What is with the general public’s newfound obsession with fireworks!?

Since Memorial Day, fireworks sales (and fireworks-related noise complaints) have skyrocketed. As the nation tries to crack down on this issue, Boston has enjoyed a nearly 2,000% increase in such complaints when compared to last year.

The supposed reasons?

Contact us for guidance on key messaging that will make your sales soar.

People are hungry for entertainment, seeking out ways to express their patriotism following coronavirus quarantines, and finding alternatives to celebrate July 4th as there have been widespread cancellations of typical festivities. Plus, suppliers’ promotions and product discounts have contributed to additional sales.

NBC News reports, “Instead of only advertising the promotion to previous customers, they took out billboards, radio ads and targeted online ads, in addition to their catalogs and direct mailers, hoping to capture business and keep their stores in the black amid the nationwide lockdowns… Rather than seeing their business cut in half, stores have seen sales soaring more than 200 percent in some locations.”

With fireworks businesses (and TikTok) coming out roses in 2020, what marketing and sales techniques can you take away from this to help your businesses soar into 2021?

1) What do your clients need and want? Both personally and professionally? (But not, as with fireworks, at the expense of others…) 

2) How can you directly communicate – by phone, Zoom, email or LinkedIn – that need in a creative way that separates you from your competition? For example, here’s an instructional video of some preliminary guidance, but my expertise on this matter will meet your goals.

3) Can you utilize your network and make a potential new client an offer they cannot refuse? For instance, given recent crises, now may be a time to brush up on your media skills. I’m offering you [said new client] a discounted media training consultation with our PR gurus to help you handle and prepare for future crises.

4) Where can you reach new clients? With the nation’s renewed focus on health and citizens now itching to get out, are there new platforms to advertise?

It seems like with everything that has come to fruition, this is another “perfect storm” scenario for fireworks companies. How can you appreciate the same?

Contact us for guidance on key messaging that will make your sales soar.

We are honored for the second year in a row to sponsor the Legal Sales and Service Organization (LSSO) awards. For information on the amazing accomplishments of this year’s award winners (Carolyn Rumpf Sandano and Michael Mellor for Sales Executive of the Year and Honorable Mention respectively; and Eversheds Sutherland and Womble Bond Dickson for Sales Team of the Year and Honorable Mention respectively) please visit the LSSO Award page.

After announcing the 2020 Sales & Service Award winners on Monday, June 8th, we held a virtual roundtable discussion with:

• Carolyn Sandano, Business Development Manager at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan;
• Mike Mellor, Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer at Pryor Cashman;
• Steven Boehm, Partner and Head of Capital Markets & Investments at Eversheds Sutherland;
• Stephanie Hinrichs, Senior Director of Sales at Womble Bond Dickinson; and
• Samantha McKenna, Founder of #samsales Consulting.

Content is a tool to grease attorneys “selling activity.”

I moderated and our discussion centered on three key issues: content, culture, and Covid-19. Here were our main takeaways.

Content: What role/value does content play in your sales activities?

Go to the lawyer who may not be the rainmaker, but who is really jazzed about what they are doing content wise and get to understand what drives them because they are the fuel for a lot of what the rainmakers will go out and do. – Carolyn Sandano

What I learned early on is that you want to get your name out there anytime you can. You want to get as much content on the internet as possible. One of the things we did is create a website, publiclytradedprivateequity.com, and it’s become the industry source for information on Business Development Companies (BDCs). – Steve Boehm

Content is about advancing the conversation through different stages of the sales funnel. – Mike Mellor

Generating content and providing others with the opportunity to create it helped us further relationships. We had a crew doing podcast interviews at the Association of Corporate Counsel annual meeting, which is the watering hole for buyers of legal services… It had a great shelf life and provided the opportunity to engage with potential buyers after the conference. – Stephanie Hinrichs

Content is about sharing useful information and analysis (thought leadership) and going to market with something that highlights our attorneys and their knowledge of the client’s issues. – Stephanie Hinrichs

Content is a tool to grease attorneys “selling activity.” While it can be generic and expensive to produce at the top of the funnel (for that elusive market “awareness”), it can be very strategic and valuable at the bottom – as a selling tool. For instance, if you have an opportunity to create a bylined article, you should reach out to clients and prospects and invite them to co-author it with you. You’ll be extra lucky if you are able to connect with 9 people – and invite them to coffee and otherwise learn what they’ve recently been up to or where they’re going – before the 10^th says yes… – John Hellerman

Consider how to share content meaningfully. It needs to be short, concise, prove value, and show your subject matter expertise. – Samantha McKenna *Here is a link to Sam’s great tip on LinkedIn last week about how to properly share articles of interest with connections.

