Take Your Firm to the Next LevelLearn Management Articles on management-info.biz. Take Your Firm to the Next Level article will help answer your questions on Management Articles.We at management-info.biz specialize in Management Articles. Management Articles at management-info.biz provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
So you did such a good job in 2003 at bringing in new clients to your firm that you’re swamped with business, your firm is large and growing, and all parts of your marketing system are in place and running smoothly? Congratulations - you're off to a great start for 2004! If you can confidently answer "yes!" to the following metrics, then you’re ready to take your practice to the next level (and if your answer is "no," get back to basics at http://www.turningpointemarketing.com) * Is your firm’s mission perfectly aligned with your market? * Do your marketing efforts create exactly the relationship your customers most want and need? * Are your services well packaged, presented with a What’s In It For Me? punch, and priced at various levels? * Do you know exactly where and how to promote your firm’s services? * Does your marketing system routinely and predictably create the kinds of new customers your business requires? Even if these things are true for your firm, what happens next in many successful firms, however, is not good news. Instead of sticking with what’s created success in the first place, the focus shifts away from a marketing mindset. Instead of being an essential lens through which people in your firm view their role, marketing as an every-day focus fades from importance. After all, why continue to invest the time and resources on marketing when you’ve got more business than you can handle now anyway? And shouldn’t you spend time on what’s now important, like internal operations, serving current clients, and other more urgent priorities? The answer is an emphatic NO! Not only will you erode all the hard work you’ve invested to get to where you are, but it will be much harder (and expensive!) to turn your now larger and more complex ship around, once you lose that marketing mindset. The truth is, that once your firm gets more successful and, by definition, more complex, your energy and focus turn naturally more inward. As your business grows, it takes on a life of its own in the form of meetings, policies, training, politics, and reports. The larger your firm gets, the more energy is directed inward – it simply takes more planning, management, and systems to keep things running smoothly. So how do you keep your firm from being consumed with internally focused activities? By developing and executing a strategy that takes your firm to the next level. For specific tips on what to consider in taking your firm to the next level, keep reading... What are you and your management team doing to... 1) Keep your firm’s mission alive, real, and relevant in the marketplace. Think of your firm’s mission as the "magnetic north" in your compass. For everything you do, constantly ask, "what difference does this make in the lives of our customers?" If it makes no difference (or the wrong one), then why are you putting resources into it? Build this line of questioning into decisions you make and resources you allocate. 2) Create and maintain laser-like internal alignment with your external mission in the marketplace. Everyone’s job should have a direct connection to serving the customer. That means tying rewards and consequences to how everyone at your firm contributes to building client relationships. Even if someone has no direct client contact, they’re supporting someone who does. Connect the dots between what they do and what it means to the client. 3) Create new customers for old packages. Chances are, you haven’t saturated your current target market. Don’t let the basics that got you to your current level of success fade away. And what about new target markets? What successful services do you have that you could offer to another segment? 4) Create new services for old customers. Do a little research…ask people on your "front line" what they think your customers need. Ask your customers directly or hire an outside firm to ask for you. Find out why you won and lost business. You’ll be surprised, inspired, and motivated by what you learn. 5) Create new packages for old services. Take what you know or do and put it into a new format or offering. You can create workshops, CDs, e-books, mini-books, on-line content, workbooks, checklists, and more out of just about any professional content you know or work with. Think beyond just charging an hourly fee for your services. Turn what you know into a product by offering people helpful tools they can use. 6) Ensure you and your leadership team are role models for the rest of your firm on how to create lasting relationships. What behaviors, words, standards, and approaches create lasting relationships with both clients and employees? Make sure your senior team walks the talk and, if they don’t, fix the problem! If you can’t model how to create lasting relationships at the top, others are less inclined to do it well. 7) Deliver on your firm’s brand promise through solid practice management. The mark of a true professional is when your firm’s own act is together. It’s not enough to be experts in your field, backed by the credentials and experience that are important to your target clients. You must also engage in continuous learning about your profession, your clients’ industries, and how to professionally manage your firm. Your firm’s leadership must act as a role model for how you want to be perceived in the marketplace. Are these high standards to set for your firm? Absolutely. But then again, you’ve already proven you do the basics well. Resting on your laurels will only go so far. Sooner than you think, loosing your focus on marketing will put you back to square one, scrambling for clients and worried about cash flow. Except this time, the stakes are higher, your profile in the marketplace is higher, and you have a lot more to lose. So why go there? Take your firm to the next level, and be confident you won’t have to look back! We encourage sharing and publication of Your Monthly TurningPointe in whole or in part if copyright and attribution, including live web site link and email link, are always included. Please let us know where and when it will appear. Thank you! Advanced Dieting Secrets (tm) - Introducing a whole new type of diet system. * Taking dieting to the Next Level and beyond. Tri Swim Coach. - Swimming help for the beginning through intermediate-level triathlete. The Complete Guide To Triathlon Swimming. Article Index: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 |
More Articles:1. How to Sing the Song of the Unsung Heroes on Your Team By Susan Dunn This article is for you if you’re a behind-the-scenes kind of person – the admin assistant who gets the presentation ready for the guys in marketing but doesn’t get to go to the meeting; the PR pro who writes all their speeches and answers all the complaint letters for the president or CEO; the at-home mother who makes sure the concert pianist practices; the deputy chief whose job description is doing all the things the chief doesn’t like to do or can’t do; or the paralegal who prepares all th… 2. How to Make the Best of it - Take Your 'Weather with You' By Martin Haworth I once worked in a place where there were three lines of words, placed just before employees went from backshop to front of shop. These said:-Smile!Remember - you represent your CompanyDelight your customers. I realised I had choices right here.I could play a great part and have fun - make a customer's day (checkout this article here).I could show my feelings on the day and behave accordingly or...I could be charge neutral - a robot, doing my stuff - passing the time.Which one of those would b… 3. Problem Solving By Andrew E. Schwartz When problem solving, you may recognize that you were working on a symptom instead of the problem. An analysis of the more clearly defined problem may require an alteration to the objectives or the ideal solution. These reviews and changes are costly in terms of time and effort which emphasizes the need for rigid scrutiny during the initial problem definition to avoid wasted time and effort. Once implementation begins, it is even more difficult to learn that the entire action plan and subseque… 4. Effective Meetings Begin With a Real Agenda Everyone knows that an agenda is the key to an effective meeting. But an agenda that consists of a list of nouns, such as budget, software, and picnic, is useless. Here’s how to prepare a real agenda that puts you in control of the meeting.1) Goal. Every real agenda begins with a goal that describes the result wanted at the end of the meeting, such as: find a way to reduce travel costs by 10%. Ideally, this goal should be stated so clearly that someone else could use it to design a meeting that … |
||||
