Just like any other successful product or service, agencies need a meaningful and distinctive position in the marketplace.  Defining a position is difficult for agencies because it involves sacrifice.  It means not only deciding what you are, but what you are not.  

Most agencies promise to do everything, the list of bullet points virtually never-ending.  They are so anxious to try and meet every client need that they forget that standing for everything is just another way of standing for nothing.  

While agencies preach differentiation, most behave like commodities.  Positioning your agency means moving from the middle and taking a side.  It means realizing that you can’t “boil the ocean.”  If you don’t claim a position, you will be positioned simply by your location.  Which is really no position at all.

When prospective clients know who you are and what you stand for, they seek you out. Otherwise, you’re just another “full service agency.”  And if you don’t have a branding strategy, you’ll become part of someone else’s.

In this intensive three-hour online workshop, we’ll explore the four key questions that define the business strategy of a professional service firm:

1. WHAT are your outstanding competencies? In which areas could the firm be considered best-in-class?

When it comes to your firm's abilities, the task is to identify not just capabilities but competencies.  Competencies are capabilities of the organization that can be delivered in a dependable, differentiating way. Defining what's core to the organization is often the result of disaggregating a short list of services and abilities, then breaking them down into component parts to find what's truly distinctive.

2. WHO is your ideal customer? What types of categories does the firm know best?

Defining an effective positioning strategy means having a clear definition and understanding of your best customer – the types of clients you are best suited to serve. This is a process of deeply exploring the firm’s experience with business categories, market segments, audiences, and types of business models.

3. WAY your firm can be distinguished by how it thinks? What are your unique philosophies, methods or approaches?

The culture and intellectual capital for the firm is a critical cornerstone in business strategy.  This is about identifying the standards, values and beliefs by which the firm operates, serves clients, and makes daily decisions. It's also about proprietary approaches you bring to solving client problems.

4. WHY is your firm in business in the first place? Beyond making money, what is your purpose?

Without exception, the most notable firms have an ambitious reason for being.  Rather than being driven solely by the market, the competition, or the numbers, what is it that drives you from inside? Your purpose must be at the center of who you really are as an enterprise.

This hands-on workshop is built around the thesis that agencies shouldn’t just focus on becoming better, but becoming different.  We’ll explore how to develop a differentiating business strategy based on your agency’s core competencies – what you do best.  Finally, we’ll look at why defining what makes your organization different, then making it different, is the best leadership you could possibly provide your agency.

This workshop is presented as an online event, which includes live Q&A.  Participants receive access to all online content and are provided with a handout summary.  For details and pricing, please contact us.