Networking & Business Development

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The last session of the day on Tuesday was "The Path to World Class – Exploring the Attributes that Distinguish Top-Tier Legal Marketing & Business Development Teams." After a long day at the conference, this session was going to have to be very interesting to hold our attention – and it was!

The panel was moderated by Joe Calve of Morrison Foerster and featured Geoffrey Goldberg of Lowenstein Sandler, Anne Malloy Tucker of Goodwin Procter, and Barbara Sessions of Winston & Strawn.

The panel was designed to be a nuts and bolts tutorial that we could put into action when we got back to the office.  The panelists suggested that rock climbing by your fingernails is an apt analogy to what marketers do, so we’d need all the help we could get.Continue Reading The Path to World Class – Exploring the Attributes that Distinguish Top-tier Legal Marketing and Business Development Teams

As I attended my sixth LMA Conference last week, it occurred to me that I couldn’t believe how fast my time in the legal profession has gone! But it also occurred to me that there may be many people out there attending their first conference, or just starting out in the legal or professional services fields, who never got any lessons in college about how to act in a business environment.

This week, I heard someone say during a session that if you’re going to be "Debbie Gossip" as a marketing professional, it will be difficult to gain the trust of your lawyers and as such, difficult to get the respect needed to get a seat at the table. I think the younger generation in the workforce (and at 31, I include myself in that) has a lot of enthusiasm, talent and incredible ideas. But sometimes we lack the professional polish that can get those ideas implemented. So I wanted to offer up some advice on what I’ve learned in my six and a half years in legal marketing – some of these things might seem silly or overly conservative, but they will help you stand out for your work instead of for a less professional reason:
Continue Reading Some Advice to New Marketers on Attending Conferences

As you know if you’ve been following my Twitter stream, or checking Zen in the last couple of months, last week, I attended the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference in Orlando.

Tuesday morning, the conference business sessions officially kicked off with our keynote from Jeff Williford from the Disney Institute, who talked about Disney’s Approach to Business Excellence.  When he began by telling us that he’d be speaking for 90 minutes, I think the audience was worried, but the presentation was so engaging and informative that the time really flew.  And although his presentation was about how Disney creates a truly magical experience here, there were a lot of parallels for the legal industry – we’re also a service industry after all!  Any of the particularly important points that relate to law firms will be in bold throughout the post.

He told the audience that Disney employs more than 60,000 people from 65 countries, with 10% of those being interns, and warned us that his presentation on Disney’s approach to business excellence would be like drinking water from a firehose. But he did say that Walt Disney reminded everyone in 1955 that "it all started with a mouse."Continue Reading Disney’s Approach to Business Excellence – An LMA Recap

During our recent 2011 Asia Pacific Regional Meeting in Hanoi, I gave a presentation on five hot tips for client and business development.  These are all things that are familiar to the lawyers in our group, and probably all of you as well, but because they’re important, I felt they bear repeating.

Five Hot Tips

  1. Treat Your Clients as King: Your clients deserve to be treated like royalty. Deliver WOW to your clients by meeting their needs, not yours. Clients want to know what you can do for them, and the steps they need to follow to take action. Give them these things in a clear, easily understandable way, and you will undoubtedly find "favor with the king."
     
  2. Spread Ideas and Move People…Through Social Media: It can sound like a lot of what is out there is just noise.  But you can be out there, sharing your message.  Think like your clients and provide them with the message that is most useful to them.  You’re not using social media to talk at people – you’re there to talk with them. 

    When using social media, listen first and never stop listening. Be authentic and vulnerable, share stories with your audience, ask questions, provide value for free (yes, for free!), and engage with them. 

Continue Reading Five Hot Tips for Client and Business Development

A significant part of my job is planning our conferences, and we have four of these a year. Some people might consider me a party planner, but when you work for a network like ours, conference planning is much more than that – the purpose of our conferences is to facilitate relationships, and I need to plan each part of the conference around that goal.

Plus, I need to try to make everyone happy. Guess how often that happens?

