Are you on the fence about video? Do you think it’s ‘not for you’? If so, don’t bother reading on. If, however, you think that video is a great bridge between knowing ‘about’ somebody and starting to actually get to know and perhaps even like, trust, or be ready to buy from them – then read on and watch the video below… I strongly believe that in these current times; when we are quite simply unable to get out and network, meet for coffee, have a beer or chat at a conference, we NEED to find different ways of engaging and creating new relationships. My biggest challenge recently has been trying to get in front of the people who have watched our webinars, downloaded our written content and subscribed to our newsletters. In order to grow my business, I would normally drop them a line, suggest a coffee and meet them. I can’t do that now, and it’s quite difficult to book a Zoom with somebody who doesn’t know you, doesn’t like you, has no reason to trust you and probably things you’re going to sell to them. Eek. So what am I doing? I’m trying to create videos that bridge that gap and help people to start to get to know me, even though we may not have met in real life or even via a screen. My videos are not super-corporate, majorly glossy and nor do I look like film star in them (wrinkles and frizzy hair – I’ve seen you!) However – they are, like me, very human; engaging if you buy into my personality, and reflect how I work and present myself in real life. All of these elements are very important. This new type of video is about trying to take people from ‘know about’ to start to ‘know’ (and ideally into ‘trust’ and then ‘ready to buy from’ (at some point in the future). These videos are not so much about impressing – they are about cutting through. If this type of video content is something that you’d like to know more about and you’d like to try and create some of it yourself, then do yourself a favour and book on to our lunchtime course: An Introduction to Video Content for Lawyers. Our course is an hour-long lunchtime session run by myself and our media training specialist, ex-BBC journalist Fiona. At the session you will learn both the technical know-how to enable you to create your own engaging videos – including how to present yourself and your surroundings, where to position the camera, how to come across well. We’ll also cover the marketing elements of good video – how to use content effectively to engage with your audiences, where and how to share and how to generate engagement. There will be a live in-session Q&A where you can ask Fiona or I anything you like about video, marketing, business development. And best of all, you can bring your sandwiches.
Why should you invest in our Chambers Toolkit? 1. Money We know, because we draft them, that directories submissions take a minimum of 2 days to complete. In fact, we tend to say that it’s two days of our time, and two days of our clients’ time. If you are asking a fee earner at £200 p/h to draft them, that’s £3000 of fees you’re losing right there PER SUBMISSION. Just think about how much you are spending if you submit for 5 categories. I’ll tell you: £15,000. Our Chambers Toolkit (starting from £395 + vat) will enable you to create effective submissions much more quickly. That will save you £££. 2. Time Time is money. Our Toolkit contains a wide range of tips, templates and precedents, a time frame planner and really helpful videos of the Chambers team talking about what they want from your submissions. Because our advice and practical tools are at your fingertips, you can complete your submissions much more quickly. 3. Improved rankings We know what the directories teams want, because we’ve spent years creating submissions. Our Toolkit literally contains a recipe for success for stronger submissions. We have even included advice on how to analyse whether your team or firm is working at the level required to get you ranked. 4. How to do better next year If you didn’t get in or go up this year *remember Chambers launches on Thursday 22nd* again, our Toolkit can help. We give detailed advice on what to do if you were disappointed this year, and how to prepare and improve your prospects for next year. 5. Review service We haven’t stopped at the Toolbox. We will also review your submission and provide detailed feedback on how to improve it. You can access this service from just £125 + vat per submission. Why are you still here? You should be getting in touch to order your Toolkit now. Why is it called the Chambers Toolkit? We call it the Chambers Toolkit because Chambers and Partners is the directory that firms typically struggle to gain or improve their rankings. However the information is equally applicable to both Chambers and Legal 500 submissions, and should enable you to duplicate copy across both easily. Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners submission drafting services In addition to our Chambers Toolkit, we also offer a full consultancy and drafting service. You can find out more about our submissions service here. Get in touch to discuss your 2020 legal directories requirements and order your Chambers Toolkit.
