Examine Your Firm’s Packaging

Packaging applies to professional services firms as well as consumer products. Your firm has a package that includes its letterhead, its name, its logo, its business cards, its website, its marketing and even the way your telephones are answered. This package is what the world sees and it goes a long way to shaping the opinion people have of your organization.

Start with your letterhead. Take a look at it and compare it with the letterheads of other businesses received recently. Is it modern, clean and efficient-looking? Can a recipient clearly see all the contact details so they know how to reply? Does it show your email address and website, or has it been a while since your letterhead was designed?

Your firm’s name is important. The name should say something about what type of firm it is and what it does. If, for example, it’s simply “Smith and Jones” you might consider renaming it “Smith and Jones Accountants”, or at least add “Accountants” to the letterhead and other printed materials beneath the firm’s name.

If you have a business logo you might consider whether it needs to be updated or perhaps given a different color treatment. Logos can date just as easily as other package attributes like typefaces and layouts. Printing options these days enable more detail to be shown and a wider choice of colors.

Business cards are next. They’re little billboards that should communicate something about the business as well as the individuals on them. They should be consistent with the other graphic elements in your package and communicate their contents without causing eyestrain or searching for things like addresses and phone numbers.

The website is a recent addition to most professional services firms. A professionally-designed website can highlight your firm’s services, enable the qualifications of your team to be viewed, and even contain items like articles and case histories that can impress those looking for more information about you. But it has to look good and be more than just simple “brochureware” that tends to look cheap, dull and static.

It’s worth considering taking your firm’s packaging a step further. For those who don’t know much or anything about you, produce a simple but informative printed piece that you can use for your marketing or in submissions for engagements. The professionalism of your firm needs to be reflected in the professionalism of its design and production.

Take your marketing a step further and produce a series of case histories that will show how you’ve successfully handled work for retailers, manufacturers, sole traders, wholesalers, restaurants or any other business area that’s represented in your client base. Others in that line of work will be able to easily identify with your existing clients when they view them.

Let’s consider even more possible elements of your packaging, like advertising. Most professional services firms do some small-scale advertising in their local telephone directories so it’s worth considering the design elements used and upgrading typefaces or colors if they fit in with your existing graphic elements.

The way your answer your telephones is another element of your firm’s packaging. Phones should be answered politely and consistently be everyone there, from the top on down. Procedures need to be agreed upon for such things as taking messages and putting callers on hold. And if you have a radio providing music for people on hold be sure it’s tuned to a station with music that doesn’t puncture callers’ eardrums.

The last part of the packaging is your firm’s overall appearance. Step back and look at your building, your office, your furnishings and everything else that clients and other visitors will see when they come to your place of business. Even the way your team dresses is important.

Examine your firm’s packaging and get every element to a consistent and high standard. Monitor it regularly to be sure nothing gets out of step because it all adds up to the impression you give the world.

(This article was originally published in the August 2004 edition of ONEderings ezine.)
Copyright 2005, RAN ONE Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from www.ranone.com.