Interview Summary

This was an interview with Nigel Clark and Gail Jaffer, facilitated by Kieran Kapoor, which centred on the evolving landscape of professional services marketing. The discussion revolved around key themes from the recent Professional Services Marketing Group (PSMG) virtual conference. The primary takeaway was a significant shift in focus from data and analytics towards organisational culture, purpose, and change. The interviewees explored how client demands, particularly for ethical and purpose-driven partnerships, and pressure from a new generation of internal professionals, were driving this transformation. They argued that marketing and business development professionals were uniquely positioned to lead this change, moving from a support function to a strategic leadership role that champions the client's voice and fosters deep, collaborative relationships.

Interviewee Background

The interview featured two experts in professional services marketing. Nigel Clark was identified as a professional services tutor for Cambridge Marketing College. Gail Jaffer was the managing partner of the PSMG (Professional Services Marketing Group) and the organiser of the conference that formed the basis of the conversation.

 

Key Points

  • A notable shift was observed in professional services marketing, moving away from a singular focus on data and technology towards an emphasis on organisational culture and managing change.
  • The sector was experiencing rapid change driven by pressures from clients, new technologies, and internal disruptors, particularly the younger generation of professionals demanding more from their employers in terms of diversity, wellbeing, and purpose.
  • Clients, specifically General Counsels, were increasingly demanding that their advisory firms demonstrate a broader, more ethical, and purpose-driven approach that went beyond simple service delivery.
  • A firm's reputation and key differentiator were becoming its culture and what it stood for (e.g., CSR, sustainability) rather than just its services.
  • Marketing and Business Development (BD) professionals were challenged to step beyond their traditional roles to lead this change agenda within their organisations, acting as the champion for the client.
  • The model for client engagement was shifting from transactional to a deeply collaborative, relationship-based partnership, where solutions were co-created, and advisory firms were expected to understand the client's clients.
  • A recent study indicated a growing client preference (60%) for tech-led solutions over traditional service-based models, highlighting the need for firms to adapt their offerings.
  • The future of professional services marketing required leaders who could inspire change, build true partnerships with clients, and even share ownership of key outcomes.

 

Transcript

Transcripts are auto-generated.

 

Announcer (00:01):
The Cambridge Marketing Podcast with Kiran Kapur, brought to you by Cambridge Marketing College. See their range of courses and apprenticeships at marketingcollege.com.

Kiran Kapur (00:13):
So this week we are talking about Professional Services marketing. Professional Services are firms like lawyers, accountancy, property and consultants. And my guests are Nigel Clark, Professional Services tutor for the college, and Gail Jaffa, who is the managing partner of the PSMG, the Professional Services Marketing Group. You've just both done a conference, Gail, which I know you organised obviously it was a virtual conference a couple of weeks ago. So I wanted to explore some of the themes that came out of that. Nigel, I think you were quite interested. There was seem to be a move away from just data and analytics.

Nigel Clark (00:47):
Yes. Thank you, Kiran. Yes, it was a very interesting conference. Always is a very interesting conference, the PSMG annual conference. And as Gail, I'm sure will say, there was still a very strong interest in technology, tools, data, and analytics, as we should have as marketing professionals. But I was really struck by the shift towards the ideas around culture, change within organisations and how you use that data, how you use technology to shift the agenda within an organisation, especially for marketing and BD professionals, but overall, rather than just obsessing about data and technology for its own sake.

Kiran Kapur (01:36):
Gail, is that what you felt came down to the conference?

Gail Jaffa, PSMG (01:39):
Oh yes, absolutely. I think as we all know, our sector continues to really experience unprecedented speeds of change. We've got mounting pressure from all directions, clients, partners, new technologies, as we've spoken about before, and as Nigel has just mentioned, and disruptors who are offering the new business models, and that breaks from our traditional ways of working. So it was really important that we looked at the whole way that the world of business is shifting as never before, and also the way in which we choose to work and the new skillsets that we now need to be able to service our clients and our partners and other fee owners within the business.

Kiran Kapur (02:24):
Okay. Let me unpack that a little bit, because there's a couple of jargon words in there that people who are outside Professional Services might not be aware of. So there's a difference between fee earners and non-fee earners. Nigel, can I get you just to explain that?

