Professional Services Marketing: How the Best Firms Build Premier Brands, Thriving Lead Generation Engines, and Cultures of Business Development Success, 2nd Edition

18

Value and Offers in Lead Generation

I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.

—Don Corleone

Most professional services providers seek to win clients based on delivering superior value, not on having the lowest price. (Caution: If you're the rare professional services provider who sells to win a client on lowest price, stop reading. This chapter is not for you.)

When you interact with a prospective client or send any message to a prospect, that prospective client is evaluating what it might be like to work with you and what you can do for his or her firm.

For this reason, you need to offer value directly in your marketing and selling efforts themselves. The goal is to help prospects to understand that working with you as your client is much the same as what it's like to work with you before they become your client—except, of course, at some point they start paying you for the privilege of your company.

A consulting firm executive once told us that he needed to get his prospects and clients to perceive that his firm was credible and distinct. A lot of professional services executives have this same thought, so they end up sending messages that say, “I'm credible and distinct,” “I'm trustworthy,” or “I'm innovative, yet solid.” They think, “If this is what our clients value, we need to tell them that this is what we're like.”

Sorry, saying it doesn't help much. If professional services firms want their clients and prospects to believe that they're credible and distinct, they ...