Law Firm Marketing Predictions for 2012
This is a time of year when most people are preoccupied with New Year’s activities. Typically, readership of this website dips as many people are focused on other things.
Since it is just you and I paying attention, this is the perfect time for me to make some bold predictions for the next twelve months.
Here goes:
Prediction 1: Small and mid-size law firms will steal a record number of clients using value-based billing
On 2011 the most successful attorneys I know have literally stolen work from big firms because of the way they price their services.
Most clients view hourly billing as an immoral, unethical and inconvenient – if not a disgusting practice. If you offer a reasonable alternative to hourly billing, you will reap the rewards.
Prediction 2: Major search engines will change their algorithm significantly to force lawyers to abandon search engine optimization.
SEO has always been a black art practiced by college dropouts; nefarious outsourcing companies located a dozen time zones away, and a guy in his underwear at his kitchen table. 2012 will be the year Google finally slaps these folks silly.
Search engines can change their algorithm faster than anyone can adjust. Forget SEO and do some real marketing.
Prediction 3: Attorneys who focus on actual face-to-face networking will out earn attorneys who focus on social media.
This will be a bad year for socially awkward, homebound, agoraphobic lawyers.
Whether or not you realize it, you cannot Twitter and Facebook your way to a million dollar law practice.
Get off your ass and meet with people.
Prediction 4: A record number of recent law school grads will hang their own shingle.
This prediction was, by far, the easiest to make because it is already happening.
Big Law is not hiring. Kids in law school are sweating. There is no alternative. They are hanging their shingle and claiming to be fully minted lawyers. Scary but true.
Get ready for a low priced, newly licensed attorney to move in next door.
Prediction 5: Resentment, anger and frustration among Big Law Partners grows to an unprecedented level as they see the quality of life enjoyed by their solo counterparts.
Experienced attorneys (called Partner regardless of their equity stake in big law firms) will be overworked in 2012. This will occur because big law firms are not hiring inexperienced associates and because many “partners” do not know how to attract their own clients.
This overwork combined with the insatiable need to bill more hours will frustrate those “partners” who do not succumb to illness. This frustration will lead to great resentment for the solo practitioner who attracts clients on demand, offers alternative billing and sets his own hours.
Now you may not agree with any of these but it should be fun to see which of them actually come true.
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EmailThere is a Santa Claus but I Ain’t Him
Last week I received an email from a family law attorney named Renee from Cape Coral, Florida. Renee wrote and told me that the economy was killing her law firm. She said I should help her on a contingency basis because none of my ideas was different from anything she heard from other legal marketing gurus. She said if I didn’t help her, I should stop emailing her because, if I didn’t “put my money where my mouth is” it would prove that I was no marketing genius.
I turned down this offer.
Lawyers cannot share fees with non-lawyers in Florida but that’s not the main reason I passed on working with Renee on a contingency basis.
The reason I don’t work on a contingency basis is the same reason I don’t have a partner. I can control what I do but I cannot control what you do. Most businesses fail because of a lack of action.
Everyone knows what to do. They just DON’T do it.
It’s not poor planning that causes a business to fail. It’s not undercapitalization. It’s not selecting a bad location. All of those things are symptoms of the real disease…failure to take action.
As for the attorneys who say they have no time for marketing or business strategy…Make no mistake, each time you use that excuse, you are actually selecting a different priority. You have plenty of time.
You just have screwed up priorities.
We always find time for things we think are important.
Renee is right about one thing. The ideas I share with you are not new. They have been used over and over again by successful people. These ideas are old and battle tested.
You don’t want new ideas. New ideas have not been fully vetted. New ideas make you a lab rat in an experiment. They do not have a track record of success. New ideas do not offer you a formula that works.
These crappy old ideas are working right now for me, the solo consultant with a thriving practice. You see, I practice what I preach. I use my own systems each and every day. And these ideas are working right now for hundreds of attorneys who implement the information I share with you each week.
