The Baggy-Pants Marketing Syndrome

The June 20 Wall Street Journal "Page One" featured a laugh-out-loud article, "Perpetrator Problem: It's Hard to Run Away In Falling Trousers"....

I loved reading the examples about cops catching the bad guys, who keep tripping while running away from the scene of the crime!
I'm not the only one who has wondered about the baggy-pants trend; how could something so uncomfortable, ugly, and yes, dysfunctional, become so popular? What kind of personal branding are droopy-pants wearers seeking with this kind of style? (I know, I know, if I have to ask, this branding is not meant to appeal to me!)
It probably takes a sick mind to think baggy pants are a metaphor for some of the obstacles in professional service firm marketing. But just think about it for a moment. Those droopy-drawer criminals are so enamored with their style that they prevent themselves from achieving their aims (purse-snatching, stealing DVDs).
Could your professional service firm be stuck in "baggy-pants marketing syndrome?" It is if you hear (or say) the following excuses:
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Marketing measurement is perceived as too hard, too costly and too time-consuming
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Our marketing leadership is new
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We have no strategic or marketing plan in place
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There are major differences in philosophy, opinions, and cultural approaches to Marketing
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Our firm is too small to have our marketing act together
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We have no marketing or Marketing measurement budget
I wish I could say I made these quotes up! These are verbatim comments taken from the 2006 research report, "Increasing Marketing Effectiveness of Professional Firms," that Larry Bodine and I published in February.
All of these obstacles may be reasonable articulations of real barriers that must be overcome. Obstacles are a fact of life in the marketplace for professional firms.
My main beef here is the complacent acceptance that "this is what things look like here." This excuse becomes the foundation for the myopia, inertia and lack of accountability that exists in too many marketing programs at firms in law, accounting, management consulting, architecture, engineering, and many more.
It's the same thing as wearing droopy drawers because you think they look cool. Everybody else is doing it, but when it comes to running, all you'll do is fall down.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Suzanne Lowe is founder of Expertise Marketing, LLC and author of The Integration Imperative: Erasing Marketing and Business Development Silos – Once and For All – in Professional Service Firms and Marketplace Masters: How Professional Services Firms Compete to Win. She blogs at the MarketingProfs Daily Fix and her own blog, the Expertise Marketplace.

Before founding Expertise Marketing in 1996, Ms. Lowe spent more than a decade leading the marketing programs for top-tier management consulting and business-to-business organizations. Before that, she spent more than a decade managing and implementing strategies for political candidates and organizations.

She spearheads the only widely disseminated research initiative on strategic marketing perceptions, practices and performance of professional service firms around the globe.

In addition, Suzanne Lowe has written or been quoted in nearly 100 articles on the topic of professional services marketing strategy. Her work has appeared in the a rel="nofollow" href="https://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/hbr/hbr_home.jhtml">Harvard
Business Review, BusinessWeek.com, CMO Magazine, Harvard
Management Update, and scores of profession-specific magazines and journals, including MarketTrends, Marketer, Marketing the Law Firm, Accounting Today, Engineering, Consultants News, Structure, Journal of Law Office Economics and Management, The Practicing CPA, Environmental Design and Construction, Massachusetts High Tech, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, and the Legal Marketing Association’s Strategy. She is a contributor to the second edition of the book Marketing
Professional Services, by Kotler, Hayes and Bloom. She has also been instrumental in the development, writing and publication of five books and nearly 50 articles and book chapters for her consulting clients.

Suzanne speaks regularly around the world to leading trade associations, industry groups and in-house firm audiences. Her work has also been presented internationally, most recently at the American Marketing Association's annual Frontiers in Services conference. She facilitates a Roundtable of Chief Marketing Officers from some of the world's largest and most prestigious professional service firms. She has guest-lectured at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and designs and delivers customized executive education programs in marketing for professional service executives.

She advises the leaders of professional service firms, from small start-up practices to large global organizations.

Ms. Lowe received a B.A. from Duke University.

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