Building your corporate brand
It starts with the people in your organization and how effective they are at being ambassadors to your target audiences
Today I’d like to talk about the most effective way startups can sell/market to lawyers, specifically to new segments within the market. This article is not about individual sales; I’ve written before about biz dev tactics in the past. Today I’m going to take a more global view to ensure that it’s relevant to law firm, startup, and other organization leaders who are trying to expand their marketing footprint and corporate brand.
How law firms do it
Expanding your corporate brand will lead to lots of good things. You will sell more services/product; retain more clients/customers, and have an enormous recruiting advantage. However, in the beginning of your journey, you likely have an unknown corporate brand and cannot solely rely on it to produce all of these good things. Instead you have to borrow from the collective personal brands of your employees.
That’s how law firms built their own brands over decades. There were specific individuals within those firms that, by sheer force of will, put the firms’ corporate brand on the map. I often cite Wachtell as a classic example of a distinct law firm brand; in the beginning they were completely unknown and had to rely on individual partners’ reputations.
Over time Wachtell was able to build a unique position in the market. They’re known to recruit only top students from top schools; to have their attorneys work insanely long hours, but have the chance to do extremely high level work; to compensate their people more generously than almost every other firm out there. But in the firm’s early days that wasn’t there; instead, it was all about the specific individuals who were part of the firm.
The word “Wachtell” meant nothing to clients.
This is a long way of saying, building up an institutional brand requires the organization to place focus on individuals. There is a very specific reason why that is. Which brings me to my next point.
Transferred trust
An organization’s reputation is built bit by bit over a long period of time, based on unique experiences of their clients and employees. However, until the brand is established, the organization must rely on the reputation of its people—employees for companies, and partners/associates for firms. Clients and new recruits cannot fully process the quality of the organization, but will make snap judgments and assumptions based on the people who are associated with it.
This is exactly how I size up Biglaw firms. It’s not the best way to evaluate brands, but I always think back to which of my law school classmates ended up going where—and impute their reputation to the firm they joined. I hate to admit it, but these brand associations last for a really long time—even if they have limited basis in reality. I still judge Kirkland by that one guy they hired as a summer back in 08.1
The same is true in legal tech. When I first started selling e-discovery software, the vast majority of our buyers had not heard of our product. However, some of them had favorable views of Logikcull because they saw that I worked for the company. “If Alex joined, he’s probably looked at the pros/cons of the tech, and it’s probably decent,” they thought.
They made this assumption because they just don’t have the bandwidth to investigate 100% of the information out there about Logikcull. Lawyers are busy, and they have a lot going on in their lives. So it’s super easy to just rely on this “transferred trust” to make quick decisions. Some of them needed e-discovery software, shot me a DM, and were able to get up and running without needing to undergo a lengthy evaluation process.
My friends knew that if the product ended up being terrible, they could always call me out on it directly. And most importantly, they knew that I knew that as well. There is a level of accountability here that doesn’t exist if the institution doesn’t live up to its promises.2
Conveying trust beyond your friends
What I wrote above holds true even beyond your immediate social circle. As a salesperson, I quickly realized that the number of personal connections I had was limited. It was rare that one of my hundred or so friends needed my product. However, my friends knew even more people, ie. my second degree connections, who might have a need.3
As a result, most of my sales came from that second concentric circle of my network. And the approach I took there was slightly different. I couldn’t merely rely on my personal reputation; I had to communicate that I was trustworthy. And the best way to do that was to convey that the buyer and I had shared values.
Conveying shared values requires more than just saying a few magic words. It requires you to quickly demonstrate them. For lawyers specifically, you need to convey that you are detail oriented and responsible. That you have a healthy respect for their limited, non-billable time. That means you have to start/end meetings on time, send typo-free emails, and respond to their inquiries quickly—even if it’s just to confirm receipt.4
The most interesting thing was that my managers failed to grasp this concept. They thought that all I had to do was to lead off my sales meetings by telling clients that I had a law degree, and the rest would take care of itself. I was trained to make lots of small talk with the buyer before diving into business.
My well meaning managers simply did not understand our potential clients’ values. Some of them came from the HR tech industry where buyers prioritized different values, like friendliness and personal rapport. As a result, many of my sales colleagues lost their buyers’ trust within minutes because all they did was talk about sports and the weather instead of getting to the point quickly.
What was really happening was that our sellers were sending the wrong message; that Logikcull did not respect their clients’ time. They were not equipped to serve as ambassadors to our target audience.
