Golden Practices

Small Businesses Talk About Their Legal Services

A National Small Business Poll on "The Use of Lawyers" was conducted in May - June of 2005 by the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB). The survey reflects the feelings of over 750 small business employers about their legal services.

As a lawyer, if you serve or want to serve this sector, understanding them as a market and understanding their needs and typical use of legal services will be very helpful.

If you're a CPA, perhaps after reading the following, you will be more inclined to network with your local attorneys.

Over the next days, I'll report what I consider to be much more interesting details (such as the surprisingly high number of customers who paid flat fees for their legal services!!), but in the meantime, here is the executive summary of the survey and a link to it if you are a data hound.

Executive Summary:

>  69% of small business owners say that they have trust and confidence in lawyers and the legal profession compared to 31% who do not.

>  Most small-business owners use lawyers: 65% of small employers (defined as employing 5 to 250 people) sought advice or other assistance from a lawyer in the last year. The figure rises to 78% when the reference period is the last three years.

>  Median legal expenses, of those who incurred them in the last year, were between $4,000 and $5,000. However, 10% or respondents incurred expenses of $25,000 or more. Legal costs in the last year appear to be atypically high.

>  78% percent claim to have an on-going relationship with a lawyer or law firm. Those relationships appear reasonably stable over time.

>  Just 13% changed their primary lawyer/law firm in the last three years. The most frequently cited reason for changing is the need for expertise followed by a lack of legal competence.

>  55% of those who consulted a lawyer in the last year sought preparation of one or more legal documents. Most frequently: letter(s), contract(s), and papers to file, or response to, an actual or potential law suit.

>  41% of those seeking a lawyer’s help (or over one in four in the population) were involved in at least one legal dispute during the last three years. The median number of disputes involved in was between one and two.

>  Overwhelmingly, most disputes are resolved informally out-of-court. Only 12% of legal disputes between small-business owners and other parties are resolved in court.

>  The most frequent topics for legal disputes are debtor/creditor relations and/or debt collection (21%), and contracts (19%). The most frequent party to these disputes are customers (47%) followed by suppliers (25%).

>  The median total legal cost to settle a dispute is about $5,000. Two-thirds of resolved disputes result in no money or anything of monetary value exchanging hands.

Download the NFIB’s 2005 Use of Lawyers by small business survey results (PDF).

Many thanks to Anita Campbell of the Small Business Trends blog for posting about this survey. Anita's post is one of reassurance to attorneys that a majority of small businesses are, in fact, happy with their legal services despite general population surveys (such as the ABA's) that show less positive perceptions.

Belated BlawgThink! Pictures

I'm so bummed only two of the photos I spontaneously snapped on my Treo actually came out. :-(  But here they are (click to enlarge view) both from Saturday, Day 2.

The first is from the opening session. It's a view of about half the audience during "Five by Five Live." Sorry I don't know names...

The second is from one of the afternoon breakouts on the subject "Blogs. What Next?" with attendees including (l to r) Jack Vinson of Knowledge Jolt With Jack, Adriana Linares of Law Tech Partners, Ernie Svenson aka Ernie the Attorney,  the lady and gent to the right (not sure who) and others not shown such as Matt Buchanan of Promote the Progress and David Swanner of South Carolina Trial Law Blog.

BlawgThink! 2005 was a great opportunity to meet lots of people, bloggers and not. In addition to those mentioned above, I  particularly enjoyed the chance to meet Peter Flaschner, Kevin O'Keefe, Tom Kane, Dennis Kennedy, Russ Krajec, Kyle McFarlin, Hobie Swan, Marty Schwimmer, Marianne Richmond and George Lenard.

To those of you with whom I had the pleasure of a lengthy conversation (and/or sharing a meal), thank you very much for making BlawgThink! an extra enjoyable and memorable experience.

Large Law Firm Succeeds With Blog: Awarded Legal IT Innovator of 2005

430 attorney firm, Sheppard Mullin, replaced its newsletters with blogs and has realized excellent results.

