What’s your thing? Figure that out and build your marketing (and practice) around it.

Are you a decent writer? Blog posts, articles and newsletters might be your jam. Do you have a book in you? Write it (or hire a ghostwriter) and get it done. It could become the centerpiece of your marketing, firmly entrenching you as an authority in your field.

Are you active in social media? Would you like to be? Millions of people are available to “talk to” and some of them need your help or know people who do.

Networking might be your thing, but which type? Some lawyers network at business and professional functions. Some do charitable work and meet people who know people. Some do business on the golf course. Some ask people they know to introduce them to people in their niche. What sounds right to you?

How about speaking? Many a lawyer has built their career standing on a stage. Many others do well sitting behind a microphone and teaching something or answering interviewers’ questions.

Advertising works. Can you do that in your state or country? Is it appropriate for your practice area? Do you have deep enough pockets to hold your own against better financed competition?

Let’s not forget referrals. Do you get a steady stream of referrals from your clients? From other professionals? Would you be happy getting more?

What do you do? What would you like to do?

If one of these strategies is your thing, keep doing it, get better at it, and leverage it for all it’s worth. You can also do other things, but consider making one thing your main thing.

It might be the only thing you need to build a massively successful practice.

If you want to get more referrals from your clients, this shows you what to do

You want to stand out from other attorneys. Get noticed so you can show people an advantage to choosing you.

But you don’t want to be so different that you scare off prospective clients.

So, you need to fit in. Look like a lawyer who does lawyer things. But if you only do that, if there’s nothing to differentiate you, you become a commodity. Just another option among many.

You give people no reason to notice you or choose you.

You want to stand out, but you also want to fit in. Look like an attorney, not an anomaly.

How do you achieve that balance? How do you stand out and at the same time fit in?

That’s what you need to figure out.

If you do anything different in your practice, make sure people know about it. Tell the world what you do that other lawyers don’t do.

And if you do nothing different, you can make it appear that you do.

How’s that?

If you do what everyone else in your field does, but the other citizens of lawyer-town don’t talk about that subject, when you talk about it, you own it.

For example, if you handle plaintiff’s personal injury claims and your competition doesn’t talk about all the things they do to investigate a case, and you do, the world will see that you are different and better.

Even if you’re not.

When you are the (only) lawyer who uses a 12-point checklist to ensure all the facts and evidence are collected and documented, you appear to offer your clients an advantage.

Yes or yes?

But there’s another way to stand out and also fit in.

When you look at your competition, you probably notice that not only do most of them appear to do the same things, they also tend to look and sound the same.

Like identical cousins, Patty and Cathy Lane. You can lose your mind.

But they’re not identical. One likes the ballet, the other rock and roll.

All of us were humans before we went to law school, and most of us still are. We can use our humanness to stand out and also fit in.

And it’s easy to do.

Don’t hide your personality or personal interests from the market. Let the market see that you like the ballet or rock and roll, and that while you do the same work other lawyers do, you are different individuals.

Market yourself first, your services second, and your firm a distant third.

Because people buy you before they buy your services.

How to stand out and fit in