Marketing & selling professional services - Patrick Forsyth

Professional services may be special, but they are in no way specially protected from competitiveness. Like any other business they prosper only by attracting sufficient clients, the right kind of work, at the right time and at the right rates, and then by satisfying, retaining and developing clients over the long term. However, marketing and selling skills do not always sit comfortably with fee-earning businesses, many of which may prefer to trade on their expertise alone.

This fully revised and updated edition of Marketing and Selling Professional Services addresses how to approach marketing and selling in such a sector: how to view the necessity for it, create a marketing culture to cope with it and, then to follow through with professional personal selling. This new edition includes the following:

a blueprint for marketing success;

marketing planning;

planning promotional activity;

the promotional mix;

promotion by post;

making personal selling acceptable;

client development

It offers practical comments on a range of issues ranging from fitting marketing into a fee-earning environment to the difficulties of decision making in partnerships. Originally published as Marketing Professional Services, this updated third edition demystifies marketing and helps you plan and implement appropriate marketing action - and make it work. It also includes a foreword by the Professional Marketing Forum and is fully endorsed by the Institute of Directors.