Ambassadorship
This brings me to my final point which I think is a critical one. You have to remember that your client facing employees are ambassadors to the markets you serve. Corporate/firm leaders have to be incredibly careful about who they select to serve as an ambassador, because you can send the wrong message.
I’m reminded of a specific contracts tech company (Acme) who chose the wrong ambassadors. It was a competitor of Ironclad so I spent a lot of time thinking about it. Essentially, Acme sold to legal but focused their hiring on “sales bros.” While they were able to land some quick deals, Acme quickly lost trust among many GCs/CLOs because these sales bros used high pressure tactics that do not work in this market.5
Ironclad, on the other hand, took a more nuanced approach. Their client facing people were either lawyers, from the legal industry, or were more thoughtful analytical types vs. action-oriented sales bros. You won’t be surprised to hear that this approach was highly effective. Yes, some deals were lost in the short term because Ironclad sales team members avoided high pressure tactics. But over time, the corporate brand became known for quality and client-focus, which led to long term success in sales/recruiting.6
It’s rare for legal AI startups to recognize this concept of ambassadorship. One company that seems to understand it well these days is Harvey AI. They have been hiring ex-Biglaw lawyers to serve as strategic sellers. It probably doesn’t escape them that their potential clients—most of whom are either working in Biglaw or *used* to work in Biglaw—will notice. Harvey’s client facing employees are very likely serving as effective ambassadors to this audience.7
Conclusion
Now that I’ve shared some principles behind how to bootstrap an institutional brand via your people, what takeaways are there for you, as a stakeholder or leader of a firm/company?
Decide who you want to serve. Instead of thinking about who you want to hire first, start with figuring out which communities you want to target. This is a highly nuanced, strategic decision you have to make up front. Do you want to go after the “high end/luxury” segment of the market? Or do you want to go after the “innovator/misfit” segment? How is your target market structured, and is there an order of operations that makes the most sense? (For AI startups, may want to consult the technology adoption curve and map out your buyer personas to it.)
Find the right ambassadors. Once you figure out which audience you want to evangelize to, you have to select the right people to carry the message on your behalf. The most effective ambassadors may likely look and act very differently from you. Because their shared values line up with your target audience instead of your firm/company. That could lead to organization indigestion, so you have to be careful when you choose. On the other hand, someone who is *too* similar to your existing culture will likely be ineffective at reaching your target audience.
Expand your definition of what works. If you’re attempting to reach new audiences, you have to temporarily suspend your own conclusions about what is or isn’t effective. My old sales managers could not comprehend that the tactics used in HR tech sales were very different than what we should do when selling to time-constrained lawyers. Once you’ve chosen your ambassador you have to give them the freedom to guide you on the best path forward. Now you do need some type of objective measure to evaluate whether they are carrying your message across. It can be metrics/KPIs tied to your other organization goals. Whatever it is, make sure you give your ambassadors enough time and freedom to be successful.
Best of luck my friends!
The firm in question is not actually Kirkland & Ellis but I just used them as an example. But I bet some of you knew exactly what I was talking about.
This fear of being called out by friends who bought your service/product is incredibly powerful. It prevents overselling/stretching the truth in situations where there are misaligned incentives. It’s also why I chose to stay in the legal startup space. I want all of my stakeholders to share this fear; otherwise it’s all just a short term money grab that will destroy my personal reputation.
The number of second order connections you have is likely far greater than you think. For those of us selling products that are rarely needed (see Painkillers vs. Vitamins) having a huge baseline audience of people you can sell to is critical. Because you can never guess who exactly needs the thing you’re selling.
Anyone who has practiced law understands these values generally. Those who have worked in high demanding firm, government, or in-house contexts have had these values imprinted into their personality. It took me a few years after I left to realize, but starting my career at S&C New York fused these values into my psyche which is why I do some of these things on autopilot.
I don’t think Acme was necessarily wrong in choosing this strategy. It’s likely that the sales bros fit in really well with the leadership of the company. And maybe I’m giving them too much benefit of the doubt, I also suspect it was a longer term bet on the sales persona/audience. I always sensed that Acme was not a fan of legal, and desperately wanted to expand to a persona that they were more comfortable with.
Even though I left the company nearly a year ago, I am constantly astounded by what GCs/CLOs say about Ironclad in terms of quality and brand. It confirms to me that many of the decisions that early Ironclad employees made were the right ones.
Harvey by all indications seems to have had a great 2024; apparently they 4Xed revenue and reached $50M ARR, which is no small feat.