Career Journal: Running on Empty; Traveling in Today's Economy

As budget constraints linger through this slow economic recovery, the impulse to cut back on travel is a natural and seemingly prudent business decision. Travel is expensive and time-consuming. As a good financial steward of your firm, you may opt out of non-essential travel. Utilizing video-conferencing, e-mails and telephone calls in lieu of travel, however, can be a costly decision. In fact, the use of technology forfeits an opportunity to advance your critical agendas. For a number of reasons, selective travel leading to invaluable “face time” with key firm stakeholders is, ultimately, more economical than succumbing to the impulse to stay close to home.

We share a collective understanding around the benefits of staying in front of client. No one argues that it is important, but it is easy to underestimate just how important it can be.There are so much unanticipated extrinsic value that can be extracted by having an in-person conversation.

The Obvious

Building Relationships

Often, the single largest component to success in a legal marketing role is determined by the relationships one establishes. These relationships help establish a level of trust, and a stronger connectivity to the business. This is best done through in-person meetings, plain and simple.

Understanding the Business

In-person meetings allow you to get a read on the pulse of the firm from a cultural and business perspective. By getting a better understanding of how bullish or bearish partners seem about their respective practices and the overall market, you get a sense as to how ready they may be for new marketing concepts and how to best present them.

Finding Champions

In order for marketing to be successful, there needs to be a great degree of buy-in from the partners. They need to collectively adopt your and your team's ideas as their own and proselytize the message across the enterprise. No amount of phone calls or e-mail exchanges will accomplish this. You need to socialize new concepts in person and ask individuals to champion new initiatives.

Client Feedback

You may very well have already initiated a client feedback survey to gauge perceptions of marketing within your firm. After you've assembled the feedback, the best way to most accurately interpret the information is to review it in person with attorneys. They will help you “read between the lines” on what really matters and what is mere hot air.

For these reasons alone, there is plenty of justification for hitting the road. Yet, other opportunities inevitably emerge from these face-to face meetings. While less obvious, they are nonetheless impactful.

The Not-So-Obvious

It's Not the Firm You Thought It Was

If you interact with the same group of partners and staff in the same office week after week, you are missing the fullness of the firm's DNA. After a merger or acquisition with another firm, no one hesitates to travel to meet his or her new colleagues. Why not do the same for existing colleagues you don't speak with every day? You may discover a “best practice” in a particular office or practice that can be conveyed across the enterprise. You may also discover that seeds of discontent are sprouting ' something leadership may be oblivious to. The Achilles Heel of so many firms remains the vulnerability of the partnership. If there is reluctance by partners to embrace marketing concepts and services, it could be an early indication of an emotional divorce from their firm. That is critical for the firm's leadership to grasp. You are their “eyes and ears” of the organization.

Avoid Being Scapegoated

It is critical to establish as many one-on-one relationships as possible in an environment which at times can become highly politicized. In a passive-aggressive law firm culture, blame is often steered toward staff, as partners are reluctant to blame one another for their own shortcomings. Don't wait for that to happen.

Uncovering a Pearl

Unless you are willing to dive deep and force open something that is otherwise clammed shut, you will never discover the pearl. In face-to-face conversations, when attorneys are able to converse in an extemporaneous back-and-forth dialogue, their opinion, creativity and intellect comes out. It is often the best format for them to demonstrate their own inner-marketing prowess, buried beneath a sea of worry and distractions. Help them discover it.

Professional Friendships

When you meet colleagues one on one, you establish relationships that transcend the firm. Those relationships will serve your career's better interests down the road. Bolstering your own network and career champions should never be your primary reason in deciding to travel, but it is a potential benefit you should not deny. Partners do the same with one another.

Preempt the Battle

Rolling out new initiatives by a select group of attorneys ahead of time can produce a lot of information regarding possible buy-in or push-back about novel concepts. Test your hypothesis beyond your immediate peers. Go to a known contrarian in the firm and hear his or her reaction. It's the toughest thing to do, but it is as critical to success. Think about Abraham Lincoln's decision to form a “Team of Rivals” for his Cabinet. He knew well that his detractors would challenge his initiatives in public. So why not hear from them directly and convert them to disciples versus battle adversaries in an open forum?

Frequent Flyer Miles

Hey, if I am going to recommend you getting tortured ' sitting in the middle seat in the last row of the coach section of a packed airplane ' the least I can do is remind you of a nice by-product!

Conclusion

Marketing should reflect the needs and desires of practitioners. The only way to fully appreciate those needs and desires is to proactively solicit them. Let's face it. Most lawyers still don't fully appreciate the impact of marketing on their business and own relationships. It has to be reiterated over and over again ' most effectively in person. Over time, these interactions help elevate marketing's visibility, and increase the opportunity for CMOs and others to gain access to the firm's clients ' and from there, really shape growth strategy.

From a business perspective, marketing in law firms occupies a unique space in the psyche and agenda of most attorneys. In most instances, it is omnipresent in their minds, but easily a “to do” they let slip through the course of the day. If left to their own volition, attorneys would be content with putting marketing in the back office, not their practices. If you fail to put a face to marketing, you run the risk of relegating the function to a product ' a Web page, a four-color glossy brochure, or a proposal generation machine. Remind partners that marketing is something they do ' they own ' not a material product they receive. Keep a running list of the last time you visited an office. Make an effort to reconnect with those offices you've not visited recently. You will be glad you did.

Michael DeCosta, a member of this newsletter's Board of Editors, is a Senior Client Partner with Korn/Ferry International, resident in its Stamford, CT, office. Michael is a member of the firm's professional services and legal specialty practices. He focuses on search assignments for management and IT consulting, accounting and law firms. He can be reached at 203-406-8770 or [email protected].

