June 29, 2009|Kim's Blog, Marketing|

Last Friday, I led one of the PM Forum’s popular Future marketing manager courses with delegates from firms such as Allen & Overy, Birketts, Field Fisher Waterhouse, Grant Thornton, Martineau, Wragge & Co and Conyers Dill & Pearman.

Although there are many book references in the slides and other handouts, I promised the delegates that I would provide the following additional information:

Book references

Two key David Maister books are “True Professionalism” (insights into the mind of the professional) and “Trusted Adviser” which explains the trust equation and provides details of where you can assess your trust quotient online.

For help in understanding partnership finances, I recommend Andrew Otterburn’s book “Profitability and law firm management”.

Richard Susskind’s latest book “The end of lawyers?” updates his predictions for how the legal profession might develop in the future and considers trends such as the information revolution, legal market deregulation and commoditisation.

Philip Kotler and John Caslione’s work on “Chaotics” considers how business strategy – and marketing – can adapt to the major economic and technological changes in the global market place.

Influence and buy in

We spent quite a lot of time considering how to influence partners and colleagues and I particularly like the book “The psychology of persuasion – influence” by Robert Cialdini. I have also written a FAQ and lots of blog posts on gaining buy in.

Marketing careers

The For Students section of this web site provides information about marketing and related qualifications.

The “advice to a new marketing manager” that delegates compiled during one of the exercises was as follows:
• Demonstrate effectiveness – be results driven
• Take time to understand the partners, stakeholders and culture
• Communicate (Listening is important)
• Win people’s trust and confidence
• Be clear about your aims and priorities
• Sell yourself and your contribution
• Get to grips with the financial drivers
• Challenge people – don’t always say “Yes”
• Develop strong commercial skills and market knowledge
• Learn about the products/services
• Delegate appropriately
• Make decisions
• Be forward thinking and proactive
• Network within and outside the firm

Your summaries

As a reminder, the favourite images of the day were: the helicopter, the road ahead, the mountain, the finishing line, money and self.

The key ideas selected were: the inner critic, review successes, develop your own brand, understand the mind of partners, sell yourself, self-confidence and concentrate on outputs (results) rather than inputs.

The one word summaries included: refreshing, plan, focus, analysis, helicopter, outputs and results.

You can follow me on Twitter (RedStarKim) for further thoughts.