How Smart Attorneys Double Their Revenue in a Year
As you may have heard from me (several times) it is better to have 100 ways to get one client than it is to have 1 way to get 100 clients.
But there is one thing you should do first, actually NOW, if you really want to grow your client base in the next twelve months. In fact, this activity is possibly THE BEST way to ensure you will DOUBLE your revenue.
It is not sexy.
But it works.
What is this mysterious client acquisition tactic? Is it something on the Internet? Is it social media? Is it some new form of technology?
No.
It is called follow-up.
Good, old fashioned, follow-up.
Here’s how it works:
Let’s say you are introduced to someone by a client, friend or referral source. You have a brief conversation and you believe this person has the potential to become a client in the future or refer you to potential clients. What happens next? Usually nothing.
Replace “nothing” with these steps and you will double your revenue in a year:
1). Go to lunch: Take your new friend to lunch and learn everything you can about his business. Don’t sell yourself. Learn about him and his business.
2). Send a hand written note: Let him know you enjoyed meeting him. Enclose a business card.
3). Send your contact information in electronic form. People like to have your information in their PDA or Smartphone. Make it easy for them. Send your contact info in an email.
4). Introduce this person to someone who can help his business. This point is critical. You need to go the extra mile and actually HELP your new prospective client. You must give something before you can expect to receive something.
5). Provide them with something of value a least every month. This means you should send them something they will enjoy every month. It can be a newsletter. It can be a greeting card. It can be a phone call where you touch base and help them solve a problem. The key is to help them remember you by providing them with something valuable.
People do business with people they know, like and trust. If you implement a simple follow-up and monthly contact system you will reap the rewards.
It takes about six months for people to get used to interacting with you on a consistent basis. But once they realize you are interested in helping them, they will warm up to the idea of trusting you with their most important matters.
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EmailHow many ways do you have to get new clients?
One of the first things I review with attorneys is the variety of ways they attract new clients. At first, I am usually greeted with a blank stare when I pose the question: “How many different ways do you have to attract new clients?”
The puzzled look is followed by a statement like:
“I can’t afford too many marketing initiatives. I rely on referrals and word of mouth.”
The folks who offer up this response have three specific problems:
They have made a decision to cap their income. The fewer ways you have of attracting new clients the less opportunity you have to grow your firm’s revenue. Keep in mind, I love referrals. I think you should have a system for nurturing referral relationships. But referrals will generally come from people who know you, like you and trust you. Most of us – even the super-networkers – will have a limited sphere of influence from which we can attract referrals.
They do not know that there are more personal forms of marketing. Networking is a great way for attorneys to make contact with potential clients but the follow-up from networking (which is marketing by the way) is how the relationship grows. Educational events are fantastic ways to introduce the value you provide to potential clients. Writing articles, giving speeches and serving on the board of directors of a charitable organization are all ways to develop new relationships and new potential clients.
They are looking for the magic bullet. They want one way to attract 100new clients. They want the easy money that comes with running ads or mass mailing. The trouble with these forms of marketing is that they are expensive and their effectiveness is often fleeting.
The key to developing new client relationships lies in the diversity of your marketing efforts. I have been developing business strategy for my entire career (22 years) and I say with confidence that I have seen very few individual marketing methodologies that consistently attract hundreds of clients – yet I have seen hundreds of ways to attract one client. The key to growing your law practice lies in improving the diversity of your client attraction tactics.
The Lawyers Who Don’t Need Marketing and Business Strategy
If you work in a law firm – particularly a big law firm – you may not need to know how to originate new business. Someone may feed you business. And they may do so for years and years.
You will probably make a respectable salary and you will get to do meaningful work, some of which you’ll enjoy.
If you work for yourself, own your own law firm, you may not need to do much in the way of marketing. You may be able to go directly from a public position (Prosecutor’s Office or Public Defender’s Office) into a practice where your reputation delivers clients to your doorstep on a steady, regular basis.
