Readers of my previous article who were askance at the various approaches of lawyers to marketing and business development, and may have thought that their profession came out in a poor light, will be pleased to know that marketing and business development professionals are just as bad.

For those who enjoyed the first article, here are some characters I have come across over the years while working in the legal profession. I hope that you recognise at least a couple of the types described below.

The business babble type

Talk of 'low-hanging fruit opportunities', 'b2b selling' and so on might go down well with other marketing 'gurus' but, almost universally, use of these phrases within the legal profession and their clients will attract a degree of derision and is understandably frowned upon.

The MBA type

He or she is very proud of his MBA in marketing and a plethora of other qualifications of dubious value in practice. It is never quite clear what practical value the MBA adds anyway – but it does looks good on a CV.

The charts, bars and graphs and statistics type

For this person no information is of any value unless reduced to some statistical form displayed graphically. Quite what is to be learned from the statistics and what use can be made of them often remains a mystery. Useful statistical information in the legal marketing field is in fact rather difficult to come by in practice.

The type that does not make the distinction between business development and marketing

This is a common fault. Marketing is not business development, although the two are not at all mutually exclusive. Although, to an extent, business development can be done without marketing, little value will be gained from marketing if no business development is done at the same time.

The one-size-fits-all type

This type treats the marketing and selling of legal services as though it were the same as selling cans of beans or soap powder. There is no one universally applicable marketing or business development approach in law.

On the contrary, law demands a much more bespoke approach to each individual client and each individual work type more than almost any other profession. Every client is unique at least in the sphere of almost every sector other than domestic conveyancing and every client wants something different from his/her lawyer.

The type who ignores Law Society regulations on selling legal services

Restrictions on cold calling and ethics rules generally applicable to lawyers can be something of a nasty surprise to those outside the business of legal marketing.

The 'let's throw money at it' type

The big spender: the difficulty with marketing and business development is that the former does not produce a tangible benefit as such, and the latter often only does so in the long term – so who is to say whether the money is well spent or not?

The indiscreet type

Be careful about discussing other clients – they might not be as keen as you are to have third parties learn about your work for them.

The 'let's do a client survey' type

This type produces masses of useless information after great effort – much or most of which is obvious already, or irrelevant.

A survey of the views and opinions of current clients is perhaps of less value than one of former clients seeking to better understand and identify why those clients have been lost and what would tempt them to return.

The high-pressure salesman type

This just puts off the potential client completely.

The type who does not know his product

Perhaps more than most other types of marketing, it is essential for the marketer to know and appreciate the particular style and nuances of the firm he/she is marketing and the tremendous variety of personalities and work styles that thrive within any good firm.

The 'let's have an advertising campaign' type

This might make the firm feel good about itself, but rarely justifies the spend and the idea soon palls after it is realised that money spent produces largely intangible benefits.

Likewise, money spent on expensive outsourcing of market research, public relations and strategic development rarely produces value for money in the cold reflection of hindsight.

The scatter-gun approach type

Efforts spread too widely leads to poor results. A focused approach to potential new business and clients is always necessary to achieve best results.

The 'our marketing department is just too small' type

No matter how big it is, the marketing department always want more staff and any shortcomings are always put down to that.

The 'let's have a meeting to discuss this in more detail' type

Reduces at its most absurd to meetings about meetings. Lack of effective follow-up also may often mean that minutes never become actioned to any serious extent. All talk and no action is a recurrent problem.

The 'all lawyers are useless at marketing and do not understand business' type

These types forget that marketing people often do not understand business as well (or, in fact, most business people) and that solicitors are quite good, in many cases, at running their own practices as successful businesses.

The 'we must have a marketing plan approach' type

This is fine, but a marketing plan is not the end in itself and it should be remembered that such a plan is not a business development plan. One is not much use without the other and, in any event, in both cases it is the effective implementation of any plan that really counts, rather than any imperfections or otherwise in the plans themselves.

The 'we must have an annual retreat' type

This is a good idea when all else fails, in the hope that this might produce some sensible ideas or agreement if nobody has been able to do so all year so far.

The 'I have never worked outside of the law' type

While this is understandable and largely unavoidable with many lawyers, business development and marketing personnel will likely have gained real benefit from working in other sectors outside law. This will give them a depth and vision in their job which otherwise is very difficult to achieve.

The 'I started as a PA with a law firm' type

This used to be a common route to a marketing manager's role within many law firms. There is nothing wrong with that in itself, but it is sometimes indicative of an underlying assumption within the firm that no special skill or experience is really required in the role and that a relatively low level of seniority and remuneration is all that is necessary for the job.

Aneesha Burnell of AB Consulting is an independent consultant with experience in telecoms and the legal sector.