In today’s TechnoLawyer BlawgWorld post, the editors point to an article appearing in the Arizona Republic that details how a pair of Phoenix personal injury lawyers are using tablet devices to improve communication with their clients.

Improving client communication, from telephone and email messaging to document collaboration to invoicing and bill payment, have long been topics of discussion by attorneys and legal vendors alike. For more than 25 years practice management vendors have heralded their products as a solution. Claims such as ‘having all of your client’s information at your fingertips…’ had been made ad nauseum, but having the information is not the same as using it. And now finally, attorneys are beginning to appreciate the necessity of good client service.

iPad and smartphone applications are making the transition from traditional computing to mobile computing fairly seamless. As legal technology product and service providers, we need to take a hard look at our offerings and determine how we can help our legal clients become part of the ‘communication revolution’.

On a separate and personal note, I’m glad to be back to blogging after a long silence. For those of you that sent your condolences, I want to thank you for your support following the death of my father. He was truly a role model and source of inspiration for me. These have been dark days and it has been much harder for me to focus on business than I ever expected. The good news is I’m excited to be back.

This is the third and final post in this series. The first segment can be found here, and the second post can be found here.

In the previous posts, I focused on how being too close to the business and how time/priority limitations both pose serious challenges for many legal service providers. In this final post, I’ll concentrate on the infrastructure necessary for measuring results.

Marketing is more science than art. In the legal vertical it’s not about winning awards for the best (read pretty) artwork, nor the company that throws the biggest party at a conference, it’s about strategy, executing the strategy, and the end-of-the-day results. Knowing what’s working (and doing more of it) and what’s not (and doing less of it) is the key to marketing success.

Why is it so difficult for DIY marketing to succeed?

1. Failing to build a proper foundation

Creating an integrated marketing strategy that is appropriate for your market segment is commonly overlooked by DIY marketers. Looking down the road through to an exit strategy makes good sense even for the earliest of start-ups. After all, how many races are won by runners who haven’t studied the course? Whether it’s a sprint or a marathon, you have to have a clear vision of where you’re going in order to get there in the shortest possible time.

Identifying the mid-points helps you keep a check on the results and adjust both your goals and strategies. Knowing what you want to achieve and when gives you the tools to analyze and improve your results.

2. Lacking the time and/or proper tools to measure results

One of my early mentors taught me to measure, measure, and measure. It was invaluable advice then, and it’s even more valuable now. Most DIY marketers I speak with have little or no knowledge of or access to the metrics they need to make sound marketing decisions. Without them, how do you determine what is a cost-effective investment, and what’s not. Understanding customer acquisition costs, customer lifetime values, and how those costs impact your marketing efforts is critical to reaching your goals.

You don’t necessarily need expensive or sophisticated tools, but you do need a clear understanding of what you’re trying to achieve. How many leads do you need to get one sale? What are the best tactics to achieve your goals? How does branding fit in to the equation? All are important questions to ask and answer before you spend another marketing dollar.

The science of marketing doesn’t have to be a full time job, but it does require the focus and market knowledge of an experienced marketing professional. If you don’t have the qualifications, it may be time to find one. Your company’s success depends on it.

In the last month Charlie Sheen has been grabbing headlines and airspace at a dizzying speed, and not necessarily for the best of reasons. Yet, his stock has likely never been higher. Consider that Mr. Sheen logged a Guinness World Record for amassing more than one million followers on Twitter in less than 24 hours. No less than a week after starting to post, @charliesheen already has exceeded two million followers.

It’s no matter whether you agree/sympathize with him or not, he is yet another example of how our society continues to become more and more social. In fact, I doubt he cares one bit whether his followers agree or disagree with his outlook or life style.

What Does This Mean for Legal Vendors?

Communications and marketing as we’ve known them for decades (including the evolution of email) is changing faster than we may want to accept. Mr. Sheen’s motivation/strategy for joining the Twittersphere isn’t important, but you can be certain that his future/former employers are absolutely taking notice of his following. I for one won’t be surprised to see his sitcom return to production.

The message here…if we don’t get onboard, we’ll be left behind. While it may feel comfortable to doubt the validity of social communication, particularly in the legal community, the world has changed and lawyers and the companies that provide products and services to them need to change with it.

If you haven’t yet embraced social communication, you need to join the new world order. But do so with a strategy…you can bet Charlie Sheen has one.

A recent post on BtoB Online reports that despite an initiative by the CMO Council to close the chasm between sales and marketing, it continues to exist. For example, a senior VP of product marketing at one financial software company was recently quoted as saying:

“Sales and marketing are typically out of sync or—at worst—are undermining each other. Even at very senior levels where there is a deeper ownership, there can be a less-than-collegial environment.”

