Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUD2-uvaxFc
29mins
Michael Ehrenstein 00:02
Good day. My name is Mike Ehrenstein. I am the president of the Litigation Council of America for 2022. I’m also a business trial lawyer in Coral Gables, Florida. And I’m joined today by Ross Fishman.
Michael Ehrenstein 00:17
He is the godfather of legal marketing, and we’re here to learn about his top non zoom tips to capture and keep clients as we emerge from this horrible pandemic. So first, before we get into it, I have a short disclaimer.
Michael Ehrenstein 00:34
I am not objective when it comes to Ross Fishman. He is, in addition to being a great legal marketer, he is a friend. And he is somebody on whose advice I have relied. We’ve been to dinner together, we’ve been on the boat together.
Michael Ehrenstein 00:53
We’ve done some things together. But in addition to that, he has really helped me with my marketing. And I’m a big fan, and I think that you all will be, too, after you hear what he has to say.
Ross Fishman 01:08
Thank you very much. Good to see you.
Michael Ehrenstein 01:10
Good to see you too, again. So what I’d like to review, Ross, is how things have changed with the legal marketing world as a result of the pandemic and where we’re headed from here as we emerge from the pandemic.
Michael Ehrenstein 01:31
The other day, I had a conversation with a colleague of mine, and I asked her, how have things changed in terms of legal marketing? And she said, it’s exactly the same as it has changed in court. We do zoom.
Michael Ehrenstein 01:44
Everything is Zoom. Zoom is the cure for everything. Zoom is wonderful as long as you keep your pants on. Zoom is the greatest thing in the world. And it is, and it was very helpful, and it really has changed the way we do things.
Michael Ehrenstein 01:59
But. It is not a panacea or a panacea. It is a tool, but one of many. And as we emerge from this pandemic, I’m curious, Ross, if you can help the fellows of the LCA by giving us a few tools that we can use as we emerge to capture and keep clients, moving forward in this ever more competitive environment.
Ross Fishman 02:30
Sure. First, it’s great to see you. Always great to see you, Mike. And anything I can ever do to help LCA is certainly a pleasure. First, let me echo. Zoom has really changed everything, and it’s changed how we market, I think, in a positive way.
Ross Fishman 02:47
It’s made us more efficient in a lot of the marketing that we can do. And I think that will continue to benefit us going forward. So I’m delighted to have one more tool and toolbox. We don’t have to fly to California to see people in order to have that interaction.
Ross Fishman 03:03
And Zoom is one more efficient way to see more people more quickly. And so I think that’s great. The pandemic has changed a lot of other things. Obviously, some of the things that have changed is that a lot of the things that we normally would do in person, we’re forced to do online, that we still have to build our reputation, we still have to develop chemistry with people.
Ross Fishman 03:33
We’ve got to expand on our network. But we can’t do that in person as much. We can’t be face to face with people. We can’t be taking people out to lunch or out to drinks or out to events as a symphony or opera or sports or whatever we do.
Ross Fishman 03:48
And so we’ve had to move a lot of that stuff online. Zoom is one good tool for that. But a lot of the credentialing that we’ve had that we always want to do to prove the quality of our work and our practice, a lot of the ongoing communications that we’ve done, a lot of those things have moved online.
Ross Fishman 04:09
And frankly, we found that they’re actually pretty effective. But the challenge with this is that once we’ve found that this works, it exploded exponentially. There’s so much more content. People are writing articles and blogging and sending out alerts and newsletters and posting.
Ross Fishman 04:32
It’s just the volume has increased so much because it does work. But now it’s a little bit harder to stand out because the volume of the competition has increased so much. So you’re fighting to get to the top of the pile in a much larger pile.
Ross Fishman 04:51
So some of the things that I’d like to do, I’d like to recommend first is to enhance your LinkedIn profile that we still need to prove the quality of our work. We need to tell our story to people. And updating your LinkedIn biography is a really important way to do that.
Ross Fishman 05:12
So I’d like to recommend that people do a better job with their LinkedIn profiles. Another thing that the pandemic has made people nervous and stressed and anxious. And so when in that situation, we tend to buy the proven market leaders.
Ross Fishman 05:34
And so I wanted my second point. I’d like to have to encourage people to find some area where they can an industry group or something where they can build to become a market leader in something. Okay, find that group where you can be a market leader.
Ross Fishman 05:50
Third point, of course, invest in our existing relationships. It feels like we’ve fallen off the grid. We’re at home. We’re not with people. Many of us go out to lunch every day with someone and just keep our networks vibrant and active.
Ross Fishman 06:05
We can’t do that. So we’ve got to find ways to do more of that, to invest in the relationships and just remind people that we’re out there. Stay top of mind with a lot more people. Fourth, find ways to stay in touch more regularly.
Ross Fishman 06:20
It’s kind of a subset of that, that what can we do to just regularly, without too much difficulty, without too much investing, too much time, remind people that what we do and how we do it and where, why.
Ross Fishman 06:39
We do it in a way that causes them to remember us when they need the thing that we do, the service that we provide. And finally, I encourage you to use LCA to assist in your marketing and professional development.
Ross Fishman 06:55
Get active in LCA. There’s a lot of benefits and a lot of opportunities there, both inbound and outbound. And I would encourage people to get active with LCA. Those would be my five tips.
Michael Ehrenstein 07:06
Wow. Okay. So there’s a lot there five tips.
Michael Ehrenstein 07:10
And I’m sure there’s there’s more to it than just the the headline. So what I’d like to do, if it’s okay with you, is go back to each one of those on your list and have you give us a little more detail on each one.
