Books, articles, blogs and other knowledge resources
During 2014 I continued the three 2013 themes for knowledge development – psychology, pricing and project management. I also spent a fair amount of time promoting my fourth book which was published in February 2014. I continue to write my own blog (over 80 posts) as well as contributing guest blogs to organisations such as Legal Technology Insider (a series of legal sector Marvellous Marketing case studies) and Lexis Nexis (Future of Law). So my knowledge update process is still in overdrive!
Psychology
In January 2013, I finally completed four days’ training with Psysoft http://www.psysoft.com/ to achieve the British Psychological Society (BPS) Occupational Ability and Personality Test User Certification Level A and B using NEO PI-R Personality Inventory. This is to add to my armoury of a BPS approved degree in psychology, a post graduate diploma in professional coach mentoring (where Eric Parslow was my tutor/supervisor) and a certificate as a practitioner in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) which I use in all manner of ways both in consulting roles (organisational development, (partnership) team management and change management) and in coaching assignments. This means that rather than referring my clients to third parties or online sources, I can now provide the materials and do the marking and feedback myself for a range of ability and personality tests. Further information about psychometric testing services is here.
During 2014 I completed a Level 2 counselling skills course and embarked on Level 3 – just a few more years until I qualify as a psychodynamic counsellor. I also produced a 40 page guide on “A guide to effective communication, conflict management and negotiation” which is only available to delegates on my courses. However, I am considering extending this into a full book for publication in 2015.
Pricing
As well as providing lots of blogs on pricing throughout the year, including recommendations on some great books, I also conducted a small research exercise in conjunction with charities Onlydads and Onlymums into the pricing of family law services. This resulted in a White Paper and various presentations – including for CLT on pricing of family and private client services. This work has extended during 2014 as I helped a variety of professional service clients with their pricing strategies.
Project management
Whilst I have been providing project management training courses for many years through the Professional Marketing Forum, during 2013 I spent two days in Frankfurt tutoring on the Project Management in Marketing diploma course for the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). I reviewed various books to support people in this area.
Business development for lawyers
My fourth book was published in February 2014. There’s a blog explaining why “Rainmakers and Trailblazers” is different to other books on business development for lawyers and further details (including how to order) are available here. I received six brilliant reviews from law practices on the book Thank you!
Strategy and creativity
To support the assignments I conduct helping businesses with their strategy, during 2014 I reviewed a number of great strategy books (Developing a business strategy – How to use strategic planning to start up or grow your business and How to think strategically: Your roadmap to innovation and results).
I also developed a new training course called “Being more strategic” and I have delivered this successfully to marketers and business developers and will be extending the course. I also incorporated elements into numerous partner away days and board workshops with great effect.
Whilst most of my client work on creativity is confidential, in 2014 I produced a series of blogs on improving creativity – the first one is here and contains links to the others
In previous years…
Apps
In May 2012 I released a new White Paper titled Apps by UK law, accountancy and property firms – Are we missing the mobile revolution? and this generated a lot of interest from all professional sectors. Please let me know kim@kimtasso.com if you have any further comments as I post the latest Apps reviews in the
Social Media
You will recall that a while back I worked with Peter Abraham of www.econcultancy.com on a research project relating to social media. As well as research this involved running workshops at the Professional Marketing Conference and the production of a White Paper called “The use of social media in relationship development in the professions (Lawyers, accountants and surveyors)” in 2011. I was subsequently involved in an RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) Social Media conference, developed a new “Inbound Marketing and Social Media” course for PM Forum www.pmforum.co.uk/training and have incorporated basic and advanced social media training into the majority of the courses I provide on public and in-house courses. I have also written numerous guides, faqs, articles and blogs on the subject.
It was as a result of my work promoting a pragmatic approach to integrating social media into marketing and sales campaigns and in helping fee-earners in all professions to use it as part of their day to day on and off line networking and business development that I was shortlisted for the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s Women in Marketing award. I continue to blog frequently on the topic and will incorporate much new material in the new course “Digital PR” which is introduced in Spring 2013.
