Objective Criteria For Selecting a Law Firm Marketing Expert
There has been a great deal written about who is a good law firm marketing expert and who is not a good law firm marketing expert. If I were looking to hire someone for help with law firm marketing I would ask the following questions:
What is the track record of the law firm marketing expert?
All claims of success should be substantiated. Make the law firm marketing expert show you results of his/her own personal efforts. They should have a booming business themselves if they are truly expert at attracting business. Ask for a client roster or financial information. Let’s face it, if they are successful why would they hesitate to reveal this information?
If they cannot do it for themselves, how do you expect them to do it for you?
What is the system you will use to help me grow my law firm?
Do not work with someone who will just wing it. You want to see a framework that they will be following to deliver results. Even marketing experts who follow a customized approach have a framework they use to help their clients get started.
If they do not have guidelines for their own work, how will they help you?
Can I speak with a former client?
Every law firm marketing expert has clients who have left him or her. You want to interview these people. You want to find out if the relationship broke down because of the law firm marketing expert of because of the client.
Why do you do what you do?
The motivation of the law firm marketing expert is critical. Certainly you want to hear about the passion this person has for participating in the success of others but you also want to hear that this is a business. Everyone is motivated, at least to some extent, by the need to make a living. Ask this question to see if the consultant is going to be upfront about that.
There are at least a dozen other questions you should ask a law firm marketing consultant before you hire him/her and beyond their qualifications it comes down to a matter of personal taste and preference.
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EmailA True Measure of Success
I was wrong.
I started working at a young age. Like many people, when I was a kid I had a newspaper delivery route. I would also cut lawns or water people’s plants or watch their houses while they were on vacation. When I turned 16 and I was legally eligible to work full time hours I got a job after school. In the summertime I worked two jobs.
I did this because I liked earning money.
As my career progressed, I always took the job that offered the potential to earn the most money. I advanced steady up the corporate ladder, building bigger businesses and watching my income increase along the way.
Then one day, not that long ago, I woke up and realized I was unhappy…but I had plenty of money. And I realized I was not successful.
I spent the better part of two decades working to increase my income. But that did not bring happiness.
I realized I needed to start over. The tools I was using to measure success were the wrong tools for that task.
But do not, for one minute, think I eschew making money. Money is great. It is important, dare I say critical, but it is a means to an end and not the end in-and-of itself.
True happiness for me is about freedom.
I started my business because I want complete control of my destiny. Along the way there are bumps in the road. There are a few surprises. But the journey is terrific. Every day is a new adventure. Each day is an opportunity to learn, grow and help people.
So how does this relate to you and law firm marketing?
It is simple.
You must have the opportunity to do your best work every day. You need to attract clients with whom you enjoy working. You need to be fighting for causes you believe in.
Marketing should bring these opportunities to your doorstep. It should be a vehicle that enhances your sense of freedom and it should allow you to do exactly what you love each and every day.
Marketing provides you with freedom. The freedom to be selective and the freedom to build the law firm you want, complete with the clients you want.
That is true success.
At the end of each day, when I look back and see that I used my talent to help others, and the quality of my life improved as a result… that is when I know that I have been successful.
How do you measure success?
How Lawyers Get Clients Is Important
If you want to know about the quality of a lawyer, look at how he attracts his clients.
In the past couple of years I have worked with over 200 lawyers from all over the United States and I have spoken with hundreds more. I know their businesses intimately. I know what keeps them up at night and I know what motivates them to get out of bed in the morning.
One of the things this experience has taught me is that there are a few litmus tests for selecting a good lawyer from the hundreds of thousands out there. One of those litmus tests is how a lawyer gets clients.
You read that correctly. How a lawyer gets clients is good way to tell what kind of lawyer he is.
Here are three ways the best lawyers attract new clients:
Education
Great lawyers do not keep their knowledge to themselves. They hold educational seminars for clients, prospective clients and referral sources. These seminars are not money-making propositions. They are intimate events where the lawyer demonstrates his expertise by educating the people in attendance.
Think about it: If you are a lawyer and you want to attract new clients do you want to attract a client who knows how valuable your services are? Of course you do. Teach your prospects about the value of your services without pitching yourself. It will help you attract clients like a magnet.
Referrals
Frequency of communication is important in relationship development. Great lawyers get clients through referrals and they receive referrals by communicating frequently and intelligently with their referral sources. Email and print newsletters are excellent tools for this communication but a phone call or in person meeting never hurts.
Community Leadership
One of the least used business development tools by average lawyers is community leadership. Great lawyers get clients by being active in the community. But by being active I mean they take leadership positions in the community. Not only does this increase their visibility and credibility it also shows the strength of their character. People who give of themselves, particularly people who dedicate time for the betterment of the community are held in high regard.