Nigel Clark (02:37):
Yes, absolutely. It's a term that those of our listeners who have followed any of the stuff that we've previously done on Professional Services marketing will know that I absolutely, absolutely hate because it creates a sort of sense of division within an organisation, but essentially in a Professional Services firm, so we're here talking about law, accountancy, property, consultancy. You have internal ownership. So you have partners who own the business, but are also leaders of the business. So you don't have a different sort of stakeholder group between employees and shareholders. The shareholders are essentially both employees of the organisation too. You then have your lawyers, your accountants, your consultants who can get referred to as fee earners. So they're the people bringing the income in. And then you have your non-fee earners who your support functions, your marketers, accountancy, HR, et cetera. It's a rather divisive term, I feel, because it kind of separates those two audiences.

(03:42):
But it is a reality. It is used and the term is frequently referred to within firms.

Kiran Kapur (03:51):
And Gail, you mentioned disruptors within the marketplace. What are you seeing as disruptors within Professional Services?

Gail Jaffa, PSMG (03:58):
It's funny, the word disruptor, because people think that we're just talking about the way other people are doing business, et cetera, and we must look at other sectors and do that. But I think that the most disruption is going to come from within and the new generation of professionals that are coming up, I mean, not only within the advisory firms, but also within the firms, the companies of the clients. And I think they will be the most demanding yet. As Nigel has said, it's very divisive at the moment. The structure within firms at the moment is very divisive. But just as I've said, the new generation of professionals will be the most demanding. They'll expect diversity on many fronts -that's people, career development, the workplace, their environment, the technology, and also something that's coming through very clearly is wellbeing.

Kiran Kapur (04:52):
And this is the employees demanding the diversity and the wellbeing.

Gail Jaffa, PSMG (04:57):
Absolutely. But also behind this, believe it or not, are the GCs, the General Counsels, who are increasingly being seen within their own organisations as being the arbiter of culture. And they're not only asking, "Is it legal, but is it right?" So there's a huge movement going there.

Kiran Kapur (05:19):
Nigel, you'd picked up on this, that there was quite a lot of obsession now with change and culture.

Nigel Clark (05:25):
Yes. I mean, I think Gail there spoke to some of the speakers at the conference who were General Counsel. So General Counsel is the sort of Head of Legal Affairs or the Head of Legal within an organisation. So if you take any large corporate, you will find at the top of the tree internally, what you would call a General Counsel, and they are often the primary client of a big law firm. They're the person that is bringing in external legal advice, and you'd find that across the piece in terms of the other professions as well. And as Gail said there, what you're seeing from that client base is a demand for a much broader perspective from their service providers, something that goes beyond just delivery of service and touches on a much more ethical, a much more purpose-driven approach. And that is driving within professional services firms, a real nailed need for change, a real need to sort of think about the culture of the organisation, and a real need to align much better the way that the legal or the accountancy firm sits, or the way that its brand is presented to its clients.

(06:54):
And it's service provision becomes a necessity, but maybe not a differentiator. It's the culture and the purpose of the firm, which is much more becoming the differentiator.

Kiran Kapur (07:06):
And Gail, you mentioned you had a speaker, was it Paul Lanzoli who was challenging change within the organisations?

Gail Jaffa, PSMG (07:13):
Yes. Paul Lanzoni joined us at the conference from Singapore. He's the general counsel at DXC Technologies, and he was talking to us about what it takes to feed and fuel a change, embracing culture. And he said, as Nigel's just said, it encompasses a whole range of things. So you've got to look at the people, you've got to look at the process, communication, and they're all essential when you're having to manage the change that's required within organisations. And something else that we should touch upon as well is the organization's reputation and value. As Nigel has said, it's not justified by the services the firms provide, but what they actually stand for as well. This is being looked at very closely by clients, organisations. They're looking at the stakeholders. They increasingly expect to see the corporate social responsibility element, sustainability and ethical actions of their advisory firms.

