Which Marketing Book Can Help You?
Many of my clients ask me to recommend books that can be good tools or reference materials for enhancing their law practice management skills. Today I’m sharing with you my reviews of three popular books that address business development for lawyers.
1. Rainmaking Made Simple: What Every Professional Must Know by Mark M. Maraia. Maraia writes in an easy to read style, and gives numerous real life examples of how attorneys have successfully implemented the techniques he recommends. Those anecdotes shift the conceptual into the concrete, a real strength of the book.
Maraia’s book is ideal for attorneys who find marketing daunting, unpleasant or bothersome. He teaches the reader how to make marketing fun, or at least, in his words, “less torture.” He helps lawyers find ways to market their law practice while doing things they already like doing. He teaches them how to become more effective at the marketing techniques they have already attempted, and encourages them to stretch a little into some new activities.
The Maraia Method® focuses on relationship development. Some other business development books say things like (and I’m quoting) “Develop a relationship as early as you can….This can start in modest ways, such as gathering information about the prospect and establishing a rapport during the selling process.” Duh! But exactly how do you accomplish that? Maraia tells you. For example, in Chapter 18: The Myth of Asking for the Business, Maraia gives specific advice on how to build your prospect’s trust through the kinds of questions you ask.
Each chapter is only about 4-5 pages long. That allows you to pick a topic and read up on it on a “just in time” basis. Going to lunch with a prospect? Read Chapter 17: Avoiding Random Acts of Lunch. Scheduled to give a speech? Read Chapter 34: Using Speaking to Win New Clients. Serving on a non-profit board? Read Chapter 31: Building Relationships with Board Members.
Small firm attorneys may be turned off by the book’s tendency to focus on the business development issues of big law firms, with chapters such as “Making Cross-Selling Work in Your Firm” and “Measuring the Return on Investment in Marketing Training.” Nevertheless, most of the principles in the book will also apply to solo and small firm practices.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I must point out that I have been a member of the team giving follow-on coaching in connection with the Rainmaking Made Simple training program for several years. I formed my positive opinions about the book before teaming up with Mark Maraia, however.
2. How to Get and Keep Good Clients by Jay G. Foonberg and How to Start and Build a Law Practice by Jay G. Foonberg. Foonberg is an icon among law students who want to start their own law firms. His books have the “honor” of being the most frequently stolen from law school libraries. How to Start and Build a Law Practice is in its fifth edition and How to Get and Keep Good Clients is in its third edition, attesting to their long-term value in the legal marketplace.
I applaud Foonberg for giving very specific suggestions, such as a sample draft of a follow-up letter after attending a convention or trade show; suggested language to use in inquiring about why a client doesn’t send you referrals; and what to say when someone asks for a business card and you don’t have one.
A weak point: sometimes Foonberg addresses extremely basic issues, such as “The Role of Clothing in Marketing Yourself.” A strong point: he peppers the books with concrete suggestions on how to increase your visibility in the marketplace and position yourself as an expert. Many of those suggestions can be implemented by both new and more seasoned lawyers.
Foonberg’s books are good resources for new lawyers, providing advice on how to get started from the ground floor. A new lawyer should seek other resources in addition to Foonberg, however. Despite the revised editions, his books have become a bit outdated.
Although I think Foonberg gives a lot of sound advice, I disagree with some of it. For example, in his chapter on what to say when someone asks what you do, Foonberg leans toward trying to sell yourself as able to handle a wide range of matters. In my article in the June 2007 issue of The Practice Manager titled “Get Remembered,” I advised keeping your answer simple and concrete, which usually requires you to narrow the field, instead of broaden it. Concrete imagery makes your response more memorable and repeatable. That increases the likelihood that your listener will think of you when he (or a friend) has a need for your services. (If this explanation isn’t concrete enough, just read my other article.)
Some people don’t like the format of Foonberg’s books. Many of the “chapters” are less than a page in length, with each chapter starting on a new page. That presents the content in a choppy way, and makes the hardback copy fat and heavy.
I don’t really recommend Foonberg’s books for experienced lawyers. They are more appropriate for newer lawyers who haven’t really found their niche yet, and aren’t familiar with the myriad of issues they will face in managing a law practice.
