associates at the firm were assigned blog posts each week, and were required to make updates immediately following each episode. This allowed them to capitalize on the high search volume for the term “The Office” thereby skyrocketing the firm’s SEO, and showcasing their employment law expertise to an audience of current and prospective clients. 

“That’s What She Said” has been a great success, and its strategy can be replicated for other professional services blogs. There seem to be three key pieces to the puzzle:

1. MAN POWER – A successful blog requires an extensive time commitment on behalf of the bloggers, usually the firm’s leadership. This blog is sustainable because it is driven by multiple associates at the firm, not just one person, and not by the partners who often do not have the bandwidth to regularly update a blog.  
2. FLOW OF CONTENT – Because this blog is linked to a weekly TV show, there is a regular flow of content sparking new ideas and raising new issues to blog about. This makes life a lot easier on the bloggers. What in your industry (or outside of it) could be used to spark regular content?
3. TIMING – Updates were posted immediately following each episode of The Office, keeping the blog relevant and SEO-friendly. Timing is critical across so many channels of media and PR, and linking a blog to something that will be newsworthy and relevant from a timing standpoint can be a key driver of success, as Ford & Harrison have demonstrated. 

Has your firm created a successful blog? If so, does it have any of the components listed above? What else helps to drive your blog’s success?

To reach Emily:

Phone: 212.840.8079
Email: Emily@blisspr.com
Twitter: @eweinman
LinkedIn: Emily Weinman

Last week, I had the opportunity to make a presentation to the St. Louis chapter of PRSA on this topic – which is based on multiple conversations with my fellow BlissPR colleagues about how we help our clients achieve their business goals. 

B2B service companies are great clients because they stretch us to come up with a clear vantage point on technical and often enterprise level matters.   But they can also be tough clients because they are very busy, as well as risk averse and slow to adopt change.   When we are faced with creating a new campaign, here are some of the things we think about to get out of the traditional “lather, rinse, repeat” kind of PR.  Here is what I said in St. Louis – what have I missed?  (Want to make sure you see this, @tressalynne)

1. Raise the Altitude.  First, get up above product.  If you are discussing the features and benefits of what the company sells, you won’t get the audience’s full attention.  It’s like looking at photos of someone else’s kids.  Find out what the audience truly cares about, and focus on that.  Here’s a great example of a major financial company surfacing the issues of concern to its customers, who are heads of HR:  MetLife’s 8th Annual Employee Benefits Trends Study.
2. Carve out an Issue to Own.  Second, don’t be afraid to make an idea the hero of the moment.  The idea can be an issue, a trend, a topic area – think “privacy” or “motivation” or “risk” or “capital flows” — but it’s not the product.  Then build a microsite or a blog or a strong point of view around that.  We have seen consulting firms take this tack, and predict that corporations will do so as well.  
3. Be of Service to the Communities you Care About.  What does your client know that can help the communities that they serve?   How can you help them do their own business better?  Often, research, benchmark data, opinion, counsel can be packaged in a way that galvanizes decision-making.  Here’s an example: BDO’s Retail Survey.
4. Enter the Ongoing Conversation. If your client is discussing a topic that matters, and has a point of view or research that extends the conversation, then you better be finding the right dialogues, and the people (bloggers) who are influencing them.  Addict-o-matic is a great way to find them. 
5. Learn to Share.  Once you have created your content, deliver it in many forms and formats.  SMPRs, video, data nuggets, how to advice, predictions.   And don’t be afraid to partner with a media outlet to deliver all that content goodness.  Here’s an example of what we mean:  Bloomberg BusinessWeek.com/Hay Group Study Identifies Best Companies for Leadership.
6. Don’t Hog the Microphone.  When your client is the only one talking –even if he or she is the smartest person in the room, it’s less interesting than if you invite other voices in to the discussion.  Open it up and more people will listen.    That’s what they found at McKinsey’s whatmatters microsite.   
7. Get Local.  If there’s a national trend – movement of some kind, whether it’s a rule change, a regulation, legislation – there will likely be local fallout.  Capture it!  People care about changes and problems happening in their own backyards, and are more likely to pick up the phone and call someone in their own area for help.
8. Build Your own Community.  In the old days, we used trade media to reach niche markets.  Not so much anymore.  Plus niche markets are getting nichier.  Sometimes you find them, sometimes you have to help your clients create them.  So if it’s CFOs of Canadian natural resources companies, or hospital facilities managers in the southwest, or med students who care about TB,  or meeting planners for financial services companies, sometimes it’s easiest to build your own audience.  

That’s what I came up with – what steps would you add? Click here to see the full deck or feel free to email me at abby@blisspr.com.

To reach Abby:

Phone: 212.840.0088
Email: abby@blisspr.com
Twitter: @abbycarr
LinkedIn: Abby Carr

Lee cites an article from the Harvard Business Review on customer loyalty in which the authors presented research showing that satisfied customers are not necessarily loyal.  Writes Lee: “on a scale of one to five [one being very unsatisfied and five  being very satisfied], a customer who marks a four is six times more likely to defect than a customer who marks a five.  In other words, there is a six-fold increase in customer loyalty between fours and fives.”  While Lee is examining patient/employee satisfaction and loyalty in hospitals, the implication for our industry is clear: loyalty is critical to the security of client-agency relationships – and therefore, it’s essential that we understand the distinction between satisfaction and loyalty. 

So, how can professional services PR firms build client loyalty?

1. Deliver quality work:  If your clients are not satisfied, they’re definitely not going to feel loyal to your organization.  Therefore, client satisfaction is a logical precursor to client loyalty.  While it might sound like common sense, it’s critical that you’re responsive to your clients and consistently provide quality work in a timely manner.
2. Anticipate your clients’ needs:  If you’re successfully delivering quality work, your clients are likely satisfied, but are they yet loyal?  Anticipating clients’ needs is an important step in moving from a four to a five on the client satisfaction scale – and making you an invaluable marketing partner.  According to Lee, “loyalty is generated by memorable things that happen that we didn’t expect.”  So, ask yourself: are you maintaining the status quo, or are you creating memorable moments by going “above and beyond;” consistently staying one step ahead of your clients and anticipating their needs, so they don’t have to.
3. Know your clients’ business:  In order to successfully anticipate your clients’ needs, you have to know their business, inside and out.  In a recent discussion with Dallas Kersey, former director of marketing at Towers Perrin and Edward Jones, he said the number one thing PR professionals can do to make themselves invaluable to their clients is to think of themselves as business professionals first, PR professionals second.  That is, “know your clients’ business.”  As Lee notes in his book, “doing everything to perfection…meeting all [of your clients’] standards of performance and courtesy” is not enough to build client loyalty.  As PR professionals, in order to build client loyalty, we must understand how everything we do fits into our clients’ overall marketing strategy and ultimately, how that’s tied to the company’s bottom line.  Without that understanding, you cannot cross the line from “outside agency” to true marketing partner.

These are just a few of the ways that you can work toward building loyalty.  What else would you add to this list?

To reach Aven:

Phone: 212.840.1661
Email: aven@blisspr.com
Twitter: @avenlea
LinkedIn: Aven James