Lawyers Lack Marketing Skills (Article in the WSJ)

This article is about 2 weeks old but warranted mentioning.  It’s a clear indication that law school does NOT prepare us for running our own practices.  In fact, law school teaches us a way to think, not particularly even how to practice law.  But that’s a digression.

The focus is that lawyer marketing training is growing exponentially.  The article focuses on attire, first impressions, etc. which are all salient points.  But the sad part comes in the last line of the article where it states that a large corporate firm has “shifted resources toward one-on-one relationship building.”

I’m wondering what they were working on before?  Even when you have mid to large-sized corporations as your clients ultimately you are still dealing with an INDIVIDUAL (hence the one-on-one relationship).  Luckily as solos we don’t have that confusion of whether we are dealing with an entity or a person (hint: I do believe in both scenarios we are still working with humans).

So if you’re going to take anything from this article it’s to not deviate your marketing focus from what it is, and should be, from the onset, personal relationships.

Here’s the article link from the WSJ (it was still active as of this writing).

Lawyers Often Lack the Skills Needed to Draw, Keep Clients (May 20, 2009)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124277203983936555.html

Are You the Recognized Expert in Your Area of Law?

People want to work with experts.  You don’t want a cardiologist performing brain surgery and you don’t want a divorce attorney representing you when you’re charged with armed robbery.  That’s the straightforward part.  But how do you set yourself apart from the OTHER divorce attorneys or the OTHER criminal lawyers?

The simple answer is that your WRITE and SPEAK.  It’s that simple.  When you write articles, answer questions, hop on stage or provide useful, practical INFORMATION in a public forum you become the recognized expert.  It’s really that simple.

Write articles for newspapers, blogs, magazines, newsletters, etc.  Hop on stage to give seminars, appear on TV as an expert, etc.  When people see you speak and read your articles you default as the expert.

This isn’t rocket science.  Sometimes it’s as simple as taking some basic questions that people have the providing answers (be careful to disclaim any attorney/client relationship being established).  So seek out and accept every opportunity you have to get in front of a captive audience and share your expertise.  You’ll get easy recognition and guess what, experts can charge more than non-experts and people will still seek you out.