Observed

Creating humankind may be one of the Divine Spirit's greatest acts of faith. It's comparable (in a small, small way) to the hope you and I demonstrate when we risk rejection, uncertainty and everything else that comes with sales and business development.

Cathe Dykstra recently began an excellent essay about the organization she directs with an analogy.  She wrote in Louisville’s Courier-Journal that the things that make the rooftop garden at Family Scholar House grow and prosper can be likened to the things that the single, working, college-going participants at Family Scholar House need to grow and prosper.

I’ll extend Cathe’s wonderful analogy.  In addition to support and guidance and patience and so on, many things we do also take hope.

Or, perhaps, faith.  As in, leap of faith.  As in, be prepared, minimize your risk and then…jump.

I realized that what Cathe wrote about is also true of sales, fund raising and business development — and of many, many other things many of us do every day.  Such as having a child, matriculating to law school or making a cold sales call.

So, while I hope my readers get this far in this post (148 words), I know (from plenty of user-habit studies) that a lot of you won’t.

Nevertheless…

1. I write and post anyway, confident that if I don’t (or rarely) post anything, I predictably reduce my chances of Getting Found.
2. I make what I write as engaging as possible.  Such as leading with an interesting bit about Cathe’s rooftop garden and how it’s like the worker-scholars she plants and tends to.
3. I leverage the visual and ensure that I bake my main message into the caption under my post’s main image.

Get it?  I hope so.

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?

It’s simple.  Be practical and responsive.

At least, according to a panel of managing partners convened earlier this month in Boston.  The occasion was the annual conference organized by the New England chapter of the Legal Marketing Association.

Why practical and responsive? The reason they offered was just as simple:  It’s what clients’ customers expect from them.

It occurred to me that this is an extension of the wisdom imparted by Laura Meherg — namely, that clients tend to want lawyers who can:

1. Fix their problems.
2. Make their lives easier.
3. And, are nice to work with.

The challenge is how to best convey practical and responsive to your clients and prospects, short of demonstrating it.  In other words, how can your marketing content reflect these abstractions.

Consider case studies.  Here are a couple of real-world examples:

• A major engineering company brought John into a case after being hit with a variety of commercial and IP claims by an oil and gas equipment company in Texas.  “My strategy was to aggressively develop evidence before I even asked for documents.  So, I examined a key executive who had all of the information and was driving the dispute…before my opponent’s defenses were in place.”  As a result, John got damaging admissions into the record early, changing the risk calculus for both sides and setting up a favorable settlement.
• When a competitor sued a global manufacturing company with a patent infringement claim, John suspected that there was another, more deadly scenario in store for his client.  “My sense was that my opponent was leveraging the patent infringement claim in an attempt to get information to support a trade secret claim and get an injunction against my client.  If successful, this could effectively shut down my client.”  John developed a strategy based on what was best for his client in the long-term by admitting the patent infringement claims and, thereby, initially denying the competing company the ability to assert the more damaging trade secret claim and quickly enjoin his client.

Well, what do you think?

Biographies of the prophets of Islam had been popular for a couple of centuries by the time the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles rolled around in the late 9th Century. Here's the first page of one of the earliest -- the one recorded at Petersborough Abbey.

Nothing on a law firm Web site or app is more important than the bios.  Survey after survey report that these are the pages that are most often visited.

Why so popular? Because users’ interest in attorney bios recognizes that people buy from people.  Along with Can you fix my problem? and Will you make my life easier?, most Web site visitors want some assurance that they’ll like working with you.

I cover these and other bio-related tips in an October 18 podcast produced by Australian marketing guru Dan Toombs.

Have a listen and tell me if you agree.

Dan Toombs is a lawyer and law firm marketing guru based in Australia. His podcast has thousands of listeners worldwide.

I’ve been invited to participate in an upcoming podcast produced by the Australian lawyer and self-styled change agent, Dan Toombs.  The subject of my interview will be best practices for on-line attorney bios, and I’ll be featured on Dan’s law firm marketing podcast site.

Here’s what Dan said to me:

Doug, really liked your recent guest video post on Larry’s site, and would love to interview you for the podcast on how Attorneys should configure and promote their bio’s. Would only need 20 – 30 minutes of your time.  Although I broadcast from Australia, my subscriber list has approximately 600 US Attorneys and Practice Managers and a strong listenership on iTunes.

More as I know more.

Mari Smith gets it.

The ability to call up and get a real human being — the companies who can do that and go back to basics are really the ones that will be winning out and humanizing their brand.

