Today's Law Marketing Resource

Richard Russeth's "If Nordstrom's Was A Law Firm, I'd Give Them All My Business" from his blog, The Last Generalist. Lawyers, here's a new year's resolution that will make you smarter: read this blog. In this post, Russeth shares seven common client service mistakes he's seen as general counsel to an international company.
Think they don't apply to you? That you'd never commit them? Then forward the post to your clients, and ask THEM to rate you. They'll love it, and you'll probably learn something.

Best wishes for a healthy, happy and prosperous 2011 to all!

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Dan Hull's "Distinguish yourself. Surprise clients." from What about clients?. Looking for a solid new year's resolution, one that you can keep, one that will make you a better lawyer, make your clients love you? Look no further than this post.

Do yourself a favor. Add this blog to your RSS feed and read it every day.

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Bruce MacEwen's "The Boundaries of the Firm, and Constraints" from Adam Smith, Esq. This is one of my favorite legal blogs, and it's posts like this one that remind me why. His analyses of the workings of (mostly Big) law firms are full of practical lessons for all lawyers, about marketing, about management, about staffing and more. Read it and get smarter.

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Mark Herrmann's "Inside Straight: Business Development (Part 3)" from Above the Law. We love this series, even if Herrmann uses this post to answer a question he's already answered before (and even if it's the wrong question to ask). But hey: as far as we're concerned, he can write about blogging as business development tool as often as he wants, because each time he adds new insight. Read this and you'll agree.

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

"China Business. It Helps To Know The Culture" from Dan Harris and Jason Patent at China Law Blog. Think you know your market? Everybody does. This post, and Part II and Part III that follow, remind us that it never hurts to question that: "The only way to succeed in China is with the curiosity to examine our own beliefs and practices, and the humility to see other ways of doing things as equally valid."

Isn't that a valid lesson for just about everything? Read these posts for more just like it.

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Brian Tannebaum's "Do You Want More Clients, Or More Referrals?" from his blog My Law License. Lawyers: don't read this post if you're looking for magic bullets. Or if you think that you don't have more work because you haven't learned all of the marketing secrets. There are none. It's just work. Tannebaum lays out in this post just what that work should be. And he does it for free.

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Carolyn Elefant's "Some Marketing Projects for 2011" from myShingle.com. If you liked yesterday's two-fer, you're gonna love today's post, which provides links to the eight posts that make up Elefant's "Best of 2010" from her Legal Marketing Blawg at Nolo. There's something for everyone here, so get reading.

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Dan Hull's "Cross-Selling: You guys partners? Or just sharing space?" from What about Clients? Today's resource is a two-fer: not only does Hull give you his own perspective on the barriers to cross-selling, he also points you to a post from Tom Kane that lists five "killers of cross-selling success." These barriers can be broken down, but first you need to recognize them. Read these posts and you will.

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Mark Herrmann's "Inside Straight: Business Development (Part 2)" from Above the Law. In this second installment of what we hope will be an ongoing BigLaw-lawyer-gone-in-house biz dev advice series, Herrrmann addresses every lawyer's favorite marketing tool: the brochure. His take? "...I now typically delete them unread." But there's more to this post than poking fun at law firm brochures. See for yourself.

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Vivia Chen's "Resume Tips for Oldies (That's You--Baby Boomers)" from her lawjobs.com blog The Careerist. Good solid advice for everyone, not just boomers, because the underlying message drives to the heart of client relationships and service: don't assume that the way you think things should be done is the best smartest most logical only way to do them. Most of the time the view from the other person's shoes is more relevant than your own. The message received is the message.

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Scott Greenfield's "What's the Buzz?" from Simple Justice. Greenfield has a special place in his heart for legal marketers, but that doesn't stop me from reading his blog. And it shouldn't stop you, either: he calls 'em like he sees 'em, and most of the time his analyses are spot on. Like this post.

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Jay Fleischman's "Law Firm Marketing and the “Buy My $#!^” Mentality" from Legal Practice Pro. For many lawyers, getting new clients is all about convincing people to buy. But it shouldn't be. Law isn't a product, don't sell it as if it were. Nobody listens to that “buy my $#!^” noise, anyway (at least not the clients you need).

