Law And More

Midsized Law Firms - Those online video trailers as new killer app

Brownstein Hyatt Faber Schreck, Barnes & Thornburg, and Halleland Lewis Nilan & Johnson:  These law firms have what might be called The Midsize Edge.  When the bubble burst, reports Karen Sloan in THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL, they were often insulated from the worst of the downturn.  For instance, their smaller size gave them flexibility, particularly in fee structure and responsiveness.  Away from the two coasts their fixed costs were less. Their specialties usually didn't depend on capital markets.  And their branding is regional versus national. 

So, as Hildebrandt International concluded, midsized law firms are strongly positioned for growth, especially domestically.  That's the rub.  Can they orchestrate the idiosyncratic kinds of marketing needed to harness that potential and sustain it?  Unlike the blockbuster global brands, they have to create unique space in the marketplace and do that cost-efficiently. Halleland has been doing just that for about three years.  That's why they are putting a toe in the water in using online video trailers.  I tell 'em:  Midsize firm, you need to get in there up to the waist. 

See, with broadband and rapid technology developments such as Animoto, which is replacing MicroSoft Movie Maker, the online video trailer is becoming the next killer app on the web.  Yesterday, I conducted a two-hour exclusive interview with Mindy Schwartz, owner of Full Circle's video services and more. Here is a sample of the boutique's work.

Let's cut to the chase. Schwartz [MSSPhotography@aol.com, 615-330-1305] tells me: An online video trailer can be done for $300 to $500 a pop, comes with three revisions [usually not needed], and can be wrapped up in a week. It can be formatted as 30 seconds or three or four minutes, with text, photos, and music [Full Circle handles the music copyright issues.].  The message as well as the tone and content to communicate it is determined through primarily phone conversations with the prospect and a form for the "specs" Book-BusinessVideoQuestionnaire. 

Why is this the killer app?  Schwartz explains it's a combo platter of low cost, quick turnaround, pull force of video, and the almost infinite ways it can be used and leveraged.  To just get started, the apps include:

• An enhancer for any digital site, ranging from a webpage to blog, to twitter to social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn and social communities free to start on Ming.com.  Eventually, just as publishing a book is the price of entry for personal services players, a video trailer might be expected.  Not having one could become a competitive disadvantage.

• Inserted into digital media releases such as Pitch Engine and PRWeb.  I bumped into Full Circle when I hunted for a vendor to do the video trailer for the e-release on my novel  "The Fat Guy From Greenwich."   Schwartz is working on it and I'm delaying the heavy promotional efforts until I have it.  It can also be part of a press kit.

• Establish or reinforce the must-be-unique branding of a smaller organization, niche product/service, or leadership. 

• Be part of a resume or presentation of self in a job hunt or search for new business.

• Given the low-cost, can be updated frequently. The rule of thumb for a smaller organization is quarterly.  For large businesses, weekly updates seem wise.

• Test out a marketing message easily.  Before the affordability, we usually did this with email, blogs, and tweets.

From [nervously] shopping around for a video trailer vendor, I discovered that newbies require a boutique, not a large company.  Full Circle had the customer-service ethos to talk me down from extreme panic.  Think Schwartz as Shaman. Very quickly I migrated from a toe nail in the water to a planning a comprehensive video strategy for my communications firm.

Question: Will BigLaw also adopt this killer app?  My hunch is that large defense firms will embrace this when it is already a mature tactic.  

Rascals like Letterman land on their feet - Rethinking Good Lawyer Persona

We grow up.  When we do we discern what persona or personal branding will get us the most in the professional marketplace, which was brutal even before it mutated into Darwinian [Summers eat other summers.] 

If you are shopping for your persona, you might analyze Dave Letterman's rascal one.  Experts in that field predict that branding insulates him from the worst of this sex scandal.  A Good Boy like Jay Leno would have probably done down.  When you've been on a linear path as long as most new JDs have been, you might have defaulted into the Good Lawyer.  It has probably not gotten you much.  It will probably not get you much.  Cunning, managed oddballness, flashes of brilliance from left field, and evidence of stardom somewhere will get you closer to the door and once you're in the powers-that-be are less apt to mess with you.

I was the Good Professional Woman.  Then times got really hard. I'm now the cagey wild child from Jersey City, New Jersey.  Message: You never know. 

Tip: Get a video of a Mickey Pohl cross.  You bet, he's a rascal.  The way he starts out deferential/making the witness comfortable is total Tony Soprano.  Video of a John Tarantino cross will show a unique hybrid style of earnest altar boy and street kid.

Beware what the law firm is famous for: The signature or brand

Most of the advice Pillsbury's Craig Barbarosh provides for law firms in the new economy is common sense.  For example, he recommends investing in new business development and retaining top talent.  But there is one point in his two-pages of advice on Law.com that could lead to a homerun or a disaster.  That's his assertion that a law firm should be famous for something. 

