A podcast and a couple lessons

I had the pleasure of being a guest Tuesday on a podcast hosted by Jacob Sapochnick, a California immigration lawyer.

What do I know about immigration law? Nothing. But Jacob, in addition to his blogging and social media on the law, hosts the Enchanting Lawyer site. The site, blog, and podcast are Jacob’s effort to give back to the profession — to share with other lawyers trying to do what they love those things which have worked for him in building his practice.

We talked about a number of things, but there were two takeaways for me. One, building a practice is about giving away all the knowledge you have. And two, many marketing experts are sharing advise that’s misguided.

Jacob mentioned that upon his advising lawyers to openly share legal information in blogs and on social media, he meets resistance. Lawyers are concerned that if they give it all away they won’t get hired.

I shared that’s how I got on the Internet, I answered legal questions in my area of expertise on AOL. Answering a half dozen questions a day and archiving them on my website was the best thing I ever did to generate work as a practicing lawyer.

I shared with Jacob the Mayo Clinic’s social media initiative. Blogs, thousands of doctors’ Twitter accounts and a ton of articles. Mayo is giving it away, yet no one is doing brain surgery on their spouse.

It’s not a karma thing, it’s common sense. You build trust by sharing. You stick out like a shining star from other lawyers. People like lawyers who care, they’re pleasantly surprised.

Jacob mentioned he just got back from a conference in which marketing experts were advising lawyers on the use of Internet. Jacob, who’s had tremendous success using the Interent to grow his practice, found many of the marketing experts giving lawyers poor advise.

Same thing for me. I returned from a couple conferences where though the marketing advise was well intentioned, it missed the mark. In some cases lawyers were advised to spend a fair amount on money on things of questionable value.

I told Jacob I had to do my darnedest to keep from getting upset and calling out some of the advice while I was presenting or sitting on a panel.

Jacob said it was the same for him. He only wanted to present at conferences where he was not constrained in what he could cover. He wanted to tell lawyers in an open and frank way the things which would work and those which would not.

The lesson for lawyers is to talk to other lawyers who you see as having succeeded in building a strong reputation and relationships through the net. The lawyers may be in the same town or across the country.

Anyhow, listen in to the podcast when it’s up in the next day or two — and maybe you’ll see Jacob and I do conference presentation together. I’d enjoy it.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Aleksander Markin