The social media consultant was quoted yesterday in a New York Times piece about how big, tech companies like Google have ditched their phones.

As things currently stand, momentum is shifting toward impersonal digital and away from person-to-person analog.  This often boils down to numbers, with hundreds of thousands of customers (or more; think Facebook) funneling down into a relative handful of employees available for tech support or customer service.

Plus, there’s culture.  More and more of us — especially the younger us, asocial programmers and others in Generation Asperger — who just really Not Like the phone.  Or talking.  To another human being.

Ironic, considering how enamored we seem to be with the notion of story telling.

PS:  It’s not hard at all to find reporter Amy O’Leary on the World Wide Web.  She wrote the Times piece on tech companies and telephone use.  I’ll give a prize, however, to anyone who can find her phone number.

Visitors come to law firm Web sites mostly to check out lawyer bios.  It’s a fact.

Here’s a quick video offering five simple tips to improve yours:

Want more?

Your Web site is like a grocery shelf. How does it display your products? Does it make your readers feel like foreigners?

Yabancı

As a recent foreign exchange student spending four months in Istanbul, I didn’t need to be reminded that I was a foreigner.

Yet, virtually wherever I went, I overheard yabancı, the Turkish word for foreigner.

I knew I was different, but having others remind me was uncomfortable.

For example, the first time I went to the grocery store, I forgot my dictionary.   As a result, I got home with lumpy cottage cheese, a jar of tomato paste, and moldy vegetables.

This feeling of being an outsider might be how Web site visitors struggle upon encountering unfamiliar content.  They, too, can feel like yabancılar.

Readers visit sites, particularly sites in the professional services sector, looking for assurance and solutions.  Users look for providers who can fix their problems and make their lives easier.  They’re also seeking some kind of personal connection to feel like less like a yabancı.

So, sites should encourage visitors to relax and stay put.  Consider how well your site engages your visitors and if it is…

1. Coherent: Well-organized content is attractive and inviting, encouraging readers to spend time on your site.
2. Down-to-Earth:  Readers are often put off by jargon.  Use simple, clear language.
3. Brief: Remember the Nielsen effect.  Long looks hard, and hard doesn’t get read.

Eventually, I didn’t need a dictionary.  What I remember best, however, were the times that my Turkish neighbors  welcomed me and helped with my broken Turkish.  They made me feel like less like a yabancı.

Before someone might hire me, they have to trust me.

1. Trust that I can fix their problem.
2. Trust that I can make their life easier.
3. Trust that they’ll like working with me.

Before they can trust me for any of these things, I have to demonstrate that I can be trusted.  There are a bunch of other ingredients and nuances, but that’s pretty much it in a nutshell.

What are some of the ways I can demonstrate that I’m trustworthy?  A resume is just table stakes.  Plus, even a sparkling resume, five-star testimonials and the like don’t really establish the kind of trust that I believe clients want.

I’m talking about the type of trust that includes an emotional connection.

The key word here is demonstrate.  The more tangible, the more personal, the better.  Because when I demonstrate that I care by sacrificing time or something else, I help establish a personal emotional connection — which is what is most likely to get me hired.

That’s why I was totally blown-away when I recently bought shoes from Zappos.

Things started out simply enough.  After going to the company’s Web site to buy a cool pair of black Keen loafers, I ended up on the phone with Christian, a customer service rep in Hendersonville, Nev., to close the deal.

Now, I like to gab.  So, I asked her, “Where are you?” and “What kind of shoes are you wearing?” and what have you.  Nosy meets voluble.

Well, I not only bought the shoes, I had a good time.  Best time I’ve ever had on the phone that didn’t involve…well, never mind.

(NOTE:  My shoes arrived THE NEXT DAY.   Zappos has its warehouse about half an hour away from me in Shepherdsville, Ky.)

As a first-time custie, I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.  A few days after I got my shoes, a small envelop arrived from Zappos with a Nevada postmark.  IT WAS A HANDWRITTEN THANK-YOU NOTE FROM CHRISTIAN.

I felt like a schoolboy.  For about 15 seconds.  Which was when I Googled “Zappos handwritten notes.”

That turned up an excellent post by Stan Phelps, “Zappos and the Importance of Making a Personal Emotional Connection:  PEC in the form of Thank You Cards.”  Phelps explains that what Christian did — on the phone and afterward — is typical of the customer service branding practiced by all 1500 Zappos employees.

From now on, I plan on buying all of my shoes from Zappos.  And, I’m so asking for Christian.