Golden Practices

Creative and Edgy Attracts

I'm so behind in blogging. Seriously. And I know I don't actually have to tell you that. The beauty of blogs is that you, the reader, don't really know all the things I've been meaning to post and haven't yet. Except that, um, now you know.

So now that I've blown that facade completely, let me share some things worth checking out!

1. The all-around BEST website legal disclaimer you've ever seen (you'd sort of expect that from a law firm, but JUST WAIT...) is that of Valorem Law Group. Exactly what I love about Pat Lamb...

2. We've been looking at a lot of career pages on professional firm websites and absolutely LOVE the presentation of the interactive office walkthrough over at Quinn Emanuel.

3. We also love the MySpace approach over at Choate! My favorite is the bouncing ball video.

4. And would you expect anything less than edgy humor and creativity from a law firm that's comfortable with the nickname "MoFo"? I think not. I love their @$%#@! {Pigeonholed} page and their Why Mofo? page

Have you noticed these are all law firms. Ahem. Okay accountants, time to relax and let your creative juices flow!

Contrast the above with this type of video from PwC (who does do some edgy stuff, too) but you'll see their message is good but they are totally serious and low energy. Hmmm.

Any that you like?

Networking in the Age of Social Media

Just out is an article I wrote for Association for Accounting Marketing's bi-monthly newsletter, MarkeTrends, on the subject of the coolest way to build personal credibility and your business network.

Here's an excerpt:

Blogs, despite their silly name, are the “next generation” in networking. Without leaving the comfort of your sofa and jammies, you can simultaneously snuggle with your kiddos and connect with people who share your professional interests, namely referral sources, prospects, peers, and even media.

For many young professionals juggling work and family, online networking is a viable alternative to cocktail parties and evenings away from home. For shy professionals, it’s even more appealing.

Professionals are discovering how to leverage social media technology—blogs and networking sites like Linked In and Pulse—to meet good connections and demonstrate their expertise, mostly by participating in online discussions related to their practice areas.

Some (not many) CPAs are even starting their own blogs. If you have a blog or want to have one, the sort of networking discussed in this article is requisite for a blogger to build a solid readership base, gain respect, and have their efforts really take off.

But plenty of opportunities exist through this same sort of networking approach for non-bloggers, too.

Even if you never want to blog, ever, this is a way to skip those cocktail parties and still develop a social network that elevates your career.

Download my article (pdf)

(reprinted with permission from the May/June 2008 issue of MarkeTrends, copyright by the Association for Accounting Marketing, 14 W Third St., Suite 200, Kansas City, MO 64105; 816-221-1296)

Defining Who You Are and Who You Aren't = Specializing

Who you aren't (see my last post) often comes up when discussing who you are.

A brilliant comment to that post from my friend Marijean Jaggers (of Standing Partnership, a PR firm) inspires me to post more on this subject.

The result of the "who are you" question ends up being a specialization definition. Problem is, the bigger a firm is, the less comfortable they are "eliminating" anyone. Seat squirming begins.

To illustrate, I'll use some extremes. How about this firm, not only BOLDLY illustrating whom they DO serve, but using copy to entice (hmmm, perhaps a bad word choice?) their prospective clients by stating that they should no longer be shunned by other firms.

"Have an adult business your accountant doesn't understand or wish to deal with..."

Hey, I said it was an extreme example.

Anyway, my point is, the specializing approach isn't going away. In fact, more and more firms, particularly newly emerging boutique firms, are employing this strategy. It makes sense! As laws and regulations get more and more complex, it's just getting too expensive, and FAR too risky, to "generalize."

So, here is a much more tame example focusing on the restaurant industry.

Again, my point -- stated in a different way -- is that nothing is more compelling than representing your limits.

• All things to all people is compelling to absolutely no one.
• A couple things for a couple groups is somewhat more compelling.
• All things for one group is significantly more compelling.
• A limited number of really strong things for one group is the most compelling.

Comments?

Who Aren't You?

If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times.

Figure out who you are (and who you AREN'T) and boldly state BOTH!

These guys have done exactly that:

Hat tip to Brian Weinstock at Danna McKitrick for pointing me to Partridge Snow & Hahn's "Brand PS&H" page.

