A new book on marketing for associates

The American Bar Association recently began publishing a new series of books called the Law Firm Associates Development Series. It is a sign of the growing importance of business development that the first book in their series is The Law Firm Associate’s Guide to Personal Marketing and Selling Skills.

The authors -- Catherine Alman MacDonagh and Beth Marie Cuzzone -- are two of the people who convinced me to focus to legal business development (after almost 20 years of training and coaching sales professionals and others). They are also co-founders of the Legal Sales and Service Organization (along with Silvia Coulter), and are widely accepted as leaders in this rapidly growing field.

If you’re starting to think that I may be a biased reviewer, you are absolutely right. I loved this book, and it’s not just because I am a contributing author. It’s because this is exactly the type of overview that associates need. And the fact that the book was published by the ABA will help to assure credibility and wide acceptance.

The book is filled with useful checklists, tips, and techniques, such as:
• A list of 17 activities that drive superior relationships (p. 94)
• A format for a sample business plan (p. 18)
• Tips on how to get the most from your on-line bio, including how to maximize your visibility to search engines (p. 26)
• A checklist for how to plan a meeting with a prospective client (p. 67)
• A section on how to network inside your firm (p. 50)
• Eight questions to start conversations at a networking meeting (p. 38), and several ways to end them (p. 42)
• Advice on how to publish articles that will help bring in new business (p. 62)
• A checklist and a questionnaire on a selling opportunity that many lawyers miss “The end of the matter” (p. 95)

My favorite list in the book is their “Great Lawyer Test” (p. 5) which consists of nine simple questions, including:
• Do you respond to clients within one half day or less?
• Do you provide value to clients?
• How do you know?
• Do you know your clients’ industries?
• Do you balance the cost of your advice with the potential risk to the client?

The book even includes a CD with Microsoft Word files of critical sections, so that you can easily use the lists and customize them to your needs.

This book won’t make marketing easy, because nothing can. But it will help associates get started in an area that many find mystifying, and all agree is critical to their long term professional success.

In my opinion, the only thing missing from this book is detailed guidance for associates to prioritize action items to make the most of their very limited time. I’ll talk about exactly how to do that over the next three weeks.