There are many other ways good lawyers get clients but the methods they employ help make the selection process easier.
Next time you’re wondering how to get clients as a lawyer, think about the implications of the methods you choose.
The Shift in Law Firm Marketing on the Web
In case you haven’t noticed, Google changed the algorithm they use to rank websites once again. It appears that all the ingredients necessary for a high ranking are still in place (keyword rich content, inbound links and frequent updates among about 100 other things) but the priority of them has certainly changed.
How do I know?
The sites with the most inbound links used to rank in the top five for all search results (regardless of the keywords or content on the site). That led me to believe that inbound links were heavily weighted in the algorithm.
As of the end of June 2010, this is no longer the case. Don’t get me wrong, links still appear to be weighted heavily, but content updates are also important as are subscribers, traffic and everything else that goes into your search engine ranking.
What does all this mean?
Actually, there is no conclusion that can be drawn…yet. But anecdotally, I can tell you that the website that I updated weekly in June (this one) improved in ranking while the website I could not attend to Legal Marketing For Lawyers dropped dramatically.
I am moving back to frequent updates (three times each week or more) on each website to see if it makes a difference.
Stay tuned as I conduct this law firm marketing experiment.
First Impressions Are Part of Law Firm Marketing
It is amazing how accurate a first impression can be.
Years ago you would walk into a lawyer’s office, look around at the pictures on the wall, thumb through the reading material in the waiting room, and step into the conference room to meet with the lawyer. Usually you were greeted by an administrative assistant wearing a professional business suit. You met with an attorney also neatly attired in a professional ensemble. They looked like they meant business and this was an important part of the selection process.
Everything is Different Today.
In this day and age you may never meet your lawyer in person. He may be able to handle your matter entirely by telephone and email. Today first impressions are much different than they were a decade ago. Today you can go on line and read just about everything about a professional before you ever meet with them. You can read things they have written. You can judge their professional demeanor from the style and substance on their website.
The More Things Change The More They Stay The Same
When a prospective client comes to your website what does he see? Does he see professional educational articles written by someone with depth of knowledge and experience? Does he see guides and “how to” tips? Is he educated on how to make a good decision in hiring a lawyer in your field of practice?
One of my college professors had a saying that she used to repeat and it stuck with me. She would say: “The way you write is the way you think.” I believe this is true. Your writing is the first impression many of your clients have of you when they visit your website.
Pay careful attention to the impression you make in the things you put on line. You never know when someone is going to be reading your work and making a million-dollar decision based upon that first impression.
What You Don’t Know About Law Firm Marketing
Your clients come to you looking for advice. When they walk in your office they are usually facing a serious situation full of potentially adverse consequences. They sit in front of you and they complain. They moan and groan about how they got into this mess and about how unfair it is and about how they just need a little help working their way through this situation.
Of course these clients are minimizing the potential exposure of their situation. They need help and they know it. But many of them will still shop around. They will still look for a bargain. (As a side note: These are the same people who would shop for a bargain from a brain surgeon or parachute manufacturer.) And this is partially due to their pathological condition that prevents them from naturally comprehending the concept of a price/value relationship.
But part of the blame lies with you. You enable these dysfunctional psycho-clients. You do this every time you reduce your fee. You do this when you rationalize, during your own personal moments of delusional behavior, that taking a client at a reduced fee is better than letting them walk away.
What you should be doing instead of reducing your fee is helping your clients understand the value of working with you.
Clients have three basic choices when selecting a lawyer.
Choice 1: Work with a cheap, crappy lawyer. This will generally produce crappy results. Clients know this but some of them legitimately have no money and they are forced to go this route.
Choice 2: Work with a lawyer who does everything right but has only average knowledge and experience and charges exactly what everyone else charges.
Choice 3: Work with the elite lawyer who does everything right, has invested in educating himself in several nuances of specific areas of the law, has taken on challenging cases and has developed relationships that allow him to achieve results not possible for about 97 percent of the legal population.
Most clients will select Choice 2 because they do not understand the difference between the lawyers in Choice 2 and Choice 3. And when they select the lawyer in Choice 2 they will try and get him for the price they would pay the lawyer in Choice 1. Because in their mind, all lawyers are the same.
And this is what YOU don’t know. This is not your fault.
But it is your responsibility to help the client see the difference between making Choice 2 and Choice 3. It is your obligation to educate the client on the severity of the issue he faces. It is incumbent upon you to make it clear to the client that his situation will only get worse if he doesn’t act now. Help him realize what he doesn’t know and help him understand the VALUE in selecting you to resolve the issue.
