The June 20 Wall Street Journal "Page One" featured a laugh-out-loud article, "Perpetrator Problem: It's Hard to Run Away In Falling Trousers"....

I loved reading the examples about cops catching the bad guys, who keep tripping while running away from the scene of the crime!

I'm not the only one who has wondered about the baggy-pants trend; how could something so uncomfortable, ugly, and yes, dysfunctional, become so popular? What kind of personal branding are droopy-pants wearers seeking with this kind of style? (I know, I know, if I have to ask, this branding is not meant to appeal to me!)

It probably takes a sick mind to think baggy pants are a metaphor for some of the obstacles in professional service firm marketing. But just think about it for a moment. Those droopy-drawer criminals are so enamored with their style that they prevent themselves from achieving their aims (purse-snatching, stealing DVDs).

Could your professional service firm be stuck in "baggy-pants marketing syndrome?" It is if you hear (or say) the following excuses:

• Marketing measurement is perceived as too hard, too costly and too time-consuming
• Our marketing leadership is new
• We have no strategic or marketing plan in place
• There are major differences in philosophy, opinions, and cultural approaches to Marketing
• Our firm is too small to have our marketing act together
• We have no marketing or Marketing measurement budget

I wish I could say I made these quotes up! These are verbatim comments taken from the 2006 research report, "Increasing Marketing Effectiveness of Professional Firms," that Larry Bodine and I published in February.

All of these obstacles may be reasonable articulations of real barriers that must be overcome. Obstacles are a fact of life in the marketplace for professional firms.

My main beef here is the complacent acceptance that "this is what things look like here." This excuse becomes the foundation for the myopia, inertia and lack of accountability that exists in too many marketing programs at firms in law, accounting, management consulting, architecture, engineering, and many more.

It's the same thing as wearing droopy drawers because you think they look cool. Everybody else is doing it, but when it comes to running, all you'll do is fall down.