The winner demonstrated a striking piece of lateral thinking by shifting away from standard e-newletters to the world of Blogging. From an original readership of 10,000, the winner’s ‘blogged’ content now receives 600,000 hits and consistently appears on the first 5 hits for relevant search words in Google and Yahoo.

The winner of Legal IT Innovator of the Year is Tom Baldwin (pictured right), Chief Knowledge Officer at Sheppard Mullin Richter Hampton.

Who says blogs aren't a good solution for large firms? What I, personally, love about blogs is that they level the playing field. Small firms can find experience the same reach and exposure, or even better, with good blogs. Blogs don't have a cost barrier that distributing printed news or information has, nor is it delayed.

Newsletters with their long writing time, design and edit time and then printing, are so far behind the speed-to-delivery curve that they are often old news before they hit the mail.

Seth Godin wrote the other day about "Classifieds Are Next" commenting on how the LA Times is finally cutting their printed stock prices, asking: "When was the last time you looked up the price of a stock in the newspaper?" He's right.

It's the same with information you need your clients to know.

When was the last time you found out critically important information, okay, even slightly relevant information, via a printed newsletter?

Thanks to Kevin O'Keefe at LexBlog for blogging about Sheppard Mullin's award!.

Marketing Component of New Employee Orientations

Bob Zeitlinger, Managing Director of B To Z Communications a public relations consulting firm, contributed a nice piece of advice to the Association for Accounting Marketing Discussion List about marketing departments' roles in new employee orientations that he has permitted me to share here. Bob has a fascinating background in both legal and accounting marketing.

___________________________

Bob writes: I’ve only put together orientation packages on an informal basis, but let me add my two cents from a public relations point of view. 

It’s important that [employees] understand and can communicate the firm’s brand and key messages; that they understand how to work with the marketing department; and that they understand how successful and vital the marketing department has been to the firm overall. With this in mind, I would make sure any package included:

·   Materials that give the new hire/partner language about how the firm describes itself (After the first week a new hire should be able to talk to a client or prospect about the firm as if he/she has been there for years. No excuses. It’s their firm. Know what it’s about!)

·   Materials/document on “how to work with the marketing department.”  Give examples of how other employees/partners have worked with the marketing group successfully. You want to give the impression that most employees/partners work with marketing well … Even if that’s not true, you certainly don’t want to position yourself right off the bat as the department that needs to beg other employees for participation in the process. They are new and, if they can be molded/persuaded to participate, now is the time to influence them. 

·   Materials that show off the marketing department’s successes. This can be newspaper articles, magazine placements, materials that show off the events you’ve held. Anything that truly shows off the marketing group as a vital resource for the firm. 

·   Purely from a PR perspective, I’d show them news releases in which partners participated to give them an idea of what you’ll be looking for them to do. If you can show releases or pitch letters and the stories that appeared as a result, that would be even more powerful. 

_________________

Of course, there is no substitute for personal interaction with the new employee during the orientation process. The marketer should have a distinct slot on the orientation agenda to cover such things.

Giving Thanks

Okay, maybe I'm feeling a bit mushy today, but I want to express thankfulness about a couple key things this year:

1) Thank you to my amazing clients for a wonderful year of learning, growing, and getting to work with you--it is the ultimate privilege to be hired and trusted by such quality firms and terrific people.

2) Thank you to Rusty Rich of Allen Creative Communication who designed my new website this year (he is a truly gifted artist) for convincing me that a blog would be the best way to share my CPA firm website reviews--the step that led me to start this blog.

3) Thank you to my fellow bloggers for your fabulous examples of how to blog well and for constantly inspiring me to think differently and more deeply.

4) Thank you to Ron Baker for our wonderful conversations and the incredible example you are of perseverance in the face of change-resistant CPAs and lawyers!

5) Many thanks to Sue Sassmann for joining Golden Marketing this year and bringing with you such a great spirit and ready smile. It's a pleasure working with you.