Both of these options are true career paths that thousands of lawyers have worn over the years. Many of the lawyers that follow these paths make a good living.
There is one challenge with these two paths: They leave an awful lot to chance.
With the big firm path, you never have the opportunity to control your own destiny. You constantly wait for someone to deliver work to your office, you say thank you, and you kill yourself for no glory.
On the second path, you have every opportunity in the world at your feet. You can take whatever cases you’d like. You can charge whatever you’d like and you can work whenever you’d like …
…if you know how to attract and retain clients.
Note: Being a good lawyer is not a strategy. Being a good lawyer is a prerequisite for any attorney who owns his/her own firm. If you stink as a lawyer, your lousy reputation will overwhelm any marketing efforts you can possibly employ.
Being a good lawyer and promoting yourself minimally (putting up a website and attending a few local events) will help you expand your reputation and get you to a comfortable place financially.
If you want to make more money, mid six figures to seven figures and beyond, you will need to do some marketing and set a sound business strategy.
That means creating a message and targeting a specific market with that message. It’s not necessarily advertising…it is marketing and business strategy.
The bottom line: If you want to top out at $150,000 - $300,000 per year, that’s great. Continue to work for someone else or start your solo shop and rely solely on good fortune and your reputation.
Risky but possible.
If you want to make $500,000 and beyond (I have several clients who make multiple millions of dollars per year in law firms they own, with less than 10 employees) you need a sound strategy and you need marketing.
Need help with this? Think I’m wrong? Give me a call.
Dave Lorenzo 888.692.5531
Five Things Every Law Firm Should Guarantee
Most businesses are afraid of guarantees. The believe that people will take advantage of them way too often and drive firm into the ground.
Law firms are no different.
In most states law firms cannot even allude to the potential positive outcome of a matter without facing severe penalties. So you can forget about guaranteeing anything…right?
Wrong!
The state bar rules, in most cases, do not forbid SERVICE LEVEL GUARANTEES. They forbid outcome guarantees. Your law firm can guarantee that you will treat your clients with respect and common courtesy.
Many of my clients (I only work with lawyers) have strong guarantees and they ask their clients to hold them accountable.
Here are the five things that every law firm should guarantee:
A Return Phone Call
I hate the fact that most attorneys do not return phone calls in a timely fashion. I do not care how busy you are, I do not care if you spend your entire day in court, I don’t care if you commute 3 hours one way to work; all client phone calls should be returned within two hours. Period.
You don’t have to personally call your client back (it would be great if you would). But your assistant should call people back within two hours and schedule a return call to your clients at the next possible opportunity.
By they way there is no excuse for ever letting a client go beyond 24 hours without a phone call. If you don’t get out of work until 10PM, call then. The client will be glad you did. They will not be upset when you interrupt their TV shows.
Proper Preparation
I have seen many attorneys walk into the lobby of the courthouse and get introduced to their client for the first time.
Sorry but that is crap.
Proper preparation means having at least one conversation with your client before they put their legal future in your hands.
It also means that you have read the file before walking into the meeting with opposing council for the first time (yep I’ve seen and heard about that a few times too). It also means proof reading the settlement letter before sending it – you know – to make sure that the client’s name is spelled correctly…
An Answer to Every Question
You must give your client an answer to every question he/she asks. Helping your client understand what is happening to him/her is an essential part of your job.
If you don’t know the answer to the question at that moment, simply say: “I have to do some research before I answer you.” And then get back to them as soon as possible.
That’s not only a nice thing to do, it’s your job. You work for the client.
Attorney Timeliness
No one client is more important than any other.
If they are you should choose not to represent the lesser of the two clients because they deserve someone who will give them their full attention.
Be on time.
Just like the phone call situation – there are few acceptable excuses for being late to a meeting.
The Right to Speak with the Boss
All clients should have the right to speak with the ultimate decision-making authority in the firm.
