Randy Shattuck is a marketing advisor to mid-sized professional services firms. These firms are big enough to have a dedicated marketing team but not have a dedicated sales team.  In these organisations, the Experts get help but ultimately they need to catch their own dinner.

This is often made more difficult by the small degree of differentiation between marketing approaches between professional services firms.

Randy is worth listening to across the board but I was particularly struck by the two ideas below, both of which I have tried and failed to express clearly to our clients in the past.

The first is that 'Pre-suasion' - as Dr. Cialdini puts it - is becoming increasingly important.  Get your stakeholder on-side before you meet - and use content to do it. At our previous business, we would have to fly around the world to meet with the key people. If the meeting went well it might be a half million dollar contract - or nothing if not. A very stressful, and not efficient, way to do business. Much better to butter them up in advance - and modern internet provides a variety of channels to do just that. 

The second and connected point is that you can use Thought Leadership to 'filter out the wrong clients'. I like his idea of the 'wrong clients' but it suggests that they are wrong for everyone. Certainly, there are horrible companies with horrible cultures, but mostly it is simply that your world-view's do not mesh. 

In business, as in friendship, it often easier to work with those who share your values (if not opinions). Companies who align will be drawn towards you, others may be repelled - by your thoughtful, industrious and pleasant chat! But then, did you want them anyway? 

I suspect not.