Commando Consulting: November 2009 - Hidden Dangers Of Dodging Your People's Personalities In Your Consulting Firm's Profile

By Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan

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Have you heard that in Baldwin Park, California, it's illegal to ride a bicycle in a swimming pool?

It seems it's similarly illegal, or at least perceived to be illegal for consulting firms to add style, spunk and personality to their marketing materials, including their websites.

Most marketing materials of consulting firms look like almost identical, faceless - often useless - imitations, often with the very same stock photography images.

They carefully conceal their people's personalities, their consulting profiles, so potential clients often can't find out anything about their business personalities and consulting psychology until it's too late.

Is it then surprising that the market treats many consulting firms as lukewarm commodities without any business personality, and force them into bidding battles to sell their services on price?

But ask most consultants about what the number one building block upon which to build their futures, and they will tell you it's mutual trust and respect. But you can trust only a personality. You can trust only certain characters.

Then look at their promotional materials, and you see faceless monstrosities without a shred of business or management personality in them.

Sadly, what many consultants mean by professionalism is that you have to become a cold, stoic, faceless, apathetic-looking entity. Cut your people's personalities out of your consulting profile, and you'll be appropriately business-like.

And over the years many of the large consulting firms have become those faceless and personality-less monstrosities.

But what I've also been seeing is that clients are better connected to firms with personalities.

And Here Lies The Difference...

Many of the large consulting firms do business through competitive bidding to purchasing agents, and these purchasing agents operate on a "strictly business" basis. They don't tolerate personality because they're focused on price.

And that's all good for very large firms that make their money through competitive bidding and then overstaffing their projects to make up on competitive hourly rates.

But for solo consultants and smaller consulting firms there must be something in their repertoire that they can use to differentiate themselves.

Many solo consultants pontificate by using the royal plural of "we", and "us", trying to exaggerate the size of their firms, mistakenly thinking that if they are perceived as multi-person, multi-office entities, then they have a better chance to sell their services.

But they could also say...

"I am an army of one, and these are your unique benefits when you engage a lone wolf like me."

So, instead of relying on size as a client attractor factor, we could rely on our "soloness" as a business-getter.

The reality is that buyers are individuals and they can only build relationships with other individuals, and this is one more reason why size doesn't really matter.

Many consultants believe that attachments to institutions are beneficial.

People say, "I've done my MBA at Stanford". Great institution. But they actually learnt the stuff to pass their MBA exams from individuals not from the Stanford institution. The Stanford institution is merely an employer for those great individuals.

When it comes to building trust, buyers are more concerned with the individual consultants they work with than the whole institution. Trust in the institution usually comes later.

Yet, when you examine consulting firms' materials, most of them are pontificating about the institution. They recognise that their people are their most important assets, yet they leave these assets far in the background, and hammer their prospects with the "institutional hammer" like the nice scenery from the offices and the mahogany desk in the boardroom.

And even those are not real but some stock photography images their web designers had bought online.

Just imagine. You are reading the brochure of the Courageous Comrades Coffin Carving Corp., and instead of reading about the firm's people, so you could start building a mental and emotional connection with real people, you read rubrics like how big the head office is, how big the company's parking lot is and how meticulously the hardwood floor was selected from the reception room.

And of course the writer of the brochure also mentions that trust is the operating foundation of the firm. Yet when you're looking for that foundation that is supposed to create trust, you stay empty-handed.

So now after all this rubbish, you are expected to contact the firm at info@website.com.

So you are expected to build trust with a faceless entity and send in some of your personal information to somebody called "info". So, now trust goes down the drain because you have no idea who will read your "confidential" information. Wow, holy sausage.

Who the hell is "info"? Is it a minimum wage corporate slave in India?

We all laugh at this example, but this is exactly what you find on most consulting firms' websites.

The way I look at it is that if I want to engage consultants to help with certain issues, I want to trust the people and want to engage them, not the firm. That is I expect to have a one-to-one relationship with a real person, and I don't want to become an invoice number in the firm's books, although I know I will. I want to collaborate with Webster not with Webster Sponpule and Associates Inc. Can you sense the difference?

So, the question that comes up for me is where the people are behind these faceless entities, and why they are ashamed of promoting their own names and hide behind the corporate identity?

I think one of the reasons is that they feel they are more professional when using only the firm's name. Well, they may be more business-like (although I doubt it) but definitely not more professional. Business-like is mainly an external thing (How you dress for instance), but being professional is a state of being.

It is internal. It is the way of conducting yourself. It is about your integrity, trustworthiness, etc. The reason why it is a mistake to interchange the two is because when you get up in the morning stretching and yawning stark naked, you are just as professional as if you were fully dressed. You don't look business-like, but you are professional nevertheless.

