IT'S ALL ABOUT YOU

12-time NCAA championship winner and legendary basketball coach John Wooden has a lesson that is very relevant to the business of marketing your law firm. He said that as long as you have prepared your self, it really doesn't matter how solid your competitor is. If you go with your full self and make the most of your resources then you've done really all you can do and all that is left is for you to enjoy the game.

For your law firm this means understanding yourself, knowing yourself and taking this to the client and to the competition. Relax on the focus on the competition, the copying and lemming-like attitude; you can adapt boundarylessness later.

 

The process of doing this means examining your entire firm and using your strengths and weaknesses to your advantage. You can start with something really important; what business is your law firm in? Selling legal services or solving problems or servicing clients? The days of giving some generic 'oh, we do all that' answer are dead and gone. If you do not have a specific and deliberate way of getting this done that is a clear advantage for your firm then forget it. How are you any different from the chap down the street?

The answer to the question will explain the current reality of your firm and it matters because the answer sets limits to your levels of excellence and the type of clients you seek to work with. It takes a serious attitude to consciously go after Multinationals of foreign origin and not just as local counsel.

 

All this really means understanding how you will approach the client and market opportunities and because you are in a rigid, ultra-conservative profession you have to work within its rules and turn its confines into advantages. While this is not a pleasant situation, it is our reality and wishing for wild haired innovation may take a while. Just look at Geoffrey Chaucer who wrote the Canterbury Tales. He was bound by the rigid rhyming structure that all writers had to abide by and used those strict bonds as an outlet for of full expression.

 

Go ye and do likewise.