That woke you up, right?  Well, a good friend of mine and I had this discussion recently and we realized we share a brain on this topic.  We have never believed in external competition.  We have always believed in internal competition, competing with just ourselves to be better than we were the day, month, year, decade, before.  Yet, ironically, in doing so this triggers others to compete with us as we excel.  In essence, we become the ‘enemy.’ (see below)

This philosophy has propelled me throughout my life because it is not about winning at the expense of another (yet, when someone wins, in a strictly competitive world another loses) but simply to better my experiences, to rise to the next level of skill and success.

This ‘no competition’ attitude is key to successfully marketing your solo practice.  Let me explain.

• Observe then Ignore the competition – That’s right, observe then ignore them.  There are no shortage of clients, just lack of attraction tools which makes you feel like there are no clients.  Trust me, they are out there.

Conventional wisdom says that to beat your competition you need to one-up them. 

This sort of one-upping Cold war mentality is a dead-end.  It’s an expensive, defensive, and paranoid way of building your (solo practice).  Defensive, paranoid (law firms) can’t think ahead, they can only think behind.  They don’t lead, they follow. (Getting Real by 37 Signals)

However, do have an enemy. That’s sounds just the opposite of what I said above.  But it isn’t.  Sometimes the best way to know how to construct your legal services business is to know what it shouldn’t be.  Figure out what type of legal practice is opposite of what you want to create and you’ll discover where you need to go.  Instead of fearing ‘the enemy’ use it as a muse, a motivator.

One huge benefit of identifying an ‘enemy’ is the ability to fashion a very clear marketing message.  If your ‘enemy’ is a huge, over-priced, ivory tower, partner heavy Big Law firm or a high volume, churn and burn client mill (even another solo) then position yourself as the opposite.  Clients are very good at drawing comparisons and it enables them to understand your position in relationship to others.  Not only will they understand quickly how you have differentiated your services, they will have a definite opinion about which type of service they prefer.

But DO NOT get obsessed with the ‘enemy’.  If you over analyze and stay focused on what they are doing, you will start to limit your own thinking.  Look, analyze and then move on to your own vision of the perfect solo practice and cultivate your own ideas.  The ‘enemy’ is just a foundation from which to start your development.

Don’t follow the leader.

Marketer’s (and all human beings) are well trained to follow the leader.  The natural instinct is to figure out what’s working for the competition and then try to outdo it – to be cheaper than your competitor who competes on price, or faster than your competitor who competes on speed.  The problem is that once a consumer has bought someone else’s story and believes that lie, persuading the consumer to switch is the same as persuading him to admit he was wrong.  And people hate admitting that they are wrong.

Instead, you must tell a different story and persuade listeners that your story is more important than the story they currently believe.  If your competition is faster, you must be cheaper.  If they sell the story of health, you must sell the story of convenience.  Not just the positioning x/y axis sort of “We are cheaper” claim, but a real story that is completely different from the story that’s already being told.  – Seth Godin, author/entrepreneur (from Be a Better Liar)

And to complicate this post yet further, you don’t have to fabricate a story.

You need to care about it

When you write a book, you need to have more than an interesting story.  You need to have a desire to tell the story.  You need to be profoundly invested in some way.  If you’re going to live with something for two, three years, the rest of your life, you need to care about it. – Malcolm Gladwell, author (from a Few thin Slices of Malcolm Gladwell)

And when you decide to build your own solo practice you are making a long term commitment. Caring about your story comes from being genuine, authentic…being who you are, making your own unique footprint.  If you except this can you now understand why there IS no competition?

Here is a perfect example of authenticity, identifying the enemy, caring about your story and a major dose of rebellion which helped carve out a solo practice.  I don’t know the lawyer, just that he gave himself the anonymous moniker of POGO.  I’d like to meet POGO.  This was his comment in a recent ABA Journal On Line question about inhibitors to solo practice:

I went solo straight out of law school because no one was hiring “old rebel” law students 15 years ago.  God forbid my tattoos showed or I wore my motorcycle leathers to a job or I used a wheelchair.  I picked up contracts to do criminal defense, Indian law practice on tribal nations and whatever else I could find. After four years with a successful practice, I accepted a position as a tribal judge.  Four years later I went to work for the state government. Almost four years of that drove me nuts between the bureaucracy and the overwhelming case load. I went back to being a sole practitioner and limited my practice to family law with an emphasis in Indian Law issues and military issues in family law.

I didn’t have the luxury of getting student loans during law school and had to work my way through. No debt there because I was raised not to take on debt. (Depression Era parents.)  Have I struggled? Yes. But I learned so much more than I ever could have at a large law firm.  Yes, you have to be your own paralegal, secretary and receptionist in the beginning. If you can’t handle that then you are at a true disadvantage. Hopefully you will learn just how hard those positions are so that you really appreciate what your staff can do for you.  You will learn how to adequately bill for your services and how to keep expenses down.  You will learn from failures and triumphs. You will find mentors among other sole practitioners.  But you alone will control your own destiny, not some one else who does not have your best interests at the core of their being.

As for me, I can fly my 33 year old tattoos in my office and if clients can’t handle that I don’t need them. I can hang my Viet Nam artwork on the walls and have my motorcyle and race car collectibles on the shelves.  And I don’t have to worry about some boss telling me what is and is not appropriate behavior, atmosphere, etc. in the “legal profession”.  Legal rebel?  I was a rebel long before I hit the legal profession.  And I don’t plan on changing.

POGO doesn’t really have competition.  The client who is going to go to him is going to be attracted to his story, his passion, his authenticity and his commitment to himself and his clients and they will hire him specifically because of who he is. And that is why his practice grows. There is no competition.

I’d really like to meet POGO.  If you’re reading this please e-mail me