3. Rainmaking: The Professional’s Guide to Attracting New Clients by Ford Harding. Harding’s 1994 classic was updated, re-titled and re-released in March 2008 as Rainmaking: Attract New Clients No Matter What Your Field. The newer version contains some added chapters, but whichever version you purchase, it will be well worth the price.
Many lawyers go about their marketing efforts in a haphazard fashion, trying this and that, now and then. They have little clue as to which efforts really pay off. If you recognize that you need to become more systematic and strategic about your marketing, Harding tells you how to do it. He provides charts, lists, questionnaires and forms that guide you step-by-step in networking, writing articles, getting publicity, making presentations, building client relationships, writing proposals, setting fees and identifying which marketing strategies are more suited to your practice.
This book would be a great help to a lawyer who has experienced modest success, but wants to ramp up the revenues. Harding’s method requires the lawyer to invest some time in planning and analysis, but if she does all of the exercises he recommends and implements a consistent marketing plan, I have no doubt she’ll succeed.
Today even seasoned lawyers find the ground shifting under their feet when it comes to legal marketing, and they are looking for resources. I hope these book reviews will give attorneys a sense of where to start. For finding strategies that involve the Internet and technology, however, I recommend surfing the web. Technology and the opportunities it creates keep changing too fast for book publishing to keep up.
© 2008 Debra L. Bruce
This article was originally published in April 2008 in The Practice Manager published by the State Bar of Texas.
Debra Bruce (www.lawyer-coach.com) practiced law for 18 years, before becoming a professionally trained Executive Coach for lawyers. She is Vice Chair of the Law Practice Management Committee of the State Bar of Texas, and board member and past leader of Houston Coaches Inc., the Houston Chapter of the International Coach Federation. She can be contacted for questions or comments at 713-682-4353 or debra@lawyer-coach.com.
Post Date: July 2, 2008
Learning from Our Mistakes
A wise person said, “A mistake is not a mistake unless you fail to learn from it.” I made my share of mistakes in my legal career, and here are a few I learned from. I thought I would offer you the chance to learn from some of mine, instead of making them all yourself.
1. Viewing speaking and writing as non-billable time. It is true that we usually can’t bill anyone for those activities or the preparation time required. When I looked at it that way, however, I tended to de-value the activity, and put it behind everything else. Of course, that means I didn’t get around to developing talks or writing articles that would showcase my expertise and expose me to new contacts. The wiser course would have been to view those efforts as important business development activities, so that I would give them the appropriate emphasis.
2. Focusing on prospective clients and not on prospective referral sources. As a corollary to the first law practice management mistake described above, I didn’t take advantage of opportunities to speak to audiences full of referral sources. At a time when I represented small businesses, the managing partner of the regional office of a large national insurance company asked me to give a talk to their sales stars about shareholder agreements in closely held organizations. I never got around to it. I saw it as a favor to them and I didn’t recognize that they would be highly motivated to act like my free sales force convincing business owners that they needed shareholder agreements backed by key-leader life insurance. I didn’t recognize the opportunity, even though I had seen how an initial small project could develop into a significant long-term client. When those life insurance clients didn’t like their existing counsel, or needed a referral for other reasons, I would have been the corporate lawyer all those sales people knew to recommend.
3. Not networking enough with lawyers in other practice groups. As an associate in a large law firm, I billed a lot of hours. Although I liked getting to know the other attorneys, I had my nose to the grindstone so much that I rarely ventured to the other floors. As a partner, even in a smaller firm, I had many additional duties and tended to focus my networking outward. In those years I got a myopic view of firm politics, and missed a lot of opportunities to build or strengthen valuable alliances. Life in a law firm can have striking similarities to the reality television show Survivor, where alliances play a crucial role.
