Forget Law Firm Marketing: Focus on Relationships
Many attorneys have a problem with law firm marketing. Well, let me clarify that point: They have a problem with what they THINK law firm marketing is. Many lawyers only view marketing as a member of their peer group plastering his face on the side of a bus or sending out some cheesy flyer to people who get traffic tickets. Technically that is marketing. But it is crappy marketing. My definition of law firm marketing is a little different than the screaming loudmouth on late night TV telling you to call 1-888-bad-fall.
Law firm marketing is the process you use to build relationships with your clients. Good relationships are built on a foundation of trust. Trust requires clear, direct, valuable communication.
Here are four easy steps you can follow to build positive relationships through marketing. Start by imagining yourself in a face to face conversation with a prospective client. Imagine you are having a direct conversation with them. Follow these steps during the conversation and you will have the beginning of a positive relationship. It does not matter if this conversation takes place in a written document or in an audio or video message. The fundamentals of good marketing are the same. They are the building blocks of a good relationship.
Say Something Valuable
Much of the marketing we see every day has no value. It simply screams features and benefits at the audience. Good law firm marketing will provide the audience with something of value. This is why I prefer educational marketing. The audience invests time in digesting the message and they are better off because they did. Provide value to your audience and they will invite you to provide them with more value in the future.
Stimulate Intellectual Curiosity
Being boring is the number one sin in marketing. If someone is taking time to read your information or watch your video or listen to you speak, you need to be moderately entertaining. Ask questions that get them thinking. Share information they can use. Open their eyes and minds to new ideas by telling a story or sharing a past experience.
Evoke Emotion
How do you feel about what you do for a living? Are you passionate? Is that passion apparent to the people who consume your marketing material? Do people feel a certain way after they read what you have written or after they watch or listen to what you have recorded?
Most of us want people to like us. That is how relationships start. People do business with other people they know, like and trust. Once they know you, they have to develop positive feelings for you in order for the relationship to advance. Show them how you feel and they will reciprocate.
Invite a Response
People always respond to marketing. Sometimes they respond by changing the channel or by throwing the letter into the garbage can. Sometimes they respond by simply moving on to reading something else. Why not invite your prospective client to respond a certain way? Ask him to go to a specific website for more information. Ask him to come to your seminar. Ask him to call your office for an appointment. Help him take the next step by pointing out what the next step is.
These four simple steps are applicable in every form of marketing from a one-to-one conversation to a campaign to millions of people.
If you think you will benefit from deepening your relationships with your clients or if you’d like to take the next step in your professional career, give me a call. In a few short hours my team and I can have you developing positive educational marketing messages that will compel your clients to respond.
My phone number is 888.692.5531. I help attorneys build relationships. This enables them to make a great living and live a great life. Your future is too important to delay.
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EmailThe Power of Procrastination
I have a confession.
I battle procrastination every single day. It is terrible. I constantly feel as though I am up against a deadline. Actually, that is not correct. I feel like I am up against a guy with a loaded gun pointed against my head…waiting to pull the trigger.
It is a constant pressure that drives me crazy. I get frustrated and angry with myself when I wait until the last minute to do things. I get upset at the people in my office for scheduling the appointments with the clients (like they knew I was going to wait until the last minute to get the work done). I get depressed when it happens again and again because I feel helpless to stop it. I rarely miss a deadline but I ALWAYS feel uncomfortable.
Well, I used to feel uncomfortable and helpless…
My team and I have developed a system to help me beat this personal deficiency. In fact, we have learned to use it to our advantage. My hope is that if I share my little trick with you, you will be able to use it in your law firm. Don’t think of it as time management. Think of it as activity management.
Here is what we have done:
First: We set artificial deadlines on all projects. These internal deadlines are designed to put pressure on me to feel the same pain of procrastination but feel it earlier than the true deadline. This does not mean the project is completely finished and out the door earlier, it just means that it is STARTED earlier. I have found that getting started is 90 percent of the problem.