It is Renee’s poor ability to execute that has caused her law practice to fall off a cliff.
When I asked her which of my ideas did not work, she was nonresponsive. The answer I received was a personal attack on me.
It is in the spirit of the holiday season that I say:
Yes Renee, there is a Santa Claus. He’s the guy who can leave the gift of new clients under your Christmas tree.
Alas, I am not him. I’m just a guy who helps lawyers with old, successful ideas. I’m no marketing genius. I’m no guru.
But you don’t need a genius or a guru. You just need to pick an idea and implement it. And then pick another one and repeat that action.
It is the genius that lies within you that will help you make a great living and live a great life.
Is a Bad Client Your Problem? You Bet
A client walks into your office and he expects you to do a song and dance and convince him that he should hire you.
He wants the free consultation and he wants to ask you a few questions about his brother-in-laws’ (unrelated) legal situation.
But as soon as you start to discuss his matter with him, he launches into a know-it-all diatribe about why the approach you are suggesting will never work. Never mind that he is an engineer and not a lawyer. Forget the fact that he got himself into this mess with his genius level decision-making ability.
Now this lunatic is sitting across from you, wasting your time, and robbing the office of the air you should be breathing. And all you can think about is how much you WOULD PAY to make this guy go away.
But then, when he gets out his checkbook, you eagerly take his money (after he negotiates a 15% fee reduction).
Then you call me up and complain that all of your clients suck and that the economy is in the crapper.
I’ve got news for you:
It is your problem.
Nobody else’s.
You are creating this mess for yourself by doing what you have always done. (Remember: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing day-after-day and expecting different results).
If you are unhappy with the clients in your practice and you are ready to do something about it, you can start with these three simple rules for client selection:
1). Always make sure the client has a good understanding of the value you provide. One of the best ways to do this is to have him pay a fee to meet with you. People value what they pay for. If you give away your services, even at the point of the initial consultation, you are conditioning your clients NOT to value you.
2). Dictate (don’t negotiate) the terms of the relationship. You are the expert in the law. If the client does not see that at the beginning of your relationship, he will never see it. You should not have to convince him that you are an expert. That should have been done before he even walked into your office.
3). If you get a bad feeling, walk away. There is nothing worse than working with a client you cannot stand. No matter how much he pays, a jerk is always a jerk. Have some integrity. Turn away clients who you do not feel comfortable representing.
Now you may not like this guidance and my language may be a bit harsh for you…but reading this and implementing it now is far better than the alternative.
Just say “NO” to bad clients.
If you accept them it’s going to be your problem.
Fee Discounts and Your Income
If you have been reading my articles for any length of time, you have heard me rail against fee discounts.
Why? Because, by discounting your fee, you are essentially cutting your income.
For those of you who may be new readers, and for those who need a refresher, let me provide you with the economics of fee setting. Here are three primary factors to consider when setting fees for your legal services:
Factor One: The Value You Are Providing to the Client
If you are a transactional attorney and you negotiate a deal for your client that saves him one million dollars, is your $20,000 fee a good deal?
If you are a criminal attorney and your client, a corporate executive, is facing a public indecency charge that will most certainly get him fired; is your $30,000 fee for negotiating pretrial diversion and expungement worth it?
You can probably see where I’m going with this. You must present your fees in the context of the value you provide.
The resistance I get when I introduce this concept to new clients is the: “everyone else charges…” argument. That is to say: People always fall back on what their peers/competitors are charging as a justification for charging low fees. The argument assumes that you are exactly the same as everyone who does what you do. You are a commodity.
If you ARE the same as everyone else, if you ARE a commodity, shame on you.
The first rule of marketing is to differentiate your business from every other business that provides similar services. Differentiation is the key to value demonstration.
Factor Two: The Demand for Your Services
If you have enough clients to cover your fixed costs, and pay yourself a reasonable salary, why would you ever discount your fee?
Think about it.