Culture: How important is culture to a successful sales initiative and how do you instill it?

Everything comes back to a systematic process you put in place. Business development is a skill to be deployed and not just a series of random acts. – McKenna

It’s not just about how you grow your position within the market, but how you help the market grow. Then, your position and share in the market grows as the market grows. That’s a lost component of some of the sales we do. Part of our job needs to be helping attorneys evangelize the industries they are selling into. – Hellerman

You need to develop a culture of empowerment to make people want to go out and market themselves. Not everybody is a natural rainmaker, but you can empower people to do their best. What I’ve tried to do with my team is to make people (associates and partners) feel ownership. If people feel like owners of the business, they will work hard to increase the business. – Boehm

Think about your own network and how you can connect your attorneys. Something I’ve done is expose attorneys to the sales process. Everybody learns differently and sometimes it’s helpful to bring them along and show them first-hand. – Hinrichs

Taking young lawyers around to meet their counterparts as clients is critically important because people want to deal with their peers. I tell my younger associates: 10 years from now, the people you’re meeting today will be your clients or your regulators. – Boehm

Covid-19: How has Covid-19 (and the recent protests) affected your sales efforts?

Folks are a lot more receptive. We’ve been able to accelerate a process around the new normal. We were able to develop speed rounds and give clients and prospects 50 minutes of what they need to know across practices. But, you can’t be the jack of all industries. – Mellor

How do we conduct business the way it used to be? We can’t; it won’t be the same. We have to adapt to our buyers. Referral sources and partnerships will be incredibly important moving forward. – Hinrichs

I am surprised by the different stressors people have in home life and how that impacts what they can produce. Ask questions, don’t assume anything, and find out how people are doing personally and professionally. – Sandano

This really isn’t anything new. Our attorneys should’ve been connecting virtually all along. – McKenna

• So, use content to engage with clients and prospects in a comfortable, flattering, productive manner;
• Make sure your culture nurtures and rewards your professionals for their efforts; and
• Ramp-up relationship building via the many online tools that make it easy to connect, and when you do connect, really listen.

As government and health officials talk about the coronavirus pandemic lasting the rest of 2020 and beyond, I am trying to imagine what our “new normal” will actually look like.

I guess only time will tell. But in the meantime, there’s one thing I know for certain. Corporate events and business travel will be suspended for the foreseeable future.

So, how should firms reallocate this spending?

In this sense, content becomes a system for engagement.

Just because firm staff is not traveling and speaking at bellwether events does not mean you can’t develop content and repurpose it as if you were.

Since there is no opportunity to get noticed at in-person events, you need to create new ways to network. (I’ve touched on this a little bit before.) Creating content and using it as an excuse to reach out is one of those ways. Develop content that your clients will find useful and share it with them directly with a custom note. It’s these personal touches, right now in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, that are the most meaningful and the ones that will ultimately make an impression, attract new connections, and generate work.

In this sense, content becomes a system for engagement.

So, to answer my initial question, after taking care of your employees and doing something special for them, reallocate what’s left of your travel and events budget for creative, unique content. Our suggestion is designed to go beyond simply building general name awareness about the firm and its professionals. Instead, by seeking highly targeted and more substantial placements, this approach is designed to facilitate a targeted selling strategy that takes a firm and their professionals from being noticed generally to being discovered specifically for key industry expertise.

I was brainstorming my next blog post topic and realized, I have a case study sitting right in front of me.

Some of you may know that my husband, Mike Ferrari, graduated from Vermont Law School in May 2019, passed the Ohio State Bar Examination in October 2019, and was subsequently sworn in as an attorney. Afterwards, he became a networking superstar (sure, I’m a little biased) and coordinated about 50 meetings with new connections in order to understand the legal landscape in Cleveland and learn more about potential career opportunities here. He made it a daily practice to follow up via emails and calls, and schedule as many in-person coffees as possible.

Experiencing this wave with him made me think about all of the law school graduates in limbo.

The result back then? Professional connections started sharing several job openings and making recommendations to support his applications. He also continued meeting with potential future colleagues.

This was late February, when all of Mike’s hard work was coming to fruition. Then, the novel coronavirus pandemic struck… 

Now, it’s not all doom and gloom as he has some contractual work. However, Mike was met with the challenge of keeping his applications moving while the world came to a standstill.

