Law Firm Marketing by Mark Merenda | Smart Blog

Jurassic Park, 2009

My house is a technological Jurassic Park, full of stuff that is now, or is becoming, obsolete.

Let's start with music. When I was a kid, we listened to two types of vinyl records: 45s and LPs (for "long play"). My dad still had stacks of 78s lying around. (The numbers refer to Revolutions Per Minute on a turntable — the speed at which the disc was recorded and must be played. I wouldn't bother to explain this, except that one of my younger employees not too long ago asked me to bring  an LP in to work because he had never seen one.) I still have a bunch of 45s and LPs, but more on that later.

In college, I was hot stuff because I had a 1964 Buick LeSabre (the year was 1968) with an 8-track tape player, on which me and my friends would listen to the Who's "Tommy" at maximum volume. If you don't know what an 8-track is, or was, you are young enough that you have probably already lost interest and stopped reading, so I'm not going to explain. Likewise with reel-t0-reel. You'll have to look it up.

Then came cassette tapes, on which you could, if you had the right cassette deck at home, make your own "mix." That is, you could take your favorite tracks off your favorite "records" and put them on the tape, making your own "greatest hits."

In the mid 1980s (which is to say a quarter century ago), came CDs and shortly thereafter, CD players became the standard both at home and in cars. That meant my 4,000 or so "records" were now obsolete. Oh I know, I could still play them, but...

Of course, these many years later, CDs are now history, along with my enormous collection of same. Now, I download tunes into my computer, my iPod, and my iPhone. In the car, I plug my iPod into a connection in my glove compartment and listen as I like. The "mix" has become a "playlist" and my original iPod and iPhone are out-of-date.

My house is also overflowing with my most precious possessions, my books. It is hard to explain my feelings for these volumes, except perhaps to cite Emily Dickinson's phrase for her books: "my kinsmen of the shelf." Each one is a special memory, a special friend. They mark the passages of my intellectual growth and my development as a human being. They represent so many wonderful hours. I have often thought that one of the reasons I never had a drug or drink problem was that I already had the perfect escape in my books.

Many of them were gifts. Many of them carry personal inscriptions. Many are signed by the author. Some are quite valuable. Some have been read 10 or 20 times. Some are riddled with underlinings and notes. I still have the first "real" book of my childhood: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson bearing handwriting in my childish script. I still have all my books from college. Some of these books have been with me always, even when I moved to Europe for a year.

And yet, I can see that they are obsolete. Although my friends and fellow book-lovers will protest that this can never be, I can see the handwriting on the wall. Everywhere, print is dying. I grew up professionally in the newspaper business and they are going the way of the dodo.

I don't mean that newspapers or books or music will vanish. They're just going online and digital. I already have a Kindle. No trees must die for me to read a book on my Kindle. Instead of lugging pounds of books around, I can carry my slim Kindle, which can hold 1400 books on it. As I get older and my eyes weaker, on the Kindle, I can adjust the type size. They even have a large screen Kindle. I subscribe to most of my favorite magazines electronically now.

Glancing down on my desk as I write this, I see my watch. It's a Cartier. Cost $4,000 15 years ago. It's useless now. The young and hip ask "why would anyone wear a watch? The time is on your cell phone."

Out in the garage somewhere, along with my cassette tapes,  is something called a "typewriter."

I guess I don't have to explain what happened with that.

The Passing Of A Pitchman

In Jeffrey Fox's Book How To Make Big Money In Your Own Small Business: Unexpected Rules Every Small Business Owner Needs To Know, chapter ten is entitled "Selling Is Job 1." 

If you've ever tried to sell something — anything — you probably know that it's not easy. I'm a fan of both the American and British versions of the television show "The Apprentice" although lately I favor the British version — more business, less histrionics. One of my favorite parts is when the job candidates (a collection of people with some degree of business success — a property manager, an investment advisor, a gallery owner, etc., some of whom have advanced business degrees) are given a task like "Let's see which team can sell the most ice cream by 5 o'clock." The teams have to make some key strategic decisions (which street corner, what kind of ice cream, what uniform to wear) but in the end, it comes down to who can sell, and who can't. 

That's where you have to hand it to the late, great Billy Mays. He was a "pitchman" who could sell anything and was proud of it. According to Wikipedia, Mays cut his teeth selling products on the Atlantic City boardwalk, pitching the Washmatik portable washing device to passersby: 

"Mays later traveled to home shows, auto shows, and state fairs across the United States for a period of twelve years, selling various maintenance products and tools, including cleaning products and food choppers."

But wait, there's more.