Michael Ehrenstein 07:25
For example, the first one you mentioned was to update your LinkedIn profile. Tell us a little bit more about that. How would you go about doing that? What do you recommend that is included or excluded from that kind of an update?
Ross Fishman 07:37
Sure. LinkedIn is a really powerful resource when it’s used correctly, which it often isn’t. Too often. It’s overlooked, it’s disregarded as, oh, no one believes that, or no one looks at that. I think the studies all show that people.
Ross Fishman 07:53
Who are interested in hiring you will go to your website bio and your LinkedIn profile, both because they should have complimentary information and told in a different way, slightly different information.
Ross Fishman 08:05
But LinkedIn is much more informal, much more casual, much more personal, told in the first person, usually. And so what it gives you is the opportunity to really express yourself, to really help people see the real you, which your website, BIOS tends not to.
Ross Fishman 08:21
And so the problem that I see the mistake I see lawyers often make with their LinkedIn profiles is that it’s basically name, rank, and serial number. It’s just features. I am a litigator. Here is what I do, which are exactly the same things that every other litigator does, because you’re explaining basically the practice of litigation as opposed to why you should hire me to do the thing that you need.
Ross Fishman 08:47
And so I want you to think to start with, what’s my theme? What’s the theme? When you go to court, you need a theme. You need to explain to the judge or jury why you should win, what’s the evidence that you have?
Ross Fishman 09:01
But you need a theory of the case. And I like to have that in LinkedIn profiles, too, that I know you’re good. I wouldn’t be considering you if I didn’t already know that you were skilled. So are the other guys that I have on my list.
Ross Fishman 09:17
They’re also smart and talented and do litigation things. But why are you a better fit for me? Help me. See you don’t just tell me what you do, but why you do it. I like to bring in something from the person’s history or childhood that connects back to why you’re so passionate about what you do.
Michael Ehrenstein 09:41
I was curious if you could give us maybe a concrete example. Don’t name whoever the person was, but an example of one. LinkedIn profile where the theme came out. And what was the theme?
Ross Fishman 09:57
Well, in fact, I will name names because I think that off the top of my head.
Ross Fishman 10:03
Two that I wrote and one that I like. One of them is our friend Joe Fozzie. So I would encourage people go look at Joseph Fozzie. The second. And I wrote that because it’s about Joe. And I think that if you know Joe, you’d read the profile and see yeah, that really sounds like Joe, and why people would like to have him as their lawyer, that he’s just a great guy, brilliant trial lawyer, and he wins lots of cases.
Ross Fishman 10:31
But it’s because juries like him and they trust him, and he’s a humble, modest guy. Read that and see if you think that how we wrote. That expresses that aspect of Joe’s personality. I think it clearly shows he’s a great trial lawyer, but also it expresses his personality in a way that makes you like him.
Ross Fishman 10:54
If that’s what you’re looking for in your lawyer, you show what Joe is like. Another one is Peter Sheridan, California Construction Lawyer and construction clients, the developers, they love their work.
Ross Fishman 11:11
They’re passionate about these projects, and they want lawyers who are passionate, too. They want their lawyers to love construction also. And talking to Peter, it was clear that he did too, that he loves construction.
Ross Fishman 11:24
And we started with Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs and Erector sets in his childhood to show that he loves building. Now, he doesn’t have those skills to be an architect, but he has the passion, and the skills that he does have makes him great at what he does in construction litigation.
Ross Fishman 11:44
And I think and so going all the way back to kindergarten with him, we told his story that. Relates to his target clients that they would relate to him. Another one that I like is yours, that yours is much shorter.
Ross Fishman 11:59
I might like you to but it’s true that in terms of a theme, you know what your theme is? That you are a that you have a history, a long history in martial arts. You’re a multi degree black belt and it informs who you are and how you think and how you approach your life, including litigation.
Ross Fishman 12:21
And so if you want someone who’s strategic and approaches you, describe how that works. And so that gives you a theme. I have a litigator over here who was referred to me. I got another one over here and I have this guy who also seems skilled.
Ross Fishman 12:37
Oh. But I like how he thinks. And I like this martial arts connection. It’s something that you have that makes you different, and I think you effectively use that to set yourself apart in your LinkedIn profile.
Ross Fishman 12:47
I might like you to go into a little greater detail. We could talk about that later. But you’ve got a theme and I like that. And I think people will relate to that and appreciate that and think of you in a different, better way than the average litigator.
Michael Ehrenstein 13:02
So that’s great. That’s helpful. Instead of just regurgitating our bio from the website, be a little more personal and have a theme. Anything else with respect to LinkedIn that you think we should really focus on?
Ross Fishman 13:20
Well, there’s a lot LinkedIn is a whole hour long topic, but I just like to see people and I’ll get to some of these later if we continue to using LinkedIn to stay Connected did with people. The one thing that I want to reiterate that LinkedIn is important because people are going to go there anyway before they hire you.
Ross Fishman 13:39
So why not do a great job, even if you’re not going to be the kind of person who’s like an IBM salesperson trolling around for business on LinkedIn and some lawyers do effectively. But if that’s not who you are, that’s okay.
Ross Fishman 13:52
That doesn’t mean you still shouldn’t have a very powerful and compelling LinkedIn profile because it’s just sitting there 24/7 marketing you around the clock in while you sleep. People can be out there reading that and learning the things that you want them to know about you in anticipation of hiring.
