Golden Practices

Becoming a Better Speaker or Presenter

Even the best speakers agree there is always room for their own improvement. The rest of us know we can certainly do better.

It's wise to work on your presentation skills even if you don't formally address large groups. Many of us can benefit from becoming more effective and polished in the boardroom, too.

An excellent collection of speaking tips, Speaking as a Performing Art, is offered on Guy Kawasaki's blog. They were compiled by his friend who is a professional singer, music director and...speech coach.

He recommends how to stand to project your voice, how to keep your mouth moist, how to use your hands and how to use silence. Great stuff.

Enjoy the comments, too; one of which is:

One other recommendation I heard which helped me and can give you a boost of confidence before a presentation: remember that the audience is on your side and they want you to succeed. They want to experience a great presentation! Thinking of an audience that way, instead of thinking of them as a group of critics waiting to pounce on your first mistake, frees you up to embrace some of these tips above.

Professionals Get Publicity and Opportunity Through Blogs

We've mentioned it before as a by-product of a good blog, but it's becoming more and more prevalent.

News media, book publishers, and trade organization publishers are reading professional service firm blogs and like what they see. Accountants and lawyers are getting visibility they never anticipated.

Two accounting bloggers I know have been contacted by Wiley about working on books!

One is Tracy Coenen of Sequence Inc whose Fraud Files blog has been around for awhile and is excellent! She wrote me recently:

"Just wanted to let you know that all my blogging and marketing has paid off! I just got a contract with Wiley to write a book on fraud!

Who'da thunk that a little person like me would get a contract with a great big publisher for Wiley, for a book that I've not even written yet!!! The book is "Essentials of Corporate Fraud Management." It's geared for C-Level executives, attorneys, and other professionals who need quick knowledge on a particular topic.

I have been doing so much cool stuff. writing articles all over the place, getting involved in a high-profile investigation....business has never been better. (And has never been more fun too!)"

Another is Chris Laughton, a UK chartered accountant whose Insolvency blog is only a couple months old! With a born-on date of Nov, 2006, Chris' blog has already caught the attention of the reputable publisher.

Even for professionals who don't thrill at the idea of authoring a book, good blogs can garner solos, boutiques, or even big firms the attention and visibility needed to be a recognized expert on a subject of choice.

As Tracey Segarra of Citrin Cooperman reported in her comment to my recent post about her firm's SOX blog (that was recently halted), author Mike Rhodes received some excellent media attention.

"...his blog led him to being quoted as a corporate governance expert in many national media, including Reuters and Forbes.com.

Unfortunately, time constraints made it difficult for him to give the blog the time and energy he felt it needed to serve its mission as a clearinghouse of information related to corporate governance.

He is still regularly quoted in the media, and truly enjoyed the blogging experience."

This is real and exciting. Just a couple years ago, getting this kind of exposure and opportunity would not have been possible without spending many tens of thousands of dollars with a PR agency--or doing a LOT of legwork oneself.

Kevin O'Keefe (a recovering lawyer) of Seattle-based LexBlog (the blog development service for lawyers) wrote about the new phenomena in his post "Online newspaper journalists offer networking & PR opportunities to blogging lawyers."

"Over the years I've spent a lot of money for the services of PR professionals.

They were good folks with a tough job. First, while not working inside in my law firms and companies, they had to learn as much as possible about me and what made my firms tick. Second, while being pounded on to make an unknown famous overnight, they had to beg and borrow to get me an interview or the company a mention in the press. Third, they had to do it on a limited budget.

But we needed those PR professionals because they had the needed contacts in the press. And they, not us, knew how to communicate with the media.

With blogs and social networks, you, as a lawyer, have every opportunity to make contacts in the press. Plus with user generated content and email taking the formality out of communications, you're certainly capable of communicating with the press.

You also have a the growing advantage of the press coming to you - to your online community that is. Per Brian Chin, our Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Senior Online Producer, 3.5 percent of the journalists working in the newsrooms of American newspapers now work online full time. "That's 2,000 out of the 57,000 in the American Society of Newspaper Editors' 2007 newsroom census."

Practioners are better able to develop media relationships directly rather than through an agency. Through blogs, they can earn the respect and attention of high profile journalists simply by talking (blogging) to their target audience.

Further, through blogs, professionals can even bypass the cutting room floor, and get their message out to their target audience on their own terms. It's exciting stuff!

No, David Meerman Scott, Thank *You*

On May 10, book and blog author David Meerman Scott announced his new book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR, and thanked a list of people he credits with helping him in his quest to complete this book. He builds on Seth Godin's 19 Rules for Authors with his own offer of a 20th rule:

Thank everyone who helped you. Writing a book takes a lot of time and a great deal of work. Many people help you along the way. And you must thank them. The list that I created and added to my acknowledgments to thank the bloggers I read and others who helped me is long (163 names). But the people on this list were critical to my process.

