Attorney Marketing: You Can Do It Yourself
This may sound strange coming from someone who makes his living, in part, by helping attorneys with marketing, but you can do it yourself.
If you want to capture one or two new clients each month, work on their matters, and live happily ever after, you do not need to work with me (or any other attorney marketing expert). In fact, I will give you the formula.
Here is what you need to do to get a couple of clients each month:
Network
Join a structured networking group. This will help you put some discipline into your marketing. It will take you about six months but the leads will come. As you get to know the people in your group, they will trust you and the leads will get better.
I posted a video on networking on my YouTube channel. Click here to watch it.
Follow Up
You need both weekly follow up and monthly follow up. And you should follow up with everyone you meet, referral sources and prospective clients. The monthly follow up should be in the form of a print newsletter. The weekly follow up should be in an email.
Here is a link to a video on newsletter follow up.
Here is a link to a video on email communication and follow up.
Educate
Conduct an educational event at least once each month. Identify a good target audience and conduct an event each month that helps them understand the value of working with you. You do this by raising the issues they struggle with and offering your services as the solution.
This video on conducting and educational event will show you how to do it.
You may be asking yourself why I am giving away all of this information. The answer is because I practice what I preach. I know that this information will be helpful for many attorneys who struggle with marketing. But I also know some attorneys will implement this and want more. My firm specializes in working with attorneys who want more from their marketing.
Please take the ideas I listed above and run with them. They work for many attorneys. Implement them today and down the road you will reap the benefits of better clients engaging you more frequently.
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EmailLegal Marketing Expert Criteria From Dave Lorenzo
The other day I was introduced to someone as Dave Lorenzo Legal Marketing Expert. While I like the sound of the term Legal Marketing Expert associated with my name I am also aware that people are fast and loose when they throw around titles.
Since there is no regulating or governing body to create criteria for the status of legal marketing expert, I am going to do it.
Below are the official criteria for being an Approved Dave Lorenzo Legal Marketing Expert:
A legal marketing expert must focus full time on legal marketing. He/she cannot have another part time job (like selling Amway, Mary Kay Products or practicing law). The legal marketing expert must be totally focused and dedicated to legal marketing.
A legal marketing expert must be a student of marketing and must be able to demonstrate his/her willingness to learn and keep current in this field. This means the legal marketing expert should be enrolled in some form of on-going education program that keeps them up-to-date with the latest trends and developments in legal marketing.
A legal marketing expert must have focused on marketing exclusively for a minimum of five years. This five year rule stems from the theory that it requires 10,000 hours of practice to develop expertise in any particular field or discipline. If you work 40 hours per week exclusively on legal marketing and you work 50 weeks per year, you reach 10, 000 hours in five years.
A legal marketing expert must demonstrate knowledge of marketing outside the legal profession. This is important because there are many things that are transferable from business to legal marketing. All ethical, professional and legal guidelines must always be followed, of course. But having a broad base of knowledge is required of a legal marketing expert. This may be demonstrated by experience: Ten years of marketing experience in various industries is a good objective criterion. This should also be demonstrated by education. A masters degree in marketing, strategic communications, business administration or integrated marketing communications is also a good criterion.
The final requirement for a legal marketing expert is a demonstration of good moral character. This means that information proclaimed by the individual to be true should, in fact be true, and verifiable.
These are the five basic criteria for becoming an Approved Dave Lorenzo Legal Marketing Expert. I will accept applications and begin interviews immediately.
Finding What’s Missing From Your Marketing
When it comes to attorney marketing I find there is of the one thing missing, even from the law firm marketing plan of the most dedicated attorney. That one thing is tying as many of your daily actions to a goal as possible.
This is one of the keys to success I share with my clients. Here is how it works:
Take a look at your list of daily action items. (If you do not have a list of daily action items, make one). Each of those daily action items should bring you one step closer to one of your goals.
For example, one of your action items could be: Write an article for my law firm newsletter. That action item gets you one step closer to obtaining a new client, which helps you fulfill your goal of making a certain amount of money.
Another example could be to follow up with an event planner on a specific speaking opportunity. This will also get you closer to your revenue goal because you could secure some new clients as a result of speaking at this event.
Ultimately you want to fill your list of daily action items with tasks that help you get closer to your goals and you want to eliminate or delegate all the things on your list that do not help you achieve this objective.
Implementing this slight change in the way you organize your daily work will have a dramatic effect on your success in attorney marketing.
Attorney Marketing Takes Away the Sting of Losing
The sting of losing a client never goes away completely. But attorney marketing does help keep the pipeline full of good qualified prospective clients.
This means that if one client leaves (or a prospective client elects not to work with you) you have an opening for another qualified client to step into.
If you are anything like me and you hate losing, then having many new clients waiting to come to work with you is helpful at getting you past the disappointment of not closing the last deal that walked through the door.
Attorney marketing also makes you less needy. This is always a good thing.
You never want to sign up a client because you NEED them to work with you. You should only sign up a client because they are the right client for the way you practice law.
Attorney marketing helps you get to that point. But it requires time, energy and focus.
When They Show Up, Bill ‘Em
Do you feel like you need to offer a free consultation?
Isn’t that part of law firm marketing 101?
No it is not. In fact, it is terrible law firm marketing.
Free advice is worth what you pay for it.
If you want to do anything for free, have an administrative assistant or an associate interview the prospective client to see if they qualify to work with you.
Yes. I know. Your competitors all offer free consultations. They all sit with clients for an hour at a time and listen to their tale of woe. They empathize and then, if they are lucky, the client signs up with them.
Did they teach that in law school? Was the class called: “How to be a doormat?”
The lawyers I work with do not give free consultations. They realize the value of their time and they demand clients respect it.
This is one of the easiest changes to make in your law firm yet it gives so many attorneys anguish. I am not sure why. Maybe it is insecurity or maybe it is fear of the competition.
If you do none of the other things I recommend on this website, at least start charging for consultations.
And so that you know that I remain congruent with my own advice: I charge $1,500 for a consultation. But that payment can be applied to any subsequent work we do together.
Few people waste my time. But you don’t have to be a law firm marketing expert to have people respect your time.
If you want people to respect you, you must respect yourself. That starts with respecting your most valuable resource, your time.
