What Legal Marketers and Solicitors Firms Could Learn From a Good Cricket Coach and His Talented Pupil

Yesterday I took my 14 year old son Ben up to Leicestershire County Cricket Club to be coached by a former South African test cricketer. My lad is pretty useful himself already, playing at county level for his age group and above and playing a high standard of club cricket. So the raw materials are already there for him to potentially become a very successful cricketer.

Watching this top quality coach at work for just about an hour, was a revelation. First of all he watched my son bowl for about five minutes without saying anything. He was just assessing his client/customer going about his business.He told me that that was all that he was going to do for starters and for those five minutes he didn't say a word.

Then he did have a word with Ben. He told him that he liked what he saw - that my son had a good bowling action and that the basics were all there. What he said was needed, was to work on the final product ie the quality of the ball being delivered to the batsman.

He then 'suggested' that my son might like to practice bowling the ball using a slightly different grip to the one he was currently using. He did not say that what he was presently doing was wrong - just to try the suggested method and see how he felt after trying it out a few times. After a while my son was bowling using the new method and delivering a quality ball time and again. The coach suggested another method to add to his repertoire as well and soon Ben was bowling that delivery as suggested.

He then talked to Ben. He told him that he the coach was not going to send Ben away a wholly improved player after the session - that this was a long term project and that he would have to go away with a few new ideas, try them repeatedly and often and see which worked best for him and to keep practising those that he felt comfortable with. He also spent some time talking to him about how to bowl to batsmen who were intent on handling his bowling in different ways - some batsmen would be intent on just blocking him out, so a certain approach was needed to tempt them into hitting out at him to see if the batsman would make an error and get out. Some batmen would be intent on trying to put him off by attacking his bowling - again a different approach and a cool head would be needed with this type of player.

He finished off by telling Ben that what was needed above all was for him to practice, practice and practice - that he had all the right ingredients and by trying a few new ideas and with lots of practice he would achieve his goal of playing cricket at a higher and higher level (England Test team and a nice tour to Australia for Mum and Dad would go down well son!!)

What has this got to do with legal marketing, you might well ask?

Well it occurred to me that the approach that the coach adopted with my son in this session was precisely what a good legal marketing consultant should be adopting with a new client.

First of all he observed Ben bowling without making any comment. He did not dive straight in and tell Ben what he should be doing without first seeing how he went about his business of bowling in the first place.
Equally applicable to legal marketing, I would suggest. A good marketing consultant will not want to make suggestions that the client should try this or that marketing method without first observing how the client goes about his business on a day to day basis for a while initially. It might be that as with Ben, all the raw ingredients are there in the first place and that there is a really good base there from which to add some new ideas to ultimately achieve really good results. Having added those new ideas and methods to the repertoire, then what is needed is to keep on working at those good practices to achieve sustainable long term results, which in the legal example is not to bag loads of wickets, but to bag loads of new clients.

Then the coach went on to tell Ben that after the coaching session was finished yesterday he was not going to go away and suddenly become a superstar overnight - he would have to go away, practice the new methods, find out which worked best for him and assimilate them gradually into his game by constantly practising.

Equally once a good legal marketing consultant has completed the brief that he has been contracted to deliver to a firm of lawyers, it doesn't mean that a magic wand has been waved, resulting in floods of new clients ever more without the firm carrying on practising the new marketing methods that they have been shown by the consultant. First of all they need to find out which methods work for them and then to carry on working on putting those methods into practice on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, to ensure that long term results are achieved. Of course just as Ben would benefit from further follow up sessions with the coach, equally the solicitors firm could well benefit from some follow up work from the legal marketing consultant.

When the coach suggested that different approaches might be needed in bowling to different types of batsmen, it reminded me that firms of solicitors need to be flexible in their approach to dealing with and marketing to different types of potential clients. Social Media Marketing might play a big part in attracting a certain potential client base, but have little or no part to play with another where direct marketing might be necessary  For instance I have noticed that many reasonably sized insurance brokers have little or no web presence, let alone have Twitter or Facebook pages - perhaps if brokers are your  potential client target market then a direct campaign using email or direct snail mail marketing might be a better option.

Finally just as the coach told Ben that he needed to 'practice, practice and practice' so too does the law firm - just keep on doing what has been suggested over and over again - try different methods - as long as the product is sound. The maxim 'do the right things and the right things will happen' always seems to work in the long run.