The Amazing Story of High Growth, High Value Professional Services Firms

By Lee W. Frederiksen, Ph.D.

Today marks the launch of our new book, Spiraling Up: How to Build a High Growth, High Value Professional Services Firm. To say that the book is an accident is perhaps overstating the case. But this much is true: it is not what we set out to do three years ago. No, our goals were much more modest. We just wanted to grow our firm. And being marketers, we reasoned that the first thing to do was to look more systematically at our target client group.

That first study of 100 professional services firms started a chain of events that led to a book that describes an extraordinary group of firms that outperform their peers on almost every measure of success.  They grow 9 times faster, are 50% more profitable and command a premium valuation in the marketplace. And amazingly, they do it while spending less than average on sales and marketing.

We didn’t start out looking for high performers, nor did we have any pet theories to prove. We just wanted to see what our target clients needed. But as we analyzed the data from the first study, we came across a group of fast growing firms. We isolated what they were doing differently, but were left with a big question: So what?

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Is Your Professional Services Brand Promise a Lie?

By Lee W. Frederiksen, Ph.D.

Is your firm is living a lie? More specifically, is your firm truly delivering on your brand promise?

Your brand promise is what you promise your potential clients you will do. It is either explicit (“your satisfaction is our highest priority”) or implied by everything you do and say, from your tagline to the behavior of your business development team.

Now there are several common ways that professional services firms lie about their brand promise. The most common lie comes in the form of overpromising. Unfullfilled promises are all over professional services websites. Observe all the technical expertise, attentive service and the intense passion for solving clients problems. We are fortunate to be in an industry where everyone is above average! The unfortunate result of this flood of superlatives is that it all becomes unbelievable. Sad but true.

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The Differentiation Difference

By Lee W. Frederiksen, Ph.D.

Everybody knows that you’re suppose to differentiate your firm if you want to be successful, right? That’s what they teach you in business school. You’re suppose to reel off what makes your firm different as an integral part of your elevator pitch.

Apparently a lot of professional services marketers haven’t internalized that message. In our recently released research on high growth professional services firms, we found that most firms say they have a differentiator. But when they describe it, only about one in ten firms really comes across as different.

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