He became famous for pitching OxiClean on the Home Shopping Network, where sales showed a dramatic leap right from his first day on the job. His trademark introduction to most commercials ("Hi! Billy Mays here for <insert product>!") became as well-known as his blue work shirt. Most recently, Mays parodied himself in commercials for ESPN. 

For a more in-depth look at Mays, try this article in American Way magazine. And a hat tip to Andrew Flusche for bringing it to my attention. 

Guy Merenda, RIP

June 26, 1996

Five Years, 300 Posts, 7,000 Subscribers

To my complete astonishment, today marks the fifth anniversary of this blog. My first post was June 18, 2004. Since that time, I have posted 300 times (about 1.2 per week) and have somehow accumulated 7,000 subscribers (not counting those who are following by RSS feed). It's a perfect illustration of the adage from Field of Dreams: If you build it, they will come. 

A few more statistics reveal that this blog averages between 35-50 different visitors per day, that during its lifetime, it has been viewed some 70,000 times, and that visitors generally hang around for 10 minutes or so before fleeing into cyberspace. 

What does it all mean? Damned if I know. I can tell you that I probably jumped into this blogging thing relatively early because of my background in the newspaper business. I had written a column on a three times a week basis and I wasn't afraid of writing, nor of having people disagree with me and throw tomatoes. And I liked having a platform. Still do. When I was growing up in journalism, the only way to have a platform was to own a printing press, or work for someone who did. Blogging has put the means of publishing into the hands of everyman, and I think that's great. 

My son is less impressed. Here's the video he sent me, commemorating this august occasion (lyrics here): 

Twitter: A blog post in 1,962 characters.

When some new killer app becomes the flavor of the week on the Internet, I tend to give it a shot. Usually, it's free, and I have found that I am unable to distinguish, in advance, what is a stupid fad and what is the next big thing. So I risk a little of my time and give it a whirl. Thus far, my feeling is yes to YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, and no to MySpace. Twitter is the most recent of these, and my clients ask me about it often.

"I don't have time for it," is the usual objection, closely followed by "I don't get it, anyway. It's all these people tweeting about what they had for breakfast."

So let's get that last one out of the way first. Yes, there are a lot of people tweeting about what they are eating, about to eat, or have eaten. I'm sure there is some sort of lesson here from Abraham Maslow, but there is a simple solution if you are incredibly bored by such tweets (as I am): don't "follow" the person who writes them. Only follow people who post interesting stuff. Define "interesting" any way you like.

Here is what I have figured out (so far) about Twitter:

1. How many times have you heard that the best advertising is word of mouth? Well, Twitter is word of mouth in cyberspace. I write an article. One guy notices it and tweets all of his followers. Several of those followers tell all of their followers. A bunch of them tell all of their followers. And on and on.
2. There is a giant networking party taking place on Twitter. Why wouldn't you want to go?
3. With Twitter, I have a whole bunch of really bright people — people I respect — scouring the Internet for me, finding interesting links and content I would have otherwise missed. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
4. I get valuable news content. The stuff coming out of Iran right now is better and faster than anything I can get on the Internet or TV.
5. I get to tell everyone what I had for breakfast. Coffee. Starbucks. Always.

I was sure you would want to know.

Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?

A prevalent syndrome among attorneys who have dipped their toes into Internet marketing is the abandoned website or blog. Unfortunately, a great many attorneys (or law firms) have websites in which, if you click on the button that says "Upcoming Events" you find something from the year 2005. Visit their blogs (if they have one) and you might find the most recent post is from last summer. 

And it's not just attorneys. 

An article in the New York Times cleverly entitled "Blogs Falling In An Empty Forest" paints the picture:

Richard Jalichandra, chief executive of Technorati, said that at any given time there are 7 million to 10 million active blogs on the Internet, but “it’s probably between 50,000 and 100,000 blogs that are generating most of the page views.” He added, “There’s a joke within the blogging community that most blogs have an audience of one.”

According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled.

Some of the obvious conclusions to draw from this include the notion that one could give an attorney a column on the front page of the Wall Street Journal every day, but if he or she doesn't write anything, it's simply a wasted opportunity. Not posting on your blog also means that you have lost one of the main benefits of blogging, the boost one gets in search engine rankings from regularly adding fresh, valuable content to a website. 

Some of the drop in blogging is attributed by the Times to the growing popularity of social media like Twitter and Facebook. But in the legal world, I fear, much of it has to do with attorneys who do not have the time or inclination to write blog posts. (There are solutions to that, as well.) 

If a blog falls in an empty forest, does anyone hear it? I don't know the answer to that koan. On the other hand, if the blog doesn't fall at all, I can guarantee no one will hear it. 

Loans For Lemonade Stands?

