Do you avoid marketing because you think it’s a little sleazy, or because you don’t want it to seem like you’re begging for business?

If this is how you feel about marketing, you’re not alone. I’ve heard this sentiment about marketing throughout my career, both as a practicing lawyer and as a consultant for lawyers and law firms. But today I’m here to suggest that there is another way to think about marketing that might actually make it something you look forward to doing.

For a long time in the U.S. lawyers didn’t advertise their services at all – it was seen as unseemly. The attitude was that lawyers are professionals and that advertising was beneath them. When some of those restrictions were lifted and lawyers started advertising, some lawyers were appalled at the ads they were seeing and the ways that lawyers were advertising their services with over-the-top ads with screaming or tasteless comments or explosions, etc. Bar associations across the country attempted to create rules that would prevent attorney advertising from demeaning the profession. For many lawyers, that perception of the sleazy lawyer ad has stuck.

Understandably, lawyers who don’t want to be associated with those kinds of advertising methods are skeptical. But here’s the thing – advertising and marketing are two different things. Marketing doesn’t have to be begging for work or looking as if you are not competent because you’re looking for business. And not all advertising has to be over the top.

Let’s get back to basics.

Why did you go to law school or decide to choose the practice area you’re in?

If you’re like most lawyers I talk to, you wanted to make a difference and to help people. You work hard for your clients and your goal is to get them the very best outcome you can achieve for them. You sincerely believe that you do good work for your clients and that the clients you work with are in a better position after having worked with you than they were before.

And if that’s the case, you’d like to help more people who are just like the clients you have already helped. Your goal in marketing your law practice is not to beg for business or for money, but to identify and attract the clients you can provide the most service to – the clients who already need your help, but who either don’t know who you are or who don’t know how you can help them. You have something those people already need. You’re not trying to convince people who you can’t help or who don’t need your expertise to give you money – you’re simply trying to find those who do.

If you can think about marketing in these terms, and approach your marketing as a way to find people that you can help, you may be less inclined to avoid it.

Do you want help to create a marketing plan with a service mindset? Please contact me!

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