Business Development

For lawyers, web marketing is what the French call a devoir — a “have to.” But most of us would rather wash our hands of it. We didn't go to school for an MBA or marketing degree. We have a whole desk full of case files demanding our time and ...

Let’s say you just found out you have a rare illness. Suddenly, you are in the market for a specialty physician. You do some research, get some names and make an appointment with one or two doctors. What kind of conversation would you have? My ...

In a feedback interview, a client told a story to explain why a particular law firm did not get the work after meeting with him. He said the firm brought a team of lawyers to the meeting and the partners were doing a good job of asking questions ...

Discussions about cross-selling in law firms remind me of the well-publicized discussions some years ago in the scientific world about cold fusion. Both represent their respective professions’ Holy Grail, but no one in either profession has made ...

Many lawyers create Facebook pages for their law firms because they know it’s something they "ought to do" for their online marketing. Set up website. Check! Write blog posts. Check! Have a presence on social media. Check! What often happens, ...

A year ago, we thought social media couldn't get any hotter as the marketing mode of choice for lawyers. Comparing results from the recent "Attorney at Work 2016 Social Media Marketing Survey" to last year's shows we may have been right. In our ...

Your prospects and clients are interacting daily on social media channels, regardless of your opinion on the matter. It’s time to get over yourself and invest a little time and money in this marketing platform, because it’s about your prospects ...

Social media marketing has, unfortunately, become the techno-version of "marketing by wandering around." It can be immensely time-consuming while producing an extremely low return. You can spend considerable time chasing down likes and followers ...

Recently I was contacted by someone looking for good articles on cross-selling. I noticed that a lot of material discussed the obstacles — compensation systems, internal competition, lack of confidence in colleagues, lack of knowledge about firm ...

Some years ago, I conducted a half-day workshop on business development at an AmLaw 100 firm's retreat. I closed the session by saying the following: “If you don’t remember anything else we have discussed in the last three hours, please just ...