Alternative Dispute Resolution
ADR Altantic Conference and Annual General Meeting
June 13, 2009
These notes summarize the comments and themes from our panel on marketing a professional services practice at the ADR Atlantic conference and annual general meeting at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Saturday, June 13, 2009. Our panellists were Gary Furlong, nationally renowned mediator, trainer, facilitator, and a consultant with Agree Dispute Resolution in Toronto, Ontario; Gus Richardson, Q.C., a Halifax-based lawyer, mediator, arbitrator and med-arbitrator; and Dr. Ramesh Venkat, an Associate Professor Marketing in the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University and founder of CeQuotia Consulting, which provides customer experience management and brand strategy solutions.
ADR Skills Transfer Easily to Marketing – Effective marketing uses many of the same skills and tools ADR professionals already have in abundance: active listening, and identifying needs and helping people address those needs by asking the right questions. The skills and tools are identical except that they are being applied in a different context.
Big Trap – Failure to market is a “big trap”. The risk in not marketing is that your supply of work can be choked off. It is essential to set aside time on a regular basis to market your practice. That way, you avoid peaks and valleys in your workload.
Broad and Shallow, or Narrow and Deep?
Professional service providers may choose to distinguish their expertise as “broad and shallow” or “narrow and deep”. Gary Furlong, for example, sees himself as a “narrow and deep” practitioner, in that he is confines his professional practice to acting almost exclusively as a mediator and trainer. He described other ADR professionals who define their expertise to the marketplace as “broad and shallow”, in that they work across a broad professional spectrum, from workplace investigations, to coaching, mediations, arbitrations, med-arbs, training, in varying combinations and degrees. Gary indicated there were difficult days when he had to turn clients away because they were looking for service (like workplace investigations) outside his self-defined parameters, but that the more he adhered to his definition of his professional practice, the more other people came to perceive him as he had cast himself, namely, as solely a mediator and trainer.
Discounting Rates – Price your services appropriately. Pricing sends out an important signal about quality, and there is a clear risk to discounting professional service rates in terms of the marketplace reading discounting for value reduction.
Industries – Insurance companies (for example in personal injury cases) and the construction industry have pushed for mediation and arbitration, as a result of which ADR is now an accepted part of dispute resolution in those sectors. The astute ADR professional services provider will look outward for those other sectors where mediation and arbitration might be successfully applied, and go to them with offers to educate on the benefits of ADR.
Markets and the Value Proposition – Marketing is a discipline that every business needs to pursue, including providers of ADR professional services. A first step is to ask yourself what your “natural market” is, and get clear about that. A natural market for you is a market you would be naturally aligned with, by reason of your background, training, temperament, etc. Once your natural market is identified, ask yourself what your “target market(s)” should be, and identify two (2) to four (4) different target markets that will be the main focus of your marketing efforts. There should be an overlap between your natural market(s) and your target market(s). Look for opportunities for cross-pollenization between your target markets.
Ask yourself, “What are my skill sets, my capacities, who do I serve, and who is it I want to serve?” This is the first step in “customer selection”. Once you have answered these questions, you have to get clear about the “value proposition”. That is, recognize that people come to professional service providers for solutions to problems. The consumer of your service needs a problem solved. Your success is in creating value for your clients, starting with providing at least what you say you are going to provide. Then ask yourself what distinguishes you from your competition, such as methodology, specialization, etc., and get clear about your distinction in the marketplace from other providers in the marketplace.
Networking, a Primary Strategy – There is no market called the “general public”. It is important to identify and stay visible in your target market or industry. To identify your target audience, look for an association or organization representing people you believe or guess to have a shared similar interest in or need for your services, and with whom you want to work. For example, CAFE (Canadian Association of Family Owned Enterprises) represents family-owned businesses. If you believe that its members could make use of your professional services, and you want to work with family-owned business people, you would look for opportunities to speak at a CAFE meeting, or write in their newsletter, etc.
Other examples are attending lunch ‘n learns (as speaker or participant); speaking at conferences; blogging; contributing to newsletters aimed at target market/industry, etc. It is all about building and sustaining personal relationships or being “top of mind” in the event of a dispute.
Networking is critical to effective marketing. Look for associations you can belong to in your target market or industry, offer free seminars on topics of interest to that market, and apply a soft sell approach. Be aware of the “sales cycle” in selling professional services: If a member of that market or industry calls to retain you, it could be more than six (6) months after that person met you or heard you speak.
Print Advertising, a Secondary Strategy – Print advertising (such as advertising in the Lawyers Weekly, for example) is a secondary marketing strategy, and plays a supporting role for the more direct marketing referred to above. Secondary strategies serve to allow you to keep your name out in the marketplace, i.e. name recognition. They have the virtue that they can be cost-effective and not time consuming, but they do not replace primary marketing activities. Target your print advertising to your target market.
Your ad should be larger than a business card ad, but does not need to be in colour.
Mass mailings do not work.
Selling ADR, Viewed as a Process – For the uneducated consumer of mediation services, the buying decision is a two (2) step process: “What is it?” “And why do I need it?” Accordingly, there is real value in educating potential users of the mediation. It helps bring those in the marketplace through the first step in the buying decision, and also serves to showcase the trainer’s expertise. Gary Furlong referred to a number of cases where mediation files became available as a direct result of his work as a trainer.
Dr. Venkat referred to the universal “AIDA principle” in consumer decisions to buy professional services: Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action. Promoting awareness is the key to creating interest, from which the decision is made to use the professional service and the service provider is retained. The delivery of education in your target market or industry helps move the buyers of your service further along the “buyer readiness” scale.
Websites – This is the 21st century, and every professional service practice should have a good website. The panellists were in complete agreement that a website today is mandatory.
Features of a good website for the ADR professional are:
- Simple design, with a clear screen
- Contains a booking calendar, so the parties can easily check your availability
- Includes a sample arbitration and mediation agreements
- Incorporates an educational component about ADR
- Sets out your fee structure
- Makes use of tracker software, to provide you with data on the pages your visitors are viewing
- Ensures your name pops up on search engines.
- If you decide to blog, update your blog regularly. A good, current blog can expand your business.
Your Reputation Precedes You –
ADR professionals are consistently chosen because of their personal credibility and reputation. Your “brand” is that credibility, reputation and trust; it is not your logo, letterhead, giveaways, or your company name. An ADR service provider’s brand is not built by investing in logos and letterhead. (General Motors spent US $4 billion in marketing its products, and look where it is.) The professionals who succeed are the ones who are focused on consistently delivering on their promises, and exceeding expectations. What you really have to sell is your personal reputation and contacts.
“Closing” Words – “Selling” ADR is indeed a soft sell: For those who have a need for a conflict resolution solution and can now see ADR as offering that solution, “the close” for the ADR professional is often merely to ask, “What would you like to do?”
This summary has been assembled as a composite from the available notes taken by the conference attendees. Edited by Jim Musgrave, Q.C., Cert. Conf. Res., Secretary-Treasurer, ADR Atlantic, Nova Scotia.
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On Saturday, September 6, 2008, a small but mightly group of local mediators spent the day at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, studying conflict resolution theory with Gary Furlong, one of Canada's preeminent conflict resolution practitioners. Read the summary.
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