Michael Ehrenstein 14:09
Okay, let’s go on to our your second suggestion, which was to find something that you can focus on either being the market leader or becoming the market leader in. Tell us a little bit more about that.
Ross Fishman 14:27
This is probably the point that I feel most strongly about over the decades of my legal marketing career, the niche marketing, industry based, target marketing, that business litigators are everywhere and it’s half the profession, and it’s really hard to tell who’s the best litigator for any given thing.
Ross Fishman 14:49
Everybody seems kind of smart enough and everybody’s resume seems like they do a good job, and people rarely ever lose cases, it seems. And so it’s really hard for clients to tell who’s better. What do you offer that’s different than everybody else?
Ross Fishman 15:05
Which means marketing a general service to an ill defined audience, like marketing litigation to America. It’s just so hard to get any traction doing that. It’s hard to write a marketing plan around that.
Ross Fishman 15:19
And so what I advocate is for people to find some trade association, find some smaller group, and market to them. The easiest is an industry association because they because then if it’s an industry that you have some connection with, some affiliation with some interest in, then you’re a natural fit with that audience.
Ross Fishman 15:44
And then if you find that trade association. That’s where you do your writing and speaking and networking directly to the clients. And so you become the automatic shortlist for that industry. You’ve just got to be careful that the industry is not so large that you’ll never get there.
Ross Fishman 16:03
You know, the obvious ones, real estate and healthcare, insurance, construction, those are really big. We want you to find something very small where there’s maybe just a few hundred, 500, maybe total members, and then do all of your marketing toward that group.
Ross Fishman 16:21
If you have my book, I’ve got a whole chapter on this. The Ultimate Law Firm Marketing Partner Checklist. It’s available on Amazon, and I’ll send you a PDF if you want. But it has a whole chapter on this subject.
Ross Fishman 16:37
I feel very strongly about this. If your marketing isn’t working as well as you’d like, I would strongly urge you to try to find a trade association, an industry based group, and market directly to them.
Ross Fishman 16:50
And you’ll find a lot more success that way.
Michael Ehrenstein 16:52
Okay, let’s talk now for a second about the third point, which you had raised, which was to invest in existing relationships. So how would you recommend that even with the pandemic as it wanes, God willing, and we start getting back out there, how should we go about investing in existing relationships?
Ross Fishman 17:17
Whatever you can think of to do. Just to get back into public, just to get back to reminding the people that, you know, that you’re out there, out of sight, out of mind, is a challenge for every professional.
Ross Fishman 17:34
And it’s been exacerbated, it’s been aggravated by the pandemic. When we hunkered down state in, it became harder to do all those things that we always wanted, that we wanted to do. In terms of staying in touch with people.
Ross Fishman 17:49
And so just pull out your list and find a way to reconnect every day. Try to find a way to make some calls, to send some emails, just to reinforce the relationships that you have, because the worst situation the referral that you would have gotten and then he didn’t get because, oh, I totally forgot about you.
Ross Fishman 18:16
So you just got to stay top of mind more often with the people you already know.
Michael Ehrenstein 18:20
Well great, and I guess the subset of that was to stay in touch more regularly. Do you suggest that we have a schedule to go by or we have to reach out to this potential client once a week or once every three months?
Michael Ehrenstein 18:39
Or how do you go about being regular in that way?
Ross Fishman 18:42
That’s a good question, and it really depends on the person. Are you the kind of person who likes to have the schedule? And I know people who do, and they’re very effective that way.
Ross Fishman 18:53
Every Tuesday at lunch they sit down and for an hour they do what they’re saying, or Fridays at two, they grab a glass of beer and then they do their marketing, whatever it is, whatever works for you.
Ross Fishman 19:07
So some of the things and of course, having a schedule, having it in writing is better because there’s a way to measure yourself against your accomplishments. Did you do the thing you committed to do?
Ross Fishman 19:19
Because if it’s not in writing, it’s really easy to say, well, I got really busy and you are and so things tend to not get done when there’s billable pressure and there’s always billable hours that you need to build and you can be making more tangible money that hour doing that and not investing in your future.
Ross Fishman 19:40
And so it’s better to have something that you can mark off your list. But those things include sending out the occasional alert or newsletter requires a little bit more proactive effort to actually write a thing like that.
Ross Fishman 19:57
And so occasionally I would recommend a larger initiative like that, but even just simple things like, again, back to using LinkedIn. LinkedIn is great for staying in touch with lots of people without up too much effort.
Ross Fishman 20:10
You could share something in a little status update, like it’s a Facebook post, those are great. You dash off a little note, relates to yourself, your practice or your friends, your life, and it just reminds people, oh yeah, there’s that Mike Erhrenstein again.
Ross Fishman 20:24
Oh, yeah, I like him. Just stay top of mind that way. So sharing things as you look, you log in and you get a feed like those things, connect or comment rather on those things, share them with your network, those sorts of things, without spend just a minute and it goes back into the feed of all the people you know on LinkedIn.
Ross Fishman 20:50
So that’s a way to stay in touch with lots of people very efficiently. Finally, you’ll get notifications if you have that box checked that I learned every day, I get an email or I can go to LinkedIn and click notifications and it’ll show me all the things that somebody’s birthday or somebody’s work anniversary or someone just won an award or something like that.
Ross Fishman 21:13
Each of those things is an occasion to say, hey, it’s Mike’s birthday, I’m going to connect with him, right? And so it gives me a reason to connect with a lot of people who I might not otherwise have a reason to reach out to them if I don’t know them that well.
