Just when you thought you had law firm marketing figured out, now you find out that it’s not marketing any more.  It’s Business Development.

Huh?  Didn’t that go out with big hair and shoulder pads in the 1980s?  And didn’t consultants like you, Maddock, tell us to get real and call it marketing?

Well, yes and yes.  But now it’s time to consider marketing as only part of the big picture called Business Development.  Because marketing is only a third (more or less, depending upon your firm) of the process.  The other two thirds?  One is an area that lawyers do quite well, thank you.  The other—not so much.

To visualize Business Development, start by drawing a circle divided into thirds, or, if it’s handy, trace the Mercedes logo on the back of your partner’s car.  Now put marketing in the upper right, sales at the bottom and service on the upper left.  Draw an arrow clockwise around the circle, starting with marketing.  Now sit back and admire your work.  You’re already better informed than millions of lawyers globally.

[Sidebar one:  A recent survey said that this blog rated 8,900,000th among all blogs worldwide.  If you’re reading this, you deserve to be rewarded.]

In future articles on this blog, I’ll define each, talk about their roles, list the resources you need to make them work, and then summarize everything with a nice big chart.
 
[Sidebar two: My kids tell me I’m giving everything away for free.  They don’t understand business development or, in this case, blog stickiness.]

Look for part one of the Business Development Story, Marketing, in the next revealing episode.   

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 8:22 am and is filed under Business Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.