Put Me In Coach!
I remember meeting and having a lovely conversation with a Marketing Partner who attended the Legal Marketing Association annual conference in Denver a few years ago. He attended with his senior marketer, a very good friend of mine for many years. I’ll call my friend Mark because, well, that is his name.
What Are The Biggest Challenges For Legal Marketers?
I was asked by the Marketing Partner what the biggest challenge was for marketers in law firms. I looked at my friend and asked him if it was okay to be frank.
It was obvious his Marketing Partner was at the conference to learn, so I was happy to share as long as it didn’t put Mark in an uncomfortable position.
Mark gave me the nod, and a slight smile as if to encourage me, so I went on to share what I’ve witnessed happening in some law firms over the years.
I shared:
“There are marketers out there that are dying to be utilized to their full potential. They’ve been hired as Managers, Directors, CMOs, Chief Strategic Officers, you name it, to provide sound strategic marketing advice, and many firms are not letting them.
Many law firms are run by committees that sometimes don’t have time for marketing on this month’s agenda, causing your marketers to have to wait until next month’s marketing committee meeting to get approval, sometimes missing out on opportunities.”
The Marketing Partner was curious and nodded his head as if to say he understood. I don’t think I shared the following, but I will now.
Law Firm Structure Can Be Stifling To Progress
I’m all for committees in law firms as they help facilitate the business structure of a partnership. After all, partnerships need meetings to discuss, promote, brainstorm, strategize, vote and sound off about topics of importance, correct? Absolutely.
Here’s the challenge: In some firms, this committee structure can be downright stifling to the growth of your marketing efforts, your firm growth, and your marketing staff.
Allow me to explain. Many of your clients have marketing departments that are led by a senior marketer that has been hired to do his/her job swiftly, strategically, wisely, economically and with the best interest of the strategic plan in mind. This often means that decisions that cost tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars must be made every day in order to take advantage of market timing. That’s not to say they are left to take their budgets on a joy ride and are making decisions in isolation….far from it.
I’ve been in this position. I was a Marketing Manager at Time Warner Cable for nearly 10 years. I wasn’t even the senior marketer at that time, but at no time was it unclear to me what my charge was because I was a part of the business and marketing planning process. It was my job.
Marketing was looked to as a key driver of my division’s business growth. We were looked to as decision makers. We had a CEO who knew he would lose his job if cash flow wasn’t met too many years in a row. After all, we were a public company, so the shareholder was king. That meant the marketing department was on the hot seat, too. Was that scary? A little. Was that empowering? Absolutely!
I know this isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison, but there is still much to learn from how your clients conduct business. How is this relevant, and what might you do to improve your situation?
My Recommendation To You
If you aren’t already, you, as a Management or Marketing Partner, or Administrator, would be well-served to treat your marketers as a part of your business team as well.
Among other things:
- Hire marketers and business development experts that you have confidence in. If you aren’t sure how to shop for the skills I described above, hire someone who can help you. It’s that important.
- If you have a marketer in place who doesn’t appear to have the skills they need to be considered a key component of the strategic business and marketing planning process of your firm, find out what’s missing, and help them gain those skills. Yes, this might take time if you want to keep that person, but you need to help him/her grow if you want them to make a difference.
- Give your marketers a seat at the management table. They should be a part of key business decisions that are taking place at your firm.
- Encourage them to participate. I can still remember when I started as an in-house legal marketer and was told by one person that I should know it was a “privilege” to even be “allowed” to attend a certain monthly management meeting and to not say a word during that meeting, but just sit there and observe….not just once, but on an ongoing basis. Yes, you read that right. I was put in my place right from the beginning. Please don’t do that to your marketers, or to anyone on your staff. It stifles their creativity, decision-making skills, and is an insult to their intelligence and your hiring decision.
- Make sure they see and understand the financials. It helps create a sense of ownership which will help guide their decisions. The accounting for law firms sessions shouldn’t be the best-attended sessions at conferences. You have people in the firm who can help bring them up to speed if they need it.
- Ask them their opinions when it comes to how the business of the firm is run.
- Understand that they are interested in doing much more than event planning. They are dying to be a part of what makes the firm tick.
- Help them feel safe in the knowledge that they can come to you with ideas, suggestions, feedback, strategy, market opportunities and concerns, and that you will be there to welcome the discussion.
- I could go on, but this post is already a bit too long.
Again, many law firms are already doing business this way, and to you I say,
“Congratulations. You are making very wise business decisions by giving your marketers this kind of responsibility.”
To those of you who are still slowing down the business and strategic process of the firm by holding your marketers back, I encourage you to consider adopting some of the ideas I mentioned above, and many more that we haven’t discussed today.
Trust me, it will make your jobs much easier. Sure, it might make their jobs more challenging, but not as challenging as when they are kept out of the loop.
Yes, marketers have to step up, too.
I wrote a post after this same LMA conference titled My Message To Marketers.
Final Thoughts
Just remember they want to help.
Your marketers want to be valuable decision-makers.
They want you to be proud of your decision to hire them.
They are out there, every day, thinking…
“Put me in coach. I’m ready to play!”
Make them part of your team.
Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Plan Consultant, and a Content, Social & Digital Media Speaker, Trainer & Advisor, helping lawyers and legal marketers grow by integrating all marketing disciplines. She is a frequent LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook for Business trainer, as well as a content marketing specialist. She helps lawyers, law firms, and legal marketers understand how to make their marketing and business development efforts more relevant to their current and potential clients, and helps lead law firms through their online digital strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases. As an early and constant adopter of social and digital media and technology, she also helps firms with blogging, podcasts, video marketing, and livestreaming. If you would like to reserve an hour of Nancy’s time to begin talking strategy or think through an issue you are having, you can do that here. She can be reached via email here.