Gathering Customer Testimonials

Today on the Association for Accounting Marketing Discussion List, someone asked about the best ways to gather client testimonials.

A discussion ensued and I was moved to share Golden Marketing's process. It seems several folks are comfortable writing a testimonial for the client and seeking their approval. This always felt icky to me. I'd always rather hear the story straight from the horse's mouth. So this is the way we do it, along with a few examples. This can be done by the in-house marketing department just as easily as by an outside firm.

So, here's our process:

1. Decide Who. We work with the partners to determine who would be the best clients to talk to. Usually this is a mix of long-time clients and new clients, clients across a couple different industries, and clients that use more than one service. What we find is that we can use one testimonial interview across a handful of client service pages and at least one industry.

2. Permission. Then we ask the partner or manager (whomever is the primary contact person) to call each client (usually we just start with 4 or 5) and ask, "would you be willing to talk to our marketing people for a brief interview to capture some of your thoughts on working with the firm, for us to use in our marketing materials?" If the client agrees (they always have) then the partner says, "Great, I'll have [person] call you to set up a brief chat, no more than 15-20 minutes."

3. More Permission. Partner passes us the info, we call, introduce ourselves, thank them for agreeing to take the time to talk with us and say: "I'm sure you're busy right now so we'd just like to set up a good time to talk for 15-20 minutes. When would be a good time?" Rarely do people want to talk right then, but if they did, we would accommodate. They usually appreciate having a little time to put their thoughts together.

4. Setting Expectations. We call promptly at the designated time, thank them again for taking the time to talk with them and explain the process:

"We really appreciate your willingness to talk to us about your experiences with [firm]. Today we are just going to ask you a few questions and we will transcribe the conversation to capture your thoughts as close to verbatim as possible...don't worry about constructing answers or being formal...after the interview we'll type up the notes, possibly reorder your comments for flow, and then we'll send the interview notes to you for your review.

"Since these are your comments, it's important that you are comfortable with what's in there and if there's anything you don't like, please feel free to strike it or edit it, and if you want to add anything, feel free to do that, too. When you are happy with it, just send it back over, and only then will we send it on the to firm/partners/team. Of course, at any time, if you wish for us to discontinue using your statements in our marketing materials, just let us know and we'll stop, no questions asked."

Sometimes the CFO (often the contact) wants to run it by the owner of the company so we consider that in the process.

5. Respect Their Time. Keep the interview exactly on time. Around the 15 minute mark, even if you need to gently interrupt the client, say "I want to respect your time and we promised not to exceed 15-20 minutes." Quite often, the client wants to continue--it is their prerogative. We've talked to several for an hour!

6. Prepare and Deliver. Then we transcribe, edit for flow, take out anything that was told to us "off the record" (of which there is usually a lot) or not entirely relevant, and then submit it by email making sure to remind them that it is their statement so they must be totally comfortable, and can change it to their heart's desire. Few change it much, if at all.

7. Appreciate. Once we receive it back, we provide to the the firm/team, etc and we send an appropriate thank you gift such as flowers, or something meaningful to the individual as a gesture of appreciation for "taking the time to talk with us and for sharing your story".

What we end up with is usually a full page "story" full of gems that we have permission to use in single-sentence snippets or in its entirety. Examples of "longer stories" here: not quite the whole interview and the whole interview -- and you can see a couple of that firm's smaller excerpts on the relevant industry pages of hospitality and construction.

Another approach we sometimes take for very short testimonials is to have a Y/N field on customer satisfaction surveys asking "If you have provided your name, may [firm] reference you when sharing your comments with future clients?" so that we can attribute survey comments on websites, in proposals, etc. Here's one example of a gem survey comment woven in.

No matter how we get the comments, we always document the client's approval of their comment use. Testimonials without client names are pretty ineffective. I wouldn't waste the time or space to go this route. Most viewers will simply dismiss an unattributed comment or assume it is contrived.

And we always try to use real comments as pull quotes beside what are otherwise the same ol' general claims made by all firms such as timeliness, responsiveness or continuity of audit teams, yada yada. Having a real client with a real testament to this quality underscores it beautifully, substantiating what is otherwise a same 'ol-same 'ol.

