The hall of mirrors

As a child, one of my favourite fairground attractions was the Hall of Mirrors (for those of you too young to have found yourselves in this distorted reality, Apple's Photo Booth app is similar). Why I so enjoyed the Hall of Mirrors, and why my children like Photo Booth, is that it allows us to play with our image, to make and remake ourselves. The everyday looking glass is subverted but we remain in control. 

In our daily lives, the looking glass is how we see ourselves, and we invariably assume that what we are seeing (albeit with a mirror image) is how others see us. But, and this is sometimes a problem, our perception of who we are and what we look like may not always be the same as other people's.

The same is true of law firms.

All too often how law firms and their partners see (and therefore want to present) themselves, and how their clients, their prospects, their suppliers, their influencers, and their employees see them, are different. This disconnect in perception is a real challenge for law firms - for how can you properly engage without an understanding of those perceptions.

So where should law firms start to gain that understanding? The answer is surprisingly simple: ask the question.

My experience is that lawyers are often professionally reluctant to ask questions to which they don't know the answer (at least in part). They need to put that reluctance aside. They also, like many of us, believe they know the answer without first asking the question. They need to be open to the possibility of being wrong. As part of a rebranding, I approached an influencer to invite him to take part in a survey on perceptions. "You are very brave, " he remarked. "I don't know many law firms who are prepared to do this. What if you get the wrong answers?" My reply was that there are no wrong answers. The problem is simply failing to listen to or act on those answers, however unwelcome they may be.

So if you want to ask the question, call me to discuss the how, the what, and the where.

Some thoughts on branding

Back in 2005 I read Good companies are from Venus, a piece by Richard Tomkins in the Financial Times. I still have the index card on which I copied out a quote (I have a number of these, all now somewhat dog-eared). This is one I often refer to. For in less than 100 words Tomkins catches what “brand” means (and in doing so highlights the particular challenge for law firms when thinking about brand, if indeed they do).

A high quality product is just the price of entry to a market. Beyond that, what companies are really selling is the thing they can use to differentiate their products from their A high quality product is just the price of entry to a market. Beyond that, what companies are really selling is the thing they can use to differentiate their products from their competitors: the set of emotions, ideas, and beliefs their brands convey . . . The most successful brands and companies are those that establish a relationship with consumers based on communicating with them, understanding their needs and empathising with them.

Although Tomkins was writing about companies, much of what he said is equally applicable to professional service firms.

Law firms, by and large, accept that to succeed in today’s legal services market they need to establish differentiators (see my last post Futurology sucks). Not least, as in terms of legal expertise there is often very little to choose between good law firms and good lawyers.

Where lawyers have difficulty, is in articulating their brand, and communicating it. Lawyers don’t really do emotions, ideas, and beliefs - well, not in business. What they do is “law” - but then so do any number of other law firms.

Asking law firms to think about the intangibles of "brand", rather than what they do, is not always a very rewarding exercise. But it should be, because this is the first step for a law firm and its lawyers in identifying and then realising their brand. And in helping them to use this to build those long term relationships with clients which are so necessary to the success of the law firm.