The problem with that is big time. The firm could be famous for something that is no longer all that marketable and was too narrowly positioned in the marketplace.  Jones Day's Pittsburgh office avoided that in its stunning Rhode Island lead paint litigation victory by discussing that whole long-playing saga in more general terms of product liability.  The head attorney on that particular litigation Mickey Pohl even had a quarterly Jones Day publication on just that: Product liability.  Lead paint as a litigation issue isn't a major selling point currently but product liability sure is.

Another problem is what to do with that strong identity, such in M&A, when the market is dead.  When law firms take on signatures or branding they might want to describe the core competence broadly such as financial counseling or even more open such as financial legal issues.  That allows it to be developing niches in areas such as governance which are less volatile.

A third problem can be arrogance.  Jones Day has become famous for its smart ways to bill clients.  That has prevented the need to lay off and ensured its survival in the difficult California high-tech market.  Unfortunately, that success was something that was crowed about in a memo that was leaked to heavily read tabloid Abovethelaw.com.  

Having an organizational signature or a strong brand is tricky business.  Those managing that image have to recognize that it is a living, breathing entity, one that can mutate rapidly in this volatile marketplace.

Brand Audit: Taking one after not getting work

In THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, Stan Kaczmarek deconstructs why he has been unemployed, with only a few consulting assignments, since June 2007.  He is an environmental engineer but he might as well have been a jobless attorney or journalist.  His mistakes were the same.  And they all boil down, he summarizes, to not branding himself "as significantly different than the growing crowd of writers and environmental experts."

Like others in professional services and the creative lines of business, Kaczmarek took a brand audit, or inventory of what he could provide the marketplace matched against what was in demand.  The next step was repositioning and repackaging himself, everything from the elevator speech to his resume to his digital outreach to communicate that branding.  In this era of multiple streams of income, most will find it useful and downright necessary to economic survival to create several brands and to continually fine-tune them.

What goes into a brand audit these days?

It's all about differentiation.  How does what you can offer stand out from what everyone else can offer.  This requires a leap of courage.  Successful professionals were hammered to fit in, conform to the prevailing profile of the experts in their field, and, yes, hide.  That's career death now.  Tip:  Ask a pragmatic person you trust how you are different from the other bozos on the bus.  That will head you in the right direction.

It's also linked to what's in demand.  The skills which sold yesterday but are not selling today are simply a distraction in pitching yourself.  Forget them.  Ditch them.  Start out with a clean sheet of paper in your head.  Keep moving along these lines and you could bump into a new lucrative way to make a living and even more on your terms.

Third, it keeps changing.  Those changes come not only from the marketplace but also from our growing awareness of what we can offer and our self-assurance.  After I dumped the lead-paint, anti-contingency, anti-public nuisance orientation last week, something profound happened.  I was set free from that mindset and got a healthy dose of confidence from moving on.  Within 48 hours I had nailed two new accounts.

Here's the rub:  Just about everything which got us to where we were will sink us now.

Coca-Cola Branding of Paint/Coatings: Sherwin-Williams

The lion's share of its litigation woes out of the way, Sherwin-Williams, an old-line conservative company like Coca-Cola, has been focusing on incremental change in its branding.  A recent survey by Business Week and Interbrand found Coke the most valuable brand, a rating it has held for nine years.

With Sherwin-Williams's stock at 62.04, obviously The Street likes what it sees. Emblematic of how it is migrating into the digital age is its successful iPone application.  Consumers can match photos of their rooms or exterior with the actual paint they are considering.  When expectations of usage didn't pan out, the company ran a mobile campaign.  The rest is history.  This puts Sherwin-Williams on the radar screens of top interactive enterprises.  It could now be approached on an early-adopter basis to leverage a fresh application.

Recommendations: Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Robert J. Wells can piggyback on this stock-price and digital success.  That's by promoting this message: Sherwin-Williams is THE model of prudent and profitable resetting an iconic company for the new economy.  Mr. Wells, a perfectly timed message is a terrible thing to waste.   

Something to be said for conservative marketing - Coca-Cola still most valuable brand

So much for ranting against the risk-averse Chief Marketing Officers [CMOs] in the Fortune 100.  A study by Business Week and Interbrand found that Coca-Cola remains the most valuable brand.  This ranking has been consistent for almost a decade.

Time for all of us to do a brand audit on both our products and services and how we put our professional selves out there.  

It's cost, not brand: P&G price cuts establish that template, law not excluded

The company that invented and grew the practice of brand management Procter & Gamble has just lowered prices [useful background read is "Brand Leadership" by David A. Aaker].  Not too long ago it had raised prices, smugly ignoring the march of consumers to private label. Then there were two quarters of sales decline.  Pricing, not brand, won out.

The lessons for all business, not excluding law, are profound.  It's what you're charging, not your mystique or even the best smoke and mirrors that could be conjured up.  This looks to be an enduring trend, not just a must-do in an economic downturn.  That 30-year boom - a rising tide lifts all boats - is over and a similar one is not likely to occur again in our professional lifetime.  That means law has to operate and charge like a private label but maintain the unique identity of a brand.

