Pitching Your Law Firm: Skip the Hard Sell

One of the great exercises in frustration is trying to get some sell into an ad, a website, a brochure, or any of the social media for a law or accounting firm. Anyone whose experience resides in promotion in any of these media tends to gravitate towards the hard sell—to channel those wonderful TV pitchmen. And you can bet that is the way most of the advertising from do-it-yourself lawyers or accountants will come out.

It's easy for products. "We make the world's best Gizmo!" Or, "With our Hotchkiss, you can go faster than ever!" "Our toothpaste will make your teeth brighter than their toothpaste!"

But how do you use an exclamation point in a brochure or a website about a law or accounting or consulting firm? "Our offices have cleaner windows!"? How about, "Our thoughts are assembled faster than anybody else's in the profession!" You could try, "Our litigators are smoother silver-tongued devils than the other firms' litigators!"

Having gotten over that hurdle—by realizing that there's no way around it—try thinking about words such as "honest," "service," or "creative." This is where you try to tell other people what they should think of you. "We give creative service to your needs." What does that mean? Does it mean that you give clients what they pay for? Does it mean that they get their money's worth? Does creative mean you make it up as you go along?