Indicators of marketing success: cultural DNA.

• Author: Lowe, Suzanne

After studying more than 500 firms over a five-year period, a marketing firm concludes that accounting firm leaders must identify their firms' preferred processes when deciding on methods to attract and retain clients. One size does not fit all.

"A firm's hard-wired cultural DNA--its internal personality--runs much deeper than its exterior profile."

Much is made about an accounting firm's corporate culture in the areas of staff recruitment, retention, and productivity. Indeed, culture is one of the more interesting aspects of a firm's likelihood to succeed along many avenues--but now it has been proven that cultural DNA is a also a predictor of a firm's effectiveness in attracting and retaining clients.

As part of a comprehensive five-year study, Expertise Marketing looked at more than 500 professional service firm respondents' use and measurement of a variety of methods to attract and retain clients. Although not a single question on the survey questionnaire addressed a professional service firm's culture, it is statistically clear that a firm's "internal personality" or "cultural DNA" influences its eventual success--or failure--in using certain methods to attract or retain clients.

Of the 500 professional services firms studied, their use of client attraction and retention methods fell into one of five clusters:

* The prepared firm cluster. The prepared firm cluster of methods appears quite inwardly focused, with a grouping of internally oriented programs such as training and communication, and career management or leadership development coaching for a firm's professionals.

* The flexible firm cluster. This flexible group of methods appears very externally oriented, with a combination of initiatives such as the implementation of flexible methodologies and customized techniques to deliver services, requiring or encouraging all personnel to switch roles occasionally, and codeveloping or piloting new services with clients.

* The rule-bender firm cluster. The rule-bender cluster of approaches seems quite focused on taking risks, and features a grouping of methods such as providing free solutions in order to win an assignment, using at-risk revenue arrangements to sell services, and even using warnings and/or disincentives in order to manage a professional's behavior.

* The techno-hunter firm cluster. The techno-hunter group of methods appears focused on aggressive salesmanship and relies heavily on technology, such as using the new...