6) And endless thanks to my husband and 4 beautiful children for tolerating too many instances of my being MIA this year (even in their presence, at times) while I focused so much on gardening the business. I promise I will make it up to you by gardening our home & family in the coming year (and you'll no doubt be begging me to return to the office...)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Rick Telberg Shows "Small Biz Owners Flock to Blogs"

A new link adorns my blog roll, Rick Telberg's Bay Street Group Consulting blog for the accounting and financial professions.

I've enjoyed following Rick's blog and it is unlike the others I read. He touches on many pertinent issues of the professions: not just practical and technical stuff, but quality of life, too.

Here's a fabulous post on why CPAs (and others!) should be present in the blogosphere if they care at all about targeting small and growing businesses (uh, gee, that's most firms, isn't it?).

Telberg writes:

Small Biz Owners Flock to Blogs

So what are you doing about it?

If you're not blogging, you may be missing a key ingredient in reaching your target customer. A new survey of small business owners by Warrillow & Co. in their Weekly publication shows that Web-centric entrepreneurs are twice as likely (at 20%) to be reading blogs than the general adult population. As a group, these entrepreneurial bloggers represent over 700,000 small businesses.

The research also revealed that small business bloggers are almost twice as likely as non-bloggers to be regularly discussing business issues (such as suppliers and service providers) amongst each other, and much more likely to be running companies with more than 40% revenue growth in the last year. This attractive sub-segment can frequently be found both online and offline – 86% visit your Web store and 57% regularly read industry journals.

Aggregator Opportunities for Reaching Bloggers

It’s worth evaluating the role a blog could play in your marketing channel mix because it will naturally attract growing companies that will spread the word about your products and services to a large peer network.

(chart from Warrillow & Co via Rick Telberg)

Voicemail Messages as Marketing Tools?

A great post by John Jantsch today really caught my eye. In fact, before I read the whole thing, I picked up the phone and changed my company's main phone greeting.

John suggests:

Yesterday, I was sent to voicemail on three phone calls in a row. That's not unusual these days, but what I found annoyingly silly was the fact that each of the would be called had a voicemail message that said "Hi, this is so and so, I'm either on the phone or away from my desk." - word for word identical and painfully boring.

He warns against being overly cute, but offers:

What if you used your voicemail message to send a subtle marketing hint or at least something attention getting. Remember, half the battle for your small business is to find ways to stand out in a crowd. In all things, you've got to start considering how to differentiate a bit.

So, instead of telling me the obvious or what today's date is, why not -

This is so and so, currently I'm providing another patient with a pain-free dental experience, but...   or  "Welcome to such and such, we're busy creating wonderful new products..."

In the end, the little things add up to the whole big thing!

This is a great idea. Some firms spend big bucks on recorded commercials to play while clients are on hold.

A cost saving alternative might be using your own voice, not to say "I'm busy with a client right now" but something just as short yet with more punch like:

• "I'm determining the value of a company right now..."
• "I'm helping a couple secure their family's financial future..."
• "I'm working on a winning case strategy..."

or this approach:

• "I'm eager to help your business grow so won't you leave a message?..."
• "I'm looking forward to securing your family's financial future..."

The list could go on forever. Change it often and see what clients say when they leave your messages...

What's the Right Ratio of "You" to "We"? Taking The Ego Out of Your Content

A major turnoff found in lots of professional firm websites and brochures is the abundance of "we, we, we" or "our, our, our" or versions, thereof, such as the firm's name repeated with too great a frequency.

It is usually possible to reconstruct sentences to make them client-centric which accomplishes many things:

• more interesting to the reader and less common
• allows reader to personalize the content; visualize the result for themselves
• takes the emphasis off the problem solvers (you) to focus on the solution's benefits (what you deliver)

Apparently--and it makes complete sense--similar affects are realized when you speak. An excellent post on Great Public Speaking suggests that 10 "yous" for every "I" is the right ratio. The post inspired me to write this.

When it comes to professional service firm writing, though, 10:1 would be good, but I'd be glad to see even a 5:1 ratio.

