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A professional service business built around a product is not a good service business. “Someone” is the best service business.
A professional service business should be built around either the “service” part, or the “professional” part. Or perhaps both. It is either a “someone” or a “something”, and “someone” is much longer lasting and more highly valued.
Many of todays professionals seem to still not get it though, and think marketing is about promoting product solutions.
To be successful at winning consumer trust today you have to offer and deliver more than product solutions. You have to become someone that your potential clients need to know. Someone they want to know.
Either way, you have to be someone.
Nearly every professional today manages multiple brands…their firm’s brand, and usually an institutional partner as well. Probably some qualifications or professional designations are in the mix, and perhaps a professional association too. That’s a lot of brands to cram onto a business card, and it is a lot of brands to mix in with the marketing message, and that becomes confusing for consumers.
Mix all of that in with multiple products and product offerings and it is altogether overwhelming for many consumers.
The solution is to build your personal brand as a professional. You have to be someone that stands for something. You have to be someone that has clear expertise and authority. You have to be “someone” in order to become the dominant brand…to stand out.
Certainly you have to build a superb service business as that will certainly tips the odds in your favour for commercial success, but far more importantly though build your personal brand into something that resonates in your prospective client’s mind. Regardless of changes the industry may require, or future business affiliations that you think make good commercial sense, your brand will survive and continue to prosper if you have become someone.