068: Nathaniel Slavin of Wicker Park Group discusses listening to your customers

As a founding partner of Wicker Park Group, Nat works with law firms to strengthen client relationships through client feedback and other client-facing initiatives. Previously, Nat served as Publisher of InsideCounsel  (Corporate Legal Times) and held various editorial and management positions for this management monthly for corporate legal executives.  Nat has authored more than 100 articles on legal department management and frequently speaks on legal department management and marketing strategies.  Nat is a 2014 Legal Marketing Association Hall of Fame Inductee.

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Listen to the podcast

Fail fast to succeed faster

• Listen as Nat reminds us that if we do not take charge of our own future, someone else will.
• Nat discusses realizing that he was uncomfortable with someone else deciding his fate and how he pushed back hard.
• Hear how Nat shows that it is important to remember who was with you from the beginning to make your success possible.

Tell us something good

• Nat describes how he recently helped a large law firm realize that their assumptions about the future of the business were wrong and that the business that had driven the success of the firm to that point had changed radically and wouldn’t support the past level of business in the future.

What’s on your desk?

• Conducting in person interviews to understand
  • opportunities with their clients
  • How do businesses make the decision to choose this firm
  • what drives client loyalty

Favorite Resource

• Nat’s innate ability to stop talking and start listening. And, why that should be important for all of us.

Favorite Books:

• The Ultimate Question 2.0 (Revised and Expanded Edition): How Net Promoter Companies Thrive in a Customer-Driven World Business loyalty guru Fred Reichheld revealed the question most critical to your company’s future: “Would you recommend us to a friend?” By asking customers this question, you identify detractors, who sully your firm’s reputation and readily switch to competitors, and promoters, who generate good profits and true, sustainable growth.
• Setting the Table Danny Meyer shares the lessons he’s learned while developing the winning recipe for doing the business he calls “enlightened hospitality.” This innovative philosophy emphasizes putting the power of hospitality to work in a new and counter-intuitive way: The first and most important application of hospitality is to the people who work for you, and then, in descending order of priority, to the guests, the community, the suppliers, and the investors.

Favorite Quote of the Show in a One Minute Clip

Thanks for Listening

This information is coming to you to inspire you and drive you forward. Be bigger than you know yourself to be! If you haven’t already done so, please take a minute to leave a quick 5-star review rating and honest review on iTunes by clicking here. Miranda McCroskey – host of Lawpreneur Radio