Sink or Swim: Surviving Change and Fostering Leaders
Nancy Vonk and Janet Kestin
Notes taken by Falon Leach, Bereskin & Parr LLP, Erin Neumann, Goldman Sloan Nash & Haber LLP and Christine Rocheleau, Fasken Martineau LLP
Although clients tend to be risk averse and attached to old ways, the award-winning advertising team of Nancy Vonk and Janet Kestin were able to convince their clients (Dove and Shreddies) to get outside their comfort zones which in turn created super loyal customers and led to huge consumer engagement with those brands.
They believe that marketers are the risk takers in a risk adverse culture. Collectively, we are the change agents.
And as legal marketers, we have the opportunity to do this with our firms – to “create a more progressive way of thinking”.
Here’s what they recommend for those of us who want to lead the way:
You Are Just Like Us (the creative agency types):
- Marketing people are just like agency creatives because we both have same challenges, opportunities to help our firms evolve with more power, influence and to bring our teams to success.
- Marketing people are conceptual/creative people who work with lawyers who are more fact based and they only see the details.
- Marketers can see the big picture – we are strategic thinkers who can see trends and take risks – we need to therefore be more creative in the way we do things at our law firms.
- Marketers can be the change agents by moving away from the lawyer handshakes and poses.
- Marketers should help to solve the business problems – not just the marketing problems. We must be the secret sauce.
Your Brand Identity Matters
- Thinking and acting like a brand is really important. Most law firms don’t think of themselves as a brand and they should.
- As legal marketers we’re in a good position to find out what our brand is and/or what it should be. First seek to understand the personality of the firm by speaking to everyone - staff, lawyers, students and clients.
- Make your firm stand out from the rest – generic isn’t the way to go.
- If your prospect can’t tell what’s different about you on the home page of your website, then they are going to get annoyed or leave the page.
How to be a Thought Leader:
- Create an environment where ideas can thrive so that lots of people participate in the discussions.
- Do regular “show-and-tells” to the firm on what the competition is doing and how it’s changing things.
- Share business trends.
- Tell them what’s happening in emerging markets.
- Google + (try it)
- Be title-less: Be a creative problem solver not a Marketing Manager – that’s what thought leadership is.
- Use the younger members of your team to your advantage and become their mentor. The Gen-Xers are more open to new technology (blogging, Twitter etc.), are more creative and are not as hampered by concerns that “we have not done this before”. Moreover these same folks are going to be tomorrow's leaders and so building these long term relationships is good business.
- Partner with future partners: Invite them to be more present in your process. Collaborate with them so that they feel more ownership.
- Mentor: The need for mentoring is necessary. The youngest have fresh eyes so you have so much to learn from them and how they interact digitally.
- Be authentic and transparent and human!! This is what clients look for because it’s appealing and ‘humanity’ is now trending. It’s not about smoke and mirrors anymore.
- Digital is your secret weapon: You are more steeped in digital than anyone else in your firm.
- Connect your brand with a good deed/fundraiser.
- Listening skills: This skill set is often overlooked but it needs to be part of leadership training. You must learn how to be totally present and avoid trying to prepare your answer while you should be listening.
- Suggestion: next time you present an idea to the leaders at your firm do so in two parts, even over two days. Part one: Make your presentation and then ask for their feedback. Part two: Have the dialogue. This will make them feel like they were heard, and will likely result in more buy-in.