It's A Small World After All

A month or so ago, an instant message popped up on my computer screen from someone named "Oldprint" who said "Listening to your podcast in the UK. Excellent!" Of course, I was amazed. I asked a few questions. It turns out that Julien (his name) is an independent financial advisor in London, who was searching for marketing ideas and came across my podcast in the iTunes listing. It staggered me that using this new technology would immediately connect me with a world wide audience.

Then, last night, I received this email:

Dear Mr. Merenda:

I hope you would be fine and full of energy which reflects from your powerful articles.

You must be wondering who am I and why I contacted you, so first I must introduce myself to you. I am Assad Ullah Jaral, an advocate, who has just started his private legal practice after working one (1) year with a renowned commercial law firm at Lahore, Pakistan.

I was emailing promotional write-ups to prospective clients, when I thought to check out legal marketing stuff on the web. I searched at the google and smart marketing web link appeared upfront. I decided to try the link and gone through the web site content and posted written material. I must confess that the material, thinking, and message is of a very high quality and has a precious value. While going through your articles, I feel really enlightened and charged up. I decided at that moment to write to you a thank you email message.

You have added wisdom to my life and I owe a lot of gratitude to you. I want to thank you and to let you know that your writing has made a difference to a man’s life.

Thank you very much!

With best regards,

Assad Ullah Jaral

(Advocate)

(auj) Advocates and Corporate Counsels

(the rest contained his address and phone number)

    My first reaction was defensive. Like many of you, I receive daily emails from people in Nigeria and other exotic locales informing me that I have won a lottery, or an inheritance, or some other wonderful thing, if only I will hand over my bank account information. But this person did not ask for anything. I looked up the firm on the web, and it seems to be a real company with all the officers listed, etc. I suppose it could all be false, but I couldn't find any motivation. If real, it is another example of how small the world has become. If my work somehow has meant something to someone on the other side of the globe, it is a lesson in just how powerful a marketing medium the Internet is, and how important it is that attorneys get out ahead of their competion in this constantly-evolving-at-warp-speed arena.

    Doug McPhail, an elder law/Medicaid planning attorney in Michigan (and my companion at a baseball outing in Chicago earlier this summer) told me about a Wall Street Journal article (Sept. 28 edition) that described the growing phenomenon of law firms in England and the U.S. outsourcing certain legal work to lawyers in India. (I'd publish a link to the article, but you have to be a subscriber and the WSJ wanted $1300 to let me post it here.) As you probably know, many companies have already created "call centers" in India. If you call Delta Airlines about your lost luggage, chances are good that the person calling himself "Larry" is actually Rajesh in Mumbai (no disrespect intended). So far, the outsourced legal work seems to be in certain fields like patent applications, but can other fields be far behind?

Comments

[Wayne Walston]

Mark, that is a powerful and heart-warming story. It says a lot about technology, about reach of marketing efforts and, if is true, about the character of a stranger who would take a moment to thank you for affecting his life. How many can say that? Best regards. Wayne

[Assad Ullah Jaral]

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. You can mention our website on your blog for refering us as REAL :-).