Search generational marketing

Where they Boomers got their name.

Generational marketing is a term that I picked up at the Chief Marketing Officer Institute earlier this year, and something Jonathan Fitzgarrald and I continue to toy with in terms of how this applies to legal marketing.

In short, generational marketing recognizes that the different generations make purchasing decisions in different ways from one another.

The different life phases we are in presently, coupled with our upbringing and societal norms, provide us with different perspective than those we follow, or those who follow us.

Roger Daltry is now 69. What happened to not trusting anyone over 30?

For example, I’m an earlier member of Generation X (born 1961 – 1981). I came of age during the Cold War.

I was raised by my Silent Generation parents (1925 – 1942), who came of age post-WWII. Only one of their five kids are a Baby Boomer (1943 – 1960). The rest of us are Gen-X.

And my parents were raised by their G.I. Generation parents (1901 – 1924), who grew up during, and were shaped by, the Great Depression.

One of the greatest challenges I face in the work place is working with the Millennial generation who were raised with technology at their fingertips (sometimes referred to as Gen Y; 1982 – 2000). The Baby Boomers really don’t get them at all.

Continue Reading Talking ’bout my generation

I know, I know, I know. It’s January 2020 and I blogged exactly seven (that’s 7) times last year. WTH??

It boils down to two things:

1. I’ve been really busy. 

I started a new job which required a move from Los Angeles to New Orleans. It was my first move in more than 20 years, and wow, that threw me. I’m really good at transitions and multi-task organization, but this one really got me and I actually started to doubt myself, but I knew better than to listen to “that” voice and I pushed through it. That first month I really wondered if it would all settle down or if this would be my new normal. It took a couple months, but it finally did settle down, just in time to buy a house, pack up all the stuff we had unpacked (Sports Dude says he got a head start by not unpacking a dozen or so boxes that just sat around our rental for the 8 months we were there), and move to our new home.

One of the reasons we moved was to get out of the crazy of LA. The congestion. The pace of life. The “culture.” We bought this house to literally stop and enjoy the views. To recharge. To let go and be in the moment. We have yet to be disappointed. Photos above and below are from our back porch of a sunrise and sunset this week.

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Davey House, 2020.#NoFilter. Photo credit: Eric S. Geller

2. I really didn’t have much to say. 

It kinda struck me this year more than other years, but we’re still talking about the same crap we were talking about 20+ years ago: Industry groups. Diversity. Attorneys not wanting to do business development. What to do about the service partners when their rainmakers retire. Succession planning. Client service. Billing rates. CRM.

Sure we’ve had some disruptions: generational shifts, AFAs, AI. But they all come back to the same themes. I keep thinking, “Ah, this is going to really change things,” but it rarely does. We just keep operating in a very small bubble because, well, lawyers.

This avoidance of changes (innovation) in our industry comes from the risk aversion of lawyers; decision are based on precedence, not looking forward. It’s amazing that all these years (decades) later the basic tenants of Dr. Larry Richards article Herding Cats: The Lawyer Personality Revealed still hold true: Lawyers remain more skeptical, less resilient, and more autonomous than the general population. Great for writing a legal brief, not so great when it comes to business innovations and practices.

While I have seen glimmers of change with the entrance of the Millennials into the law firm, on the whole, there has not been too much change, because how we cultivate and educate lawyers hasn’t changed much. Oh, wait, what’s that I’m reading and hearing? Law schools discussing getting rid of the LSAT? Law firms starting to change hiring practices and looking at non-traditional (tier 1) law schools? Oooh, is that the rise of the millennial leader (video) I’m seeing?? Hmmmm.

So what to do?

Continue Reading Seriously? 2020 already?

The Chambers and Partners USA rankings were released last week and I had a great talk with one of the deputy editors to really go over our results, especially the why and where we could improve on our end. This is a call I make every year, and I always glean new information that helps me to better understand not just our Chambers rankings, but our attorneys and the work that they do.

1. Follow the damn template.

Several times we were praised on following the template, and making it easy for the researchers to get an understanding of what happened in the practice that year. Lots of bullet points. No marketing speak. They are reviewing thousands of submissions, so make it easy for them to find the information they are looking for.

Tip: Start now. The templates are available, so why wait? Pull your case and matter lists for the year. Start updating the general information at the beginning of the submission. Chambers isn’t something you can phone in, and if it’s important to the attorney’s practice, they will appreciate the extra time and assistance you can provide.

