Positioning Your Firm
By David C. Baker

Positioning your firm is one of the toughest challenges you’ll face. In fact, that struggle can lead to some introspection: “I’m in the business of positioning, right? Then why is it so hard to do it for myself?” The best surgeons don’t operate on themselves, though, perhaps because they couldn’t remain objective during the pain!

In some form we often hear clients say: “What exactly is it that we do? And what competitive advantages do we really have?” A common result of this vacillation and uncertainty is the lack of appropriate selling tools; not because the firm isn’t skilled at creating them, but because marketing forces positioning. It all leads back to what you want to be when you grow up, and then how you want to be different from everybody else who has grown up.

Why else do we use the word “branding”? Until marketers took it over, branding referred to the “searing of flesh with a hot iron to produce a scar with an easily recognizable pattern for identification.” It was definite and it was permanent. In our diluted use of the word now, we are thinking more of appliqués that can be color coordinated with our clothes, varying the package from one situation to another.

Adaptable positioning makes sense until you realize that prospects smell lack of direction. They read it as desperation. Which translates into low demand. Subconsciously the prospect wants to know that you’ve worked out your positioning before they reveal what they need. So unless they see it in your materials, they’ll think of you as a generalist. And working with a generalist is generally a compromise for which they are not willing to pay full price.

The essence of branding is two-fold: differentiation and consistency. The first part (differentiation) is easy until the realization that this differentiation must be consistent over long periods of time. (In fact, an environment with strong merger/acquisition activity dilutes brands for this reason.) In other words, any given positioning must work now and into the indefinite future, or it is not a good choice because it is impossible to solidify a position without time. We often concentrate on current points of differentiation without thinking about the long term implications of sustaining them.

Short-Term Positioning

For example, if a firm is founded by a principal who leaves another firm (vs. starting one straight out of school), the new firm will invariably be searching quickly for a positioning that sets it apart from the firm the principal just left. To make this work, the principal (in a euphoric, entrepreneurial mist) will land on a positioning that is true but is not necessarily sustainable. You’ll hear the following:

• We’re more responsive. We’ll be more flexible and attentive to your needs since we know that this is a very different business world. If you need it, we’ll do it. You may be content with your provider, but next time they can’t deliver what you need, give us a chance to show our stuff.

• We’re more cost-effective. We are interested in making money, but there’s no need for you to pay for all the overhead associated with that formerbigpantsfirm. Let’s just agree to put all the money we can into results for you. You may be content now, but at least let us pitch the next big deal.

• We’re more direct. Adding all those layers between you and the person really doing the work slows things down and contributes to lack of clarity. There’s no need for you to work through translators. Only senior people will be working with you.

Unsustainable Positioning

It may be true that your new firm provides work in a responsive, cost-effective, and direct environment, but you cannot effectively use these points to position your firm over time, for three reasons.

First, because responsive is code for “quick,” cost-effective is code for “cheap,” and direct is code for “small.” That is how clients read these repeated assertions. In fact the qualified prospect shudders when they hear anything that smacks of “direct.” To them working directly with the person doing the work (vs. a professional interfacer) is a compromise, because often that person a) is not as strategic, b) is not the best communicator, c) over promises, and d) is too close to their work.

Second, there will always be some firm willing to do it quicker and cheaper.

Third, these three points are not easily demonstrable at the outset of a relationship. Your positioning must be apparent, obvious, and provable.

It’s not that clients don’t want you to be these things. They appreciate your responsiveness, your cost-effectiveness, and the directness (to some extent) of the working relationship. But these should be viewed as ways to keep clients, not attract them. In other words, they should come to you for different reasons—they’ll stay with you for these reasons.

Here’s the irony. The motivation for your positioning, whatever it may be, is to get more work. But this well-intentioned desire to get more work seeps out, and potential clients are pushed away rather than snagged. They smell need.

To see this in action, randomly review some web sites for public relations, advertising, interactive, and design firms. You’ll notice that the bulk of them have a “scatter list” of all the industry types they have touched, and all the things they have done for these clients. The hope, of course, is that the prospective buyer will see something they can identify with and pick up the phone. Instead they move on, looking for a more compelling story. Or, if they are not sophisticated, they’ll take the bait and proceed to demand quick, cheap, and direct service.

David C. Baker is the principal of ReCourses, Inc. The content of this column is based on an article that originally appeared in Persuading.