The challenge comes in learning how to do this. They don’t teach this in Law School. It is part art and part science.
This is one of the foundational strategies my clients discover when they work with me. To the lawyers I work with, demonstrating value is as basic and as natural as breathing.
When I work with these lawyers and they discover the technique for demonstrating value, it is like someone has turned on a light in a pitch black room. It is as if they were cave men in the Stone Age and I just gave them a book of matches.
They need fewer clients to make the same money or they take on the same amount of clients and make more money.
So this brings us to decision time.
You can choose to remain in the dark and battle your clients on fee issues or you can give me a call and take care of this situation. You deserve to be paid appropriately. You are worth it.
Isn’t it time you took your practice to the next level?
With Legal Marketing You Cannot Worry About Hurt Feelings
Being successful often means making people angry. Let’s face it, there are a lot of people out there who are miserable and they are content to live with their misery. Trying to help them is not only futile; it is exasperating. I am sure you have come across some of these people as you work to build your law firm.
Clients who arrive in my office seeking assistance have two specific issues. In some cases they are earning less money than they would like. In other cases, the money is fine but they are not happy with the way they are earning the money. (They are working too hard. They are dealing with difficult clients. They practice in an area of the law they hate…the list is varied).
When I prescribe a remedy I am always met with resistance. I have been doing this long enough to know that I need to sell my solutions to my clients. For as much as they want to get better, the things I ask them to do are so different, so out of the norm, so disruptive to the status quo, that I am immediately met with shock and resistance.
Most of this resistance is set in the mind of OTHER PEOPLE.
It seems these attorneys, most of whom went to school to learn how to be advocates in an adversarial process, are suddenly concerned about what OTHER PEOPLE think.
Shocking, I know.
Here are the three objections I hear most often when I introduce my solutions to a new client.
Other People Will Reject Me
This refers to your peers. Most attorneys are very concerned with what their peers will think. That is why hourly billing is so pervasive. At some point, maybe one hundred years ago, a group of attorneys decided they wanted to get paid they way plumbers, car mechanics, and factory workers are compensated.
And you go right along with it. Why? Because if you do not, you will not look like OTHER PEOPLE.
I also see this in your decisions about strategy. I introduce a new concept. Something that positions you as different compared to everyone else. And you resist it specifically because nobody else is doing it….
That is the point!
You need to be different. Being different gives people an opportunity to make a decision based upon something other than price. Being different helps set you apart.
I will Annoy Other People
This one comes up when I talk about frequency of communication. Frequency builds trust. I advise my clients to communicate with their clients and prospective clients on a weekly basis. When I first introduce this concept, your head spins around and you tell me how much this will annoy OTHER PEOPLE.
In reality, the people it annoys will not be good clients for you. The people you want as your client will welcome the frequent communication.
I also hear this about the length of the copy we write. Sometimes it is a web page, sometimes it is a letter, sometimes it is a newsletter. The attorneys who work with me always say that OTHER PEOPLE will not read long copy.
In reality people will read whatever you put in front of them as long as it is interesting. It is only when it is boring that length is a problem.
Other People Will Say Bad Things About Me
This is the one that makes me laugh the hardest. OTHER PEOPLE say bad things about everyone. There are people out there who said bad things about Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela and Gandhi.
So what? Let them say bad things.
In fact, when people begin to speak of you with vitriol, you know you are reaching new heights of success. Look at Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, Bill Clinton, Sarah Palin … the list goes on and on. The more you polarize, the more your message will resonate with your core audience.
Here is the bottom line:
You are an expert in a specific area of the law. There is a limited segment of the population who qualify to work with you. If you are using the right message and it is directed at the right people and delivered in the right way it will resonate with them.
In trying to please everybody you end up working with nobody.
Isn’t it time you decided to focus on creating the kind of firm that allows you to live the lifestyle you deserve?
Stop worrying about OTHER PEOPLE and focus on THE RIGHT PEOPLE, the folks who are your ideal clients. The only votes that matter are the ones people cast with their wallet.
If you are ready to use the right message, find the right client, and systematize your law firm, give me a call. OTHER PEOPLE will hate you for it, but you will sleep better at night if you do.
Legal Marketing: Can You Be a Part Time Expert?
When it comes to legal marketing there are lots of folks who will take your money. Many of them claim to be experts because they run a law firm. This means that being a “marketing guru” is a part time job for them…kind of like selling Avon or running an early morning paper route. If it were me, investing my hard-earned money, I would not want to work with someone who took marketing so lightly that they did it like the kid who watches your house while you’re on vacation.
If you are giving some thought to working with a legal marketing expert here are three questions to ask the part time guru:
If your law firm is so successful and satisfying why are you working part time as a marketing coach?