Ross Fishman 21:29
It’s a little awkward sort of picking up the phone and calling, but that is only on LinkedIn.
Michael Ehrenstein 21:36
I have to say, when I get the perfunctory happy birthday from somebody that I’ve seen. Once in my entire life or twice in my entire life. It doesn’t create traction.
Ross Fishman 21:53
It doesn’t it does remind you that they’re out there briefly, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to think that much more fondly of them. But that’s an excellent point. We don’t want to just use the click for thumbs up.
Ross Fishman 22:08
Congrats on your new job or the auto fill that they have. Don’t use those auto fills. What you need to do is spend that time to say Happy birthday and then something else. Just another sense or two. No more than that, but just something that shows that you expended some effort and you didn’t just go click, click to everything that you were notified of that day.
Ross Fishman 22:35
But you’re absolutely right. I think make a positive impression.
Michael Ehrenstein 22:39
The technology has made staying in touch so easy and perfunctory that it gets to the point where it loses meaning. If I’m getting in touch with somebody, I would try to say something authentic and genuine.
Ross Fishman 22:58
But you’re an authentic and genuine person, Mike. You’re good at that. It comes naturally to you. And for many of us it doesn’t. But we can still follow those good habits because that’s exactly right, of course.
Ross Fishman 23:10
That’s what we should be doing. And so we should take that to heart when in all of our communications, never perfunctory, never formally, always do as you’re suggesting. Add a little more little of yourself to it.
Ross Fishman 23:26
A little a little more human connection.
Michael Ehrenstein 23:29
Got it. And the last of the top five nonzoom points, I think for me, probably the most important one is to continue using the LCA to expand your networks and connections.
Ross Fishman 23:45
Well, we should do this one together. First of all, I mean, you’re the definitive example of how to use LCA effectively, that you’ve done all the things that marketers like me recommend. You’ve been visible, you’ve been active, you go to you attend the conferences, you bring your lovely wife and who is also very good at networking.
Michael Ehrenstein 24:09
You’re a marketing officer.
Ross Fishman 24:12
But you’re there with intention, with a goal, that you’re having a good time. It’s clear, because you enjoy the people. You’re one of the usual suspects, which is what happens after you go a few times and you become a regular.
Ross Fishman 24:29
You’re like norm at cheers. People are happy to see you. And that’s what happens at LCA, because it’s a very connected community of insiders. And those insiders are created just by repetition, by being there.
Ross Fishman 24:47
They’re smart, they’re great lawyers, but they’re really nice people. But if you go once and leave and you never come back, you get the nice black tie formal photo, but you really haven’t leveraged what LCA offers.
Ross Fishman 25:05
Everybody knows you because you’ve done the things that people do who are known. And you can do that as you do just because you enjoy people, or you can do that strategically and intentionally do it on purpose with the goal of using LCA as an effective marketing tool.
Michael Ehrenstein 25:26
And it is. I have to say, the resource that LCA has provided, at least to me, has been tremendous. Not just because it’s fun. And we go and we have a great time and great locations and we have.
Michael Ehrenstein 25:41
Good food and good music. All of which is true. But in addition to that, we really do have some great lawyers. All of the lawyers are great lawyers and nice people, people that are easy to work with.
Michael Ehrenstein 25:57
And so when I’ve had a need to find local counsel anywhere, I had an instant since last week where a client in Florida had an issue in Arizona and I could answer his questions for him applying Florida law.
Michael Ehrenstein 26:17
But I didn’t know anything about Arizona law. So we go to the LCA directory and sure enough, there’s one of the fellows whom I know is out there. And I was able to get a quick answer for a client in need, which was great.
Michael Ehrenstein 26:30
It was a great service to the client. It was a great introduction. That client is going to end up needing his representation taken care of out in Arizona. And I’ve used it also for local council. I have a case pending in New York where I’ve reached out to I’m representing the Republic of Angola in some pretty hefty litigation in the Southern District of New York.
Michael Ehrenstein 26:57
And I’m not a Southern District of New York lawyer. So I was fortunate enough to be able to forge a really good professional relationship and more importantly, a really good friendship with Mark Rosen of Kleinberg Kaplan, who LCA fellow whom I wouldn’t have met but for through the LCA.
Michael Ehrenstein 27:23
I think that the opportunities that the LCA provides to not just refer to each other or work together, but to even market together are pretty deep and extraordinary.
Ross Fishman 27:35
Yes, I think that you raise a good point that it’s good for education.
Ross Fishman 27:41
The social aspect is terrific as well. But then professionally, inbound outbound, it’s nice to have an established network of people who, you know, are excellent, already vetted, and so you can work with them in a lot of different ways and you can meet some extraordinary lawyers at LCA.
Ross Fishman 28:01
I also like using LCA’s marketing resources that leverage the marketing that you’re doing using LCA’s resources. Contact Beth if you’ve written an article, have it republished in LCA Commentary. There’s a lot of marketing opportunities and marketing tools that LCA offers to the fellows that not enough fellows take advantage of.
Ross Fishman 28:25
And it’s another way to expand your reach to a larger audience.
Michael Ehrenstein 28:29
Agreed. Ross, thank you for your top five tips. Non zoom tips on how we can continue to keep and capture new clients as we emerge from the pandemic.
Michael Ehrenstein 28:44
Your wisdom and knowledge is really helpful and your friendship is much appreciated.
Ross Fishman 28:52
Always a pleasure speaking with you. Mike, good to see you.
Michael Ehrenstein 28:54
Good to see you too. Thank you.
