Post by Gustavo Rocha, lawyer and consultant in management, IT and quality for law firms. He’s the author of Gestão.Adv.br (content in Portuguese only):

When we think of a marketing initiative, we should have some basic principles so it won’t be in vain.

Three questions that I rate as essential:

• Who?
• What?
• How?

Or better yet:

• Who are your target audience?
• What can you offer them?
• How can you reach them?

It’s not enough to say that you will do everything for your client. That won´t do. You need to focus on a target audience.

You either dwell on B2B or B2C.

Think of what differentiates you from the rest. It’s not enough to say you’re honest. That is basic. You need to have a product, a palpable edge.It doesn’t have to be the pricing but instead a personalized dealing with clients, or even an important connection that will make you speed things up, i.e. something that will set apart and above the competition.

And this is vital: How to reach your target audience? What actions to take? Practical ones: blog, site, newspapers, interviews, connections, etc.

It all depends on your target, your business and your view of the market.

All your decisions have to go through these three filters, though.

Think about it and rock and roll!

Ah, the good old days when selling a product or a service was all about ‘the five marketing Ps: Product, Price, Place, Promotion and People.

Today we live in a more complex universe:

• Complex and globalized;
• Complex, globalized and online;
• Complex, globalized, online and interactive.

That’s right! Clients are different now. A client will search online for matching prices and bargain the delivery with the product seller, then he/she will use a credit card to buy that product made in China, which is sent as a gift to a friend in India, who happens to be in the Bahamas on holidays seating in front of a computer in some hotel.

Clients are debating companies on social networks, nowadays. They demand. They want technical support. They want solutions.

Let’s not verse on those people that are not within reason at all, they’re just looking for reasons to argue about anything.

Let us picture this practical example: I buy a Dell computer over the internet. Why this brand and not any other? Here are some tips:

• Dell’s website is great for customizing your PC;
• They always have sales promotions on Twitter;
• I always get on line support from them.

Supposing that PC has some video glitches.

I contact their technical support services and, let’s us imagine I get no reply, (actually I’ve witnessed the opposite, but for the sake of the example, we’ll say they didn’t), then I’ll Twitt about this issue.

Within few hours, people are bad mouthing the brand.No mass marketing and advertising will keep any brand imune from those that can really jugde it.

Some might say: Well, that goes for products, but services are different.

Are they? Really?

If I can show to my clients that I’m using IT means, what they’ll notice it’s just the file I’m working on and not reams of other papers. If I keep them updated on their files by email and have ‘their backs’ with little nothings like this, are they going to focus that much on my pricings?

If they’re looking for low rates, let them look for it. If they’re looking for quality services they will look for the assistance I’m offering.

Don’t fool yourself about clients. Keep always a step ahead from them. Surprised them on the details. There are others in your businness, with technical and qualification skills.

Your smile, reports, management, presentation, way of talking and acting are unique, though.

That is the essence that will make the difference by the time of hiring or not, of buying or not.

To conclude:

On this day and age, marketing goes beyond the traditional, it is supposed to be interactive, to make use of social networks and to accept criticism as a lesson for constant and full growth.

Legal on Ramp network gives us an excellent example, wherein an associated firm has 14 thousand members writing articles, questions and answers on the upside felt by clients and lawyers and a protected work.

How’s that?

Well, a network that contains countless lawyers and third parties, constitutes a real associative network thus benefiting both lawyers and their clients.

Looking for a lawyer in Manaus but you are in Sao Paulo? If your firm is in a collaborative network, you may have associates there.

The same goes for increasing partnerships, deals, better projects and initiatives.

There are some projects with this focus in Brazil, though American bigger proportions are inspirational.

How do you plan to collaborate with fellow lawyers?

• Do you find that exchanging ideas is the same as giving them away to the competition?
• Splitting fees on a suit is, for you, losing money?
• Do you think it’s a waste, investing time on a social network?

I suggest you think again about this issues.

Nowadays collaboration is more than an idea. It’s a matter of survival. We are living the social network era. The era of exchanging information, of growing together, of strategic alliances:

• We are partners, not competitors.
• We are the sum of ideas, not of monopoly and exclusiveness.
• We are the multiplication of projects and the division of dividends, unlike individualism.

