Why Your Firm Doesn’t Have to be Different

Source: Ric Payne’s Blog—Make a Difference

When prospective clients ask why they should engage you, do you feel the need to differentiate yourself from other firms? But are you different, and do you have to be different?

Rick Payne offers the following advice:

“Much of what you do places you in the commodity business and that’s perfectly OK. You don’t need to fight it, embrace it with open arms. Why? Because as long as your competitors continue to do what they’ve always done you have a fantastic opportunity to break clear of the pack not by pretending to do something different or better or cheaper but by consciously working on the experience your customers have when they deal with you. You may not be able to easily and significantly differentiate your product but you certainly can differentiate the process by which it is created and delivered together with its usefulness (read ’ultimate value’) to your clients.”

Here are some ways you can modernize your firm and stand out. Ric Payne says you should do this every three to five years:

• Re-design your brand, logo and brochures. Make sure they tell who you are, what you do, and how your clients will benefit.
• Re-design your Web site.
• Renovate the reception room. Install a flat-screen monitor and run a PowerPoint slide show about your firm.
• Change your coffee cups, glasses, etc. Serve espresso coffee.
• Revamp your newsletter—make sure it tells people about things in which they have an interest—not about recent tax law changes.
• Present two seminars a year.
• When you deliver financial statements, do so at meetings with clients and spend most of the time talking about the future rather than historical numbers.
• Visit your clients more frequently. Set up a client advisory board.
• Get ideas from your staff on how to better serve clients. Give them a questionnaire to complete.
• Clean the office of clutter.

Read Ric’s complete blog entry, “It’s Probably Time to Give Your firm a Makeover. Here are a raft of things you can do right now,” August 10, 2008, by clicking here.

From Ric Payne’s Blog—Make a Difference, http://principa.net/blog/index.php.

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