If you are a solo or small firm attorney then you might want to consider a “speak your mind guarantee”. This is a guarantee that states that if the client is ever not happy with something, they have the right to speak their mind and not worry about any repercussions. Of course this is not the same as introducing an objective third party into the situation, but it demonstrates your concern for the feelings of the client.
So just what happens if you let the client down?
What happens if you fail in one of these areas?
In most cases, the attorney agrees to forgive some portion of the fee.
That’s right; they put their money where their mouth is.
These five items are foundational elements of client service. If you are not guaranteeing them, there is only one reason: You are scared that you cannot control yourself enough to treat people properly.
Why don’t you implement this five point guarantee today?
Need help? Call me. Dave Lorenzo 888.692.5531
The First Step in Building a Succesful Law Firm as a Solo Attorney
Successful solo attorneys understand that a law firm is a business.
Building a successful law business starts with setting goals, writing them down, and reviewing them regularly.
The very first question I ask my clients in my coaching practice is:
“What do you want from your business?”
It doesn’t matter if the person across the desk from me is a litigator or a transactional attorney. It is no different if the attorney in my office is an intellectual property attorney or the owner of a personal injury firm.
Just about every one of them tries to give me a long-winded answer about taking care of customers, giving back to society, and making the world a better place.
After I let them say their piece, I politely tell them that they are full of crap!
Well, at least I hope they are full of crap.
The only good reason to go into business for yourself is to make a lot of money doing exactly what you want to do when you want to do it.
That’s it.
If you went out on your own and started up a law firm and you did not have this thought in your head, then you should go out and look for a job.
You see, without goals, that’s what you probably have with your law business anyway. If you’re currently working 50, 60, or 70 hours a week or more and you’re struggling to get by financially, you’ve got yourself a job that you paid to set up from scratch.
Plain and simple, that’s what you’ve got.
So the next thing the attorney will typically say is:
“Yeah, but I’m building up equity in the law firm and I’m going to sell it someday”.
I then lean back in my chair and I ponder that thought. I respond with:
“Well, let’s think about that for a second. You have a business that is 100 percent dependent upon you.”
You make the sale to the client. And you deliver the product or service.
And then you service the things you sell.
And then you follow up on the invoices.
And then you go out and sell some more.
What was the common word in all of those activities? YOU.
How much is your business going to be worth without you?
Most of the folks then look down at the floor and shuffle their feet a little.
That’s when I’ve got them. They know that they have not focused on what their law firm can do for them. You see, if they had goals for revenue, profitability, and numbers of hours they wanted to work—and if all of these goals were in alignment—they would have a reasonable answer.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
Most people go out and start their own law firm and then they get caught up in the day-to-day practice of law. What falls by the wayside is the planning. You have to have at least some rough idea for what you want your business to be and then you—personally—need to take responsibility for getting your business to that point.
This is where goal setting comes in.
Every successful attorney I have ever met, worked with, or interviewed has goals.
And they’ve written them down.
And they review them regularly.
Your goals help you drive your business. It’s that simple.
What you focus on grows and expands. If you focus on your goals, you will be shocked at how quickly things begin to happen in your business.
After I have this conversation with the typical client and after we wrestle around a little about how they don’t have five minutes three of four times a day to think about their goals, they finally admit to what it is that has been bothering them. They admit that they don’t really know how to set a good constructive goal.
Since this happens all the time, it is probably a good idea if we take a couple of minutes and review some quick tips on goal setting.
How to Set SMART Goals
A lot has been written about goal development. A quick Internet search will point you to numerous Web sites dedicated to the development and implementation of goals. Having too much information can be as bad as not having enough information. As you develop your goals, you should stick to the principle that less is more. After all, your goal setting should help you grow your business and not become a full-time job itself.
