|
 By Stephen Ruben, a
practicing lawyer and President of Valuelaw Consulting Inc. in
Toronto. Stephen can be reached at
212.255.2989, stephen.ruben@valuelaw.com and
www.valuelaw.com.
How does a marketer get respect in a law
firm? According to a
panel of experts it starts out with support from the top and comes down to knowing
what value your firm perceives from your role. Marketers then must
determine whether they possess the right skills and enthusiasm to
fulfill the firm’s mandate -- or else look for respect elsewhere.
The
experts spoke at a recent Web seminar "Respect: Earn it Keep It and
Advance Your Career” sponsored by Law Journal Newsletter's Marketing The Law Firm
newsletter and moderated by its Editor-in-Chief,
Elizabeth Anne "Betiayn" Tursi. The panel included:
·
Aurora Cassirer, Managing Partner,
Jenkens & Gilchrist Parker Chapin
LLP
·
John C. Feldkamp, Executive Director,
New
York
office, Sidley Austin Brown & Wood LLP
·
David Geyer, Chief Marketing Officer, Orrick,
Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
·
Allan Whitescarver, Director of
Communications, Clifford Chance
My biases are that I love lunch
Webinars. I eat light
don’t waste any part of the day and get juiced for the rest of the
day. I’m also a
relative rookie. I’m
not jaded and enjoy learning what others may find second
nature. So I attended
the program with enthusiasm and with my favorite chewed pencil and
paper at hand.
Managing partner value
marketing
 Aurora Cassirer, Managing Partner at Jenkins &
Gilchrist, Parker Chapin LLP emphasized the importance of having the
Managing Partner to recognize the value of marketing in order for
marketing to be a successful component to the firm’s business
development success. Management must be a voice for marketing
internally to get others to understand and utilizes the services of
the marketing department.
In her opinion, the marketing department
is less of a hype machine and more of a communicator both externally
-- communicating the competencies and abilities of practice groups
-- and internally -- as the integrator of information to be
communicated throughout the firm and between working groups in
different cities. She also saw the marketing department as a
research arm, ferreting out prospective clients. At her firm,
marketers play an important role in responding to RFPs as
well.
Cassirer suggested that to gain respect
in a firm a marketer must have both the recognition and support of
management. But more
importantly, a marketer must be able to determine the perceived role that marketing plays
within the firm. There
is little value in hoping to gain respect if a marketer's perception
of the role of the marketing department differs greatly from that of
the partners.
Marketer must get client revenue
info
 John Feldkamp, the Executive Director of the
New
York
office of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, said that the Marketing
director has to be provided with the necessary information to make
marketing worthwhile.
Unlike other more secretive firms, his firm provides his
Marketing Director with useful client revenue information to help
the marketing department do their research. Feldkamp ensures that the
marketing staff are aware of individual partner’s practices and not
just the practice group. The Marketing Director at Sidley,
Austin is fully apprised of and a participates
in all of the firm’s strategic initiatives.
Feldkamp believes that the principal
responsibility of the Marketing Director is to enhance the practice
of individual partners. Ultimately the Marketing Department’s
measure of success is the extent to which they support the firm and
avoid personal agendas.
Another basic lesson in earning respect:
Ten ways to earn
respect
Allan Whitescarver described ten ways a
marketer can earn respect and advance their
careers:
- Get out from behind your desk
-- develop personal
relationships and not just email and phone
contacts.
- Learn the culture -- know who does and doesn’t wield
influence.
- Master the economics -- Know how to read a profit
and loss statement, and which key numbers and ratios are the
firm's economic drivers.
- Shape and mange your internal brand
image – sell yourself
internally; communicate successes.
- Bring the respect of others from
outside the firm –
your external reputation matters internally.
-
 Hire top staff and make sure they succeed loudly
– let the firm know of
your successes and how the firm benefits from
them.
- Be honest – you’re not perfect you don’t have
experience and knowledge in every possible aspect of
marketing. Know when
to say that you don’t know and that you need outside help or
consultation. Being
able to share your limitations can be a sign of
self-confidence.
- Say no – Occasionally you’ll be invited to
spend a lot of time on a pet project of a partner, e.g. a new hire
that you have determined is not a productive use of your time nor
consistent with your mandate. Have the courage to turn
down an assignment.
- Treat Partners as peers
– Don’t be deferential. You
are a professional peer of lawyers; you bring to the table
valuable skills, insight, ethics, professionalism and
knowledge. Be
respectful, but don’t suck up
- Create partner champions and help them
promote you – Exchange
help and counsel with them and ask for their help in championing
marketing and yourself.
Three roles of
marketing
David Geyer discussed the roles and
functions of the marketing department and marketing personnel. Geyer
asserted that the three main roles of marketing are
to:
·
Build brand awareness through
advertising and media communications to gain consideration
implemented
·
Use direct contact initiatives,
conferences and events to establish
relationships
·
Assist in closing business by
developing the new-business pitch
procedure.
He provided a chart outlining the roles
and functions of the marketing department:
The chart
poses a challenge to a marking director to determine in which of
these activities is the marketing department engaged. Marketers may have some but
not all of the listed roles, and they should determine which new
roles and functions are suited to their abilities and more likely to
generate the respect we seek.
  Betiayn Tursi, Editor of Marketing the
Law Firm, focusing on how to have good work recognized
appropriately. She advised marketers to promote one's marketing
triumphs without being crassly self-serving by emphasizing how the
marketing efforts have benefited the firm. She encouraged marketers to
view partners as clients, and to sell them on what marketing is
doing and its benefits.
Tursi encouraged marketers to be their
own public relations department. She said marketers should
communicate successes -- an important component of achieving respect
– by sending regular email communications, publishing a regular
CMO/Marketing Director journal or newsletters, and making a
quarterly presentation to the firm's owners -- on where the firm's
marketing has been where it is going.
Tursi said her pet peeve was hearing
management demands for measurable ROI on marketing dollars. She said it should be
obvious that a return on the marketing investment is harder to
quantify than other firm investments. But if a return is hard to
find, to promote or to understand, then the marketing department is
not doing its job.
I learned a great deal and consider it to
have been an excellent expenditure of my time. The panel was broad
based, the speakers had much to contribute to a marketer's career.
For a serious marketer who feels under-appreciated and
insufficiently respected, and who want to advance and grow his or
her career, this Webinar was manna from
heaven. | 
