By Lilys McCoy
There are two ways that lawyers can always put bread on their table: be good in court or bring in business. Although I am passionate about the art and science of trial advocacy, this column will be devoted to the latter. Business development is a topic of urgent importance to most lawyers, and I only have 900 words, so let’s dive right in.
How do lawyers develop business? How do we get people to pull out their checkbook, credit card, Venmo or payment-system-de-jour to give us their hard-earned money in exchange for our time and advice, something that is valuable but not always quantifiable?
The conventional wisdom seems simple enough: develop your brand, devise a marketing strategy and deploy the marketing tactics that fit your
brand and strategy. But that general guidance does not (a) encompass the unique issues facing lawyers, including our ethical restrictions; or (b) really explain the differences between and among those elusive concepts. In this article, I will outline a framework that I use to understand both. Let’s start with definitions.
What is a brand? First, your brand is not your logo or your tagline. In fact, your brand isn’t even yours. It belongs to the customer and lives in the mind of your customers. (Hat tip to our wonderful new Marketing Director,
Ron Marcus, for that phrasing.) When I say “Apple” what do you think? Your first notion may be of a Golden Delicious, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you thought of the tech giant. And, if you have had a bad experience with the tech giant, a negative emotion may have come to mind as well as a thought bubble with a couple of choice words. That is what marketers mean when they say that the brand lives inside the mind of the customer. Another definition of a brand is “business reputation.” We, as lawyers in the intimate San Diego legal community, certainly understand the importance of reputation. If it’s easier to think of a brand that way, then define it as what comes to mind when others think of you and your reputation.
Next up: strategy. Some equate strategy with the word plan; some say that strategy forms the basis for a plan. It gets squishy and the words are often
used interchangeably. I do not find any of it very helpful or actionable. According to the website Investopedia, “Academics continue to debate the precise meaning of marketing strategy.” Yes, yes they do; and the rest of us non-academics can never quite get our arms around it. Because we’re lawyers and not marketers, let’s keep it simple. For most of us, basic marketing strategy could be a clear description of our ideal client, the legal services we offer, and the unique methods we employ as we offer those services as only we can. As with the concept of brand, let’s also identify what marketing strategy is not. It is not tactics. Making that one distinction will help a lot. Now that we have a basic definition of marketing strategy and branding for lawyers, let’s discuss tactics. A classic on marketing tactics is Guerilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson. It’s simple, accessible and inexpensive. Here’s the basic premise: everything is a marketing tactic. You read that correctly: everything. Imagine an umbrella. The umbrella is big and it covers all of the marketing tactics available to lawyers, from who you are (how you present yourself, your diligence, your integrity, your way with clients) to the quality of your work, to the level of customer service you provide, to your responsiveness and promptness. Marketing also includes networking at bar association events, involvement in trade associations, writing, speaking, social media, website design, blogging, search engine optimization, referral networks with other professionals, curating a YouTube channel, print advertising, TV commercials, etc. Whew! Sounds like a lot? That is only a small fraction of all the marketing tactics available to the 21st century lawyer.
Notice that advertising and networking fall under the marketing umbrella; that’s because they are easier understood as marketing tactics. In other words, it’s not “marketing and networking” or “networking and advertising.” It’s all marketing, and you just need to choose which marketing tactics you wish to deploy to reach and attract clients.
Looking at marketing tactics broadly also helps lawyers manage ethical risk and cost. Imagine the outline of the marketing umbrella as representing a spectrum. On the left side of the umbrella, let’s put all the relatively safe and inexpensive marketing tactics: the quality of your work, your bedside manner, the excellent customer service you provide. Note how those do not cost any out-of-pocket dollars. Plus, they are ethical in and of themselves and a hedge against malpractice claims. Bonus. Add networking, writing and speaking — again not very expensive or ethically risky — and you may
find you never even need to reach the more expensive and ethically risky forms of marketing tactics, such as direct mail and other forms of paid advertising, that reside on the other end of the marketing spectrum.
When you think of marketing tactics as living under an umbrella that covers the entire spectrum of marketing, you can envision the handle as formed by the words “know, like and trust” because ultimately that’s what all the tactics should lead to: the vaunted know-like-and-trust factor. As marketing expert John Jansch says in Duct Tape Marketing: “People want to do business with people they know, like and trust.” In other words, your marketing tactics should lead to the maximum number of people coming to know you: you are a lawyer and you represent people who (fill in the blank); like you: you’re easy to deal with, responsive, approachable; and trust you: you do high-quality work, your customer service is outstanding, and you are accessible and prompt.
How do we put these concepts into action? Again, let’s keep it simple: an easy marketing plan formula is tactics plus time. Because lawyers live and die by their calendar, this should be familiar ground. Choose your tactics and put them on your calendar. Tactics like great customer service and quality work would be calendared every day. Tactics like networking might be once per week. Write an article might be once per month. Speak at a community event might be once per quarter. Fortunately, the San Diego County Bar Association provides its members with ample opportunities to deploy many of the marketing tactics discussed in this article. Our robust sections allow for networking, speaking and writing. Committee and Board
service are avenues for getting other lawyers, whose client base may need your specific skill set, to know, like, and trust you. I hope that you will consider ways that you can get involved and, at the same time, deploy a few marketing tactics that will help your career flourish and put bread on your table.
Lilys McCoy is SDCBA President.
This article was originally published in the July/August 2019 issue of San Diego Lawyer.