Proof Point:  The Power of Compelling Content

 

One of our chief tenets at Alterra Group is that great professional services marketing begins with superior content.  Without having something truly novel, interesting or compelling to say, a services organization will have trouble attracting attention to its thinking and differentiating itself from the raft of other companies competing for executives’ time and money.

We were reminded recently of the power of content when we received an invitation to a very special event:  the 10th anniversary of the release of the groundbreaking book The Experience Economy:  Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage by Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore.  This book, released on April 28, 1999, propelled to new heights Strategic Horizons, the firm Pine and Gilmore launched in 1996 (and which they call not a consulting firm but a “thinking studio”).  Along the way it influenced how thousands of executives around the world see and do business.  Although the book is 10 years old, its insights remain remarkably fresh and relevant today—evidenced by the fact that Pine and Gilmore continue to be in great demand as speakers and business “provocateurs,” and that their annual ThinkAbout conference remains a hot ticket for business leaders seeking new ideas for how their companies can compete.  (To read some of the feedback Strategic Horizons’ clients have provided about the book and its impact on them, go here.)

Of course, we recognize not every consultant, attorney, accountant or other advisor can write a best-selling book that sparks a phenomenon and passionate following.  Nor do we advise they necessarily strive to do so.  But we also know that books such as The Experience Economy do provide ample evidence that the quality the ideas being marketed by a services company is the true differentiator in today’s competitive economy.  Firms that shortchange the development of their ideas in the name of expediency and fancy packaging will find it difficult to get executives to even notice them, let alone clamor to hear more.

To learn about our approach for generating great content, click here.