Chicken or the egg?

It’s interesting to consider which comes first, marketing a service or creating and maintaining the service?

Common sense would dictate that you can’t market a service that doesn’t exist or market a service that compares badly to services offered by competitors. But how many of us pay lip service to the notion that what we do is what people want?

As a precursor to marketing perhaps we need to take a hard look at what we are providing to customers and how effective are we compared to our competitors? Once we get this working effectively, then we can hit the go button for marketing spend as we have something worthwhile to promote.

Marketing will not solve a downward trend in our business, ramping up our service delivery will.

The other thing to consider is changes in the wider market place. Are our competitors innovating and providing services that make ours look redundant? To integrate this sort of enquiry into our business development modelling we need to know three things:

• who are our direct competitors,
• what are they offering that may have an impact on our current services, and
• what new services are they providing that we may need to respond to?

From our dealings with accountants, those that thrive in today’s market for accounts and tax services are acutely aware of the above and are constantly looking for new ways to increase their competitive advantage. They are responsive to the notion that they need to communicate with clients and keep themselves advised of changes in legislation and its practical implications for clients.

Chicken or the egg? Every business will need to make its own mind up on that conundrum. Meanwhile, we aim to practice what we preach, and if you need support keeping your practice in the front line for professional services, take a look at what we offer: https://www.informanagement.co.uk.