You don’t NEED the business. You are already close to capacity. Yet you take the new client who requires a fee discount in order to do business with you.
Put another way: Others recognize your value and are willing to pay full fee to work with you. Why not just find someone else who will pay full value and take a pass on the discount shopper?
Supply and demand. It’s basic economics. When demand is high and supply is limited, fees are high.
There is only one of you. Supply certainly is limited.
Factor Three: Your Personal Desire
You are not an indentured servant. You set your own fees. These fees should include your personal desire for: 1). Income, 2). Confidence, 3). Lifestyle
If you have specific income goals, you should adjust your fees to help facilitate achieving those goals. If you don’t have income goals I can guarantee you will almost always be unhappy with your income.
There is nothing that provides a lawyer with confidence like clients investing their cash in him. The two go hand in hand. People are emotional about money. If you want someone to be confident in you, convince them to invest in you. Once they put their money on the line they will be a big, big fan.
How do you want to live your life? Do you want to control your own destiny? Do you want to provide your family with the best life has to offer? Do you want to eliminate financial worries forever?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions you need to charge significant fees. You cannot nickel and dime your way to wealth…not as a solo practitioner or owner of a small law firm.
But don’t believe my words. Use me as a case study. I only select twelve private clients to work with me each year. I charge $30,000 per year for this privilege. I have a waiting list.
Now there are other ways to get involved with me (my $97 per month Rainmaker Society Membership for example). But there are only twelve new private clients selected every year. Only twelve people who get unlimited access to me. Only twelve people with my private telephone number.
What makes me different? What is my secret?
Re-read this article. It gives you all the information you need to take control of your financial future.
How to Develop Rejection Armor
We are all salespeople. Every day we work hard to convince others to see our point of view. We persuade people to do what we want them to do. We ask people to accept us.
When they say “NO” it hurts.
The pain of rejection will often prevent us from selling again.
Think back to when you were in high school or college. Every time you asked someone out on a date and they said “no” it made it more difficult for you to ask the next person. Many people actually develop a fear of having that conversation – so they avoid it.
The same thing happens to you now.
You sit across from a client and, for whatever reason; the client decides not to retain you. This leads to that same feeling of rejection you had when you were rejected by your prospective date.
That makes it more and more difficult to sit in front of the next client. It makes you question your skill and it shakes your confidence.
And many people go through their entire career feeling this way. But you no longer have to.
Here is the way to make yourself immune to rejection from anyone in any situation.
Invite the client to say “no”.
One of the things that harms the human psyche is the loss of control we feel when people reject us. By inviting the client to say “no” you maintain control.
Here is a script you can use when you sit down with the client:
“Mr. Smith, we are going to have a conversation about your situation. I want to learn about you and your issue and you will probably want to ask me some questions. At the end of the conversation we will both decide if we want to work together. If you don’t want to work with me, you should let me know. If I don’t want to work with you or I can’t help you, I will let you know. Are you comfortable with that?”
You say this right at the beginning of the conversation.
You will be amazed at the effect it has on you. You are effectively playing a “trick” on your mind. If the prospective client says “no” you will not feel as bad. The reason is because you invited that response. (Of course, if the client says “yes” you’ll feel better because you will make more money.)
An added benefit of this strategy is the psychological effect it has on the client. You see, when the client is given permission to say “no” they immediately feel less threatened. This means they are more receptive to your ideas and suggestions. As a result, you may actually close more deals.
Give this a try today. Invite someone (in your business or personal life) to say “no” in a persuasive situation.
You’ll be amazed at the results.
Inside The Mind of The Client
What are your clients thinking before they make a decision to hire a lawyer?
If you knew the answer to that question you would be able to influence the decision of everyone who inquired about your services.
Right?
Well, today is your lucky day. I am going to give you a glimpse into the mind of your client. I am going to help you understand his thought process right before he engages a lawyer.
