Attract the clients who want you for what you do best
Bringing focus to your firm’s positioning strategy
Positioning
Strategy
Positioning Your Firm for Success
Ignition's positioning strategy program is designed to help your firm stand for something instead of trying to stand for everything. With a clear strategy, it's possible to stop chasing business and have more business start chasing you. Learn how a focused positioning makes your firm intensely appealing to the types of clients who want you for what you do best.
Successful agencies do for themselves what they do for their clients: develop a distinctive brand. But they are usually so eager to be “full-service” that they try to stand for everything. Ignition’s professional development series shows how your firm can build on success by defining a clearer, more relevant and differentiating positioning. You’ll learn how a clearer positioning strategy leads to:
A well-defined set of criteria for identifying the clients who want the agency for what it does best.
A stronger win ratio in new business, because the agency is playing to its strengths.
A broader — not narrower — geographical market area.
Fewer competitors, because there will be fewer agencies who do what you do.
A clear path for investing in the development of new services and acquiring new talent.
A meaningful, unifying theme for the agency website, social media, and new business program.
More pricing leverage with clients, because you’ll be offering more differentiated services and expertise.
The intersection of four brand boundaries — What, Who, Way and Why — defines the firm’s business strategy and points the way to a positioning strategy that makes the most of the firm's strengths. The workshops and webinars in this series will show you how.
Online
Workshops
Take A Stand for Your Brand
Just like any other successful product or service, agencies need a meaningful and distinctive position in the marketplace. Defining a position is difficult for agencies because it involves sacrifice. It means not only deciding what you are, but what you are not.
Bringing Your Positioning Strategy to Life
No professional service firm can serve all customers in all markets with all services. This workshop will show you how to bring the agency's business practices into alignment with the firm's positioning strategy.
On Demand Positioning Webinars
Expand Your Firm by Narrowing Your Focus
What’s the logical way to grow your firm this coming year? Expand, right? Add more practice areas, serve more industries? Seems like common sense. But for the most part, an effective business strategy is not common sense.
In fact, defining your firm’s positioning strategy is usually very counterintuitive. The “more is better” model that most of us carry around in our heads is the wrong mental construct. What works today is narrow, not broad. And while its human nature to equate “narrow” with “small,” these are actually two completely different concepts. To have a narrow business strategy doesn’t mean you’ll have a small business. Quite the opposite. Starbucks is narrow – coffee – but has a global footprint few companies can match. This workshop shows how and why it's a lot more rewarding to be good at something rather than trying to be good at everything.
Bringing Your Positioning Strategy to Life
You’ve made the all-important decision about positioning. Now comes the really hard part: aligning your positioning with your practices. Through your practices, you bring your agency brand to life. Your purpose, principles, and positioning point the way to your destination. But your practices are how you get there. When it comes to aligning your practices with your positioning, consistency is the key.
In this intensive workshop Tim Williams shows how your firm can bring its strategy to life in virtually every important aspect of the organization. Using examples from around the world, we explore how to “operationalize” your firm’s positioning strategy in all your major business practices.
See Ignition in Action
Ignition Talks Positioning
What People Are Saying
“Having been in the agency business for almost 40 years, and a devotee of Ignition’s insights for over 10, I can honestly say Tim Williams is the rare advisor that truly is insightful and strategic. He identifies larger trends no one else sees, along with their implications for operations, products and services, pricing and positioning. His advice on how to deal them all has been game-changing for us."
— Marsha Lindsay, Founding Partner, Lindsay, Stone & Briggs
“Tim Williams has the best grasp on agency brand positioning I have ever seen. It deserves as wide an audience as possible within our industry.”
— Cindy Gallop, Former Chairman, Bartle Bogle Hegarty NY
“Ignition presents a “no holds barred” look at the future of the advertising agency business. Tim not only provokes thought but offers actionable ideas about how agencies can adapt in our rapidly changing environment – remaining relevant and valuable to clients, and ultimately securing our own future.”
— Sue Butler, Butler/Till
“When it comes to knowing how to create an environment in which people can do their best work, Tim Williams knows the right principles. He can show marketing professionals how to get golden eggs without killing the goose."
— Stephen R. Covey, Author of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People"