I'm really honored to be among those David mentions in his thank you post about the full book because David's advice in his ebook "The new rules of PR: How to create a press release strategy for reaching buyers directly" has helped me so much and, in turn, has helped my clients and many people who have heard my presentations on building an effective electronic presence and capitalizing on using new media to accomplish traditional marketing objectives like public relations, David's specialty.

David, thank you for sharing your ideas so freely. I think you are both brilliant and generous.

I can't wait to read his new book on how to use news releases, blogs, podcasting, viral marketing and online media to reach buyers.

I'd also like to share the list of people David thanks because I've checked out quite a few and all those I've seen so far are fabulous bloggers:

Fluff = Annoying Marketing

I was talking yesterday with a cool 40-something chick who owns a large construction company. We were discussing marketing collateral....you know, the standard stuff that most businesses need: service or product write-ups and key person biographies.

We were talking about the stiff, formal approach that a lot of people use in these types of materials. That and the requisite buzzwords. We agreed that we both don't like either formal or buzzy.

It's funny because when we are hired to write this sort of material, we interview practitioners and draft what is usually buzzword and BS-free content. Sometimes, when people meet with us, though, or provide background info in writing, they attempt to craft what they perceive we are looking for. Invariably, they'll add a bunch of extra words between really important facts. These words, 90% of the time, are the fluffy buzzwords they think we're likely to want in there.

But when you talk to people of all generations--from the 20 year-olds who have no patience for the inauthentic, to the boomers who grew up on sit-coms with canned laughter and have been "pitched to" their whole lives as advertisers experimented with every medium of ad delivery--everyone is sick of being pitched. The BS filters are on and people turn off and tune out as soon as pitch is even slightly sensed.

Ahhh, I love to differentiate by keeping copy simple and and authentic. Fluff and buzzword free. If you're the same, you might get a kick out of this...

I read this first on David Meerman Scott's site Web Ink Now (a must read for PR and marketing people!). Check out his post The Gobbledygook Manifesto... and the rest of his blog, too.

I had bookmarked the above mentioned post to share with you back in Oct but even funnier, just today as I'm posting it, when I visited David's site to obtain the link, I see he posted about the topic again this week with: Attention PR People: Please Speak Like Human Beings.

It's a sad and telling thing---the fact that our accountant, wealth advisor, and lawyer clients try to "help" us, their marketing professionals, by delivering their experience and backgrounds wrapped in a thick layer of gobbledygook.

I'm with David Meerman Scott. I think we need to "undo" the perception fluffy is either necessary or desirable.

Good Writing. Bad Writing.

A great post on the Bad Language blog by Matthew Stibbe details what Matthew considers Seven Types of Bad Writing.

I think his 7 boo-boos nicely recap what professional service firms sites are particularly guilty of. (I, too, struggle with a couple of these.)

He writes:

What comes out of most companies is bad. In my experience there are seven types of bad writing:

1. Thinks too much of itself. The UK satirical magazine, Private Eye runs a regular column lampooning the abuse of the word ‘solution.’ For example, Dow Corning’s “Innovative solutions for wound management,” which means “bandages.” This kind of word inflation devalues meaning and arouses the scepticism of readers.
2. Is too clever by half. For some reason, people are afraid to write how they speak. They want to sound big, grown-up and clever. So they use big words and long sentences. For example, I was presented with this beauty at a school board meeting once: “the Governing Body are agreeing this budget as the financial mechanism to support the education priorities of the school as identified in the School Development Plan and will adhere to the best value principles in spending its school funding allocation.” It meant, “We approve the budget.”
3. Gets hyped up. Press releases often include frankenquotes. These are made-up quotations that bear no resemblance to normal speech. For example: “Nortel has established a legacy in innovation and will continue to push the envelope…” Try saying that in a pub to your friends. See if they still listen to you afterwards. Or trust you.
4. Tells lies. In the UK, journalists score low in public trust. Somewhere near politicians and spin doctors. However, good journalists are obsessive about research, accuracy, good reporting, details and, yes, truth. What works for newspaper stories also works for business communication.
5. Ignores the reader. As a writer, the greatest skill is to think about what the reader needs to hear, not what you need to say. It takes an imaginative leap. For example, Google says “Please read this carefully, it’s not the usual yada, yada.” Microsoft says “This software is licensed under the agreement below.” Which one is more likely to be read?
6. Needs to go on a diet. Most writing can be improved by liposuction. Consider the Gettysburg Address. Antoine de Saint-Exupery said it best: “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” This is especially true when writing for the web, when you need to cut the word count by about 50 percent.
7. Has no direction. My favourite tutor at Oxford told me that I had to take my essays and drive them like Ayrton Senna (a famous racing driver). Good writing has a strong purpose. Bad writing has either no direction or has too many.

In fact, Matthew has an entire CATEGORY on bad writing!!

Hat tip to Dan Hull at What About Clients? for directing readers to Matthew's excellent blog (in a September post that I saved and finally went back to!!)

