I presented at the first annual GP/SOLO Symposium today at the Mass Bar Association and I got to hear a lot of speakers talk about building a law practice.  There was a lot of talk of using technology in building your business with tools such as social media marketing, time management programs, and using dual monitors.  There was also a lot of talk about traditional methods of building a business such as referral networking (my topic), building your reputation in the community, and just generally being a nice person (not just a lawyer).

It still surprises me that there are so many different ways to build a successful practice.  Those folks telling you that you must blog or you must use social media and optimize your website obviously have no clue that there are many lawyers not doing that yet they’re still making a living.  Personally I think you have to do a mixture of these traditional methods and the new ways.  There’s always a danger that when you rely heavily on a certain medium, that if that medium is made obsolete or becomes less relevant, you’ll lose your base.  It’s good to use facebook and LinkedIn and twitter to market your brand, but if that’s all you’re doing, then you have to ask yourself, what if LinkedIn and facebook and twitter goes the way of Friendster and Myspace?  Then what?  What will be left to drive your marketing?

As with good financial investing, diversification is also key to good marketing.