Lead Generation Best Practices For Professional Services Firms
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LEAD GENERATION
BEST PRACTICES FOR
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES FIRMS
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The Second Coming
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Chapter 1 - Finding Focus In The Fog 4
Chapter 2 - Lead Generation Lessons From The Market 7 Chapter 3 - A Lead Is A Lead Is A Lead - Right? 13 Chapter 4 - An Ideal Client – The Missing Link In Lead Generation Campaigns 21
Chapter 5 - The B2B Buying Cycle 28
Chapter 6 - Pulling Ideal Clients Into Buying Cycles 41 Chapter 7 - The Relationship Between Brand Awareness And Lead Generation 51 Chapter 8 - Best Practices For The Top Five Lead Generation Tactics 60 Chapter 9 - Looking At The Buying Cycle Through Your Ideal Clients’ Eyes 67
Conclusion 70
Build Your Roadmap 71
About The Author 77
About The Shattuck Group 78
Table of Contents
Lead Generation Best Practices For Professional Services Firms
By Randy Shattuck, CEO, The Shattuck Group
© Copyright 2010, The Shattuck Group. All rights reserved.
TERMS & CONDITIONS
All content contained in this document is the intellectual property of The Shattuck Group. By using this docu-ment, you agree to the following terms and conditions. 1. You may download, print, and copy this workbook one time for your personal use provided that you retain all copyright notices and do not modify the workbook in any way. 2. This workbook is provided “as is” without any warranties of any kind whatsoever, including warranties of title or fitness for a particular purpose. The Shattuck Group makes no warranties of any results that may be obtained from the use of this workbook. 3. In no event will The Shattuck Group, Randy Shattuck, or any officers, employees, or agents of The Shattuck Group be liable for any indirect, consequential, special, incidental, or puni-tive damages from the use of this workbook.
If you cannot abide by these terms and conditions than you agree to, and are hereby charged with, destroying all copies, both electronic and physical, of this workbook. The Shattuck Group vigorously defends our intel-lectual property and copyrighted material and will prosecute offenders to the full extent of the law.
Complexity is the enemy of success. The more complex things
become, the more difficult they are to manage and the more
like-ly they are to fail. As Yeats said, the center will not hold when
anarchy is loosed upon us.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the world of marketing and
business development. More marketing campaigns fail due to
complexity than any other single factor. The devil truly is in the
details.
For marketing and business development executives at
profes-sional services (PS) firms, lead generation campaigns have
be-come overly complex. Many executives feel overwhelmed and
now ignore new ideas and approaches. In the last five years
there has been a steady increase in the number of new tactics
that PS executives can include in their marketing plans to reach
desired growth levels.
The problem is that every tactic appears to be perfectly
appro-priate, especially if you listen to the marketing gurus who each
adore their pet tactic.
Finding Focus In The Fog
Four traditional lead generation tactics remain a viable option: trade adver-tising, trade shows, direct mail, and telemarketing. But other tactics also deserve careful attention: search en-gine marketing, thought leadership, email marketing, social media,
blog-ging, website landing pages, online videos and podcasts, public speaking, and webinars. There simply are not enough resources to execute against all of these tactics, nor would that be desirable for most PS firms.
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The Key Question
How does one build a simple and ef-fective lead generation plan that just works – a plan that impacts revenue and profits while still being manage-able and affordmanage-able? This is a question we hear again and again at
The Shattuck Group.
To answer this question, we conducted market research studies with several hundred PS executives, with each study occurring after the onset of the recession. After analyzing the data and comparing the survey responses to our clients’ experiences and our sense of best practices, we arrived at the follow-ing conclusion.
The Eight Levers
There are eight primary levers of suc-cess in lead generation campaigns: 1. Choose the right lead generation
tactics
2. Clearly define what a “lead” is to your organization and develop fol-low up procedures accordingly 3. Build your ideal client profile 4. Understand the B2B buying cycle 5. Pull prospects who fit your ideal
cli-ent profile into buying cycles
6. Build awareness of your brand and your value proposition
7. Implement key best-practices 8. Always look at the buying cycle
from the client’s point of view
How To Use This Workbook
The remainder of this Guide Book shows you exactly how to make these 8 drivers highly successful for your organization.
Each chapter in this Guide Book is comprised of a concept and an exer-cise. The concept will explain what you can do to generate great new leads and the exercise will ask you to put the idea into action for your firm.