And these stories, or portions thereof, can be used in a multitude of ways over many years. 

Internal Mentoring Programs: The Wrong Approach

This post is for professional service firms who are thinking of starting a mentoring program or who have one and are wondering why it's not a brilliant success.

Assigning mentors doesn't work. And internal mentoring programs are rife with problems.

If you joined your firm before so-called 'mentoring programs' were all the rage, answer the following questions:

1. Who were/are your mentors?
2. Were they within the organization in which you worked or were they outside of it?
3. Did you select them or did they select you? (I'd bet money that no one assigned them to you)

Can a real mentor be selected by anyone but you anymore than your spouse ought to be chosen by someone other than you? (Yeah, I know that this is still done in various cultures, but how often does it work out really, really well?)

Your mentor was probably someone you encountered somewhere in your journey other than your present workplace. And I’d venture to guess that your mentor was somebody who saw promise in you and mutually admired them, and you clicked.

Mentoring is a relationship. Whether you initiated it or they did, at some point you asked their advice and they gave it. And whether you realized it or not, you also brought something to the relationship that they enjoyed. The relationship blossomed and you came to deeply value their opinions, their counsel, and maybe even their approval.

MENTEES...

Being mentored takes an open-mindedness that can only be “heartfelt” and never "required."

It requires a blend of respect for the mentor and trust that when you expose your vulnerability (because you must in order to grow with the guidance of a mentor), they will protect it and won’t judge it, exploit it, or broadcast it.

MENTORS...

Being a mentor requires a sincere desire to help the mentee succeed. It requires seeing in the mentee that ‘special something’ that they want to foster. And it is not something that can be done half-heartedly. As much as the mentee must have genuine desire for the mentor's guidance, the mentor cannot fake or feign his or her role.

Mentoring isn’t something that can be done once a month over a lunch hour. And “progress” can’t be measured objectively. It has to be judged.

MENTORING WITHIN A FIRM

When a mentor and mentee work together in a direct or indirect reporting relationship (ie the mentor has influence over compensation and advancement), there are barriers for either party to be totally “real” with each other, not the least of which is a mentee's desire for advancement and the fear that weaknesses will be held against him at promotion time.

Further, when one’s boss is the mentor, a mentee can be perceived as “a pet employee” because the boss “protects” him or her (a natural role for a mentor). It doesn’t serve either person well among his/her peers when the mentor could be viewed as displaying favoritism and the mentee perceived as a brown-noser--a label which can be unfairly applied when a direct report becomes "close" to a boss.

Having a mentor within one’s company is risky and is generally not very appealing to the mentee. Selecting a mentor outside of one's company alleviates these concerns and provides a level of objectivity the mentee really needs from her mentor.

How the mentor/mentee are paired is becomes quite problematic. Assigning can’t work. That respect/care and trust/vulnerability has to be heartfelt and real.

Some firms think they get around this by "letting" their team members select their mentor from among the partners or managers.

What typically happens is that the same few people the firm are chosen by all, and nobody selects the others. Ouch. Feelings get hurt. And damage is done because it's apparent who's "looked up to" and who isn't. And the chosen few are overwhelmed and they really aren’t inspired to mentor a ton of people (if any at all). 

SEMANTICS?

It seems to me that firms are confusing apprenticeship, or the role of preceptor, with “mentoring.”

I don’t think these are the same as mentoring. I could be wrong. I think what you are actually wanting to accomplish is KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER.

Maybe all this is semantics, but it seems to me that words do matter. I think having a forced internal initiative that you call a “mentoring program” is simply fodder for frustration on everyone’s part. It's pretty much a waste of time and energy. And it's kind of insulting to boot.

In other words, it's very possibly delivering the reverse of the effect you desire. Most “mentoring programs” fall flat in firms--considered laughable by the team members and dreaded by the leadership.

It is probably transfer of knowledge that is the most needed and least attended aspect of the continuity of a professional practice.

INSTEAD

Instead, I would recommend one of two approaches:

1.  Do create a mentoring program but encourage people to find a career/business mentor “anywhere.”  Identify him/her, ask them to be their mentor (a good classic post on this over at Escape From Cubicle Nation), see if the person is into it, connect regularly, and then, in the firm, get together as a group periodically to discuss the experience and share a recent learning.