Think and rethink your attitudes.  Your firm ’s future, as well as, all legal practice’s depend on: your vision, reflection and, mostly on the verb action, the action you’ll take.

CRM – Customer Relationship Management. Some professionals in the legal area are acquainted to this notion which is increasingly standard in legal management systems.

In the IT field there is a growing care for technology and clients,for management of clients data in order to answer them back, to expand possibilities to close deals, etc. To speak clearly, a CRM system can be very effective for keeping in check which clients you have already proposed any legal service to, whether a client was one of yours long time ago and no longer is, etc. CRM has many control and management features for its users.

Nowadays there is a plethora of social networks: Plaxo, Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, Ning and many more. With that in mind, the IT people are developing CRM focused on social networks, which means we will be able to able to keep up with what is being written about us on the web, to answer to social networks surveys, i.e. to reinforce our interaction with our clients.

What is the upside of that?

Social networks are characterized by a function to which lawyers aren´t much accustomed to: clients praise,quarrel, discuss and ‘do the laundry’ on social networks. With this, their interaction  with lawyers is wider than it used to be. This leads to some of them being tagged as bad, sloppy and other ‘qualities’, throughout the web. While some are considering law suites for on line slandering, others are looking elsewhere for a new lawyer, after pondering.

Taking in consideration this factor of instant spread, interconnection and web organization, the need for a  CRM integrated with social networks is an important and interesting reality.

Do you use CRM in your practice?
Do you  professionally or personally use social networks?
How do you interact with your clients?
How many of your clients have never contacted again since the conclusion of their actions?
Do you know what legal services have you proposed to any one of your clients?

If you have no answers to these questions and more importantly, if you don´t know how to start answering them, I suggest you begin to interact with your clients by taking on a legal management CRM integrated system.

Picture this: if your dentist contacts you by surprise because its been 6 months since your last cleansing, you’ll feel happy even if you don’t take on the invitation. However if they only contact to charge you for the latest root canal you had, you feel like looking for a different dentist. The same goes for lawyers.

Use over and over again CRM to manage clients, partners and deals. The growth of your practice and income will appreciate it.

An interesting, even impressive, number on a post in Larry Bodine ’s blog: there are over one million lawyers registered in LinkedIn. According to it, at least five thousand of them have got their professional profile in LinkedIn.

With those many American and lots of Brazilian lawyers using LinkedIn, what can we do with this tool? A lot. And that goes for other social networks such as Facebook, Plaxo and Twitter.

Interact, this is the motto. Many may think that success on a social network is the amount of friends or posts one has there. Absolutely not. If you’re following 300 people (maybe less) on Twitter, you won’t be able to keep up with your friends’ posts and to do your work at the same time. You might even fail to answer to an important invitation or any other issue of interest. There’s no way to keep up with it all on the fly.

Here’s the secret: focus. Interact with focus.

In order to place my brand on the social web I must focus on themes, subjects and goals I’m interested in.
An example: I register in LinkedIn  looking for partners in the US. There I start to interact in lawyers groups, to post articles written in English etc. Thus I’m working focused. If I’m looking for new clients, participating in social webs is interesting, unlike in lawyers groups. Except for rare cases, lawyers will be more lawyers, partnerships or mutual businesses, but not final clients.

So, use and over use the social web. Just remember the secret: interact with focus!

Today’s post takes its title from a 1984 movie: 2010 - The year we make contact the sequel of 2001- A space odissey.

Looking back on 2009, I find it a fruitful year regarding the legal and entrepreneurial areas. We had a lot of technological developments, more lawyers are facing their practices as companies, more management, technology and quality are embedding the judicial minds. This was a year of big legal marketing, social networks and strategic alliances.

And what has 2010 in store for us? Dreams, longings, wishes and mostly work.

Yes, I wish you dream a lot, for dreams feed our hope and bring happiness from the smallest thing, from the minimum acomplishment, from what is palpable.

May your wishes come true. Hope for good things and they will come true.

