Appleize Your Brand: Turn Clients into Fanatics

As a project manager for campus planning studies at colleges and universities, I was faced with a dilemma when it came to scientifically accurate data collection. We needed a random sampling of all campus constituencies, but had trouble with the data collectors. We tried temporary employment services and hiring students who were attending the school. Each of these produced lackluster results because it was easy for individuals to not show up, arrive late or leave early.

Then I had a revelation: An incentive program that used student organizations for data collection. It worked like this: We needed to cover eight prime campus locations over 12 hours with two people per hour at each location. Representatives from organizations were invited to a planning meeting where the scope of the work was explained. A spreadsheet with times and locations was put up on a flip chart. Organizations were invited to take turns filling in the time slots.

Each organization would be paid $6 per hour for every person they signed up and, if everyone showed up at their assigned locations and turned over completed forms at the end of their shift, the group would receive a $700 bonus. If one person failed to meet their obligation, the entire bonus was forfeited. A campus organization could make $1000 in a day without worrying about organization or long shifts for active members. The first time we implemented the new process, completed questionnaires increased 300%. In the past, it was easy for an individual student to blow off the $6 an hour, if sleeping in, studying, attending class or a more important meeting got in the way. However, the new process made individual students subject to the ridicule of their organizations. Who wants to be known as the person who cost the organization their bonus? In addition, there was also a certain amount of bragging rights between organizations as well.

What does this have to do with marketing in general and marketing professional services in particular?

First, it points out the need for outside-the-box thinking when you are faced with changing circumstances. More importantly, it verifies the need to create an “us versus them” attitude in your clients' minds. Too often professional services marketers look at branding and marketing as promoting specific services and promises. Highly successful brands and companies don’t work that way today.

Take a look at Apple. Some could say that it is Steve Jobs alone who has created Apple fanatics. The reality proves it is much more than that. It actually looks a lot like the process for increasing data collection results for higher education planning projects.

The “us versus them” is the genius behind the Apple brand success. The “1984” Super Bowl commercial started the process. It was followed by the Lemmings commercial the next year with blindfolded businessmen walking off the cliff. Recently it has been the highly successful Apple versus PC ads where the PC guy basically apologizes for his product.

Note the common characteristic of these, and many other, Apple commercials: they focus on the PEOPLE who use each product. These ads convey little or no actual product information, and instead mock PC users while portraying Apple users in a favorable way. I am not suggesting you mock your competition. I am suggesting you figure out how to make your group (firm) worth joining.

Just like students belonging to organizations were more powerful data collectors, your clients will become fanatics when they feel they belong to your group. Belonging to a group is wired into all people. The cavemen didn’t survive on their own, they joined groups.

Apple isn’t the only company that uses this to their advantage. Truck owners are extremely loyal to their brand. Obviously, the “us versus them” strategy works best for actual products that can be seen. However, there is no reason this strategy couldn’t be effective for professional services firms with clients who feel some attachment to the brand. Therefore, professional services marketers need to make their clients feel different, and to interact with them in a way that makes being part of their group more credible than a passing ad slogan. It is the best and probably the only way to turn your clients into fanatics. What would happen to your bottom line if more clients were fanatics?

What Professional Services Firms Can Learn from Kodak

Growing up as a boomer, photography was about Kodak. You took pictures with Kodak film and your photos were printed on Kodak paper. In the early 70’s Paul Simon sang about Kodachrome. Kodak was everything a brand could want to be. In 1975, they invented digital photography. The company went through its due diligence and in 2000 decided it would become a leader in digital cameras. Although the company had film and processing in its DNA, by 2005 it was number 1 in the United States in digital camera sales. The company designed one award-winning product after another to make digital cameras as simple as pointing and clicking. Isn’t this the kind of story every professional services firm would like to emulate?

So why does Kodak Chief Executive Antonio M. Perez now dump on digital cameras, calling them a "crappy business"? Simple: While blazing growth of camera sales has helped blunt the effects of Kodak's fast-fading film revenues, it hasn't replaced the rich profits of the film business. Even the best mass-market cameras yield slim profit margins. So, although Kodak's digital camera business was a roaring sales success, it turned out to be a crushing profit disappointment. Many of Kodak's problems can be traced to the successes of its past. Wherever Perez turns in Rochester, N.Y., he is haunted by the specter of George Eastman, one of America's greatest innovators. In spite of the fact that Eastman died in 1932, his mark is still huge on the company he founded in 1880. Decades after his death, it remains difficult to change Kodak's long-established ways. One of them is a hierarchical culture that believes in the omnipotence of leadership.

Is this a trait in your professional services firm?

Product or service innovation alone is not the panacea for increased profits. Now Kodak is fighting to recover from a tech revolution that is strangling its core business. Kodak was late to recognize the problem, slow to react, and then went down the wrong innovation path, according to many industry insiders. Kodak needed to change its business model.

Professional services firm struggling through the recession might want to take a look at their business models. A March survey commissioned by IBM showed that 65% of the world's top CEOs plan on radically changing their companies in the next two years. It makes sense that clients in the United States will fall into this category.

Will the changes impact professional services firms?

If radical changes are in store for the business models of professional services firms, how do you begin? It has to begin with the people, much like the quality revolution of the 1980’s where management got everyone involved in the quality process. Perez has what he calls, “The Rule of the Thirds.” He believes that one third will support change, one third can be convinced and one third will be unwilling to make the change. To win over a majority, he created a committee of people who were skeptical and called it “Group R.” He asked them to make suggestions on how the company could be improved. Those discussions contributed to the strategy of coming up with new digital services and new ways of commercializing existing technology. Also, once these people felt like they were part of the conversation for change, they spread the word throughout the organization that Perez was a good leader. And, because they had credibility, their opinions influenced many others.

Radical change in the business model of professional services firms is coming. Some firms may be entrenched in what worked in the past and will not have the resolve to make changes. The winning firms will take a page from Kodak and understand, contrary to the popular opinion about technology, it is still employees who control the destiny of companies. So, don’t be afraid of critics within your company. When you let them buy-in with their own ideas, the results can be amazing. Give yourself time. It has taken a while for Kodak to learn that it is not a film company, but an image company. Look at their website today and you will see things about the “experience.” Professional services firms should not confuse what their companies do with how they do it. They need to look at their clients, who are also looking at change, and see what it is the client believes they are being delivered. The results might be surprising.