Want to unlock the mystery of brand development for your professional services firm? Then download your free copy of Brand Building for Professional Service Firms.

This brand new executive guide explores how your firm can go about developing a powerful professional services brand. It starts with an understanding of what a professional services brand is.

Your Brand Defined

Your brand is not your logo or your tagline. It’s not your firm’s name or your mission statement. And it’s certainly not your website or marketing materials.

Instead, think of your brand as your reputation in the marketplace and the level of your firm’s visibility. Firms that have a strong reputation and high levels of visibility within their target client group have strong brands. But how do you develop your brand?

Brand Development Defined

Brand development is a process that starts by establishing a solid strategy. How is your firm going to be positioned in the marketplace? What makes your firm different? What are the advantages of using your firm? This is your brand strategy.

The second element of brand development is creating your brand identity and all the communications materials that help you communicate your brand. This can range from a name and tagline to a logo, website, marketing materials and even your business cards. These are the tools that help you tell the story of your brand.

These first two elements of brand development might be thought of as branding or re-branding a firm. But, as important as they are, they are only the start.

The third element of brand development is increasing the visibility and shaping the reputation of your firm. We like to think of it as brand building. If your strategy is solid and your tools are good, brand building will be much easier.

The Brand Building Guide

The guide is organized into three sections. The first section is Understanding Your Brand. It helps you understand your brand and grasp what makes a brand successful.

The second section is Developing Your Brand Strategy. It covers the psychology behind brand development and how the digital revolution is reshaping the whole process of professional services brand building. There is also a chapter that lays out the top brand building strategies.

The final section focuses on Implementing Your Brand Building Strategy. It talks about the strategic marketing process and identifies some of the top branding tools that can help a strategy come alive. It also describes some of the most common blunders that can derail the brand development process.

Goodbye to the Good Old Days

There was a time not so many years ago when professional services executives didn’t have to expend much energy focusing on their brands. As a matter of fact, many of today’s senior partners don’t really think of their firms as having brands — nor do they recongnize the need to consciously build them.

Sure, some old-school executives do try to build their firm's reputations through advertising, sponsorships and volunteer work. And while these are all reasonable tactics, they are no longer enough. The rise of the Internet and low-cost online communications has turned the brand development process on its head.

What used to be a local game played exclusively by local players has become a regional, national and even international marketplace. Today, a professional services firm's reputation and visibility (its brand) is essential to success in an increasingly crowded and competitive marketplace.

Develop or decline? It is a choice every firm will face — even yours. Download the free Brand Building Guide for a helping hand along the way.

 

Free Brand Building Guide
Lee