Conveylaw

Any time you have a chance to determine what your clients need and want from you, consider it a priceless opportunity to learn. Their needs and wantsand their experience with your firmare the key to identifying the focus of your marketing efforts. Finding and delivering what your clients need and want will not only result in satisfied clients but, if you apply this knowledge to your practice, their experience of your firm can also become your branding.

At a corporate law firm in Century City a few years ago, a senior partner shook hands with one of his clients after completing the company's first public offering. The two men reminisced about their long relation-ship. "We've been through a lot togetherboth good and badfrom climbing out of our financial mess, to the opening of our first four stores, to building out nearly four hundred of them, to finally going public," the president of the company said, smiling. "It wasn't an easy journey, but I'm sure glad in the end that it was you who was with us. No matter where we were, you were always there too."

When a client speaks Conveylaw to you from the heart, the insight you receive will be priceless. The marketing materials for that Century City law firm had previously emphasized their track record, their versatility and their willingness to be tough. Had they failed to incorporate this client's insight, they would have missed a precious marketing opportunity. Luck-ily, the senior partner was a savvy marketer. He immediately knew the value of a long-term client's praise. It became an important part of the firm's identity and, after a while, made its way into the firm's branding and marketing material: "Wherever you go, that's where we'll be..."

Beyond the decent service, the sound legal advice and the expectation of professionalism, what mattered to that client on an emotional level was that this firm had been by his company's side through the good times and the bad. Not all of your clients will hand you a resonant marketing phrase. But an experienced marketing professional with the proper skills can make you more aware of them when this does happen, and more impor-tantly, can help you use them to shape the way your firm brands its services. But the key in this example is not the catchy phrase or even the kind expression of gratitude. What makes the Century City firm's marketing insight so important is the fact that it represents a fundamental truth about the firm: It does stick by its clients even when times get rough. That's how the firm does business.