By Suzanne Lowe

After studying more than 500 firms over a five-year period, a marketing firm concludes that accounting firm leaders must identify their firms’ preferred processes when deciding on methods to attract and retain clients. One size does not fit all.

“A firm’s hard-wired cultural DNA—its internal personality—runs much deeper than its exterior profile.”

Much is made about an accounting firm’s corporate culture in the areas of staff recruitment, retention, and productivity. Indeed, culture is one of the more interesting aspects of a firm’s likelihood to succeed along many avenues—but now it has been proven that cultural DNA is a also a predictor of a firm’s effectiveness in attracting and retaining clients.

As part of a comprehensive five-year study, Expertise Marketing looked at more than 500 professional service firm respondents’ use and measurement of a variety of methods to attract and retain clients. Although not a single question on the survey questionnaire addressed a professional service firm’s culture, it is statistically clear that a firm’s “internal personality” or “cultural DNA” influences its eventual success—or failure—in using certain methods to attract or retain clients.

Of the 500 professional services firms studied, their use of client attraction and retention methods fell into one of five clusters:

• The prepared firm cluster. The prepared firm cluster of methods appears quite inwardly focused, with a grouping of internally oriented programs such as training and communication, and career management or leadership development coaching for a firm’s professionals.

• The flexible firm cluster. This flexible group of methods appears very externally oriented, with a combination of initiatives such as the implementation of flexible methodologies and customized techniques to deliver services, requiring or encouraging all personnel to switch roles occasionally, and codeveloping or piloting new services with clients.

• The rule-bender firm cluster. The rule-bender cluster of approaches seems quite focused on taking risks, and features a grouping of methods such as providing free solutions in order to win an assignment, using at-risk revenue arrangements to sell services, and even using warnings and/or disincentives in order to manage a professional’s behavior.

• The techno-hunter firm cluster. The techno-hunter group of methods appears focused on aggressive salesmanship and relies heavily on technology, such as using the new technologies of extranets and pagers to get closer to clients, increased intelligence-gathering about competitor activities, and deploying nonbillable salespeople.

• The accountability firm cluster. The accountable group of methods appears oriented to preparation and performance; for instance, using incentives to encourage a change in professionals’ behavior, adapting performance measures to evaluate professionals’ sensitivity to clients’ needs, or using strategic account management plans.

Expertise Marketing compared these cultural clusters with the respondents’ self-rated effectiveness in their methods of “getting closer to clients.” The firms in some of the five cultural groups had succeeded at using certain methods, while others in a different group had failed at the same methods.

It’s all about cultural DNA
Firms that used the methods grouped in the prepared cluster reported that none of their methods were effective in making the firms more market-driven. Firms in the flexible group said that only their innovation and service delivery-oriented methods were effective. Firms in the techno-hunter group reported that their methods were only effective in using new approaches to compete against rivals—which may or may not mean that these firms became more sensitive to clients! Only firms in the rule-bender and accountability groups reported that their methods were more effective at managing client relationships.

This finding is not meant to imply that all accounting firms should abandon marketing practices that fall into the prepared cluster of methods. On the contrary, those market-driven methods certainly do occupy a reasonable place in the army of management and marketing techniques that accounting firms have used and will continue to use successfully into the future.

This finding is also not meant to imply that all firms that find themselves effective at techniques found in the flexible cluster (for example, codeveloping or piloting new services with clients), are by necessity flexible firms. This finding simply points out the fact that, for some cultures, certain methods will likely be more effective—especially if used in combination with each other—than they might be if used in another culture.

Most important, this finding does not imply that every accounting firm must force itself to fit into the five cultural groups that we discovered. On the contrary, these five clusters were manifestations of patterns from this particular set of 500-plus professional service firm respondents. Depending on the processes studied, there may be many other types of cultural client attraction and retention methods with other unique and distinct aspects.

The most surprising aspect of these findings is that the responding professional service firms’ use of client attraction and retention methods so naturally falls into previously unnoticed, highly differentiated cultural DNA or personality-oriented patterns. Let’s take a closer look at this result. It makes sense, for example, that the accountability firm would be effective at delivering its services or managing its client relationships. The whole notion of accountability speaks to an almost personal orientation of attending to others’ needs, being mindful of the vagaries of a relationship and striving to satisfy — even exceed—clients’ expectations. It also makes sense that the techno-hunter firm would be effective at using new approaches to compete against its rivals. A review of the methods in this cultural cluster easily evokes a picture of competitive alertness, a state of agitated hunger to win business, and proactive work to win.

Haven’t accounting firm leaders and marketers already understood how to market this thing called culture? Perhaps not. Even a casual review of a variety of firms’ Web sites reveals a mind-numbing recitation of similar phrases, such as, “our unwavering commitment to clients,” “integrity,” “we value diversity,” “responsive,” “professional excellence,” “our entrepreneurial spirit,” “commitment to our community” and “teamwork.” But our study’s findings about cultural clusters vividly demonstrate that firms actually operate at deeper, more strategically nuanced and more competitively significant levels than what they typically articulate and promote to their publics. This is because we’re really talking about a firm’s hard-wired cultural DNA—its personality, which runs much deeper than its exterior profile.

Aligning marketing strategies with culture
Another unexpected aspect of the above findings is that we now have evidence that a firm can enhance its success at implementing market-focused methods — or at least avoid their failure — by aligning them with its cultural predilections.

But does this mean that an accounting firm simply has to undertake a culture-identification exercise, and then apply marketing strategies and business development methods that appear to fit its culture? Would that firm’s marketing strategies and business development methods, therefore, be successful? Perhaps. But our findings hint at a more fascinating notion — that the best way to succeed competitively is for a firm to examine the strategies and methods at which it succeeds, and then take a step back to see what kind of cultural DNA, or firm personality those methods appear to spell. If more firms did this, and then enacted those successful strategies that fit into a distinct culture or personality pattern, they might be able to avoid the fate of firms in the prepared group. That group vainly invests time and money implementing marketing strategies and methods that do not deliver competitive success.

A final perspective on this issue relates to the intentionality or deliberateness of a firm’s choice of marketing strategies to align to its culture. As their competitive environments continue to tighten, accounting firms must assertively move beyond making fluffy swipes at identifying culture — efforts that, as we’ve seen, usually end up being articulated in a lovely plaque on their lobby walls, in their annual reports, or on their Web sites.

One size does not fit all
In order to compete more effectively, accounting firms must wake up to the reality that they can not apply one-size-fits-all client attraction and retention methods. Indeed, firm leaders must look to the powerful differentiation that lies within their walls—their cultural DNA, aligned around a set of instinctively preferred, personality–oriented processes. Once they determine the personality behind the way they select, implement, and succeed at market-driven processes, they can then become more deliberate in the way they further integrate these processes into their firm’s organizational persona, to the point that their implementation becomes second nature.

Suzanne Lowe, is President of Expertise Marketing LLC, Concord, Massachusetts. She is author of the recently published Marketplace Masters: How Professional Service Firms Compete to Win (Greenwood: 2004), which covers the successful marketing strategies and best practice case studies of prestigious professional service firms.