Last week saw the latest edition of the Legal 500 launch, and it started me thinking about how much has changed since I started my PR career back in 2011. Back then, coverage of press releases about Legal 500 and Chambers listings was still ‘a thing’. I can remember writing content about Hill Dickinson (the first PR agency I worked for managed media relations for that firm) and getting releases sent out to regional media titles The Business Desk, Insider North West, The MEN’s Manchester Business Week, and The Liverpool Daily Post (sadly now no longer with us – it had a super business section). At that time, both Chambers and Legal 500 would send out their own releases to each of the regional titles, announcing (I’m assuming as I never saw a copy) who was up, down and newly listed. So the press would already have the details, we would just hope that our juicy managing partner quotes and wonderful images would be used in the inevitable coverage to follow (they usually were – Hill Dicks is a big player). Now, in Manchester (and other UK metropolitan centres) Legal 500 and Chambers launches are definitely NOT news any more. I suspect this is simply because as the listings have increased, the media interest has waned. That’s not to say that it isn’t still a big success to become listed or to move up the rankings, simply that you’ll need to work harder to get that message out there now. For firms that are listed and operate outside of the big cities, there may still be opportunities for media coverage – you’ll have to check with the journalists there. But what can the rest of us do? As ever, there are a range of different channels available to project good news about directories listings. Again, as ever, the first step should be to consider where your target audiences are hanging out, and take your good news story to them. For most firms, there are likely to be a range of channels available – both individual and corporate – from social media, through to firmwide and / or team specific newsletters, regional law society publications, firmwide and / or team specific blogs. There are also opportunities to use video, hosted in a range of different places and / or audio content. So whilst the news hasn’t changed, the delivery certainly has. And there’s quite an important message here actually around the broader media landscape in the UK. Right now, trade, regional and national titles are struggling. In a way, lost advertising as a result of COVID19 is simply an acceleration of the slow death of many titles in the traditional media arena. And yes, it is very sad to see known and trusted players suffering like this – but ultimately, the market is speaking. ‘News’ as a concept isn’t going anywhere, but monetising it is the current challenge for the media houses big and small. It goes without saying that we need to support the media if we want titles to a) continue to exist and b) cover our stories. But realistically, we also need to look at, and engage with, the other channels that are growing. Law firms need to be getting good at this stuff right now; our audiences expect it. ‘The media’ as we know it is undergoing change, there will be winners and losers and 2020 has shown us that, quite literally anything can happen. Law firms have been facing challenges and changes across time immemorial – and the decline in certain media and growth in new / social media is just another challenge and opportunity. The takeaway is simply this: understand what is happening, and update your approach. If you want to create effective legal directories submissions quickly and easily – check out our Chambers Toolkit and drop us a line to buy it: info@lexrexcommunications.com If you’d like to know more about our strategy-led approach and services, please get in touch: info@lexrexcommunications.com And finally, if you want to know more about our next training session ‘An introduction to video content for lawyers’ – again drop us a line: info@lexrexcommunications.com and we’ll add you to our mailing list. Alternatively keep an eye on our Eventbrite page.
As you will have no doubt seen, we’ve been extremely busy here at LexRex over the past few months. Our recent Trusted Partner series of webinars created a lot of content and support for law firms; but that isn’t the only thing we’ve been working on. Our latest initiative is a project called LexRexLITE. We can’t reveal too much about it yet, as it is still very much a work in progress. However, as part of the LexRexLITE project I’m absolutely delighted to announce the launch of our unique product, The LexRexLITE Chambers and Partners Toolkit. The Chambers and Partners Toolkit is essentially the LexRex team’s extensive Chambers knowledge and experience distilled into a series of DIY resources, guides and video content. I’m confident that every marketing manager or lawyer with responsibility for creating Chambers submissions for their firm or practice area will take a huge amount of value from this product. I’m tempted to back this up with a money-back guarantee if it’s not the case (I think I’ve just decided to do that). Order your toolkit by emailing: info@lexrexcommunications.com It’s worthwhile also noting that the content also works for Legal 500 submissions, so kills two birds with one stone! The launch of the LexRex Chambers and Partners comes at a time when we know law firms are starting to gear up for submissions seasons, and accordingly, we are delighted to also announce that the Chambers editors have agreed to co-host a breakfast seminar with us, for the second year running. LexRex: In Conversation with… Chambers and Partners: Thursday 24th September, 1.00 – 2.00. Reserve your place Last year’s face-to-face session in Manchester was a huge success, and we were actually discussing taking it ‘on the road’ this year. Clearly coronavirus has stymied that plan, but I’m confident that our online session will work just as well – in fact, probably better as we won’t have to worry about where to put everybody! If you’d like to attend our Chambers webinar – please book your place here. To BUY the LexRexLITE Chambers and Partners Toolkit with your money-back guarantee: get in touch: info@lexrexcommunications.com.