Before you immediately shut down (I know, your practice is different) I want you to remember that this information is not just based upon my work with a few hundred lawyers and their clients. It is also based upon a decade of study of public opinion and decision science.
People are people. People make important decisions in predictable ways. This information is critical to your success as a lawyer.
There are three conditions that must exist (within the client’s mind) for him to pick up the phone and engage you:
The client must know you.
The client must have the desire and motivation to handle his situation now.
The client must trust you to act on his behalf or advise him.
If these three conditions do not exist, you will not get hired. And this is true for every practice area and true in every attorney/client relationship around the world.
Let’s look at each of these conditions and how they apply to you.
The client must know you.
In the mind of the client, perception is reality. If you write articles on a topic, people will find you when they are doing research. If you speak to groups of people on a topic, people who are interested in that subject will be in the audience. If you appear in the media, some people will see you. If you establish relationships with influential people in the community, they will introduce you to potential clients.
You must be visible.
This means you must do some marketing. If the client doesn’t know you, he cannot hire you.
You can market to one person at a time (networking, face-to-face sales, develop a referral network) or to many people at once (advertising).
There is no other way to become known in the community.
The client must have the desire and motivation to handle this situation now.
Most people have no sense of urgency. It is human nature to ignore a problem or wait until the last minute to handle an issue.
Don’t believe me? Talk to a criminal lawyer who handles DUI cases or talk to a tax lawyer who handles IRS issues.
People procrastinate.
Your job is to convince them that ignoring their issue will make it worse. Regardless of what the issue is.
People move fast to relieve or avoid pain. Help them feel the pain of procrastination and they will act.
The client must trust you to act on his behalf or advise him.
When it comes to important decisions, people want to work with an expert. People look for evidence to justify the hiring of an expert.
This evidence can be: information on a website, an anecdote told by a happy client, a story in a newspaper, the list goes on and on.
The key is to establish your credibility in the mind of the client.
Notice that there is no discussion of money in these three conditions. You may be wondering why.
People only use money as a determining factor when they have nothing else on which to base their decision.
If a prospective client has a problem you can solve, and he has the desire and motivation to solve it and he believes you are the best lawyer for the job, he will hire you regardless of your fee.
Lawyers who believe the above statement will always make more money than lawyers who don’t.
Guess which ones are my clients…
The Alternative to the Internet
Just about every day someone calls me with a question about Internet advertising.
Lawyers looking for a marketing panacea are flocking to Search Engine Optimization and Social Media. They chase good money with bad, trying to find one way to attract one hundred new clients. This leaves them disappointed and a little lighter in the wallet.
My role in the complex world of law firm marketing is to help you sift through all the hype and develop a cost effective strategy for attracting new clients. This strategy is based upon the belief that finding one way to attract one hundred clients is risky, expensive and unrealistic. Instead, we focus on developing a client acquisition strategy that is based in reality. Our goal: Find many ways to develop one deep client relationship instead of one way to attract several clients.
Remaining true to that mission, today I offer you a viable alternative to the Internet. It is education-based marketing and it will definitely help you attract more clients – if you have the guts to give it a try.
Here is an example of an effective education-based marketing strategy:
Step one: Prepare a seminar on a topic of interest to your target audience. Example:
- Personal Injury Attorneys – Topic: Insurance Coverage
- Criminal Attorneys – Topic: Keeping kids out of trouble in the age of the bully
- Trust and Estate Attorneys – Topic: Asset protection for doctors and entrepreneurs
Step two: Invite everyone you know to attend this seminar. This means you should invite all of your friends and have them invite all of their friends. The idea is to get as many people in the room as possible.
Step three: Deliver great content at the seminar.
Step four: Capture the attendee’s contact information.
Step five: Follow-up like crazy.
If you have 50 people in the audience at each seminar, and you follow the steps listed above, you can expect to acquire 5-10 new clients per year from this strategy (provided you host 4-6 of these seminars each year).
