Now That's a BIG Ad!
And I thought the Law.com ad I used to have on this site was a big ad. Check this out.
Marketing 101 - There are Five Benefits, Pick One
I’ve been meaning to link to a post by Skip Lineberg titled The Five Benefits. In it, Skip recalls an important lesson he learned from a PR consultant:
… it does not matter what the product is or what industry one inhabits, you have to present your case so that you tell your audience within the first ten seconds of your message which one of the five possible benefits you are offering. There are five, period. F-I-V-E.
Are you ready for them? Here goes:
1. Make me wealthy
2. Improve my appearance
3. Help me to be more well-liked by my family or friends
4. Make me live longer
5. Get me laid more oftenMoney, looks, popularity, health and sex. That's it.
So, what benefits do lawyers offer?
Comments in Ads?
I love Autoblog, and it is one of my first reads every day. One thing Autoblog does is serve up a lot of ads, including one at the top of the page. Today I noticed a “Comment on this Advertiser” link directly under the Suzuki ad. Sure enough, clicking on the link brought me to a comments page asking me to “Please add [my] comments to inform others and help this advertiser improve their offering.”
Way cool! A great way for an advertiser (Suzuki) to get blog-like feedback without actually doing a blog itself.
Thank you, and good night.
Bert Decker has some really fantastic tips for ending a presentation. Decker suggests that the last three seconds of any presentation are among the most important. His tips:
- Don’t step back. If anything, take a half-step toward your listeners at the end. Don’t step back verbally, either, by softening your request to “I surely hope something…” or worse, “There seems to be a need…” Keep saying “we” and “you” to the end.
- Don’t look away. Some people harken back to the last visual-aid, as if for reinforcement. Some people look aside, unwilling to confront listeners head-on at the last words, the murmured “thank you,” or the instant of silence that follows. Stay with them.
- Don’t move on the last word. Hold still for a half-beat after the “you” in “thank you.” You don’t want to look anxious to get out of there. If anything, you want to let people know you’ve enjoyed being with them and are sorry you have to go. Don’t rush off.
- Don't raise your hands. In our seminars, we recommend “clean and firm endings” to actually show people you’re finished. You must “let them go” visually. If you keep you hands up at waist level, you look as if you have something more to say. You’re still “holding them.” (You can see this same phenomenon in on-on-one seated conversations: the person whose hands are up still “holds the floor” and the listener will not begin talking until the hands themselves are finished.) In speaking, think of yourself as the gracious host or hostess as you drop your hands with an appreciative “thank you.” That image prompts you to be warm and natural.
- Don’t rush to collect your papers. Or visual aids, or displays. Stop and chat with people if the meeting is breaking up, then begin to tidy up in a calm, unhurried manner. Otherwise you might be contradicting your calm, confident demeanor as a presenter.
- Never blackball yourself with a critical grimace, a shake of the head, eyes rolled upward, a disgusted little sigh. So what if you’re displeased with yourself? Don’t insult your audience by letting them know you were awful; they probably thought you were pretty good. One lip curl in those last three seconds can wreck 30 minutes of credibility.
Bert’s blog is one of my new favorites. It is chock-full of great tips like these. Add it to your aggregator. You won’t be sorry.
The Best Business Advice for Professionals
Tom Asacker, guest blogging for Fast Company’s Blogjam shares this tremendous insight into building a business:
Today the game is all about going deep, with highly relevant products and services and particularly information, into a unique subculture. Forget about things like reach and frequency. The future of branding is collaboration with -- and for -- a passionate subculture of like-minded people. It's no longer wise to be famous for fifteen minutes. Mass market celebrity is fleeting. Instead, become famous to fifteen people.
I think Tom is right on here. Because small-firm lawyers, architects, accountants, and other professional service providers will never be able to serve the mass market anyway, it is important for them to take Tom’s advice to heart. Identify 15 people/businesses you want to serve. Now, how can you be famous to them?
Blogher Business Cards
A few weeks ago, I blogged about some cool business card ideas. Getting ready for Blogher, I realized I needed some more cards. Since I’ve been using 3x5 cards a lot lately as I implement the Hipster PDA, I decided to try index cards. Liberally stealing from both Eric Mack and Garrett Dimon, I came up with this design, printed on the front and back of a plain white index card, which Halley Suitt calls the “The Awesomest”:
The best part of the design is that I can scribble notes on the front of the card before I hand it to the person. The back of the card contains far more info about me than I’d be able to convey in a brief conversation. Though I may change them a bit, I’m really starting to like this format. I’d love your thoughts and comments.
Buy more advice.
I don’t often link to Seth Godin. Oh, I’m like the rest of the blogosphere and think he’s brilliant and all, but I figure that if you read my blog, you are probably also reading his. However, something he said in a post today struck me, and I wanted to throw it in a post to make sure I could find it again. It’s this:
I think most organizations don't buy nearly enough advice. They go 97% of the way, do 97% of the work, make all the investments... but then they get too tired and too stuck to actually do the high leverage stuff that works. So yes, buy advice. Buy a lot of it. But most important, understand why the advice is good advice, really understand the dynamic behind it--then you won't have any trouble selling the idea, because it's not the advice giver that matters... it's the advice.
MINI Musical Marketing Magic
Cheskin’s Terri Ducay just bought a MINI:
I knew this car was different the minute I entered the showroom. The environment was hip, stylish and informative. What was emphasized was not so much the car, but me and how I'd experience driving the car. For example, there was a "Test Drive Accessory" display that offered a variety of music CD’s to play during the drive. The music ranged from Soul, Blues, Rock, etc. How brilliant I thought, music is critical to my experience while driving but I don't carry my CDs with me when looking for a car. I picked The Rolling Stones ‘Hot Stuff’ and was on my way.