4. Training one subordinate after another on the same thing. The work in a law office requires smart people at all levels, so lawyers tend to develop people-dependent practices. People smart enough to be good lawyers or good legal support staff have multiple employment opportunities, however. As a result, many law firms today experience a lot of turnover. Illness, life changes, or even advancement within the firm can trigger the need to train replacements. After suffering through temporary employees and new trainees a few times, I learned to ask the people I supervised to develop a desk manual respecting their responsibilities. For any redundant work, the manual set out detailed explanations of the procedures involved and the location of the useful or necessary resources. I also established indexed form banks that I could point people to. That made my practice more system-dependent and less people-dependent. I got higher quality product from my direct reports, I spent less of my own time in the delegation process, and I didn’t get crippled when the inevitable turnover occurred.
5. Working myself into poor health. The ranks of lawyers include a lot of workaholics, and I’ve been one of them. When the law firm culture rewards martyrdom in the name of client service or higher revenues, lawyers may fail to recognize the true price they pay. Until I learned to establish some boundaries and engage in self-care, I went into the hospital twice during one pregnancy due to overwork; I allowed a cold to develop into bronchitis and then pneumonia; I experienced a period of excessive weight loss; I missed out on a great vacation that I regretted for years; and once I fell asleep at a stop light while driving home from work. I have not even mentioned the impact on my most important relationships. Looking back on those days from the maturity of my years and the vantage point of experience, what I gained was not worth what I lost.
6. Telling an experienced assistant how I liked things done without asking her how she liked to do things. When I joined a new law firm, I blew it on the very first day. As a result of that faux pas, we got off to a bad start and I experienced a lot of passive-aggressive foot-dragging and low quality work product from a very competent staff member. If I had started out by asking her how she suggested doing things, I might have learned a few new ideas. There would be plenty of time later to develop a working methodology that satisfied us both. I would have had a more willing guide through my initiation at the new firm, and I definitely would have saved myself a lot of frustration over the next few months.
These are just a few of the mistakes I made over the years. I invite you to share with me some of your experiences of “learning the hard way.” I suspect that together we could have enough fodder for quite a few more columns.
© 2008 Debra Bruce
Originally appeared in The Practice Manager published by the State Bar of Texas in March 2008.
Post Date: March 14, 2008
Send Holiday Greetings That Really Connect
Send Holiday Greetings That Really Connect
The holidays and year end present many opportunities for enhancing existing client relationships and developing new prospects. Many attorneys don’t take full advantage of the opportunities, however, because they fail to invest a little forethought. Here are some ideas to consider if you engage in the venerable tradition of sending out holiday greetings.
When to Send Out Greetings
Although the number of holiday cards sent out has declined over the last decade, it is still difficult to stand out in the flurry of holiday communication. Some lawyers have migrated to sending Thanksgiving cards. What an excellent opportunity to express gratitude for your clients’ trust and confidence in you, as demonstrated by their business. Alternatively, you might choose to adopt the French tradition of sending New Year’s cards. Either way, at least your card won’t be buried in a stack of other cards. If you want to showcase your firm’s experience in representing clients who do business in China, perhaps you should consider sending out Chinese New Year cards.
Personalize Your Greetings
I urge my clients to find a way to include a personal message in each card, especially if the card is signed with the law firm name. Without a personal touch, the card does not have optimal impact. You risk disappointing the client who had a strong relationship with you, when you obviously treat them like one of the masses. Clients suspect that a staff member prepared the cards from a mailing list, without actual lawyer involvement. Even individually signed cards can conjure up an image of an assembly line signing process.
Personalizing a Mass Mailing
If you have extensive contacts, how can you personalize all those cards? You really may not be able to invest the time and imagination required to add a meaningful note to each card. You can still support the bond with your contacts by inserting an enclosure with something personal about yourself, even though it is mass produced. When you give your clients, prospects and referral sources a personal glimpse of you, they feel like they know you, and it fosters loyalty. Oprah Winfrey is a master of revealing just enough about herself to give millions of strangers the feeling that they are in relationship with her, and her impact is legendary.
Here are a few examples of how to add a personal touch to your holiday greetings:
1. Write up a paragraph or two that describes something about your family. You might describe a holiday tradition in your home and tell a funny or touching anecdote about your kids now, or your childhood in relation to that tradition. Alternatively, the anecdotes can be about people or activities in your office or practice group. Tie it to wishes for the recipient like “may your holidays be filled with laughter and memories in the making.”