Perhaps if someone doesn’t want to seek out a mentor, perhaps they will seek out a mentee (again, “anywhere”) and they, too, can share their learnings. A purpose of this would be to show that you value REAL mentoring and that you believe it is important for everyone to have someone who is a career mentor for them.

2. Set up an “apprenticeship program” instead if that is what you are really after (teaching people judgment, behaviors and skills) and create learning goals and objectives. Again, transfer of knowledge is the most needed and least attended aspect in the professions.

Unlike a "mentoring program," an "apprenticeship program" doesn't imply that you have to seek a person's career guidance and advice, but it does imply that the junior person can identify traits and skills to admire and emulate from VARIOUS leaders in the firm. And leaders can identify, from each other, traits and skills to OFFER and give, as a gift, to their team members.

IN CLOSING

Successful people do have mentors (whether the mentor knows that s/he serves this role or not!). But they select their own or really just evolve into the relationship. It's actually a pretty natural behavior for humans and typically begins with admiration and respect.

Let's call things what they really are and work on knowledge transfer as its own effort without trying to force the issue of internal mentoring where it is complicated with politics. Mentoring is best left to individual choice.

Isn't Your Firm Blogging Yet?

According to LexBlog founder Kevin O'Keefe, 25% of the top 200 US law firms have blogs. From Kevin's report:

• 53 of the 2007 AmLaw 200 firms were blogging
• Those 53 firms were responsible for a total of 110 blogs
• 36% growth in last 6 months in the number of AmLaw 200 law firms publishing blogs.
• 49% growth in last 6 months in total number of blogs being published by AmLaw 200 law firms (some firms have more than one blog).

Kevin's excellent post features a link-love list of these blogs--check it out.

Blog growth is rapid among these big firms. But remember that lawyers have been blogging for years! In fact, the first to forge ahead were solos and small firms and we're seeing the same thing now on the accounting side.

A year ago, there were about 10 CPA or Chartered Accountant bloggers writing for the public (as opposed to each other. Today there are between 35-40 such blogs with new ones emerging weekly.

Wake up guys. Firms are doing this because it makes them more effective on the web. If your old website isn't generating "ROI" it's because it's old technology and dead end information. In other words, you get out of it what you put into it (energy-wise, not dollar-wise).

Social media is changing the B2B landscape. Lead, follow, or simply watch with envy...

Istan-beauti-ful

Had an amazing week last week accompanying Ron Baker (VeraSage founder) to Istanbul for a presentation to the Turkish Advertising Association.

Ron introduced Value Pricing in a presentation called Creating and Capturing Value to a group of about 80 people. These were ad agency owners and executives and I was delighted to see that the average age was probably about mid-30s, and women outnumbered the men in the room. As such, the concepts were well received. Many international agencies were represented.

What impressed me most was that the group didn't ask all the "how?" questions we usually get. Instead they asked really good "when" questions.

Of course people always want to know who else is doing this. No matter how long or short the list is, the audience is never quite satisfied with the answer. I'm seeing Ron's point that it doesn't matter who's doing it or not. If you know in your gut that the approach makes sense, why be concerned with who and how many are already doing this?

I'd like to think this question is because they're keen to position themselves for competitive advantage. But the reality is most who ask this are waiting for the others to leap first.

As Ron spoke, the audience was inspired with new methods of increasing the focus on providing value to their clients through innovation and creativity, and through aligning their work with their clients' definitions of success. Perhaps ad agencies are more inclined to adopt value pricing sooner than accounting and law because their career satisfaction is more tied to their creativity and effectiveness than their hours billed. I think they are hungry to align themselves with their advertisers.

I'm encouraged by the spirit of interest I saw. And there were several publications represented each of whom interviewed Ron. One was the Turkish Economist, another the largest Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, and the third, a key sponsor, MediaCat (site in Turkish).

It was an honor to be Ron's entourage on this trip. And I thank our fabulous hosts, Aygen and Alev in particular, for their warm welcome and thoughtfulness in every detail of our trip. Alev, our tour guide and a delightful lady, took this shot of Ron and I at a coffee bar where we had amazing Turkish coffees.