Though a MINI is not on my shopping list (can’t get the golf clubs in the back, don’t ya know) I absolutely LOVE the music idea. Why not keep a selection of CD’s in your waiting room and if your clients must wait, let them listen to their choice of music.
Serve the Rich
Roy H. Williams shares 5 Tips for Reaching the Rich on Entrepreneur.com. Though Williams is talking about getting your “product” in the hands of the rich, much of his advice makes sense for service providers as well. His five tips (read the article for explanations) are:
1. Hang out in their hangouts.
2. Become useful to them.
3. Put your product where they can see it.
4. Target through copy.
5. Pull, don't push.
At the end of the article, Williams suggests that selling to the rich isn’t as important today as it once was:
Today a middle-income office manager may save her money to buy a single luxury item, like a Chanel jacket, the same one worn by a wealthy woman who has a dozen others like it in her $2.5 million house. While it may feel good to have the truly rich woman as a customer, you don't want to lose sight of the fact that for every one of her, there are at least 250 of those middle-income managers anxious to buy that same Chanel jacket.
Remember that last sentence. Are you better off in the long run working your tail off to land that one huge client, or looking at ways to become indispensable to small yet growing businesses?
Another Great Business Card Idea
Two days ago, I shared this tip for new business cards. Here’s another from Garrett Dimon.
Top Tips to Take Tremendous Treasures
JS Logan shares The Best Revenue Growth Tip You’ll Ever Receive. Well, what are you waiting for. Go read it.
Ignorance is Bliss?
The great folks at JD Bliss were kind enough to interview me and post my “success story” here. The interview was done a while ago, and I’d like to think I’d sound much more intelligent and interesting now. ;-)
More Coffee Talk
Dana VanDen Huevel talks a bit more about marketing with coffee:
We were at a home-town place this morning called 'Ann's Sunshine Cafe' where, get this - there are four shelves of mugs on the wall - all with this Ann's logo and all with the patrons' names printed on them. Wow - holy personalization and loyalty.
About $3.00 per customer to wow them and keep them coming back? Sounds pretty cheap to me.
Next time you order business cards ...
Eric Mack just returned from a conference with a bunch of notes scribbled on the backs of the business cards he received from others. It gave him this idea, which is worth a look before your order your next batch of cards.
On the other hand ...
I ran across Dan Kennedy’s “Official” web site this morning. Dan is a speaker, author, coach, and marketer. Here is a bit about working with him:
Kennedy is not easy to do business with. He maintains a grueling schedule of speaking, consulting, copywriting, coaching, producing infomercials and managing his own business. He is never in his office, never takes incoming calls and new 'private' clients are asked to submit information by fax before getting a telephone appointment with him. He's militantly resistant to having his time wasted and has 'fired clients' on occasion for doing so.
Not exactly “touchy-feely” is it? Still, it is honest. I’m guessing that Dan has gotten a few clients who like his No B.S. brand. OK lawyers, who’s going to be the next one to add the quote from above to your retainer agreement?
And they'll tell two friends, and so on, and so on...
Is your firm like shampoo? In this post from his Confessions of a Brand Evangelist, Aaron Dignan talks about hair, dandruff, and the commoditization of clean:
The funny thing about shampoo though, is that cleaning hair is its purpose, and yet almost every shampoo brand on the planet is building a story around something else. Head and Shoulders fights dandruff. Nioxin stimulates the scalp and fights hair loss. Brilliant Brunette by John Frieda keeps those lovely espresso tones in your hair going strong. Nobody's talking about cleaner hair.
Why? Because the purpose of the category has been commoditized. Everybody's shampoo works, so they've changed the discussion. My guess is that if you look at your category, you'll find that it's more like shampoo than you'd like to admit. Everybody's stuff works. The real question now is: what's the something extra that you're going to talk about on the side of the bottle?
So, even though you may think you have a “distinctive global law firm with a diversified practice that offers a broad range of services and has become a leader in every area of law you practice because of your client focus and legal skill,” you still need to articulate that “something extra” on the side of the bottle.
If you think I’m wrong here, go to your bathroom and look at your shampoo. Unless you are using a generic no-name brand that just says “SHAMPOO” on the bottle, you’ve looked for that “something extra” the last time you went to the store. What makes you think your potential clients won’t as well?
One Way not to "Brand" Your Firm
Why not firm uniforms?
Check out this hilarious collection of European band photos.
(Thanks to Law Geek for the tip).
Make a Million Dollars
Marshall Brain (what a great name!) has a cool article titled, How to Make a Million Dollars. He has some pretty sound advice, but what made me laugh out loud was when he was talking about one way to do it:
Or there is the well-worn path to a lawsuit. The problem is, a lawsuit can take a long time and you have to spend most of that time talking to lawyers. I'm not sure the rewards outweigh the pain.
Brew up some clients
Rosa Say passes on a great way to spend your marketing dollars:
This morning Kerwin and I walked into a Prescott Starbucks and both ordered their strong-brew coffee of the day to then find it was free. The barista at the cash register motioned over to a gentleman sitting in an animated discussion with a group of about six others, and said, “Your coffee is on Mr. Perez this morning.”
As Kerwin stirred cream and sugar into his coffee, we read a poster on the wall right above the condiment station with a picture of Mr. Perez’s smiling face explaining that every Wednesday morning from 8:30am-9:30am he buys coffee at that Starbucks for all his customers and anyone else who wants to talk story with him about investment banking and Prescott’s promising future.
Absolutely, frickin’ brilliant.