The ways to overcome obstacles are no great secret. They are elusive to many law firms, though,because they require change, time and efforts. While other tactics are important to overcome obstacles, the most critical is the firm's incentive system. If you tell your lawyers to cross-sell, but the compensation system discourages them from doing so, your firm will experience frustration. In fact, in firms where the compensation system does not effectively reward marketing and there is little accountability for marketing, typically less than 25 percent of the partners make sufficient efforts to market, and those efforts often meet with limited success.
Incentives can be monetary or non-monetary, but the best firms use both.
Marketing Education - It is important to create a common understanding of marketing in order to build acceptance of and enthusiasm for marketing, as well as consensus for decisions. Other ways include firm or partner meetings, practice area meetings and circulation of articles or other reading materials. All education efforts should emphasize that law firm marketing, at its most basic level, depends on personal contacts and relationship building. Secondly, educating lawyers can play a valuable role in marketing - from speaking to writing to networking, in small or large groups. Many times lawyers' discomfort with marketing stems from their misconception that there are only certain models to be effective rainmakers and they don't fit them.