Last week, I was privileged to be asked to speak to the good people of Thrive Networking at The Corinthian in Glasgow. It was a privilege as the person that proceeded me was Roger Green – a phenomenally successful entrepreneur who has built several multi-million pound businesses including his latest . It was a privilege to share a stage with Roger.

Our audience were nearly all people from professional services and I wanted to give as much value as I could. So I started with a little context – nothing will market your business better than happy clients, delighted clients who will talk about the ‘amazing’ service you provided for them – the richness of the experience. What we do, the ‘brand and marketing communications’ are important but are very much the cherry and not the cake. Social Media’s real place is in marketing products or mass-marketing. It has a massively important place in bringing to life – an inanimate object or talking to huge volumes of people at one time.

However, we are in the services business, the people business and people are not inanimate objects – and as such – nothing can replace the emotional impact a human-experience will have on us. So the experience your client has is your best form of marketing & further sales. Where brand, marketing and social media can help is in the nurturing and developing of relationships.

Reputation and relationships are everything to a professional services brand.

Here are 7 tips I shared last week…

– Marketing is all about relationship building with people – whether you are looking to attract new people to your brand or build deeper relationships, it is all about people. The marketing part is really just giving something to strengthen a relationship. If you are marketing a product – it can be using an ad to share something funny, something emotive or educational. It can be giving something away. A professional services brand can give something away, but if you are in professional services, you really should focus on the personal. What can you give away that is personal?

– Leading onto some ideas that you can give away? Knowledge is good, specialised knowledge is very good, properly bespoke information tailored to a clients’s problem is outstanding. On the face of it, our company – the loft always delivers the same thing – a brand, a website, a campaign, etc. But dig a bit deeper and you will see that they are all beautifully personal to the people we serve, who each have their own challenges and issues. Personalisation is where the value is. If you can share something personal to a certain group or individual- they will value you that little bit higher.

– In addition to specialised knowledge, meet-ups are great, think how you can make them more valuable for the people you are looking to serve? We have beautiful, home-made Lasagne with Prosecco in our studio at the end of every month which gives everybody the change to have a bit of a get together and a chat.

– People, people, people. On the website, in the pictures, on the screen as videos. If people can feel that they like and trust you before they have met you, they are more likely to want to meet you when they are looking for somebody to carry through a task for them. A little peppering os personal stories helps too…

– You can never have too many case studies and testimonials. The most useful document we have made in recent months is not our client portfolio but a simple 3-page A4 showing all of the different clients we have worked with and two pages worth of testimonials. it gives us instant credibility and trust when begin asked to work with new clients.

– Case studies, images and videos should all have the human element to it. Many times, we will provide the same service as our competitors, but it is less about what you do but how you have done it. The personalised bit here is really important and demonstrates your value.

– “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care” A lovely quote from Colin Robertson of Alexander Dennis but one that further emphasises the personal aspect to your communications.

As I said it was a privilege to have been asked to speak and I hope the little tips above are useful too…

Benedetto

Benedetto is a designer and founder of the loft – a specialist design studio based in Glasgow.

The loft takes the true essence of what organisations do and with his team brings those stories to life with a coherence, simplicity and delightfulness that helps companies to create outstanding brand communications.

‘Design with Soul’ is more than a company tag-line to Benedetto, it is a way of life.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role. He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.