Wooing Clients: From The Globe and Mail

From surf lessons to virtual chocolate making, law firms get creative to woo clients.

By Christine Dobby – Corporate Law Reporter, The Globe and Mail

The article, published October 23, 2020 and in which I was quoted, appears in part below.

Leafs tickets don’t exist, spa days are tricky, and standing lunch reservations at swish restaurants are out, so how do lawyers network during a pandemic?

Informational webinars on COVID-19-related topics are ubiquitous and well attended but a bit boring. So law firms – from boutique practices to Bay Street giants – are getting more creative in their approach to wooing new or existing clients.

….

Heather Suttie, a legal marketing and business development consultant with her own Toronto-based company, says direct engagement is crucial and that includes the “old-fashioned technology of picking up the phone.” Eighty per cent of law firms’ work tends to come from 20 per cent of their clients, she said, adding: “You better know who they are and check in to see how they are.”

Law firms previously held splashy events at their impressive downtown offices to entertain clients and build brand awareness, Ms. Suttie says. Now, “webinars and bulletins are being cranked out like sausages,” she said. “But those are only tactics. If we’ve learned anything from this pandemic, it’s that we’ve had to shed our professional armour and get real.”

….

The full story, available to subscribers, is here on The Globe and Mail’s website.

As a follow-up, my February 2021 Canadian Lawyer marketing opinion column will riff off my last statement, which was true then and remains so now.

That’s because nothing is more important than being your true self to yourself and those with whom you work, and casting aside detritus and nonsense that no longer works and perhaps never did.

Watch this space. Until then, my November 2020 column, Positioning in the Legal Market Now is making waves.