Craziness

I recently had a lawyer tell me that he did not believe law firms should have marketing and business development professionals on staff because: "they make lawyers lazy". His argument was that if a firm did not have such people to oversee marketing and help get the firm recognition, that the lawyers themselves would embrace these tasks and be much more successful in growing their practices.
Oh PLEASE!!! I just might have now heard it all.

Additionally this attorney stated that firms that host client events (educational and social) and run advertisements in their local business journals are just being too "showy". In this case his belief is that lawyers only need to do good work and have "lots of lunches" to build their practices. Having marketing programs and planning is just a waste of time.

Maybe he is on to something. He should tell all of his clients that he has come up with the greatest business advice of the century: Companies should fire all their sales and marketing staff (after all, sales and marketing professionals make a lot of money and do not usually have "JDs"!...so how good can they be?). In their place the companies should have their senior executives assume all those responsibilities and do the sales and marketing when they have free time....regardless of if they are good at it or have any experience!!!

What? That is not a good business plan? But it is exactly how this lawyer plans to run his own firm!!!

Successful businesses plan everything and have dedicated professionals to move those plans forward. Leaving business development and marketing to chance is rediculous in any industry. This attorney should take his 401K to Las Vegas and bet the whole thing on Germany winning the World Cup Soccer tournement (or is it World Cup Football tournement???).

I predict a lot of mediocrity in this attorney's business development future. Then he will blame something else (cuz his lack of success could never be his fault!!).

Have A Great Day.

Thom Singer
www.thomsinger.com
thom@thomsinger.com