In keeping with that guideline, let’s stick to the basics in effective goal development. Use these basics as a framework for developing your own goals. Feel free to adapt and adjust them as you see fit. They must work for you, so your opinion is the one that matters the most. Here are the two guidelines that you must follow to make goal setting a powerful tool in your overall pursuit of success:
First, the power of a goal comes in writing it down on a sheet of paper and then in reading it every day. The more frequently you read it, or even better, the more frequently you write it, the closer it comes to resembling reality. The power of the commitment that is required to transfer thoughts into action cannot be underestimated. By writing your goals down on paper, you clarify and focus them. As you continually read them and write them, you begin to familiarize your brain with the possibility that these goals can become reality. If you write down your goals daily and envision the achievement of those goals in vivid detail, you will begin to convince yourself that these goals are indeed possible.
The second guideline in making goal setting a powerful achievement tool is to always state your goal using positive terminology. Focus on what you are going to do right rather than what is wrong with your current situation.
The time for developing goals is not the time for problem diagnosis. It is the time to picture this achievement in its ideal and unadulterated state. The reading or writing of a goal should fill you with positive energy that you can focus toward a positive outcome.
I have always been a proponent of setting goals based upon the SMART goal development methodology. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Tangible. A goal must fit all of those criteria for it to make your list.
The first quality of a goal is that it is specific. The more detail you can bring to your goal, the more likely it is that your brain will perceive it as real. A great test to measure the specificity of your goal is in answering the five “W’s.” The five “W’s” involved in goal setting are:
•Who: Who is involved? Can you accomplish this goal by yourself or do you need the help of others?
•What: What specifically do you want to accomplish?
•Where: Is this goal specific to a location? Where will you be when you achieve this goal?
•When: When will you achieve this goal? It is critical that you establish a timeframe for achieving each of your goals.
•Why: Why is achieving this goal important? List the specific benefits of accomplishing the goal.
The next step is to make certain you can measure progress on your way toward goal accomplishment. You know that your goal is measurable when you can apply specific objective criteria to help track your progress toward completion. The best question to use to test the measurability of your goals is: “How will I know that I have accomplished this goal?”
Measurement has a very powerful effect on progress. Simply put, things that get measured get done. To define how you will measure your goal, ask yourself questions that begin with “How much”, “How many”, and “How often”. Set some target dates to make sure you remain on track.
The next quality your goal must have is that it must be achievable. In other words, it must be possible. Initially, achieving your goal may seem like a stretch. That’s fine; you want a goal that will make you reach. When you set a goal that channels your passion, your brain goes to work figuring out ways to make it happen. You develop the attitudes, skills, and knowledge that help you move down the path toward achievement. Gradually, you begin to see opportunities that you may have previously missed. As you begin to take advantage of these opportunities, you bring yourself closer to the achievement of your goal.
You can attain virtually any goal you set when you plan your steps wisely and establish a timeframe that allows you to carry out those steps. A goal that initially appeared distant and unattainable gradually becomes closer and more possible, not because your goal changed, but because you grew and expanded to match it. The change occurs within you.
Next, your goal must be realistic given the timeframe you have set. To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective you are both willing and able to spend time and energy achieving. A goal can be challenging and still be realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. You will stretch your goals as your self-confidence increases. It is critical to make sure that every goal represents substantial progress. A high goal is frequently easier to reach than a less challenging one because a minor goal requires a low level of personal motivation. Some of the hardest things you ever accomplish actually seem easy because you approach them with passion and zeal.
Finally, your goal must be tangible. A goal is tangible when you can experience it with at least one of the five senses. Can you taste, touch, smell, see, or hear the results? If so, then you have a tangible goal. If your goal is tangible you can envision it before it is achieved. This helps program your mind and reinforces the belief that achievement is possible.
Each and every one of the successful individuals I have worked with over the years has had goals that fit these criteria.
So, what can you do today—right now—to make sure that you get your goals in place?
The first thing I recommend you do is find someone to bounce some ideas off of. Many people struggle with the goal setting process. In fact, many people have a difficult time deciding exactly what they want from their business. Goal setting is difficult, if not impossible to do on your own. It is like cutting your own hair. You may be able to get to everything you can see, but it is the areas that you cannot see that may be the problem. You may have a blind spot, and that may prevent you from accurately setting the proper goals. You may set you goals too high—or more likely; you may set your goals too low.
