How Mitch Jackson Wins Social Media Friends and Influences Juries

Mitch Jackson, California Lawyer of the Year 2013, of the law firm JacksonandWilson.com, and founder/CEO of Human.Social shared perspectives on engaging and building relationships with clients, friends, and communities to my students and these are some of the knowledge bombs that he shared:

• In 1996, he realized the importance of the web as a lady called his law practice after seeing his URL in the Yellow Pages and apparently that impressed her enough even though she never used a computer! You need to learn how different clients prefer to communicate. Once he won over a client as the previous lawyer just left voicemails to someone who only communicated via text.
• The famous Cochran Law firm wasn't responsive to inquiries by a client of theirs and when Mitch's firm proved more attentive, they took over the case eventually resulting in a $5,500,000 jury verdict for wrongful death.
• You need to be good at what you are doing but all other things being equal, building social platforms and being a social business as described by Brian Solis in What's the Future of Business, allowing people to connect is often the determinant of who gets the order.
• Mobile technology creates business opportunities for companies big and small to connect and build relationships globally. Peter Diamandis new book Abundance talks about how those who change their mindset can tap into an increasingly connected world.
• Bob Burg's book of turning Adversaries into Allies is the best people skills book Mitch Jackson knows and junior lawyers he mentors first need to read this book and let Mitch know what they got out of it before he spends time with them.
• David Meerman Scott's The New Rules of Sales and Service lays out how you can succeed on social platforms with a focus on service and genuine helpfulness. Mitch is also featured in the book in a whole chapter dedicated to so-called newsjacking. Newsjacking is the idea of interjecting yourself and your business into hot current news stories and Mitch can attest to it working very well. Thanks to his prompt commentary on hot news topics, he has landed press, TV, and social media coverage eventually resulting in more business for his firm. To succeed in newsjacking, Mitch cautions that you should have at least something partially relevant to add to the conversation based either on your experience or perspectives. Mitch also always tries to take the high road on divisive issues by maintaining a positive and constructive tone.
• Mitch's six communication principles for success on and off social media are inspired by Dale Carnegie's classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People:
  1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
  2. Smile. Check yourself, deflect, reflect, and select your options regarding when to take action. Take smart actions and don't dwell on bad decisions you made, keep smiling.
  3. Remember and use other people's names. Mentioning people's names works online as well to separate yourself from the noise. He uses Nimble which pulls in from connected social media feeds what you are talking about and up to this week. To “Nimble” someone is often more specific than when you Google somebody.
  4. Be a good listener and encourage others to talk about themselves. Listen 60-70% of the time, ask open-ended questions, and let people speak.
  5. Talk in terms of the other person's interest. Phrase and categorize things in their best interest. Ask questions about their goals and constraints so you can best help them.
  6. Sincerely make the other person feel important. People do business with people they enjoy being around and making them feel that you care is a great way to develop rapport.

Mitch's final advice to students. Learn how to say no in a respectful manner and start building an online platform today! Do you believe that these principles apply also in your life or career? Please share in the comments!

Disclosure: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links” but I only recommend products or services I either use to satisfaction personally or am confident will add value to my readers based on endorsements by people I trust.