Law And More

Non-Selling Sales: Thinking Like a Scientist, Not Marketing/Sales Type (3rd in this series)

Being successful in business, venture capitalist Paul Graham hammered in his blog, is a play-out “ … like science, where you need to follow the trail wherever it leads.” Essentially Graham was saying in a poetic way the now-urgent principle of being totally open to change. Also, he said that in 2006, before the current wild volatility. Today Graham might be dropping the poetry for a stern life-and-death warning to business.

WHAT A LARGE MARKETING/SALES BUDGET MIGHT NOT BUY

This is the third article on non-selling sales. It explains why following the trail can achieve what even the largest marketing/sales budget might not. Actually, operating on the change platform might eliminate the need for a huge advertising campaign. Constituencies in the loop feel the “it.” The “it is getting what they want in the format they want it. Those constituencies range from customers/clients to government. The closings can seem almost magical. That’s what non-selling sales is all about.

The first article in this Law and More series explains the non-selling sales secret of nurturing the strength of weak ties. The second focuses on The Always Be There Principle.  

SO TELLING THAT NETFLIX HAD BEEN “SURPRISED”

As Forbes documents, Netflix leveraged more and more spend for acquisition of each new subscriber. In 2012, that had been $308. In 2008, $539, and in $2019, $581. In 2022, it crashed. Among the factors is slowing subscriber growth. Currently the stock price hovers at around $181, down from its 52-week high of $700.99.

Obviously Netflix did not follow the trail wherever it leads. Otherwise it would not have admitted that it was “surprised” how things have recently played out. It would have been continuously changing. That’s the way to follow the trail. In essence, it was trapped in a traditional marketing/sales formula: Throw money at a challenge.

MICROSOFT, PURPOSE-DRIVEN, BECOMES THE GOOD GUY IN TECH

The Non-Netflix is Microsoft. Guided by former General Counsel turned a kind of Chief Diplomacy Officer Brad Smith, this one-time government antitrust target followed a path leading in a whole new direction. That can be summed up as this: purpose-driven versus an alleged global bully. Along that path it even transformed itself to be a trusted and treasured government ally. Unlike other Big Tech players, it isn’t being hauled in front of Congress to justify itself. Microsoft primarily rebranded through its actions.  

LAW FIRM PAUL WEISS REIMAGINES ITSELF AS BUSINESS PARTNER FOR CLIENTS

Also not risking Netflix’s stunned failure is elite law firm Paul Weiss. For its Chairperson Brad Karp the trail it is following leads away from standalone legal services and toward developing comprehensive business solutions for corporations with a legal situation. In an interview with Leaders, April 2022, Karp noted:

“We need to deeply understand our clients’ business goals, professional culture, key stakeholders and risk tolerance.”

Karp sums up that mission and the changing behavior it generates as being a "business partner." Confirmation that is the right trail to follow is that Paul Weiss' revenue-per-lawyer surged 21% during 2021.

NOTHING FAILS LIKE SUCCESS

Netflix is not atypical. Many market leaders get lost. That's because of this reason: Nothing fails like success. There is a compulsion to grab tight on what originally had put the business on top. That's where the marketing/sales focus gets stuck.

The way back? As Graham recommends, think like a scientist. Stand back from it all, observe, develop a hunch, and see where it leads. Or doesn't lead. The process might take plenty of experimentation. That requires the soul-wrenching process of change. The outcome could be and often is non-selling sales.

Connect with Editor-in-Chief Jane Genova at janegenova374@gmail.com. Now and then she does freelance communications assignments for professional services firms such as Paul Weiss.

 

Reputation Restoration - Maybe Bill Gates Is Overdoing It

"Bill Gates says Elon Musk could make Twitter 'worse.'" - Insider, May 4, 2022.

There he is again. Out there commenting on topical events. Yesterday it was abortion rights. And the pandemic is a daily platform for predicting the future.

In addition, very recently Gates has been a busy bee doing mea culpas about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and, of course, his failed marriage to Melinda.

Since this techie/global do-gooder is back from the bad branding following his divorce and allegations about womanizing it's puzzling why he is forever jaw-jawing about something, anything. Is he getting bad public relations advice? Or perhaps he is ignoring it. 

Of course, this excessive exposure can generate a return to branding hell. The beef would be: This guy sucks up all the oxygen. 

Connect with Editor-in-Chief Jane Genova at janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

A great lawyer but public relations genius Bill Marler featured in WIRED

Bill Marler, whose law firm Marler Clark specializes in food-borne diseases, is a great lawyer.  But being a great lawyer is not enough to own the market in a category.  Such ownership requires being a public relations genius.  That Marler is.  His prize might be being featured int he October 2010 edition of WIRED.  The article takes the form of an interview with him about food safety.  The magazine even caught a nice photo of Marler.

Long before much of the legal world, Marler saw the potential in digital technology for advocacy, educating, outreach to media, and lobbying.  He blogged compulsively.  So comprehensive he has been in his digital postings that for some of us concerned about a meat recall or pending legislature, that's the app we go to first. 