Sometimes, facilitating relationships means pushing our delegates past their comfort zones (ie bike riding through rice paddies in Vietnam or sending them to a fish spa in Singapore) because it makes them feel a shared connection that leads to talking, laughing, and forming a relationship.

As I mentioned, we have four conferences a year – the Asia Pacific Meeting, the Annual Meeting, the European Regional Meeting, and the Americas Regional Meeting. As you might guess, anywhere from 2-4 of these are held outside the United States and that presents some interesting challenges, as well as offers some rewarding experiences.

I thought I’d share some of the lessons I’ve learned with you, because while these lessons were learned while planning conferences, they can also be applied to business done abroad as well.Continue Reading Planning a Conference Abroad

Yesterday, one of my favorite Twitter people posted that her daughter had said "this is the best day of my life. We went to the park, we’re going to mcdonalds, I found a penny. The best day of my life."

She’s 5, but she’s already been through a lot, dealing with a very scary brain tumor last year.  And she got me thinking – the best days of my life really have been about the little things.  

Sure, graduating from college was exciting, buying my first house was exciting (well, more nerve-wracking and expensive than exciting), but were they the "best" days of my life? 

Nah.  

Those have been about the little things – the first time I heard my two-year old niece say my name. (Superbowl Sunday, if you’re wondering – she said "Okay Wizzy" – close enough).  Every time my dog comes racing over to see me like I’m his favorite person in the world (I am). My sister trusting me enough to be the first person to watch my niece overnight. An email from my best friend saying how much I mean to her. My niece wanting me to carry her in for ice cream, and squeezing me extra tight when my sister said "M loves her Aunt Lindsay."  Those are some of my best days.Continue Reading Best Day of Your Life?

Now that we’ve covered "the good" of the Superbowl commercials, let’s talk about the bad and the ugly…and what can be learned from them.

We’ll start with one of the more controversial series of spots…

Groupon

Save the Whales

This is the less tacky of the spots, though giving the idea that although it’s nice to save the whales, it’s better to save money is still missing the humor mark.  But in the next spot…

Tibet

https://youtube.com/watch?v=vXGYK1eP_wo

Some people seemed to think this one was funny, while others were offended.  I tend not to be too thin-skinned, but I did agree that this was a mistake.  I was surprised that after the Kenneth Cole debacle this week that they decided to go through with these spots, even considering the financial cost of them.  

Now, Groupon did clarify the thought process behind the commercials with this post. And while I think it’s great that they suggest people donate money to the causes they were parodying, the spots were still a tasteless mistake.  The lesson here is that humor is something you have to be careful with – what one person might find funny, a lot of others might not.  You’ve got to know and understand your audience.

Secondarily, I’m not sure how well the ads actually reinforce Groupon’s product.  I’m a big fan of Groupon, but I’ve had a lot of trouble describing to friends and family what they’re all about.  I don’t think I’m the only one.  Their commercials could have broken that down a bit better.  I think they were a fail all around.  

For a great explanation that delves into this a bit further, check out Liz Strauss’ post "Groupon Super Bowl Ad: When Being Clever Offends and How to Win One for Tibet"Continue Reading Superbowl Commercials – The Bad & The Ugly – Lessons for Lawyers

Okay, I admit it. I love commercials.  

So much so that when I ordered the DVR service with my cable, I wasn’t sure I would fast forward through them.  (Don’t worry, I do)

Not all commercials, of course.  I just love the well done ones.  Like the Old Spice campaign – but that also combined my love of social media, so I’m a bit biased.

So for me, although I really enjoy football, the Superbowl is really about the commercials – they are the best of the best in advertising – at least, they’re supposed to be.  If you’re paying $3 million for a commercial spot, it should be the best work your company can get.  

What does this have to do with legal marketing? I’m not a huge fan of legal commercials, I must admit.  But I think there are solid marketing lessons to be learned from my favorites.  

And from the bad commercials – let’s be honest, there were more than a couple of those last night!

So without further ado….Continue Reading Superbowl Commercials – The Good – Lessons for Lawyers