Knowing that nobody is hiring, Mike decided (as we’ve been touting) to proceed with the most humane approach. He reached out to his entire network with well wishes that they remain healthy throughout the pandemic. Props!

Experiencing this wave with him made me think about all of the law school graduates in limbo. With uncertainty looming over bar examinations and law firms changing or altogether cancelling summer associate programs, how do these up and coming lawyers stay motivated and continue making strides in their target professional circles?

LinkedIn is key. Though we (as marketers) know this, it is surprising how many law school students and graduates are not on the platform. While our nation is still in shutdown mode, I recommend limboers:

• Build out their LinkedIn profiles;
• Ask close colleagues (perhaps from previous internships) to create and post recommendations;
• Start sharing updates on their own legal insight;
• Begin interacting with the content target state regulatory agencies and law firms share; and
• Direct message other potential connections to discuss the content or news items they are sharing.

By following these suggestions, limboers’ profiles will get noticed and they will make new connections with legal professionals that will hopefully become mentors or advocates for them in the future.

If you’re looking for assistance in boosting your LinkedIn activity as the Covid-19 crisis continues, contact us.

We’ve all heard the steady drumbeat of promised test kits and antibody tests from our nation’s talking heads. Yet even in coronavirus epicenters, these tests are hard to come by.

This is crisis communications 101. In times of crises, you must follow these two rules: 1) Do not make empty promises; and 2) always manage expectations.

The epitome of bad messaging.

You may have seen the following post circulating around Facebook on the supposed new coronavirus guidelines.

The epitome of bad messaging; and the reason why we advise all clients to develop three key talking points and to reiterate those points three times over.

It’s important to note, however, that one of the most critical requirements of making solid communications decisions is an understanding of the information landscape. Unfortunately, one of the key attributes of this pandemic crisis is the fluidness of information, unknowns and uncertainty about the virus itself, and ever-changing nature of the data.

So, how do you make good messaging decisions during Covid-19?

1) Gather the best intel possible; 2) communicate your firm’s decisions once they are implemented; and 3) ensure you are actively following the advice you’re giving clients.

These three simple steps will ensure your voice remains one of authenticity and trust.

Welcome to Phase 2 of the pandemic, where government officials debate how to reignite the economy and businesses start evaluating its services and restructuring based on how clients/industries have been impacted.

Now that the general public has come to terms with the world’s immediate response to coronavirus (with quarantines, social distancing, and the like), we are able to shift our focus to the remainder of 2020 and beyond.

(If you need to assess the future of your law firm’s revenue, check out President of BTI Consulting, Michael Rynowecer’s LinkedIn post on how to do just that.)

While your firm adapts to Phase 2 changes, remember that every move you make sends a message to the marketplace.

There are typically three types of responses to change: 1) none; 2) client-assisted; and 3) proactive.

1. The firms that are averse to change will fall even further behind its competitors post-pandemic.

2. The firms undergoing client-assisted change will survive, and may realize they have been forced into conversations with clients today that they should have been having on a more regular basis before Covid-19 hit.

3. The firms that are proactive about change, and were most likely already prepared for a crisis, will find and take advantage of opportunities even throughout Covid-19.

Keep in mind that these proactive firms have the capacity and predisposition for change. Meaning they have a firm culture that accepts and ushers along change.

As “client-assisted” and “proactive” firms embrace change and pivot to Phase 2, firm leaders should focus on protecting and shoring up its core business (its existing clients). Firm leaders should also pursue client development rather than business development, ensure its prices are stable, and continue modernizing technology.

These actions should be paired with a review of a firm’s entire ecosystem, including clients, partners, employees, future employees, and law school students. How a firm addresses these groups will directly impact its reputation.

While your firm adapts to Phase 2 changes, remember that every move you make sends a message to the marketplace. Consumers and the media are hyper-focused on the ongoing response to Covid-19. That said, they will undoubtedly notice your firm’s reaction to it and subsequently evaluate your strengths and weaknesses.

So, as you enter Phase 2 of Covid-19, make sure you are diverting resources to loyal clients who need help and treating your people right. If you follow these two rules, your brand’s messaging will align.

You may be sensing a theme here… In my last five blog posts, all relate to the coronavirus. In light of this pandemic, be sure to add a new “covid-19” prefix to all of your content offerings.

I have now been in quarantine due to the coronavirus outbreak for four full weeks (here in Cleveland, Ohio) and as I work from home and navigate our virtual world, I am quite impressed at how Americans have embraced this complete #teleprofessional life in a matter of one month.