His strategic was multi-dimensional.  In addition to digital, he also delivered testimony in Congress.  He traveled to China a number of times to educate government and business about product liability law in the U.S.  Brand China has been hit hard with its own food-contamination crises.  Think the infant formula which killed children in China.

As the once-staid world of law firms is thrown into upheaval with changing demand and expectations about billing, the powers-that-be are recognizing public relations as a must-do.  They might analyze how Marler got to where he is and stays there.  Here is my talk on new business development which I delivered as an ExecSense address Download Rainmaking.

Petit Murders: Is defense strategy to duck death penalty?

Today here in Connecticut the high-profile, emotionally wrenching Petit murder trial for defendant Stephen J. Hayes has been temporarily halted.  His chief lawyer Thomas J. Ullmann reported to Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue that Hayes had suffered a seizure.  Then Ullmann asked for this time-out.  The way he framed his account of the medical event could indicate his strategy is to avoid the death penalty for his client.  Throughout this state, which has not recovered from the horror of the triple homicide, there is a kind of Greek Chorus reassuring everyone that the death penalty is the right thing to do in this particular situation.

In THE NEW YORK TIMES, William Glaberson reports:

"Mr. Ullmann suggested that the medical event was Mr. Hayes's reaction to the presentation to the jury on Wednesday of photographs showing the dead bodies of the three victims."

Such a visceral response could be construed as a sign of anything from a bit of humanity in a creature we deem a sociopath to remorse.  However, in the sentencing part of these legal proceedings, there is not bound to be many who would plead for mercy for an entity so many label a "monster." 

This would be an interesting case for David Dow, who recently published the book AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EXECUTION, to analyze and write about.  Dow has worked on the defense of numerous inmates on death row.

Defense Lawyers: Could this be called The Hauser Effect

So-called scientific research has been taking it on the chin.  The "judges" in regulation, legislation and litigation, ranging from policy makers to jurors, have no blind faith in science.  So many of us have taken SSRI antidepressants or know of someone who did, only for more recent research to indicate that the SSRI is usually not effective in long-term use except in cases of severe clinical depression. 

Now, the collapse of confidence in the scientific method and all we learned in higher education about the objective pursuit of new knowledge might have reached a tipping point.  This could be called The Hauser Effect.

This is big.  That's because its setting in the prestigious university Harvard University.  As Nicholas Wade reports in THE NEW YORK TIMES:

"Harvard University said Friday that it had found a prominent researcher, Marc Hauser, 'solely responsible' for eight instances of scientific misconduct ... Dr. Hauser, a risng star for his explorations into cognition and morality, ... [said] 'I acknowledge that I made some significant mistakes.'"

This is occurring during a period of globalization of higher education in which research universities compete with one another around the world for research grants, research stars, revenue from tuition from foreign students who usually pay the full cost without any financial aid, and the most visible footprint for academic excellence around the world.

There's more.  While defense projects based on DNA evidence such as David Dow describes in his book AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EXECUTION have embedded in the national consciousness a confidence in that kind of evidence, much of the rest of the so-called scientific legal arguments are being met with skepticism, a demand for more information, or a consensus that the information is ambiguous.  Way back iin the 2005-2006 Rhode Island lead paint litigation, that feeling seemed to dominate.  When I spoke to the juriors afterward they did not cite the scientific data as what led to their decision but rather the judge's instructions.

The Hauser Effect could kick the moorings out from much of how the defense bar prepares its strategies and tactics.  It could also cause push-back from all the players, especially students, in the global academic game of leveraging university credentials for competitive edges in a Darwinian global marketplace.

 

Philip Markoff: Yet another [apparent] suicide to reflect on

Lawyers are no slouches when it comes to committing suicide.  We all know the statistics about the amazingly high rate of successful suicides among lawyers versus that among the general population.  And since the law bubble burst, there have been a number of high achievers who took their lives.

Now we have another high achiever, although not a lawyer, to reflect about.  It's alleged Craigslist killer and former medical student Philip Markoff.  He was found in his cell, an apparent suicide.

Researchers, including the noted Kay Redfield Jamison, haven't been helpful, at least not in a way to prevent more suicides.  Yet, in a volatile economy in which so much can be lost so quickly, suicide has been looking better and better to many of the brightest and best.  Somehow in 2003 when my business, savings and mind all went, I managed to bypass that option [Download Geezerguts.] 

I have  always been drawn to investigating the phenomenon of suicide because it's rampant in my family. I have become convinced there is a suicide gene.  After all, Sylvia Plath's son also took his own life.  In his new book HITCH 22, Christopher Hitchens walks around and through his mother's suicide.  One wonders if his own heavy smoking was his slow path to self-destruction?

Could there be types of suicide just as there are types of alcoholism and types of cancer?  Should scientists be probing the type that runs in certain families but not others and perhaps certain occupations like law and writing and not others. 

