The Brand-driven Consulting Firm…

Ponte Vedra Beach, FL

November 13, 2014

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Polling Question…

To what extent would you say your firm has “a brand?”

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We don’t really have We have a brand. It has We have a very strong
a brand. It’s basically meaning beyond merely the brand. It differentiates us
our company name name of our company in the marketplace

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Myths I hope to debunk …

Brands are just for the big guys (McKinsey, BCG,

Accenture)

Brand is all about communications (logo, tagline,

visual identity)

Building strong brands costs millions of

dollars…takes many years

Being highly specialized is suicide for a small

consulting firm

If we’re small, it’s all about personal brands—not

the firm’s brand

Social Media is not relevant/effective in

professional services

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Recent FullSurge Research

Q: Compared to your competitors, how would you rate your

company’s brand-building capabilities?

A: A great deal stronger than our competitors

79%
more likely
to agree

B2B
>15% 3-year CAGR

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A brand is NOT

A Name A Logo A Symbol

A Product A Tagline An Ad

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A brand is…your strongest initial “reason to believe”

Relative Influence

Awareness Consulting Firm’s Brand

Consideration

Engagement

Loyalty
Partners’ Relationships
Advocacy

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A brand is…a filter for strategic decision-making

Questions Brand Strategy Filter Answers

High-growth, middle-
Which clients/prospects
market companies in
should I target? the technology sector

Business strategy,
What should my
supply chain, change
service offerings be? management

Highly iterative
What is my ideal
processes, deep
engagement model? client integration

High-touch, senior
What kind of experience
partner involvement,
do I want for my clients? knowledge transfer

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A brand is…the basis for operationalizing your strategy

Practice
Areas
Human Thought
Capital Leadership

Knowledge
Brand Expertise
Management
Strategy Marketing

Intellectual Client
Capital Experience

Market
Offerings

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Operationalizing brand strategy—Illustrated

Cross-functional talent capable of Proprietary IP and methodologies that
working with ambiguity and across are flexible enough to accommodate
complex issue sets… multiple (often conflicting) issues…

Lateral, big picture thinkers who Provocative points of view that

“connect the dots,” and see multi- challenge conventional wisdom and
discipline integration opportunities that break down artificial, cross-
not evident to others… functional silos…

“Comprehensive
Solutions…”

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Case Study

“How we’ve begun to build

our firm’s brand”

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Our Journey…
Brand Strategy
Target Brand
Selection Positioning
Voice of
the Client Brand Operationalization

Practices & Client Engagement

Diligence

Offerings Experience Model

Due

Pricing Content/A Performance

Structure ssets Management

Strategic
Intent
Go-to-Market Strategy

Professional Speaking Proprietary Content/

Associations Engagements Research Social

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Due Diligence
Client Interviews Strategic Review Mapping & Mood Boards

2014
FullSurge
Business &
Marketing
Plan

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Polling Question…

How would you describe your approach to “targeting clients?”

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It’s broad—we sell to So-so…we target It’s very specific—we
pretty much anyone companies, but not individual pursue certain buyers
willing/able to buy buyers (or vice-versa) w/in select companies

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Target Selection

“The essence of strategy is sacrifice”

—Michael Porter

Our Target Client

Sectors Companies Functions Levels Mindset*

• Professional • Middle Market • Marketing • VP and above • Obsessed

Services Businesses with driving
• General • Corp/BU
business
• Consumer • Fortune Management Leader
growth
Goods 1000
• Healthcare

*This dimension has the potential to trump all others

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Brand Positioning

Target Growth-driven brand and marketing executives

Frame of
Reference A strategic consultancy

Helps clients achieve enduring business growth through brand-building,

Benefit
marketing and innovation

Reasons To Strategy-first Zero-in on Dedicated, Flexible

Believe Philosophy on Issues that Senior-Partner Business
Brand Matter Most Teams Model
• View brand as • Relentless • Highly • Adaptable to
a lens for focus on only experienced clients’
business core business and engaged organizational
strategy issues delivery team realities

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Practices/Offerings

Brand Marketing Innovation

Establish and maintain Reinforce the value Ensure brands maintain
meaningful and long- customers see in your relevance, even in the
lasting customer brands and boost face of challenging
relationships financial performance marketplace dynamics

• Brand Positioning • Segmentation • Demand Generation

• Brand Architecture • Value Proposition • Product Development
• Brand Extendibility • GTM Strategy
• Brand Metrics • Experience

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Client Experience

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Engagement Model

Project Approach: Client Integration:

• Voice of Customer (VOC) • High degree of client
orientation integration (vs. “black box”)
• Iterative processes • Senior-level sponsor and
ongoing involvement
Staffing Configuration:
• Small teams of highly • 25-50% dedicated core team
experienced and deeply member
engaged senior partners

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Pricing Structure/Fees

Philosophical Approach: For Innovation Work:

• Price based on value of • Consider contingency-based
work to client (as opposed fee structure
to cost of work to FullSurge)
• Based on pre-determined
Terms: in-market metrics

• Fixed Fees based on • Accounts for downside and

agreed-upon SOW (as upside potentials
opposed to Hourly Rates)

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Content/Assets

Case Studies Articles/Papers Presentations

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Content/Assets (cont’d)

Blog Guest Posts

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Performance Measurement

Behavior Metrics Perception Metrics Performance Metrics

Articles/Papers Awareness Revenue

Presentations Consideration Profitability

Intellectual Property Brand Associations Bus. Development

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Go-to-Market Strategy

1 2
Professional Speaking
Associations Engagements

3 4

Proprietary Content
Research/IP Marketing/Social
Media
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Polling Question…

How well does your firm market itself today?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Not well…we don’t So-so…we speak and Extremely well…we’re
do very much in the write, but don’t do much active in both traditional
way of marketing online (or vice-versa) and online marketing

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1) Professional Associations

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2) Speaking Engagements

Keynotes, Presentations, Workshops, Tutorials, Webinars

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3) Proprietary Research/IP
Target: Brand and Marketing Executives
Research Objective: How do Brand, Marketing and Innovation drive Growth?
Cost: ~$7,500

541 Respondents 16 In-depth Interviews

79%

+
21%

Growth Gurus All Others

>15% 3-yr CAGR

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3) Proprietary Research/IP (cont’d)

6-month Editorial
Calendar

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4) Social Media

Groups Content Events

Blog Posts
Analytics

Content

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VERY Preliminary (2-month) Results

Since social campaign began in September 2014…

Online and social activity has driven NEW visitors

• 81% increase in session traffic in September

• Total referring domains improved 200% in September and October

• Total referring pages improved 150% in September and October

• Backlink domain rank increased from 36 to 46 (30–70 = average)

• Domain rank is equal to or greater than competitive benchmarks

• Several high-potential, qualified client leads

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Lessons Learned

• For a small consulting firm, your brand is your business

o It should ultimately define and drive everything you do

• Voice of the Client (VOC) is critical

o You need independent, objective, and unfiltered input from the market

• You need to “sacrifice” to win

o Define your expertise narrowly…and dominate it

• Choose your agency/consulting partners carefully

o They need to really understand your business

• You need to have a strong online/digital profile and presence

o Although engagements aren’t won online, they can easily be lost online

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1603 Orrington Ave. Suite 600

Evanston, IL 60201
T 312.239.8985
mduckler@fullsurge.com
www.fullsurge.com

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