Quality at Ground Level

One of the most important axioms I ever learn about professional services marketplace leadership was from Carl Bochmann, a former Booz Allen Hamilton partner, who taught me that "quality is your best salesperson...."

No matter which professional sector I've advised, be it accounting or executive search, management consulting or architecture, or any other, this lesson applies. It also applies to my own firm.
It's especially painful, then, to watch the unfolding events related to Boston's Big Dig. A week ago, last Monday night, 12 tons of cement from one of the Big Dig tunnels collapsed on a vehicle, killing a passenger. The Massachusetts Attorney General is calling this "a crime scene," and "Reilly's office already has begun issuing subpoenas to those involved in the design, manufacturing, testing, construction and oversight of the panels and tunnel."
You can imagine the unbelievably negative marketplace reputation that will be assigned to the many professional firms that were involved in this huge project. Your firm -- and mine -- might feel somewhat smug, that at least our work doesn't result in people dying! But one need only look as far as Enron and Arthur Andersen to be reminded of the massive marketplace shifts that occurred after that scandal -- and those that we are still feeling.
We could be at the early stages of seeing this happening again in the design, engineering, construction and construction management sectors.
I don't care what your profession is, or how clever your marketing strategy might be: quality has got to figure on your company's ground level.

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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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