That path of probing might save more lives which get ended too young.

Lindsay Lohan: "Cure" isn't binary

Much of media has configured the Lindsay Lohan situation as binary: jail or rehab, or a combo of both. 

However, anyone who has been "in the rooms" of 12-step programs knows that "curing" or even managing addiction is much more complex than that.  The reality is that we know so little about why the minority of the addicted respond to something or somethings which stops them from continuing to be active addicts.  We also don't know why the majority rarely stop for long or can stay stopped.  If we knew that we wouldn't be in the mess we are in attempting to deal with the epidemic of addiction, be it booze, illegal drugs, prescription medication, food, gambling, and more.

Recently, a major feature in WIRED documented we don't even understand why the approach known to work but in a minority of cases - Alcoholics Anonymous - does work.  It's been around, as the article indicated, 75 years and its effectiveness remains a mystery.

Until we know more, judges will continue to fly by the seat of their pants in sentencing addicts to rehab, jail, a combination of those, AA, or even a job.  When I was a probation officer in the narcotics unit in Wayne County, Michigan, we experimented with everything.  One Easter, most of my case load was wiped out in a massacre.

Stewart Dolin: Suicide claims Reed Smith M&A partner

Science has such little explanation for the dynamics leading up to the decision of suicide.  Neither has it come up with effective ways to prevent it. 

So, it's no surprise in these volatile economic and social times that another lawyer has taken his own life.  M&A partner at Reed Smith Stewart Dolin jumped in front of a train in Chicago. No details are available yet as to the professional circumstances that might have precipitated that decision.  As we know, the rate of suicide among lawyers is significantly higher than in the general population.

Perhaps it's time we went outside science to try to make sense of this mystery of the ultimate self-destructive act. We might listen to the hunches of those left behind. In his biography of his brother the late counterculture leader Abbie Hoffman, Jack Hoffman opined that the act of suicide represents an altered state of consciousness.  The person in that state, such as his brother, has left normal reality and entered one we don't understand.  Once there, there's no way back.  That biography is RUN RUN RUN.

Common sense would lead us to want to halt that process before it reaches entering an altered state.  Maybe it's best to err on the side of being a pest with those who are not themselves and providing options for getting back centered.  In my family there is a history of passive suicide and much too much suicidal ideation.

What is addiction and what is society's role in keeping the lid on it?

As a society, be it American or Canadian, we know so little about addiction.  The term has entered mainstream language and is applied to everything from the wanting for heroin that results in robbery to consuming an ounce of chocolate when one is on a diet.

The legal system reflects this lack of knowledge.  That's why judges sentence, perhaps illegally, DUIs to 12-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous instead of jail and why those who lose money through gambling can, like Joyce May Ross, file lawsuits.

On LEGAL BLOG WATCH, Eric Lipman reports that Ross, from Canada, is suing "the British Columbia Lottery Corporation and two casino owners for letting her gamble away over $300,000 after she had signed a 'voluntary self-exclusion' form, pursuant to which she should have been thrown out on her a$$ as she entered the building."

Clearly, this suit, if not settled, will bring to light many of the issues surrounding so-called addiction.  Some don't believe there is any such entity.  Others are pessimistic about its ability to be treated.  The latter cite the dismal success rates of AA as well as formal paid services such as rehabilitation center.  In the current economy of scarcity, we may become less tolerant of those whose behavior harms society, as well as themselves.  They may not get off the hook, say on a DUI, and may not so easily file a lawsuit against institutions which allegedly facilitated their behavior.

The addiction defense as well as grounds for plaintiff suit may go the way of explanations such as "the devil made me do it."

Suicide Outbreaks - Why so many among lawyers?

Science, reports THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, is attempting to figure out the dynamics underlying the phenomenon of suicide outbreaks.   One such example are the 10 suicides at the Chinese manufacturing facility Hon Hai.

For years, that same question has been looked at from many sides in the phenomenon of the above-average rate of suicides among lawyers.  When the legal market went from boom to downsizing there had been high-profile suicides among partners, associates and law students.

Some speculate that the outbreak is due to the kind of personality the law attracts.  That is high-achieving and high-achievers tend to treat setbacks too seriously.  After all, they are part of every career and most of us non-lawyers get through them Download Geezerguts. 

Others speculate it's the nature of the work which entails a lot of responsibility but low control.  Judges, juries, the law, the nature of the client and that demand, partners, and timing all can be significant variables.  In other professions such as communications, we do have greater control.

Still others contend that lawyer types seem predisposed to substance abuse and studies indicate booze, being a depressant, can kill.  Every 12-step meeting I've attended has more than its fair share of lawyers.

But, the reality is that science knows so little.  All we really have to go on is our hunch that a friend, colleague or acquaintance might be considering checking out and for us to intervene.  Usually a sincere concern will break open the person to seek treatment for depression as well as other factors which might be leading to a downward emotional spiral.