Attorney Marketing Creed: Do No Harm
Your goal in marketing as an attorney should be to attract better quality clients as well as a greater number of clients. Your focus is on both quality and quantity.
If attracting the ideal client means you have to become some kind of circus sideshow, you should probably rethink your career choice.
The lawyers we see on bus stop benches or billboard with cute phone numbers (you know what I’m talking about, they spell CASH or PAIN) are a joke. They harm the legal profession and they harm those of us who make our living trying to help LEGITIMATE attorneys build a law firm.
Your law firm is a business but it is also a profession. Attorney marketing should be designed to build relationships with clients. The sleazy, cheesy, pursuit of fast cash from people who are often in a difficult situation is deplorable.
In the medical community, the creed of DO NO HARM governs at all times. As a combative measure to the onslaught of bad attorney marketing that exists, I tell friends who need a lawyer to follow the same practice as if they were selecting a medical specialist.
First: They should ask their family physician for a referral. In the case of a lawyer, they should ask a lawyer they trust for a referral. The lawyer who handled their real estate closing knows a criminal attorney. The attorney they use for their business transactions knows a divorce lawyer. The lawyer who prepared their will knows someone who can help with a tax matter…and so on…
Next: The client should check licensing body for disciplinary action. Every state has a governing body that regulates the conduct of lawyers. In Florida we have The Florida Bar. The Bar’s website has a member search area which allows clients to check the disciplinary history of any lawyer in the state. It also allows the attorney to complete a profile. As an attorney, you should fill in complete profile information and encourage prospective clients to check your credentials at the site.
Third: Interview them. I tell friends to ask the tough questions of their prospective attorney (not about the matter at hand but about the attorney’s experience and background). Would you let a surgeon cut into you without meeting them first? Only in an emergency. The same should hold true for a lawyer.
Finally: The attorney should provide references and contact information from past clients. All attorneys should have at least three references they can provide to prospective clients. Even attorneys in highly secretive and confidential practices should be able to point to three people, somewhere on the planet, who will vouch for them.
Smart clients will not hire an attorney base upon a billboard or a bus stop bench. An attorney who is good at marketing would never allow his firm to place that kind of advertising. DO NO HARM also holds true to when it refers to your profession.
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EmailWhat You Don’t Know About Marketing for Law Firms Can Kill You
This past week I met the leader of a law firm that is on life support. His firm is literally hanging on by the thinnest of threads. This guy is hoping that they will land a big client “within the next few weeks” to help him make payroll.
Not good.
He called me to “pick my brain” on law firm marketing. He wanted me to show him the magic beans he could plant that would help him grow his revenue overnight. He asked about pay per click advertising, newspaper ads, handing out flyers at flea markets, etc.
Unfortunately for this guy (and the 40 employees of his law firm) it is too late.
He can do all that stuff and some stuff he didn’t mention but even if he gets 20 new clients he will be in the same predicament within the next six months. Why?
Because there is nothing that makes his law firm different from any other law firm in his area. Clients have no compelling reason to work with him. He is the same as everyone else. There is no law firm marketing trick that can fix that overnight. It takes time and it takes some careful planning.
The one question I ask every new client before I decide if I work with them is the question this guy can’t answer:
Why would someone choose your law firm over everyone else who does what you do?
Ultimately your clients decide if your answer is correct…and they vote with their wallets.
Your Law Firm is Leaking
Each and every month you lose influence over your clients. Each month some of the people who have paid you the highest fees or done the most work with you become less and less interested in you. Each month your stellar reputation fades a little more in the minds of the folks who refer you new clients And most people are probably not doing anything about it.
Why?
Because most people are lazy.
You lose 10% of your influence with your clients, prospects and referral sources for every 30 days you do not have contact with them.
This means ten months from now, the great client you had lunch with today will have forgotten all about you. It means the doctor who sent you that great referral last week will have a hard time remembering what you do for a living. It means the business owner you met at the networking event yesterday will not recognize you if you hit him with your car next spring.
So what is the solution?
The answer is to start communicating with these people. Each month you should have some kind of communication with your clients, prospective clients and referral sources. This communication can be a newsletter, it can be a card or it can be a phone call or an email. It really doesn’t matter how you interact with them. You simply want to remind them that you are here and ready to help them and the people they know.
Some people will say: “I don’t have the money!”
Do you have a real business or are you just playing around? You need to invest money in your client acquisition efforts in order to develop a real business (a law firm is a business by the way).
It costs less than a dollar to purchase and mail a greeting card each month. It costs about $2 to send out a printed newsletter (in small quantity). Email is practically free – just type and hit send.
But some people will need to be convinced. Here’s how the math works:
You mail 1000 newsletters at $2 each (the cost for printing and mailing). You mail 1000 greeting cards at $1 each. You type and send 1000 emails to the people within your database (only to those from whom you have received permission). You do these three things every month. That is a total monthly expense of $3000.
Let’s say it takes you three months to see any business from these efforts. So you have spent $9,000 in keeping up with the most valuable 1000 people in your database.
On the first day of the fourth month you get a client as a direct result of these efforts. This client is your average client. And your average client pays you $10,000 in fees.
Was your investment worth it?
Yes.
Will you get more than one client from these efforts?
Most likely. There is a cumulative effect to this kind of system. After about six months you will start to see more and more interest in your services. It takes some people a little longer to absorb the information and react.
Will you get more clients by doing this compared to doing nothing?
Definitely.
What are you waiting for?
If you need a kick in the rear end and want some help in setting up this type of system, give me a call. If you want me to show you how, I will. If you want me to set it up, I will. If you want me to do this for you each and every month I will.
You can be lazy and outsource this system to me or I can show you how to do this for yourself. The choice is yours but doing NOTHING is the worst choice you can possibly make.
Call now. 1.888.692.5531
Even a Small Law Firm Has a Brand
Branding is the relationship between the legal services you provide and your clients. Yes, you read that right. Believe it or not, all consumers have relationships with brands. Think of your favorite soft-drink, restaurant, or anything you use that you paid money for. Like all consumers, you have emotions, memories, and ideas that spring to mind when you think of that special product. These emotions, memories and ideas create a connection between you and the product. This connection is actually being managed by the company that markets the product. This is called branding. The legal services you offer are your product and your potential clients will view you, your firm, and your services as a brand.
Branding has everything to do with how clients and potential clients perceive your practice. This perception needs to be planned, executed, and managed by your firm.
Potential clients evaluate you in a variety of areas. Are you professional, ethical, and competent? Are you the experts in a particular area of law? Does working with your firm bring a level of prestige? Are you innovative? Are you overpriced or are you a discount firm? Before you even see a potential client, they have already made up their mind about most or all of the above questions. They have a sense of who you are and what you stand for before they even walk through your door.
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