White paper on the use of social media in relationship development in the professions
Training young marketing and business development executives
The Professional Marketing (PM) Forum www.pmforum.co.uk training courses for marketing assistants, executives and managers continue to be well attended. The range of courses now includes:
- The effective marketing and business development PA/secretary (half day)
- Practical and professional skills for marketing assistants (half day)
- The Proactive Marketing Executive (full day)
- The Future Marketing Manager (full day)
- Assertiveness, confidence and effectiveness for marketing assistants, executives and managers (half day)
- Integrating marketing with selling and relationship management (half)
- Time, project and campaign management (half day)
- Marketing and business development planning in the professions (half day)
- Problem solving, creativity and innovation (half day)
- Coaching and mentoring staff and fee-earners (full day)
- Managing change and leadership (half day)
- Inbound marketing and social media (half day)
During 2012 I introduced new courses (which will re-run in 2013) including:
- Helping fee-earners with client relationship management (half day)
- Marketing and business development writing workshop (half day)
- Getting it past the partners – All about buy-in (half day)
- Helping fee earners prepare the perfect pitch (half day)
In 2013, there was a new course on “Helping fee-earners prepare the perfect pitch”. In 2014 there will be new courses on “Being more strategic” and “Dealing successfully with conflict”. Further details and dates/booking details are at http://www.pmforum.co.uk/training/
Professional marketing qualifications
In Spring 2009 I finished two tranches of training for Cambridge Marketing College – for the regular CIM Marketing Communications course – where I taught on Saturdays at Guildford University and for the Professional Services sector version which took me on Wednesday evenings to Barclays in Canary Wharf for several weeks.
Book on managing a property partnership
In June 2009, I was delighted that haysmacintyre accountants hosted a reception to launch my third (and final!) book – “Growing your property partnership – Plans, promotion and people” published by EG Books, the publishing arm of Estates Gazette magazine, Growing your property partnership – Plans, promotion and people which was well received and is selling well.
Kim’s Books
Sales of my earlier books – “Dynamic practice development – Selling skills and techniques for the professions” and “ Media relations in property” continue to generate interest. I attended an excellent course on “Writing a novel” early in 2011 which took place over several weeks at a local college, but regret that I have been too busy to build on the 20,000 words of my first attempt. Maybe 2014!
Marketing private client legal services
I was asked to revise and update (again) the marketing and business development chapter of the Law Society’s Probate Practitioners Handbook – the latest edition should be out in September 2010. My thanks are due to those lawyers and firms who updated previous case studies and provided new ones: Boodle Hatfield, Forshaws Davies Ridgway, Kaye Tesler, Laytons, Nelsons, Rix & Kay, Royds, Russell-Cooke and Seddons.
Furthermore, I developed a training course with CLT called “Developing a profitable family practice” and I delivered this a number of times around the country during 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. Further dates for 2014 have been agreed.
Law Society’s Probate Practitioners Handbook
Judging the best marketing campaigns
Whilst my time judging the Property Advertising and Marketing Awards (PAMADA) ended when they were converted into the Estates Gazette Awards, I continue to be one of the judges on the Best Marketing Campaign category of the Managing Partners Forum awards www.mpfglobal.com/awards. In 2013, I judged the “innovative use of social media” category.
Articles and blogs
Whilst the time spent writing books and blogs has significantly reduced the time available for writing articles in the mainstream media, I continue to write regularly for Professional Marketing magazine and provide the occasional article for Estates Gazette and The Lawyer. Many of my articles are reviews of the latest books by other authors who specialise in management, marketing and selling in the professions. These are listed in the articles section.
The number of blog posts on management and marketing in the professions http://kimtasso.com/category/blog has steadily increased:
- 2013 85
- 2012 84
- 2011 68
- 2010 41
- 2009 67
- 2008 21
Management diary
As the Managing Partners Forum UK contribution to International Professional Management Week a while back I developed and wrote a Management Diary. This was distributed throughout the United States and Europe by a variety of legal and professional associations – it has been revised in 2007 and 2008. You can download a copy of the Management Diary. I may revise the document this year.
