SELLING SOME MORE

You are a legal practitioner and at some point you will have to sell your legal services, to actually convince a client that you should work on their business. Not an associate, not a brochure, YOU. At this point you have a few choices namely; get to it or duck the issue.

Ducking the issue is a favourite here in legal (I know, I'm from legal) but the other option of getting to it means moving obstacles out of your way because marketing is not so much as pushing your law firm out there as it is positioning yourself to be where the ball is going so you can receive it. The rain always falls so you have to place your bucket right to get the water.

First off, marketing your law firm is being in the people business and this is less about being super nice than being able to communicate your opinion, your view, your assessment on how the engagement should be structured.
Clients should be told and shown what you can do for them and what you can offer. Don't be shy about it.

Then talking about learning and CPD. I mean we are all for it but working on interesting and complex pieces of business you are able to access with your marketing savvy is an entire world of CPD plus it pays for official CPD which gives you points.
Also the way legal skills tend to be transferred from ancient times and ancient guilds to now, is by the apprenticeship model where you grasp the work and watch the master doing it and emulate.
So it is one feeding into the other just like a charmed circle with no end, where your marketing savvy helps with actual and knowledge-based CPD and then official CPD programmes shows you the new knowledge (plus the points).
And since we are focused on your going out to actually secure the business (so is your boss/associate) we strongly urge you to go out and OFFER ways to assist. You can do this by actually asking the client about her business and then looking at what you can offer based on what you've heard. That is the basic approach and it has a thousands applications.

Marketing for law firms is about having a product (study, think, read, research) and then presenting it to the client as a solution to her business. It helps if you are connected all over the place as well but that only goes so far, gets you in the door.
At some point you will have to bring actual results to your practice.