Rules for Failure

Here is a short list for professional services partners and marketers to ponder. The list, via Seth Godin is an adaptation of William Beatty's words for amateur scientists, but it's pretty global:

The road to failure often contains:

1. Secrecy
2. The conviction that someone is about to steal your idea.
3. Focus on selling your idea to the government or a big corporation.
4. Loss of humility and focus on fame
5. Belief that businesses (the smart ones) will hail your discovery.

A great list! Did you notice that every item on this list points at being single-minded and insecure? I did. As an inverse allow me to offer a roadmap to success:

1. Share information as often as is reasonable with anyone that might help
2. Stop thinking you are the first person to have the idea -- be the first to get it to market
3. Focus on why anyone would pay for your idea
4. Listen to the kernels of truth that others might offer to make your idea better
5. Have passion for what your idea can accomplish for the people that will pay for it.

Lawyers Should Blog for Their Clients, Not Themselves

Would your potential clients want to read your blog?

I had a great conversation with Damian Nassiri of Howard | Nassiri this evening on the topic of promoting his firm through blogging. Damian is an earnest young lawyer with a great plaintiff practice built on good results from hard work... and he's about to launch a blog for his firm.

He's been encouraged to publish articles about developments in legal precident surrounding his area of expertise... which I guess is pretty good if he was trying attract other attorneys as clients.

But his clients are consumers... plaintiff side work. I am certain his advisors are really smart people, but if I was writing to attract new clients for a plaintiff audience I feel certain I would not be writing legalese articles.

Instead I encouraged Damian to post articles that would be attractive to his clients.

Here is what I advised: "When your potential clients use the internet to search for answers, what are the questions they might enter into a search engine box?" And, "Do your blog posts answer their questions?"

I encourage you to do this -- if you publish a blog ask your current clients to review your articles and answer this question, "Would this blog have helped you choose us as your law firm?"

If you actually pose this question to your clients I would love to hear your feedback!