Killer Powerpoint

Sorry for any confusion...that's "killer" the good way...the way we used to use the word growing up in Southern California. The way that, if I say it now, my kids look at me like I'm a total dork (same goes for "gnarly" "rad" or "stylin'"). I think they use "phat" now, and "sick" to mean, essentially, the same thing. Yeah, like those terms are any better...  :-)

Back to the point of the post, Seth Godin is recycling a previous article about being effective with electronic presentations. With "Really Bad Powerpoint" he is trying to save the world from bad use of a potentially cool tool. His post is a great read. In it, his main points are:

• Communication is the transfer of emotion....If all you want to do is create a file of facts and figures, then cancel the meeting and send in a report.
• If you believe in your idea, sell it....Your audience will thank you for it, because deep down, we all want to be sold.

Four tips for success:

1. Make cue cards (don't use the slides for this)
2. Create slides that demonstrate, with emotional proof (pictures), that what you’re saying is true not just accurate.
3. Create a leave-behind document as the proof that helps the intellectuals in your audience accept the idea that you’ve sold them on emotionally.
4. Create a feedback cycle to determine, "Did you sell people on your idea?"

And he finishes off with 5 rules to remember. The first is (gulp) "no more than 6 words on a slide"!

Egads, I'd better go change the two presentations I'm giving in the next 7 days!! I'll let you know how well it goes.

(See, also, Guy Kawasaki's "best of" post on the subject called The 10/20/30 Rule of Powerpoint)

Working Globally

Pam says, "It's not 'political correctness,' it's courtesy." and she's right.

Knowledge of multi-cultural business and social etiquette is increasing in necessity. Living in such an electronically connected time, when even telephone access to the farthest reaches of the world are reasonable (or free with Skype! gotta love Skype...). Even I hardly go a day without speaking to or corresponding with someone from another hemisphere (and that doesn't include blogging).

Pam authors Escape from Cubicle Nation and she has a terrific post with insights about consideration of non-US cultures. After enjoying her post, be sure to read her post comments. They are laced with even more ideas and points--definitely worthy of reading.

After that, you might enjoy my prior posting: Doing Business Abroad: Need to Know Etiquette. The post is over a year old and still gets very high readership. In it, I link you to resources for tips by country.

Special hat tip to Rob Millard who's post about Pam's led me to catch up on her blog in my aggregator! 

About That "Trusted Advisor" Goal...

I'm thrilled with Charlie Green's post, "Bad Marketing 101: Trust Me!" in which he writes:

...“trusted advisor” is something you want others to say about you, not say it yourself.  You can talk about it amongst yourselves, hope for it—but not proclaim it.

Saying you are, or want to be, someone’s trusted advisor, is like saying you are, or want to be, really humble.

His post is SO right on. "We are qualified to be your trusted advisor" (or similar) is one of the most annoying promises that I see on professional firm websites and in collateral materials. Besides being quite presumptuous (who says you know what I want in an advisor, and what I deem worthy of trust?) it is so commonly stated that it's now cliche.

Charlie, by the way, co-authored with David Maister, THE book on the subject, The Trusted Advisor, agrees it is an inappropriate claim in one's marketing materials. Thank you Charlie!

In his post, he says he googled "to be your trusted advisor" and it generated over 31,000 results. He opines:

Trust is personal—an outcome, not a come-on. On a first date, asking for either sex or for a very long-term relationship is likely to get you neither. “Trust me” is the business version—socially inappropriate, especially on the “first date” equivalent of the internet.

It's very similar to what I wrote in "Please Don't Put This on Your Website" when I recommended against staking a claim to be a future client's "partner" in their business. I wrote not to say:

"We partner with you…"

...This is a status you earn with a long-term client or it may be a role you are invited to act within for a new client. Either way, It's not something you promise to the general public.

The same with the trusted advisor thing. (My original post lists more things to avoid...)

I couldn't agree more with Charlie's post. Be sure to read his blog post comments, too.

Some Clients Don't Want You to "Give the Answer"

In a brilliant and thought-provoking post, Jack Vinson of Knowledge Jolt from Jack writes:

I've been learning in my consulting practice that when I come across as "having the answer" I never get as far as I do when I offer a suggestion (that I think will work), and ask my clients why it won't work.  There are a variety of questions I could ask along these lines, but they all center around surfacing obstacles and unintended consequences of the idea.  And, conveniently, when I bring other people into the conversation, I usually get a better solution in the end. 

He shares this astute observation after reading and citing a post from Bruce MacEwen's blog. I urge you to read Jack's full post that links to Bruce's.

On a separate note...IT'S A VERY SMALL WORLD

(feel free to skip this story...)
I discovered Jack's post through a very pleasant coincidence. It really IS a small world. I met Jack Vinson at Matt Homann's and Dennis Kennedy's BlawgThink! just over a year ago. Always thought a lot of Jack's blog but admit I haven't been keeping up with it (or most of my RSS feeds lately).