Next: My assistant asks me how much time is necessary to complete the project. She then adds an additional 20 percent to my estimate and blocks time on my calendar for completion before the deadline. (I always underestimate the amount of time it takes to complete a project).
By the way, a critical change in my business life was turning all my appointment scheduling over to someone else. Part of my problem is that I would never say NO to anyone and I would always be overscheduled. Now I have view only access to my calendar. I cannot schedule an appointment if I want to. Everything goes through my assistant.
Finally: I review my upcoming meetings with my office team one week prior. It is a staff meeting to hold me accountable. They do not critique my recommendations to the clients they just make sure I have the work done.
Key point: We treat internal projects (like marketing initiatives) the same way we treat client projects.
I suspect many people have procrastination issues. It is human nature. This little procrastination prevention system has made me much more efficient and effective. Is there a way you can create something similar in your law practice?
Three Ways to Make More Money As A Lawyer
Growing law firm revenue is one of the topics my clients love to discuss. The discussion usually begins with a simple question. A lawyer walks into my office and says:
“How do I find more clients?”
Finding more clients is only one way to grow your law firm. There are two other ways to boost your revenue. Focusing on just one of the revenue growth opportunities limits your ability to make more money. To grow your revenue you can:
- Find More Clients
- Do More Work with Existing Clients
- Raise Your Fees
You can come up with other names for things you do to grow revenue but they all fit into one of these three categories.
Law firm marketing strategy is about finding new ways to take advantage of each of these opportunities. Here are some discussion points to stimulate your thinking:
More Clients
Finding new clients is the most difficult revenue growth opportunity. New clients don’t know you, they have no relationship with you, and they do not trust you. Yet this is the area most lawyers focus on when they think about marketing. They want a greater number of clients.
Finding new clients is critical to the success of any business. Client attraction is necessary but difficult and time consuming. For lawyers, the process of new client attraction begins with trust. This often means developing a relationship with the prospective client before he needs your services. It means communicating with him frequently. It means getting referrals from past clients or other lawyers. It means establishing systems that keep you on top of the mind of the people in your network.
Finding new clients requires significant time and effort in both planning and execution. The reward can be great because once you have won the trust of the client, they can work with you for a lifetime.
More Work With Existing Clients
This is an easier revenue growth method than attracting new clients. You can start to introduce this concept at the outset of your initial engagement with the client. If you diagnose other areas of exposure during your initial interaction, you can recommend your firm to help solve those additional problems.
This is a definite mindset shift from standard practices for most attorneys. In most cases, attorneys believe the relationship ends when the matter at hand is resolved. In reality, this is when the real relationship begins. There is a lifetime of opportunity waiting for you in your relationship with that client. He trusts you. Invite him to call you with any legal issue in the future. If he comes across something you cannot handle, you can develop your relationship with a referral source (another attorney) by referring your client out.
Many attorneys in the consumer practice areas have a hard time with this growth method. Criminal attorneys will often respond to this point with the standard line: “That won’t work for me.”
It is true that getting additional work from a person charged with a crime will be impractical (to say the least). But in Criminal Defense, Family Law, Probate (and other consumer driven practices) many of the new clients come from attorney referrals. This means that referral sources should be treated as clients from a marketing perspective. If your practice is consumer driven, you should focus on building the lifetime value of your referral sources.
The key element in developing more business from existing clients is, once again, trust. You have to build up the trust the client has in you. If they trust you, the work will come.
Raise Your Fees
This is the easiest way to grow your law firm revenue yet it is the least used of the three methods. I guarantee you are currently undercharging your clients.
If you provide value, your clients will pay for it. If you currently bill by the hour, estimate how many hours a matter will take, add ten percent to that number and offer the client a flat fee. If you are working on a matter that lends itself to charging a success fee, consider that alternative. If you do trial work, consider charging one fee up to the point of trial (if the case settles) and another fee if the matter proceeds.
