“I’m a lawyer, and I promise to work hard for you.” “We have the most professionals of any firm in the area.” “We have the smartest CPAs with years of combined experience.” Sound familiar? It should, because it’s the same messaging used to sell professional services for the past decade or so. And guess what? It’s just as ineffective as ever. Service professionals — like so many other services, products and specialists — are a…

I admit it. I am not a baseball fan. I was relieved when my sons declared they prefer to play soccer over baseball. Baseball games are long and hot, and, once the novelty of the hotdogs and popcorn wears off, you have hours before it is time to leave. Living in Washington, though, there is something magical about when a D.C. sports team does well, and the Washington Nationals’ bumpy road to its first World…

Nothing beats that rush of winning a new client. It’s the big payoff after hours of networking, persuading and marketing. But sometimes a win can also be the beginning of a significant loss. Let’s use a law firm as an example. Say a litigator at your law firm is retained by a company. The matter will take years to resolve, but your team is up to the task and quickly gets immersed in the facts…

Integrated marketing is the ideal — the method we all strive for in our practices. But the truth is professional services marketing is full of theoretical silos. These silos limit collaboration among different key players of the marketing team, which reduces efficiency and diminishes results. The more we can find ways to work together substantively across roles, the more successful our marketing strategies will be. Recently, Jaffe CEO Terry M. Isner and I presented…

Artificial intelligence, in contrast to humans’ natural intelligence, is quickly evolving in the world of computer science, transforming the way machines can perform human-like tasks. It’s being used in everything from ride-sharing to mobile-banking technology to medical diagnostics.  Artificial intelligence for public relations and marketing professionals is already helping to make routine tasks and jobs — such as posting to social media, automating emails, creating content, producing analytics, etc. — easier, while freeing up time…

“Business has only two functions — marketing and innovation.” ~ Milan Kundera Law firms today are increasingly looking at innovation to help distinguish their practice offerings, strategy, and leadership, and need inspiring marketing to develop meaningful campaigns that resonate with their audiences. Chris Cartrett, Executive Vice President of technology solutions provider Aderant, wrote in his article about big ideas in law firm innovation: “The firms that are most successful at adopting new ways of…

Peter Drucker, known as the founder of modern management, once said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” To Drucker’s point, if you are a professional service provider or a marketer in a professional service firm, you have to start viewing marketing and sales as both an art and a science. Oftentimes, marketers have an easier time with the art component, such as coming up with a creative campaign or creating an emotional…