Legal Commentary

Networks for Counsel Study and Miscellaneous Marketing Tidbits

The latest Networks for Counsel Study was completed over the summer and the results demonstrate a number of important things for lawyers who are trying to build a practice. For starters, the study shows that networking remains a critical component of generating work for most lawyers (the study found that the top 3 most important methods of generating work involve some form of networking).

The study also shows that while in-person networking remains critical, for most lawyers, it is harder than ever to find the time to do it. Other highlights of the study include: the use of social networking has grown significantly in the last 12 months; Twitter is not being used much by lawyers (those who do use it post a lot); and counsel prefer lawyer only networks.

Here are some other miscellaneous marketing thoughts which I have been meaning to post for the past month:

· Consider that the average doctor interrupts patient after first 30 seconds (source, On Point Radio). As a lawyer, you can do better. Become a better listener and learn about unmet client needs.

· Over the summer, I participated in a webinar on social media that was sponsored by Martindale Hubbell, (LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell were co-sponsors of the Networks for Counsel Study.) Here are a couple of tips that made a lot of sense to me: Think first impressions when you create your on-line profiles; In social media, you can be a leader if you start a discussion (though you may need to prime a discussion to get it going); If you do launch discussion, show your interests; follow your passions (best way to connect with others); invest early in building your network (before you need the help)

· And here is a random tidbit I picked up on twitter over the summer (my apologies for forgetting the source): Marketing is a one way conversation; sales is a two way conversation (my 2 cents: try to get a dialogue going?lawyers find one way communications most easy but dialogue = sales.)

Full post as published by Counsel to Counsel on September 30, 2009 (boomark / email).