NOT JUST HOW TO DO IT, BUT WHY YOU SHOULD DO IT
Sally Schmidt’s New Book, And Why You Should Buy It
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT FOR LAWYERS, Strategies for Getting and Keeping Clients, by Sally J. Schmidt. ALM Publishing, N.Y. 306 pp. Paper, $49.95.
There seems to be an abundance of books about marketing for lawyers and other professionals. As one who has written more than a few of these books, I know that too often, the common ingredient is at least the staying power to put all those words down on paper. And in this field, there are relatively few publishers able to tell a good book from a bad one, so more bad than good ones get published.
The fact is that not everybody who writes a book on marketing, including (and maybe especially -- academics) really understands the subject., and not everyone who understands the subject writes a book on it. We get lucky when somebody who understands writes a book on professional services marketing, and a good one at that.
And so, fortunately, we come to Sally Schmidt, and her new book. “Business Development for Lawyers”.
I first met Sally decades ago, when we were on a panel together in Canada . It was then that I first learned that an organization of law firm marketers had been formed, and that she was one of the founders and was, as well, its first president. I was shocked to learn that it had 75 members, because I didn’t think that there were that many people doing marketing for law firms. In those days, when marketing was new to lawyers and accountants, and lawyers and accountants were new to marketers, there was considerable groping. Sally, back then, was not groping. She knew exactly what she was doing.
She still does, as witness this new book, and the extensive writing and speaking she has done since those first days. In the morass and fog of foolish words and obfuscation about this difficult subject, Sally’s new book is a beacon.
Where the book particularly shines is not just in the mechanics of marketing, but in her understanding of strategy and the context of strategies for business development. There is a basic fact in marketing professional services that so many writers seem not to understand, and that is that the role of professional services marketing is very different than it is for product marketing. Unlike a product, the best marketing cannot persuade a client to sue or write a contract or use any other legal service that isn’t mandated by need. The best marketing can’t persuade a happily married person to get a divorce. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, “What a great day to sue someone.” And this Schmidt understands very well.
The role of marketing, then, is to persuade a prospective client that your firm can better serve and perform than the other firm. This is the crux of professional services marketing – and the mechanics – the writing, the seminars, and so forth – are the tools needed to accomplish this.
What Sally Schmidt’s book does is to delineate both the rationale and the techniques and skills in clear detail, gracefully and authoritatively.
Interestingly, the introductory chapters are devoted to a clear definition of the context for marketing a law firm first chapters, and the rationale for doing it. Lawyers who are actively engaged in marketing activities, she notes, are more often proactive in advising clients. In other words, good marketing is more than mechanics, it’s good lawyering, a point that lawyers who oppose marketing fail to understand. She then delineates, chapter by chapter, the best techniques of marketing, noting that in view of the distinctive role of marketing for lawyers, that when all lawyers have the same kind of practice, and equal access to the same marketing tools, the distinguishing factor resides in the artfulness with which these tools are used.
Here chapters on specifically developing business are gems, including developing relationships, networking, preparing proposals, and so forth.
Sally Schmidt is no mere academic theoretician. As a pioneer in the field, her ideas and advice have been field tested, and then tempered by understanding and wisdom. All this she imparts simply and clearly, which alone makes this book worth more than its weight in gold. That Sally Schmidt writes well is no surprise – it’s just one of her talents. The more useful talent is in her ideas, and her ability to make them work. That’s why she’s a leader in our field.
This is a book for beginner and the more experienced, both. She is one person from whom all of us can learn.