Over recent weeks, I’ve been speaking with business owners across professional services, health and wellbeing, and technology. Despite very different sectors, a consistent theme is emerging: Business feels harder than it used to. This isn’t perception. It reflects a real shift in the competitive business environment. Why Business Growth Feels More Difficult Today Several structural changes [...]
Professional service firms operate in a different environment from product-based businesses. You are selling expertise, judgement, and trust. Yet many professional service businesses unintentionally market themselves as if they were commodities. Accountants, HR consultants, lawyers, financial advisers, coaches, consultants and specialists often describe their businesses using very similar language: Experienced Professional Friendly Bespoke service Tailored advice [...]
Greggs recent H1 results once again beat expectations for both revenue and profit. The group is growing strongly and sustainably within a highly competitive industry. Recent growth drivers have been an increase in the number of shops, higher sales in the evening and continuing menu development. I have followed Greggs for over 12 years both as [...]
I belong to several networking groups and recently ran an exercise with members of two different groups on the benefits of business coaching. We discussed problems that business owners commonly face, looked at which ones caused those members the toughest problems and then discussed ways of improving their situations. The 3 main areas of concern for [...]
84% of people say they trust recommendations from someone they know (source: Nielsen – Under the Influence: consumer trust in advertising). This makes referral marketing one of the best ways to generate more leads and get more business. What is referral marketing? Referral marketing is a type of marketing activity which promotes your products or services [...]
A common belief amongst financial and other professional services, is that the only way to generate leads is through networking and referral marketing – both of these rely on building relationships, credibility, and trust. They are low-cost marketing methods which develop business opportunities and build a strong network of like-minded people, in the hope that these [...]
Referral marketing is promoting your products or services through word of mouth, usually, recommendations from friends or clients. In the past, referrals were the primary methods to attract new clients. However, there has been a lot of media coverage recently about the decline of referral marketing for professional services such as accountants, solicitors, coaches, consultants, etc... [...]
One of the things I love about marketing now is that it’s analytical. Conducting research is faster and easier. You can track, monitor and measure almost anything. Data can be recorded, processed and interpreted in a blink of an eye. For me, the whole reason for investing time and money in analytics is to improve your [...]
Traditionally accountants have paid scant attention to marketing, relying on word of mouth and, possibly, some local advertising. But the world has changed. More is being demanded of business owners and business owners are, in turn, demanding more. Many business owners used to be content with an annual visit to their accountants to get the yearend [...]
Business networking is hard work. You can be up with the larks, in breakfast meetings before 7 am, or out with the owls, so that you can fit your days’ work in the middle. It can be costly; some groups require joining fees, annual membership, and weekly meeting payments. Even if you only attend a pay [...]
