Real Life Marketing Lessons

I come from a long tradition of hands on learning.  Back when I was around 8 years old, my dad, who’s a chemist, would let my younger sisters and I loose in his lab on the weekend, where, unsupervised, we’d mix up solutions with “HCl” (hydrochloric acid), phenolthaline and other chemicals and watching them turn pretty colors.  It wasn’t until I took Chemistry, and then AP Chemistry years later that I understood the process behind the “potion making” that I’d engaged in long ago (and only then that I learned that HCl can be kind of dangerous, depending upon the concentration). Now that I’m a parent, I try the same techniques with my daughters too.  I’ve let them go crazy with the baking soda and vinegar and menthos and diet coke in the back yard, learn fractions through baking and math by counting change at the grocery store.

Today, as a lawyer, I recognize that there are plenty of marketing lessons all around us, examples of what makes for good and bad selling that we can extend to our practice.  I’ve shared a real life marketing lesson at least once before, and now, I see that blogger,Jay Fleischman has done the same here.  Fleischman writes about an enterprising delivery man who marketed his service by handing out business cards outside a shuttle bus that home furnishings company IKEA runs from New York to its Elizabeth, New Jersey store.  Fleischman offers some ways that the delivery man could polish up his act (a nicer shirt, a business card with a photo of his delivery truck, and more) to generate even more business.  And Jay argues those changes, which seem superficial, can make a big impact on clients as well.

2 Comments

  1. RJON@HowToMakeItRain.com on January 26, 2007 at 9:02 am

    Law firms are businesses. Lawyers are professionals. Without the business it’s mighty difficult to put our professional skills to use. This is an “and” opportunity, not a choice of “business” OR “profession”
    Once you allow yourself to be ok with this fact of reality, all kinds of opportunities start to present themselves to learn how to market your law firm more effectively. Just analyze what you do and don’t like in your capacity as someone else’s consumer, customer or client and then apply those ideas to your own practice.
    For example, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that service businesses that include photos of the person whose name is on the business card, get more business. Guess what? The same people who respond favorably to the business cards of the mover outside of IKEA with his photo on them, are going to respond favorably to the business cards of a lawyer who puts his or her face on their business cards too.
    Respectfully,
    RJON ROBINS
    http://www.HowToMakeItRain.com
    Helping Lawyers In Small Firms Make ALOT More Money



  2. RJON@HowToMakeItRain.com on January 26, 2007 at 9:02 am

    Law firms are businesses. Lawyers are professionals. Without the business it’s mighty difficult to put our professional skills to use. This is an “and” opportunity, not a choice of “business” OR “profession”
    Once you allow yourself to be ok with this fact of reality, all kinds of opportunities start to present themselves to learn how to market your law firm more effectively. Just analyze what you do and don’t like in your capacity as someone else’s consumer, customer or client and then apply those ideas to your own practice.
    For example, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that service businesses that include photos of the person whose name is on the business card, get more business. Guess what? The same people who respond favorably to the business cards of the mover outside of IKEA with his photo on them, are going to respond favorably to the business cards of a lawyer who puts his or her face on their business cards too.
    Respectfully,
    RJON ROBINS
    http://www.HowToMakeItRain.com
    Helping Lawyers In Small Firms Make ALOT More Money



Leave a Comment