There you are, sitting in a nice leather chair in your firm's boardroom. The rest of the senior management team is amassing for the meeting you've been putting off for years: getting serious about growing the firm. Yes, you've met about the firm's marketing and branding strategy before, but this time the mood is different: serious, focused ... determined.

So the meeting begins and you start talking about your branding and marketing strategy. Hours later (having taken no breaks, of course) the management team is still sparring about your firm's tagline, debating whether the logo looks “modern,” but still “classy,” arguing where you should place a series of ads so you can increase your brand recognition. PR campaigns are planned. Decisions are made, and off the firm goes towards unstoppable growth and profits.

Yet, nine months later, when you gather to have the same meeting all over again, you wonder: Why didn't the ads and the PR work? Why have the campaigns lost steam in recent months? What can we do that really will make a difference?

If this story sounds familiar, I apologize for the pain the retelling might have caused you and the money you likely wasted on branding campaigns that didn't get you much leverage in revenue and profit growth for your firm.

Most accounting services firms, at one point or another, engage serious discussions and initiatives for growing the firm — and these discussions often center around “marketing” or “branding.”

However, as most accounting services firms are headed by, well, accountants, and are not lifelong managers or marketers, they head down an ill-advised branding path.

Why? Because your competitors do it. Because this is what many marketing “consultants” say to do. It's also an easy target to tackle: you can write press releases; you can critique your new logo and ad strategy; you can brainstorm new taglines until you are blue in the face. Unfortunately, none of these “marketing” activities are central to service firm growth.

Branding Maxims

There are many branding maxims tossed about in the marketing world, maxims accepted as unquestionable gospel and law, which are simply not valid.

Here are two branding absolutes:

1. Always seek to understand the underlying dynamics of your own industry and company before making decisions on how to brand your business.
2. Never forget that, in the right situations, laws are meant to be broken.

Consider the following commonly held branding beliefs that may be meant for breaking, especially if you work in the accounting services industry.

Maxim #1: Differentiation

Think about the following types of companies:

• CPA firms
• Law firms
• Financial advisory firms
• IT consultants
• Strategy consultants

Of the companies in these fields, what are their positioning strategies? Additionally, which are directly opposite of the other? Do you really even care?

I pride myself on knowing a thing or two about service industries. I live in Boston. To test my own assumption, I reviewed the Boston Business Journal Book of Lists’ top 25 accounting firms in the city.

I cannot tell you the positioning strategies of any one of them. Sure, some are known to have strong practices in certain industries, for example, education, nonprofit and biotech. However, I would hardly call having a competent industry presence a “hard-hitting positioning strategy that differs significantly from a competitor's.”

And yet, as undifferentiated as they may be, they seem to be quite successful.

Maxim #2: Category

Imagine this conversation:

IRS: Ms. Jones. This is the IRS calling. I have a question about the tax return you filed.

Ms. Jones: Yes?

IRS: Well, we don't understand them. The forms you sent in are unfamiliar to us. We also do not understand what you submitted.

Ms. Jones: Oh, I'm not surprised. You see, I used a new category of CPA firm this year.

Do you really want a new category of:

• CPA to do your business taxes
• Lawyer when you need to win a case
• IT consultant when it just needs to be done right
• Plumber when all you want is a promptly returned phone call
• Or do you just want a reliable, consistent, high-quality job done?

Maxim #3: First Mover Advantage

Branding guru after branding guru echoes this “first mover advantage” maxim.

I ask you, who grabbed the position first and now owns high-quality investment advice in Boston?

John Hancock • Citigroup • Brown Brothers Harriman • Fidelity Investments • Charles Schwab • TD Waterhouse • TD Banknorth • Citizens Bank • RBC Dain Rauscher • Wainwright Bank • Eastern Bank • Sovereign Bank • Prudential Financial • Legg Mason • Merrill Lynch • Morgan Stanley • Paine Webber • Bank of America • Boston Private • Fiduciary Trust International • Edward Jones • A.G. Edwards • Bear Stearns • Dozens of smaller banks • Hundreds of CFPs, CPAs and insurance firms • Hundreds of others

Does it matter who was there first?

Maxim #4: Word Ownership

In industries where there are only a limited amount of players because of the nature of the industry (e.g. there are only so many car manufacturers) it is possible to own a word. Who owns safety? Volvo, of course.

In service industries, it's different. There is typically an over-abundance of providers of all sizes, and few generic words one can own:

Achievement • Balance • Control • Creativity • Fame • Independence • Influence • Integrity • Loyalty • Performance • Pleasure • Power • Prestige • Respect • Recognition • Service • Solution • Tradition • Wealth • Wisdom

Sometimes service firms use specific words that focus on need areas or hot buttons. Among CPA firms these words might be:

Audit • Advisor • Cash Management • Compliance • Estate Planning • Forensic Accounting • Internal Controls • International Tax • Sarbanes • Small Business • Valuation

In your area, who owns any of these terms? Can't think of any firms? Or maybe you just think of a number of CPA firms that play in these fields. Even if you could own a word in a service industry, I suggest that it should be a side-benefit of winning and satisfying clients, not a goal in and of itself.

Maxim #5: Being Number One in Revenue or Market Share

What CEO heads into his board meeting and says, “Next year our big audacious goal is to become Number 16 in our market!” Being “number one” is a natural strategic target to set and it certainly sounds good. However, in service and technology businesses, being number one is usually neither a feasible nor a desirable goal to set. Revenue and market share are not necessarily the answer to greater success and higher profits.

Service and technology industries, from accounting to software to consulting, should focus on customer loyalty if they want greater revenue and profit growth.

Conclusion

The idea here is not to make the argument for customer and employee loyalty over market share or revenue leadership. Not everyone agrees with the branding gurus on the “being number one” law — one of the most taken-for-granted laws of branding that businesspeople follow blindly.

Differentiate … own a word … be number one … be first … create a category … the list goes on. These guiding principles are easy to remember and easy to latch on to. However, much of this centers on a matter of perspective: firm vs. client. Firms sit around thinking about how they want to brand and market their services (from the firm’s perspective) when they should be focusing on how clients perceive and buy accounting services (from the client’s perspective).

Take care that you act only on the guiding principles that will do the most justice to your business and the people that comprise it. If you understand how people buy accounting services, it might lead you to new conclusions on what your marketing and branding activities should be.

In the end, it is up to you to know which laws apply to you, and which laws are meant for breaking.

Mike Schultz is the President of Wellesley Hills Group, a consulting and marketing services firm that helps service companies worldwide to grow. He is also the Publisher of RainToday.com, the premier online source for insight, advice, and tools for service business rainmakers, marketers and leaders.