creating thought leaders

Creating Thought Leaders: Influence GCs and Get Hired

with Strategic Thought Leadership

John HellermanHellerman Baretz Communications

LMA Southern CaliforniaMarch 20, 2013

State of the Union

Competition is intense. In 2008, Fortune 1000 companies used an average of 55 law firms. In 2011, that number

decreased to 46 – a 16% decline.

Source: The BTI Consulting Group, “The Attorney Hiring Zone,” 2009 and 2011

Average Law Firms Fortune 1000 Companies Are Using

2008 55

2011 46

The 4 P’s of Product Marketing

The 4 C’s of Service Marketing

Finding

Knowing

Choosing

Market Access

Differentiation

Selection

Results

Reputations

Relationships

The Magic 3

A professional firm becomes branded by the reputation and

performance of its professionals over time.

The more lawyers with credible reputations within your firm, the better.

The Branding Process

Talent is the Product

A Professional Service Firm is a Product Marketer

Help Your Firm Attract the Best Talent& Help Your Talent Win New Business

(You’ll Generate More of Both)

The Prism

Use uncontrolled, and therefore credible, participatory channels

to create, influence and maintain

LUCRATIVE RELATIONSHIPS.

“To make my firm money”

The Purpose

STOP: “Doing” Public Relationsvs.

START: “Using” Public Relations

This is not about creating clips for clips sake. Ask yourself: How is what I’m doing going to help my

firm create, influence or maintain a lucrative relationship?

If it won’t help, tell your firm you’re going to save money by spending its resources elsewhere.

The Approach

What Do You Think?

Activity

Speaking at a Prominent Event

In-Person Casual Meeting

Practicing at a Well-Regarded Firm

Featured Subject in an Article

Referral from a Peer

Advertising

Authoring an Article in the Trade Press

Quoted as an Expert by the Media

In-Person Scheduled Introductory Meeting

Speaking at a Small Education Seminar

Rank these activities on a scale of 1 to 10.

Research Findings

The Attorney Hiring Zone

Personal Knowledge Activities

Credentialing Activities

Awareness Activities

SALE

(1) Peer Referral: 7.5

(2) In-Person Scheduled Introductory Meeting: 6.1

(4) Presenting at a Small Education Seminar: 5.4

(5) Practicing at a Well-Regarded Firm: 5.3

(6) Authoring an Article in the Trade Press: 5.1

(7) Speaking at a Prominent Event: 4.8

(8) Feature Article: 4.1

(9) Advertising: 3.4

(10) In-Person Casual Meeting: 3.3

(3) Quoted as an Expert by the Media: 5.5

Personal Knowledge Activities

Peer Referrals Are Ranked Highest at 7.5 Because of Trusted Third Parties;

In-Person Introductory Meetings Are Second at 6.1 Because of Internal, Self-Screening

• Peer Referral: 57% of corporate counsel report they will consider hiring an attorney based on a single peer referral.

• In-Person Introductory Meetings: Good, old-fashioned hustling.

• Discussion Point: BTI did not address how attorneys are getting in-person introductory meetings. How are you doing that? What tactics are you using to get these meetings?

Credentialing Activities

Credentialing Activities Convey An Implicit Endorsement

From Sources in Positions of Trust

• Practicing at Top Firms ≠ Clear Path to Hire.• Corporate Counsel is Watching

Corporate Counsel The Wall Street Journal

• Speaking at a Seminar/Conferences Might be Good… if You Make it Good.

• Attorney Bylines and the “Pay-to-Play” Factor.• Influence on Steroids: Spread the Word and the Peer

Factor.• Sharing is Caring: Marketing Value Remains.• The Cumulative Effect: Third Time is a Charm.

Awareness Activities

Awareness Activities Can Raise General Awareness of a Law Firm or Individual Attorney, But They Do Not Serve as Credentials Because of the Lack of a

Screening Function by a Trusted Third Party

• Advertising Gets You Known, Not Hired.

• There is Nothing Casual About Business: Make In-Person Meetings Count.

• “Me, Me, Me…”: Feature Articles.

BTI/HBC Marketing Sales Pyramid

1. It typically takes 7 follow-up calls to get the GC to agree to a meeting because GCs routinely reject requests for meetings to test for follow-up. Astonishingly, 90 percent of attorneys fail to follow-up at all after the first rejection!

2. PR is a "credentialing activity" more so than an "awareness activity" and it takes as little as 3 quotes in respected publications to equal the trusted value of an actual referral by a peer, which is the number one activity for receiving hiring consideration.

3. To GCs, feature articles about an attorney or the firm are only slightly more valuable then ads. This is due to the fact that they are not clear about how subjects for features are chosen and a sense it has little to do with actual merit (unlike being quoted as expert).