Here are some things to look out for and how to fix them:

1. Check the first word of each paragraph, then scan each sentence. If you find most paragraphs and/or sentences open with "we" "I" "our" "[your name]" or "[firm name/initials]," then reconstructing your sentences is a must.

Wherever you express something like: "We help [whom] by doing [what]," turn it around.

Try writing, "You achieve [result/benefit] through using [what/describe service]." Or, if you aren't comfortable addressing your audience as "you" (which, by the way, is perfectly acceptable these days, and has significant psychological benefit in your marketplace) then make it target specific for instance, "Reputable construction companies achieve [result/benefit] through using [what/describe service]."

If it's a bio you're writing, instead of starting each paragraph with "John..." or "Mr. Smith..." get rid of most of those openings by creating more complex sentences. For instance "John attended law school at..." becomes "A graduate of Harvard Law School, John..."

2. Don't use the firm's name in every single paragraph. At some firms, I see it sometimes two or three times in a single paragraph! Following the less-is-more guideline, try to keep the firm's name down to no more than two uses per page.

3. Write in present tense and sound strong. For greater effectiveness, write in the active tense and lose all the wussy, non-committal words like "will" "may" and "can." Even nice words such as "help" and "assist" are overused and unimpressive.

Turn your sentences from weak suggestions/promises to confident calls to action. Make: "We can help you maximize profits..." into "Maximize your profits by acting on recommendations and advice you receive from our professionals."

Try these client-centric and action-oriented approaches on your next writing (or speaking) project and notice better results.

Fun With Innovation: BlawgThink! 2005

Just attended Day 2 today of Matt Homann and Dennis Kennedy's BlawgThink! event. Very cool.

It is very refreshing to see and hear how many lawyers are blogging and why! More on this below.

Meeting, talking with, and learning from innovators (Ernie the Attorney, Marty Schwimmer, Kevin O'Keefe, Dennis Kennedy, and tech consultants to be discussed in future posts) is not something you usually get to do everyday, not to mention in one, single day.

For professionals wondering "What is the "ROB" (Return on Blogging)?", this is why lawyers said they are blogging:

1) clients and recruits appreciate "insight" into the lawyer's brain (all the better to see if there is a "fit")

2) keeps us more in tune with our practice interests because we are doing more reading and thinking about these things"

3) the younger generation is a generation that is "growing up with blogging" and they can relate to us because we've been doing it too

4) it gives me a chance to write often, but less formally

5) lots of media attention, interviews and speaking opportunities on my topics

6) some lawyers claim their blogs are responsible for generating up to 30% of their revenues

7) seen as an expert in my area, higher level of respect

8) other benefits cited: personal reward, passion, helping people with information

Overall, it's been an amazing and overwhelming day. I've met tons of people, learned (and got free) 3 new programs, the one I'm most excited about is MindJet's stuff!

More later and pics...

Avoid Having a "Messy" Business by Being More Proactive

Most of us accept the fact that what new business development success boils down to is what partners and team member do (or do not do) on a daily basis.

I just picked up a book (haven't read it yet) called "High Trust Selling" by Todd Duncan. I wasn't exactly in the market for another book on selling, but when I flipped through the book, in Chapter 7 under "To Build Your Business Up, You Must First Clean It Up" a section on proactivity had some items that resonated with me.

"Consider...the following dilemmas that arise from a 'messy' business," Duncan writes. He lists:

• If you can't find the time to do things right, when will you find the time to do things over?
• If you spend most of your time with clients who don't completely trust you, where will you find time to build high trust with the right clients?
• If you don't have time to call your clients back, how will you make time to talk when they call you?
• If you don't have time to make quality sales, does your quantity of sales really matter?

Perhaps it resonates because, in the professions, there exists a huge emphasis on time (and lack thereof) when it comes to being unable to consistently offer quality service (aka developing/securing existing business) or, especially, to develop new business.

Much has been said about most professionals having too many clients, in general. Considering the 80/20 rule (that 20% of your clients represent 80% of your profitability) doesn't it make great sense to trim back at least some of the 80% that drag that profitability level down while also sucking away your time needed to actually advance the business and do work that you enjoy?

