How much should you market?

There’s one question I’m asked over and over: How much time should I spend marketing? Depending on the situation, I may respond in terms of how many hours a week a lawyer should spend marketing at various stages of practice, in terms of the minimum amount of time a lawyer should invest in marketing where there isn’t enough time to keep a full schedule, or in terms of what current results indicate about future activity. All of those measures are valuable, but there’s really a deeper question that most lawyers forget to ask….

What activities count as marketing? There’s active marketing (finding opportunities to speak to potential clients or referral sources, for example) and passive marketing (such as writing a blog post or article and waiting for it to garner suitable attention to lead to an inquiry from a prospective client). You probably know the broad buckets of activities within each of those categories…

But there’s a better answer.

Next time you wonder whether you’re marketing enough, think about how you’re approaching the people you encounter and whether you need to market better, not just more.