Are you marketing to women?
I have really enjoyed reading Michele Miller's Wonderbranding weblog. In this post, Michele points to a Consumer Electronics Association report with these alarming statistics:
Nearly three-quarters of women surveyed by the industry group complained about being ignored, patronized or offended by sales people when shopping for electronics.Forty percent of the women said they were treated better when accompanied by a man.
More than half said advertisements for electronics were confusing -- though half the men surveyed felt the same way.
A meager 1 percent of women surveyed thought manufacturers had them in mind when creating products.
Michele has this to say:
Note to consumer electronics executives.... have you looked at your numbers lately, beyond the bottom line? Are you creating a memorable experience for your most profitable customer, not to mention building a relationship with her?
I have spent the last several months "auditing" my legal practice. One area I have focused on is how women view me and the services I provide, as I am trying to better serve woman-owned small businesses. I have spoken with many women I know in this process and each woman has had similar experiences with lawyers as the women surveyed above had with electronics salespersons.
I challenge you to do a similar audit of your practice. The following questions are in no way an exhaustive list, but think about: Is your office woman-friendly? How do women feel when greeted on the telephone? Do you have woman-themed magazines in your waiting room? The last law office I visited had the following magazines: Car and Driver, Golf Magazine, and Sports Illustrated. Is there a place to play (or at least a place with books or other kid-friendly activities) for children who accompany a parent for a meeting? Can you name the two biggest civic organizations in your community whose membership is primarily made up of women? Have you spoken to these groups? Who are the three most influential women in your community, and do you know them? Do you send bills and correspondence to, "Mr. and Mrs. John Doe," instead of including the wife's name? Does your office sponsor charities women support? How does your firm entertain clients? Do you do more than the traditional golf outing or handing out tickets to sports events?
I would love to hear from the women (and men) in the blogosphere with comments. What other questions should I be asking myself in my law office audit? How can women be served better by male and female lawyers? What can we as lawyers do to make sure our profession doesn't marginalize women like the consumer electronics industry apparently has?
Hello.
Great tip from Frank Kautz on MyShingle.com:
Does your secretary answer the phone, "Law Office?" When is the last time you heard a major restaurant answer the phone "restaurant" or a hotel answer the phone "hotel?" Not a chance. They understand the value of name recognition or branding. So why do you let your employees answer the phone with "Law Office?" Your name is one of your biggest assets, don't waste it.
Promoting for Pennies
"Promoting for Pennies" is the title of this article at Entrepreneur.com. Lots of great ideas here. My favorites:
7. Stickers: They're not just for preschoolers. When Rosenberg launched her tax consulting business and Web site, she bought 100 red heart stickers that said, "We love referrals." "We plastered them on everything that went out of our office, and business poured in," recalls Rosenberg. "Simply telling people we wanted referrals made a big difference." Cost: $7.50 for 100 stickers.10. Occasion cards: Send birthday cards, Thanksgiving cards, congratulations cards—they're great ways to let customers know you care. Cost: about $1.50 per card, plus postage.
11. Employees: Empower employees to solve customers' problems and motivate them to bring customers back. Ratner says, "I make each employee sign a piece of paper stating, 'I understand that my number-one job, no matter what I was hired for, is to make the customer come back.' This lets my employees know that we're serious about customer service."
18. Referral bonuses: Inspire customers to act as your sales force by giving them an incentive to bring you new customers. This may include a discount off their next service or a small gift or credit on their account. Be sure to ask new customers where they heard about your business so you know when a customer has made a referral. Cost: a few dollars.
These are all great ideas you can use to market your firm.
Quote of the Week
The only sure way to avoid making mistakes is to have no new ideas. Albert Einstein
Web Chat for Lawyers
This post in the Digital Practice of Law weblog talks about a Forbes.com article on the use of "Live Web Chat" for internet commerce sites and suggests, "A form of this type of web interaction will become commonplace in the legal profession in the coming year." Interesting prediction.
