For the third year in a row, the American Bar Association is rating the bLAWg 100 as the Cover Story of their December 2009 issue. They have 9 categories of editor-picked blogs which you can now vote for: Click for the complete list.
This is extremely significant for the legal profession; the ABA has mainstreamed the use of blogs as informational (and promotional) resources. Thus, there should be no excuse or hesitation by any lawyer to start a blog - especially if you have a newsletter. The ABA has strict codes of ethics how websites, blogs, and other promotional materials must be labeled. But as followed, the ABA not only condones blogs, but wants to promote yours (if it’s good enough). So start now, and you can be among the dozen new blogs for 2010 (40 new bLAWgs made it for 2009).
I also commend the ABA for taking such a pro-active and progressive stance on blogging. As a premier professional association, I am sure much debate went into this new form of media and its potential consequence on the public. The Internet has brought on new complexity for the profession, like lawyer ratings; not all of them are so welcome as bLAWgging.
Neil Guilmette of The CPA Network invited me to present a ‘cross/through marketing’ seminar to his Roundtable of accountants. It was a full day of speakers on a variety of topics, pertaining to practice development. While my segment was close to an hour, I’ve included an excerpt as a podcast and the handout embedded below. It should be self explanatory; please ask me any questions.
Last week, I was interviewed by Tim Healy of The Profit Express, an hour show on Long Island 88.7 FM WRHU. A 7 minute excerpt is on Youtube, and I just finished editing the full 42 minute interview:
My concern is that direct regular mail marketing is a staple of day-to-day marketing. You may not want to utilize regular mail marketing due to its low lead generation ratio (and possibly low closing ratio). Arguably, it’s about 1%. True, one man’s junk mail is another business’ direct regular mail marketing campaign.
How do you go through the mail? Over the trashcan? The chuck-ratio of regular mail marketing is rather high. The chuck ratio of package mail marketing is much better - we don’t throw away gifts as easily. Inevitably the cost of this will also go up.
Moreover, I am saddened that during these challenging economic times our USPS is making it more expensive for the average business to market itself. They would argue that they are only meeting their own costs; and are staving off their own bail out.
What do you think?
How does this impact your Word-of-mouth marketing strategies?
On Friday, one of my clients, Bruce Maasbach arranged a seminar for his circle of real estate agents. While much of the time should have been dedicated to a tactical, Web 2.0, Marketing Action Plan… my inspirational preamble was more valuable. First a mindset change, or a paradigm shift, has to take place for a Real Estate Agent to do business from 2009 on. Hear what I mean:
Three 10-minute parts will automatically be on the right-hand of the video above when I upload to my blip.tv account.
With the poor lighting and zoom, the video quite frankly sucks. But my audio silhouette - with hand gestures - gets my points across!
VIDEO 1: I go through how the market has changed over the past 10 years. VIDEO 2: I explain how ludicrous the real estate industry has been, and a brave new vision for them. VIDEO 3: I talk about how real estate professionals can begin creating a new business model.
Originally, I had brought my projector, my laptop, with a PowerPoint… but there was no table for the equipment, screen (or white wall), and I’m sure WiFi would’ve been “too secure.” I’m a speaker, not a presenter, so I didn’t care. LESSON TO BE LEARNED: I did bring hand-outs, which are low-tech and guaranteed to work.
What do you think about the new Business Model Vision I proposed for real estate agents/brokers?
A few days ago, I was then invited to speak at the Attorney/Accountant Networking Group; there, I outlined a PRE/PRESENT/POST goals for our networking. Here’s a re-cap:
PRE the meeting: Have a goal of who/type of person you’d like to meet & how many.
PRESENT: Be present; leave your cell phone or Blackberry alone. Don’t participate in “drive-by” networking (those who run past you handing business cards). Don’t pitch anybody; likewise, a good 10-minute conversation is “enough” with 1 person. I “doggy-ear” those I plan on getting back to - especially prospective clients.
POST: Follow-up within 3 business days. They may be prospects, centers of influence, or potential connectors to either of those 2. AND, put them into your database - and preferably, your e-newsletter list.
SO what are the 4 types of groups? 1) Trade associations: Not necessarily those of your peers, but your target market’s association. Of course, as a lawyer, you probably get a lot of referrals from other attorneys… so Bar Associations are a good choice. And more and more CPAs are concentrating on a niche market, or specialized service; thus, Societies can also be a good trade association choice. Nearly every profession/industry have national and local associations; plus within their profession/industry there are sub-categories/specialties; moreover, often ethnic/geographic groups form within trades/professions.
2) General gatherings: These include chambers of commerce and other open rooms that attract a variety of professionals. Often they meet early in the morning or in the evening. There may be competitors, peers, colleagues, and clients in the room. For all those folks, standing out and showcasing your distinctive expertise (preferably with a 1-liner) is paramount. Don’t forget the ones sitting down; often business owners and other decision makers don’t know how to network well. And don’t forget to wear your own badge. 3) Non-compete groups: Like the one I belong to, American Business Associates (ABA), these are usually small, round-tables of 15-20 professionals. As it implies, there are no competing professionals in the room. While there may be more than one financial advisor or attorney, they usually agree on specific areas of focus. Some non-compete groups are more ‘retail’ oriented, featuring more business-to-consumer businesses; others are more ‘professionals’ oriented, featuring advisors including attorneys, accountants, and financial advisors; still others are more niche, featuring professionals who all target one market (e.g., healthcare). 4) Database meetings: These are the informal meetings that you can create from your own database. By networking your clients, centers of influence, and colleagues, you are growing everybody’s network, influence, and thoughts of you. As they invite their circle of influence, your network grows exponentially. Don’t overlook this bounty in your own background; and don’t underestimate the folks that are dormant in your database. The new year is a great time to spark old relationships.
