Observed

Of course it's important to take bar rules on client communications seriously. However, there are plenty of effective ways to offer evidence that you're thinking about your prospects' needs without risking your license.

When I think about the three main reasons why clients and prospects visit your law firm’s Web site, I imagine that I also hear, “Yeah, but” in response.

As in, “Yeah, I realize studies say that clients want assurance that I can fix their problems and that I can make their lives easier (and that they’ll like working with me), but I have a professional code of ethical conduct.  I could be reprimanded or endanger my license if I make claims like that.”

My advice?  Don’t.

• First, back up.   Your state’s code of conduct probably isn’t a priority for most clients and prospects.  So, remember that they’re far more worried about their needs, not yours.

• Second, how you address Can you fix my problem? and Will you make my life easier? is more nuanced than a simple yes or no.

For example, a strategically-written case study can speak volumes about your abilities without ever promising a result.  Same with testimonials, rankings and other third-party endorsements.

Your bio is not merely a resume.  It’s the principal destination for most of your site’s visitors, one that offers you an opportunity to tell your story…in terms that matter to your visitors’ stated needs.

The film "Undefeated" won the 2012 Best Documentary Oscar, despite its rejection in 2011 by the Sundance Film Festival. The filmmakers' resiliency (they got the boost they needed from the South by Southwest conference) is the same kind of resourcefulness it takes out-numbered attorneys to Get Found and Get Picked.

The parallels between marketing a film and selling professional services ought to be obvious.

First, in either case, the numbers are apparently against you. A recent report in The New York Times, for example, noted that the Sundance Film Festival which begins today in Park City, Utah, vetted over 12,000 submissions for 193 slots. By comparison, I read recently that there are 1,250,000 attorneys in the United States competing for increasingly demanding markets less tolerant of hourly billings and other examples of business as usual.

Second, despite the numbers, there’s hope. If history is a reliable guide, many of the films that didn’t make the cut at Sundance will nevertheless earn critical and commercial success. Same with attorneys and other professional service providers who play it smart.

The Times piece describes the advice John Cooper, the director of the Sundance festival, has for the ways rejected films have skillfully used the Internet and other means to build an audience — Sundance or no Sundance.  Responding to a rejected filmmaker’s plans to offer his work via sites like iTunes or Netflix, the Times reported the following:

That’s a resourcefulness that Mr. Cooper would encourage. “Filmmakers need to be creative,” he said. “They should use the cleverness it takes to make a movie to also find an audience.”

This common-sense attitude is precisely what Mike O’Horo and other legal sales thought leaders have been offering their clients for years.  They say that lawyers are — by training or nature — relentless question-askers.  Lawyers also tend to be painstakingly systematic, analytical, well-prepared and hard-working and have a bunch of other qualities that serve business development and sales of their services and firms.

Makes sense, yes?

Google has smartened up. The search engine has learned to give its users an opt-out choice as a way to avoid getting too personal.

Where, exactly, is the boundary for online privacy?  It’s a line that changes almost daily – and a line that business writers would be smart to track.

A recent article in The New York Times illustrates this. The piece reports how sophisticated online e-personalization has creeped out a lot of shoppers, causing them to experience something psychologists call the uncanny valley.

Say you’re shopping for a specific brand of shoes.  You go to a few sites to look around, and before you know it, shoe ads start popping up…everywhere.  On your Gmail, on your Facebook, everywhere.

Cue the uncanny valley.  You suddenly realize that your Internet activity is being monitored, analyzed and exploited. You realize that what may resemble good, old-fashioned customer relations is really a high-tech, customized feedback loop based on your “private” keystrokes and mouse clicks.

The ads are more than just coincidence.  By tracking your browsing habits and purchase history, e-personalization companies like Monetate can learn things about you.

The Times tells the story of Urban Outfitters’ marketing director Dmitri Siegel.  Years ago, he used e-personalization to market men’s clothing to men and women’s clothing to women.  However, he was surprised when some female shoppers (who frequently buy men’s clothing) complained about the company’s gender-stereotyping.

So, limit personalization to a few broad categories.  For example, offer discounts to first-time visitors, making them more likely to buy.  Or, market winter coats to people in cold climates.