Look around your neighborhood. Think about your circle of friends. How many of them have part time jobs? Those who do probably need money. If their main occupation provided them with enough income would they be working a second job? When you see the part time legal marketing guru, ask him why he needs a part time job.
How long have you been studying and practicing this thing known as marketing?
Most attorneys-turned-marketers or attorneys-turned-part-time marketing-gurus attended a few marketing seminars, bought some marketing-in-a box programs and turned that stuff into their own offering. Is that bad? Not necessarily…if they are leading a marketing study group. But most of them are claiming to be the legal marketing authority.
You can’t claim to be a master of something if you simply attend a couple of courses and listened to some audio tapes. You have to have lived and breathed it for years. Author Malcom Gladwell, in his book Outliers: The Story of Success shared research that reveals that expertise comes from practical application of a principle, strategy or tactic for at least 10,000 hours. So how can the part time guru claim expertise?
How many people from diverse practice areas have you lead to business success in the past?
This really is a key question. These part time gurus may have a dozen techniques that work in personal injury practices or in family law practices but that doesn’t mean they will work in your law firm. Legal marketing is a general term. Just because this part time person can teach you marketing techniques that work in one kind of firm, do not assume those techniques will work in your law practice.
In the end, you will be paying full price for your law firm marketing coaching. You deserve someone who works on legal marketing full time.
In Law Firm Marketing Success Follows Action
It is very easy to tell the difference between winners and losers. There is one particular quality winners possess. I guarantee if a person has this quality they are a winner.
In this context, the term winner refers to someone who seeks a desired outcome and then makes it happen. It does not mean they are rich. Some rich people are winners and some are losers. It does not mean they are famous. Some famous people are winners and some are losers. My definition of a winner is someone who sets their mind to achieve a goal and then they achieve it.
Winners talk differently than everyone else. They carry themselves differently than everyone else. But most importantly, they act differently than everyone else.
Winners have a bias for action.
Here is an example:
Three weeks ago I attended a party at the home of a friend. Several attorneys were present and a few of them and I gathered in the kitchen. We had a conversation about a specific marketing strategy I have been experimenting with for six months. I told the group I was happy with the results. This strategy was consistently delivering about three leads a week to my firm and to the firm of an attorney with whom I was working. I said I would be looking to teach this strategy to some clients over the next few months to see how it worked in various different kinds of legal practices.
There were four lawyers standing with me listening to me describe the results. They all asked questions. They all nodded their heads in agreement. But only one of them called me the next day to ask about the specific steps involved in this new strategy. In fact, this guy not only called and asked about this strategy, he made an appointment to come to my office and see it in action. He took copious notes and he implemented it within 48 hours.
This particular lawyer and I had a follow-up conversation yesterday. He has already gotten two new clients as a result of this particular strategy.
Action.
It is what separates the winners from the losers. A winner hears a good idea and he finds a way to use it. He makes it a reality in his business as soon as possible.
Here is a little added bonus: People with an action orientation overcome failure more easily than stagnant people. Why? Because if they take action and it doesn’t work, they immediately take more action. To these folks, failure doesn’t exist. They view each action as a test. Even if the test produces positive results, they tweak it to make it better.
Now I have two questions for you.
Question one:
What was the last great idea you thought of or heard?
Question two:
What did you do about it?
It is not too late. You can still be a winner. Waiting is for losers. Take action now.
If you want to learn how to take action repeatedly give me a call. In 90 days I can instill this quality in even the most sedentary lawyer.
But you have to take the first step.
You have to make the call.
888.692.5531
Some Thoughts On The Giants of Law Firm Marketing
I speak with dozens of lawyers every day. During the course of a month I probably meet (either virtually or in person) over 100 new lawyers. At least 70% of them have had experience, as a consumer, with one of the big law firm marketing service providers.
Without fail, in all cases, this experience has been negative.
I am talking about one of the two big law firm marketing groups out there. One of them is the opposite of East and the other has a funny spelling of the combination of a car and a shampoo.
I’m not sure why most small firms and solos have negative experiences with these companies but I am willing to wager it is systemic. I’m also willing to bet that the leadership of these behemoths do not know how badly damaged their brands are at the grass roots level.
I’d like to tell them and see if they have an interest in changing.
That’s why I am launching a campaign to get in touch with Senior Executives of both companies. I will first speak with them off the record and see what their reaction is to some of the comments I’ve heard from their clients. But I would also like to interview them for my experts and authors interview series. I would like to understand what their vision is for their company and I’d like to hear their perception of the current state of the legal industry.
These folks may not be interested in speaking with me. They may not care about solo and small practice law firms. We’ll see.
I’ll keep you posted.
