In legal marketing, we are now like two men on a bridge. We are all equally armed, with the same professional skills (or an inability to project superior professional skill), and most significantly, with the same marketing tools. The seminars. The articles. The brochures. The networking. The Web site. The press release. Who wins the competitive battle, then?

If, as a marketer, you've ever been involved in a political campaign, then you know that a political campaign is simply another form of marketing. An analysis of the first Clinton campaign for the presidency, with James Carville's core message of '<I>It's the economy, stupid</I>,' made that point very clearly. It was a classic case of <I>positioning</I>. But even that battle was merely a prelude to the campaign that elected Barack Obama ' which was, as well, an inspiring use of positioning.

Many years ago, I worked at an ad agency whose creative director boasted of his ability to generate good advertising ideas. The problem was that his ideas weren't very good. His ad campaigns usually fell short of objectives, or at least, generated no excitement; nor were they very competitive. They rarely were the right ideas for the campaigns involved. After a while, I figured out what was wrong. The problem was that he wasn't creating, or even thinking. He was remembering.

There's a wonderful cartoon in which a guy in a business suit is looking over the shoulder of an artist at his canvas. The caption, spoken by the artist, is: 'I used to dabble a bit in accounting, too.' Then there's the guy who said to me: 'If you're smart enough to be a lawyer, then you're smart enough to do your own advertising.' To which I replied: 'Yes that's true. You're also smart enough to'

The curse ' and challenge ' of marketing is that it's at the apex of competition, which depends for its success on being ahead of the curve. Competing requires attracting the target audience's attention, generating excitement, enforcing credibility, and, in the case of professional services, building a context and an opportunity for selling. And it's all got to be done better than the competitors are doing it. Then it has a better chance to get to the bottom line ' which is the ultimate goal and value of marketing.

There is no firm in business today that isn't inundated regularly by requests for contributions, whether they are for charitable, community or political causes. For the community-minded firm, the requests can be overwhelming, as is the feeling that you do indeed want to help the organization requesting your help. But how can you serve your community ' and frequently, your firm ' without hurting your own firm's budget and community relations? You can say yes'

It's been suggested by several readers that our orientation toward professional services marketing, as opposed to product marketing, is a prejudice. Admittedly, it's at least a bias against a pervasive academic view that the techniques of marketing a product apply equally to marketing a professional service. And indeed, the most successful professional services marketers tend to look to other professional services firms for answers and the best ideas, as well as for validation of their own ideas and processes. Still, it would be foolish to automatically preclude any idea that's been forged in a marketplace of ideas. In a rational world, we take ideas from any reasonable place, accept the good ones, and eliminate the ones that are bad or not applicable. That means that are things to be learned by professional services marketers from the Toyotas and Microsofts and Dells of the world.