How Visible Experts Can Transform Management Consulting Firms

Drawing on a survey of over a thousand professional services purchasers and 130 high-visibility experts, the research identifies two primary benefit categories: brand-building advantages and business development advantages.

The brand-building benefits may not come as a surprise to many professional services leaders. It makes an intuitive sort of sense that having individuals with strong personal brands on your team would confer a "halo effect" on the firm as a whole. The research backs this up, with 61% of respondents indicating that high-visibility experts – the individuals we call Visible ExpertsSM – deliver brand benefits to their firms, including:

• Positive impact on reputation and brand recognition
• The company is tied to its experts' knowledge
• Added trust and credibility
• Establishment of market leadership

Additionally, we found that high-visibility experts helped firm develop more and higher-quality professional partnerships, with 44% of respondents indicating that high-profile experts deliver an increased number of partnership opportunities.

A Business Development Boost

One of the most striking research findings was that Visible Experts not only boost firms' reputations—they have a measurable impact on growth and business success.

Some 49 percent of respondents reported that high-visibility experts affected company growth positively, and 29 percent reported an increase in leads. Other impacts include a higher ratio of closed deals—Visible Experts are associated with easier-to-close sales—and the ability to charge premium rates. This ability to charge premium rates bears special attention, because it provides a dramatic illustration of some revealing tendencies in the marketplace.

In order to find out how much management consulting buyers would pay for the services of a Visible Expert, the Hinge Research Institute baselined an average professional at an hourly rate of $100, then asked respondents what they would be willing to pay for experts with progressively higher levels of visibility.

The results? Even a Level 1 expert commands more than two-and-a-half times the rate of a baseline professional. The rates rise continuously and strikingly, culminating in a Level 5 expert's more than 1700% increase. It's noteworthy that this trend, which persists across industries, is particularly pronounced in the management consulting field, with high-level management consulting experts commanding higher premium rates than the elite in other areas of the professional services.

Cultivating Visible Expertise

The research is clear: high-visibility expertise makes a tremendous impact on a firm's success. But how can businesses take advantage of these benefits? Many firms believe that the presence of Visible Experts is a matter of either luck of ambitious hiring.

Fortunately, this isn't true. While not everyone is suited to be an expert, most experts have the ability to build their own visibility, especially when they have the support of their firms. The research shows that today's Visible Experts use a consistent, replicable set of marketing tools like writing authoritative books, creating educational blog posts, and delivering speeches at industry events.

By supporting the educational content creation and reputation-building activities of their experts, management consulting firms make a win-win investment. As the stature of a firm's experts rises, so too does the firm's own brand— along with its power to grow.

Read the full results of the research in the free ebook, The Visible Expert.

Lee W. Frederiksen, Ph.D., is Managing Partner at Hinge, a marketing firm that specializes in branding and marketing for professional services. Hinge is a leader in rebranding firms to help them grow faster and maximize value.