Personal brand: How to be the reference lawyer
by Francesc Dominguez
Question by David Schwaninger, lawyer of Küng Rechtsanwälte (Zurich, Switzerland)
What distinguishes an excellent lawyer from the rest? His image in the marketplace. Talent alone is not enough. Perception decides. It attracts new clients to you or drives them away. You probably know cases of qualified lawyers who do not have access to specific business, even their own clients’… Seek the motive in the client’s perception of you.
If you want to leverage opportunities, manage your personal brand, your image in the marketplace, with care.
Keys to successful personal brand
1. Be specialized. Increasingly more clients are seeking specialists. Specialisation will be a way for you to be more efficient, gain calm and be likelier to be the reference in your target market. Focus on knowing what clients consider is valuable. Make sure they realize that you understand and worry about their problem. It is the best way to gain their confidence. Choose your clients and find out how to attract them. If you wait for them to come to your office, you will let your clients define your professional life. You will lose opportunities.
2. Know yourself. Be honest: define your identity on the basis of what you are, not on what you believe clients expect of you. Know and take advantage of your virtues. Identify your main values. They will carry you to success if they are compatible with those of your clients and office partners. Be flexible and creative with them. Brands communicate and sell values, personalities that clients can relate to. Harmonize your brand with your values. Do not be afraid to find out what image your partners have of you. Ask them for feedback on your work (virtues and aspects to improve). Ask them to describe you in two words. Define yourself in two words also. You will know the best selling points of your brand. Then work on them and they will make you stand out in the crowd.
3. Improve. Gain self-esteem. Be aware that you are the best option for your clients. Give and you will eventually receive. Make promises that you can keep. Ask the key question: “What do I want?” This question will guide you to obtain results. Find answers to other questions as well, such as: “What do I do better than other lawyers? “How do I stand out?”, “Do clients value it?”, “Why should clients hire me rather than other lawyers?” Take care of details with clients. They are essential. In my case, for example, I see or call each client at least once a week.
4. Strategy. Plan an easy, but systematic and consistent, personal brand strategy. Know what direction you want for your professional life and define positive objectives to reach it.
5. Projects. Get focussed on projects. Delegate or outsource tasks as much as you can. Make the most of your time: concentrate on two or three exciting projects per year. You will gain knowledge and market value. A project could be a legal practice from a small city that also specialises and stands out from all the other practices that do not specialise. Another project could be the opening of a permanent office in a foreign country.
6. Visibility. Carry out very selective activities in order to promote your credibility and prestige. It is a type of activity you can do regardless of the geographical location or the size of your law firm. For example:
— Publish a brief book with a prestigious publisher for potential clients. For example, I got a book published for a client who had the smallest office, a solo lawyer who knows how to work with alliances. It is an innovative book, published with one of the most prestigious publishing houses in his country, targeting potential clients of the lawyer. At first, the client doubted that a prestigious publishing house could publish a book by him, an individual office. This is why he had never published books or articles with a major publishing house.
— Chat on prestigious forums, if possible without sharing space (competence) with other professionals.
— Take an important position with communication potential in an organization where you can further develop your communication skills.
— Establish effective alliances with other professionals or law offices.
— Take advantage of contacts. There is an evident difference between client cards that merely occupy space in a card case and client cards that actually create business opportunities.
7. Communicate well. When communicating, try to concentrate on a single idea. Explain yourself concisely: five seconds will suffice to tell the client the benefits he can receive from you. My brand promise, for example, is “competitiveness for professional services”. Support your brand promise with different arguments.
8. Coherence. Make sure that your objectives, strategy, actions and conduct are consistent with each other and with your own values.
9. Persistence. To obtain a powerful personal brand you will need to have clear ideas, determination and perseverance.
10. Act. Move from thought to action.
© 2006, Francesc Dominguez, Marketing Consultant, co-Author of the book El marketing jurídico [Law Marketing}. www.francescdominguez.com. Advice page published in Economist & Jurist (December 2006-January 2007).
RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNANDEZ
CONSULTAJURIDICACHILE.BLOGSPOT.COM
Renato Sánchez 3586 dep 10
Santiago, Chile
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