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Great post by Nancy Myrland on the "s" word.  Nancy writes:

I’ve been working in legal, professional services and other service-based marketing for a long time.

Nowhere is there a stigma against the term “selling” as strong as there is in legal and professional services.  It somehow feels dirty, slimy, something others do, but not me.

Are there ways to "sell" that are dirty and slimy?  Of course.  However, dismissing the entire concept of selling your law firm is a huge mistake.  The issue is how can you sell your services in a dignified way that builds value into your professional brand?

Call it what you will, but in today's competitive legal services lanscape, business development should be near the top of your priority list.  In fact, it should be second only to serving your clients.

I came across this post at Positive Psychology News called Why Riches are not Equivalent to Happiness.  The post discusses the relationship between money and happiness.  In the article, Timothy So writes:

To further elaborate on why the riches are not equivalent to happiness, I adopt the approach used by Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, of looking at happiness as moment-to-moment experience instead of general well-being or flourishing. When we break down happiness into moment-to-moment experience, riches do not necessarily make people happier.

Ed Diener and others argue that happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have. Psychologist Jeff Larsen and Amie McKibban ran experiments to test this concept. People who had more of what they wanted tended to be happier than those who had less, but this effect was mediated by appreciation and gratitude. Simply possessing something is not the key. Happiness comes from appreciating what you have.

Seems to me that happiness is an appreciation of the journey we take as opposed to simply the end result.  I believe that finding happiness in your marketing is a key to having success with it.

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Many law firms choose the colors of their website based on what they like or what the designer put together.  However, you may not have considered the psychology behind the colors you are utilizing.  Colors not only make your website aesthetically pleasing, but they also effect the behavior of visitors to your site. Depending on the type of audience your firm is trying to target, there are some colors that will be more effective than others.  It would be wise to consider the impact that your website's colors have on your potential clients.

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I've been reading The Big Short by Michael Lewis (great book by the way).  At the very beginning of the book, before the story even starts, Mr. Lewis has a quote from Leo Tolstoy that encompasses many of the themes you are about to encounter.

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.

What struck me about the quote was the relevancy it has for lawyers and the various attitudes towards online marketing.

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What Is The Perceptual Contrast Effect?

Changingminds.org offers us the following description of the perceptual contrast effect:

When we make decisions, we tend to do it by contrasting between the decision item and reference items. When two things appear close to one another, we will tend to evaluate them against one another more than against a fixed standard.

A simple physical way of illustrating perceptual contrast is to put one hand into hot water and other into cold water, then move them both to lukewarm water. The cold hand will feel hot and the hot hand will feel cold.

I know this may sound interesting, but seems irrelevant to your firm.   Let me explain a bit more so you can get a better understanding of how to use the perceptual contrast effect to your firm's advantage.

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