I’m reading a book right now, What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell.  The book is a collection of his articles that have appeared in The New Yorker.  One article called Late Bloomers got me thinking about law firm marketing.

Gladwell explains:

Genius, in the popular conception, is inextricably tied up with precocity-doing something truly creative, we’re inclined to think, requires the freshness and exuberance and energy of youth.

The essence of the article is that there are two kinds of genius, the prodigy and the late bloomer.  The prodigy gets the bulk of the attention in our society.  Think Mozart, Picasso, LeBron James etc.  These people approach their art, their creativity in a conceptual way.  They have natural gifts that make them exceptional at a young age.  They have almost a sixth sense with regard to their talent.  They just “get it”.  That is not to say that they don’t work hard, it simply means that they have a natural genius and skill set that enables success at a young age.  They are prodigies.

The other kind of genius is less talked about and recognized, the late bloomer.  The late bloomer’s genius is experimental in nature.  Another words, they are not blessed with the natural sixth sense to “just get it”.  Their genius is recognized later in life because it requires time, nurturing, honing of their skills, and experimentation to get it right.  Over the course of time their genius comes out, but this doesn’t happen right away.

What The Heck Does This Have To Do With Law Firm Marketing?

I think often times lawyers approach their law firm marketing as if they need to be a prodigy when in fact the style of the late bloomer is more appropriate.

I’m sure you’ve done this yourself.  You want the perfect website, the perfect commercial, the perfect web video, the perfect newsletter, the perfect business card, etc.  You spend too much time putting things together, spending money, adjusting colors and fonts, hoping to hit that sweet spot with your marketing the first time around.  Hitting the home run that will bring untold amounts of business into the firm.  In other words, you want to be a prodigy.  Your amazing sixth sense knew ahead of time what the market wanted, you produced, they responded with a resounding yes and now you can barely keep up with the work.

The truth is, most of us aren’t prodigies.  In fact, most of us aren’t geniuses either.  However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t approach our law firm marketing as if we are late bloomers.   Think of it this way.  It’s better to get your marketing started and through testing, market feedback, experimentation, and time we improve our marketing bit by bit.  We get better and better as time goes on until through many evolutions we hit a sweet spot.  In other words, we stop trying to be prodigies and accept that we’d rather be late bloomers than have nothing to show as we waste more time chasing perfection.

The best thing you can do is to experiment with different types of marketing.  Try new things, test, measure, and optimize your results.  Don’t be afraid to fail with a marketing project because that is the only way to hone your marketing skills.  Figure out what works for your firm and then do more of that.  Always be willing to try new avenues as you never know what will work until you’ve tried it.

Photo by Oddsock

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