What's really weird is that I just got back from a facilitation conference in Australia (one of only two Americans there). An Aussie from the conference, Andrew Rixon, requested participation in an on-line survey on some deep facilitation stuff. On clicking "done" I was forwarded to a blog called Anecdotes. (This is totally weird because I hadn't met any facilitators through IAF--Int'l Assoc of Facilitators--yet who blogged or knew much about blogs!)

The very first post I see, Stop Trying to Solve the Problem, references Jack and Bruce, two names I know well from the legal blog side and would never in a million years expect to come across in my facilitation circles--a very separate world for me from my legal and accounting side. Isn't this huge world small indeed?

Well, just goes to show, brilliant thinking is appreciated and it gets around! Good to bump into you again, Jack. What an unexpected way to do it.

Please Don't Leave the Etiquette Out of Your "E"

The delightful Gerry Riskin has a wonderfully pointed post on his blog about E-mail manners and the cost of poor ones. He emphasizes that:

You work so hard to attract and satisfy clients – make sure your emails are not crafted in a manner that undermines your good efforts.

In "Bad email etiquette can send client relations plummeting," Gerry discusses a NY Times article:

Here’s a quote from an article called ‘Yours Truly,’ the E-Variations in today’s New York Times:

Many e-mail users don’t bother with a sign-off, and Letitia Baldridge, the manners expert, finds that annoying. “It’s so abrupt,” she said, “and it’s very unfriendly. We need grace in our lives, and I’m not talking about heavenly grace. I’m talking about human grace. We should try and be warm and friendly.”

I will add that many do not add a “sign on” like “I hope this finds you well” or “It was nice seeing you at the conference. You will recall that I promised to send you a…” or even, “I hope you are having a pleasant day in San Francisco.”

See Gerry's post for a link to a quick e-mail etiquette test.

Gerry's points are very valid and they pertain to internal communications as well. There seems to be a little more tolerance when corresponding via a handheld device...I suppose that's why many people have the little "sent by Blackberry" or "...Treo" message that appends their curtly thumbed notes.

Another rudeness that Gerry's post makes me think of are abruptly ended phone calls. The failure to say "good-bye," or even "thanks," and simply ending a call by dropping the phone onto its base--often loudly--is more common with lawyers than accountants. And it happens a lot...usually by men.

When did people become too busy (or important?) to say "Good-bye," "Hello," or "Be Well"?

How Do You Define Proactive?

The other day, a firm's on-hold message told me:

"We provide proactive solutions anytime you have a question."

Uh, okay...

Lawyer Ad Rules and Blogs

Absolutely ridiculous! NY courts, through state ethics restrictions, are trying to impose a huge "Advertisement" label on legal blogs and ALL electronic communications by or about lawyers.

"This blog is false and misleading (in New York)" Read the post and note, at the bottom, that NY is accepting comments on their proposed changes in rules until Nov 15.

Another case of lawyers who don't "do" marketing and communications trying to stop those who do.

I know the late night ads, radio ads with sports figures, and the "we'll get 'em" yellow-pages ads all embarrass more traditional attorneys. But the way to fight it is not through Court restrictions, it's through demonstrating how you're different.

Those fighting blogs and the very essence of communication should recognize how effective these activities ARE at demonstrating that very difference.

Those who "don't" always jump in when they see marketing techniques that work. The good news is that it appears the verdict is in: lawyer blogs are effective and are posing some level of threat to lawyers who just won't market at all.

B2B Blogs to Become as Mainstream as Websites

While blogs are still considered a “consumer” trend, it’s only a matter of time before B2B blogs become as mainstream as Websites — once management understands their power and effectiveness.

This statement from Dianna Huff's B2B MarCom Writer blog in her post "David Scott is spot on about the power of blogs."

This is a "projection" that CPA and law firms--and many of their marketers--are struggling to accept. But it's not just the professional service firm audience. There were plenty of skeptics at the recent presentation we did for Int'l Assoc of Business Communicators, too.

And it's understandable. Dianna Huff, herself, admits having been skeptical of their value too, especially in PR. At all of the presentations we've been doing about the use of RSS related to PR and marketing, we have referred to David Meerman Scott's "New Rules of PR"  (see download in his sidebar).

Dianna says she didn't buy David's theories in their entirety. But now she does. Check out her post and David's e-book.

Commas And Lawyers

Most lawyers are pretty darn good writers. They have to be. Apparently a bad writing day for the counsel of Rogers Communications, Inc., though...

One misplaced comma in a 14-page contract cost the company $2.13 million.

Who says punctuation and grammar aren't important?

Hat tip to Diana Huff at the MarCom Writer Blog.

What B2B Sites Can Learn From B2C Sites

B2B gives "bad web"? Yep. Especially when compared to B2C sites.