PS:  Here’s Monetate’s response to the Times article, saying that balance is the key when it comes to e-personalization.

Personalized on-line ads may LOOK real. When we realize that they’re really the result of Internet overlords stalking us, it tends to creep us out – an impulse that psychologists call the uncanny valley. Kind of like how you feel when you watch this scene from Aliens.

I can't say for sure whether Telemachus ended up thanking Mentor for showing the young man how to write better Web content or edit a video clip and upload it to YouTube. Let me know (doug@doug-stern.com), however, if anything like that appeals to you.

My business employs interns from time to time. Here’s a brief description outlining what that generally looks like.

WHERE

Experience has proven that face-to-face interaction improves just about every aspect of what an intern does, how they do it and what they get out of it.  So, at least a few hours a week ought to be spent on site, in my office.  I have wi-fi and whatever else an intern might need.

WHEN

I’m flexible.  For the sake of productivity, however, I suggest that interns expect to spend 4 to 8 hours a week either in my office or telecommuting, perhaps split between a couple days each week for however long the internship lasts.  A lot depends on what (if anything) an intern’s professor or degree program requires or recommends.

WHAT (more…)

"O envy! envy! thou gnawing worm of virtue, and spring of infinite mischiefs! there is no other vice, my Sancho, but pleads some pleasure in its excuse; but envy is always attended by disgust, rancour, and distracting rage." -- Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part II, Chapter 8.

In the last couple of days, both Seth and The New York Times have taken a look at the connection between on-line technology and envy.  It’s not clear who coined it, but the Times uses an acronym to describe the way Facebook, Twitter and the like have tormented those of us stalking a better offer — FOMO…or, Fear of Missing Out.

Of course, there’s nothing new under the sun.  It’s been ages since Envy was added to the Seven Deadly Sins list.  The ancient Greeks invented Zelos (god of envy and the root for the word zeal), and Cervantes wrote Don Quixote around the end of the 16th Century.

So, I’m reluctant to further demonize our gadgets and apps and how they abet our addiction to connectivity and the inevitable quest for something other than what we have.  Technology is, after all, partly a solution in search of a problem.

In a way, we set ourselves up.  When we open a Twitter account or create a Facebook page, aren’t we giving some part of ourselves permission to act on whatever innate urge might reside in us to compare our lives to the lives of others…and, perhaps, to despair?

A buddy of mine said it really well when he called out Facebook years ago.  He called it invited voyeurism.

So, really.  Who are we kidding?

My guess is that this would get my attention. Even in a hurry-up busy airport. Which is the point. When the point is to get found...and, maybe, be remembered.

There are a couple lessons from the Bingham law firm’s airport billboard.

1. The first is that you must have an awesome image to arrest the eyes of the reader-visitor-viewer.  This one does that.
2. The other it to keep things brief.  Seven words or less.  That goes for billboards as well as headlines.  At nine words, this one’s close.

Remember that ads mostly scratch the get-found part of the itch.  They’re cognitive, left-brained creations.

According to some, "computers and cellphones, and the constant stream of stimuli they offer, pose a profound new challenge to focusing and learning."

Maybe all of us have a touch of ADHD in our hard-wiring.   Maybe that’s what helped keep us safe from the sabertooth or the tar pit or the whatever.

Fast-forward several eons.  The average amygdala is getting a real work out in the Digital Age.  We’re bombarded with stimuli, constantly shifting and sorting — alert to threats and opportunities — and feeding our addiction(s).

This morning’s New York Times suggests we’re paying a price for this innate urge, particularly among the young.  Consider: (more…)

That Rolling Stone cover behaves like a billboard.  It will get your attention at 70 mph.

Write copy accordingly.  For example, titles and headlines?  Absolutely no more than seven words.

Just like a billboard.

Seth just posted a thought about the importance of relationships and how to build/maintain them.  “The experience I have with you as a customer or a friend is far more important than a few random bits flying by on the screen.”

My advice?

• Be tangible.
• Be tangible.
• Be tangible.

So, touch somebody.  Do something tangible.  Any questions?