There are two critical elements to raising your fees without damaging the client relationship: 1). Your financial interests must be aligned with the interests of the client. 2). The client must feel as though he is getting a fantastic value.
We have only scratched the surface of this complex topic. Look for more in the near future.
First Class vs. No Class – What Kind of Law Firm Are You Running?
This past week I had to fly from Miami to New York to attend a funeral. Things happened pretty quickly so I really didn’t have time to plan my travel. I left South Florida on a Thursday evening and returned the following day. I wanted the most convenient airline in terms of schedule and airport. That meant flying into White Plains, NY and flying out of JFK.
On my trip up to New York I was forced to fly on Jet Blue. That was the only airline that met my schedule and arrival location constraints. On the way home I flew American Airlines. I had a little more flexibility on the return and there were some distinct advantages to this choice. Money was not a consideration in this situation. I needed to be in New York at a certain time and I needed to maintain my schedule prior to leaving.
The experience on each airline could not have been more different. The crew and the equipment were great on both legs of the trip. This is not about them. Both companies did a fine job. Unfortunately, it was the bigger picture – the airlines’ strategy that caused my experience to be significantly different.
On my trip up to New York I was on a small plane in the middle of the cabin. There is only one class of service on Jet Blue (you can pay $15 more for a bigger seat but those were all gone). I sat next to a lady who snapped her gum for two hours and twenty five minutes. There was a dog under the seat behind me which kept barking. The guy across the aisle was wearing a jogging suit and smelled like he had not bathed in a week. An elderly gentleman in front of me fought with the flight attendant over his second carry-on bag not fitting in the overhead bin, which resulted in a delay as they checked it. His first bag was placed four rows behind me. This created a problem when it was time to deplane as he insisted on pushing his way past me and six other people to get his bag before we got off. There was no power port for my laptop and no room to fit it between the seatback in front of me and my legs. I could not work and I could not sleep (barking dog).
Prior to leaving, I stood in front of the gate for 45 minutes. All of the seats in the gate area were taken and Jet Blue doesn’t have an airline lounge. Even the bar area in the terminal (which resembled the Cantina in Star Wars) was full. I did my best to make phone calls while dodging screaming kids and tourists on their way home.
Generally, this leg of the trip was an uncomfortable experience I have no desire to repeat.
On my flight back to Miami I flew in First Class on a 767. I got to the airport early but the terminal was crowded. I breezed by everyone on line and went right to the first class check in counter. After three minutes, I was on my way to security. A special line for first class passengers had nobody on it and I was through the screening process in less than five minutes.
During the 90 minutes prior to boarding, I worked on my laptop at a desk in the Admiral’s Club while I sipped an adult beverage.
On board the plane, I powered up my laptop with the power port at my seat and worked during the two hours of the three hour flight. During the other hour I ate a decent meal and had a great conversation with the attorney sitting next to me.
The second experience was clearly different than the first.
My question to you is:
What kind of law firm do you want? Do you want to build the bargain basement of law firms – offering competent service to low class clients? Or do you want to offer luxury service to clients who will pay more for a better experience? I assure you there are more than enough of both kinds of clients out there.
Your law firm marketing will determine which clients you attract. You have a choice. Are you first class or no class?
Marketing and The Three Kinds of Law Firms
About half of the lawyers in the United States have some form of ownership interest in their law firm. Both by choice and by chance they find themselves in the position of starting a business, attracting clients and providing a service. While some of these folks are better suited for business ownership than others, all of them are filled with hope for the future.
In the past few years I have personally met with or spoken with over 1,000 of these lawyers. Each of them has some degree of fear of the unknown, each of them has some level of confidence in their ability to practice law and each of them still has hope for their future earning potential. Where they differ is in their reasons for being a law firm owner. Some became law firm owners by chance some became law firm owners out of necessity and some became law firm owners out of pure ambition.
