

“Once I launched my blog, the money just started pouring in,” said no one ever.
In the United States, we are all about the moment: The game-winning catch in the super bowl; The winning putt in the Masters; And of course, the game-winning home run in baseball. It is easy to create a narrative out of the big moment, but in sports, life, and marketing, success rarely can be boiled down to just a single moment.
Yesterday, I joined Adrian Lurssen of JD Supra and David Ackert of Practice Boomers for a discussion about LinkedIn and the changing role of content in law firms. By content, we mean blog posts, newsletters, articles, e-alerts, and other educational information created by lawyers. One of the biggest talking points that resonated with me was the elusive idea of writing blog posts to win a new big piece of business.
I’m not saying it never happens, Adrian Lurrsen and I have both seen the right article at the right time connect a company with a new law firm, but it is rare and it is the exception.
The majority of people do business with people they’ve done business with before and know, like, and trust. Sharing our content with those people, in the long run, maybe far more powerful than fishing for strangers with our writing.
However, there are three other powerful ways our content help build our practice, other than through helping us meet total strangers.
1. Help us connect and stay top of mind with our existing connections.
2. Help reassure existing clients that they made a great choice.
3. Become the subject of other people’s conversations.
These first two reasons for creating content in a baseball context can be considered singles, keeping us connecting and making sure we keep business coming in at a steady stream. The third is more like a double or triple — When we create content that becomes the subject of other people’s conversations, then we are not only gaining free advertising and greater name recognition in the marketplace, but we also become known to a much larger network that we couldn’t have accessed before.
This will often lead to speaking opportunities or opportunities to write for major publications and that is exactly the type of exposure that is more likely to lead to new relationships that could result in more business. I’ve shared Adrian Lurssen’s graphic below. That Adrian, smart guy.
I guess my whole point is, lawyers, need to get out there and write and be happy with hitting singles — singles win ball games and singles keep your clients happy. You may just hit a home run one of these days, but even if you don’t, at least you’re in the game.