LCA President Michael Ehrenstein interviews Ross Fishman
Michael Ehrenstein 00:02
Good day. My name is Mike Ehrenstein. I am the president of the Litigation Council of America for 2022. I’m also a business trial lawyer in Coral Gables, Florida. And I’m joined today by Ross Fishman.
Michael Ehrenstein 00:17
He is the godfather of legal marketing, and we’re here to learn about his top non zoom tips to capture and keep clients as we emerge from this horrible pandemic. So first, before we get into it, I have a short disclaimer.
Michael Ehrenstein 00:34
I am not objective when it comes to Ross Fishman. He is, in addition to being a great legal marketer, he is a friend. And he is somebody on whose advice I have relied. We’ve been to dinner together, we’ve been on the boat together.
Michael Ehrenstein 00:53
We’ve done some things together. But in addition to that, he has really helped me with my marketing. And I’m a big fan, and I think that you all will be, too, after you hear what he has to say.
Ross Fishman 01:08
Thank you very much. Good to see you.
Michael Ehrenstein 01:10
Good to see you too, again. So what I’d like to review, Ross, is how things have changed with the legal marketing world as a result of the pandemic and where we’re headed from here as we emerge from the pandemic.
Michael Ehrenstein 01:31
The other day, I had a conversation with a colleague of mine, and I asked her, how have things changed in terms of legal marketing? And she said, it’s exactly the same as it has changed in court. We do zoom.
Michael Ehrenstein 01:44
Everything is Zoom. Zoom is the cure for everything. Zoom is wonderful as long as you keep your pants on. Zoom is the greatest thing in the world. And it is, and it was very helpful, and it really has changed the way we do things.
Michael Ehrenstein 01:59
But. It is not a panacea or a panacea. It is a tool, but one of many. And as we emerge from this pandemic, I’m curious, Ross, if you can help the fellows of the LCA by giving us a few tools that we can use as we emerge to capture and keep clients, moving forward in this ever more competitive environment.
Ross Fishman 02:30
Sure. First, it’s great to see you. Always great to see you, Mike. And anything I can ever do to help LCA is certainly a pleasure. First, let me echo. Zoom has really changed everything, and it’s changed how we market, I think, in a positive way.
Ross Fishman 02:47
It’s made us more efficient in a lot of the marketing that we can do. And I think that will continue to benefit us going forward. So I’m delighted to have one more tool and toolbox. We don’t have to fly to California to see people in order to have that interaction.
Ross Fishman 03:03
And Zoom is one more efficient way to see more people more quickly. And so I think that’s great. The pandemic has changed a lot of other things. Obviously, some of the things that have changed is that a lot of the things that we normally would do in person, we’re forced to do online, that we still have to build our reputation, we still have to develop chemistry with people.
Ross Fishman 03:33
We’ve got to expand on our network. But we can’t do that in person as much. We can’t be face to face with people. We can’t be taking people out to lunch or out to drinks or out to events as a symphony or opera or sports or whatever we do.
Ross Fishman 03:48
And so we’ve had to move a lot of that stuff online. Zoom is one good tool for that. But a lot of the credentialing that we’ve had that we always want to do to prove the quality of our work and our practice, a lot of the ongoing communications that we’ve done, a lot of those things have moved online.
Ross Fishman 04:09
And frankly, we found that they’re actually pretty effective. But the challenge with this is that once we’ve found that this works, it exploded exponentially. There’s so much more content. People are writing articles and blogging and sending out alerts and newsletters and posting.
Ross Fishman 04:32
It’s just the volume has increased so much because it does work. But now it’s a little bit harder to stand out because the volume of the competition has increased so much. So you’re fighting to get to the top of the pile in a much larger pile.
Ross Fishman 04:51
So some of the things that I’d like to do, I’d like to recommend first is to enhance your LinkedIn profile that we still need to prove the quality of our work. We need to tell our story to people. And updating your LinkedIn biography is a really important way to do that.
Ross Fishman 05:12
So I’d like to recommend that people do a better job with their LinkedIn profiles. Another thing that the pandemic has made people nervous and stressed and anxious. And so when in that situation, we tend to buy the proven market leaders.
Ross Fishman 05:34
And so I wanted my second point. I’d like to have to encourage people to find some area where they can an industry group or something where they can build to become a market leader in something. Okay, find that group where you can be a market leader.
Ross Fishman 05:50
Third point, of course, invest in our existing relationships. It feels like we’ve fallen off the grid. We’re at home. We’re not with people. Many of us go out to lunch every day with someone and just keep our networks vibrant and active.
Ross Fishman 06:05
We can’t do that. So we’ve got to find ways to do more of that, to invest in the relationships and just remind people that we’re out there. Stay top of mind with a lot more people. Fourth, find ways to stay in touch more regularly.
Ross Fishman 06:20
It’s kind of a subset of that, that what can we do to just regularly, without too much difficulty, without too much investing, too much time, remind people that what we do and how we do it and where, why.
Ross Fishman 06:39
We do it in a way that causes them to remember us when they need the thing that we do, the service that we provide. And finally, I encourage you to use LCA to assist in your marketing and professional development.
Ross Fishman 06:55
Get active in LCA. There’s a lot of benefits and a lot of opportunities there, both inbound and outbound. And I would encourage people to get active with LCA. Those would be my five tips.
Michael Ehrenstein 07:06
Wow. Okay. So there’s a lot there five tips.
Michael Ehrenstein 07:10
And I’m sure there’s there’s more to it than just the the headline. So what I’d like to do, if it’s okay with you, is go back to each one of those on your list and have you give us a little more detail on each one.