In Practice

Entering The AttorneyHiring Zone

Maximizing Peer Referrals & Scoring In-Person Meetings

Mastering the Touch: Thought Leadership

Laying the Foundation: Awareness Activities

• How do you encourage peers to refer business to your firm?

• Stepped-up personalized attention is key.

• Client service

• LinkedIn and social media connections

• Surveys

• Third-party commentary

• Byline articles

• Press mentions

• Client alerts

• Awards and rankings

• Advertising

• Sponsorships

• “Pay-for-play” media and speaking opportunities

• Key is creative, client- or industry- centric advertising.

Current Marketing Best Practices Involve “Appropriate

Touching”

Social Networks

Facebook created the “poke” button to spur friendly

connections on the social network.

Professional Networks

Fostering professional relationships, which lead to

hiring, requires the professional equivalent of the “poke” –

appropriate touching.

The Market: What Advanced Firms Are Doing

• Paradigm Shift at Most Sophisticated Law Firms.

• Business Development “Analysts” Being Employed.

• Proactive, Industry-Specific Campaigns.

• Comprehensive Business Intelligence.

Market & Business Intelligence

• Example of comprehensive market intelligence available for law firms to target business development campaigns to specific industries.

• Market intelligence memos from ShiftCentral include daily news articles, statistics of interest, companies in the news, etc.

• HBC also regularly prepares litigation/corporate review and analysis memos, and LinkedIn analysis of key in-house counsel and C-Suite executives, to prepare clients for meetings with prospects.

Creating Opportunities

Energy spent generating interviews leading to third-party quotes should be shifted to generate speaking

and publishing opportunities.

Doing so will generate more of everything over time.

• Focus on narrow, niche issues.• Position your talent as “experts.”• Create blogs, white papers, webinars

podcasts, etc. around an issue.

Benefits:• Strategic• Easy to Measure & Manage• Relevant to Management• Attracts Clients• Material for Reprinting and Distributing (PR-

Fueled Biz Dev)

Think in Campaigns

These aren’t just nice placements. They are excuses to connect with people. Use them as valuable

selling tools that create, influence, and maintain lucrative relationships.

(Create only what is worth reprinting and sharing.)

Leverage Success

Branded Content

Bringing expertise to the market is made safer when firms do it through branded

and strategic content.

Talent can walk; firm-owned,

branded content can’t.

For Immediate Release

• Make getting the info easy. • Give reporters options. • Don’t hold back

information they are going to get in time anyway.

• Recognize the credentialing power of your prospects’ social networks; a reprint from an unknown media outlet referred by a “friend” can be more powerful than one from the Wall Street Journal he finds on his own.

Social Media

The whole idea of social media is not so much to promote yourself, per se, but to:• PROMOTE THE IDEAS THAT ARE VALUABLE TO WHAT

YOU DO.o Question, therefore, is: HOW to become part of OTHER social

networker's stories (i.e., the online dialog that swirls around news and events);

• Do that by identifying the people that are relevant to the people you want to influence, and enabling them with content that is: EASY TO SHARE.o And relax, because that's fundamentally still all the things you're

good at: developing relationships by pitching really worthwhile and interesting stories that are EASY TO TELL.

The Web

1. Consider the Opportunity: The web has radically transformed the way we get our news, and every day, more and more people are relying on alternate online sources (websites, blogs, social networking sites, etc.) to obtain information.

2. Target Properly: If you're going to do social media, do it correctly and be strategic - or you'll sell yourself short, so target the right bloggers, Twitters, and other outlets that are relevant to your purpose.

3. Package it Up: Give bloggers and others a rich array of information by offering other experts' to speak to; give links to other compelling websites, articles, and related graphics, etc.

4. Pitch it: Contact your targets and share the credible, compelling, creative content you've put together.

5. Push it: This is the key. Once the story appears, what do you do with it Share it with other bloggers and other outlets. Get them to pull it apart and re-report it.

6. Circle Back: Make contact with the original outlet and let them know everything you did to promote their work. By showing the value you added they'll want to work with you again.

Compensation Survey

Compensation Survey

Case Study:Madison Ave Insights

• Launched a creative, strategic blog on target industry issues.

• Format brings in the industry with weekly Q&A blog posts on high-level industry issues.

• Social media strategy.

• Sending direct messages and emails with blog posts of interest, blog launch announcement, etc.

• Conducted industry survey to coincide with the blog launch.

• Coordinated blog launch around leading industry event.

Evangelize SMART Leadership as a Biz Dev Tool

Transform Your Firm’s Reluctance into Expectation. Make It See Sharable, Measurable, and Relevant Thought

Leadership as an Opportunity Rather than an Obligation.

Questions & Answers

John Hellerman

Hellerman Baretz Communications LLC202.274.4751

jhellerman@hellermanbaretz.comLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/johnhellerman