Personal Advancement
West coast litigator is one smart cookie when it comes to marketingNothing ventured, nothing gainedLast Friday, like many fellow journalists and business colleagues, I spent a good deal of the day watching and listening to the verdict in the Conrad Black trial and its fallout. |
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 [ 2007-07-18 ] |
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Conrad Black walks to court to hear the verdict in his fraud and racketeering trial in Chicago, Illinois, Friday July 13, 2007. (Dave Chidley/CP)
The spectacle of the bombastic former media baron being found guilty in a Chicago courtroom of four of 13 charges brought against him, in the wake of his new defunct media empire, was just too much to ignore.
MARKETING
However, nearly every time I looked at a television for more than a minute or two -- no matter which channel the TV was tuned to -- eventually the eyes of Hugh Totten looked back at me.
Totten is one smart cookie and there's a lesson to learn from him if you're looking to move up the ladder at work, move to a new company, start your own business or market what you've already started.
In fact, it reminds me a little of the part in the movie The Pursuit of Happyness where Chris Gardner, being played by Will Smith, goes to the football game to be with people who might be able to further his career. It's a risk only in that it might, in the end, be a waste of time -- but it's a fairly big risk because time is something Gardner doesn't have to waste.
Totten is a litigator at Perkins Coie, a blue-chip West Coast law firm that opened an office in Chicago five years ago. The firm isn't involved in the Black case whatsoever, and that's what gave this amazing marketing plan a chance to work.
With international media descending on the Windy City for the trial, Totten -- according to the website Law.com -- and one of the firm's public relations specialists decided to use the trial to see what kind of publicity they could drum up for the firm by merely being there.
Totten made himself available to media to comment on the case, knowing that most media outlets would include his law firm's name while attributing quotes to him or having his talking head on the tube.
Did it work? Yes, and in spades. For 15 weeks, Totten has been all over the airwaves in North America and the U.K., and he's been liberally quoted in papers such as the Chicago Tribune, the Financial Times of London, the New York Times and the Globe and Mail. In fact, the Globe and Mail devoted a half page to him in its Report on Business section, explaining why he was there.
The only real risk to Totten was that by going to the trial on a flyer, he might be ignored and the whole exercise would be a waste of time.
What he achieved, in the end, was a marketing coup for Perkins Coie and, likely, a little something extra in his next bonus.
Yes, time is money and should never be wasted. But the other side of that coin is: nothing ventured, nothing gained.
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