Michael Ehrenstein 07:25
For example, the first one you mentioned was to update your LinkedIn profile. Tell us a little bit more about that. How would you go about doing that? What do you recommend that is included or excluded from that kind of an update?
Ross Fishman 07:37
Sure. LinkedIn is a really powerful resource when it’s used correctly, which it often isn’t. Too often. It’s overlooked, it’s disregarded as, oh, no one believes that, or no one looks at that. I think the studies all show that people.
Ross Fishman 07:53
Who are interested in hiring you will go to your website bio and your LinkedIn profile, both because they should have complimentary information and told in a different way, slightly different information.
Ross Fishman 08:05
But LinkedIn is much more informal, much more casual, much more personal, told in the first person, usually. And so what it gives you is the opportunity to really express yourself, to really help people see the real you, which your website, BIOS tends not to.
Ross Fishman 08:21
And so the problem that I see the mistake I see lawyers often make with their LinkedIn profiles is that it’s basically name, rank, and serial number. It’s just features. I am a litigator. Here is what I do, which are exactly the same things that every other litigator does, because you’re explaining basically the practice of litigation as opposed to why you should hire me to do the thing that you need.
Ross Fishman 08:47
And so I want you to think to start with, what’s my theme? What’s the theme? When you go to court, you need a theme. You need to explain to the judge or jury why you should win, what’s the evidence that you have?
Ross Fishman 09:01
But you need a theory of the case. And I like to have that in LinkedIn profiles, too, that I know you’re good. I wouldn’t be considering you if I didn’t already know that you were skilled. So are the other guys that I have on my list.
Ross Fishman 09:17
They’re also smart and talented and do litigation things. But why are you a better fit for me? Help me. See you don’t just tell me what you do, but why you do it. I like to bring in something from the person’s history or childhood that connects back to why you’re so passionate about what you do.
Michael Ehrenstein 09:41
I was curious if you could give us maybe a concrete example. Don’t name whoever the person was, but an example of one. LinkedIn profile where the theme came out. And what was the theme?
Ross Fishman 09:57
Well, in fact, I will name names because I think that off the top of my head.
Ross Fishman 10:03
Two that I wrote and one that I like. One of them is our friend Joe Fozzie. So I would encourage people go look at Joseph Fozzie. The second. And I wrote that because it’s about Joe. And I think that if you know Joe, you’d read the profile and see yeah, that really sounds like Joe, and why people would like to have him as their lawyer, that he’s just a great guy, brilliant trial lawyer, and he wins lots of cases.
Ross Fishman 10:31
But it’s because juries like him and they trust him, and he’s a humble, modest guy. Read that and see if you think that how we wrote. That expresses that aspect of Joe’s personality. I think it clearly shows he’s a great trial lawyer, but also it expresses his personality in a way that makes you like him.
Ross Fishman 10:54
If that’s what you’re looking for in your lawyer, you show what Joe is like. Another one is Peter Sheridan, California Construction Lawyer and construction clients, the developers, they love their work.
Ross Fishman 11:11
They’re passionate about these projects, and they want lawyers who are passionate, too. They want their lawyers to love construction also. And talking to Peter, it was clear that he did too, that he loves construction.
Ross Fishman 11:24
And we started with Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs and Erector sets in his childhood to show that he loves building. Now, he doesn’t have those skills to be an architect, but he has the passion, and the skills that he does have makes him great at what he does in construction litigation.
Ross Fishman 11:44
And I think and so going all the way back to kindergarten with him, we told his story that. Relates to his target clients that they would relate to him. Another one that I like is yours, that yours is much shorter.
Ross Fishman 11:59
I might like you to but it’s true that in terms of a theme, you know what your theme is? That you are a that you have a history, a long history in martial arts. You’re a multi degree black belt and it informs who you are and how you think and how you approach your life, including litigation.
Ross Fishman 12:21
And so if you want someone who’s strategic and approaches you, describe how that works. And so that gives you a theme. I have a litigator over here who was referred to me. I got another one over here and I have this guy who also seems skilled.
Ross Fishman 12:37
Oh. But I like how he thinks. And I like this martial arts connection. It’s something that you have that makes you different, and I think you effectively use that to set yourself apart in your LinkedIn profile.
Ross Fishman 12:47
I might like you to go into a little greater detail. We could talk about that later. But you’ve got a theme and I like that. And I think people will relate to that and appreciate that and think of you in a different, better way than the average litigator.
Michael Ehrenstein 13:02
So that’s great. That’s helpful. Instead of just regurgitating our bio from the website, be a little more personal and have a theme. Anything else with respect to LinkedIn that you think we should really focus on?
Ross Fishman 13:20
Well, there’s a lot LinkedIn is a whole hour long topic, but I just like to see people and I’ll get to some of these later if we continue to using LinkedIn to stay Connected did with people. The one thing that I want to reiterate that LinkedIn is important because people are going to go there anyway before they hire you.
Ross Fishman 13:39
So why not do a great job, even if you’re not going to be the kind of person who’s like an IBM salesperson trolling around for business on LinkedIn and some lawyers do effectively. But if that’s not who you are, that’s okay.
Ross Fishman 13:52
That doesn’t mean you still shouldn’t have a very powerful and compelling LinkedIn profile because it’s just sitting there 24/7 marketing you around the clock in while you sleep. People can be out there reading that and learning the things that you want them to know about you in anticipation of hiring.
