August Aquila, Bruce W. Marcus

Client at the Core

Marketing and Managing Today's Professional Services Firm

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This book addresses the process and dynamics of making a firm into a primary marketing force by redefining a firm's market, its ability to serve those markets, and how to project to markets the firm's ability to serve its target markets. It shows professional services firms how to not only see themselves in the perspective of the past and present, but provides them with a blueprint on how to create a marketing structure, process, and culture for the future.

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"August Aquila and Bruce Marcus reward readers of Client at the Core with an imaginative map for the perilous journey through the twists and turns of marketing and managing today's professional services firm. It is creative and thorough."
-Gerry Riskin, Partner, Edge International
"The authors have captured the changing role of professional services marketing and firm management. There is valuable insight [in this] down-to-earth guide to competing successfully in the new environment."
-David Maister, author and consultant
"The book is a masterpiece! Aquila and Marcus have produced the essential guide for managing a professional services firm. They've marshaled their considerable real-life experiences and far-reaching vision into a veritable operating manual for the successful firm."
-Rick Telberg, Editor at Large, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
"At its heart, this book is the running shoe for legal and accounting professionals who want to putthe client first. Following the evolution of the industry over the past twenty-five years, this must-have for every professional services firm is the key to leading in the turbulent and highly competitive waters ahead."
-Richard S. Levick, Esq., President, Levick Strategic Communications, LLC
coauthor, Stop the Presses: The Litigation PR Desk Reference
"Client selection and retention is one of the critical success factors for a professional services firm, and Aquila and Marcus do a masterful job at educating us on the necessary ingredients of each. The chapters on firm governance and paying for performance are thought provoking and certainly challenging to the conventional wisdom. If you want a better understanding of marketing and leading a professional firm in these turbulent times, this book is essential."
-Ronald J. Baker, author, Professional's Guide to Value Pricing and The Firm of the Future
"Client at the Core is a commonsense approach to keeping your professional services firm relevant in the twenty-first century's client-driven economy. Aquila and Marcus have hit a home run with their insightful analysis and poignant prose."
-Jeffrey S. Pawlow, Managing Shareholder, The Growth Partnership, Inc.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Wiley & Sons
• 1. Auflage
• Seitenzahl: 277
• Erscheinungstermin: 21. Juli 2004
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 235mm x 157mm x 23mm
• Gewicht: 630g
• ISBN-13: 9780471453130
• ISBN-10: 0471453137
• Artikelnr.: 12962281

Autorenporträt

AUGUST J. AQUILA is one of the country's leading consultants in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, succession planning, and management issues for professional services firms. He was an early pioneer and leading force in the accounting profession's consolidation movement. In 2003, he was inducted into the Accounting Marketing Association's Hall of Fame. BRUCE W. MARCUS is a widely published author and consultant to some of the nation's largest corporations and professional services firms. The author of hundreds of articles and more than a dozen books on marketing and marketing-related subjects, he is the editor of the Marcus Letter on Professional Services Marketing, read internationally by more than 22,000 lawyers, accountants, consultants, and professional marketers.

Inhaltsangabe

Foreword. Preface. Acknowledgments. PART I: Professions and Professionals
in Turmoil. 1. If Something Can Change, It Will Strategic Factors in a New
Environment. PART II: Clients--Who They Are and How to Find Them. 2. What a
Client Really Wants Listening to the Client for Fun and Profit. 3. Are We a
Client-centric Firm Yet? Organizing to Meet Client Needs. 4. Now, Here's My
Plan . . . Defining the Right Client for You. PART III: Making Your Vision
a Reality. 5. I Can See Your Future from Here Vision? A Working Tool? 6.
Seizing Those Opportunities Making the Vision a Reality. 7. Making
Marketing a Nice Word Building a Client-centric Marketing Culture. 8. It's
the End Game that Counts Contact--Turning the Prospect into a Client. PART
IV: Marketing Tools and How to Use Them. 9. Hang High the Rafters,
Carpenter The Tools of Marketing that Build the Marketing Program. PART V:
Managing the Client-centric Firm. 10. Turning Recipes into Cakes Managing
for Results. 11. Who's at the Helm and Who's on the Bridge Firm Governace
and Structure. 12. Holding a Handful of Mercury Managing the Knowledge
Worker for the One-Firm Firm. 13. For Love or Money--or Both Paying for
Performance. 14. Didn't We Tell You What We're Doing? Internal
Communications--Let Me Count the Ways. PART VI: Economics in the
Client-centric Firm. 15. A Farthing for Your Goat Pricing in a
Client-centric Firm. 16. What Did I Get for My Money? Measuring the
Marketing ROI. 17. Cash Is King What's the Lifetime Value of Your Clients
and the Financial Health of Your Firm? PART VII: What Will We Do Tomorrow?
18. The Future for Professional Services Are We There Yet? Appendix A: The
Balanced Scorecard. The Balanced Scorecard--Financial Measures. The
Balanced Scorecard--Client Measures. The Balanced Scorecard--Internal
Business Process Measures. The Balanced Scorecard--Marketing Measures. The
Balanced Scorecard--Employee Growth and the Learning Measures. Appendix B:
Managing the Knowledge Worker. Take the Pulse of Your Staff. Compensation.
Career Advancement Opportunities. Firm Culture. Appendix C: Pricing in a
Client-centric Firm. Analyzing Price Sensitivity. Appendix D: Accounting
and Law Firm Benchmarks. Accounting Firm Benchmarks. Bibliography and
References. Index.