In the twenty-five plus years I have worked in the professional services community, I have served and worked on numerous committees. A well-run committee is critical to the management of any organization or firm to get work completed efficiently, effectively and creatively. All too often, I have watched committees fail when they had formed with all of the best of intentions.

“Back to school. Back to school, to prove to Dad that I'm not a fool. I got my lunch packed up, my boots tied tight, I hope I don't get in a fight. Ohhhh, back to school. Back to school. Back to school. Well, here goes nothing.” — Billy Madison

It has been a few weeks since the new school year started. Elementary students receive their teacher’s name and supplies list, while college students receive their syllabus and assignments for the first semester of classes.

Are iTunes, Pandora and turntable.fm so 2010? Like many around the world, I am a big user of iTunes and I have the premium version of Pandora. BUT, Spotify has given me immediate access to new music, with the opportunity to share with my friends. By now, is it safe to assume that we all have heard of Spotify?

I read a number of blogs, and two of my favorites are Jonathan Fitzgarrald’s Bad for the Brand and Heather Milligan’s The Legal Water Cooler. Both blogs are well written and often focus on the subject of “reputation management,” or what we at Moiré like to refer to as “becoming a brand ambassador.”

I recently read an article in Ad Age, “If the Client Was Always Right, It Wouldn’t Need an Ad Agency”. Moiré is not an ad agency, but a strategic branding, marketing and communications agency. Big difference. Traditional advertising agencies walk a fine line when it comes to “The client is always right.” There is a lot of grey associated with this ideal. It is not simply black and white.

GUEST BLOGGER: Jack Kolmansberger, Chief Marketing Officer - Herbein + Company, Inc.

How many times have professional services marketers heard the following….
 
That’s a great idea, but how can we get buy-in?
Personally, I think it’s the thing to do, but partners won’t want to pay for it….
Even if a few people will do it, you’ll never get full partner buy-in….

I am on a quest to find the perfect pair of black sandals, and when I say perfect, I mean A-MAZING - comfortable, unique, versatile; a pair of shoes that invoke the green-eyed monster in every woman that sees them. This has been an endless process because for every pair of shoes I love, I start to think that maybe there is another pair somewhere I will like better. In many ways, the search for the perfect pair of shoes is very similar to the way professional services firms go about finding agencies who will help them with their brand.

A huge misconception of social media is that if you build it they will come. This is not field of dreams. In addition, joining social media networks is not like advertising. You must be proactive and reach out to fellow group members, network and create those relationships. It is those relationships that assist in leading to new business opportunities. Merely joining a group or building a profile does not lead to new business.

GUEST BLOGGER: Jenni Fleck Jones, Marketing Manager - Belfint, Lyons & Shuman, P.A.

With the ongoing changes in professional marketing, and the diversity of tasks that continue to fall under marketing positions, your time as a marketing professional can be spread in so many different directions. This means you probably don’t have the concentrated time or energy to put in the type of effort you want to give for any particular task.

Your firm’s website is the single most important component to your firm’s marketing communications efforts. Period.

It’s the lynchpin on which all of your other mar/com efforts rest, it’s your “first impression”, your opportunity to communicate with targeted clients on a regular basis via blogs, and hopefully it supports your firm’s business development efforts.