Next month I’ll be speaking at the Legal Marketing Association’s annual conference on … drum roll, please … Social Media Strategies for Small to Mid-Sized Law Firms (along with the esteemed Jayne Navarre and Russ Lawson).

In addition, I have partners speaking or attending conferences across the country on issues that impact their client base. So, I really appreciated Jaffe PR‘s latest newsletter post: The Event Isn’t Over Once You’ve Finished Speaking.

The best way is to create a follow-up plan prior to attending and implement it immediately following the event. Prior to attending the event, ask the conference organizer what kind of information can be shared with you.  Sometimes speakers are given full contact information and allowed a one-time use; other times this information is only available to sponsors.  If that’s the case, you and your firm may decide a small sponsorship is worth it.

  • If you are able to reach out to attendees prior to the event, have a plan for when you follow up and decide what information you will give them to continue the conversation.
  • Network — as much as you can.  Talk to the people who attended your presentation, get business cards, connect with them on LinkedIn.  You never know what might lead to new business.
  • Draft a brief summary of the event and post it to your LinkedIn profile.
  • Use Twitter to reference your presentation and post a link to it.
  • Send a summary of the event, with a presentation link to clients that you think might be interested.
  • Participate in any post-event activities that the conference has planned and stay in touch with the conference organizer for future engagements.

I’m going to add a few more bullets to this list:
Continue Reading Maximize that speaking opportunity!

As an in-house legal marketer I am always challenged by the partner who is “too busy to market.” Her plate might be too full (at the moment). He has family obligations outside the office (always my personal excuse). However, one day they’re going to wake up and wonder “where have all my clients gone?”

I learned early on in my career that marketing and business development are not about today, they are about tomorrow. It’s about keeping that pipeline filled. It’s about knowing that when your big class-action, that you’ve been billing 95% of your time to for the past three years, suddenly settles, you’re not left in the lurch. Ask yourself, what would you do if you #1 client is acquired, or your key-client contact is promoted or retires?

Yes, you’re too busy to market. I’m too busy to market. We’re all too busy to market. But, we need to do it EVERY DAY nonetheless.

I’ve asked some of my colleagues to offer their suggestions as to how they encourage their “too busy to market” partners to market.And, SHOCK, I’m not even going to bring up social networking. We’re going Old Skool today!

Here are a few suggestions from me to kick things off:

Offer to collaborate with your key contacts.
If you are writing an article, presenting at a conference, get your key clients’ input and advice on your outlines, themes, etc. This automatically elevates your client into your inner-circle. This blog post is a prime example of this.
Continue Reading Too Busy to Market? We Don’t Think So

It’s the end of the year and as an attorney you are most likely sitting behind a closed office door trying to 1) bill, bill, bill to hit your numbers; or 2) collect, collect, collect to hit your numbers.

In between all of this closed-door time, I have a few simple “marketing” suggestions you can

There’s a legal marketing “guru” out there who loves to bash Twitter. First of all, Twitter isn’t for everyone, but it is an incredibly powerful tool for many others. To completely dismiss a marketing/business development tool because of your personal perceptions, or lack of knowledge, is shortsighted and shows, to me, poor “

In the legal world, we hear from GCs time and again that, with all things being equal, they hire lawyers they know, like and trust.

Social networking isn’t about “selling” a product or a service; it is about expanding our networks and connecting with people with similar or like interests. It’s about becoming known, liked