The Hidden Dangers of Being Perceived as a Faceless Firm

by Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan, Organisational Provocateur

Ask most service professionals what the number one building block upon which to build their futures, and they will tell you: Mutual trust and respect.

Then look at their promotional materials (brochures, websites etc.), and you see a faceless monstrosity of a corporate entity without a shred of human touch.

Even solo practitioners 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 a multi-person, multi-office entity, 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 business-getter, we could rely on our “soloness” as a business-getter.

The fact 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 professionals believe that attachments to institutions are beneficial.

People say, “I've done my MBA in Marketing at Stanford”. Great institution. But they actually learnt the stuff to pass their MBA exams from individuals not from the Stanford institution. And who were those individuals? Have they ever done real-life marketing or only textbook buffoonery? Have they ever written a promotional letter that had to produce results or the client would have had some serious problems? Have they ever been expected to "create" money or they starve to death? Have they ever run a business outside their nightmares? It is easy to pontificate behind the protective shield of a secure job and a union pension (in Canada).

When it comes to building trust, buyers are more concerned with the individual service professional than the whole institution. That may come later or may not even come at all.

Yet, when you examine professional firms' materials, they 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.

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 can start building a connection, you read rubrics like how broke the president was when he started the business, how big is the company’s parking lot 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.

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.

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

The way I look at it is that if I want to engage professionals 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 person, and I don’t want to become an invoice number in the firm’s books. 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 are the people 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 professional services (experiences) is drastically different from marketing "things" (commodities), yet, when you look at many firms' promotional materials, you can see right away why they also complain about being perceived as a commodity. 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 am talking about real sample sessions. A session to which prospects come with signed cheques (of a nominal amount to indicate commitment), and at the end of the sample sessions 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. 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.

You can create a page for each person in your firm. 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 stuff. 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. Based on some articles I have read recently, it 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 business gurus.

So, then what is the logic for the small guy’s putting up this 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?

Recognise that you your firm is a team and include everyone, including the receptionist. I have seen websites 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 for them to start building a relationship with your people, so the more sold they get on working with you.

In any business – a million times over in professional service businesses – your people are your number one assets. Anyone can have the same furniture, same office building, same methodology 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 the firm.

So, in closing, here is my firm belief. If you want to work on high volume like a company selling commodities, you can stay invisible. 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".