Here’s what you’re looking for: Bruce W. Marcus

And why some ads don’t work.

By Bruce Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0

EDITOR’S NOTE: CPA Trendlines was privileged to have a long relationship with Bruce W. Marcus, who was ahead of his time in his thinking and practice in marketing for accounting. We are publishing some of the late expert’s evergreen work, which retains wisdom for the present.

Certainly, the current crop of ads tends to be better than the earlier ones, although we had such weirdies as “Accounting Is Our Passion.” (“Passion” is the current fad word). I thought passion to serve clients is more to be desired. How many words will be wasted to explain the link between their passion and their ability to meet your need?

MORE: Eighteen Things Advertising Can Do for Your Firm | How Hard Do You Work to Keep Your Clients? | When Clients Think They Know Marketing | How to Put Target Marketing into Context | Everyone in Your Firm Is Marketing | Accountants vs. Lawyers: Who Wins the Marketing Battle? | Professional Services Marketing Requires Flexibility
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Then there was “Financial Restructuring Without the Bitter Aftertaste,” for a law firm. The copy’s OK, but the illustration of three executive with faces screwed up (presumably from the bitter aftertaste) looks as if they’ve been drinking doctored Kool-Aid. Pretty inviting, isn’t it? A good rule is don’t try to be funny in public until at least six strangers, none of whom is related to you, laugh at what you’ve written. Nothing sours an ad more than unfunny attempts at humor.
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And five things it can’t, no matter how good it is.

By Bruce Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0

EDITOR’S NOTE: CPA Trendlines was privileged to have a long relationship with Bruce W. Marcus, who was ahead of his time in his thinking and practice in marketing for accounting. We are publishing some of the late expert’s evergreen work, which retains wisdom for the present.

Advertising, in professional services, has a strange history. More words, and more dollars, have been wasted on it, and less seems to have been learned from its mistakes than from any other marketing tool we currently use.

MORE: How Hard Do You Work to Keep Your Clients? | Four Things to Know About Social Media | Internal Communications Are Underrated | Four Things Better Than a Company Song | Let’s Lose the Word ‘Image’ | The Risk In Not Understanding Risk | What Your Marketing Program Can and Can’t Do | Nine Reasons That Prospects Say Yes | How Marketing Evolved to 3.0
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In the early days – the few years post-Bates (1977) – advertising was still anathema to law and accounting firms. Arthur Young was probably the first to do it after Bates, which was an exercise in courage (I was there – I remember) and then came Deloitte’s “Beyond the Bottom Line” campaign. The more likely scenario at the time was typified by the then-managing partner of Price Waterhouse, who said about advertising, “Over my dead body.” Now law and accounting firms, including its successor firm, PWC, spend millions. Marketing for professionals, as we know it today, didn’t come easy. I’m not so sure it’s much easier today. Certainly, getting it right in advertising is no slam dunk.
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Keep your clients out of the competitive pool.

By Bruce Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0

EDITOR’S NOTE: CPA Trendlines was privileged to have a long relationship with Bruce W. Marcus, who was ahead of his time in his thinking and practice in marketing for accounting. We are publishing some of the late expert’s evergreen work, which retains wisdom for the present.

The conventional wisdom is that getting a new client costs more than keeping an old one. And for once, the conventional wisdom is correct.

Yet, many professionals too readily take clients for granted. Or don’t look for opportunities to increase revenues from perfectly satisfied clients.

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What you need to know and why.

By Bruce Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0

EDITOR’S NOTE: CPA Trendlines was privileged to have a long relationship with Bruce W. Marcus, who was ahead of his time in his thinking and practice in marketing for accounting. We are publishing some of the late expert’s evergreen work, which retains wisdom for the present. 

Great turbulence in the accounting profession, as well as in the business world itself, make these difficult and unusual times. Public outcry against the misdeeds of a few accounting firms, corporations, investment bankers and others in government and the business community is tarring the innocent as well as the guilty.

MORE: How and Why Client Service Teams Work | When Clients Think They Know Marketing | How to Put Target Marketing into Context | Everyone in Your Firm Is Marketing | Professional Services Marketing Requires Flexibility | How to Set Marketing Objectives | Nine Fundamentals for a Healthy Marketing Culture in an Accounting Firm
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In the meantime, the loss of Arthur Andersen and the consolidation of the now Big Five can alter the competitive landscape for firms of any size. It’s likely that the major firms will accelerate a long-standing practice of reaching into the low end of the market – the very market of the smaller firms. For the smaller firm, competition will come from unaccustomed quarters.

Can the small accounting or law firm successfully compete? History says yes, if the firm follows at least some of the following points…
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In a sound strategic plan it’s the clientele, not the firm, that’s primary.

By Bruce Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0

EDITOR’S NOTE: CPA Trendlines was privileged to have a long relationship with Bruce W. Marcus, who was ahead of his time in his thinking and practice in marketing for accounting. We are publishing some of the late expert’s evergreen work, which retains wisdom for the present. 

It has long been the accepted tradition, in accounting and law firms, that what’s yours is yours and what’s mine is mine. In other words, “I love you Charlie. You’re a great guy and a great partner. But keep your hands off my clients.” And thus was the lie put to the myth of cross-selling.

MORE: When Clients Think They Know Marketing | Internal Communications Are Underrated | Four Things Better Than a Company Song | Let’s Lose the Word ‘Image’ | The Risk In Not Understanding Risk | What Your Marketing Program Can and Can’t Do | Nine Reasons That Prospects Say Yes | How Marketing Evolved to 3.0 | Accountants Don’t Sell Soap.
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But things change. For example, frank competition, once anathema to the professions, is now well woven into the fabric of professional practice. The nature of the clientele has changed, somewhat drastically. Today’s client rarely uses just one law or accounting firm, rarely accepts advice unquestioningly, rarely accepts non-detailed bills (and so will go, eventually, the billable hour). The day of the naïve client is now in its twilight.
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… but don’t. What they should know.

By Bruce Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0

EDITOR’S NOTE: CPA Trendlines was privileged to have a long relationship with Bruce W. Marcus, who was ahead of his time in his thinking and practice in marketing for accounting. We are publishing some of the late expert’s evergreen work, which retains wisdom for the present.

There’s a wonderful cartoon in which a guy in a business suit is looking over the shoulder of an artist at his canvas. The caption, spoken by the artist, is “I used to dabble a bit in accounting, too.”

Then there’s the guy who said to me, “If you’re smart enough to be a lawyer, then you’re smart enough to do your own advertising.” To which I replied, “Yes that’s true. You’re also smart enough to be a nuclear physicist – but it doesn’t make you one.”

MORE: Internal Communications Are Underrated | Manage Knowledge as a Marketing Tool | Secret Marketing Formula: Get One Client at a Time | Marketing a Fixed Position in a Moving World | How to Build a Marketing Culture | Have You Planned How to Service Your New Revenue? | Why Is Change So Hard for Firms? | Why Value Pricing Works | Why Competition Matters Most
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There’s the guy who read a book about tightrope walking. He knew everything about tightrope walking – except how to do it.

The point is that while marketing may not be nuclear physics, it does have its craft, its artistry, its techniques, its experiences and its history. And if you’re not within the realm of all those things and more, you don’t know much about marketing. Marketing mythology doesn’t count for much.
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