In theory we all know that marketing consulting services (experiences) is drastically different from marketing "things" (commodities), yet, when you look at many consulting firms' promotional materials, you can see right away why they also complain about being perceived as a commodity and treated as fungible vendors by their clients and the marketplace in general.

But who the cricket has created that perception? And how can you establish a different perception? By earning your prospects' trust and allowing them to sample your services.

And here I am not talking about free consultation, which in most cases are extended sales pitches. I'm talking about real sample sessions. A session to which prospects come with signed cheques (of a nominal amount to demonstrate commitment), and at the end of the sample session you and the prospect make a joint decision as to whether or not there is a mutually beneficial basis for working together.

If there is, you take the cheque and lump it to the final payment. If you decide not to work together, the prospect takes the cheque and it is all over. So, prospects can actually sample what it feels like working with you. That beats any reference and testimonial hands down for references and testimonials are based on other people's perception. How can you create your own perception based on other people's perception? That is retarded.

So, What To Do Here About Perception?

You can create a page for each person in your firm on your website. I always suggest to clients that they make the top of their people's bios more corporate and then add an "On a Personal Note" section where they can put in a bit of personal information on that person.

People love associating with the personal sides of their advisors. It is just the part of life. Nobody believes that you are dressed in your business attire 24/7. So, show that you have a personal side. It certainly elevates trust to a higher level.

World-renowned professional service firm expert, David Maister, frequently describes himself as a "fat smoker", and extensively uses examples from his personal life. So do Tom Peters and many other highly respected experts. And this gives them a personal touch.

But then what's the logic for the small guy's putting up this pinstriped, stiff-arsed corporate image day in day out?

Also make sure you put ALL of your people on the website. Some firms have the partners and the management team on their sites, but how about others who work there? Don't they count? Don't they matter?

Isn't storage cheap enough to "waste" a few megabytes on the "workhorses" of the firm?

Recognise that your firm is a team and include everyone, including the receptionist. I have seen a website a few years ago with a dedicated page for the Vice President of Cleanliness. That was the janitor.

You can also include the most frequently used subcontractors you work with, some key suppliers (for instance, IT consulting firms).

Understand that the more prospects know about your people, the easier it gets for them to start building a relationship with your people, so the more sold they get on working with you.

Oh, and at this point prospects are not yet ready to meet your people, so don't force the appointment. That comes later.

In any business - a million times over in consulting businesses - your people are your number one assets. Anyone can have the same furniture, same office building, same methodology that you have. You greatest differentiating factor is your people.

It only makes sense to be proud of them and making them visible. If a buyer recognises your secretary's face in the supermarket, provided she is skilled in discussing possibilities, she can easily land new business for your firm.

Summary

My firm belief is that if you want to work on high volume like a company selling commodities, you can stay a cold, faceless and invisible entity as long as the corporation is known. Low price is low price. That can create enough attraction. You don't really care if you buy your bread from Tom, Dick or Harry. You buy it at the Bodacious Bumblebee Bakery.

But it is very hard to convince clients to plunk down premium fees in return for the privilege of being in the sales ledger of Faceless Fibula Fixers Inc. These people want one-to-one trust-based relationships with specific individuals, not only with "the firm".

"Dynamic Duo" Mentor Programme... ...has 3 openings for January and 5 for February 2010. Click here to continue to the fiendish details.

Recommended Reading

The White Paper Marketing Book: How To Generate More Leads And Sales With White Papers, Special Report, Booklets And CDs

By Robert W. Bly

No matter what kind of industry we talk about, the educational segment of marketing is becoming more and more important. And for that purpose, white papers are pretty much on the top of the marketing collateral pile.

White papers are the most read marketing materials among high-level decision-makers. Yet, they are grossly underutilised simply because consulting firms don't fully understand the impact these documents can create in terms of having their publishers recognised as experts.

So, instead of investing the money in a good writer, many consulting firms continue the old fashioned prospecting process instead of positioning themselves with great content.

Eccolo Media has just published a report on the validity of white papers in the business development cycle, entitled, Eccolo Media 2009 B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report.

Some of the main points are...

• White papers are here to stay in B2B business development. 84% of decision-makers rate white papers as moderately or extremely influential in the decision-making process


• White papers are considered as the most viral form of the most viral collateral materials


• White papers nicely differentiate respected experts from fungible vendors


• White paper consumption by decision-makers has increased from 68% in 2008 to 77% in 2009


• Audio and video white papers are becoming more and more popular too

The quality of writing sets the perception of the white paper. Based on the writing, the white paper issuing company can be perceived either as a proverbial Miss. Universe beauty queen or a $20-a-round hooker.

Bob's book nicely outlines the structure of white papers and also goes into the process of putting them out into your client generation system.

Anyone who is involved in writing white papers, I believe this book and Michael Stelzner's Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged are absolute must read materials.

Place your order with Amazon.com for The White Paper Marketing Book. You'll be glad you did.