Editor's note: This article is based on and excerpt from Online Marketing for Professional Services, published by Hinge.

The most fundamental tenet of professional services marketing may be trust. How can you expect potential clients to retain you if they don't trust you? You can't.

Conversely, the pinnacle of professional services marketing is achieving the status of "trusted adviser"—that magical point in a relationship where your client instinctively turns to you for advice on problems that lie, even remotely, in your realm of expertise.

How can you achieve such a lofty status?

Obviously, you have to prove yourself trustworthy. But before that can happen, you first have to get the clients. Historically, that's started with developing a relationship.

Golfing for Clients

When you talk about a relationship, most folks think face-to-face interaction. And for most of human history that's how relationships have been developed.

In the world of professional services, business development has translated into countless networking events, memberships on the boards of nonprofits, industry trade association conferences... and, of course, golf outings.

Familiarity comes first. From there a cordial personal relationship develops along with exposure to your professional expertise. All of that eventually leads to trust. And only thereafter does the business relationship develop.

This traditional model looks something like this:

Meeting > Personal Relationship > Familiarity with Expertise > Trust > Client

This tried-and-true formula has worked for many years. And it still works today. But this approach has a few problems.

  • First, it's slow and labor-intensive. Developing personal relationships takes time. Board meetings, conferences, networking receptions and other face-to-face techniques require significant investments of time from senior people. Consequently, these activities are very expensive, and there is a limit to how much of it any one person can do.
  • Second, face-to-face client development can be hit-and-miss. You may be at the right networking event, but you may not happen to run into the one person who needs your service. Business development can therefore seem accidental and unpredictable.
  • Finally, it tends to be focused locally. Sure, you can go to national and international conferences, but most networking has a decidedly local orientation.

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The Two Paths to Trust in Marketing Professional Services

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lee W. Frederiksen PhD, Sean T. McVey, Sylvia Montgomery CPSM, and Aaron E. Taylor are the authors of Online Marketing for Professional Services, published by Hinge.