We were recently lucky enough to have Sue Stapley, a solicitor and founder of reputation management firm Sue Stapley Consulting (http://www.suestapely.com/) in our studios to discuss how best to market your law firm. Here is a brief extract from that interview, which will be released in full as part of our programme ‘Marketing your Firm’ in the Practice Management & Compliance channel:
Interviewer: Now we all have occasions when we need to make a good impression in a short space of time. What exactly is a mini-pitch or an elevator speech as it’s sometimes known?
Sue Stapley: I think they are sort of interchangeable. My understanding – and I’m not an expert on succinctness – is that it is being able to explain – in one or two sentences at the most – precisely who you are or who the organisation you are representing is or what it does. The phrase ‘elevator pitch’ came from the Americans, of course, who said you should be able to describe your business in the time it takes to travel between floors in a lift or elevator. And the opportunities probably arise most often nowadays at receptions where, I don’t know about you, but I seem to spend probably far too much time standing with an empty glass in my hand in a crowded room talking about my business to other people. And one obviously wants them to remember what it was that one said in case, at some point in the future, they might find your services of use and need to be able to contact you. It is a very succinct statement of who you are and what you do, such that they can remember enough to come back to you if they want to.
Interviewer: So what do you think it should include?
Sue Stapley: The name, and if there’s anything that makes the name more memorable, use that. I’ve been criticised several times for being nothing like serious enough, but my own name is mis-spelt regularly and sometimes mispronounced, and I simply say if you think of shapely, Stapely will probably come to mind. It’s very arrogant but it works, they remember. And one sentence which you will probably need to actually physically write down and work on to get right until it trips off the tongue without your hesitating over it and without you being feeling embarrassed about it, but if you are a small niche practice that specialises in insurance claims then that’s how you want to be seen, and you would say ‘I’m with Seek, Grabbit and Run I’m in a small niche practice that specialises in insurance claims, we’re based in Norwich’. And that’s probably all that you want people to know. That’s enough for them to remember the name, you can make a joke of it if it’s a name that has some joke potential – to make it more memorable – they need to know where you’re placed and they need to know the sector of the business that you’re in.
Interviewer: Have you got any other tips for lawyers that might be thinking about putting together a pitch?
Sue Stapley: Just a few. I think the first and most important is make yourself impossible to dislike. Remember that the client or the potential client is making a choice about a person, a human being or a team of people. Secondly, never forget the support staff, even when you have to do the walk from the lift, which may be with the PA of the person who’s interviewing you, talk to them, be friendly, be nice, they may actually have a voice in the decision-making process so it’s worth being friendly to them as well. And the PA may be the one that’s making the appointments every time you go back into the building, and if she likes you and put in a good word for you it could be helpful. Another quick one is never forget to rehearse your presentation. Just because you’re skilful lawyers and expert in your field – and I would hope you all are – don’t assume that you can do a pitch without rehearsing. Actually put yourselves in the room, get some colleagues to role play the potential client and grill you, and make sure that you go through it clearly so that you know who’s going to say what at what point in the presentation and how. And then finally, follow up: after you’ve done your presentation, hopefully well and successfully, there’ll probably be several weeks delay while they’re seeing other people or considering, you may not hear at once, but the very same day that you’ve done the presentation I would recommend either sending an e-mail or making a phone call – whichever is appropriate – thanking them for their time, saying how much you enjoyed meeting them, maybe seeing their business if you had an opportunity to do that, and how much you’d enjoyed working with them. If there were any questions that you weren’t able to answer at the pitch let them have that information, whether it’s the name of a referee or two who will talk about you positively, or whether it’s a problem that came up that you couldn’t actually offer a solution in the meeting but you’ve had a chance to think about. That demonstrates, again, your enthusiasm for working with them, and that’s always very seductive.
A huge thank you to Sue for making the time to come and be filmed answering our questions, we know the finished programme will be a great one and useful to all those that watch it.
Until next time…
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