A great post by Anita Campbell on her Selling to Small Business blog (fantastic to follow if small biz is a market of yours) references Jakob Nielsen's (expert on web content and usability) assertions (emphasis mine):

"Many business-to-business (B2B) sites are stuck in the 1990s in their attitude toward the user experience.

Most B2B sites emphasize internally focused design, fail to answer customers' main questions or concerns, and block prospects' paths as they search for companies to place on their shortlists.

These sites haven't realized that the Web has reversed the company-customer relationship. Most online interactions are demand-driven: you either give people what they want or watch as they abandon your site for the competition's....

Considering that there's immensely more money at stake for B2B than for business-to-consumer (B2C), it's astounding that B2B sites offer a much worse user experience."

I couldn't agree more. Lack of clarity, lack of interesting information, and lack of direction (i.e. "where do I go next?") render most professional service firm sites useless.

Campbell picked up Nielsen's research findings from Dianna Huff, author of the Marcom Writer Blog (another great resource, especially for marketing professionals). Here, Huff emphasizes the need for stronger content and "best practices" with regard to navigation.

One thing I see repeatedly with B2B sites is lack of content. “Our Website is our online brochure,” business people will say to me with regard to a five or six-page site. Unfortunately, people don’t view Websites the way they view a 6-8 page glossy color brochure....And, when was the last time a prospect made a buying decision based on a brochure?

B2B sites must also support the decision/buying process for each person in the buying cycle — whether influencer or decision maker.

Jakob Nielsen's research is discussed in his June 1, 2006 Alertbox. The free portion of his in-depth report includes this key point about a perception mistake made by B2B orgs (again, emphasis mine):

One of the biggest differences between B2B and B2C might be that most B2B companies don't seem to see themselves as engaged in e-commerce. Perhaps this is because most B2B sites don't have shopping carts. The typical B2B product can't be purchased through a simple Add to cart button...also prices might not be fixed, but rather adjusted to each customer.

However, the lack of an Add to cart button doesn't mean that B2B vendors should ignore their websites. The site should still support the many other stages of the buying process — including the post-sales stages, which are crucial to customers' long-term brand loyalty.

Nielsen makes some other statements that answer some common questions firms ask. I've framed the questions and inserted, as indented text, his statements.

Why is "free" information (whitepapers, articles, blogs) essential?

Most important, B2B sites can be great lead generators. Prospects use websites during their initial research and stick with the helpful sites during subsequent research.

...research and multi-criteria decision-making dominate the B2B user experience. B2B sites must provide a much wider range of information than what's common in B2C. A B2B site has to offer simple facts that are easily and quickly understood by an early prospect who's just looking around to see what's available. It must also offer in-depth white papers and information....

Why are brochure sites (without detailed information) a problem?

Most of our users also said that when they were thinking of doing business with a company, one of their first actions was to check out its website. Thus, a site that inadequately communicates the credibility of a vendor and its products can seriously deter incoming leads -- long before your official sales efforts begin.

What is the worst mistake B2B sites make?

The most user-hostile element of most B2B sites is a complete lack of pricing information. And yet, when we asked users to prioritize which of 28 types of B2B site information mattered most to them, prices scored the highest by far (29% higher than product availability, which ranked second).

Sites have many excuses for not wanting to display prices, but they are just that: excuses. Users expect to get a basic understanding of products and services during their initial research, and they can't do that without some idea of what it's going to cost. Even if your company can't list exact prices, there are several ways to indicate price level, which is really all people need initially.

Interesting find! Remember, though, readers look at sites to qualify possible solutions.

As such, budget is usually a major consideration. Yet finding pricing info on a site is nearly unheard of! Even if firms cannot abide by putting prices on their sites, recognize that discussing unique pricing strategies is one of the greatest differentiators that you can offer:

• how you price, for example www.exemplarlaw.com touts "no hourly bill, no hourly bull"
• price point, some firms like to be the low cost leader, others are proud to be high-priced and claim they offer value appropriate for their price
• unique payment terms, do you spread payments out for clients?

One thing is apparent. If readers cannot find what they need, they may never call and you may never know what you've missed.

Perhaps the most alarming of Nielsen's findings:

One reason so many B2B sites have poor usability might be because they're less directly accountable for sales. On a classic B2C e-commerce site, every single design decision directly and measurably affects the site's conversion rate and other metrics, such as the average shopping cart size. Many B2C sites are religious in their observance of e-commerce usability guidelines because they know from their own statistics how much money they lose every time they get usability wrong.

In contrast, because B2B sites don't close sales online, they can turn away the vast majority of users and never know how many sales they've lost. A company can determine how its site helps or hinders users only by conducting user research with representative customers -- something most companies don't do. Given our experiences in testing 179 B2B sites, we can safely predict that most companies would be shocked if they ever tested their own sites.

Fly on The Wall #2: If Internal Communication is Poor, Can You Still Have a "Great Culture"?

"We have a unique and special culture here at our firm," the principal told me. And, in fact, they do. No, really.