Seven or eight months ago, when this recession made a huge impact on the nation's psyche, and various "solutions" (many of which have since been adopted) began to be discussed, one that struck me (and I can't recall where I read it) was that we ought to take all that bailout money and put it into a giant venture capital pool for new businesses. Let the old businesses die a richly deserved death and let the start-ups thrive. In no time we would see a wave of hiring and, I imagine, a new set of businesses producing products and services that people actually want to buy. 

Well, there's a bank in Colorado that is taking that spirit to a new level, advertising its suite of services to small businesses. How small? How about baby-sitting, piano lessons, and math tutoring? And how did they promote the services? By promoting the small businesses that provide such services. Read the New York Times article in their advertising campaign spotlight. 

The World Is Flat — Or Shrinking, Or Small, Or Something

Back in 2005, I wrote an article entitled It's A Small World After All describing responses to my podcasts and blog posts, some of which came from as far away as London and Pakistan. Earlier this week, I received another communication from my Pakastani correspondent, Assad Jaral who, with some of his colleagues, has opened AUJ Lawyers, a full-service law firm serving both local and international clients. Here is his letter:

Dear Mark,

I hope you would be fine. Today my visit to your blog is a reaction of a phone call. I have recently launched my firm's website and a colleague of mine was trying to search it on google by typing in my name. The search engine popped up your blog page, carrying my letter written to you back in 2005. My colleague called me excitingly that you are mentioned on a blog. I did not have a clue then and was a bit confused. So, I visited your blog and a smile spread on my face by looking at my written letter.

Surely this is a small world after all. Thank you once again for putting my letter on your blog for so long. We have grown in the past years and are online now.

Assad Ullah Jaral

There are lessons here, I think, about increasing globalization, the way the Internet has shrunk the world, and the incredible reach of Internet marketing methods - blogs in particular - but for today, let's just say: Congratulations Assad, and I hope this blog post, and the links, increase your search engine ranking.

Lincoln Had No Slides At Gettysburg

I've never been a big fan of long slide presentations. In fact, I often begin my own presentations with this cartoon. I remember talking with Stan Miller, one of the principals of WealthCounsel, who told me the best presentation he ever gave was the one where his projector broke.

James J. Schiro, chief executive of Zurich Financial Services, apparently agrees, according to an interview in today's New York Times. Here is part of what he had to say:

Q. Do you have a rule of thumb about how simple the message should be?

A. I say, “Three slides, three points.” You really can’t manage more than three or four things at the most, but I like to see it in three slides. I hate PowerPoint presentations. I learned that from Lodewijk van Wachem, who was the chairman of Zurich when I came here. He’d say, “We don’t need all these slides. If we only have 15 minutes and you come in here with 30 slides, we’re not going to get to the answer.”

Q. So is that a rule at Zurich?

A. Yes. People can submit their presentations, and we can read them. I prefer that people not go through a slide deck. If you’re working in an area, and you are running a business, you ought to be able to stand up there and tell me about your business without referring to a big slide deck.

When you are speaking, people should focus on you and focus on the message. They can’t walk away remembering a whole bunch of different things, so you have to have three or four really key messages that you take them through, and you remind them of what’s important.

Suit Challenges Florida Bar Rules On Advertising and Websites

Avvo is at the center of another first amendment tussle between an attorney who would like to be free to market his business and the Florida Bar Association, which like many of its counterparts around the United States, takes it upon itself to "protect" consumers from the marketing efforts of its own members.

 The craziness that ensues when modern marketing (especially Internet marketing) meets the antiquated rules of state bar associations (which still conceive of lawyers as members of some sort of 17th century guild) would be funny, if it wasn't so sad.

 In a lawsuit against the Florida Bar, a Boca Raton attorney is challenging the Bar rules that prevent him from using client testimonials, from characterizing the quality of his services, or referring to "past successes or results obtained."

 In other words, if my firm, Smart Marketing, were governed by Florida Bar rules, I would not be able to say the following: "We're a high-quality marketing firm that has had a lot of success in taking our clients' practices to the next level. Here are some case histories from some of our clients."

 The Florida Bar believes that you are not competent to evaluate such claims for yourself and need to be "protected" from them. Avvo seeks to provide consumers with information about attorneys, including what experiences other consumers have had with those attorneys. The Florida Bar doesn't want that, either, as it forbids its members to put Avvo in touch with those same members' former clients.

 The Florida Bar apparently sees the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as an enemy. From their own press release:   "Florida, as all states, is constrained in its authority to regulate attorney advertising by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Florida Bar supports the most restrictive limitations on lawyer advertising consistent with constitutional requirements so as to better protect the public."

 So, if it were not "constrained" by our basic liberties of free speech, the Florida Bar would put into effect more "restrictive limitations" in order to "protect" us. I can only say, thank goodness for the First Amendment.