For as long as I can remember, professional services marketers have been accused of owning just one of the ‘four Ps’ of marketing – promotion.
The other three – product, place and price (do you really need reminding?) – all sat with fee-earning colleagues, usually partners.
It has left marketers, even those at the hard coal face of business development, exposed to finger pointing (usually on LinkedIn) that we are little more than noise, responsible for the fluffy stuff, events and umbrellas… the colouring-in department
It is unfair, unhelpful and terribly outdated. Marketers are increasingly involved across all disciplines of professional services businesses – and the widespread adoption of AI is accelerating that.
In this issue we take a deep dive into pricing and the role marketers play. It is, as you might expect, varied. And it might well mean the end of the billable hour.
Partners are “terrified” of their own hourly rate, Verity Jackson-Grant, head of commercial pricing at Fieldfisher, says in our lead feature, Do you have money to burn? They hate talking about the value they bring, despite clients wanting those conversations. It is often an easier conversation for marketers to have.
Then there is the human factor. Everyone wants to do good work for clients, and writing off that work simply because there weren’t good fee negotiations is challenging.
Mary Flanagan, head of clients and strategic projects at accountancy firm Grant Thornton Australia, calls out a culture that demands hours only to write them off as not just “commercially inefficient”, but “corrosive for morale”.
The interventions to fix the pricing challenges are not dramatic and will, we argue, increasingly lean into the orbit of marketing and business development teams.
Barbarians at the gate
The Managing Partners’ Forum Growth Conference in March provided a fascinating insight into how external investment is shaping professional services firms. There were, delegates heard, more than 130 deals in 2025, with growth continuing to accelerate in the first quarter of this year.
It was the insights from the investment community on what they look for in a firm and the experiences of those that have taken investment that stood the day apart. Short term investment cycles are largely out, with cultural alignment vital.
Yet external investment is not for every firm. It was great to have the opportunity to speak to Maria Bailey, the Marketing and Communications Director at accountants Mercer & Hole. The firm has publicly and repeatedly said it intends to remain ‘fiercely independent’.
It does not mean that the firm is anti-private equity or that it is wrong – it acts for many funds, investors and businesses with private equity capital. It is a decision, Maria explains, driven by the culture of the firm and its incredibly strong employee brand.
I am sure many other firms will be having similar discussions.
I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this issue of PM magazine, and I hope you enjoy the articles we have bought together.
Matt Baldwin is the co-founder and joint Managing Director of Coast Communications, a PR communications consultancy