When I work with my private clients, this is one of the first strategies I recommend they implement. It is a low cost way to begin developing relationships with people who can refer you business, engage you, or both. This strategy works.
Yet most lawyers will never attempt it.
Why?
You tell me.
I just gave you a gift. A way to attract a few new clients each year. Will you follow these simple steps?
Is this strategy as sexy as the internet? No.
Is this strategy as easy as paying someone to get you on the first page of Google? No.
Does this strategy get as much publicity as Social Media? No.
But it works consistently. It just requires some thought and some effort from you.
I don’t know what your plans are for your law firm. I’m not certain what your income goals are. But I know what I hear from lawyers all over the world. They all want cost effective ways to attract new clients.
Here’s one.
How fast can you integrate this into your marketing activity?
It Is Your Choice: Take Action or Face Extinction
Whether you realize it or not, you are at a crossroads.
We face stagnant economic growth, rising unemployment and inflation and an unprecedented crisis of political leadership. Your wasteful government has been on a drunken spending spree for 10 years and has awakened with a massive hangover rendering it useless to anyone looking to build a business.
During this period of economic upheaval the legal industry has changed right before our eyes. In most areas of practice, billing has been trending downward. The number of kids graduating from law school is up by 20%. Average income for an attorney in a small law firm is down 25% since 2006 (according to the American Bar Association). More lawyers, working for less money, means increased pressure on everyone just to get by.
To make matters worse, snake oil salesmen knock on your door everyday offering you’re the next elixir that will cure your ills. Charlatans promoting Search Engine Optimization, Facebook, Twitter and Legal Matching services pick your pocket while they shake your hand.
So the government cannot help you. Your industry is a shambles. The people who say they are experts are literally stealing your money.
Where do you go for help? Who can you count on to help you get through this mess?
Look in the mirror.
Believe it or not this is the time to make great money as a lawyer. Here are three things you can do, right now, to take control of your future.
Strengthen Relationships
Your clients and your referral sources trust you. Invest in them. Invest your time in helping them improve their lives and their businesses. Send them referrals. Talk them up everywhere. Help them become successful. You will be amazed at the return on this investment.
In the Far East this is called Karma. In the movies it is called paying it forward. In some business circles it is called “givers’ gain”. I call it good old fashion relationship development.
Help your clients and referral sources succeed and you will benefit in the long run.
Communicate Frequently with People Who Can Invest In Your Services
People forget us 10 minutes after they meet us. It’s human nature. Studies show that someone must interact with you a minimum of seven times before they will remember you. This means you need to communicate with people often. How often? That depends upon what you have to say.
If you have something interesting to share with me every day, I will listen to you. Most people feel the same way. There is no such thing as over communicating. Just don’t be boring.
Keep Your Promises
It is better to commit to nothing than to make a commitment you cannot fulfill. In this day and age, people are willing to commit to just about anything to land a new client. Don’t be that guy (or gal).
When you commit to something, you must live up to that commitment. Do what you say you are going to do. This includes showing up, on time, for meetings.
It’s sad, but this is actually a differentiating factor in today’s society.
Does this three step process sound overly simplistic?
Don’t confuse simplicity with ineffectiveness.
Try this three step plan for 90 days before you invest in the latest internet advertising scam or social media platform. You don’t need new technology, strong governmental leadership or a roaring economy to make a great living and live a great life as a lawyer. You just need to apply some commonsense and take action.
Start now.
Sometimes Law Firm Marketing is About Things That Don’t Happen
We are in the advice business. We bring our talent, skills, knowledge and experience to a situation and give the best guidance possible to our clients.
The people who engage us do so because they need help. Sometimes they want to avoid pain and sometimes they want to attract something favorable. Ultimately, they are looking to us to help them improve their current state.
When we are at our best, we objectively assess the situation and deliver powerful advice in a way that makes the client feel as though our idea was hatched in his brain. To him, our presence was simply validation that he is the smartest person in the world. And this idea, which was germinating in his head forever, magically sprung to life when we showed up.
