Recommendation on Legal Marketing: Ross Fishman

Ross Fishman, who recently spoke at our firm retreat about legal marketing (to rousing applause, I might add), recommended this book as useful guide to overall marketing strategy: Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, by Al Ries and Jack Trout. While it seems strange to say this, I think the book should be read by most lawyers, or anyone who wants to improve their communication skills.

The book's key concept, which is demonstrated repeatedly using examples from famous successful (and unsuccessful) ad campaigns, is that effective communication requires that you 'position' your message in a way that makes it understandable to the person you are targeting your message to. It's amazing how much money is wasted on ineffective communication, mostly because the communicator either doesn't know how to identify his optimal message, or because he insists on using a message that he understands as opposed to picking a message his recipient is likely to understand.

But forget about what you should be reading, if you are looking for a mind-opening speaker who will effectively communicate the simple keys to legal marketing then do yourself a huge favor and hire Ross Fishman. He is clearly the 'guru' of the field. But what I liked about him most is that he's a genuinely open and honest person. He obviously loves what he does for a living, and I feel very fortunate to have had a chance to get to know him personally, as well as professionally.