In this post, I summarized an article by an author who advised professional service marketers to focus their marketing efforts internally (and not to clients “externally”) to a law firm’s partners.
My recent posts have featured comments from top tier professional service firm CMOs (none of which are law firms). One argued that PSF clients rely on institutional brands, especially in global buying situations. Another CMO advised “firms to be cautious about not allowing partners to dominate relationships.”
A third PSF CMO argued that PSF brand investments must extend beyond an internal-only focus.
In this post, a public professional firm CMO writes: “the mindset of the private partnership . . . is outmoded and needs to be modernized . . . "
“The writer reminds me of how back woods lawyers used to talk - they were the brand and the Firm was simply an administrative support to them. Apart from the logistic nightmare of having 500 brands in one firm, it is also economically inefficient as most of these partners want an individual marketer to promote the individual.
This is also a commentary that is very typical of . . . law firms who promote the star culture and who are focused on the local market. What the writer fails to recognize is that it is impossible to use his recipe in the international market - lawyers are typically "local brands" and I think that this law firm was a small local law firm.
The point that he misses is that it is the mindset of the private partnership that is outmoded and needs to be modernized and which is clearly inadequate to meet global market forces - rather than have marketers act as individual PR agents to second rate lawyers.”
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