The 8 Levers Of Business Development Success
1. Choose the right lead generation tactics2. Clearly define what a “lead” is to your organization and develop follow up procedures accordingly
3. Build your ideal client profile (ICP)
4. Understand the B2B buying cycle
5. Pull prospects who fit your ICP into buying cycles
6. Build awareness of your brand and your value proposition
7. Implement key best-practices
8. Always look at the buying cycle through the client’s eyes
Exhibit 1. The 8 Drivers Of Business Development Success
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Randy Shattuck is a senior marketing executive and founder of
The Shattuck Group, a marketing firm that empowers PS
com-panies to reach their growth objectives. For 20 years Randy has
helped PS firms grow by building strong brands, generating
leads, acquiring the right clients, and positioning effectively.
About The Author
Randy Shattuck’s Background
Before The Shattuck Group, Randy helped Acclaim Technology, a Silicon Valley systems integrator, grow from 10 to 120 million in sales in 3 years. As marketing strategist for that firm, Randy lead the charge to the market by building a brand that grew from a bou-tique technology sales organization to a true enterprise. Under Randy’s market-ing leadership, the company grew from a few employees in one office to more than 130 employees in offices through-out the greater Western United States. Prior to Acclaim Technology, Randy headed the marketing function of Con-tec Microelectronics, helping that firm double its revenues. Under his market-ing leadership, Contec’s brand grew from a relatively unknown company to a recognized industry player. Randy negotiated the largest contract ever in that firm’s history, resulting in tre-mendous new sales and profits in the multiple millions.
For the past 11 years Randy has lead The Shattuck Group, helping dozens of PS firms in a variety of industries real-ize their growth goals.
Randy’s background is in marketing, behavioral science, strategy, and rheto-ric. He is a featured columnist in Pro-fessional Services Journal, RainToday, and the CPA Leadership Institute. He is a sought-after speaker, writer, and thinker.
You can email him at [email protected] and visit his firm online at www.theshattuckgroup.com.
The Shattuck Group is a full-service marketing firm that
special-izes in professional services. We are a highly focused team of
branding, marketing, and business development experts. Based
out of the Silicon Valley in San Jose, California, we serve select
clients nationwide.
About The Shattuck Group
Our Mission And Vision
Our mission is simple – we help our cli-ents grow. This is our only purpose for existing as a business. Every member of The Shattuck Group team knows this mantra and works every day to make it real for our clients.
Our vision is equally simple – we only grow when our clients grow. We know that our success is unequivocally tied to our clients’ success. This provides tremendous motivation in everything we do. Every strategy we recommend, every tactic we implement, and every project we manage – they’re all de-signed to help our clients achieve the goals that matter most to them.
Our Value Proposition
We empower our clients to achieve the goals that are most important to them. Increased revenue. Increased profits. Increased demand. All of our services, our ideas, and our energy are focused on these goals.
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Our Services
We achieve these objectives with a unique combination of 10 services that are customized for each client. We’ve learned through market research, our experiences, and empirical observation that these 10 services have the greatest impact on our client’s top and bottom lines:
1.
Market Research2.
Positioning Strategies3.
Marketing Plans4.
Messaging Development5.
Brand Identity6.
Brand Awareness7.
Client Acquisition8.
Lead Generation9.
Thought Leadership10.
Video Development Our BackgroundThe Shattuck Group was founded in 1998. For more than a decade, we’ve been helping professional services firms grow, sometimes exponentially. We have the success stories to prove it. For instance, we helped Avcom grow from 40 million to over 300 million in top line revenue. If you’d like to hear more about these stories, please send an email to info@theshattuckgroup. com with the title “success stories.” If you would like to learn more about how we can help your firm, please call us today at 877-296-5301. Or you can send an email to [email protected].
Engaging With Us
At The Shattuck Group we pride our-selves on delivering an outstanding experience to our clients, unlike any they’ve ever had before with a market-ing firm. We are very intentional in how we engage new clients and utilize a 5 meeting process that allows us to come to understand new clients deeply, quickly, and thoroughly, all while cre-ating the right custom strategies that will help them reach new heights of success. The meetings in that process include:
1.
The Marketing Health Checkup2.
Discovery3.
Requirements Definition4.
Scope Of Services5.
EngagementIf you’ve found this Guide Book benefi-cial and would like to learn more about how we can help your firm grow, the first step is the Marketing Health Check-up. To schedule this meeting, please send an email to:
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