R.W. Lynch Raises Its Ugly Head Again

 Posted on February 27, 2009 in Uncategorized

Last month I got a call from Terry Fifer (or it maybe Terri Fifer or Terry Phifer or Terri Phifer) at R.W. Lynch claiming that she was calling about "a new case - an injury that I was involved in."

Since then she has become more truthful - "I want to know if you handle personal injury cases", "I will call back" (no doubt), and "regarding personal injury network" - but, true to Kevin McHenry's "too dumb to know when someone is not interested" form, she keeps calling.

I called her back this time, suggested she google her name, pointed out that things would get worse for her and R.W. Lynch if she kept calling, and called her a liar. I wasn't very nice. But I haven't gotten it out of my system yet.

Let's work through this rationally, Ms. Fifer (Phifer?):

You're looking for lawyers who need more business.

You're trying to sell them some R.W. Lynch service that will bring them more business.

To sell the lawyers on R.W. Lynch, you start out by lying, and close by annoying.

Why, if you can't sell your own (R.W. Lynch's) services without first lying and then wasting your time with cold calls to people who have no interest, would a lawyer possibly think that you might be able to do anything to help him market his business?

Ms. Fifer, and R.W. Lynch, if you must call a business to sell your product, call once. Leave a message accurately describing the product. Those who are interested will call you back. If you don't get a call back after truthfully describing your product, I'm not interested.

Marketing a law practice requires maintenance of high ethical standards. Any lawyer who buys marketing services from someone (like R.W. Lynch) who tries to get a callback by lying to him is an idiot who's going to wind up facing a grievance, and rightly so: If I hire someone who has lied to me to get my business, I should expect her to lie to my potential clients.

Lying may be considered okey-dokey in marketing (as it is in policing), but if you can't get callbacks without lying about your product, then your product sucks and you should find something else to sell.