I mentioned before that law firm partners should be active on social media, especially throughout this pandemic, so now is as good a time as any to revisit best practices to up your legal pros social media game.

If you’re struggling with utilizing social media, promoting your content, or getting your voice heard during the covid-19 crisis, contact us.

We have all witnessed countless events across the nation get cancelled or postponed. And while we are getting a bit fed-up with the onslaught of webinars, I thought it may be helpful to provide an alternative example of how partners can keep their talks in queue and successfully promote them across social.

With a little experimentation, your attorneys can showcase their expertise to their target audiences and repurpose their content the same way they would before, during, and after an in-person conference.

Let’s say you have a cybersecurity attorney, “Jane Doe” for all intents and purposes, who was slated to speak at a National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) conference in mid-May. Jane received a notification this week, informing her that the event is officially cancelled. She already prepared her presentation, which includes a PowerPoint deck, infographic, and handout. Rather than just let all of those materials go to waste, I recommend she give her talk as planned.

Jane is somewhat comfortable with social media and is a seasoned speaker, so she is on-board with speaking by way of Facebook Live. Rather than use her own personal account, she receives permission from NCSA to go live from their page which has almost 240,000 followers.

Leading up to the mid-May “live” presentation, Jane makes sure her Twitter and LinkedIn profiles are up-to-date and uploads a new picture to reflect her pandemic work environment and to bring a little more personality to her online presence. After all, it’s through these channels that she will ultimately promote her talk before the presentation date, post “live” updates and soundbites during the presentation, and share summaries of the content after the presentation is given.

(NCSA is also planning on promoting Jane’s talk prior to the event date across its Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram accounts.)

When sharing any presentation-related content, Jane tags NCSA and her law firm and includes the hashtags #NCSA, #cybersecurity, #staysafeonline, #coronavirus, #covid19, and #pandemic.

In advance of the presentation, Jane sends out an email alert to clients and target media with instructions on how to attend.

It’s now the day-of the presentation. In case of a lack of questions or technical difficulties, Jane prepares some potential questions for the Q&A portion and hands them off to one of her connections in attendance. Plus, she has a firm staffer join in to take notes.

When the presentation is all said and done, she returns to social media to re-share the top posts. And while the content is top-of-mind, she turns the staffer’s notes and her key takeaways into a brief summary to repurpose later.

Now, Jane is armed with this summary and her original presentation materials (all diversified content) to share with her network over the course of the next few months. 

Jane will continue tracking the conversations that come from this “live” event, which will hopefully prove to impact her bottom line. (Yes, even during the coronavirus pandemic!)

If you’re struggling with utilizing social media, promoting your content, or getting your voice heard during the covid-19 crisis, contact us.

By now, we’ve either seen bare grocery store shelves in-person, during the initial coronavirus panic, or trending online. But what shocked most Americans wasn’t the mad dash, it was the products that were flying off the shelves. Toilet paper, face masks, hand sanitizer, wipes, bottled water, and bread to name a few.

Yet, there are some items that stores just can’t seem to get rid of. Corona, anyone?

The point is that, even in a time of crisis, there are still products that consumers do not want – and those are the things that you should not worry about marketing.

So, as marketers, what can we learn from the empty shelves?

Impacting brands even more? The global move to a virtual economy. As state governments issued shutdowns and lockdowns (to demand social distancing, prevent the rapid spread of Covid-19, flatten the curve, and keep the number of cases at a manageable level for our healthcare providers), citizens turned digital for work, supplies, and socializing.

We are now dealing with the realities of a recession due to the coronavirus and our quarantines.

The rapid onset and severity of this year’s recession will create clear changes in consumers’ psyche. With unemployment at all-time highs and spending at all-time lows, marketers and business strategists will need to consider how this recession will alter the consumer landscape in 2020 and beyond. A few marketers have already begun carving out bigger slices for their brands. (For example, automakers and distillers turning to PPE and hand sanitizer production, respectively.)

So, as marketers, what can we learn from the empty shelves?

You should be marketing the products that are moving in this pandemic.

For our legal professionals, a review of a few hot topics should help you determine the services to market. Some of the big hitters are manufacturing, risk management and business continuity, telehealth, elder care, critical infrastructure like transportation and energy, unemployment, education, and government relations.

Covid-19 has affected every single market and has created an adapt-or-fail environment for businesses. So, this requires that firms evaluate what they sell, figure out what clients are buying, and redirect marketing resources there.