As budget constraints linger through this slow economic recovery, the impulse to cut back on travel is a natural and seemingly prudent business decision. Travel is expensive and time-consuming. As a good financial steward of your firm, you may opt out of non-essential travel. Utilizing video-conferencing, e-mails and telephone calls in lieu of travel, however, can be a costly decision. In fact, the use of technology forfeits an opportunity to advance your critical agendas. For a number of reasons, selective travel leading to invaluable “face time” with key firm stakeholders is, ultimately, more economical than succumbing to the impulse to stay close to home.

We share a collective understanding around the benefits of staying in front of client. No one argues that it is important, but it is easy to underestimate just how important it can be.There are so much unanticipated extrinsic value that can be extracted by having an in-person conversation.

The Obvious

Building Relationships

Often, the single largest component to success in a legal marketing role is determined by the relationships one establishes. These relationships help establish a level of trust, and a stronger connectivity to the business. This is best done through in-person meetings, plain and simple.

Understanding the Business

In-person meetings allow you to get a read on the pulse of the firm from a cultural and business perspective. By getting a better understanding of how bullish or bearish partners seem about their respective practices and the overall market, you get a sense as to how ready they may be for new marketing concepts and how to best present them.

Finding Champions

In order for marketing to be successful, there needs to be a great degree of buy-in from the partners. They need to collectively adopt your and your team's ideas as their own and proselytize the message across the enterprise. No amount of phone calls or e-mail exchanges will accomplish this. You need to socialize new concepts in person and ask individuals to champion new initiatives.

Client Feedback

You may very well have already initiated a client feedback survey to gauge perceptions of marketing within your firm. After you've assembled the feedback, the best way to most accurately interpret the information is to review it in person with attorneys. They will help you “read between the lines” on what really matters and what is mere hot air.

For these reasons alone, there is plenty of justification for hitting the road. Yet, other opportunities inevitably emerge from these face-to face meetings. While less obvious, they are nonetheless impactful.

The Not-So-Obvious

It's Not the Firm You Thought It Was

If you interact with the same group of partners and staff in the same office week after week, you are missing the fullness of the firm's DNA. After a merger or acquisition with another firm, no one hesitates to travel to meet his or her new colleagues. Why not do the same for existing colleagues you don't speak with every day? You may discover a “best practice” in a particular office or practice that can be conveyed across the enterprise. You may also discover that seeds of discontent are sprouting ' something leadership may be oblivious to. The Achilles Heel of so many firms remains the vulnerability of the partnership. If there is reluctance by partners to embrace marketing concepts and services, it could be an early indication of an emotional divorce from their firm. That is critical for the firm's leadership to grasp. You are their “eyes and ears” of the organization.

Avoid Being Scapegoated

It is critical to establish as many one-on-one relationships as possible in an environment which at times can become highly politicized. In a passive-aggressive law firm culture, blame is often steered toward staff, as partners are reluctant to blame one another for their own shortcomings. Don't wait for that to happen.

Uncovering a Pearl

Unless you are willing to dive deep and force open something that is otherwise clammed shut, you will never discover the pearl. In face-to-face conversations, when attorneys are able to converse in an extemporaneous back-and-forth dialogue, their opinion, creativity and intellect comes out. It is often the best format for them to demonstrate their own inner-marketing prowess, buried beneath a sea of worry and distractions. Help them discover it.

Professional Friendships

When you meet colleagues one on one, you establish relationships that transcend the firm. Those relationships will serve your career's better interests down the road. Bolstering your own network and career champions should never be your primary reason in deciding to travel, but it is a potential benefit you should not deny. Partners do the same with one another.

Preempt the Battle

Rolling out new initiatives by a select group of attorneys ahead of time can produce a lot of information regarding possible buy-in or push-back about novel concepts. Test your hypothesis beyond your immediate peers. Go to a known contrarian in the firm and hear his or her reaction. It's the toughest thing to do, but it is as critical to success. Think about Abraham Lincoln's decision to form a “Team of Rivals” for his Cabinet. He knew well that his detractors would challenge his initiatives in public. So why not hear from them directly and convert them to disciples versus battle adversaries in an open forum?

Frequent Flyer Miles

Hey, if I am going to recommend you getting tortured ' sitting in the middle seat in the last row of the coach section of a packed airplane ' the least I can do is remind you of a nice by-product!

Conclusion

Marketing should reflect the needs and desires of practitioners. The only way to fully appreciate those needs and desires is to proactively solicit them. Let's face it. Most lawyers still don't fully appreciate the impact of marketing on their business and own relationships. It has to be reiterated over and over again ' most effectively in person. Over time, these interactions help elevate marketing's visibility, and increase the opportunity for CMOs and others to gain access to the firm's clients ' and from there, really shape growth strategy.

From a business perspective, marketing in law firms occupies a unique space in the psyche and agenda of most attorneys. In most instances, it is omnipresent in their minds, but easily a “to do” they let slip through the course of the day. If left to their own volition, attorneys would be content with putting marketing in the back office, not their practices. If you fail to put a face to marketing, you run the risk of relegating the function to a product ' a Web page, a four-color glossy brochure, or a proposal generation machine. Remind partners that marketing is something they do ' they own ' not a material product they receive. Keep a running list of the last time you visited an office. Make an effort to reconnect with those offices you've not visited recently. You will be glad you did.

Michael DeCosta, a member of this newsletter's Board of Editors, is a Senior Client Partner with Korn/Ferry International, resident in its Stamford, CT, office. Michael is a member of the firm's professional services and legal specialty practices. He focuses on search assignments for management and IT consulting, accounting and law firms. He can be reached at 203-406-8770 or [email protected].