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Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus is a book written by relationship counsellor John Gray. The book states that most of the common relationship problems between men and women are a result of fundamental psychological differences.

Sometimes I wonder if this analogy can be applied to sales and marketing practitioners and our engagement with fee earners within professional services firms. I am not suggesting counselling, but if there is a divide within these firms, I believe it can be bridged through greater role clarity, a little choreography and a conscious combination of thought leadership and the Challenger Sale process.

Thought leadership and the Challenger Sale

Content marketing is the topic de jour in an age of brand building via social media. In the Professional Services Marketing Handbook, published by Kogan Page, I argue that content can do much more; by building brands and acting as a catalyst to conversations with clients. Compelling content should be seen not as an end in itself but as a social lubricant for client engagement. In the end, conversation is king.

Thought leadership was a term first coined in 1994 by Joel Kurtzman as editor of the Booz & Co magazine Strategy & Business. Thought leadership equates to new, important ideas that are worth sharing because they have real application, he said.

In The Challenger Sale Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson propose that success in complex B2B sales comes through teaching, tailoring and taking control.

Teaching they say best takes the form of a challenge, based on a deep understanding of a client’s business. The best sales people, Dixon and Adamson propose, are not afraid to share even potentially controversial views.

In the context of professional services, the Challenger Sale model has real application, given many fee earners can at times feel compelled to bring particular issues forward to clients. If they don’t, they could even be deemed to be negligent.

To teach and to tailor requires individual engagement with a client, and this is best done via a conversation, face to face and one to one.

Content as a social lubricant

Professional services marketers often have to deal with fee earners who resist and avoid making personal contact with clients, happy to wait for the arrival of the Request For Tender. Alternatively, “selling what you make” approaches and bluntly asking for work can also be observed. As usual, there is a third way…

A thought leadership approach can be used as a legitimate reason to contact clients and to engage in a deeper conversation about likely challenges and issues.

All the data and client verbatims reinforce the fact that clients want their service providers to proactively bring forward valuable ideas.  They actually want well thought through, unsolicited proposals that could potentially solve their problems.

“To really win their loyalty, forget the bells and whistles and just solve their problems,” Matthew Dixon, Karen Freeman, and Nicholas Toman argue in their ironically titled Harvard Business Review article “Stop trying to delight your customers.”

The right content, framed in the right way, can indeed be a catalyst to a conversation with a client and work winning.

Of course, content can build brand too

The basis of a content marketing approach is often to build brand and reputation. And this is of course a very valuable thing.

Content marketing combined with digital strategy can be very powerful, especially for a new firm in new markets when reputations need to be built.

Great content can do all of this and more. “More” equates to taking the next step through the sales funnel, in fostering and enabling face-to-face, genuine engagement between fee earner and client.

Imagine being famous not just for your content but for your client focus, partnership approach and proactivity in bringing forward valuable ideas.

Imagine your go-to-market strategy being the basis of your brand.

The marketer as choreographer

The role of a marketer in professional services firms is a challenging one. This is what makes it so interesting.

We know that the more our people get in front of clients, the more they will win work. As marketers we can provide the reason for that meeting of the minds.

Models such as the Challenger Sale process, combined with content marketing approaches can help marketers to teach, tailor and take control within their firms, to help build reputations and win work.

Leading from behind

As professional services marketers we have the privilege of working with some very smart people, people who are trusted advisors to a range of clients.

Our challenge then is to influence influential people. In attempting to drive change and a sophisticated thought leadership-based sales process, we must ourselves become trusted advisors, walking the talk on thought leadership, relationship building and value creation.

Success requires marketers to be leaders and facilitators of change, pursuits, content generation, client engagement and the implementation of an integrated work winning framework.  You should expect to be challenged along the way but if you can connect the dots, rewards, both personal and professional, can be plentiful.

In a quote which surely could have related to professional services marketing, Nelson Mandela tells us how to pull all this off when he said: “It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.”

This article was first published in PSMG magazine.