Marketplace Masters: How Professional Service Firms Compete to Win

(Hardback)

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In today's knowledge-based economy, service professionals, such as consultants, lawyers, accountants, architects, advertising agencies, IT specialists, and financial advisors, face a dazzling array of opportunities and challenges. In order to compete effectively, they need a disciplined approach for detecting market shifts, harnessing their competitive advantages, and developing service offerings that will attract the most profitable clients. Drawing from a five-year study covering thousands of firms, Suzanne Lowe presents the three building blocks of a market-driven infrastructure - looking out, digging deeper, and embedding innovation - and identifies eleven core skills that any service firm can apply to master the marketplace and achieve lasting competitive success. Integrating insights from the fields of marketing, service management, planning, and entrepreneurship, and showcasing the successful strategies of such firms as Towers Perrin, DDB Worldwide, and Egon Zehnder International, Lowe shows service professionals how to gather intelligence about their clients, competitors, and marketplace; promote a market-driven culture throughout the organization; and engage in continuous research and development to introduce new services. Mastering these skills will enable readers to be better prepared to face changes in the market, and make decisive, informed decisions about opportunities that will prove right in the long term.

Reviews

.,."[A] 'must read' for leaders of professional service firms. One of the best researched books ever published on the topic of marketing professional services. Packed with practical insights and in-depth examples--read this before your competition does!"-Arthur Middlebrooks, Adjunct Professor of Marketing University of Chicago Graduate School of Business
.,."[A] must read for anyone working within the Professional Services arena whose firm is mired in marketing mediocrity. It affords the reader a thorough picture of the unique quantitative and qualitative marketing challenges experienced by Professional Service firms, as well as practical ideas and solutions critical to successful market-driven growth strategy. Though its in-depth research results and insightful, real-life case study examples Marketplace Masters provides a comprehensive blueprint to building a sustainable, premier marketing strategy for Professional Service firms."-Thomas A. Curtin Jr., Chief Marketing Officer The Segal Company
.,."[A]n incisive view of why professional service firms truly are different, especially in the strategy and new business arenas. It offers revealing insights on why these firms often struggle with the challenges of strategy, marketing and business development--in ways that are unique to the realm of professional services....It demonstrates the positive impact of foresight in strategic market implementation, and it backs up its conclusions with hard research and proven trends. Marketplace Masters is a must-read for any principal or new business leader in a professional service company that wants to improve itself or grow."-Al Potter, Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing Gilbane Building Company
.,."[P]rovides documented proof that successful marketing strategies will work in professional development firms. Her use of case studies from a number of professions lifts us out of our insular focus on our own industry and gives us direction."-Patty Grimes, Director, Client Services Torys LLP
.,."[R]ich with case studies, insights and practical advice for anyone seeking to upgrade marketing in professional service firms. While the distinctive culture of professional service firms has generally inhibited their adoption of systematic marketing techniques and processes, this book provides detailed examples of professional service firms that have recently bucked this trend and begun to improve their businesses through disciplined implementation of strategic marketing."-Paul Magill, Vice President, Marketing IBM Global Services
"A brutally accurate assessment of the Professional Services Industry. But wait there's more! Suzanne Lowe offers a cure. Read this one."-Tom Markert, Global Chief Marketing Officer ACNielsen
"Drawing on years of research and a rich array of case studies, Suzanne Lowe conveys the many marketing challenges facing today's professional services firms and offers insightful advice for overcoming them. Her argument that firms must go beyond image-based positioning and branding campaigns to truly differentiate themselves is compelling."-Ken Favaro, Chief Executive Marakon Associates
"Marketplace Masters makes a significant contribution to the professional firm marketing field by crafting a compelling case for the importance of research and analysis in guiding marketing efforts. These topics are not often addressed in other, supposedly comprehensive, marketing texts."-David Maister, Consultant and Author, Managing the Professional Service Firm
"Suzanne Lowe's research conclusion is right on the mark!...This book is a must read for all CEO's. Any professional services firm that makes the corporate commitment to embrace the practical concepts detailed in this book will leapfrog ahead of its competition by better understanding its markets and clients. The factual research case studies eliminate the excuses for avoiding that commitment."-George C. Friedel, Senior Vice President Parsons Brinckerhoff
"The Masters' stories are right on! I found myself having a favorite company with each story I read. Kudos for the groundwork in digging up and plowing through the hows of these successful examples from which we should all learn and apply."-Silvia L. Coulter, Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer Dorsey & Whitney LLP
"Marketplace Masters offers pratical advice for how to increase, in a systematic and disciplined way, a PSF's strategic marketing infastructure. The book's lessons are supported by 15 in-depth case studies, pulled from a variety of professional service industries: executive, search, advertising, HR consulting, legal services, information technology consulting, accouting, engineering, and market research. Furthermore, the insights and conclusions are supported by five years of annual research studies undertaken by the author's firm specifically on the practices of PSFs....[t]his book is geared toward and appropriate for professionals and practitioners; partners, owners, and executives in professional services firms."-Journal of Services Marketing
Marketplace Masters offers pratical advice for how to increase, in a systematic and disciplined way, a PSF's strategic marketing infastructure. The book's lessons are supported by 15 in-depth case studies, pulled from a variety of professional service industries: executive, search, advertising, HR consulting, legal services, information technology consulting, accouting, engineering, and market research. Furthermore, the insights and conclusions are supported by five years of annual research studies undertaken by the author's firm specifically on the practices of PSFs....[t]his book is geared toward and appropriate for professionals and practitioners; partners, owners, and executives in professional services firms.-Journal of Services Marketing
This book represents some great research. The material on the right way to achieve differentiation is worth the price of the book. Lowe provides ample evidence that the approaches to differentiation used most by most professional service firms are not necessarily the most successful approaches....The author's basic premise is that too many professional service firms are selling the same thing, the same way, for the same price. She claims that you can use the information in Marketplace Masters to move beyond your marketplace nearsightedness. I think she provides a good resource from which firm leaders can derive a better plan of action than they have now-if they have one at all.-Journal of Management Consulting/Consulting to Management
"This book represents some great research. The material on the right way to achieve differentiation is worth the price of the book. Lowe provides ample evidence that the approaches to differentiation used most by most professional service firms are not necessarily the most successful approaches....The author's basic premise is that too many professional service firms are selling the same thing, the same way, for the same price. She claims that you can use the information in Marketplace Masters to move beyond your marketplace nearsightedness. I think she provides a good resource from which firm leaders can derive a better plan of action than they have now-if they have one at all."-Journal of Management Consulting/Consulting to Management

Author Bio

SUZANNE C. LOWE is President of Expertise Marketing, LLC, in Concord, Massachusetts. An advisor, analyst, and writer on best practices and emerging strategies in professional services marketing, she has written or been quoted in more than 50 articles and several books in the field, and speaks regularly to leading trade associations, industry groups, and in-house firm audiences. Her work has also been presented internationally at such venues as the American Marketing Association's annual Frontiers in Services conference.