May the yearning fill your life. Hope for happiness, love, friendship, endearment and after dreaming, thinking and whishing, do the main thing: work. May work guide your path in 2010. Not just in the professional acomplishment sense. Work as a verb of construction. Work as a will to change. Work as a new way to see the world.

I think that the movie predicted legal practice and entrepreneurship in 2010.The legalpractice and its marketing, as well as entrepeneurs are totally interconnectd through this word: contacts. This is how networks emerge, be they virtual or face-to-face. This is how people trust each other. This is the way to hire a professional.

Everything is contacts! Not the contact per se, but the display of trust, i.e. forwarding. Learn that forwarding is as important and should be as criterious as establishing contacts is. When you forward a contact, you commit your name, your good name and you give credibility.

Learning to deal with social networks is key for 2010. It is not enough to be connected and have thousands of followers on twitter, facebook or plaxo. Be connected and interact with this audience.

2010 will be the year we will make contact.

If you were to analyze your firm in depth, how would you see it? Good, excellent, top-notch, the mother of all firms regarding its efficiency, swiftness and success?

It is always important to bear in mind our strongest issues, but the weakest ones are also key for our development and growth in a sustainable manner.

Pay close attention to this: who’s better prepared to jugde your performance than your client? Not just any client, for sure.

Try this self-appraisal exercise:

Pick three of your closest and best clients.

Ask  them three or more questions aiming these goals:

• In a zero to ten scale, how does the client rate your firm?
• Once the client has rated your firm, what is the firm going to do to raise that grade?
• Are you aware of other issues, approaches or debates from other firms?

Let’s consider a client’s answer to these three questions:

The client, for instance, graded your firm with a 7 mark answering the first question, adding that he spends to much time at your reception desk waiting for your people to see him; he can’t ever get a coffe while waiting, his matter is taking too long to come to a closure and to third question he says that another firm has called him on a new approach on a diverse subject while your firm never called, ever.

Those who deal with clients know that this portrays a daily and typical answer. Thinking this through, it might look as if the client is on the verge of dismissing completely your services; the truth is that the client wants to keep on dealing with you, up to pointing out the problems with your firm!

He made his complaints, he’s not satisfied how he is being delt with, your firm does not keep him properly updated, there’s no coffee and nobody refills it. Concluding, there’s a lot to be considered and solved.

And the third question? If there is a new approach, go through it in your firm and then take it to your clients.
If you already thought of that new approach, then you’re not taking it to the clients, though you could. The third question is itself a real opportunity!

Ask today those three questions to your most special clients, then answer this: What has  changed about your self-appraisal?

These three words are part of any law firm consultant’s everyday life.

I find lots of professionals generating data, very few with information and almost none with action.

What is the difference among these terms?

• Data is any piece of information that is stored and collected later on;
• Information is the use of that data in a useful way;
• Action is the reasoning that happens based on that information.

These three elements are key to a steady and relevant growth of any law firm.

A practical example: a law firm logs into a registry or a spreadsheet all new clients within a week period. These are data. If from these data they can conclude how many clients actually closed deals with the firm and how many didn´t come through, then data turns into information. Now, if before this information a firm’s partner decides to invest in marketing, to reform the firm procedures or any other decision, we are facing action, meaning reacting against former procedures, i.e. evolution.

This idea is quite similar to PDCA.

In as much as PDCA, data, information and action lead us to the same goal: to analyse the present status and think of new ideas, changes and better procedures.

The fact that we never had problems or that things have always been done the way they are now, is no reson to stand passive .

There is always room for improvement and to evolve. Just take no less than that.

Standardize data, extract information and come out with actions to update your practice. That is the key to success.

There is a new collaborator in LawRD blog: Gustavo Rocha.

Gustavo Rocha is a lawyer and consultant in management, IT and quality for law firms. He’s the author of Gestão.Adv.br , a blog through which he aims to spread and  “Bind legal knowledge with management and administrative know-how, along with IT and management tools (…)”

His expert voice has joined LawRD blog in order to enrich it with his insights on IT concerning the legal world.

We are most pleased to give this news. Brazil has been a target market to LawRD. Making LawRD available in Portuguese, as it is spoken on that big country, was just the first step. Adding this new voice is the second step towards adding value to all readers of LawRD’s blog.