Betting it all on black

At some point, early in your journey of running a consulting business, you'll receive a call that goes something like this:

"Hi [your-name-here], this is Sidney from the Mobilesphere 3.0 [Conference/Magazine/Tradeshow], and we're running a promotion rate on [booths/ad space/paid speaking spot]. For $10k, you'll get [booth/cheese-tray sponsorship/etc]. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to showcase your brand in front of exactly the right set of buyers. What do you think?"

You, who is just starting to market your practice in earnest: "Umm, that's a half of my yearly marketing budget"

Sidney the Sales Guy: "Sure, but Mobilesphere 3.0 brings everyone in the industry together. Who would you most like to meet? If you were to meet them, what would that be worth to you? What's the value of just one contract for you? Do you think you'd be able to close just one deal if you were to meet the right person? The $10k is going to seem like a small investment".

And now you're starting to think "yeah, maybe he's right. $10k isn't that much when we're selling $100k projects. We just need to start getting our name out there".

I'd like to think I'm the only one that made this mistake (ok... early on, I made it more than once), but every time I go to a trade show I see dozens of lonely looking consultants standing at booths, and every time I open a trade rag I see adverts for a number of services firms, and don't even get me started about the airport billboards ("all of your clients fly often, don't they?")

Unfortunately, the odds of one of your customers, a VP or C-level executive, wandering around a trade show, who just happens to have a problem that needs solving, looking for someone exactly like you, with a 6 or 7 figure budget burning a hole in their pocket, bumping into you and hitting it off is... low. Lower than low, in fact.

Unlike a product, which you can usually try before you buy, engaging a consulting firm is a high-stakes game. Typically your clients aren't coming to you until the shit has really hit the fan, they've exhausted other options, or they are in a crunch. And your client's reputation is on the line in hiring you. Marketing your practice is a process of building trust, and of giving before you get. There's no one magic trade show, or ad, or neon billboard on [101/405/i-95] that is going to send people knocking to your door.

They say that your prospective clients need to hear about you seven times before it registers, and I believe that you need to be giving them something of value - something that reinforces you as a go-to firm - at every one of those seven steps, and they all need to connect. The blog you write leads people to a more detailed white paper, which leads to a webinar, which brings an audience to a live seminar, then to a no-strings-attached consultation. That means taking the time to develop a marketing strategy where each tactic connects and builds on one another, and positions you as an expert who's ready when they need you.

What consultants can learn from their mechanics

As consultants, we're immersed in our field day in and day out. Whether we're giving tax advice or designing software, we're experts and we love what we do. But, it's easy to forget that our clients don't live and breathe tax law, or software design, and they need us to be patient and help guide them through the process.

I'm always looking for examples in other industries for ideas on how we can improve our customer service. I realized after some great, and some really bad, experiences dealing with auto mechanics that there's a lot I can learn from how they treat their customers.

I'm going to exclude the truly bad mechanics - the ones that rip you off and misinform you. Let's start with the assumption that, as you do, they know what they are doing and are considered experts in their field.

The curmudgeonly master

This category of shop may be experts in what they do, but they are impatient and insensitive. They take your keys, they drum their fingers and look right through you while you explain what's wrong, and say "we'll call you later". When you go to pick up your car, it may or may not be ready. When you ask what they fixed, they impatiently blurt out some technobabble "your injectors were only pulsing at a wavelength of 11.5ms, causing a lean condition not optimized to the stochimetric ratio, thus igniting unburned hydrocarbons in your down-pipe, so we realigned the warp core matrix and optimized the tachyon beam to 1.1 gigawatts."

These guys might be the best Volvo specialists in the county, but you dread going there, and only do so when you are really stuck. So does everyone else. The owner complains that their business is up and down, and grumbles about disloyal customers that get their oil changes done at Jiffy Lube and only come in when something is really wrong.

The mass market generalist

The vast majority of auto mechanics - the service center at your dealer, the chain-store muffler shop, are clean, mass-market shops. They have enticing specials to get you in the door, a helpful person at the counter to check you in, and a comfortable lounge with wi-fi. But you get the sense they are trying to get you in and out as quickly and efficiently as possible, and you never really get a clear answer on what's being done or why. Most of them spend a lot of money on marketing to get new customers in the door - coupons in the paper, telesales people to call on people who just bought a new car to remind them to come in for an oil change, a cappuccino maker in the lounge, and "service managers" to take down all your information for their CRM system and to insulate you from the experts in the back-shop. They put a lot of emphasis on the upsell - "Would you like us to add a paint protector? What about new wipers?" They do a decent business, but their only loyal customers are the ones who don't have an alternative.

The empathetic expert

This is the guy that always seems to be busy, yet always finds time for you. When you come in with a problem, the manager or owner greets you at the counter and takes the time to listen. Right then and there, he'll go out to your car with you for a preliminary diagnosis. He tells you, in plain language, what might be wrong and books you in for a more thorough investigation. When they find the problem, he calls you back, and invites you back to the shop to look at the car and explain what the problem is. He gives you his professional opinion, empathizes with the fact that it's expensive, gives you some alternatives, answers your questions, and waits patiently for you to decide what you want to do. When the job is done, he saves the part to show you where and how it failed, and how you can prevent it in the future. A week later, he gives you a quick call to make sure everything is ok and ask if you have any questions. He gets to know your car, and your preferences when it comes to how you maintain and care for your car.

His customers are fiercely loyal. They tell everyone about what a great shop he has, they post raving reviews on Yelp, and they carry ten of his business cards with them to give out to friends. His shop is always fully booked, and his customers rarely haggle on the price. People who have long since moved out of town drive 20 miles out of their way to get their car serviced there.

The takeaways

In How Clients Buy: 2009 Benchmark Report on Professional Services Marketing and Selling from the Client Perspective, 40% of 200 buyers of consulting and professional services encountered service providers that did not understand their needs; and 32% said that the service providers did not convince them of the value they would receive from the service provider.

Consulting and professional services is highly competitive. Just as every city has dozens or hundreds of mechanics, every city has dozens of software consultants, lawyers, accountants, and pet psychiatrists. Expertise isn't enough. Even being the best at what you do isn't enough. To build lifetime customers, you need to listen with empathy, be available when they need you, involve them in key decisions, explain in plain language what you are going to do, get to know their business, and keep them in the loop on your progress. Master this, and you will set yourself apart from the majority of consultants and professional services firms.

There's a saying about professional services I once read that goes something like this: "No-one cares how much you know until they know how much you care."