• The work hours aren't super high (compared to industry averages).
• The people treat each other with respect (most of the time).
• They operate as a business and not "silo" practices.
• They have all the requisite "fun" events and even enjoy horsing around in the office sometimes.
• The pay is pretty decent (though definitely lower than the local Big firms). (Actually, the firm is finding it quite a strain to even try to keep up with rapidly escalating salaries.)

Despite that somewhat lower pay, most people stay because they believe the culture is quite a bit better than a lot of other places.

As a result, a few years back, the firm's owners started talking about that great culture. A lot. In recruiting. In marketing. And to each other. They wear it like a badge. A shield.

But taking their positive culture for granted is very dangerous.

When owners believe their firm is "all that" with regard to culture, they tend to behave as though they don't need to keep working at it. (hmmm, reminds me of a lot of marriages...)

Firm culture, like a happy marriage, is not static. Enough withdrawals from the "emotional bank account" of either will erode a positive situation.

This "fly on the wall" will share some of the culture impairing blunders committed by firms who think they are "there" when it comes to their culture--but who are slowly undermining their great culture with these behaviors.

Most of these problems involve failure to communicate personally with people about important things such as:

#1 - Notifying people by memo or e-mail about their colleague, even manager, having been "let go"

#2 - Relying on the informal gossip chain to replace formal presentations of "state of the firm" or goals, visions, and other important news or changes

#3 - "Leakage" of preliminary information (often by owners to select team members) about pending policies, pending raises or bonuses, or other critical economic information, such that a mention or two to friends means pretty soon the whole firm "knows" -- often it isn't even final so the info may be wrong(!)

#4 - Rolling out new programs or policies by memo or e-mail with no formal presentation to personally introduce it, frame it with appropriate background information, answer questions, and create enthusiasm

#5 - Not telling people (hopefully publicly!) that they have done a great job

#6 - Not telling people privately AND constructively how they could do something better

#7 - Telling people anything personal, corrective, or negative by e-mail (and cc'ing others is a very, very bad idea)

I hear and see so many instances of these types of things from non-owner professionals and, while they also talk about the benefits of their culture, they are strongly aware that their culture sure isn't "all that."

In fact, they are reminded of it each time someone goes on and on about the firm's great culture. That's when their eyes start rolling.

Make sure eyes aren't rolling in your "great firm."  If they are, be sure to do a reality check to see if your firm is sending mixed messages, not practicing what you preach, or not living up to the values you state that you hold.

APPENDED 6:50pm:

Wow, Allison Shields of the Legal Ease Blog just posted a handful of great additions to the 7 items above. Other additions are welcome, too, our lists are certainly not exhaustive. If you blog with new items, please be sure to post a trackback here and on Allison's blog so people can find them!!  Thanks Allison. Very strong additions, indeed.

Selling and Listening and Meeting With Clients, part 367

If I were half as eloquent as Gerry Riskin, I would have posted his comments (reflected on the Law Firm Business Development blog) on my blog yesterday, instead of this.

NOTE: Accountants, please substitute "CPAs/accounting" for "lawyers/law" as you read.

Gerry discusses his perspective of client visits comparing it to the Womble Carlyle sales campaign approach. Of the views of Steven Bell (of Womble) and himself, he writes (emphasis mine):

Both of us are well aware that top rainmakers in blue chip law firms report that they rarely visit a client’s place of business without growing existing work or getting new work. Both of us agree that this is a desirable consequence of client visitations. The key issue is whether selling ought to be the focus of the visit....

Few lawyers understand their clients’ businesses or industries as well as the clients would like and we agree that this is a critical objective for the visit.

The delicate question is this: What is the appropriate reaction in a client visitation when it becomes obvious that there is a legal need that your firm is not currently fulfilling. My view is that the primary purpose of the visit must not be abandoned (or appear to be abandoned). At the same time I agree completely with Steven Bell that the doctor must help the patient. I don’t believe that Steven is advocating throwing the patient onto the gurney and tossing our note pads into the trash. I used the word “delicate” because there is some judgment to be exercised here.

How can we be appropriately responsive to the need without being unfaithful to the primary purpose of the visit. I can think of several possibilities:

• Briefly defer the discussion of the legal matter to a follow up with the lawyer(s) who are best equipped to attract the work and do it with quality.
• With the client’s blessing, allow a digression from the meeting’s agenda to address the problem or opportunity at hand but be disciplined enough to return to the original agenda.
• There may be different and perhaps unforeseeable options which make sense in the context of a particular meeting. The visiting lawyer(s) must have the discretion to exercise appropriate judgment and make the best choices in the circumstances.

This is excellent advice and Gerry hits the nail on the head. I particularly agree with his statement that:

Perhaps what I have described here is indeed selling at the highest level

Enjoy the rest of Gerry's comments within which there are many pearls of wisdom.