It’s the same old story, marketing complains that the sales team isn’t doing enough to close good leads, and sales complains that marketing’s efforts result in poorly qualified leads or inadequate materials/support. Even in smaller companies where the organizational lines are blurred the tendency is for one group to lay blame on the other.

In BtoB’s article, it is suggested that marketing staff accompany salespeople on sales calls. I couldn’t agree more…there’s nothing like live interaction to help define not only the prospect’s needs, but also clarify in the marketer’s mind the supporting information the salesperson needs.

And What About Those Leads?
Are the leads produced by your marketing efforts the right ones? It’s not about the quantity, it’s about generating quality prospects for the sales team. It’s all about working backwards, starting with results:

• How many ‘qualified’ leads must you produce to generate the desired close-ratio?
• What is the persona of a qualified lead?
• Where can you find qualified leads?

Are the numbers realistic and achievable? If not, revise your projections…don’t pad the numbers with inappropriate leads just to make the first part of the equation work.

The 2010 ILTA Conference “Strategic Unity” kicked off last night with its typical relaxed excitement. The replacement venue, the new Aria hotel in Las Vegas, is enormous and it seems they’ve left no stone unturned in accommodating the ILTA organization. Despite outside temperatures well in excess of 100°, attendees and exhibitors enjoyed the cool indoor atmosphere at the opening reception.

Peggy Weschler, Program Director, was beaming as she informed me that final registration exceeded 1,100 attendees, a 37% increase over last year’s conference! Kudos to the staff of ILTA for pulling this great event together so quickly, following the tragic floods in Nashville less than four months ago. It’s great to have ILTA back on the West Coast (almost).

A Time for Change

While this year’s conference moves forward with ILTA’s historic peer groups, one of the biggest changes at ILTA is the restructuring of the peer organization. Recently announced, ILTA is moving away from its vendor specific peer groups and embracing topical categories. The new categories are:

Desktop and Application Services
Communications Technologies
Emerging Technologies
Enterprise Content Management
Financial Management
Knowledge Management
Law Department
Litigation and Practice Support
Professional Services
Risk and Records Management
Server Operations and Security
User Support Services

The Board of ILTA and their Strategic Relationship Liaisons really got this right! The new peer groups are topically aligned with the issues facing law firms, legal departments, and law practices. A quick glance at any of these categories reveals that the restructuring team has thought of just about everything.

The new structure should benefit members and vendors alike. Long time vendor-based peer groups will be replaced, evening the playing field for competitors in their categories. Going forward it will be interesting to observe how these new groups are accepted by the membership and vendor sponsors.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been thinking about how few organizations really commit to or trust their marketing efforts. Regardless of the size of the organization, marketing typically comprises a significant portion of the budget, but it is not well understood or respected by other members of the organization.

If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard a sales executive lament that marketing “isn’t particularly helpful’, or a financial manager complaining about marketing expenses, I’d have retired to a sandy beach (with a case of Zinfandel)  a long time ago. At the same time, marketers complain that we’re misunderstood and nobody appreciates what we’re doing.

Marketing departments and budgets are usually the first areas cut during difficult economies or sales slowdowns, and they often take the blame when revenue expectations fall short. In order to succeed in the long term, marketing needs to be unified with every other department within the organization.

So how do we align marketing with sales, business development, finance, and even customer support? We find out what they need and support them. It couldn’t be easier! Treat the departments within the company as valued clients and partners and before you know it, they’ll be your allies and advocates.

One of my first challenges after being hired at Law.com, was to identify and then support the best revenue opportunities. After evaluating several products, I determined that Online CLE offered significant short and long term revenue potential. The problem was, Online CLE wasn’t selling and in an effort to reduce expenses, the product was on the chopping block. Not to be deterred, I worked with the manager of the department, corporate executives, and the financial managers and convinced them to test a different approach to how we packaged our CLE products. With everyone’s buy-in and a small test budget we set out to repackage CLE and market the new offering. Our first test returned such a positive result that everyone quickly got onboard and we were able to efficiently scale-up the offering.

Every day, we marketers write content for our organizations preaching how the company listens to its customers, it’s time we take that message to heart and take our own advice.

Last week I wrote about legal vendors and the need to start changing the negative connotation within the legal vertical. An email from Brad Blickstein, of the Blickstein Group, made me stop and reflect on how we (vendors) need to take responsibility, and become part of the solution. Here’s what Brad had to say:

“… your blog entry on “vendors” …got me thinking. I think a major part of the problem is that “vendors” use salespeople while consultants and law firms let their professionals sell their services. This leads the clients to feel more like they are being “sold to” as opposed to “advised,” and that assumes that the salespeople are acting professionally and smartly. (You and I both know that’s not always the case.) I think if you’re going to hire a sales force who are separate from the folks actually providing services – and I’m not sure there’s a choice – you are going to deal with some fallout. Clients do not get 5 calls in an hour from people they’ve never met at various consulting firms saying, “I’ll be in Chicago on the 23rd, can I stop by your office?”

