Making it as an attorney is tough. Like marketing, it is extremely competitive. The key to winning is diligence. Lawyers and marketers alike have to focus every day – never letting a detail out of sight. Being the best is accomplished everyday. Football great, Jack Kemp once said,
“Winning is like shaving – You do it everyday or you wind up looking like a bum.”
Michael and Patrick have discussed our methods and research on separate phone directory listings. The importance of these listings comes down to diligence. A lot of times, clients are so focused on their ads, they never check their directory listing. One story proves my point:
A law firm client of ours agreed to set-up a second number and see how much traffic his phone book advertisement was actually driving. We reviewed the free alphabetical listing and found this successful attorney listed as:
John Doe, Heating & Air Conditioning Installation and Repair
No wonder his phone wasn’t ringing! The prospective clients looking for him thought he had an unlisted number. And a high percentage of his call volume was people sweating it out in the Arkansas heat. So as Michael said, he was missing 60% of the call volume he was paying for in phone book advertising.
To put it simply – the client hadn’t done his due diligence. He was spending all of his mental energy on perfecting his paid advertisement, he wasn’t even checking the directory. Who knows how long he had been listed incorrectly? As Jack Kemp would say, he had gone so long without a shave, he looked like an air conditioning repairman.
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So what did Kirkpatrick do about it?
We immediately got on the phone with the phone book sales representative responsible:
- Kirkpatrick: I’d like to correct a listing in the listings of the directory.
- Representative: I’m sorry, but since I’m an advertising representative I have no control over the listings.
- Kirkpatrick: Who do I need to contact?
- Representative: I would assume the other offices might be able to help, but I’m not sure. We don’t have anything to do with the listings in this directory.
This was early in our phone book negotiation days. In our naivete we had thought that our advertising sales rep would be able to help – no dice.
So, a few hours later we found someone at the listings offices:
- Kirkpatrick: I’d like to correct a free listing in the free directory.
- Representative: We’re still a few months from the next printing. We can’t really change anything, right now.
- Kirkpatrick: I understand but my client is also listed incorrectly online. Can we at least change that?
- Representative: Print and online listings are entered into a database. We can’t change either until the database is updated by your telephone service provider.
- Kirkpatrick: Can you help me update the database from your end?
- Representative: I’m afraid not. I don’t have access to that. It isn’t our database.
This is when it really got interesting. If our advertising publisher couldn’t help us, surely the listing publisher could. Not true. The truth is the listing publishers never handle the individual listings by hand – they only combine large databases into a master database before publishing.
So who is responsible for your directory listing?
Phone directory listings are compiled by your local telephone providers — the one you chose for telephone service. If you want your listing corrected or updated, you will need to:
- Visit your telephone provider
- Oversee the correction of the listing
- Get a copy of the updated database and proofread it carefully.
- Take that database to the local phone book publisher to ensure it is updated in their master database.
Like a close shave, your advertising (both paid and free) is how you present yourself to the world. You can’t let anything go unchecked. If something gets published incorrectly you have no one to blame but yourself. As Teddy Roosevelt said,
“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a week!”