Legal Marketing & PR

Recession? What Recession?

By Larry Bodine, Esq.

To survive in business, law firms must adapt to the market.  Accordingly you don't necessarily pursue industries that are in a downturn like real estate, luxury retailers, small retail stores, construction, manufacturers, automakers, financial advisors and banks, publishers and broadcasters.  All these industries are laying off employees.

Instead, law firms should go where the money is: technology, especially companies doing business on the Web, cell phones and software.  Look at these results:

• Google reported revenues of $4.23 billion an increase of 57% compared to the third quarter of 2006 and an increase of 9% compared to the second quarter of 2007.
• Apple reported it earned $1.05 billion, or $1.16 a share, on $7.5 billion in sales for its second quarter. The results were led by sales of 2.29 million Macintosh computers, a 51% rise from a year ago. Yahoo beat expectations. The company reported net revenue of $1.35 billion, slightly ahead of analyst estimates of $1.32 billion, and 14 percent higher than $1.18 billion in the year-ago period.
• Microsoft toppeds profit estimates with income for the period ended March 31 totaling $4.38 billion. Revenue for the quarter rose to $14.45 billion.  Recent data showed better-than-expected sales of PCs containing Microsoft's software in the quarter.
• Verizon added 1.8 million net additional subscribers for a total of 63.7 million, trailing AT&T's total by 2 million. Revenues of $23.77 billion beat Wall Street's bet of $23.6 billion. 

The high cost of oil -- which crested at $116 a barrell -- is a huge burden on the economy.  But the New York Times declared there is a "bubble" in the price of oil, because the cost rises abruptly based on no significant news.  Added to this, there has been a giangantic find of oil in Brazil, enough to supply the US for 20 years.  Some analysts say we can look forward to $80 a barrel oil prices.

For marketers, the next step is obvious: deepen relationshis with tech companies that are making money and add tech comapnies to your hunting list.

Full post as published by Larry Bodine's LawMarketing Blog on April 25, 2008 (boomark / email).