I’ve had a lot of wonderful mentors, teachers, professors, and leaders to emulate in my career. One of them tried very hard to teach me about bedside manner. I can’t claim to execute that perfectly every time, but I’m at least aware of the concept. I digress.
When a client comes to you with a legal problem, they don’t care about your most excellent victory at a motion hearing last week, that you were on the Law Review, or that you can recite a bunch of case names. Save that for a few drinks into a bar association meeting (if you absolutely must). It would be trite to say they “just want results.” What they want is solutions. Just like when you call a plumber, or go to a doctor.
How would you feel if you went to your plumber’s website and all they had all over it was articles about how the new pipes the Home Depot is going to start carrying are different and may not work, and you don’t show any confidence about being able to make them work, ever.
Would you hire that plumber? I might, if this was a really terrible situation that had no hope of solution. But I would probably feel more comfortable with the plumber that tells me that he is already working on ways to make the new pipes work, and even hopes to make lemonade out of the whole situation.
Sound familiar? If you’re reading this page, it should because it’s what a lot of legal marketing sounds like. New administration. New laws. New regulations. The sky is falling!!! What will we do!
I agree, and have long said, that change in laws makes it tougher on people trying to comply—the very people that are the good guys. Clarity is undervalued in our legislative and legal systems. But when I read 30 articles about the impending disaster of three executive orders, or volumes on a law that may or may not ever become law, I wonder whether this “shock and awe” marketing is sustainable. I mean, we are talking law firms here—they never fail as businesses, right? (Cough.)
Just my $0.02—confidence in your ability to see someone through a problem is a much better approach. I guess the problem is, you can’t blame “the system” if you don’t perform miracles.