Further on this subject is an excellent comment (scroll down on the page) by Robert Millard (another Edge International guy with a fantastic blog) made on Jim Hassett's post that I referenced yesterday.

These discussions, by the way--the whole thread of the purpose of client interviews--has engaged many lawyers and consultants (including Patrick Lamb, Dan Hull, Tom Kane, and more) for the past couple of months. It is nicely recapped on Jim Hassett's blog.

It's Not Busy Season, It's "Prime Time"

In accounting firms, the term "busy season" is synonymous with the period of January to mid-April.

These are the months when professionals talk to clients, referral sources, friends, family, and sometimes just about anybody who will listen, about being swamped, exhausted and "really crazy" right now.

Some professionals are good about not complaining, but you may not know because you simply cannot reach them or get them to call or e-mail you back!

That the firm -- or at least the individual -- is at or above maximum capacity** is a dangerous message to send.

There's a difference between healthy-busy and out-of-control busy. I'm talking about the latter. When winter pallor, dark circles under the eyes, and a shortage of cheerfulness accompany the complaints or lack of responsiveness, it's a real marketing problem.

Clients think, "wow, hope they will find time to take care of me..." or, "hope they don't make a mistake due to haste..."  Worse, they may also decide, "I'm not going to refer anyone because then they really won't have time for me."

Another problem with voicing the complaint about the excessive hours for these 3-and-a-half months is that the business owners they are talking to work excessive hours, too, but do so all year around and have little sympathy for their counterparts who enjoy much slower hours through the summer months.

For many years, marketers have worked hard to encourage their CPAs to remember that, while facing their most intense workload in these months, they simultaneously face their peak opportunity to interact with their clients and remind them of the many ways they can assist them.

CPA firm marketers dislike the term "busy season" because it sets the wrong tone--even when it's just used internally. It reinforces anti-marketing mentality at the very worst time.

But Goodman & Co.'s marketer, Dan McComas, says his firm coined the term "Prime Time" to describe these active months. The firm held an internal contest to come up with a less off-putting term than "busy season."

Their winning term is excellent: Prime Time is a simple yet solid reminder that people must perform at their very best to stay accessible, friendly, and helpful.

Prime Time is when you and your firm are most visible of all. Don't use it to tell the world you are over-worked and have no room left to serve clients. As they say, "never let 'em see you sweat."

The smartest firms use Prime Time to demonstrate that their service and attitude is so great, clients & referral sources should want to refer all their associates.

**Most firms ARE seriously above capacity regarding smaller tax return clients and far too many still do returns at prices lower than H&R Block. Firms I talk to know some of these clients should be shed, but are reluctant to do anything about it. Meanwhile, firms wear employees down, weaken morale, and observe "turnover" season just after April 15.

This observer recommends there are important choices to be made about which work is most important and which work firms cannot afford to keep if employee retention problems are to be corrected in firms.

WSJ: Blogs Reshaping Law Review

An important story was featured by Kevin O'Keefe discussing the impact that lawyers and law professors using the Internet to broadcast legal trends and opinions is having on traditional (print) law reviews.

He references "Law Reviews Adapt to New Era" posted by WSJ online.

Both of the above posts deserve attention. They validate both the practical application and marketing merit of blogging in the professions.

Golden Practices Blog Posts are Available by E-mail Now

Never miss a post again! :-)

If you like this blog but don't "do" RSS (i.e. have it fed into an aggregator like Bloglines), then maybe you'd like to sign up (look-y to the left of the page) to receive a single e-mail on the days that I make any new posts.

Don't worry, I only post about 10 or so times per month...you won't get e-mails every day. And I'll never spam you, I promise.

I use FeedBlitz--it's one of many good ways to distribute your content by e-mail to those who aren't technogeek blog-aggregating freaks (present company included). In fact, if you work in a firm that disseminates e-newsletters, you might be a lot better off utilizing blog technology (from your own website) to simultaneously post your news to your site and enable its distribution via both RSS & e-mail, however your readers choose...  And you can do away with those costly e-mail services. It's instant, it's easy, and it is inexpensive or even free.

If you haven't yet, you oughtta look into it. Could free up some room in your marketing budget for the really cool stuff you've been wishing you had the money to do...

Doing Business Abroad: Need-to-Know Etiquette

Here is a great resource for cultural tips including do's, don'ts and even appropriate attire:

http://www.cyborlink.com/besite/  scroll down to view by country

Why is this important? Cultural understanding can be the difference between success or failure in a business dealing.

As an American--

...do you know which cultures consider it entirely inappropriate or rude for men to stand with their hand in their pocket?

...do you know how to show proper respect, rather ceremoniously, in the exchange of business cards with a Japanese person?

...do you know which cultures frown upon women wearing slacks or crossing their legs?

...are you conscious of ensuring no one can see the bottoms of your shoes in Russian or Saudi Arabian cultures?

Learn how and when to present a gift--and when not to, how to behave in public, tips as to how decisions are made, what to expect as far as eye contact and body language, and much more.