Death by Meeting
Good review of Patrick Lencioni's book Death by Meeting at Jon Pocaro's mktg@msft blog. The book details the four types of meetings your organization/firm should be having. They are: The Daily Check-In (no more than 5-10 minutes); The Weekly Tactical (45-90 minutes); The Monthly Strategic; and The Quarterly Off-site Review. Read Jon's post for more details.
Create a culture of innovation.
In this article, in People Management, Guy Browning gives his tips on fostering innovation in your organization. My favorites:
There are three vital ingredients required to cook up a more innovative workforce. These are quiet, time and permission to think. People are normally working so hard to meet their targets that they don’t have time to think about how they could meet their targets in a different and better way. Managers need to make sure their people have real time and real permission to think differently.Customers don’t just have money, they also have ideas. They’re also remarkably willing to talk to you about your products and services. After all, they’re the ones who are paying for them. Develop a method by which consumers and customers can be engaged in innovation and you can speed up and make more effective the whole development process
My reasons for Blogging
I write this weblog because it helps me think about the kind of lawyer I want to be, and the kind of firm I want to own. David at ethicalEsq. pokes some fun at my "overweening preoccupation" with naming my new firm and takes a not-so subtle poke at me for wanting to dump the billable hour and change the way I practice law. I admit to being rather hurt when I read David's post, but instead of taking his bait, I thought I'd take some time to articulate my reasons for reinventing my firm:
I want to be the kind of lawyer my daughter can be proud of (but also the kind of father she remembers). As a general practitioner, I am spending too much time trying to be too many things to too many people. I am not willing to do that any more. I have also grown tired of working for free for clients who don't (or can't) pay me. I would much rather donate my “unbillble time” to the causes I choose (teaching entrepreneural skills at the local high school, coaching a local school's trial team, and offering my mediation services for free to the local legal-aid agency) than to causes that choose me.
I want my clients to love the service they get from me and recommend my firm to their friends and family. I am convinced that billing my clients by the hour is not in their best interest or mine. Clients will know before I begin a project for them what the cost will be. If they are not satisfied with my service, I will refund their money.
I want my employees to love to come to work every day. I want them to work in an environment where they feel free to increase their skills.
Come back Larry.
Larry Bodine is the author of the Professional Marketing Blog. His tag line is, "News, opinions and insights into professional marketing." I look at the site every day because Larry posts some interesting things -- mainly about marketing large law firms. The problem is Larry hasn't posted at all since January 28th. Does this mean he has had no opinions or insights since then? In his last post, Larry writes:
I've gotten calls from reporters who phone me up and say they saw my blog. They found me by doing a Google search, and the next thing I know they're interviewing me for quotes in their story. If you're a professional looking for more attention from the press, start writing a blog.
I would change that last line to, "keep writing a blog."
Now, I don't mean to be critical of Larry -- I just want him to get back to blogging because I like to read his stuff. Is that so selfish?
Ten Secrets of Business
Via The Nub is this post with the "10 Secrets of Business" from Stuart Craner and Des Dearlove:
1. Money is a by-product: purpose and values come first.2. Culture is the differentiator: it's what makes you unique.
3. The customer comes first - and co-creating value with the customer brings an edge.
4. Talk the walk: communicate, communicate and then communicate some more.
5. Rules stifle: values are more important.
6. Distill it down: so the message is clear.
7. Kill complacency, don't let it kill you - and evolution is better than revolution.
8. Lead by example: credibility is important.
9. Best beats first: originality is not always enough.
10. Keep it simple - because business is fundamentally simple.
Sounds about right.
21 Ways to Bring in the Business
Good article here titled "21 Ways to Bring in the Business" from Entrepreneur.com.
Be who you appear to be.
Thanks to Tom Asaker for this post from his weblog about a BearingPoint, Inc. study of the state of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in the financial services industry.