(08:15):
So we have to look at how the firms are positioning themselves. Is it well-defined? Are they walking the talk? Are they communicating it internally and externally so that it becomes an integral part of the culture and the value proposition from within the firms and marketing BD people can really lead the march on this and to be able to support their partners and the earners within the firm. So

Kiran Kapur (08:43):
That's interesting because one of the things I've noticed over the years that I've attended the conference is quite ... In some years, marketing didn't seem to be very sure marketing BD business development didn't seem to be very sure what its role was. But Nigel, I think you felt that this year particularly, that was being overcome.

Nigel Clark (09:00):
Yes. I'm not sure it was being overcome, but certainly the challenge from the speakers or the challenge from the stage or the challenge from the virtual stage, because obviously we were in a virtual world at the conference. But I think the challenge from the speaker group that Gail so excellently put together was really asking marketing and BD people to go a step further to make more of a difference within their organisation and to lead the change agenda. I guess it was marketers speaking to marketers. So others may feel that that isn't a place that we should be going, but I think they really were challenging the marketing and BD community to go beyond just delivering the day to day, to go beyond just making sure the next sales pitch was right or converting the next lead. They really were looking to see if marketing and BD or really felt that marketing and BD could lead the change agenda.

(10:11):
And in part, that was driven by very much so by what Gail was saying in terms of the challenge that is coming from the clients. As marketers, we are meant to be the voice of the client within an organisation. We're meant to be the ones that understand what the customer really needs. And if we're hearing that message, if we understand what will make a difference to them, then we should be championing that change agenda.

Kiran Kapur (10:43):
Gail, was that your view from the conference?

Gail Jaffa, PSMG (10:46):
Yes, absolutely, Kiran. What we've seen is that a general council, they're one of the few executives in the C-suite who straddles the whole business and has the ability to influence all areas where culture is actually created, and they're increasingly adopting a structured approach to legal operations and their decision making processes.This really does represent a significant cultural shift in the way firms are working, which in turn places demands on their external advisors to culturally align and even mirror their ethos and approach to business, which I think Nigel can attest to. This is a brave new world, isn't it? We didn't have to think about these things even five years ago or even sooner. And it just brings up a whole lot of new ... I think it's an exciting prospect for marketing and BD people at the moment. I think they're in the integral position to just make the change and to really make a difference.

(11:49):
But also something else that came out of the conference is that based on a recent study, one of our workshop presenters showed that 60% of clients are now preferring tech-led to service-based solutions. And once again, I think Nigel can talk around that much more eloquently than I can. And they felt that it was not enough was being done by the advisory firms to have a more collaborative approach to help meet their needs. So I think once again, collaboration is another buzzword that's coming through.

Kiran Kapur (12:21):
Sorry, collaboration where? Collaboration between the client and the organisation?

Gail Jaffa, PSMG (12:25):
Absolutely. And you've got to talk to them more, you've got to really understand their business, but where you can still emerge as well is not only understanding your client's business, but understanding the environment that they also work in. So i.e. The client's clients. And I think you've got to tackle this shift. They're expecting a much broader, holistic approach to being an advisory firm. It's not good enough anymore just to give legal advice or financial advice. You have to understand the whole of the business, their ethos, where they're coming from, and we need therefore to proactively manage client expectations. It really has to be much more collaborative now.

Kiran Kapur (13:08):
I suppose that's true. You see that in so many things, don't you? It's accountancy, in medicine once upon a time, the doctor said was what we came back with, and now it would be, "well, we can discuss with you your various options". So I can see that that might transfer within the Professional Services. So let's discuss a little bit more about what the new world is going to look like because you ... I mean, we're all in a position where we are at the moment. We've all had to change. We've all had to learn. So where do we think the whole new world of Professional Services is going? Nigel, do you want to take that one?

Nigel Clark (13:42):
Well, I'll just pick up on that in continuation from the points that Gail has just made, which I think are fundamental to the future of Professional Services and marketers and BD that work in that sector and those firms, which is this shift from a transactional model to a relationship based model. Professional Services marketers have talked about relationship marketing, and we've even sort of said that it's a model that Professional Services marketers excel at. I think there's a challenge there to that, which is, yes, they might value the relationship, but actually the work that they do for their clients is still very transactional in that a client produces or has an issue or a problem or asks for a solution and the law firm delivers that in terms of from a on high in terms of their advisory capability. "This is the solution, Mr. Client, this is what you should do."