When we first meet I ask them what kind of a law firm they want to build. This question puzzles most lawyers. It is akin to asking: “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Most people don’t have a clue. They have not given any thought to next month, so looking out five years is something that makes them uncomfortable.
Since this question requires some thought, and since answering it is a healthy exercise for anyone who owns a law firm, I have prepared a brief summary of the three types of law firms for you. Read through them. Reflect upon them and decide which best fits the plans you have for your future.
The Temporary Law Firm
This is where your law firm serves as a transitional vehicle at various points during your career. You may have been laid off from a job in a big law firm and you want to find another job in a big law firm. Since those jobs take time to find, you set up a legal entity and you help the people you know with legal work.
These lawyers spend about 75% of their time looking for their next job. While they focus their attention on the few matters they actually handle, they never focus the direction of their practice (because it is just temporary). This leads to a great deal of uncertainty and frustration.
If this is you, I encourage you to dedicate yourself to building a book of business. Even a small roster of clients will help you land a job at a large firm. It is easier for a firm to make the decision to hire you if you come with clients who will fund your salary. Once you make the decision to focus on this task with 100% of your effort, you will be amazed at how things seem to come together. No matter what you decide to do in the long run, having a book of business is helpful and necessary.
The Lifestyle Law Firm
Starting a law firm is a great way to control your own destiny. Many lawyers go out on their own because they want to live life on their terms. They love the law and they love helping clients but they also love spending time with their family. Income is important to the lawyers who start a Lifestyle Law Firm but it is a means to an end.
A Lifestyle Law Firm is usually focused on one or two tightly defined market niches. This allows the lawyer to command a fee premium because of his experience. Generally there are less than ten people working in this type of law firm. It will often have a family feel to it and compensation for everyone is, in some way, tied to the financial performance of the firm.
Lawyers in a Lifestyle Law Firm can spend as little as 20-30 percent of their time on business development and still do well (depending upon their practice area). Most of the attorneys who build this kind of law firm live well and enjoy what they do.
I work with lawyers who want a Lifestyle Law Firm to make their vision a reality. We carefully review their goals and we develop a plan that allows them to grow at a comfortable pace. Business and personal goals are often intertwined as this is important to the lawyers who build Lifestyle Law Firms.
The Enterprise
This is a law firm for the attorney who is highly ambitious, aggressive and has a desire to build something that will last beyond his lifetime. This is going to be a full blown business with employees, administrative issues and management challenges. The lawyer who builds an Enterprise is going to spend 80-90 percent of his time on business development and management. At some point practicing law will not be an option.
The greatest benefit of creating an Enterprise is wealth accumulation. Just like creating any other business, a big law business can enrich the owner and eventually be sold. I caution anyone who wants to undertake this challenge that it takes a special type of person to lead this charge. Few people come through the development of an Enterprise with their lives, health and family in the same form as when they made the decision to begin this task. Building this type of law firm requires time, energy and dedication.
I help lawyers who build Enterprise practices by focusing them on controlled growth. We put a plan in place and we aggressively attack each challenge while minimizing the drama that can often accompany the growth of a large firm.
Start by Making a Decision
You will notice that no matter which kind of law firm you decide to develop it all begins with a decision. You must decide what you want from your law firm. You can use your law practice to get a job, to have a great life or to build something bigger than you. But first you must make a decision to get going.
If you need help deciding which option is right for you or if you know what you want and you need help getting it, call my office. We understand the business of law and we help lawyers make it work for them.
Who Controls Your Future?
More than a few people have used the economy as a scapegoat for problems they are experiencing within their law firms. I have heard everyone from immigration attorneys to criminal defense attorneys blaming the global economic meltdown for their troubles. This convenient excuse started in late 2007 and it continues today. The news media helps add fuel to the fire but make no mistake; this is an idea that is perpetuated at the grassroots level.
The problem with this position is it just isn’t true.