From the study:
Among the survey findings is that fewer than a quarter of the executives interviewed said their customers promote their financial institution enthusiastically to family and friends. After spending more than $20 billion in 2002 alone on CRM systems to help them get closer to customers, financial institutions still yearn for the brand loyalty and rich relationships enjoyed by carmakers and clothiers. Why do people not feel as attached to the place they entrust with their money as they do to the vehicle in the garage or the jeans in the closet? The answer is not that CRM technology has failed. CRM has put powerful tools in the hands of the enterprise—new processes, integrated systems and rich stores of information—that improve service and take out costs. The problem, rather, is that these huge investments have focused not on building a bond with the customer and enhancing the customer experience, but on deploying technology to manage the customer relationship.
The study advocates a focus on "CEM" or Customer Experience Management, and gives three keys to implementing it in the financial services industry:
Adopt the customer’s perspective. By putting themselves in their customers’ shoes, financial services executives will avoid mistaking customer inertia for loyalty and forbearance for acceptance. They can then identify more easily what their institutions must do to win and keep customers and to inject more enthusiasm into their relationships.
Create mutual value. For many firms, customer strategy has long hinged on maximizing marketing effectiveness to increase sales. Financial services companies need to commit to creating value for customers at each point of interaction, rather than merely to operational excellence or fiduciary duty.
Guarantee transparency and trust. Financial services providers must build a comprehensive picture of customers that matches the picture customers have of themselves, and then organize their business and technology architectures to match. Only then can they reward customers for the totality of their relationships, provide a consistent and integrated experience across multiple points of contact, and infuse much needed transparency into relationships that many customers currently suspect are one-sided.
Some great stuff here. Registration necessary to read the study.
Naming my new firm.
After several months of thinking about naming my new firm (see posts here, here, and here), I have finally settled on a name: Silver Lake Law Group (Silver Lake is my town's large lake). Still working out the details on corporate organization (LLC vs. LLP vs. PC), but should have the new identity ready for a formal unveiling in about three weeks. In the meantime, keep an eye on Eric Heel's efforts to rename his firm Clock Tower Law Group.
Quote of the Week.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters comapred to what lies within us. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I'm Back.
I know, you probably didn't miss me. I just finished a long weekend as a faculty member for a mediation seminar at Washington University Law School in St. Louis, where I serve as an adjunct professor. To take the seminar, participants had to have prior mediation experience, and I think I learned as much (or more) from them as they did from me.
Though I participated as a coach for the multiple mediation sessions, and contributed throughout the program, my primary segment of the program was entitled "Marketing Your Mediation Practice" and had to be given at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday because in Missouri, "marketing" does not qualify for CLE credit. However, if I would have titled it "How to Ethically Market Your Mediation Practice," it would have qualified. How silly.
Branding done right.
I just finished a nice conversation with Chan Stroman at Landlord Counsel, LLC. She incorporates a great blog in her firm website. Check it out.
Yoga and the Law Firm
In this post in her Wonderbranding weblog, Michelle Miller says that, "Today's women are looking inward for balance, strength, and focus." She points to the explosion in yoga programs at fitness centers thoughout the country, and asks:
So... women are not only connecting with each other but are looking for personal ways to enhance their lives. What does your business or service do for these women that would serve a similiar need?
Good question.
The one question you should be asking your customers.
In this post at Brand Autopsy, John Moore reviews a Harvard Business Review article, "The One Number You Need to Grow," penned by Frederick Reichheld.
Reichheld’s research indicates that there is a strong correlation between a company’s growth rate and the percentage of it’s customers who are willing to recommend the company to a friend.
Moore quotes Reichheld, "You only have to ask your customers one question: How likely is it that you would recommend [company x] to a friend or a colleague." Do you ask you clients that question?
See my other posts on building customer relationships here, here, here, and here.
Quote of the Week.
"An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises." Mae West. Thanks to Tom Asacker at Rebel with a Cause.