Michael Ehrenstein 14:09
Okay, let’s go on to our your second suggestion, which was to find something that you can focus on either being the market leader or becoming the market leader in. Tell us a little bit more about that.
Ross Fishman 14:27
This is probably the point that I feel most strongly about over the decades of my legal marketing career, the niche marketing, industry based, target marketing, that business litigators are everywhere and it’s half the profession, and it’s really hard to tell who’s the best litigator for any given thing.
Ross Fishman 14:49
Everybody seems kind of smart enough and everybody’s resume seems like they do a good job, and people rarely ever lose cases, it seems. And so it’s really hard for clients to tell who’s better. What do you offer that’s different than everybody else?
Ross Fishman 15:05
Which means marketing a general service to an ill defined audience, like marketing litigation to America. It’s just so hard to get any traction doing that. It’s hard to write a marketing plan around that.
Ross Fishman 15:19
And so what I advocate is for people to find some trade association, find some smaller group, and market to them. The easiest is an industry association because they because then if it’s an industry that you have some connection with, some affiliation with some interest in, then you’re a natural fit with that audience.
Ross Fishman 15:44
And then if you find that trade association. That’s where you do your writing and speaking and networking directly to the clients. And so you become the automatic shortlist for that industry. You’ve just got to be careful that the industry is not so large that you’ll never get there.
Ross Fishman 16:03
You know, the obvious ones, real estate and healthcare, insurance, construction, those are really big. We want you to find something very small where there’s maybe just a few hundred, 500, maybe total members, and then do all of your marketing toward that group.
Ross Fishman 16:21
If you have my book, I’ve got a whole chapter on this. The Ultimate Law Firm Marketing Partner Checklist. It’s available on Amazon, and I’ll send you a PDF if you want. But it has a whole chapter on this subject.
Ross Fishman 16:37
I feel very strongly about this. If your marketing isn’t working as well as you’d like, I would strongly urge you to try to find a trade association, an industry based group, and market directly to them.
Ross Fishman 16:50
And you’ll find a lot more success that way.
Michael Ehrenstein 16:52
Okay, let’s talk now for a second about the third point, which you had raised, which was to invest in existing relationships. So how would you recommend that even with the pandemic as it wanes, God willing, and we start getting back out there, how should we go about investing in existing relationships?
Ross Fishman 17:17
Whatever you can think of to do. Just to get back into public, just to get back to reminding the people that, you know, that you’re out there, out of sight, out of mind, is a challenge for every professional.
Ross Fishman 17:34
And it’s been exacerbated, it’s been aggravated by the pandemic. When we hunkered down state in, it became harder to do all those things that we always wanted, that we wanted to do. In terms of staying in touch with people.
Ross Fishman 17:49
And so just pull out your list and find a way to reconnect every day. Try to find a way to make some calls, to send some emails, just to reinforce the relationships that you have, because the worst situation the referral that you would have gotten and then he didn’t get because, oh, I totally forgot about you.
Ross Fishman 18:16
So you just got to stay top of mind more often with the people you already know.
Michael Ehrenstein 18:20
Well great, and I guess the subset of that was to stay in touch more regularly. Do you suggest that we have a schedule to go by or we have to reach out to this potential client once a week or once every three months?
Michael Ehrenstein 18:39
Or how do you go about being regular in that way?
Ross Fishman 18:42
That’s a good question, and it really depends on the person. Are you the kind of person who likes to have the schedule? And I know people who do, and they’re very effective that way.
Ross Fishman 18:53
Every Tuesday at lunch they sit down and for an hour they do what they’re saying, or Fridays at two, they grab a glass of beer and then they do their marketing, whatever it is, whatever works for you.
Ross Fishman 19:07
So some of the things and of course, having a schedule, having it in writing is better because there’s a way to measure yourself against your accomplishments. Did you do the thing you committed to do?
Ross Fishman 19:19
Because if it’s not in writing, it’s really easy to say, well, I got really busy and you are and so things tend to not get done when there’s billable pressure and there’s always billable hours that you need to build and you can be making more tangible money that hour doing that and not investing in your future.
Ross Fishman 19:40
And so it’s better to have something that you can mark off your list. But those things include sending out the occasional alert or newsletter requires a little bit more proactive effort to actually write a thing like that.
Ross Fishman 19:57
And so occasionally I would recommend a larger initiative like that, but even just simple things like, again, back to using LinkedIn. LinkedIn is great for staying in touch with lots of people without up too much effort.
Ross Fishman 20:10
You could share something in a little status update, like it’s a Facebook post, those are great. You dash off a little note, relates to yourself, your practice or your friends, your life, and it just reminds people, oh yeah, there’s that Mike Erhrenstein again.
Ross Fishman 20:24
Oh, yeah, I like him. Just stay top of mind that way. So sharing things as you look, you log in and you get a feed like those things, connect or comment rather on those things, share them with your network, those sorts of things, without spend just a minute and it goes back into the feed of all the people you know on LinkedIn.
Ross Fishman 20:50
So that’s a way to stay in touch with lots of people very efficiently. Finally, you’ll get notifications if you have that box checked that I learned every day, I get an email or I can go to LinkedIn and click notifications and it’ll show me all the things that somebody’s birthday or somebody’s work anniversary or someone just won an award or something like that.
Ross Fishman 21:13
Each of those things is an occasion to say, hey, it’s Mike’s birthday, I’m going to connect with him, right? And so it gives me a reason to connect with a lot of people who I might not otherwise have a reason to reach out to them if I don’t know them that well.
