Opinion
Why Do Some Firms Grow Nine Times Faster Than Others?
T
here is a group of professional service firms (PSFs) that grow nine times faster than the
average. They are 50% more profitable than the average. So, what’s going on?
Doing the research for the new Grow Your Service Firm book, it was easy to see that high performing service firms are the ones that have clients that believe in the business. The ‘positioning’
(and ‘targeting’) talks
to clients in a way that the client can relate to and understand. The firm understands the client needs, hurts and wants and has a solution. The likelihood is that the service firm is a specialist and not a generalist. That is the Grow Your Service Firm ‘ology’.
High performers have always had a particular profile; they have been identified as being different from the average. One of the eternal searches of small business research and economic policy has been to find and assist the high performers who create jobs with their growth. This has been a goal for policy makers and sellers of services to these gazelles or lions, or whatever you wish to call them.
“High performing service firms are the ones that have clients that believe in the business”
So, how do they drive their growth? They could just spend more on marketing and sales. But the high performers don’t do that; they just
become qualitatively better at the marketing and sales. Frederiksen and Taylor point out that the high performers do not spend proportionately the most on marketing and sales because they are already very good at it. They are simply more effective so don’t need to compete by spending the most. Obvious really.
“You have to create and communicate a clear positioning that demonstrates how you can help your target clients”
The high performers actually spend (slightly) less than average firms on their sales and marketing activities. The high performers’ marketing spend isn’t quantitatively higher; it is qualitatively better. They spend less and get better results.
Every firm says pretty much the same boring thing. Clients have switched off and shouting louder just irritates them some more. The days of interruption marketing are over: people trust referrals, recommendations, word-of- mouth and reputation way more than any paid-for sales campaign. In fact, most people believe that businesses lie in their adverts!
The high performers, meanwhile, focus on client needs and priorities.
They are not preoccupied with their own capabilities and expertise. They are not mesmerised by the reflection of themselves like some Greek myth. They focus their limited budgets on specific target customer groups and use a clear and easy to understand message. Simple really.
So, who is in this group of professional service firms that grow nine times faster than the average and are 50% more profitable than the average? How can you join them? What do you need to do?
The starting point I am afraid comes straight out of day one of your Marketing 101 class. You have to create and communicate a clear positioning that demonstrates how you can help your target clients… unequivocally. A totally compelling proposition becomes seductive.
As a starting point, ask yourself if you consistently communicate:
1.Your overt business benefit
2.The real reason you can deliver
3.The dramatic difference between you and your competitors
I meet very few service firms who have actually done this properly. As a result they deliver average results.
Robert Craven shows MD’s and owners how to grow their sales and profits and fo- cuses on how to do this in reccessionary times. Author of business best-seller ‘Kick- Start Your Business’ (foreword by Sir Rich- ard Branson) and ‘Grow Your Service Firm.’
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