I’ve known Shirley for about 5 years now and she’s one of my dearest friends.  Shirley just celebrated her 85th birthday and she still runs circles around most people.  I stopped by her house today and she told me a story.  It was about 2 different department stores that we have all heard of.  She visited them both today and one provided great service and one was substandard service.  As she told me the stories I thought about it from a marketing perspective.  What makes this account especially fascinating to me is that Shirley is what I would call an “influential.”  Shirley is a “go to person” for many of her friends.  She is very bright, knowledgeable on numerous topics and has lots of life experience and common sense.  Besides all that she is absolutely delightful, entertaining and lovable!

So here’s the story.  Shirley happens to have a 55 year old handicapped son, Glenn.  She brings Glenn home every weekend.  Well, with summer approaching and Glenn’s birthday being in the summer, she was out shopping for an air conditioner for his room today.  She began the story by telling me this - “Target has so many helpful people all over the store that it’s just wonderful.”  As she began her shopping excursion in the store several employees were helpful right off the bat.  She was having trouble finding the air conditioners and so she asked for help.  A very pleasant employee told her to look just beyond where she was and pick up the phone.  He told her that somebody would then come to help her within 60 seconds!  Did you get that?  60 seconds.  Shirley’s next words to me were “58 seconds later, I had help.”  A woman arrived, she had a walkie talkie and she was heard saying - “I’ve got it, I’m here.”  It almost sounded as if a team of people were standing by to make sure Shirley got her help.

There’s more to the story than that but this struck me.  If I perceive this story correctly, I believe that Shirley was very pleased with the service but she was WOWED by one particular policy and that was the focus of her great “word of mouth advertising” on behalf of Target.  It was the “60 second rule.”

I can tell you that it is very likely that the Target experience and the 60 second rule will be repeated multiple times because Shirley is an influential and she talks to a lot of people.  It was a little thing, but I think that is a big part of her VERY favorable impression of the store.

What happened next was also fascinating from a marketing perspective.  Shirley then went to another department store that will remain nameless.  The first thing she said about it was this - “there was no one around anywhere to help me.”  For me as a listener, I immediately had a bad impression of the store.  But as she went on I learned that she got some great prices and some other very favorable things happened at that store.  She also said that she “finally found someone and she was very nice.”  But Shirley had already compared this store to Target and their 60 second rule.  Target won by a landslide.

Application for us?  What kind of word of mouth do you think your firm is getting?  What do your clients say about you?  They are probably not talking about your legal skills.  As I’ve said before, your competence as an attorney is assumed.  They are probably talking about service issues.  They may be saying - they’re a great firm, but it’s hard to get somebody to call you back.

Here’s my marketing recommendation for the day.  Put a system in place so that every client phone call - whether new or existing - is returned in 60 minutes or less.  That doesn’t mean that you need to have an attorney call back with an answer.  It means you need to have a knowledgeable and professional staff member call back to say - “we got your call and Mr. X will be following up with you tomorrow morning.  Is there a good time to reach you?”

How are you creating the WOW factor?  As I survey PI clients across the country I can tell you that the top 2 things that they consistently report as being most important to them as clients are:

1. Phone calls are returned promptly
2. Legal staff is knowledgeable

What are your “Shirley’s” saying about your firm?  If you instituted a one hour call back policy - I bet that would be part of what they’d be talking about…

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 92% of Americans ages 18 to 29 use the Internet; 85% of those 30 to 49; 72% of those 50 to 64; and 37 percent of those65-plus.  As I look at these statistics I am reminded of a recent analysis Speaker Media and Marketing conducted on the average age of a personal injury client.  Although the average age was about 40 what we found is that only a small percentage of clients are between 38 and 42.  What we also found consistently across the country is that the ages of personal injury clients criss cross every age category with statistical significance between the ages of 25 and 60.And this study clearly indicates that the clients we serve are on the Internet. 

It is no longer true that our clients “just don’t use the computer very much.”  In fact studies show that a full 85% of our primary age demographic is on the Internet.  Hmmm, maybe we should be putting more of our resources on the Internet and less on yellow pages…

I came across a segment from 60 Minutes on a gentleman named Bill James.  They call him “Stat Man” and he has developed a whole body of work that interprets baseball stats in a different and as he believes, more meaningful way.  You can watch the segment below.  What caught my attention most was one particular comment by a player.  He said that “what we’re realizing is that the teams that pay attention to all of these stats perform better.”

I love that!  It parallels my feeling about the legal industry.  It can be tedious to track and measure everything, but the firms that do - well, they outperform the firms that don’t.

Vivaty is a start-up based in Menlo Park, Calif.  An article in the New York Times today talked about their developing 3-D virtual chat rooms that can be added to web pages and social networking profiles on the sites where they spend most of their Internet time.  They are apparently planning to test the new technology on Facebook this week and then release it in wider form this summer. 

The reason this article captured my attention is because of the following statement:

“…The company plans to make money partly by allowing companies to start their own virtual rooms on their own Web sites, where they can control the decor and their marketing messages.”