If you won't fire those clients, or kindly offer to introduce them to your competitors, then consider transitioning them to up and comers in the firm who might bring renewed vigor to the relationship turning it around into a more profitable one.

Trends in Naming Firms: Deviating From Partner Names

As one in favor of being direct, I appreciate a business name that concisely articulates the purpose of the business. Maybe that's why I liked the name this CPA firm recently chose:

K2S - Knowledge to Solutions

In professional firm circles, discussion arises frequently about what to do with long firm names, especially those consisting of long-retired partners.

According to the press release about their name choice, the former McMahon, O'Polka, Guelcher and Associates said:

"Not only does this new name put the focus on what their business really is, it also has a degree of permanence to it. It will survive regardless of the names of the people who happen to be the owners now or in the future."

What Innovation *Really* Looks Like

Ron Baker got hammered last month in Accounting Today by a reader. He wrote an article about "Old Dogs/New Tricks" as it pertains to innovation in professional service firms. Not just pricing, but service innovation and more.

A reader took offense and called Ron, among other things, racist. What???? And "ageist." She posed that her situation, becoming a CPA at age 57, was an old dog, new trick. Sure. But it's not innovation. Not by a long shot.

To Ron's point, the professions are in dire need of a shake-up. Not just Ron's beloved pricing shake up, but all the things underlying pricing such as what merits value? What constitutes service? How do you inspire knowledge workers (lawyers, cpas, engineers, architects, and other creative "brain fed" professionals) to go above and beyond for customers AND the firms in which they work? 

Shoot, most of these highly intelligent, highly creative employees are bored to tears and that is largely because they work within environments where innovation is stifled, unbelievably, by the supposedly WISER senior professionals. (For a good and humorous read and examples of the "stifling" to which I refer, see Robin Jerauld's website.)

Well, the world it is a changing. Innovation is a critical component to the future success of the CPA industry. Not sure that it is as critical in law, law being so immersed and intertwined in other parts of business and life...we'll always need lawyers...but I digress.

What I really want to get at is that most of us who work in and consult within the professions do bang our heads against the wall at times (no offense to any of my beloved clients...) because of the high level of complacency that exists for "good enough" or, in the case of some firms, "almost good."

On Seth Godin's blog is a fabulous description of why those firms are stuck in their respective modes. He illustrates it (see graph) but you MUST go to his site to read his whole post. 

My favorite parts of his post are these:

Most people get stuck at the Local Max because changing strategy in any direction (this is really a 3D chart, but I've smushed it to make it easier) leads to poorer results.

You have 100 competitors in an industry that is self-described as a commodity. You use the same tactics your competition does, because if you change your pricing or fundamentally alter your marketing outreach, you get punished in terms of sales or profits.

If your market is changing, this idea is even more important to understand. That's because changing markets are always surfacing new Big Max points, and the only way to get to them is to go through the pain (yes, it's painful) of point C.

So where am I going with this?

Here it is: 

"Big Max" is the innovation you bring to your clients. AND your firm.

Innovative firms strategize on how to get through C and on to Big Max.

Added 11/10
I fear my point might not be clear enough.  What I mean is that most firms look like this:

People do things that don't make sense, or use processes that cause them shake their heads in wonder because when they question the wisdom or efficiency of the method, they are told: "Yeah, but just do it this way because...(pick one)":

1. That is the way we have always done things;
2. That is how we did it last year or
3. [insert partner's name] wants it that way

These are innovation killers. These firms will NEVER get past C until they untie those ropes of control and actually INVITE and ENCOURAGE the people who see potential "opportunities for betterment" to share their ideas for new and better ways to do things, serve customers, create new solutions.

Stifling creative people (aka knowledge workers) is business suicide.

So, sever the control ties, listen to your young people with an open mind, and don't panic and retreat back to B or A when you're in the "C" lull. Press forward with confidence because you have good stratgies and really damn smart people...if you'll just listen to them!