Ross Fishman 21:29
It’s a little awkward sort of picking up the phone and calling, but that is only on LinkedIn.
Michael Ehrenstein 21:36
I have to say, when I get the perfunctory happy birthday from somebody that I’ve seen. Once in my entire life or twice in my entire life. It doesn’t create traction.
Ross Fishman 21:53
It doesn’t it does remind you that they’re out there briefly, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to think that much more fondly of them. But that’s an excellent point. We don’t want to just use the click for thumbs up.
Ross Fishman 22:08
Congrats on your new job or the auto fill that they have. Don’t use those auto fills. What you need to do is spend that time to say Happy birthday and then something else. Just another sense or two. No more than that, but just something that shows that you expended some effort and you didn’t just go click, click to everything that you were notified of that day.
Ross Fishman 22:35
But you’re absolutely right. I think make a positive impression.
Michael Ehrenstein 22:39
The technology has made staying in touch so easy and perfunctory that it gets to the point where it loses meaning. If I’m getting in touch with somebody, I would try to say something authentic and genuine.
Ross Fishman 22:58
But you’re an authentic and genuine person, Mike. You’re good at that. It comes naturally to you. And for many of us it doesn’t. But we can still follow those good habits because that’s exactly right, of course.
Ross Fishman 23:10
That’s what we should be doing. And so we should take that to heart when in all of our communications, never perfunctory, never formally, always do as you’re suggesting. Add a little more little of yourself to it.
Ross Fishman 23:26
A little a little more human connection.
Michael Ehrenstein 23:29
Got it. And the last of the top five nonzoom points, I think for me, probably the most important one is to continue using the LCA to expand your networks and connections.
Ross Fishman 23:45
Well, we should do this one together. First of all, I mean, you’re the definitive example of how to use LCA effectively, that you’ve done all the things that marketers like me recommend. You’ve been visible, you’ve been active, you go to you attend the conferences, you bring your lovely wife and who is also very good at networking.
Michael Ehrenstein 24:09
You’re a marketing officer.
Ross Fishman 24:12
But you’re there with intention, with a goal, that you’re having a good time. It’s clear, because you enjoy the people. You’re one of the usual suspects, which is what happens after you go a few times and you become a regular.
Ross Fishman 24:29
You’re like norm at cheers. People are happy to see you. And that’s what happens at LCA, because it’s a very connected community of insiders. And those insiders are created just by repetition, by being there.
Ross Fishman 24:47
They’re smart, they’re great lawyers, but they’re really nice people. But if you go once and leave and you never come back, you get the nice black tie formal photo, but you really haven’t leveraged what LCA offers.
Ross Fishman 25:05
Everybody knows you because you’ve done the things that people do who are known. And you can do that as you do just because you enjoy people, or you can do that strategically and intentionally do it on purpose with the goal of using LCA as an effective marketing tool.
Michael Ehrenstein 25:26
And it is. I have to say, the resource that LCA has provided, at least to me, has been tremendous. Not just because it’s fun. And we go and we have a great time and great locations and we have.
Michael Ehrenstein 25:41
Good food and good music. All of which is true. But in addition to that, we really do have some great lawyers. All of the lawyers are great lawyers and nice people, people that are easy to work with.
Michael Ehrenstein 25:57
And so when I’ve had a need to find local counsel anywhere, I had an instant since last week where a client in Florida had an issue in Arizona and I could answer his questions for him applying Florida law.
Michael Ehrenstein 26:17
But I didn’t know anything about Arizona law. So we go to the LCA directory and sure enough, there’s one of the fellows whom I know is out there. And I was able to get a quick answer for a client in need, which was great.
Michael Ehrenstein 26:30
It was a great service to the client. It was a great introduction. That client is going to end up needing his representation taken care of out in Arizona. And I’ve used it also for local council. I have a case pending in New York where I’ve reached out to I’m representing the Republic of Angola in some pretty hefty litigation in the Southern District of New York.
Michael Ehrenstein 26:57
And I’m not a Southern District of New York lawyer. So I was fortunate enough to be able to forge a really good professional relationship and more importantly, a really good friendship with Mark Rosen of Kleinberg Kaplan, who LCA fellow whom I wouldn’t have met but for through the LCA.
Michael Ehrenstein 27:23
I think that the opportunities that the LCA provides to not just refer to each other or work together, but to even market together are pretty deep and extraordinary.
Ross Fishman 27:35
Yes, I think that you raise a good point that it’s good for education.
Ross Fishman 27:41
The social aspect is terrific as well. But then professionally, inbound outbound, it’s nice to have an established network of people who, you know, are excellent, already vetted, and so you can work with them in a lot of different ways and you can meet some extraordinary lawyers at LCA.
Ross Fishman 28:01
I also like using LCA’s marketing resources that leverage the marketing that you’re doing using LCA’s resources. Contact Beth if you’ve written an article, have it republished in LCA Commentary. There’s a lot of marketing opportunities and marketing tools that LCA offers to the fellows that not enough fellows take advantage of.
Ross Fishman 28:25
And it’s another way to expand your reach to a larger audience.
Michael Ehrenstein 28:29
Agreed. Ross, thank you for your top five tips. Non zoom tips on how we can continue to keep and capture new clients as we emerge from the pandemic.
Michael Ehrenstein 28:44
Your wisdom and knowledge is really helpful and your friendship is much appreciated.
Ross Fishman 28:52
Always a pleasure speaking with you. Mike, good to see you.
Michael Ehrenstein 28:54
Good to see you too. Thank you.