2. Enclose a copy of a favorite poem or the lyrics to a favorite song related to the season, and tell why it’s meaningful to you.
3. Describe one of the highlights of your year and share something from it. For example, you might have traveled to Italy, and you can enclose a recipe for a delicious marinara sauce translated from an Italian cookbook you purchased there, as a little gift.
4. Enclose a picture of you and your staff or your family, especially in holiday attire or doing something related to the holiday. You might have a photo of you and staff or family wrapping presents for an adopted family, carting donations to a food bank, decorating the office, or sledding in the snow. Of course, you’ll include a brief explanation of what you were doing, and tie it to your wishes for the recipient. You could say something like “may the season fill your heart with the joy of giving and receiving,” or “may the holidays awaken the kid in you again!”
5. Write a holiday newsletter. Yes, some people complain or make fun about those, but they are usually referring to the letters that sound like brag sheets. Instead of reciting honors and accolades, tell stories and anecdotes that give your reader the flavor of your year or important events that transpired. Don’t be afraid to include personal disappointment or loss. It makes you human and approachable. I wouldn’t suggest mentioning that big trial you lost, however, unless it was plastered all over the newspapers and television screens. In that case I would simply mention my disappointment about the outcome.
External Resources
If you like the idea of sending out more personalized greetings, but need help with simplifying such an overwhelming project, check out some of the services available at www.SendOutCards.com, and www.LongTermClients.com. They have some nice cards to choose from, and many suggestions about personalizing content. You upload the mailing list, and they’ll send the cards out for you. Or they’ll send you the fully addressed and stamped cards just waiting for you to sign them and put them in the mail.
Email Greetings
Finally, you may be wondering about whether it’s ok to send out email greetings instead of cards. I would say “That depends.” How traditional is your audience? You might just come across as cheap. If you have the tradition of sending a newsletter, I think email works well for that. Just be aware that your communication risks getting lost in an even bigger flurry of unread email.
With regard to those online greeting cards: they may not be opened or received. Many IT departments block executable files from delivery to protect against viruses. Many individuals don’t click on the link to electronic cards to avoid cookies and other spyware.
Some people receive hundreds of legitimate emails per day, and get annoyed at anything that further clogs their mailbox. Others tend to be more responsive to email, and might actually engage in a conversation with you as a result. Know your audience.
My Holiday Greeting to You
Please consider these ideas as a little holiday gift from me in appreciation for being a reader who makes this column successful. I would love for you to share your holiday greetings with me. May these ideas cause you to relive some happy memories and come a little closer to your friends and clients during the holidays.
Post Date: December 13, 2007
Differentiation by Design
Recently I ran into a Houston lawyer at the Hermitage Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. As we chatted, he extolled the virtues of the hotel. He began with his amazement that, although he had only stayed there once before, the doorman called him by name when he arrived. Then he gushed about the impact of walking into the luxurious bathroom in his room.
At the Vintage Inn in Napa, California, as I unlocked the door and stepped into my room, I heard gentle strains of soothing music. Lamplight and a fire flickering in a fireplace created a romantic mood and warmed me from the chill of the night air. A small table held a complimentary bottle of wine, with glasses and a corkscrew. I sprawled on the bed, and felt like I had landed on a fluffy cloud. This was not my usual business trip experience. When I got home I started planning how I could get back to that hotel.
What do these stories have to do with your law practice? They illustrate the marketing power of focusing on a client’s experience when delivering service. These hotels stood out in an industry with competitors literally around the corner. Would your clients say that about your firm?
An article in the October 2007 issue of Fast Company magazine reported that “a three-year study of more than 40 Fortune 500 companies by the research firm Peer Insight found that companies focused on customer experience design outperformed the S&P 500 by a 10-to-1 margin from 2000 to 2005. Jeneanne Rae, co-founder of Peer Insight LLC, says “Customers will gladly pay more for an experience that is not only functionally but also emotionally rewarding (emphasis added).”
Psychologist and marketing experts say that most buying decisions are emotional, and the buyer’s analysis is really just designed to support the emotional decision already made. That’s why Madison Avenue uses sex to sell cars, beer and soap.