After determining what your firm’s essential services are during the Covid-19 crisis, then consider how to effectively market them in our newfound #teleprofessional world.

Are there some virtual channels that you may not have embraced before? A firm-wide live-streaming happy hour, webinars as an alternative to in-person speaking opportunities, client meetings through FaceTime, conference calls on Zoom or Skype, blogs, and podcasts.

In the same spirit as my other post, on how the legal community first responded to the coronavirus outbreak, check out how Morrison Foerster embraced digital early on with its handful of webinars.

I would also be remiss not to mention how now is the time to ensure the lawyers providing these services have sufficient online profiles. If they are not on social media, get them there fast. And make certain their personalities are present. Since face-to-face networking is limited, it’s these online bios that will sell.

If you need assistance with figuring out what products can fly off your shelves or getting your firm up to speed on virtual marketing tactics, contact us.

The entire world is dealing with the coronavirus crisis and by the time this pandemic has passed, we will all be experienced crisis communicators.

But in the meantime, there are best practices that you should implement today because how your law firm responds to this ongoing pandemic will impact its reputation. The following recommendations, provided by John Hellerman during a recent Legal Marketing Association webinar, will give your firm a competitive advantage.

Unlike typical crises, where we (as consultants) help clients through a perceived wrongdoing, Covid-19 has fallen on all of us through no act of our own (accept the one person who ate a raw bat). That said, it’s important to know basic crisis communications principles in case this is your first time navigating one.

The right solution at the wrong time is the wrong solution.

Keep in mind that a story will be told about a business in the midst of a crisis regardless of whether or not that organization responds, so (even in normal times) it’s best to participate and have some influence on how you are perceived.

Once you’ve decided to participate in the crisis conversation, you have to identify a spokesperson (or spokespeople). This is key, as who you pick determines whether your firm maintains or regains credibility. Typically, the person with the highest authority in any given situation is a technical expert. So, in the case of coronavirus, the spokesperson should come from firm leadership and the larger crisis team should include your main department heads – especially your technology folks as employees continue to work remotely.

Though we advise clients to have a team and plan in place before crises hit, not many out there anticipated a global pandemic. At this time (at the very least), you should have internal and external communications strategies, which should include telling employees first about any new developments. After all, the media likes to go to employees for information as reporters prefer the perceptions of frontline workers over ‘biased’ leadership. So, make sure your employees are well-informed and have the appropriate tools (written policies, resources, education, etc.) to communicate.

Throughout this pandemic, you must communicate often and on schedule. You can’t over communicate, but you can communicate the wrong things. You need to be relevant (don’t recreate the wheel) and be as human as possible (with a mindset of flexibility and empathy).

There has been rapid communication in our legal community’s response to the coronavirus. And necessarily so, as this frequent communication will eventually make your voice a trustworthy one. Your audiences will be able to weigh your real-world authority against rumors and unknowns, and help keep clients and employees relatively calm during these unprecedented times.

Such rapid dissemination of content and information requires that the crisis team meet daily and review what works and what doesn’t. Doing things that are just part of a template becomes a time management issue. So, forget about all of those unnecessary tasks for the foreseeable future. 

Yet, there is one task that all firms should be doing. Someone should document what is communicated each day. The Covid-19 crisis is going to last a long time, so it will be crucial to sit down afterwards and debrief with this daily journal in-hand.

Hopefully, the journal will reflect how you communicated and engaged with clients solely about their needs. Forego short-term advantage (pitching for business) for long-term opportunity (helping clients with the issues they are facing today). The right solution at the wrong time is the wrong solution.

In fact, be overly accommodating and innovative so that you ultimately ‘compel’ new business. How can your entire network and resources benefit your clients? Can you expand your stakeholder map?

Outside of communicating with employees and clients, take advantage of social media now more than ever and pitch media (the appropriate channels) when you have a relevant expert with unique knowledge to share. Regarding this last piece, since we are living through uncharted territory where drastic changes and details about the virus are released seemingly minute-by-minute, ensure the partner or thought leader is on board with your media outreach beforehand. You need to be able to fulfill interest, once it’s secured.

With every activity, remind yourself that this is not business as usual. We will all be in crisis mode for so long that it will become our new normal. With that in mind, humor is a tremendous resource in normal circumstances and especially in the most dire of times (with the appropriate tone, of course). 

If you need help fleshing out your firm’s continued response to the coronavirus, contact us.