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Carolyn Elefant's "MyShingle Turns Eight" from her blog MyShingle.com. Elefant is one of the premier bloggers in the solo lawyer space, but her practical advice is relevant for all. This post captures some of the lessons she's learned over the past eight years, about blogging, about practicing, about finding success. When you're done reading it, check out Elefant's other law marketing blog: Nolo's Legal Marketing Blawg. 

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Mark Herrmann's "Inside Straight: Business Development (Part 1)" from Above the Law. I never thought I'd be recommending Above the Law as a law marketing resource, but Herrmann's new "Inside Straight" columns have given it a decidedly more practical focus. This post draws on Herrmann's experience on both sides of the aisle -- as seller and as buyer -- as he looks for an answer to the question "business development: what works?"

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

"Cost Reduction is Good, Cost Certainty is Better" from Dan DiPietro and Gretta Rusanow writing for The AmLaw Daily. Valuable insight from the people responsible for the Citi Private Bank Law Watch. Read this post for a comprehensive overview of the key challenges facing the profession, the ways firms are responding to those challenges and, if you read between the lines just a little bit, the things you must do to stay relevant in "a smaller market with more competitors."

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Adrian Baron's "Lost in Translation. The Advantages of a Bilingual Law Practice" from his blog The Nutmeg Lawyer. I recommended this post a few months ago, but it's good enough to read twice (and I'm pretty sure this is an updated version of the earlier post). Telling good stories, and if you're lucky great ones, is a powerful marketing technique. Read this to see how one lawyer does it right.

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Holden Oliver's "All Hat, No Cattle" from What About Clients? This site, also know as What About Paris?, should be on your RSS feed. The posts are short, concise, and full of valuable lessons, the kind you normally have to pay a lot of money or work really hard to get. This one questions the notion of "client service," not as in "do we need it" but rather "everybody talks about it but do they even know what it means?" Read it.

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Jordan Furlong's "The new battlefield: convenience" from Law21.ca. I've featured Furlong's work before (follow these links to find all those posts), and for good reason: his explorations of the issues facing lawyers and firms are always thorough and thought provoking. In this post he contends that "convenience is the battleground where our innovative competitors are massing their troops," and asks what law firms are going to do to meet this challenge, to make the delivery of legal services more convenient for their clients. What's your answer?

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Brian Tannebaum's "A Sense of Violated Entitlement" from My Law License. Tannebaum can be abrasive, but his in-your-face, call-it-like-it-is blog posts articulate a profound passion for the practice of law, one that every lawyer should be so lucky to have:

"... the notion of going to law school for any other reason but to make money, is total bullshit. So it's worthless for me to say that when I went to law school I had no idea what lawyers made. ... I went to law school to be a criminal defense lawyer. "

Think you got passion? Think you communicate that passion to clients and potential clients? That's what they're buying when they hire you, so you need to get this right. Like Tannebaum does. 

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Kevin O'Keefe's "Why doesn't law firm senior management champion the use of social media?" from Real Lawyers have Blogs. A pioneer in legal blogging, O'Keefe's mission is simple: articulate the value of blogs -- and social media in general -- as meaningful marketing and communications channels for lawyers. And he's good at it (after all, he convinced me to join Twitter and start blogging back in 2008). This post takes a crack at sorting through the reasons why law firm leaders aren't embracing social media, and offers a simple solution to get them started that just might work.

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

George Murphy's "Basic SEO for Law Firms" from Lawyerist. Understanding -- and implementing -- search engine optimization techniques for your website can be daunting. This post will help you sort through the basics of monitoring your site's appearance on Google and other search engines, an important first step in making sure you're reaching your intended audience. Read it. You'll learn something useful.

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and vote for 22 Tweets).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Lisa Salazar's "Should Lawyers List Contacts on LinkedIn?" from 3 Geeks and a Law Blog. Lawyers: if you're afraid that sharing your contacts will cost you relationships, you probably should be. Yes, client relationships are the fuel that drives your success, but if the only thing keeping you from running out of gas is hiding those names from the rest of the world, you need to strengthen those relationships, not cover them up.

Today's law marketing resource was selected from the nominees to the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Go here to register and vote (and save one of your votes for 22 Tweets).