Volume 58, November 2008

In This Issue: Why Increasing Your Marketing during an Economic Crisis Pays Off In Both the Short and Long Term Beyond the Nigerian Email Scam National Business Institute (NBI) Continuing Education Upcoming Events

Why Increasing Your Marketing during an Economic Crisis Pays Off In Both the Short and Long Term During adverse financial periods, there are some natural financial considerations that every business faces - how they can ensure their cash flow remains healthy and what they can do to identify and decrease unnecessary expenditure.  One expenditure item that usually falls into the second category is advertising and marketing costs.  While this may seem an easy item to tick, decreasing your advertising expenditure can hurt your business and also ensure you miss out on the opportunities to expand your long-term client base. The balance of economic crisis - danger and opportunity There is no doubt that since the sub-prime crisis gathered momentum in 2007, individuals and businesses alike have been riding a roller coaster of financial fears.  From week to week it is difficult to tell what bombshells the economists, financial markets and financial institutions will present with next.  Attorney's and law practices, just like any other business will experience both the highs and lows of this current crisis.  While it is hard to tell (even for the economists) the extent of the economic danger, on both a personal and practice level, this is a time to take decisive actions to ensure financial stability and longevity for all types of law practices. Crisis and instability also bring opportunities for business expansion and diversification.  According to an article in the Strategic Management Journal (2007) by Robert A. Burgelman and Andrew S. Grove of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, titled Let Chaos Reign, Then Rein In Chaos-Repeatedly: Managing Strategic Dynamics For Corporate Longevity, out of the top 100 US based industrial companies listed by Fortune magazine between 1965 and 2005; a direct correlation can be made between responsive and dynamic strategic management in the face of 'non-stable' periods and the longevity of the nineteen Fortune 100 companies that survived during this time-frame.  While strategic diversification and exploration of new markets were key factors in longevity, so was these companies's commitment to innovative marketing campaigns during difficult periods in their market space.  Read the complete article "Why Increasing Your Marketing during an Economic Crisis Pays Off In Both the Short and Long Term".

Beyond the Nigerian Email Scam By Robert S. Bernstein, Esq. Lately when I check my email I am no longer surprised to find an email from the sister-in-law to the Finance Minister of Nigeria (or someone like her), telling me they have $xx million in a bank they need to get out and I can help and get 10% (or some incredible number). The whole idea is to get you to accept a check from them, to show good faith. Once you are CERTAIN enough time has passed for the check to clear, you send them back some amount. Months later, you find their check was phony and your account has been debited, leaving you out the amount you sent them. Having worked in the collection and bankruptcy business for many years, we have been receiving the new Asian Email Scam messages for some time. These messages urge us to represent XYZ Shanghai Company (or someone) who is owed $xxx,xxx from a US company and they offer us a piece of the action to collect it. The US company is, we are told, afraid to send a check overseas (or a similar excuse). That is what we do, right? Collect money. So naturally our firm becomes interested. The company in Shanghai is offering to pay a retainer and pay us hourly if we want. Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?  Read the complete article, " Beyond the Nigerian Email Scam".

National Business Institute (NBI) - Continuing Education Our partner in continuing education National Business Institute, the nation's largest public provider of continuing education, offers tuition savings on ALL NBI continuing education courses for NL Members & Registered NL Users! Click here to view some hot topics offered in the coming months (check out the Teleconferences too!)

Holiday Hours

All offices of The National List of Attorneys will be closed November 27 & 28th for the Thanksgiving Holiday. 

We will re-open on Monday, December 1st at 8:00 CST.

IAT is a leading call center technology developer, providing premier predictive dialing and other communication solutions for the collection industry. 

The YouveGotClaims® service electronically delivers new collection claims to an unlimited number of law firms and other service providers, and then allows the senders of the claims to track, manage and analyze both the collection portfolios and the vendors servicing those portfolios. 

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