The Letterman Effect: Law Firms Must Change Organizational Culture

No question, in life, business, pop culture, and art, ours is the age of irony and ambiguity.  That's why, observes Peter W. Kaplan in NEW YORK, David Letterman - call it The Letterman Effect - has become the 21st-century Walter Cronkite.  He has replaced Uncle Walter's gravitas and certitude with the distancing of humor and embrace of we-never-know, do we.

Letterman is on top.  Law firms are not, not now and maybe not in the future.  Perhaps the business of law should look at this zeitgeist.  Historically, law-firm organizational culture has been one of high seriousness [client problems are no light matter] and self-assured to the point of, yes, certainty.  That persona or branding, once symbolic of premium service, was shrewd - at the time.  After all, the $1000 hour became okay and newbie JDs were paid $160,000 annually. 

Times change.  The economy changes. Client expectations change. Even tastes change.  Traditional law firm culture is a goofy anachronism.  It has to change.  How to start?  Here are some tips from my experience in communications consulting and career coaching:

• Analyze how private label strategies and tactics are gaining market share from premium brands including Tide.  Recently, Procter & Gamble introduced a basic version of Tide which had suffered a steep decline in sales.  It's been an uphill fight but private label has discovered how to improve quality while keeping price affordable.  Also, it never did take itself too seriously. 

• Analyze precedents where irony was used as a tool to highlight a point and expose the folly of thinking not aligned with that reality.  For example, in the oral arguments for the lead paint public nuisance litigation, the justices of the Rhode Island Supreme Court used that distancing tone.  The result, as lead paint watchers know, was a victory for the defendants and seemingly public shaming for the so-earnest plaintiff supposedly pursuing the common good.  Here is the RI SC ruling Download Statev.LeadIndustriesAssoc.,Inc.

• Allow access to one's humanity, in all its myopia and mirror neurons.  Yes, we have peeked behind the curtain and we know the Wizard of Oz is just a human being like the rest of us.  Attempts to sustain a godlike infallibility and austere presence come across as ludicrous.  Here is a complimentary ebook on how to navigate that transformation Download SavingSoulsJaneGenova.  In the Mary Winkler [Preacher's Wife] murder trial, defense attorney Steve Farese opened himself to the courtroom as well as the media [he even gave me an exclusive interview.] 

• Treat employees with respect.  They're the ones who leak to Abovethelaw.com.  They will continue to leak as long as they are treated the way they have been treated.  Letterman is likable.  Likability is a form of power.  Law firms have lost that source of power.

The old-line branding of white-shoe law firms had been a source of competitive advantage.  In CHIEF EXECUTIVE, Scott D. Anthony puts it simply: "Competitive advantage disappears in an instant." 

Attorneys: Ask yourselves why you're rated just a bit more positively than those in real estate, autos, and oil/gas

In addition to a severe downturn, the legal industry also is suffering from a very negative image.  In LEGAL BLOG WATCH, Carolyn Elefant reports that only about 25% of those surveyed by Gallup have a positive view of attorneys.  You only come in a bit better than real estate, autos, and oil/gas.  The computer industry as well as restaurant and farming is perceived in a favorable light.

Don't you agree that this calls for some soul-searching.  Admittedly, most people encounter attorneys in an unpleasant time in their lives.  If not unpleasant like divorce or suing their neighbor or being sued, then it's a stressful time such as selling or buying real estate.  Of course, there is that awful criminal side when Model Citizen is hauled in for a DUI.  However, that shouldn't account for the lion's share of hostility against attorneys.

Here are some recommendations for improving your branding:

• Using legalese makes clients wary.  Ditch it and conversationally discuss the matter. 

• Encourage clients to educate themselves.  That can build trust.  There are many websites you can point out to them.  As they say, an educated consumer is our best customer.

• Focus on cost-efficiency.  Suggest ways they can save money.  This approach can lead to many referrals.  Better yet, encourage no litigation or alternate dispute resolution.

• Create horizontal, not vertical relationships.  Yeah, clients might be in a pickle now but that is no excuse for treating them as less-than. 

Carter Mario - Cult Brand, just like Bob's Discount Furniture

Face it.  Everybody needs a gimmick.  That's true of businesses as well as people.  And here in New England, law firm Carter Mario, just like Bob's Discount Furniture, has put together one that is very effective. It brings in business. 

In fact, Carter Mario and Bob's Discount Furniture are cult brands.  They got that way through their amateurish television commercials.  Sophisticated folks might giggle when they view them.  But those sophisticated people probably have never been hungry for business. 

In THE CONNECTICUT LAW TRIBUNE, Douglas S. Malan discusses Carter Mario's possible concerns about a backlash against such aggressive in-your-face advertising and notes that the firm has hired a public relations firm to soften its image.  Maybe. 

But, my take is that Carter Mario has moved onto the second phase of branding: Positioning itself as on the side of the common good.  That's what all clever enterprises do when they can afford to.  The phrase is "giving back."  In marketing we simply call it enhancing the brand.