Confession time (again). My head is busy. Always busy. I am thinking. Always thinking. The Sports Dude can see when I am thinking. Deeply thinking.
When I am over-stimulated with ideas, caffeine, and people, it can be overwhelming, and I end up processing externally.
As you can imagine, it is difficult to hear when you’re
Under performing law firms are nothing new. Some under perform themselves into a merger, and others under perform themselves out of business. But this doesn’t necessarily have to be the path or the way.
Altman Weil recently released their Law Firms in Transition report for 2017. Yesterday I posted the `first in this series, tackling the ABA Journal’s Law firm leaders report lawyer oversupply and ‘chronically under performing lawyers’ and the survey highlights.
In it’s ninth year, the survey, for the first time, is looking at change efforts in law firms. Having spent 19+ years working inside law firms, my interest is peaked:
Continue Reading Under performing law firm? I hope you are disturbed. (Pt. 2)
We all attend professional conferences. Some are close-knit groups, such as the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference; others will have 10s of thousands in attendance, and take over a whole city (ACC Annual Meeting, CES, NRF’s Big Show).
Sometimes we will know no one attending, other times hundreds due to our level of involvement in the organization.
No matter how many people you know or don’t know, speaker or not, first time attendee or not, you need to prepare to maximize the time you will be there, and out of the office.
I start to prepare for a conference approximately two weeks or so before my departure. When I say I do these things, I really do them, and I coach others to do so as well for one reason: They work.
Continue Reading Don’t be a lurker. 6 Things to Do BEFORE Attending a Conference
Time is certainly flying over at the new firm. Busy meeting people. Busy getting things done. Busy looking for a new legal marketing manager (e-mail/pm me for the job description).
If you are interested in the position, or are reading this because you are trying to learn more about me for our interview, let me share with you some advice.
One of my philosophies that I have borrowed along my legal marketing career is that what we do is all about getting to know, like and trust one another. Without these three things, true relationships cannot be formed, built, nor sustained.
KNOW
If you are interviewing with me, know that I have already Googled you. If you do not know what your Google results look like, you better figure it out fast and ask yourself: “Is this how I want to be known?”
What does your open Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram accounts say about you? Will I learn what I need to know about you, or, worse yet, will what I learn about you lead me to pass on even calling you in for an interview?
LIKE
Continue Reading You want to interview with me? Here’s my best advice.
I just read the following post SCOTUSblog Won Readers, Not Clients: Popular blog didn’t work as marketing tool for law firm but was a hit with readers, founders tell UGA audience.
I have to disagree.
In general, and in most cases, a corporate legal blogger might not be able to point to a particular piece of business and say, “I brought that in from writing this blog post on that date.”
However, if written correctly, the attorney can most likely point to their practice and see a correlation between their increased business and the launching of their blog.
I just don’t think the folks at SCOTUSblog are correctly measuring its value.
A corporate legal blog is NOT a business development (read SALES) tool in and of itself. It is there to provide what Nancy Myrland calls “digital breadcrumbs“:
Blogging, just as all other content scattered across the Internet, is what I always refer to as “digital breadcrumbs.” The words, thoughts and opinions we share in these spaces serve to help others find a path to us when they happen to need us, or at least when their interest in our areas of expertise is heightened.
A blog, done right, is an educational tool that will position the author and firm. Avvo‘s Josh King agrees:
Too many attorneys and firms treat them like outbound marketing vehicles, doing more overt sales pitches than information and thought leadership.
Blogs are about value, and education. They are about telling the story you want the general counsel to read as they are doing their due diligence on the attorney and the firm. They are about having the right results on page one when your name is Googled.
Getting back to the softer ROI that we’re talking about, Virtual Marketing Officer, Jayne Navarre, points out that the SCOTUSblog article contradicts itself:
Continue Reading How NOT to measure the value of a legal blog
David Freeman has a great video this morning on how to engage in a conversation with a potential client, not just regurgitate a boring and pre-planned elevator speech.
With all due respect I would officially like to kill the concept of the elevator speech and replace it with an approach designed to start a memorable
A way too short, but link-bait worthy titled article, is making its way into the conversation of legal marketers this week about law firms and strategic planning.
In fact, I am certain that Rita McGrath‘s article in the HBR Blog Network, Creative Destruction Visits the Legal Profession, is sure to be a
Words count. Words have meaning. Words on Facebook, Twitter and in the comments section of online publiations are searchable, fully visible, and can define you.
My friend Jayne Navarre at the Virtual Marketing Officer recently wrote this post, Facebook and Politics: Do they mix? Yes, no, maybe? taking on politics on our personal social
I just checked my calendar and, yup, it really is 2012.
Other than the earth coming to an end later this year, it’s about fricken time you got a website.
There just aren’t any good excuses out there.
Yeah, I’m talking to you solo and small firms out there.
And this is especially true for those of you who represent consumers – family law, divorces, child custody, employment matters, trusts & estates. I’d add personal injury, DUI and immigration to the list, but those folks are marketing machines.
Seriously. If you Google yourself or your firm, what do you find? If the answer is NOTHING, than you are LOSING business every day, and you don’t even know it.
Case in point:Continue Reading Get a fricken website already
Legal marketers will throw the phrase “touch point” around and while we understand what it means and why they are important. I wonder about the lawyers out there? Touch points are those little or big interactions you have with clients, potential clients, referral sources, etc. 
Depending on the relationship, and the legal marketer speaking, it