I WENT TO THE FAIR
And All The Fruit Was Overripe And All The Rides Went Nowhere
Recently I attended a conference on law firm marketing. It was stunning.
I was reminded again of one valuable lesson, which all of us who do this crazy thing really know on one level or another. Nor is it news – but it’s important, and is at the root of the difficulties of marketing professional services. It’s culture clash at its most impactful.
Lawyers have always had a distinctive culture – in many respects, with an emphasis on the word cult. The culture and the traditions of legal practice are rooted somewhere in the middle ages. It’s deeply ingrained.
Marketers, even those of us who serve professionals, have our own culture as well. Some of it – not all -- is rooted in the late 19th century and the early 20th Century. Because we don’t have legal certification, and the law governing what we do is so slack that most marketers don’t even know it, our culture is somewhat thinner. But a distinctive culture it is. Moreover, so much about marketing – both professional services and product – is new. Too many marketers don’t know it, and it’s that much more difficult to bridge the culture gap. Too many marketers do the same few things repeatedly, because that’s the way they’ve always done it.
And the lawyers and accountants don’t understand our culture, and we marketers don’t really have a deep-rooted understanding of theirs. So what happens? There is a vast intercultural gap that’s not being bridged. For lawyers, the modern concept of competition is too new to the professions, and many professionals have not quite digested it yet. Part of the problem, of course, is that most lawyers and accountants have no valid way to judge marketers. This means that the quality of the marketers they hire range from very good -- knowledgeable, artful, imaginative -- to just plain clueless. The ability to spout the jargon is not the secret to marketing success. Evidence of this abounded at this conference, with more nonsense than sense spoken. And with too much presentation of old stuff as new.
To put it most simply, we don’t get them, and they certainly don’t get us.
My favorite presentation was a Wharton School professor of marketing who had no inkling of the difference between marketing a nonprofessional service (airlines, hotels, etc.) and marketing a professional service. It was scary. For example, she resurrected the old saw about intangible and perishable services. Go tell a lawyer who’s worked 72 straight hours to meet a deadline on a red herring for a new issue that his or her service is intangible. Go tell a lawyer who’s worked months to build a corporate structure that’s a foundation for years to come for a company that his or her work is perishable. Academics, from Kotler on down, who preach a marketing structure they don’t understand, are more depressing than the war stories out of Iraq. I know what the Four P’s really stand for, but it ain’t for polite company.
Why do I rave so about this kind of academic drivel? Because these academics, who carry a certain cache, undermine the difficult truths about marketing professional services, and muddy the waters with lawyers and accountants, as well as marketers, thereby making it doubly difficult to generate productive understanding between the cultures. They should be shot.
Two notes – not the most relevant. Many presenters at conferences like these seem to be imbued with the Southern Baptist approach to preaching. Stentorian presentations, marching through the corridors of the house – all as if their role was not to educate, but to convert. Enough already.
The other thing was more subtle. The variety of titles for so many people all doing the same thing. Chief Client Development Officer. VP Client Services and Strategic Planning. Director of client Development.. Vice President, Business Development. Director of Sales. This stems, I think, from a bit of a sense of inferiority about being marketers in a firm with a bunch of guys and women with legal degrees. It’s kind of like the secretaries who try to exalt themselves with Administrative Assistants titles. You know, it’s not necessary. A competent, professional and imaginative marketing director is as good as any lawyer any day. It’s done with competence, not title.
Was it all bad? No, of course not. But enough of it was so bad that the good stuff seemed out of context with the bad stuff. A kind of a Gresham’s Law, in which the bad stuff drives out the good stuff. It certainly muddies the water, and inhibits the all important acceptance of marketing by the lawyers, who have, historically, no tradition of marketing, and very little facility to judge good from bad marketing and marketers.
Let’s talk about the good stuff. Iris Jones, of Akin Gump, as usual, spun a golden web of information about the complex concept of client service teams. Looks easy, but it isn’t, Jones has built more than 65 very powerful and productive teams, an amazing advance in law firm management. She alone was worth the price of admission. My question, in this context, is how many of the attendees are going to be able to go home and persuade their firms to let them start client service teams? And therein lies a crucial factor – as in all professional services, the marketer is only as good as the lawyer or accountant who understands and accepts new ideas, even from non-lawyers or non-accountants. This is a process called reality.
Richard Levick, who after many decades of same old same old public relations, has reinvented the field, was not only dynamic, but genuinely informative. There are lawyers and lawyers, and PR people and PR people galore. But Levick understands the cultural difference, as well as the contemporary communications structures, and the real meaning of marketing objectives. He knows how to create and communicate meaningful news.
Larry Bodine, an old and reliable hand at this arcane field, spoke real truths about selling services. Also a lawyer, he knows what’s important, beyond the veneer of so much marketing effort, and he knows how to communicate it.
Jim Durham, another old hand, pinned down the essence of successful lawyer-client relations, an essential factor in successful practice development.
In fact, the organizers of this conference did a fine organizational and promotional job, and are themselves professionals. But as one attendee asked me, don’t they vet the panelists?
Good and valid question.
I don’t write this to demean either the presenters or the attendees. My concern is the problem of reconciling the two cultures. In law firms – and accounting firms as well – there is traditionally little hospitality for the non-lawyer or the non-accountant. Too bad, especially in this increasingly competitive environment, where law and accounting firms have the opportunity to compete successfully, instead of groping in an anachronistic environment. Both cultures have a lot to learn -- and there is a lot to be learned -– from one another, to the ultimate benefit of both.
Those firms that don’t learn, or that reside in anachronistic mythology of marketing or in catch phrases (e.g. branding), are too easily fooled by the big pool of client money now floating around into thinking they are successful. They are blind to the firms that go bankrupt or that need to merge or be acquired to survive.
Ladies and gentlemen, look to that old vaudeville line – change your act or go back to the woods.
