Readers are leaders – Recent Reading Roundup 1

As the saying goes, Reading Is Fundamental. To be a good proposal writer, business person, parent…err…human being, you need to read a lot. Some thoughts on a recent read:

Beyond the Brief, Communication Strategies for Lawyers and Legal Marketers by Stephanie Solakian Goldstein

My co-worker underlined the following two passages in Beyond the Brief:

1. As you read through this book, you will realize that legal marketing and communications is not rocket science, it is common sense – page 5
   
2. Lawyers are the “products” that clients buy – page 142

She underlined more but those two pretty much sum up what you need to know about legal or professional services marketing. Professional services marketing is very simple, very straightforward. Yet organizations (not mine, of course!) make it difficult. They make it 100 times harder than it really is by not following on from the strategy and continually reinventing the well at the regional, local and practice levels. (Again, not my firm!). Stephanie Solakian Goldstein provides a text that can begin to help, at least with your communications.

Written for the legal marketer (but great for marketers of any professional service), Beyond the Brief walks through a general discussion of law firm marketing then defines what public (media) relations is, the difference between PR and advertising (see the chart below), how to get your message heard in the crowded marketplace we know today, how to develop a communications plan and the tactics to effectively get your message heard.

Media relations	Advertising
Earned	Paid for
Credible	Audience may challenge or dispute
Contact editorial staff	Contact advertising staff
Takes time	Instant gratification

Chapter 5: Developing a Communications Plan is worth the price of the book. It gives direction about what is needed to produce an effective communications plan and also offers various sample communications plans which you can use to begin your own plans.

Chapters and sections also help you deal with journalists, pitch story ideas to journalists, maximize speaking opportunities and how to build briefing documents for your professionals. There is also a list of books to help with your writing and a list of proofreading tips. More on editing and proofreading soon.

One of the features of the book is the inclusion of articles by “experts” on various topics such as brand positioning, the impact of PR on sales and other topics. These articles are OK but some feel like they were written for other venues (and some are noted as such) and come in abruptly. The article by Julia Brady at the VIA Group is helpful (think of it as a mini Brand Gap and ZAG) but others are not so lucky.

Beyond the Brief does a great job of explaining the different media avenues available and how to build a successful communications strategy – both internal and external. It is the most comprehensive book of its type that I have come across and should be read by every professional services marketer! No, really. If you are in professional services marketing you need to read this book!

One curious thing about this book: it is missing most of its –‘s (en dashes). It is the oddest thing. It seems like someone did a find/replace and forgot to put something in the replace box. There are just big blanks where the en dash should be like, “…a very strong percentage of attorneys…” Odd. I wonder if they caught this later? It does not get in the way of the text.

Required reading for every professional services marketer.

There is a (better?) review of this on the Law Marketing Portal. Click here.