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Law firms should empower lawyers to market themselves and build personal brands

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Lawyers harnessing the power of social media to build their personal brands often butt heads with law firm leaders and marketing professionals looking to grow the firm’s brand.

Many law firms would rather hold on to tradition and routine so as not to ruffle feathers than to empower and support young rainmakers looking to use blogs and other social media to build their personal relationships and brands. It’s a mistake.

Look no further than Laura Madison (@lauratoyota), a Bozeman, Montana Toyota salesperson ,and the dealership she works for as to how well marketing and branding yourself can work in a relationship driven business.

Blow off it as only selling cars, not legal services, at your own expense. I’d could plug in law firm, in place of dealership, and lawyer, in place of salesperson, and, with some tweaks, deliver a plan of action for you.

Automotive News’ Jamie Lareau (@jlareauanreports in Adage that Madison is rocking the traditional auto sales system.

  • Madison builds relationships and referrals, mainly via social media such as Facebook, Twitter, You-Tube and Pinterest.
  • She spends $200 a month to host her personal website, lauratoyota.com, on which she downloads the dealer’s inventory.
  • The site generates more traffic than the dealer website, and leads to future sales for her, as opposed to fellow salespeople.
  • On the website she writes a blog, posts dealership news, offers tips for test driving and how to achieve good gas mileage and supplies product information, including up-to-date video walk-arounds of new vehicles.
  • She hands out her personal cellphone number instead of the dealership number, so customers’ calls are not routed to other salespeople.
  • She paid $3,000 to have her personal car wrapped to promote her Web site, not the dealership’s. She makes a sale every 60 to 90 days from someone who saw her car.
  • She regularly sends greeting cards to her customer. “Hallmark totally knows me,” Madison says.
  • She plans to hire and pay her own assistant.

The return on investment?

  • When Madison started in 2011, the store averaged 213 new and used cars a month. This year it will average more than 330. Madison sells about 20 cars a month, up from 12 when she started three years ago, and is predicted to top 30 a month soon.
  • Dealer ranks fifth in customer satisfaction for sales and sixth in sales retention among the 74 Toyota stores in the region. Before Madison arrived the dealer was never close to those numbers. The dealer credits Madison’s 600 clients, who are intensely loyal to her, for helping to boost those numbers.

Ressler Motors (@resslermotors) co-owner Jeff Kayser (@KayserJeff) acknowledged Madison’s approach has riled the “old-school car guys,” but he’s stuck with her because he likes her approach.

I wish I had 10 more people like her. If she would have worked in any other [Ressler] store, she wouldn’t have lasted because we really had our blows. But she’s worth it. It may not be the way we want to sell cars, but it’s going to be the wave of the future.

I’ve never seen anyone market themselves the way she does. I don’t have many salespeople who’ll spend $30 on anything, yet she’ll spend $3,000 of her own money marketing herself.

……

You’d think some of these people who’ve sold cars for years would try doing some of the things she’s doing, but they’re not. Those that try can’t keep up.

The dealership is adopting and supporting Madison’s approach.

  • Lessened security to allow Madison access to social-media sites during work hours, agreed to let the sales staff set their own schedules and hired a delivery coordinator to handle car deliveries, taking that task off salespeople’s shoulder.
  • Dealership has formed a focus group of 12 hand-picked employees from across the company to figure out how to adopt more of Madison’s marketing techniques.
  • Madison is going to train the dealer’s staff on self-promotion marketing.
  • Dealership plans to hire younger salespeople who have Madison’s drive and marketing acumen.
  • Kayser sat down with four managers and explained that Madison is different and that’s she’s not going to do some of the things the dealership has been doing.
  • Changing the dealership’s culture to be more reflective of what Ms. Madison is doing.

Heck, Kayser is so fond of Madison’s tactics his 18-year-old son, who he hopes will take over the business one day, will train under her.

And money isn’t the motivator, Lareau reports. “I get to meet amazing people and get to grow and grow. When I end the month, whether it’s good or it’s bad, I have one person in the world to blame. I like that freedom.”

It’s all about relationships. Turn your young tigers loose to build relationships while building their personal brands and you win, as a law firm.

Madison is not looking to leave, she is not going to start her own dealership. Ressler is giving her the support and encouragement she needs to grow as a person and as a professional.

Law firms ought to do the same.

PS – When our Suburban blew an engine in Columbus, Montana about ten years Ressler Motors sold us a new Suburban at a great price over the phone, drove 100 miles ought to pick all 7 of us up in the new car, and stayed open late back in Bozeman to do the paper work. Great people.