Differentiate Your Firm By Your Actions
Michelle Golden at Golden Practices has really hit on the difference between the impact of words vs. actions. In her post on differentiating your law firm, she refers to a recent post by Dan Hull of What About Clients? wherein he relates the story of the University of Chicago 3L who commented that all the firms she was interviewing “seem to be exactly the same” based on their websites, brochures and related materials.
Michelle’s theory? It’s because those tools are just words. The way to differentiate your firm is through your actions. Especially those actions that you do differently than others, thereby “distinguishing yourself from the rest.”
I only would add a list of what some of those “actions” might include:
• Meeting or exceeding deadlines,
• Showing respect for the client as a person,
• Becoming a good listener,
• Returning telephone calls promptly, and
• Keeping client informed about their matter ...to name just a few.
You should give some thought to what actions you could take to differentiate your firm and improve your legal marketing impact.
It goes beyond these things, too, Tom—not so much what you do, but the way in which you do it. For instance, when I examined the branding of law firms in Wellington, New Zealand, only one differentiated. Gibson Sheat claimed to be different, and acted differently. One example of this was sending the best attorney in the firm to minimize billable hours for a client—surprisingly, there are still numerous firms that haven’t figured out how to do this yet.
