The above phrase is one that I have heard so many times and causes me to tear my hair out (or what is now left of it). I usually here it when a solicitor has been provided with a new (to them) opportunity to promote their business which works very well, and they respond with:
"Well I can see how it would work for ABC & Co, Or DEF & Co, but it wouldn’t work for my firm. We are different."
In my experience, this answer is always untrue. The person offering the answer is not being deliberately awkward or obstructive, they genuinely believe that there answer is the correct one. Yet in most occasions, they are dismissing the idea out of hand with absolutely no information to back it up with.
When Do I Hear This?
"I am a niche legal practice so there is no way that I can keep in touch with my clients once a month after their matter is completed as I can only talk about one subject"
"Website marketing does not work for attracting new commercial clients"
"I can’t do a legal newsletter, I have nothing interesting to say"
"I can’t ask clients to recommend me to family and friends because that would seem too desperate"
Needless to say I have proved many solicitors wrong when provided with these answers. Are you using these answers to prevent your law firm from flourishing?
Why Do People Do This?
The good news is that this answer is not exclusive to solicitors. I have worked with many different types of businesses and I hear this answer in every sector. It is a "people thing" rather than specifically a "solicitor thing".
So why do people do this? In the legal world I mentioned that I normally hear this answer when offering a solicitor a new marketing opportunity to promote their business. Now if you bear in mind that I am usually only sitting with that firm because they need more clients (or I would not be invited in) this seems rather strange does it not? When you add to that the solicitor has accepted that they are not a marketing expert, again because they have invited me in, this seems even more strange.
I believe that on most occasions rather than “it wouldn’t work for my firm” what the solicitor usually really means is either:
"I don’t understand how this might work and because it is outside my area of expertise I am going to block the idea because I am not comfortable with it"; or
"This scares me and makes me feel uncomfortable so I am not going to do it"; or
"I am in this position with my law firm because I have certain limiting beliefs which are stopping me from moving to the next stage".
Now whichever of these answers is true (or even another variation of them) they are not a conscious answer. It is something from the subconscious stopping the firm from trying something new, something that might prove hugely successful. The trouble is that until you can recognise that you are saying these things you do not even know that you have a problem.
So please, if you hear your self saying "That sounds all well and good, but it doesn’t apply to my law firm", please stop, take check, and analyse why you are saying that.
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That the approach of thinking your own whole firm is somehow different and not open to exactly the same market pressures as the rest of us is particularly typical of partners in law firms — average age 58 with a lifetime of being approached for their knowledge and wisdom by thousands of clients. It’s exactly why the number of solicitors practices in England and Wales was predicted to drop from 9000 to say 6000. Remarkably however in the last couple of years the number of law firms in England and Wales has risen to a staggering 11,000. I suspect however that were unusual market forces resulting in this major bucking of the trend — lots of solicitors being made redundant with little option but to set up as one-man bands and a sizable number of legal aid practices being hived off from more commercial practices. I think it’s time however for the juggernaut of market forces to regainethe upper hand and we will start to see a significant number of law firms failing with a massive reduction in that total of 11,000. Those solicitors with the approach of “it doesn’t apply to my firm” are almost certain to be in the firing line.