0:30/3:00/30:00 - Mastering Conversational Branding
Staying on Message and Branding Your Firm One Conversation at a Time

Review of the October, 2008 Legal Marketing Association Metropolitan Philadelphia Chapter Lunch Program by Jamie Mulholland

“How are you?”

A question like that usually elicits a very typical and routine response from many people:  “Fine.”  However, when answering a question like “What do you do?” in a networking situation, one should never strive for canned and instead go for creative, so as to take advantage of an opportunity to brand yourself and your firm.

This was the message from Burkey Belser, founder of Greenfield Belser, a premier brand-design firm for the U.S. legal industry for more than 25 years, in his recent presentation to the Metropolitan Philadelphia Chapter of the Legal Marketing Association.  With a full house of close to 60 law firm marketers in attendance, Belser focused on how to get comfortable describing yourself and your firm using a “key message” in 30 seconds (the elevator speech), three minutes (the airplane talk) and 30 minutes (face-to-face business meetings).   

People often fail the “What do you do?” test simply by missing an opportunity to turn the answer into an opportunity to establish your brand, open a dialogue, and develop the beginnings of a relationship.

Branding, Belser cited, like a dialogue, develops trust and chemistry between two parties (be it people or companies), is interactive and is an open conversation and exchange of ideas.  Just like at a cocktail party where there’s that one person who projects confidence and likability and becomes “the” person to talk to in the room, if your overall branding efforts project a positive, confident, and likable message, you will open new dialogues for your firm. 

Getting started:  Have a purpose.

The very first step in determining your message is by having a purpose.  Do you know what you want your listener (not your message) to do?  Are you trying to generate new business?  Have the audience ‘sing your praises’ and help spread the message of your brand?  Identifying the action or next step you’re trying to elicit is the first and most important thing to do.  From there, you can create a dialogue. 

What’s a dialogue?

A dialogue is a story, not a shpiel or a resume.  A dialogue is sincere, enthusiastic, and is reflected in your voice, your inflection, and your smile.  One way to achieve the above is by simply inverting the order of elements within your response.  Instead of answering “What do you do?” with,

“I’m Bob Smith.  I’m Chairman of the Intellectual Property Department of Smith & Jones.”

How about this? 

“You know those companies that use slogans like, ‘If you’ve got the time, we’ve got the beer?’ Well, my firm protects those companies against other people stealing those slogans or using them illegally.  My name is Bob Smith and I head up the IP Group at Smith & Jones.” 

So now, instead of a canned response, you have a story - a creative, sincere and interesting way of explaining what you do.  Instant likeability.  Best of all, you’ve shifted the focus of “me” to “we,” inviting someone else into the dialogue and, most likely, a follow up question (“Really? Tell me more about your work/your firm/your clients.”)

The 3:00 Drill

Expanding the :30 response into a 3:00 drill simply entails ensuring that your goal includes giving the audience a deeper understanding of your firm and extending the relationship by doing several things:  turning the attention away from yourself, being interested (instead of just interesting), and listening (really and truly listening).  Follow up question:  “Really?  Tell me more about your firm.”

Your answer:  “Well, I just handled a case involving [describe it], and while it was very [time consuming/stressful], I really enjoyed the opportunity and [something you learned from it].  Know what I mean?”

Incorporating a human aspect to the dialogue (“You know those commercials…”  “It was really stressful…”  “I really learned a lot…”) brings it to a universally understandable level and invites the audience to participate. 

In any one-on-one dialogue (be it the 30 second or the 3 minute one), it’s important to do several things:  be prepared with things like business cards and a pen, have some general icebreaker questions ready to keep the dialogue flowing, and have an “exit strategy” (“This sounds like something I’d really love to discuss further.  In the meantime, there are a number of people here I would like to catch up with, but let’s exchange business cards so we can connect soon.”

The 30:00 presentation

The 30:00 sales presentation is where you can use the principles of the 30 second and 3 minute dialogue more freely to show who you are, your qualifications, and what hope to do for the audience (potential client) in much greater depth.

In this portion of the presentation, Belser shared portions of a PowerPoint his firm helped create for a client’s pitch to obtain legal work from Verizon Wireless.  All of the elements were shown in the most creative of ways.  From the text (“We’re 42 attorneys…anything but stuffy”) to interesting photos (including one with the firm’s attorneys dressed and positioned like the popular Verizon Wireless team featured in their current television ads) and interesting visuals used to punctuate the slides on the firm’s experience, geographical reach, etc., the presentation was wholly different and interesting while still including all of the staples of a client pitch (number of attorneys, practice areas, offices).

Best of all, the language and format of the presentation was tailored to mirror exactly the client’s formal request for qualifications, addressing each need, each issue, and each question directly.   

Lessons to take away

No matter what your audience, your setting/medium, or the amount of time in which you have to establish that dialogue, your pitch should always involve three main components:  going in knowing exactly what you want coming out, sharing “about me” in a fun and interesting way, and making an effort to turn the focus away from you and involve the audience in the dialogue. 

In all, memorable, creative, and fundamental to your brand.

To view the presentation slides from this event, click here.

Merrill Corporation was the proud sponsor of this program.