Productivity

An endless number of tools exist to help individuals and organizations become more productive. Like weight loss "solutions," most are a lot more hype than help.

There is, however, one thing that I have witnessed that really does begin driving individuals and groups to improve in their productivity:

Understood and applied facilitation skills.

We all despise poorly run meetings.We all see projects—or parts of projects—fall apart, slip through the cracks, or consume exorbitant time and resources beyond reasonableness. And we see groups come together to accomplish something and struggle to formulate an approach, much less execute it.

My two-year term on the board of International Association of Facilitators, as the US Regional Representative, is coming to a close in April. I will miss the depth of interaction with expert facilitators who teach by example how to maximize results within a given period of time. This wasn't really something I thought facilitation would teach!

One can learn some of this through formal training (more on that below) but I've learned even more from working with volunteers who lead or participate in the various committees of the organization. These people KNOW how to plan and execute. 

I joined IAF to get better at facilitating leadership groups. But in the four years that I've attended conferences and become involved in the organization, I've also been gleaning core methodologies for:

• time management
• task management
• project leadership
• maximizing participation from even the toughest of characters
• managing dysfunction in a group

This was all something of an unexpected find for me.

I expected to learn how to most effectively lead groups in participatory decision-making and healthy dialog, but over the last two years, I've also observed some amazingly skilled project managers guide committees (of scores of crazy-busy volunteers, mind you) through some really complex stuff.

I cannot think of a single firm that couldn't benefit from some skill-building in all these facets of facilitation. In fact, I think these should be core competencies of all leaders in all organizations.

Consider joining IAF and attending conferences of IAF in North America or elsewhere in the world and join Project Management Institute, as well.

This isn't a magic pill. If you're serious about getting the most out of yourself and your team, you need these skills to do so.

The Trick to Proposals is Knowing if You Should Even Do One

Just got back from teaching our Marketing Courses in Texas. Last Tuesday's class was on Proposal Systems and Processes.

Attendees are usually surprised when my class starts off with all the reasons for not doing proposals.

Personally, I hate RFPs, but responding to them is an essential part of doing business for many professional service knowledge firms. If you've got to do proposals, you might as well do them effectively, right?

About RFPs, Ron Baker posted at VeraSage the other day saying:

RFPs have become more commonplace as competitive bidding has replaced negotiation for price buyers.  It is as if dysfunctional buying practices have arisen to counter dysfunctional selling practices. 

Honestly, I didn't know Baker and I agreed quite so much on the topic of proposals. His post "RFPs and the Dreaded Winner's Curse" is a great read. He encapsulates my own philosophy really well (I swear we didn't even talk about this!):

Another strategy with RFPs is:  No surprises. Your potential customer should know everything in your proposal before you submit it. Gaining an understanding of your customer’s expectations, business model—how they make money—and how your company can add value is imperative to increase your odds of a successful proposal, one that will not suffer from the winner’s curse. 

Search for the differences that will ultimately be weighed in selecting a new supplier. If customers are worth bidding on, they are worth spending some resources on in order to improve your chances. 

Baker adds a list of eight hidden costs of bidding, with comments, from the book Co-opetition, by Adam Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff. The first two really hit home. Some of the others don't trouble me so much...

1. There are better uses of your time. Keeping current customers happy may be a better strategic advantage as opposed to chasing after other company’s customers. Attracting a new customer can cost three to six times more than holding on to an existing one, and the existing one is most likely less price sensitive.
2. When you win the business, you lose money. A customer won on price alone is signaling they have no loyalty, and will leave you once they find a lower price. Do not fall into the trap of thinking you can start with a low price and raise it later; the evidence is overwhelming this will not work, as once you set a low price you are rewarding the customer for beating you up in price.
3. The incumbent can retaliate. 
4. Your existing customers will want a better deal. 
5. New customers will use the low price as a benchmark. 
6. Competitors will also use the low price as a benchmark. 
7. It does not help to give your customer’s competitors a better cost position.   
8. Do not destroy your competitor’s glass houses.

If you want to save a LOT of time and grief, get some good processes in place INCLUDING a process to decide if you even want to propose at all. If you're a firm that doesn't want to recreate the wheel, you should check out my class! ;-)