Making Rain: Our Young Professionals Best Practice Guidelines to Becoming a Marketing Superstar

Making Rain: Our Young Professionals Best Practice Guidelines to Becoming a Marketing Superstar:from Business 2 Community by Debra Andrews

In our recent blog post, Learn to Market Now! Why Young CPAs, Lawyers, Engineers and Other Professionals Need to Hone Their Skills from Day One, we stressed the importance of embracing marketing in the early years of a professional’s career. While many firms want their professionals to actively participate in marketing, company leadership sometimes fails to provide clear direction on firm expectations.

Many of the young CPAs, engineers, and lawyers that I meet with express a willingness and enthusiasm to work on marketing and business development, but they don’t know where to start.  A firm’s size, growth objectives, culture, marketing resources, and structure all influence how its staff can best participate. Unfortunately, there aren’t any “one size fits all” guidelines.

We have, however, put together the following best practice ideas based on our experience working with professional services firms:

The Early Years: Walk Before You Run – Years 0-2:  Ask your Supervisor about:

• Available hours to devote to marketing
• His/her thoughts about marketing

Become familiar with all of your firm’s differentiators, history, services and niches
Promote firm name and image through:

• Carrying business cards
• Linkedin Profile
• Professional headshot

Build Rapport with existing clients

• Personal interests of the client
• Common areas of interest
• Create a relationship at your level

Participate in any marketing and business development training sessions   Keep informed about clients and communicate positive, negative, or other newsworthy information to Senior Managers and Partners   Look for ways that the firm or the client can do the work more efficiently   Begin to create your sphere of influence:

• Join a Chamber’s Young Professional committee
• Connect on LinkedIn with professional friends and college alumni
• Get involved in your community

Read.  Read.  Read.
The “Teen” Years: Gaining Independence – Years 3-4:   Do everything from Years 0-2, plus:  Meet with Managers and Partners to discuss their clients and marketing activities   Make suggestions to Managers or Partners on client needs and new services that they might benefit from   Actively develop your sphere of influence:

• Attend Chamber or industry related events more frequently
• Set-up regular face-to-face meetings with possible referral sources
• Connect with all on LinkedIn!

Accompany Partners or Managers on prospective client meetings   Begin to develop areas of specialty and expertise   Suggest a topic and offer to write for your firm’s newsletter or blog
The Maturing Professional: Gaining Confidence – Years 5 and up:  Marketing should become a part of your day-to-day activities   Nurture your sphere of influence:

• Meet regularly with top potential referrers
• Review their connections on LinkedIn and ask for introductions if appropriate

Consider forming a Peer Group   Network at larger specialty / niche trade events for additional referral sources and prospects   Take a leadership role in civic, professional, and/or charitable organizations   Meet with your clients’ attorneys and bankers   Establish closer client relationships by actively networking with clients outside of work   Write for the firm blog and/or newsletter.  Don’t have one?  Get one started!   Seek out speaking engagements   Write articles and work with your marketing professional to get them placed   Update your professional bio on the Web and on LinkedIn to reflect all specialties and marketing activities   Nurture relationships with prospects by:

• Sending them thought leadership of interest
• Inviting them to lunch
• Connecting them to other interesting professionals

Develop skills on closing business through reading books / sales training   It’s always challenging to start something new, especially when it lies outside your comfort zone.  But it’s better to begin early on when most of your peers feel the same way than to wait until it is second nature to them and they are marketing superstars.  Use our best practice guidelines to build the skills and confidence of a rainmaker!