Here’s a great interview of Guy Kawasaki by Robert Scoble. It caught my attention because another of my favorite guru’s Kevin O’Keefe highly recommended it. Guy talks about his new book, Reality Check. In the course of the interview he says something really astounding – “I am just so sold on Twitter…I think that Twitter is arguably the most powerful branding mechanism since television.”
Happy New Year! I don’t know about you but I am truly excited about 2009. The New Year is a time that I generally focus on goals and priorities and that process tends to be invigorating. One of the first new projects for our team in 2009 is the launch of Legal Marketing Cafe TV. www.LegalMarketingCafe.com.
As with most things we do at Speaker Media and Marketing, we anticipate that this project will evolve over a period of time. Our philosophy is to kind of roll up our sleeves and test and measure as we go. We’ll keep you posted on our progress!
I hope it doesn’t sound too cliche to say that this time of year is a time to reflect on all that we have to be thankful for. I am truly thankful for the opportunity to work with attorneys, marketing directors and staff that have become more than clients – they have become friends.
My designer created a beautiful Thanksgiving card for some of our attorneys to send to their clients. I thought I’d share it with you.
In early 2008 my clients and I had our usual “New Year” discussions. Part of that was to choose a few large priority projects for the year. One of the projects we talked about was to write a book… Wow! If I had known then what I know now.
In late June we had our first group teleseminar to launch the plan. We decided on a collaborative book on personal injury law and 11 firms determined to co-write the work.
At the end of October the book was finished. The journey did not go quite as planned. (It never does) However, the finished product is something that we all feel very proud of. So to answer the question – how many attorneys does it take to write a book — let’s just say that it took a few more than expected.
I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago and there was a wonderful sharing of resources. I wanted to pass along one that I am currently testing. I think it may be helpful to those of you that need inexpensive graphic design work done.
My contest is to create a logo for “Legal Marketing Cafe TV.” I have a designer that I LOVE, however, I wanted to test this venue, so I thought this was a good opportunity. I described my project and then 99designs recommended a range for the prize. They suggested that I award a prize to the best design that is between $100 and $700. It was made clear that the bigger the prize, the more likely one is to get high quality designers. I set my “prize” to be $350.
Within an hour I had submissions. It has now been 2 days and I have had 43 designs submitted. There are several that I like a great deal. As I rule some out, I actually “eliminate” them. I also rate the submissions on a 5 star rating. I have also had 3 designers withdraw their work from the contest.
One thing I do want to caution you on is that this is a “community.” It’s important not to offend the community or you will get blasted. One of the things I did the first day is I gave 5 stars to an image that I really liked. But it was more of a banner than a logo and 2 designers blasted me in the comments. I simply responded kindly and moved on. If you want to see what they said – you can check it out on the contest page.
The contest will be finished on Tuesday morning, Oct 21. I’ll update my blog with a link to the winner.
It’s been interesting that lately I’ve seen a fair amount of activity occurring on LinkedIn within the ranks of the people in our industry that happen to be in my network. That’s why I thought it might be helpful to post a link to an informative video from Lee Lefever over at Common Craft. It really sheds new light on the value of the connections on LinkedIn.
I’ve hired a number of marketing coaches over the years. Each one has served a different and very positive role in my professional development. More than anything I’ve found value in being coached because it invariably drives me to what some marketers call “massive action.”
A few years ago I hired a gifted guru that some of you have probably heard of – Rich Schefren. This is a guy that just erupts with one amazing concept after another. I’ve learned so much from him. Today I was watching an online video that had clips of a recent presentation he did and I wanted to share it with you.
He juxtaposes 3 business concepts. He refers to the old way of business as “make & sell.” A current way that most businesses operate is “sense & respond.” Then he presents his recommended way as the way of the future and the way to really rise above the competition – “anticipate & preempt.”
One of my favorite lines in this video is “do it wrong fast!” Another is that “action creates clarity.” I wholeheartedly agree with both concepts. We cannot wait to take action until we’ve dissected every potential outcome. We need to get in there and do it. Experiment and just keep doing it. It’s the best way to learn and discover so that we can “anticipate and preempt.” Thank you Rich for all you’ve taught me and continue to teach me.
I was speaking at a legal marketing conference a few months ago and had the pleasure of hearing Scott Trost present. Scott is both an attorney and marketing consultant and he presented some very interesting research to the group.
One of my clients asked me to follow up with Scott and so I jumped on the web to do a little investigation. I came across a very interesting YouTube video that Scott did in March regarding his thoughts on the future of law firm ownership.
Findlaw is undergoing serious scrutiny because of their search engine marketing service. I read reports from two reputable sources this morning indicating that Findlaw may have been selling links – which violates Google’s guidelines. If found guilty, this could be a disaster for law firms that subscribed to this service. That will depend on whether or not Google decides to penalize the law firms along with Findlaw. As SEO expert Todd Friesen said “It’s been nice knowing you Findlaw.”