One more avenue for interaction on the web.  Why is it important that we evaluate these types of opportunities?  As I continue to conduct both quantitative and qualitative market research on Client Advisory Panel members in law firms throughout the US, I am finding a clear trend.  These participants, who generally represent a firms best clients, are very heavy internet users.  A vast majority spend 2 or more hours on the web daily, and state that they research everything on the web.  Approximately 1/3 of these individuals state that their friends often refer to them as “computer geeks.” 

In light of these findings I believe it is imperative that we continually evaluate new web based marketing opportunities.  Vivaty is simply one of them.

Lee Iacocca said this:  “In my lifetime I’ve had the privilege of living through some of Amercia’s greatest moments.  I’ve also experienced some of our worst crises:  The Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy Assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970’s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11.  If I’ve learned one thing, it’s this:  You don’t get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action.”  He then goes on to issue a call to action.

Action is what separates the truly successful from the moderately successful.  I remember reading years ago that “great ideas are a dime a dozen.”  And it’s true.  Most people come up with numerous really great ideas in their lives.  But a much smaller number take action on their great ideas on a consistent basis. 

In talking with attorneys I can tell you that I hear a lot of great ideas.  I really do.  But what really excites me is when an attorney evaluates ideas and then consistently allocates the resources necessary to create action plans that lead to implementation.

A year or so ago I emphatically rejected the idea of using shills to conduct paid word of mouth marketing for your law firm.  Why?  Because I believe that to be positioned at the top of your market you must endeavor to conduct all aspects of your business in an authentic and genuine manner.  I still believe that.

 However, I intend to further investigate the concept of paid word of mouth.  It is a hot trend in the advertising/marketing world and a burgeoning industry.  What is happening in many agencies is that armies of teen-agers are paid to go into internet chat rooms and promote products and services as well as movies and celebrities.  My big objection is that they do not reveal that they are paid shills.  Therefore, this particular application does not interest me.

There are a few more examples that I believe have better viability because there is an honesty in that the “workers” are obviously paid to promote the word of mouth.  For example, to promote USA Network’s TV series “Traffic” (about drug cartels) they hired a NY agency (Media Kitchen) to affix stickers with the show name, logo and air date to 50,000 real $1.00 bills and get them into circulation in bars in New York and Los Angeles beginning early January.

Trump’s show “The Apprentice” also utilized this strategy when they paid to have 5,000 fake $100.00 bills with Trump’s face handed out on New York City streets two days before the show’s premiere.

I am contemplating the potential for combining our Client Advisory Panels with motivated word of mouth initiatives.  However, I firmly believe that as we test this strategy it must be conducted in an authentic and genuine manner.  

Last week I had the opportunity to travel to Las Vegas to speak to the Network Affiliates Group on the subject of Designing an Experience Your Clients Will Talk About.  The conference was held at The Wynn Hotel which is an experience in and of itself.  Steve Wynn certainly knows how to build hotels. 

In preparation for the presentation I surveyed the group on a number of topics.   Here are the key findings:

• 71% indicated that they have 10 or more brand ambassadors for their firm
• 53% categorized their employees as “highly motivated.”
• Only 35% stated that they have “excellent employee morale.”
• 47% believe that their client satisfaction is excellent
• 53% have very low employee turnover - that is lower than 5% turnover
• Only 24% indicated that they believe they have an “excellent system for hiring the right people.”
• I was happy to see that 65% have a right hand marketing person
• 59% conduct client satisfaction surveys
• Only 41% affirmed the fact that 80% of all decisions are made emotionally.  Some believed that number to be as low as 20%!
• Only 24% have a system in place to keep staff informed of firm progress, goals, challenges and successes

We had some great discussion and I want to thank Harlan Schillinger, Norty Frickey and Tammy Kehe for inviting me to come.  I always walk away having learned far more than I taught.

This month we added the component of qualitative research to our Client Advisory Panels and Wow - we are really excited about the feedback and excitement that we hear from our participants. 

Up until this point we have relied exclusively on quantitative surveys and although that has worked very well, we are engaging the clients significantly more having recently added telephone interviews as an option.  I have been pleasantly surprised by how many of our clients volunteer to be interviewed by phone.  It confirms for me the validity of this strategy as a way to find potential “influentials,” those individuals that love to give their opinions and share their knowledge.  And the rewards are twofold because not only are we engaging them, but we are learning a great deal from them.

If you have not set up a Client Advisory Panel in your firm, I strongly encourage you to consider doing so.

Here is a list of online sites that will provide you with freelancers that can help you with various aspects of your business:

•  www.rentacoder.com
• www.getafreelancer.com
• www.scriptlance.com
• www.elance.com
• www.guru.com
• www.ifreelance.com
• www.odesk.com

There was an excellent article in Forbes magazine today about how Facebook and MySpace would like to help grow small businesses.

Ditch your Web site. Facebook and MySpace are eager to help small businesses find friends