Marketing: Finding new management ideas by the book
If you are a glass-half-full person, you should see the current change in market conditions as a good opportunity to seek out ideas, writes Trish Carroll
If you want to be the type of savvy lawyer who clients and staff find inspiring then you need to read widely to challenge your thinking.
Now seems like a good time for lawyers who want to get new ideas from some reliable sources to put together a reading list. We all know book clubs are popular in certain circles, but I have yet to hear of a lawyer who has started a book club using books about marketing, management and other business-critical areas as a way of gaining and sharing ideas. So let us give that book club some ideas about what to read - this list is by no means definitive but it is a good base.
A Maister class
If the name David Maister is not ringing any bells then you need to catch up with this specialist in the marketing and management of professional service firms. He has published a number of books, three of which are helpful to those working in law firms. They are Managing the Professional Service Firm, True Professionalism and Strategy and the Fat Smoker. All are definitely worth a read.
Another American with a lot of commonsense suggestions is Mark Maraia, a former lawyer who has been coaching lawyers for more than 15 years. His first book, Rainmaking Made Simple: What Every Professional Must Know, has been the bible for many lawyers who want to become better at attracting and keeping clients without compromising their professionalism. Mark has just released Relationships are Everything! and it is an equally practical, easy-to-read book with useful checklists and memorable stories that will give you confidence to try out some of his ideas.
Also worth a look are books by Malcolm Gladwell - particularly the most recent one, Outliers - and the chapter on Flom because he explains what drives people to succeed. Leading Change by John P. Kotter provides a good framework to make change happen successfully and Marketing - A Complete Guide in Pictures, McDonald & Morris, is a good refresher for writing marketing plans.
Join the bloggers
When it comes to blogs you should spend some time seeing what is happening at:
David Maister's blog: http://davidmaister.com/blog/
The Legal Marketing Blog: http://www.legalmarketingblog.com/
Amy Campbell's website: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/amy/
Law Firm Marketing Blog: http://blog.larrybodine.com/
Legal Marketing Reader: http://legalmarketingreader.com/
As for websites, my favourites are:
Legal Marketing Association - www.legalmarketing.org
Legal Sales and Service Organisation - www.legalsales.org
Professional Services Marketing Group - www.psmg.co.uk
Edge International - www.edge.ai
Hildebrandt - www.hildebrandt.com
David Maister - www.davidmaister.com
John P. Kotter - http://www.johnkotter.com/
Mark Maraia - http://www.markmaraia.com
Michael Porter - http://www.isc.hbs.edu/
Seek some inspiration
If you are looking for ideas it is hard to go past ProvenModels, a specialised, digital publishing house with a web-based library of reusable and exchangeable management models for a community of MBA graduates, executives, academic scholars and management consultants. See http://www.provenmodels.com/
If you would like to get some out-of-the-box thinking happening then I suggest:
ABC - Radio National - http://www.abc.net.au/rn/tranlist.htm
Australian Policy On-Line - http://www.apo.org.au/
Q&A - http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/
BCG - http://www.bcg.com/impact_expertise/impact_splash.jsp
Bain & Company - http://www.bain.com/bainweb/about/about_overview.asp
McKinsey & Co - http://www.mckinsey.com/
IBM - http://www.ibm.com/ibm/us/en/
A.T.Kearney - http://www.atkearney.com/main.taf?p=5
Port Jackson Partners - http://www.pjpl.com.au/publications.htm
Ideas that will inspire you, business tools that will help you and stories that will give you courage are all contained in this list.
If you set up a book club in your firm and use business management books as the focus you are bound to find that your staff will take some of the ideas they read about and convert them into something practical and useful for your firm. Go on, try it.
Trish Carroll is a principal of Galt Advisory, an advisory firm focused on helping firms and individuals devise and implement practical and successful marketing and business development strategies.