I recently received an unsolicited email “Newsletter” from a well intended
but misinformed motivational speaker. It was sent TO: me from an MS Outlook
account, with 70 or so other recipients plainly listed in the TO: field as well.
Effectively distributing to all the recipients - all the other recipients email
addresses. The “Newsletter” was in the form and attached PDF of a scanned,
blurry, & tilted paper document. Additionally there was no obvious or automated
way for me to “Opt-Out” from future emails. (more…)
I only recently put myself up on
LinkedIn,
Facebook,
and MySpace. This was after years of not really getting what the value was, and
my concerns over the “professionalism” of my being on such sites. But, I bit the
bullet and set-up my profile on each, and started wondering - now what?
We all have a marketing budget. Is it a line item? Is it consciously invested? Is it monitored? Is it planned?
Our marketing budget is the time we spend on networking, asking clients/COI for referrals, improving our website, writing our newsletters, and all the other W.A.T.E.R.S. endeavors.
And of course, we all have a money budget for marketing. We may only spend money on events, mailings, phone calls, and collateral development — and some of us may make media ad buys.
All too often we find clients more interested in making a Splash, to keep up with the larger firms out there.
Yet, time and time again, we find that that it’s the consistent small actions - marketing habits in routine drips - that really provides the biggest bang for the buck.
Splashy ads and campaigns can spark buzz. But it’s the consistent drips that sustain word-of-mouth marketing and follows up on results.
Start a drip campaign of e-mail, phone, regular mail, and meeting campaigns.
You can do so today. When was the last time you had breakfast, lunch, or dinner with one of your top clients?
Splash campaigns should be planned, executed, and managed more strategically so as to not waste precious time and money.
In both (and you should have both), Your Practice Marketing (aka, W.A.T.E.R.S.) Action Dashboard becomes pivotal and center stage. See attached.
The cost of acquisition of a new client can be very high, both in $$ and your resources and yet the typical practice/firm puts out 80% of it’s marketing effort towards acquiring new clients and only 20% on existing clients. Marketers in the know – know you should reverse these percentages. The fact of the matter is you’ve already made the investment to reach your existing clients, develop a trusted relationship with them, and proven your value to them. – But – do they know how else and in what other ways you can serve them going forward?
Ok, so you decided to bite the bullet and shell out the investment for a trade show exhibit. You got yourself a nice backdrop, table display, handouts, etc. You showed up on time, and “manned” the booth from opening to closing waiting for people to walk up to you. Now I’ll bet you’re very disappointed with the results. What did you miss?
You’re not alone, and indeed there are more than a handful of reasons you got far less response than you were hoping for. One of the biggest is – you didn’t bother to tell anyone you were going to be there! Why? Because you assumed your reason to exhibit was only to get new prospects – and – that it’s the show’s organizer’s responsibility to provide you throngs of fresh walk-up prospects.
Trade shows usually require a large investment of your time & resources to exhibit, but only a very small portion of the exhibitors do everything possible to leverage that investment.
The first leverage point; In advance of the show - invite everyone, everyone in your contact database, everyone in your customer database, everyone in your prospect database – in short everyone you know, & let them know you’re going to be there! Not only that, but provide them dates & times, where you will be located on the floor, and MOST IMPORTANTLY – WHY they should come to see you at the show! And equally importantly – WHY they should bring a friend!
Exhibiting can be your big chance to present yourself in person, to provide a temporary “store front” if you don’t have one, and to create “buzz” around you and your brand. Exhibiting helps you forge new relationships, reinforce existing relationships, and provide a high impact platform to grow you business and your brand IF well planned and leveraged. Inviting anyone, and everyone you can think of (in a compelling way of course), is just one of your key leverage points.
Most of my clients are so busy and so successful that marketing time seems to “get in the way.” But marketing is about planting seeds that will bear fruit in months down the road. 20% is about 1 day a week, or about 1 full hour every day. For those of us who are regular networkers, bloggers, e-newsletter/article writers, etc… this comes easy.
In bad times, we are too desperate to plant seeds; we need to eat the fruits today. In great times, we seem too busy to plant seeds; we’re stuffed with the fruits today. Thus, most professionals yo-yo between feast and famine. The smart ones make marketing a consistent habit, and enjoy pleasurable practice growth continuously.
Your first step? As another Marketing Thumb-rule says, “You have to block the time.” Staring at our calendar, it’s chock-full… then skip ahead 2 or 3 weeks… and now start to block out time with specific Marketing Action Goals. Hold yourself accountable, or bring in a Practice Marketing Advisor to map the plan out and hold you and your staff to task.
This is extremely significant for the legal profession; the ABA has mainstreamed the use of blogs as informational (and promotional) resources. Thus, there should be no excuse or hesitation by any lawyer to start a blog - especially if you have a newsletter. The ABA has strict codes of ethics how websites, blogs, and other promotional materials must be labeled. But as followed, the ABA not only condones blogs, but wants to promote yours (if it’s good enough). So start now, and you can be among the dozen new blogs for 2010 (40 new bLAWgs made it for 2009).
VIDEO 1: I go through how the market has changed over the past 10 years.
I only recently put myself up on
The cost of acquisition of a new client can be very high, both in $$ and your resources and yet the typical practice/firm puts out 80% of it’s marketing effort towards acquiring new clients and only 20% on existing clients. Marketers in the know – know you should reverse these percentages. The fact of the matter is you’ve already made the investment to reach your existing clients, develop a trusted relationship with them, and proven your value to them. – But – do they know how else and in what other ways you can serve them going forward?