2. It’s all about the referees.

Continue Reading 3 takeaways from this year’s Chambers rankings

I write and speak frequently on the generational shifts and divides in law firms, along with my colleague Jonathan Fitzgarrald. We first started to identify generational trends and the impact on the law firm in 2013. We always mentioned the “next” generation, the “swipe” generation, but there was no data on them. Yet.

The studies are starting to come out, and if you’re worried about your Millennials, you need to start to panic about your iGen, a term coined by Dr. Jean M. Twenge. I just saw her on CNN, just read her article, Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?

More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis.

Continue Reading Here comes the iGen: And we all need to be worried

Jonathan Fitzgarrald and i started speaking about the generational divide several years ago. Our primary focus was on how the law firms, by not passing on leadership rolls to the younger generations, were putting themselves at risk, as their clients had already made the generational shift.

As time passed, and we began speaking at other conferences beyond legal marketing, we began to discuss the shifts within our firms.

So. Millennials. What are we going to do about  the Millennials? Aren’t we all asking the same question?

I had my own recent experience that I want to raise to the level of a warning to us all. My marketing manager left us to work for the do-good-work start-up where she had been volunteering. She felt she could balance her corporate life by doing good outside of work. Until they offered her “enough” money to join them full-time. Continue Reading A new Millennial conundrum

Senior legal marketing professional partnering with lawyers on business development strategies and the business of law.

Heather Morse began her career in legal marketing in 1998, after spending 10 years working with non-profit and member service organizations. After serving in senior marketing positions with AmLaw 100 law firms, Heather is currently the Chief Business Development…

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LMA Annual Conference – 2015

We all attend professional conferences. Some are close-knit groups, such as the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference; others will have 10s of thousands in attendance, and take over a whole city (ACC Annual Meeting, CES, NRF’s Big Show).

Sometimes we will know no one attending, other times hundreds due to our level of involvement in the organization.

No matter how many people you know or don’t know, speaker or not, first time attendee or not, you need to prepare to maximize the time you will be there, and out of the office.

I start to prepare for a conference  approximately two weeks or so before my departure. When I say I do these things, I really do them, and I coach others to do so as well for one reason: They work. Continue Reading Don’t be a lurker. 6 Things to Do BEFORE Attending a Conference

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While working at a certain AmLaw 50 firm I submitted to attend the Legal Marketing Association’s annual conference. It was denied.

In speaking with the firm’s managing partner I asked her a few simple questions:

  1. So I’m as good as you need me to be?
  2. I know everything I need do know to do my job not only today, but tomorrow?
  3. You don’t need me to grow past where I am today?

There was an uncomfortable amount of silence, followed by her reply: “Have a great time at the conference.”

Since that conversation, yes, I have left that firm. There was also a tumultuous recession. Blogs were introduced, followed by social media. Firms started to focus on pricing, because clients insisted upon it. Project management is taking root. A generational shift in leadership has begun. The profession of law grew up and became a business

If I do not learn, I do not grow, and I become a liability to my firm, not an asset.

Yes. I will leave a firm at some point. But hopefully I will leave the firm in a different place, headed down a different path, because of the things I have learned at LMA and introduced to the marketing team, the attorneys, and the firm.

Yes, I admit, my attendance at the LMA conference is like a family and high school reunion wrapped in one.

It is also the place where I pick up new tools; meet new people who become colleagues I call upon in the future; am introduced to new products; and find inspiration.

All of these things allow me to do my job better. I always come back from LMA ready to try something new. I have fresh ideas and a new perspective.

Of all the conferences I can attend, I choose to be at LMA. I was on the board when we selected this location. I blocked my calendar off rights then and there. I don’t miss it. I have even had LMA written into my employment agreements. That is how important LMA and the annual conference are to me.

I am just really turning my eye to the conference agenda, but the content is exciting, touches on all the vertices of what I need to do, and is located in my college town (no, I did not go to the “party school” … I went to the “smart school” on the bluffs in La Jolla — inside joke for San Diegan college students), so I get to hang out with my college roommate and introduce her to my LMA peeps … hopefully she won’t tell too many stories.

I plan to arrive in San Diego bright and early Sunday morning. There may or may not be plans to hit my favorite Mexican restaurant/bar in La Jolla, so make sure we connect on Twitter @heather_morse before heading down.