Practice Building Is No Time to Be Neutral
August 31, 2006 · Print This Article
During a conversation with a mediator in the Midwestern U.S., I listened as she described her marketing efforts to date. She has regularly advertised in her local daily, buys an annual yellow pages ad, has a static website that was professionally designed, sends out a print newsletter quarterly, and has a few other traditional strategies in her informal marketing plan. After two years in practice, she’s not coming close to making a living.
During the conversation, I asked her how she communicates her passion for ADR and its benefits to her prospective clients and audience. There was a long silence. Then she said, “As a mediator, I believe it’s my responsibility to convey neutrality and professional distance. Passion doesn’t really enter into it.”
If you’re a mediator who hesitates to convey your passion for what you do, you’ve taken the concepts of neutrality and professional distance too much to heart. Whether or not you agree with Bernie that our field ought to embrace conflict resolver roles that go beyond impartiality, it’s critical that you get beyond neutrality when you market.
There is no room for neutrality unless you also want your prospective clients to feel neutral about you and what you offer. You want them to feel as much energy about your work as you do. It can be done and you’ll begin to see how in the next chapter!
Copyright © 2006 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.
Perfect! The whole concept of passion is so overlooked, that the more you can convey its importance, the better off we all will be.
That’s helpful to hear, Judy. I’ll make sure I work this well into Part 2, where I hope to begin engaging the reader on your passion for this work. Marketing’s hard work and if we’re not passionate about both our work and the desire to do more of it, I think there isn’t enough energy to market effectively.