Grant Thornton

With the majority of New Zealand and overseas businesses being owner managed, Grant Thornton have dedicated their resources to providing accounting and business advisory services to these businesses in New Zealand and, through their membership within Grant Thornton International Ltd (Grant Thornton International), they have access to firms in over 100 countries, offering their clients specialist local knowledge supported by international expertise and methodologies.

For decades, professional service providers, including consultants, accountants, lawyers, and others, were reluctant marketers. They thrived in a cozy world where networks of personal relationships and word-of-mouth brought them enough new clients to grow a profitable business. Those days aren’t gone, but they’re fading fast.

For many services buyers, personal relationships are still the driver of purchase decisions, but the cracks in that buying model are now apparent.

In a recent study of client buying behavior, analysts at Raintoday.com found that more than half of professional service purchasers are open to switching service providers. Golf, theatre tickets, and other perks are part of the business development game for many, but even those tactics are running out of gas.

To compete for and win the most profitable work, professional service providers must rethink familiar marketing practices, and focus their marketing strategies on the issues that really matter to clients.

We were retained by Grant Thornton in New Zealand to conduct a comprehensive Marketing Audit and subsequently develop and assist with the implementation of a Strategic Marketing Plan driven by the reality of a rapidly changing marketplace for such professional services.

Our work included the development and implementation of a marcoms (marketing communications) programme that was  awarded a Gold Midas Award in London for Excellence in Financial Services Marketing.

We also implemented a number of sales & marketing training programmes specifically related to the marketing of Professional Services and designed to ensure that the firm and its people lived up to the promises they were making in the marketplace.