eDiscovery Careers: Achieving Success as a Non-Attorney in a Law Firm: Make Yourself Well Known, Part 2
May 16, 2012
Last week in the blog series on achieving success, we started the topic to “Make Yourself Well Known” – or market yourself. The goal is for you to make sure that people in the firm know who you are and how you can help them. Here are a few more suggestions:
5. Sell solutions rather than services: Don’t tell attorneys what services you provide. Rather, tell them what problems you can solve for them. Describe how you can make things easier for them. Illustrate how you can save them time and money. Don’t sell services and products. Sell solutions to the problems and challenges that your clients face.
6. Build good relationships: One of the best ways to get people on board with what you are offering is to build good relationships with them. People want to work with people they trust, and people will only recommend to others those that they trust. Here are a few things you can do to build good relationships with the attorneys in your firm:
- Always deliver what you say you can.
- Be upfront about what you can’t do and what you don’t know. if you can’t help someone, lead him/her to someone who can.
- Be responsive and punctual.
- Be enthusiastic.
- Know something about your client and his/her problem.
- Listen more than you talk and ask lots of questions.
- Volunteer to help out, whenever you can.
7. Provide premier customer service: Most of us have had bad customer service experiences. When we do, we usually tell acquaintances so they can steer clear of the offending organization. And, when we have a great customer service experience, we’re usually happy to sing praises, provide references, and give testimonials. The same holds true for the attorneys in your firm. You want every client to be telling peers about how you helped out and what you can do. You want others to help you become well-known.
8. Find a champion: Find someone who has influence in the firm – a department chair, a rain-maker, a senior associate who has influence over the partners – and get him or her on board. If he or she enthusiastically believes in what you are doing, they’ll market for you.
I’ll give you more pointers for making yourself well-known in the next post. So, what do you think? How have you made yourself well known in your firm? Please let us know if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.
