How Does Your Law Firm Define Its Story?

Generally each year, I attend three conferences:  one related to legal marketing and business development; Social Media Marketing World (SMMW), the social media mega-conference; and Dallas Digital Summit (DDS).  I've followed @annhandley for years on Twitter and heard her at SMMW, so it was great to see her in Dallas this past December.  A point from her presentation is worth consideration by the legal world:

In the slide above, Handley shows that a business (law firm, corporation, entrepreneur, non-profit) must define:
1.    CULTURE:  Who are you?
2.    STORY:  Why you do what you do
3.    EMPATHY:  What are you like to deal with?
 

Ann also suggested considering:  

• What is the knowledge gap you can offer your customer?
• Smart companies don’t follow trends.  They lead them.
• What story can you tell with a depth & breadth that doesn’t otherwise exist?

When you sit down to answer Handley's three questions on Culture, Story, and Empathy, follow each one up with, "Is it the TRUTH?"  Often, a founder's Mission Statement becomes lost down the road.  When hiring is pressed to meet a present need, it's possible to neglect ensuring the new hire will be compatible with the objective mission -- espcially if the Mission or Value Proposition has not been effectively communicated from the leadership and across teams.  Soon, the culture ideal, whether realized or only dreamed, fades.  Also, while there may be answers on paper as to Culture, Story, and Empathy - leadership must instill the beliefs, related purposes, and underlying practices, throughout the firm's systems.  If you fail to share the vision completely, people will come up with their own version. 

Thoroughly sharing the vision of the firm over and over - with leadership, staff, clients, prospects - reminds everyone of the primary goal, and that they all have a role on the team.  Without cohesive and well-communicated vision, dissent and confusion may arise and negatively impact productivity, efficiency, and...culture.   

If you don't lead in telling your story...others will tell it for you.

Attorney@Work created an infographic of helpful books for building law firm culture.  Two books I would add, Start With Why by Simon Sinek, Smart Collaboration by Dr. Heidi K. Gardner.

You HAVE a rich story to tell.  For 2017, revisit the Story of your business, and weave it through your Culture.

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Flip Cat Consulting works with law firms, practice groups, individual attorneys, and other professionals to design marketing and business development strategy.  We work onsite or remotely, on specific projects or global change management.  Contact us to arrange a free consultation.

Ready for Your Closeup?

It's time you went LIVE.  Or, at least had some recorded videos among your arsenal to display your abilities, knowledge, point of view, and "humanness."  It's time for your "close-up" via video.

In this post, I want to showcase a colleague, Mark Neace, of SyncLab Media.  Recently, we were at a cocktail event where an attorney mentioned that he had never really considered video because he couldn't quite see the value of it.  I found Mark's reply (below) to be clear, and on-point -- and I wanted to share it with you: 

"Video content is the most valuable type of content that can be added to any marketing platform - website, email, social - you name it.  If you want to increase the quality and performance of your marketing efforts, add video.

"The most compelling reason is that Google loves video, or they would have never acquired and invested so much into the YouTube platform, which is now the most popular search engine right behind Google itself.  Every social platform, whether it allows native video uploads or simply links to video content,  places a higher search value on posts that include video.  Email campaigns perform better with embedded and/or linked video.  Web pages with video achieve higher search rank and conversion rates than those without video.

"Whether your business marketing goal is brand awareness, product or service exposure, inbound or outbound marketing, or showcasing subject matter expertise - video is the best tool to integrate with a defined digital marketing strategy to achieve success."

Flip Cat always works with a broad range of savvy allies who are leaders in their fields.  We work with SyncLab on video and other digital and integrated marketing initiatives.  More on this in the weeks to come -- as we focus (pun intended) on video during September.

Compliance & the Bar Rules:  Are you interested in expanding your message and engaging prospects via video...but have concerns about execution within the TDRPC & SBOT Bar Rules?  Contact Flip Cat today to arrange a consultation and/or a seminar or ethics CLE for your team.  We strive to keep you compliant - so you can focus on your clients.