I specialize in marketing strategy development for high tech firms, and I make sure that is reflected everywhere. It illuminates specialization and differentiation, and puts me on client short lists during their discovery phase.

I also have a non-tech client in the language services business. They have strong market differentiators that are strategic to being accepted against larger competitors. Their brand statement and all our external communication reinforce their core brand. Without this, they would appear as a commodity provider, which is the kiss of death.

In one-partner practices, the individual is the brand. As a practice grows, the company's values - and how they are expressed - have to reflect the joint personalities of all the partners.

Understanding and defining the internal values (ie. the service) and making it attractive and appealing (the brand identity) is the difference between mundane performance and a dynamic future-focused company.

Thanks to Enron, et al, corporate branding, corporate social responsibility and corporate governance issues are rapidly gaining importance.

In the old days, professional services companies were able to trade off the reputations of their partners, in the same way that high tech companies trade off recent gadgets. However, this kind of promotion does not build meaningful or powerful associations for a brand among customers, investors or staff. The result? When the luster fades, either through a partner leaving or when a new gadget steals the limelight, people’s enthusiasm for the brand fades equally.

Furthermore, if a brand is only as strong as its star players’ reputations, customers will have very little leniency when things go wrong.

The experience of a brand must be the same throughout an organization. Effective branding of an organization means that each member of the team understands the brand promise and carries out his or her responsibilities based on that promise.

If the only thing that motivates an individual is developing his or her personal brand it will do very little to develop a corporate brand and maintain customer loyalty to an organization.

Virgin is a strong brand with a brilliant marketer at the helm but really, how many people at the consumer level know who Richard Branson is? Not many I suspect. That being said, the product or company name usually supersedes and is the banner or top-of-mind identification or reference for most. So, as per an earlier submission which stated, you would never get into the door if you weren't backed by a product or company name that built its equity/reputation with the consumer over time, stands true. Some people, like Richard Branson, or Michael Dell, or Bill Gates , as founders of their companies, whether they like it or not, whether they prefer it or not, have become brands within and/or apart from their respective companies/products. E.g. Bill Gates and Microsoft; Michael Dell and, well, DELL; Michael Eisen and Disney and so on...

In the end, the dynamics are quite common between the user and the marketer of a service or that of a brand/product. The main goal is to build customer base, retain customers and make a profit while you're at it.

Fedex is a service and a good one at that. They've spent millions on branding and they deliver a positive experience to consumers every time. Fedex has become a household name, a top-of-mind service for many around the world.

Google, in less than 5 years, has created a brand worth more than $2 billion -- this is a service and a free one at that. Take away the Google name and, well, you may lose everything that comes with it: reputation, accessibilty, reliability and the like.

Brand identity establishes a personality, working style, or philosophical approach to the services being offered. That identity transcends the individual and goes into the service delivery and the outcomes of the client interactions -– building brand equity and loyalty.

Skipping around with individuals who service the business or represent the overall brand has been going on for a long time and will continue to do so. This happens because the individual or the client moves away from the brand’s direction/path and happens over a period of time or due to a major switch in that direction.

With that said, it is also important to invest in the individual who represent and are truly the pieces that make up your brand. It is also important to invest in your customers, not just depend on one person or small team of people to interact and conduct business with them. The more touch points and interaction with a broader swath of your brand, the more loyal and likely customers will not jump ship to a departing employee or a competitor.

The point – 'The firm’s brand is most important' and the counterpoint – 'Individuals are the brand' are both a key part of professional service company’s branding synergy.

I run a training and advertising consultancy, The Bigger Picture, and the fact that i am the brand is reinforced everyday. More so because I launched in January this year. The only reason that people give me appointments in the first place is because they know me, having worked in the advertising world ( Saatchi & Saatchi and a bank (Standard Chartered Bank). In fact right now I am bigger than the brand. If I fall short of what people expect of me (they already have a perception of me from their previous workings with me) my brand will be dead and buried before I can say the bigger picture. As time goes on the brand will be able to stand on its own. However it will not grow unless the people that I employ can deliver and keep clients satisfied.

First, branding creates a perception of cohesion, team work and co-ordination. Fail to form these ideals in the minds of the buyer, and profitability will be affected. Another contribution of branding is that marketing and business development opportunities can occur in the absence of contact with a professional. The main contact point for all professional service firms is the client/prospect-professional interface. However, where the professional does not make the connection with a service buyer (there are only so many professionals to go around!), branding encourages buyers to investigate the firm and research the resources it can provide.

When it comes to the top valued employees they don’t push the company as much as they push the person. It can even be seen from Tiger Woods being the whiney little bitch that he is and complaining that the PGA is not giving him enough royalties from using him to sell the PGA, and then threatening to open his own tour.

Heskett, Jones, Loverman, Sasser, and Schlesinger came up with the 'Service-Profit Chain.' This is the concept that workplace design, employee rewards/recognition, etc, lead to internal service quality. This quality creates employee satisfaction. From this comes retention/productivity and then you become employer of choice attracting the best employees and keeping them. These experienced employees emanate the external service value to the customer, which obviously creates customer satisfaction. This will continue because of your great staff and you will see customer loyalty grow as well as revenue growth and profitability. These great results make those employees quite proud and happy and it feeds back into the internal service quality to continue the cycle.

Have you ever gone to a hotel and dealt with one long-time employee that knows exactly what you want and gives superior service every time? When that employee is not there any more…people notice. If there is a similar product/service right next door why do they continue to come to you?

Employee branding is important in so many ways. Of course the big drawback with playing your employees as your brand is your newly created brand jumping ship to the competition. If it’s a highly sensitive industry with customer list and such, it might not be a bad idea to sign some legal documentation that covers your butt as much as possible.

Often professional services firms are partnerships -- meaning decisions are made by consensus -- no tolerance for individual grandstanding. Branding the company is a worthwhile endeavor and to the benefit of the firm name, employees and clients. Jim Speros' (see his post) comments are on point.

1) As good as the best service provider in the firm is, his income is a function of how much time he puts in on task. The smart service providers/individuals need the firm to make his/her business development efforts easier and faster. The right brand does that. The leading individual service providers know that and,

2) Add their own flavor to the context set by the brand. Obviously the brand value needs o be right and it needs to be flexible. But at the end of the day, the professionals will by design or inadvertently backfill in behind the brand. But that's part of energetic brand management in a service firm -- to outrun the service providers -- be in position to make them follow more often than they lead.

3) From the point of view of firm management, the brand not only cutivates the path of their hottest income producers, but raises the visibilty of that part of their overall enterprise. In turn making the management job easier and attacting more and similarly aligned and motivated talent.