Consulting Professional Weekly Tips

- A brand is a consistent promise of what your clients get from you. Be sure everything about your firm is consistent with that brand. If you run a high end firm, handing out cheap tchotchke at a conference is inconsistent with the brand you're trying to project. If your brand is a fun and exciting place to work but your website is gray and boring, that's inconsistent. Be deliberate about defining and reinforcing your brand every single day. One thing that can be helpful is putting in place some guiding principles for how your organization is going to behave.

I run a high end consulting firm. I was previously a consultant at a firm called McKinsey which was also a high end consulting firm. I have a guiding principle for everything we do. I just ask the question, would McKinsey do this? I had one individual on my team who wanted to do some outbound calling efforts using a third party firm to try and drum up business. I asked him, would McKinsey do this? And he said no, they would never do that. I said, then we're not doing it. Because I want to maintain that consistency with how my firm is perceived by my clients and my prospects.

Some things you can consider about how you're going to maintain your brand. First, attire, what do your people wear? We wear blue, our firm's color is blue. Our clients have come to expect it. I actually had one client who I had worked with for years who saw me in a red shirt one day and he was just blown away. He said, I didn't know you had any other colors in your wardrobe. We're that consistent with our color scheme. Think about your pricing structure and your pricing levels. That needs to be consistent with your brand as well.

If you're a premium organization, you should be charging a premium price. Your website and the signature blocks on your emails need to fit with your brand. When you conduct email campaigns or you use social media, think about who you're associating with. Think about the way a message is conveyed on those channels. Your documents and your deliverables that you share with clients should also be consistent with your brand. Use the same images, the same color scheme because your clients will come to expect that.

Your collateral materials like your business cards and pamphlets also have to be consistent with that brand. And finally, the office space you choose and the location you choose for your offices should also reflect that brand. The more consistent you are with your brand, the more familiar your clients are going to be with you, your services, and what you stand for.