Problems in most law firms started years ago. In fact, most law firms were not built as businesses on a solid foundation. Most law firms are started by lawyers who need work. This need for work creates a job that you own. That is not a business. It is a job. Instead of reporting to a boss who is employed by a company, you report to multiple bosses in the form of your clients. You punch a time clock (hourly billing) and you only have the work they decide to give you. You are not in control of your destiny any more than the guy stocking shelves at the local Wal-Mart is in control of his destiny.
How to Break Free
The secret to breaking free of this economic dependence comes in building a business instead of building a job. This means:
1). Marketing your services as a professional
2). Setting up systems to deliver the service
3). Recruiting, hiring and training people to work in and manage the business
Most law firms don’t have leaders who think like this. Most law firms have leaders who focus on billable hours, sourcing one matter at a time and day-to-day administrative activities.
When you look for someone to blame for the poor financial situation facing law firms today, look no farther than the guy in the mirror. It is his fault you are in the situation you are in but he can also lead you out of it. The question is: Will he?
The Personal Approach to Attorney Marketing
Writing is a key component to any attorney’s marketing plan. We often discuss blogging, newsletters, email marketing and video as key components in your marketing arsenal. One important thing to remember is that all of these elements must be interesting to the reader. This is the reason I advocate taking a personal tone in your legal marketing.
A personal tone means demonstrating to the reader (viewer on video) how the topic relates to them. This can be done in three different ways:
Third Party Stories
Telling a story about a third party is an effective way to get your point across to your audience. Think of the story as an educational opportunity. Gram the audience and pull them into the story but wrap up with an educational message. The third party story blends an emotional appeal with the appearance of a logical fact pattern.
Case Studies
Case studies are a more academic version of the third party story. They contain actual facts, case information and often will contain citations. Many people use case studies when they want to make a logical appeal to their audience. Some people find this methodology to be more sterile and academic.
Personal Experience
This is the most effective form of writing. When you tell a story about yourself it allows the audience member to paint a mental picture of the entire situation. The receiver of your message will suspend disbelief and “get into” the story. They will feel the emotions you felt. They will relate to you.
These three methods of emotionally engaging the audience of your message are all highly effective. The only decision you need to make is which method makes the most sense for you. Experiment with each writing style in your attorney marketing.
Legal Marketing Is Necessary
Legal marketing is necessary. If you want to be successful as a lawyer you need clients. There is no debating that fact. There is no other way to get clients other than through legal marketing. Yet lawyers debate the necessity of legal marketing constantly. Let’s get something straight, if you are a lawyer and you ask someone to work with you, that is legal marketing. If you ask someone to refer you business, that is legal marketing. If you win a case and you tell someone about it, that is legal marketing.
For those of you who are sticklers, here is a definition of marketing from Webster’s Dictionary: Marketing is “the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service.” You are promoting, selling and distributing your service if you hand out a business card. Every lawyer is involved in legal marketing in some way. Period. End of debate.
The law is a profession and a business and as such legal marketing is highly regulated. This is a good thing. As a society we want people to have the best representation available. Legal marketing helps them make an educated choice. In fact, legal marketing is necessary for clients to make the best choice. If lawyers weren’t listed somewhere (yes, even a listing on your local bar association’s web site is marketing) people would not have every opportunity to make a good decision.
My grandfather always said that anything worth doing was worth doing well. Until law schools start teaching you how to attract clients, you have to learn somewhere. You can try to figure it out on your own, but that’s precisely the reason most attorneys have a limited income. Legal marketing is both an art and a science. It involves psychology, math, ethics, statics, and advanced writing skills. You can’t pick it up on the street and hope to be as effective as someone who has studied it for a lifetime.
You spent $100,000 on law school. Why won’t you spend 25% of that learning how to attract the clients that can help you recoup your investment? Isn’t it time you stopped limiting your earning potential?
How Do Clients Find Attorneys?