We do not take a victory lap. We do not gloat. There is no touchdown dance.
If you can keep your ego in your pocket you can make a great living in the advice business.
In an age where pundits handicap everything from sporting events to elections, you can bet that anyone claiming to know, with certainty, about the outcome of a future incident is only partially informed. The real expert is behind the scenes, throwing up. He knows that in spite of his talent, skills, knowledge and experience, there is still a 10% chance that he is wrong. And he spends his entire career trying to reduce or manage that percentage.
Want to make a great living and live a great life?
Hone your craft. Strive for continuous improvement. Smoke an expensive cigar, alone, when you are successful. And then move on to the next client. Charge lots of money. But never, ever, brag about your role in the success of a client matter.
Practice educational marketing not boastful marketing. Offer references – other people who will boast of your success.
The most successful lawyers and consultants work behind the scenes to make things happen. They are the real force behind the big deal or the acquittal but more often, they are judged by what DOES NOT happen.
Think of it this way: The guy you see on TV who won the big case is never the best lawyer. The best lawyer is the guy who convinced the prosecutor not to file in the first place.
Be The Person They Can’t Hire
After waiting on hold for 20 minutes I was finally on the phone with the pediatric gastroenterologist. Three visits to our regular pediatrician, two weeks of sleepless nights and several shirts soaked with regurgitated baby formula had me to the point where I was determined to get some answers.
I called in a couple of favors to get this particular doctor on the telephone. Everyone said he was “the best”. My goal was to get my three month old daughter an appointment with him. At this point she had gone from throwing up occasionally (which all babies do) to throwing up every day.
Finally I was on the phone with Doctor Big, the rock star of baby vomit, and I was going to beg him, bribe him or somehow convince him to see my kid.
My phone call with Doctor Big lasted only 3 minutes. I talked for 2 minutes 45 seconds – explaining what was happening, laying out the facts, including dates and times of these disgusting little incidents and specifics about what our baby had eaten. Doctor Big talked for 10 seconds. He said:
“Look, if you’re really concerned, take her to the emergency room. Unfortunately, my schedule is booked for six weeks”.
I replied:
“Please call my mobile phone if you have a cancellation. We have done our research. We know you are the best and I only want the best for my kid.”
At that point he sighed and said: “Good Night Mr. Lorenzo”.
I called his answering service and left my mobile phone number anyway.
This story is not about my little girl (who is doing better after a change in formula and several more visits to various other doctors). And it’s not about the state of healthcare in the United States.
It is about positioning.
How did Doctor Big get to be THE GUY for kids with stomach issues? He went to a middle-of-the-pack medical school. He graduated in the middle of his class. He works in a good (not great) hospital.
Yet he has a reputation as a great doctor and an appointment book to match.
Want to know his secret?
He is unavailable.
You read that correctly.
You see, I found out from a friend who plays golf with Doctor Big, that when he first started out he instructed his office to funnel all his patients into office visits two days per week. When the patients came in, the waiting room was packed. People were standing in the hallway. And during the other three days, Doctor Big volunteered in a clinic in a bad part of town. As his practice grew, Doctor Big expanded his office hours until all five days were packed each and every week. I was told this took a couple of years.
But the result was that people couldn’t hire him, couldn’t get him on the phone, and couldn’t even find him roaming around the hospital. So they figured the guy HAD to be good.
Think about the implications of this for your law practice. How easy is it to find you and ask you a question (for free)? How easy is it to get an appointment to see you?
Can I get in to see you today? Right now?
How good can you be if you have time available right this instant? You appear desperate if you have time to let me take command of your schedule. And your fee probably reflects that desperation.
Think about how accessible you are. Facebook, Twitter, email, PDAs, smart phones, text messaging – people have all kinds of access to you because you have given it to them.
Play hard-to-get, if you have the guts. You’ll find that you attract better clients, you can charge higher fees, and people will respect you because of the perception that you are unavailable.
