The Lazy Marketing Half-Truths That Hold Back Service Firms
Competence is NOT, and has NEVER BEEN, a differentiator.
Yet businesses still talk about it as if it’s rare.
“We do good work. We listen. We care. We’re always on time.”
These aren’t selling points. They’re basic life skills. The bare minimum anyone should expect when paying for a service. It’s like a builder saying “we turn up.” Congratulations — you’ve cleared the lowest bar possible.
And then there are the bigger clichés. The ones people in charge lean on to explain why they don’t need to think about marketing. You’ve heard them all before:
- “Our business is built on, and will continue to grow on, client referrals.”
- “Clients couldn’t care less about the brand or the logo, it’s the people they care about.”
- “We don’t need marketing, our work speaks for itself.”
They sound safe. They even sound noble. But they’re lazy half-truths. And they quietly cap your growth.
Photo by Tim Samuel on Pexels
“We grow by referrals”
What people in charge actually mean is: we don’t know how to grow beyond referrals, so let’s call it a strategy.
Referrals are great when they land, warm, trusted, and low cost. But they’re unpredictable. They plateau. They skew towards the same type of client. And the moment they slow down, you feel it.
If you’re running a law firm, consultancy, or IT service, you’ll know the pattern: a flurry of referrals one quarter, then nothing the next. Suddenly the pipeline is empty, staff sit idle, and the pressure is on.
Top Tip
Referrals are fuel. They’re not an engine. The engine is marketing, consistent demand you can dial up or down, with proof and positioning that gives you choice.
Take a law firm: if referrals are the plan, luck is in charge of marketing.
Law firms are notorious for saying this line with pride. “We’ve always grown through referrals, and that’s how we’ll keep growing.”
It sounds steady, even impressive. But here’s the reality: relying on referrals alone is like waiting for the tide. Sometimes it comes in strong, sometimes it vanishes — and you’ve got no control over when it turns.
Picture it. A firm lands three chunky instructions in March, all from referrals. The partners are happy. The pipeline looks healthy. Fast forward six months: nothing. The phones are quiet, junior lawyers are under-utilised, and the partners are starting to shave fees to win scraps of work.
This isn’t growth. It’s gambling.
The uncomfortable truth is that referrals plateau. You only grow as fast as your existing clients’ networks. You only get more of the same type of client you already have. And the bigger opportunities, the higher-value commercial cases, the national clients, the cross-border work, never show up, because they aren’t sitting inside your clients’ address books.
Now contrast that with a law firm that decides to build a marketing engine:
- They publish case notes that strip away the jargon and show how they’ve actually helped clients win.
- They position themselves clearly in one area, employment, property, commercial litigation, so the market knows exactly what they stand for.
- They run targeted campaigns so prospects who’ve never met them start recognising the firm’s name before they even need a lawyer.
The referrals don’t stop, but they’re no longer the lifeline. Instead, they’re the bonus fuel on top of a system that already produces steady demand.
The “referrals-only” firm spends half its year waiting and worrying. The firm with a marketing engine spends its year choosing which clients to take on.
“Clients don’t care about brand, they care about the people”
“Clients don’t care about brand, they care about the people”…are the words muttered by every person in charge who has never built a brand.
Yes, clients care about people. They buy from people. But brand is what makes those people credible before they’ve even walked into the room.
Brand isn’t your logo or colours. It’s the reputation, the signals, the consistency that says: this firm is safe, this company is worth the fee, these people won’t make me look stupid for choosing them.
Without it, every pitch starts from zero. Every fee has to be justified. Every sale is an uphill slog.
With it, you tilt the odds. Prospects assume competence before you’ve said a word. Your people walk in with authority already on their side. Your fees hold stronger.
People deliver the brand — but they don’t replace it. Pretend otherwise and you trap your firm in endless reintroductions.
IT services example: if clients only care about people, why do they keep choosing the safest brand?
IT service firms love to say “it’s the people that matter.” And yes, delivery comes down to engineers, consultants, and support staff. But here’s the catch: buyers don’t meet those people until after they’ve signed the contract.
When a CIO or finance director is shortlisting three IT providers, they’re not thinking about which engineer they’ll get on the help desk. They’re looking at the firm’s track record, reputation, scale, and perceived reliability. In other words: the brand.
That’s why the firm with the strongest brand almost always makes the shortlist, even if their people are no better than yours. The brand acts as a safety net. It reduces the risk of making a bad call.
Top Tip
Pretend brand doesn’t matter, and you’ll never make it past procurement’s first filter. By the time your “great people” could prove themselves, you’ve already lost the deal.
“Our work speaks for itself”
This one usually gets rolled out when people in charge don’t want to do the harder work of telling their story, or worse still, don’t have a clear understanding of their own story.
But here’s the problem: work rarely speaks. It sits buried in client files. It’s discussed in private. And unless you make it visible, it has no chance of driving growth.
What happens then?
- Prospects assume you’re the same as everyone else.
- Sales cycles drag because buyers can’t see proof.
- Fees get chipped away because your value is invisible.
Good work is the baseline. Marketing is the amplifier. Without it, you’re whispering in a noisy market.
The ‘good work’ is hidden. Unless you make it visible, the market never sees it.
Recruitment example: placements don’t speak if nobody hears about them
Recruiters often say “our results speak for themselves.” But placements are private. Candidates don’t post about who placed them. Clients don’t announce which recruiter filled the role.
So the “good work” is hidden. Unless you make it visible, the market never sees it.
That’s why so many recruitment firms blur together. Everyone claims to “find the best talent” and “really care about cultural fit.” Without proof, those claims are just wallpaper.
The firms that grow are the ones that turn their results into stories. They publish anonymised case studies showing how fast they filled a role, how many candidates they filtered, how they cut hiring costs. They put numbers, not clichés, in front of prospects.
Top Tip
When you actually show the work, it builds authority. When you don’t, all the market sees is another recruiter making the same promises.
Why half-truths are dangerous
These lines aren’t outright lies. They’re half-truths. And half-truths are the most dangerous, because they lull people in charge into thinking they’ve solved the problem.
- Referrals do matter, but not on their own.
- People do matter, but brand makes them credible.
- Work does matter, but not if nobody sees it.
They make businesses feel safe when they’re actually standing still.
If you’re in charge of a service business and you catch yourself reaching for one of these clichés, pause. Ask the awkward version instead:
- If referrals are enough, why does the pipeline keep stalling?
- If brand doesn’t matter, why do prospects always pick the safe option?
- If our work speaks for itself, why is nobody listening?
The answers tell you what’s really holding you back.