This other site offers a handful of examples of multi-cultural business situations gone bad, and why.

Effective Communications: 5 Tips for Writing in the 2000's

These days, to capture someone's attention and make your point, you don't have much time.

Given the rising demands found in conducting business in "real-time" today, we are becoming a rather attention deficit society. Business owners and professional service providers, take heed. This applies to you, too.

Whether writing an internal memo, correspondence with a customer, an article (non-academic type) or copy for a marketing initiative, or even a blog, there are new standards for writing these days.

5 EASY TIPS:

1. Sentence Length.  Average sentence length should be less than 14 words. The shorter the opening sentence, the better...8-10 words is really good. (oops, I went over...thanks for sticking with me anyway, tho)
2. Paragraph Length. Aim for less than 6 lines of text and/or a max of 3 sentences in a paragraph, just 2 if one of the sentences is pretty long.
3. Reverse Your Order. State your point right off, don't leave it for the finale. Most people will never get there. The way we were taught to write in school--with our conclusion at the end--doesn't work anymore.
4. Break it Up! Separate sentences to emphasize them and give the reader's eye a white-space break. It's okay to continue/substantiate a point in the next paragraph.
5. KISS. Apply the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid (no offense...). Use the smallest words possible to make your point such as "use" vs. "utilize." Don't put your readers to sleep with long strings of long words...it makes them work too hard.

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.

How to Effectively Communicate Your Marketing Message

So much of marketing is deciding and articulating the messages each of your unique markets will respond to.

In our firm, we write gobs and gobs of copy. Often it is to replace or rewrite what law, CPA and other financial advisory firms have already prepared.

What's wrong with most firms' website, brochure, or ad language?

Well, a lot. Usually it's predictable, dull, pointless, far too verbose, and often it lacks any call to action. Most firms just have a terrible time figuring out what to say and then how to say it well.

My advice? Read the stuff below and/or hire a copywriter. If a copywriter is outside of your budget, at least hire a great editor who knows how to help you get your points across more effectively.

Harry Joiner posted top copywriter Alan Rosenspan's 10 Rules for Writing More Effective Copy. This is such a great list, I had to repeat it. Here's what Alan advises:

1)  Start with your most important benefit.  Many copywriters hem and haw, and metaphorically clear their throat before they tell you what's important. Or worse, they save it for the end - like the punchline of a joke. Would any newspaper survive doing that - or do they give you the most dramatic story right in the headline?

2)  Write like you talk. That's how people like to read. Even if you are writing to the most educated target market - keep it simple. The best test of writing is how it sounds when you read it out loud. I came across an ad for a cologne that read, "The incarnation of the masculine duality interpreted with humor." Try reading that out loud with a straight face.

3)  Include ideas and information.  Some writing feels like biting into a marshmallow - there's nothing to grab hold of and chew. Don't try to impress me with your writing, your knowledge or how clever you are. Give me an idea, a fact, a nugget of information in each paragraph. Otherwise, I won't continue reading.

4)  Short words and sentences work.  Not sure why. Makes it easy to read. Worth testing.

5)  Long letters work, too.  If you really want to know what works in direct marketing - study those who live and die by it. If IBM's direct mail doesn't work - IBM will still grow and prosper. But if Save the Children's direct mail doesn't work... That's why so many non-profits and mail-order companies use 2, 4, 8 and even 24-page letters. They work.

6)  Connect the dots.  When you use words like "And" or "But" to begin a sentence, you may be using poor grammar. But you're also leading the reader from sentence to sentence ... connecting the ideas ... and coaxing them to read on. And it works.

7)  Ask provocative questions.  It's one of the best ways to get attention. Our direct mail letter for Scott's LawnService started with "What's wrong with your lawn?" It won a Gold Echo and created over $28 million worth of additional business.

8)  Write something that's never been written before.  Travel writing is the worst example of this - every destination is invariably "a study in contrasts." Every business has their share of jargon and specific terms. Try to replace them with something new and refreshing.

9)  Tell me a story.  Before there was copywriting, before there were hieroglyphics - people communicated by telling stories. Children love them, and so do we.  We want to know what happened, then what happened next, and how did it end? If you tell interesting stories in your copy, you will always be successful. The famous package for the Wall Street Journal is a perfect example. It's not about the newspaper - it's the story of two young men.

10)  Rewrite for success.  The best writing looks almost effortless. As if the phrases and sentences flew magically onto the page. But aren't you a little too old to believe in magic? Good writing is hard work. It involves an enormous amount of preparation and research, so you know what you are writing about. And then it involves getting it all down onto paper in a coherent and compelling manner. There are no shortcuts.

Another great list of Alan's is 12 Marketing Techniques he's used.

They're all great ideas, but most important for professional service firms to heed are these three:
3. Show your product in use.
9. Address a barrier
12. Here’s the one to avoid

In fact, Alan's whole site is packed with great information. Check it out!