In the days and weeks before lockdown, and particularly the week before the schools closed, it was clear that something big was brewing and it felt a little bit like the world titled off its axis just a little bit. As soon as lockdown started, for a lot of business owners, so did the blind panic. Here at LexRex, I had a period of around 14 days where I literally felt glued to the spot. I couldn’t make decisions, couldn’t think, could barely read – let alone write content (one of my *actual* jobs). It was horrible. But then reality hit. I run a business – I can’t let the team down and I definitely can’t let my clients down. It was still hard to function, but from that moment, I felt driven to do something – anything – to avoid being overwhelmed by what we were facing. I decided that what our clients needed was support, guidance and a listening ear. The first thing I did was to set up a ‘Mastermind’ series. This was a Zoom call every fortnight that our clients could come along to and chat about their immediate challenges. At the start of each session I asked each client what their ‘top 3’ challenges or concerns were. The answers were illuminating and very helpful for me in understanding the current climate. Incidentally, at the same time I was running Mastermind – law firm consultant, Simon McCrum was surveying his clients (see the Covid Survey tab via the link). The insights he shared showed similar concerns and issues to the feedback I was receiving. As well as the Masterminds, I also decided to set up a series of webinars which would enable law firm leaders to come and learn about the exact concerns that they had at that time. We used the feedback from the Masterminds to help guide the content. We ran a super series of 7 Trusted Partner webinars, with topics ranging from How to access a CBILS loan, Creating effective cash-flow statements, Creating Covid-safe offices, Getting staff back to work and finally, Getting business development back on track. We had a really wide range of people coming to the webinars – some attendees came to every session, others to 3 or more, and some people came just to the ones that were obviously relevant to them at the particular time. We received great feedback for the sessions, and it was interesting to take on board the advice of such a wide variety of experts. It’s also worth noting that we were supported hugely in our endeavours on the Trusted Partner front by Manchester Law Society, who shared our sessions to their mailing list and on social media. Thanks to Fran and the team. Here’s a quick selection of the feedback we received (well – it’s my blog and I’m allowed a moment of self-congratulation every now and again!) “I felt that I came away with new knowledge after each one and I would highly recommend them” “‘The LexRex Trusted Partner webinars have been really pertinent to the day to day challenges that our firm and no doubt others were facing during lockdown” “All webinars are informative and helpful.” “The webinar was very good and helpful” You can watch the full Trusted Partner series via the LexRex YouTube channel. A couple of things that felt really important during lockdown were: 1. Having a plan: our was essentially “maintain… then be ready to grow”. 2. Creating targets: ours was “to maintain 100% of our clients by the end of June 2020” So how did we do? As a team, one of the things that held us together during the uncertainty of lockdown was humour. I used to joke (badly) that having a plan was the main thing, and it didn’t really matter if the plan was shit – as long as we had one. In hindsight, I don’t think the plan was shit. We haven’t quite ‘maintained’ and, as you would expect we’ve had clients pause retainers, reduce their budgets temporarily and one has given notice. However, we used this time to develop a brand new product (coming soon), make some significant changes to our website (again coming soon) and really review what we offer as a consultancy. We did actually manage to maintain 90% of our clients until the end of June (the 10% was a paused retainer so the client is still actually on the books – we’re just not active currently). It was after this date that a client gave notice (with sadness and with nothing but praise for the work we’d done – we sincerely hope they will be back in due course). The good news is that we are now very much “ready to grow”. The Trusted Partner series enabled us to reach law firms we haven’t been in contact with before and to create some really effective video assets, amongst others. I also hope that the sessions were useful to those who came along. Now that summer is here and the schools are mainly closed again (thankfully for holidays this time) we’ve decided to take a breather from Trusted Partner. Whilst the economic challenges for the legal sector are probably only just beginning, we have at least now moved on from the terrifying uncertainty of lockdown. We will be back with a webinar on Thursday 24th September when the editor of the Chambers High Net Worth and two of the sub-editors of the main Guide will be joining us for an insights session. Sign up to our newsletter here to get priority access to book your places. However, for now, I really hope you have enjoyed hearing from us over the last few months and that we were able to provide some insights along the way. I’m looking forward to a slightly quieter August and then it will be launch-date for our new product – LexRexLITE. I’ll see you in the Autumn! Victoria.
We are delighted to now share the final webinar in our LexRex: Trusted Partner series. As we’ve explained previously, we created Trusted Partner at the very start of lockdown when we realised that the legal sector would be facing huge challenges as the UK economy slowed, and in some sectors completely closed down. We wanted to support our clients and friends across the legal sector, creating a series of webinars on the issues we knew were keeping lawyers up at night. We wanted to end the series on a high; and business development is just about the most positive and optimistic topic out there for enterprise. Indeed, many practices are starting to realise that whilst times are challenging, now is also a period of opportunity for those who know how to prepare and be ready for growth. In this webinar we caught up with Alistair Marshall of Professional Services BD. You can download Alistair’s e-book: 10 Immediate Actions to Generate Revenue & Cash. We are also signposting to some of the books we discussed during the webinar. Victoria recommended a book called: Key Person of Influence by Daniel Priestley. Alistair recommended a booked called: Start with Why by Simon Sinek.