Much has been written and spoken about ‘Consultative Selling”. Interestingly, BusinessDictionary.com offers the following definition:

“Personal selling in which a salesperson plays the role of a consultant. He or she first assists the buyer in identifying his or her needs, and then suggesting products that satisfy those needs.”

At first blush, this is a rather cynical definition, but it makes sense. Playing a role or acting like a consultant interested in the buyer/prospect’s needs is an insult. While I’m not implying that every, or even most, salespeople are uncaring product shills, we need to re-examine our sales and communications strategies.
As Vendors we need to start by taking stock of our sales strategies. Are we:

• Too focused on short term results?
• Building long-term trusted relationships, or renting rolodexes and role playing?
• Communicating our value propositions to the proper market, or taking the shotgun approach?

These economic times are difficult for everyone. Long-term success will only be realized through the hard work and patience required to build open and honest relationships.

If we’re going to change the negative view of vendors in the legal industry, we need to make the first changes.

The definition of vendor – one that sells something*, is not a negative implication. Let’s face it, we all sell something! Legal Vendor is a broad category and I would argue one that includes consultants. Consultants are selling their services and expertise, but they’re still selling. And lawyers/law firms are selling whether they like to think so or not. If you’re not selling, you’re probably about to fail.

For over 18 years I have worked for or with legal vendors. In the early 1990’s we were often called on to educate audiences about the benefits of technology or conduct product ‘shoot-outs’, and then seemingly overnight vendors got a bad name in the legal industry. We were viewed as the bad-guys or hucksters. The how’s and why’s of how we got here are worth examining, but they’re probably not as important as what we do to change relationships between customers and providers.

How can we find a way to swing the pendulum back and should we even try?

I believe we must work together to create partnerships that are mutually beneficial. Every vendor needs to take an honest look at what they promise and how they deliver on those promises. How is it possible that every company is the ‘industry-leading’ or ‘insert your rhetoric here’? Attorneys and the other professionals working in law firms are a cynical bunch, they’ve been burned, their expectations haven’t been met, and they’re tired of the rhetoric…it’s time to deliver.

Can law firm clients and prospects be turned around to think more positively about legal vendors? I think so. When legal providers wake up and realize that their primary competition is internal and not external, they’ve taken to first step to success. Ask the hard questions:

» How can we meet expectations?
» Are we delivering on our promises?
» What can we do to improve?

The legal profession is dynamic and the changes we’ve seen over the past 24 months are enormous. Now is the perfect time for vendors to engage with clients and prospects to forge truly meaningful partnerships. If we start now, we can begin to change how we are perceived.

*”vendor.” Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law. Merriam-Webster, Inc. 14 Jul. 2010. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vendor>.

In the most recent ChangeThis manifesto, Intelligence Multipliers, Liz Wiseman shares her findings from a two-year study of corporate leadership styles. She begins by defining ‘Diminishers’ as corporate managers that can’t see beyond their own capabilities to utilize the maximum value of the people around them. ‘Multipliers’ on the other hand, have the ability to challenge their teams and create an environment of intelligence and challenge.

How do Diminishers differ from Multipliers?

Diminishers survey their world and see a limited supply of intelligence. They have the “I’m the only one that can do it right” mentality, and as a result, they discourage the people around them to shut down and they stifle creativity.

Multipliers believe in their people and encourage thinking. They look beyond their own capabilities, recognize, and even appreciate the genius of others. Multipliers challenge their people to think outside of the box and invest in their successes.

Is There Really a Difference in Performance?

Wiseman’s research has shown that Multipliers consistently get 2X more from their people than their Diminisher counterparts. Just think what you could do with twice your resources! In these times of reduced budgets and staffs, you can actually double your output without adding more staff. And in times of prosperity, Multipliers will be able to scale and take increase corporate intelligence and capabilities much faster. Typically organizations, large and small, have both types of leaders. The differences become readily apparent when you view the results of the different departments or working groups.

Over the years, I have been the beneficiary of working with a couple of Multipliers and a number of Diminishers. I’ve known the exhilaration of being challenged to produce at the highest possible level, and I’ve known the frustration of being shut down.

Why does it seem Diminishers are more prevalent? I think it’s because it is easier and safer to be a Diminisher. But if building your success is your priority, take a look in the mirror. If you see a Diminisher staring back at you…it’s not too late to make a change.