Welcome to PM Forum South West

The PM Forum is a 4,000 strong, regionally-based members' association, dedicated to raising the standards of professional services marketing and to enhancing the credibility of marketers working in professional service firms worldwide.

Meetings

The South West region's events take place in Bristol city centre at various venues kindly provided by the City's leading firms. Our meetings are predominantly attended by professionals working in Bristol and Bath, although members do travel from as far afield as Southampton, Exeter and Cardiff and are made very welcome! We generally get about 35 attendees at each meeting, sometimes more.

Six seminar-style meetings are planned per year, as well as a social event in the Summer. Details and a booking form for our next event can be found below, along with links to reports on previous events.

Topics

Recent research provided us with the focus for our topics this year: the top eight requests were for business development, Client Relationship Management, measuring effectiveness, lead generation, competitive advantage, internal communications, coaching and cross-selling.

Attendees

We attract a diverse audience covering marketers in professional services firms, partners and senior fee-earners with a marketing remit, and agencies or suppliers to the sector. We are actively seeking to grow and further diversify our membership, particularly among the surveying and property-related professions. For more information on membership download 7 reasons to belong to the PM Forum and a registration form.

As a membership organisation, only members of the Forum, or regional employees of firms that are members nationally are eligible to attend our events and benefit from other features such as the monthly magazine professional marketing, the online Article Bank and Job Bank. However, those interested in joining are welcome to attend one event as our guest in order to get a feel for the Forum.

Please contact either of our Regional Directors if you wish to hear more about our events and membership benefits.

Regional Directors: Hilary Gladwell, Implementor
07785 280643

Chair: Neil Dymond

Committee:

Leigh Lyons, TLT (solicitors)
Rachael Wheatley, Jordans Limited


PM Forum - Making your job a little easier! Join us now.
Details of our next event:

Is the credit crunch an opportunity to build or a chance to reduce marketing and business development activity?

Bristol - Thursday 29 January 2009

For the last few months the credit crunch and looming recession has been fronting the headlines. For many it is make or break time. So how, in an economic downturn, will your organisation handle its marketing? Will it see it as a window to make cut backs or will it grasp it with both hands and carry on? What should you be focussing on? And how can we as marketers demonstrate value?

Chaired by Hamish Munro of Guildhall Chambers, PM Forum SW will put these and related questions to David Pester, managing partner at TLT solicitors, and Paul Spaven, partner in TFT building consultants, who, from a management perspective, will front a lively debate around how much the state of the economy is impacting on business development in professional services.

Hamish Munro is Chief Executive of one of the UK's largest chambers of barristers, Bristol-based Guildhall Chambers. He has spent 20 years in professional services marketing and business development with accountants BDO Stoy Hayward and lawyers Eversheds, Davies Arnold Cooper and Simmons & Simmons. He has been recognised as one of the top ten marketing directors to law firms (In Brief ). Known as a business development heavyweight, he has pioneered new approaches to knowledge-centred marketing, key account management, successful pitching and new service development.

Paul Spaven
TFT is a 120 strong business of chartered building surveyors, project managers and others totalling 120 people with a £11M+ turnover currently achieving around 30% gross profit. The business operates out of London, Kingston-upon-Thames, Guildford, Bristol, Birmingham and Cardiff.

Paul’s task is to grow the intellectual geographical and physical capabilities of the practice to serve clients’ needs across Europe. The client base is commercial property investors, developers and occupiers, together with providers of social housing, education and healthcare services. The Strategic Growth Partner role includes marketing and Paul has a London based team of three working with him – a marketing executive, internal comms/press relations manager and marketing assistant.

David Pester
"Managing partner David Pester combines “impressive management” with “a high corporate profile regionally." Chambers UK, 2008

Named 'Managing Partner of the Year' in the 2007 British Legal Awards, David is responsible for the firm's strategy and development. He is regarded by market commentators as the driving force behind TLT's exceptional growth, impressive client wins, strong financial performance and growing national reputation.

David is a corporate finance specialist and is recommended as a 'Leader in his Field' by independent guides to the legal sector, Chambers and Legal 500.

Booking form

If you would like to receive regular invites to events, please register online.