As you will no doubt know by now, our latest initiative, LexRex: Trusted Partner was created at the start of lockdown to support law firm leaders and their teams – providing insightful, practical and timely advice on the issues that we knew were causing concern. We carried out fortnightly research to understand the pain points across our clients and friends operating in the sector, utilising our relationships with other experts in the sector to bring new perspectives on current challenges. One of the biggest issues was around people and indeed team management. Our three part series ‘Back to the Office’ proved very timely, with advice on the H&S considerations of office working covered in our first session, HR considerations in the second, and communications with team members covered in part 3: Keeping teams engaged and informed. We are delighted to now share our webinar: Back to the office Part 3: Keeping teams engaged and informed
Our latest initiative, LexRex: Trusted Partner was created at the start of lockdown to support law firm leaders and their teams – aiming to provide insightful, useful content from experts across a range of different specialisms. We really wanted Trusted Partner to provide genuine insight, not simply light-touch advice. We listened carefully to the concerns and worries of our clients and friends who run law firms and used this information to create helpful content and advice. You can check out the video of previous webinars on the blog. Our more recent webinars have focussed upon the challenges of bringing people back to work – covering the physical (risk and compliance) and legislative (HR) sides of things. Today we are sharing Part 2 of the series; the HR aspects of bringing people back. Part 3 (coming soon) will discuss the communications side of things – including how to engage with staff who have ‘gone quiet’ and how to handle the sometimes competing needs of the business vs those of your team. We are delighted to now share our webinar: Back to the office Part 2: HR considerations for returning staff:
Our latest initiative; LexRex: Trusted Partner continues to provide law firm leaders with genuinely useful and informative content to support them through lockdown and during the ongoing Coronavirus outbreak. We have been listening to the concerns and worries of our clients and friends who run law firms, and using this information to create helpful content and advice. Having covered access to cash via the CBILS scheme with Sara Hutton in April, cash flow with Barry Wilkinson, and converting WIP into cash with Zoe Holland – we have now turned to the next big challenge; getting people back to work. The first in a three part series, this webinar is all about how to risk assess your law firm office and make it as safe as possible for returning staff. Our expert speaker is Lucy Walsh, Founder & Managing Director of Crystal Clear Compliance Ltd. Lucy is an experienced health and safety, quality and environmental professional with over 20 years implementing systems, auditing and providing solutions to manage risks for businesses. Part 2 will be about the HR aspects of bringing people back and Part 3 – the communications side of things – including how to engage with staff who have ‘gone quiet’ and how to handle the sometimes competing needs of the business vs those of your team. You can book your place for Part 3 here. We are delighted to now share our Back to the office: Creating a COVID safe workplace for law firms webinar here:
Our latest initiative; LexRex: Trusted Partner continues to provide law firm leaders with genuinely useful and informative content to support them through lockdown and during the ongoing Coronavirus outbreak. Our initial research showed that the biggest issue for law firms in mid-April through to mid-May 2020 was access to cash. Our first webinar with Sara Hutton helped lawyers to access cash via the government’s Coronavirus business interruption loan scheme, also known as CBILS or the government backed loan scheme, our second webinar with Barry Wilkinson, founder and managing director of Wilkinson Read followed on from the CBILS content with a detailed session on cash flow. Our latest webinar discussed recoverability – or put simply, how to convert WIP on the books into cash. Our speaker, Zoe Holland is the founder and MD of niche advisory practice ZebraLC. ZebraLC provides expert consultancy to law firms by uncovering value and mitigating the burden of cash-flow constraints. A lawyer by trade, Zoe has spent the past decade delivering value to law firms & legal sector stakeholders and investors by uncovering value and mitigating the burden of cash-flow restraints. She has extensive management Board and finance experience and has advised on some of highest profile deals in the legal services market. Her clients include North Edge Capital, Money Plus Group and the Co-Operative Group. Her banking clients include RBS, NatWest, HSBC and Yorkshire Bank; and PE clients include Equistone, Fortress, Centrebridge and Mobeus. Zoe is also a Working Group Member of the Civil Justice Council – NIHL and Clinical Negligence and non-executive director for the Jackson Lees Group. We are delighted to now share the webinar here:
