Sometimes my partners say I shouldn’t give away trade secrets to everyone on Above The Law. And they have a point. I don’t write about everything, but I am about to give away one of the great marketing secrets I have learned over quite a few years of intensive study, so here goes…
What is the thing we all want to know about marketing or, as it is colloquially known, “rainmaking”? It is obvious. We want to know how to bring in a good client. Right? Isn’t that the whole ballgame in marketing?
So, what is the secret? If you ask various lawyers credited with making “rain,” you will hear all sorts of answers (almost always given confidently). People will say things like:
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- You get your clients from across the table by doing amazing legal work.
- You get them on the golf course by bonding.
- You get them at the synagogue/church/etc.
- You get them by writing articles and getting your name “out there.”
- You get them by just doing great legal work and clients will find you.
- You get them by stealing them when you leave your current firm – actually no one really says “that one” out loud.
The list is endless. So what is a young lawyer, or a lawyer with few clients, to do? What is the real secret? The answer is this:
If you ask a lawyer with a client how he got it, he will almost always tell you a story that has all sorts of serendipity in it. I was at party with, of all people, my Mom, and she introduced me to a girl for a proposed match. It turned out her dad was……
In the same vein, if you ask a lawyer to go back at the end of a year and look at her marketing plan made at the beginning of the year, you will almost always find that whatever she was sure was her most likely prospective client didn’t pan out; however, something that was incredibly unlikely to happen, and was completely unforeseeable, actually happened.
The problem is that there is absolutely no way under the sun to plan out what is going to happen in marketing. There are a zillion human interactions that will either result in you being successful or a failure. You might play 1000 rounds of golf and get nowhere or be a beginner and land a client on your first golf outing. There is no way to know. Some people might just call it luck.
So the secret to marketing is to recognize that it is a Pure Game of Statistics.
That is the whole story!
Now I’m sure you’re thinking, “thanks a lot Bruce – for telling me nothing – and even disheartening me.” I can’t believe I wasted three minutes reading your stupid and pointless article, but read on.
This concept that it is all statistics sounds “bad” and demoralizing; however, if you think on it, this realization (if you truly embrace it) leads you to a path to success which is as follows:
If it is all about statistics, then – mathematically (did I mention I was a math major eons ago) – all you need to do is maximize the number of statistical interactions you have, i.e., set yourself up to have the most “at bats,” and the chips will fall where they may.
You do this by getting out of your office and what I call being “out and about.” This way you meet the most people and have the most interactions. You have no real idea how these almost random events will resolve themselves; however, you do know that the more interactions you have the better your chances.
You also are chary with your time. Mathematically, spending twenty-four working hours writing an article may not be as useful as spending those twenty-four hours doing other things, like contacting people to talk about ideas, getting together with them, calling others or even playing a round of golf.
In this manner if you have, say, 500 marketing hours a year to spend, you maximize your chances that good things will happen.
Of course, you can augment your likelihood of success by working on your “rap,” which is a distillation of what you have to offer. This should be short and, most importantly, as I have outlined in prior articles, memorable. Otherwise you are forgotten.
It is sort of like being afraid to go to the high school dance — sorry if I am giving away too much about my high school experiences. If you go out to the dance, you might be a loser or a winner. However, if you stay home, you will definitely be a loser.
So, that is the secret. It is math – it is statistics. Think of things that way and then consider if you are spending your time wisely. And, even though you don’t know which good thing will happen to you, something good will happen if you are out and about enough.
Bruce Stachenfeld is the managing partner of Duval & Stachenfeld LLP, which is an approximately 70-lawyer law firm based in midtown Manhattan. The firm is known as “The Pure Play in Real Estate Law” because all of its practice areas are focused around real estate. With 50 full-time real estate lawyers, the firm is one of the largest real estate law practices in New York City. You can contact Bruce by email at [email protected].