In the dark ages of B2B marketing communications, circa 1980, the goal was to get your snail-mailed communications past the office gatekeepers (a/k/a "executive assistants"), and onto the desks of your targeted decision-makers. Most often, however, the sheer volume of first-class mail processed every morning by office gatekeepers made it more likely that your personalized pitch letter and costly sales brochure would end up, unopened, in the garbage can. Dead on arrival. But s

Surprisingly, a significant number of professional services firms continue to resist building online brand visibility as a business development strategy. The excuses we hear from them most often include: “We’re in a relationship business.” “New clients don’t find us by searching online.” “Our business is driven exclusively by referrals.” Although often it’s a waste of time to push back on their refusal to embrace online visibility, these are 3 reasons that we use to plant som