(14:47):
What Gail is talking about is a much more collaborative approach whereby the firm identifies or anticipates the issues that the clients are going to come up with and then helps shape a solution that may be technologically driven, it might be more advisory, but it's something, it's a solution that is shaped and delivered together with the client. So it really is a relationship. It really is a collaboration and relationship doesn't just speak to the kind of marketing and BD element of always sort of popping around to see the client, which in the virtual world at the moment is difficult to do, but is going much more and becoming much more part of the client organisation, almost working from the inside out rather than sitting apart from it. So that whole collaborative element really has to come to life and mean much more than just a marketing model.

Gail Jaffa, PSMG (15:52):
I agree, Nigel. I think gone are the days when firms will develop a competitive BD advantage from having a better conference or sexier brochures. I think they still have a role to play, because let's face it, we're still a face-to-face business, personal relationship environment we live in. But I think what we need, if you're going to be a successful disruptor, which Kiran mentioned before about disruptors, I think those who effectively use both the internal client data and external market information like business information to enable more effective segmentation and targeting, then I think they will steal a margin on their competitors. I think the firms who are doing it well are really going down this road. They're possessing much richer and rare and really valuably extracted data that will tell them who to speak to, when to make the contact with people, how best to connect, and what to talk about.

(16:54):
So rather than going in saying, "This is what we can do for you". You've got to really listen to your client. And that way, I think if you change the approach, you will then ultimately sell your products, your services, because it's like when you hit the sweet oil, when you're sort of drilling for oil and then just not getting into the dry, you're getting beyond the dry sand, if you know what I mean. So I think we need to look at how the data revolution presents opportunities and risks for our profession and how best we can manage them for the benefit of the firms.

Kiran Kapur (17:31):
So what do you think the role of marketers is going to be?

Nigel Clark (17:33):
So I've always been a great proponent for marketers to be client led, to be the voice of the client, to be the client champion, as I've said before. And I think that is very much still the case, but I think it's about bringing that to life. And to bring that to life, I think you have to go beyond the traditional boundaries of the skills and services that marketing and business development professionals typically bring. You're stepping into the realm of organisational change. You're being the champion for the client, not just their voice, but the actions that are required within the organisation. Now, that might be threatening for some people. It might be quite difficult to achieve in certain organisations when marketing and BD professionals are typically seen as sitting in a box, but there are great examples across the corporate world where marketers are the leaders of the organisation, CEOs that come from marketing, MDs that come from marketing, because they understand the customer, they understand the client, and they can lead the change in the organisation to meet the needs of their client or their customer base.

(19:02):
I think that's where marketing and BD professionals need to go.

Kiran Kapur (19:05):
So Gail, we're all doing a great job and we can all relax?

Gail Jaffa, PSMG (19:11):
No. We really are a talented and professional bunch of people within the professional services sector, and there's huge amount of energy and ambition to influence from within, to keep our firms growing and achieving, but we also have to inspire others to feel more fulfilled and to ultimately follow us. So as Nigel said, it is a case of leadership. We have to show, and it's also imperative therefore that I think we, in advisory firms, form true and long-lasting partnerships with our clients, especially as it's becoming ever more clear, as we touched on before, that clients are expecting and seeking investment in time and collaboration with their advisory firms and to ultimately, this is something new, ultimately share the ownership of the key outcomes. So that's what we're trying to get to where you're a true partner, it's a true partnership between the advisory firm and the client.

(20:08):
And I think BD and marketing professionals have a unique position within the firm to do that. And it's going to take patience, it's going to take courage, faith, resilience, and everything else that you might need, but we can change people's hearts and minds, but we just have to want to do it and we can do it. And I think we have to be the leaders within the firms to take the fundamental action required and just reshape the way in which we, the partners and clients all approach the business. As I said earlier, there's a new generation of people coming through. They'd want to be able to work in a different way, and we have to facilitate that for us to grow the business from within.

Kiran Kapur (20:51):
That's a lovely, optimistic note to end on. Thank you both very much indeed for your time.

Announcer (20:57):
The Cambridge Marketing Podcast from Cambridge Marketing College, training marketing and PR professionals across the globe.