Interview With Service Marketing Thought Leader, Mike Schultz

This morning I had the privilege to have a great telephone discussion with Mike Schultz, the founder partner of Wellesley Hills Group, a Framingham, Massachusetts-based consulting firm specialising on helping professional service firms to better market and sell their services.

But Wellesley Hills is more than a plain, pedestrian, garden-variety consulting firm plodding through life project by project. It's really a think tank.

Mike is also one of the co-conspirators behind RainToday, an online knowledge repository for professional service firms.

The topic of our discussion was Mike and his partners' recent research study, entitled "What's Working in Lead Generation."

The report categorises professional firms into four groups in terms of their ability to generate high quality sales leads: Excellent, good, fair and poor.

One big difference between the two opposing ends of the scale is that 91% of the excellent firms know the decision-makers by name, so their first contact may be cold, but they have the advantage of being able to address the buyer by name.

In case of the fair and the poor group, only 13% of them know the names. Most of their contacts are made with nebulous entities like "Dear Sir", "Dear Madam" and "Dear President." of course, if you are not addressed by name, why should you respond.

The other distinguishing factor is that firms in the poor and fair groups are prospecting for instant sales.

The other interesting finding of the report is the three most effective ways of generating quality sales leads are...

1. Making warm phone calls to current contacts
   
2. Speaking at conferences and trade shows
   
3. Running your own in-person events
   

And the top 3 ways to generate quality leads are

1. Client / partner referrals
   
2. General Referrals
3. Cold Calling / telephone prospecting

And here is the kicker. Another study from Mike, entitled How Clients Buy, proves that direct mail is the most effective way of getting butts to seats. Yet what do you hear from most consulting firms? "Direct mail doesn't work in our industry." And they repeat this idiotic phrase like demented parrots in spite of the fact that several of their competitors are successfully using direct mail.

They blame the direct mail method, although the problem lies in their own inability to properly apply it to their businesses.

The other important point is to understand and apply the two-step lead generation process. First we have to offer something valuable and only then we can expect people to give us their money.

And here lies the difference between hunting and fishing...

When hunting, people chase their preys and kill them individually. The approach works if you try to feed only your family. But if your job is to hunt enough to feed a town of 100,000 people, then you've got a problem. In order to generate your "quota", you have to hire an army of hunters and manage them, buy them weapons and ammunition, not to mention that you have to share the catch with them.

On the other hand, fishing is drastically different. I used to be a fisherman, so gained some - about 10 years - first-hand experience. I would select a good location on a certain river or pond, and would start "feeding the location." I would feed the location to entice a large amount of fish. And the combination of the environment and the bait defined what kind of fish would come. I had a clearly defined "Ideal Fish" profile in mind.

And you know what? The fish came. After a few weeks of feeding, there was a preponderance of fish at the location. I would just sit down, cast my hook and pull out the fish. There was no chasing and no struggle. The process was pretty effortless. But it needed the foresight and the patience of only feeding but not fishing the location for a few weeks.

But it didn't work for everyone. Why? Because most people didn't have the time to feed the location. They wanted instant gratification. So, they were chasing the fish from location to location.

Similarly, this kind of magnetic lead generation, based on attraction, doesn't work for many consulting firms because they are too busy chasing and hunting prospects, a large percentage of whom are suspects. And every hunter knows that when you're chasing animals, they run away from you. Thus, when you chase prospects, they run away from you.

So, if you want to improve your lead generation and leave the dreaded feast and famine behind once and for all, then check out What's Working In Lead Generation.

Where Client's Ego Can Lead To...

The other day I was watching Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. The world-renowned Chef Ramsay tries to sort out a disaster-ridden restaurant, the La Parra de Burriana, on the Costa del Sol in Spain, run by a British guy called Laurence.

There are some major problems with the restaurant, but all the problems can be traced back to the owner's inflated ago. The basic scenario is that Laurence knows everything better than everyone else. The restaurant is on the verge of bankruptcy but Laurence still refuses to change his way of running it.

He has a 72-item overcomplicated menu prepared in a totally braindead way, and what makes the situation even worse that guests don't really like what Laurence and his "servants" cook in the kitchen in a rather haphazard, fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants manner.

Before opening, Chef Ramsay prepares an emergency menu in case Laurence's menu fails. Well, it's failing but Laurence refuses to switch over the Gordon's menu.

Instead of efficiently cooking fish and veggies in proper pans, Laurence uses a big dirty hot plate. And everything he cooks on it comes out less than appetising.

The guests are coming and the disaster is about to unfold. meals go out raw and messed-up.

Finally, when the shit seriously hits the fan, Chef Ramsay gets the go-ahead from Laurence on cooking and serving his emergency menu. He demonstrates to Laurence that cooking in pans is easier, quicker and more hygienic than cooking on the hot plate.

Yet, Laurence needs some heavy-duty convincing to buy into some of Gordon's "Best Practices", including but not limited to reducing the menu to a manageable level.

Eventually the egomaniac Laurence realises that Chef Ramsay is in his corner, trying to turn a losing restaurant into a winning one.

Do you have clients who're vehemently defending the status quo, although the status quo is taking them down down down?

They are like the charismatic, courageous military curmudgeon, Major General Ambrose Everett Burnside. He rather had his Union army slaughtered than admit his mistake and change tactics.

A short while ago I had a prospect who kept repeating her firm was the best in her area of expertise. After a few repetitions my red flags went up.

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't." - Former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher once said.

Similarly, when a prospect keeps repeating how amazingly successful her firm is, you can small the rat. After 14 years in business, she absolutely refused to do any other "marketing" than cold calling. So, after we decided not to work together on her firm's marketing, she hired a call centre in Pakistan, and now they are harassing the whole north America with their pitch...

"Hello. You don't know us, but we're leading HR experts. Do you want to hire us?"

How lame is this? And she's likely to spend the rest of her life cold calling to drum up some business.

So, be careful with egotistical prospects regardless of the amount of money they would pay you. It's just not worth. As clients they deteriorate rather quickly, so you'd better stay away from them.