These days there are more ways than ever to find an attorney. The most common way a client finds an attorney will vary by practice area. Below is my (highly unscientific) list of top five ways clients find attorneys.
Internet Search: This is one of the top two ways clients find attorneys these days. If you are in a law practice area that focuses on consumers, there is a good chance that your clients will look for a lawyer on line.
As an attorney you need to have a website and update the content regularly. You may also want to learn a little about the many different elements that go into search engine optimization. Since most consumers (and many businesses) do not do thorough research on a lawyer before hiring him, you may be out-positioned by many of your (inferior) competitors. This does not mean you give up on improving your website ranking. It just means that you will need to put more effort into this area if it is competitive.
Referral: This is the best way for a client to find a lawyer and it is one of the top two ways for lawyers to be found. A referral from a client is like gold and a referral from another attorney is almost always money in the bank.
The way to strengthen the quality of the referrals you receive is to give great referrals to others and follow up like crazy. If you are constantly in touch with your client base and your base of referral sources, you will always be “top of mind”.
Speaking Engagements: Giving a speech at a conference is a great way to develop relationships with potential clients and potential referral sources. It conveys a sense of authority and credibility. If you work the crowd correctly, you can add hundreds of names to your mailing list while strengthening your personal brand.
Articles: Writing articles is a terrific way for potential clients to find an attorney. Getting your article published in a trade magazine or in an industry journal will enhance your credibility and generate leads.
Expert Commentary in the Media: Being an expert commentator in the local media can be helpful in being found by potential clients. If you are the “go to person” for any news outlet you will have enhanced credibility and you can leverage that through your newsletter and on your blog.
In addition to these five ways, there are dozens of other ways clients find lawyers. The key to being found is to add as many people as possible to you database and keep educating them through your newsletter and other regular forms of contact.
A Tale of Two Lawyers
On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same law school. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both loved the law and both clerked for prominent judges while in law school. Both of these young men were filled with hope for the bright future that lie ahead of them in their career as lawyers.
Recently, these men attended their law school’s 25th reunion.
They were still very much alike. Both were happily married. Both had three children. And both, it turned out, had gone into private practice in the suburbs of a big city.
But there was a difference. One of the men was billing a low hourly rate, doing tedious, repetitive work and barely making enough to pay his bills. The other was the Managing Partner of his own boutique law firm, earning great money and taking only the clients and cases that intrigued him.
What Made The Difference?
Have you ever wondered, as I have, what makes this kind of difference in people’s lives? It isn’t a native intelligence or talent or dedication. It isn’t that one person wants success and the other doesn’t. It is one little thing that clearly separates those who live an average life from those who live lives of freedom and independence.
That one little thing is confidence.
It’s confidence in the ability to attract new clients. It’s confidence in the ability to handle he work effectively and efficiently. It’s confidence in commanding a fee premium because you have significant expertise that client’s want, need and will pay for.
Most people don’t have this confidence. But they should.
The reason they don’t have this confidence is because of human nature. If twenty people say you’re great and one person says you stink, which person do we remember? We remember the one person who provided the negative feedback. Always. It’s the way we are all wired.
How do successful people get past this?
The successful attorney has developed a system for getting past this negative feedback. The attorney who controls his own destiny has developed a way to block out the negative feedback and focus solely on the positive so his confidence will soar.
The successful attorney has learned that negative feedback (I am talking about unconstructive, personal attacks) is more about the person GIVING the feedback than about you, the intended target. That’s right, it’s about them.
With a little practice and a little self training you can break through the confidence barrier that is preventing you from experiencing the success you deserve. I have recorded a five minute video that demonstrates three techniques to help you break through this mental barrier. These are the same techniques world class athletes use to enhance their performance.
These are also the same techniques I use to help my clients quote higher fees, take on only quality clients and ignore the negative people who are out there trying to bring them down.
Here’s the video:
Enjoy the video and enjoy the success that comes from being confident in your tremendous ability!