I work with lawyers in large firms all over the U.S., and when we survey them about what differentiates their law firm from their competitors, a high percentage of them respond that they provide superior legal services. These top notch firms compete against other top notch firms, and if there is any real difference in legal ability at that level, I doubt that most clients can discern it. Clients can discern, however, differences in how they feel when they receive legal services. The lawyers surveyed, however, tended to focus on functional needs, and rarely considered the emotional needs of their clients.
What would effective ‘customer experience design’ look like for your law firm? Begin by identifying the emotional needs, concerns and preferences of your client base. What do your clients want? There are probably a number of core needs in common with most clients, regardless of the kind of legal services sought. They want relief from stress and worry about the legal issue they have entrusted to you. They want to feel important and know that you have their interests uppermost in your mind. They want to feel safe. They want to feel taken care of. They want to feel valued and appreciated for choosing you. They want to feel understood. They want to feel special.
Now think about the ‘touchpoints’ with your clients and the ideas, emotions and memories that these interactions trigger. It may help to think of them not as ‘clients’ but as ‘participants’ in an experience of sights, sounds and smells that you create.
Don Norman, a nationally-known design guru, says “attractive things work better.” Norman asserts that a pleasant aesthetic design can help people be more flexible and creative in finding solutions to challenges. Stress, however, makes people less able to cope with difficulties and less flexible in their approach to problem solving. So it is important to minimize distractions, bottlenecks and difficulties, and to maximize aesthetics. A well-designed experience for your clients may actually help them be more creative participants in problem solving.
For most clients, situations involving legal representation involve stress. To improve interactions with clients, begin by creating a pleasant experience for them when they come to your office. Difficulties in parking, or a late start for an appointment, can reduce your client’s ability to deal with unexpected news or to be flexible and creative in negotiations.
By way of example, I went to a new dentist, and thought it was odd that a dental office would have coffee and chocolate chip cookies in the waiting room. The snacks were attractively presented, as if Martha Stewart had chosen the table cloth, napkins, serving plates and containers for cream and sugar. Several of the chairs in the waiting room had vibrating back massagers. I felt comfortable and welcome, and found I even wanted to linger there. I found I didn’t mind dealing with all of the usually bothersome new patient questionnaires and insurance paperwork. That dental office used good customer experience design to improve my impression of their services, and after my first visit I told several people about those dental offices.
One Houston family lawyer has offices in an old house with a large attractive flower garden at the entrance. She keeps homemade cookies on hand and burns scented candles in the office. Her clients have commented that the environment helps them calm down.
Give your own office a client experience audit. Contact your own office as though you were a client.
When your clients call your office, does the person answering the phone recognize their name? How many times did the phone ring before they picked up? If it is necessary to put the caller on hold, does your assistant or receptionist ask permission first? Does he or she actually wait to hear the response? If a client informs you of an unsatisfactory telephone experience, what do you do about it? Do you thank the client for letting you know?
If you serve elderly, injured or disabled clients, can they get to your office without climbing steps? Is the physical environment pleasant and soothing, or noisy and chaotic? Do your clients have the sense that their matters are truly confidential, or can they overhear telephone conversations as they walk down the hall? Do they see other clients documents as they meet in your office?
Do you give the clients the experience of feeling special? Does your receptionist know to expect their arrival and address them by name? Do you promptly greet them, or do you keep them waiting? If they meet in your office, do you put your phone on “Do Not Disturb” and turn off the email alerts so that you can give the clients your full attention? Do you offer your client a beverage? Does the client have a comfortable place to sit? Do you stay behind a fortress of a desk, or do you join your client in a symbolic gesture of your partnership with them?
In rendering legal services, do you help your clients know what to expect and keep them informed of developments? Evidently many lawyers do not, because I repeatedly hear General Counsels say that surprises are their pet peeves about outside counsel. How quickly do you respond to emails and phone calls? The most frequent complaints received against lawyers by the State Bar of Texas have to do with poor communication and failing to respond to client requests for information.
What other ways can you give your clients a positive experience when working with you? It is worth some thought if you want to stand out in a crowd of competitors.
Post Date: November 16, 2007