Making an error in goal setting can be a fatal error and it should not be left to chance.
This is where a coach can be enormously helpful. Your coach can help you clarify your goals and help you get them written properly. You coach can also help remind you to focus on those goals each and every day. My clients will tell you that I’m a broken record when it comes to this point. When they call me between sessions with a question, the first thing I ask them is what they have done to move closer to their goals today.
Taking accountability for the actions that lead to achieving your goals is also critical for success.
What are you waiting for?
The Eight Step Process to Rational Decisions for Your Law Firm
Rainmaker lawyers are strategic thinkers. This is especially true when it comes to attorney marketing. Strategic thinking requires a cool head. Remaining calm and rational, even in the face of extreme pressure, is the hallmark of highly successful attorneys.
A calm veneer doesn’t mean that you are unfeeling; it simply means that you are engaging the logical aspects of your thinking process.
The following process can help you rein in your emotional response and smooth the way for successful strategic thinking.
Step 1: Disassociate Yourself
If every strategic thinking situation has an emotional aspect, then how do some people make decisions that appear to be more rational than others?
Attorneys who make decisions that appear to be more rational often disassociate themselves from the project or process. This is difficult to do but it is essential to good decision making.
Follow the example of surgeons, firefighters, and military commanders. They are forced to make decisions that have life and death implications – and they must do so under extreme pressure. They have mastered the ability to temporarily separate themselves from emotion of the situation. A successful strategic thinker views a problem as though she is completely detached from the circumstances surrounding it. By viewing the situation through this lens, he is objective in his assessment of the challenge. He prevents his personal emotional investment from playing a role in the moment.
Step 2: Define Specific Outcomes
Identify what this decision making process or plan will accomplish. It is always helpful to start with the ideal outcome. Once you set the ideal outcome as the goal for your decision or plan, you activate the creative side of your brain.
At this stage, you only want to make certain that the outcome is possible. You are not concerned with probability.
Step 3: Acknowledge Your Instincts
What is your gut feeling or intuition?
Is it something real, tangible, or merely a thought that pounds at you like a base drum?
It is important that you acknowledge any feelings you have about the problem or the desired outcome. At the outset of your decision making process, list possible solutions based solely on instinct. These hypotheses will free you from the nagging of your emotional subconscious. Generating purely emotional solutions up front will put them into perspective as you complete your research.
Step 4: Research the Problem
Next you must find the root cause of the problem or the most basic critical factor in your decision or plan.
The goal here is to get to the heart of the matter and address the issue once and for all time. Even something as simple as the case of a restaurant owner who is having trouble with complaints of cold food from dinners in the restaurant can be solved by rational decision making.
The key in this process is to trace the problem down to the root cause and find out why the food is cold when it reaches the customers’ tables. There are several factors that may contribute to this problem, such as distance of the dining room from the kitchen; not using plate covers; the speed of the service; the waiting time from preparation to service; and the temperatures of the dining room and the kitchen. However, none of these contributing factors will make any difference if the food is not cooked to the proper temperature in the first place. In this example, improper cooking temperature is the root cause of the problem. Looking for the root cause is the primary purpose of your research.
In the case of strategic planning, the goal is to get to the most basic level of the desired outcome so that you can take as few steps as possible in order to achieve your goal. You are looking for the shortest distance between where you are now and where you want to go. For example, let’s say you are a salesperson working on commission and your goal is to increase your salary by 20 percent by the end of the year. For planning purposes, the shortest distance to your goal is to sell more products to your customers. Therefore, researching ways to increase product sales is the best place to begin.
Step 6: Generate Alternatives
Once you have identified your goal and have conducted enough research to recognize patterns that will lead to its achievement, you should begin to look for potential actions that can help you move from your current state to your desired state. Because you’re apt to react more emotionally when you are backed into a corner, give yourself options in assessing the situation.
Step 7: Assess Risk
Now that you have a list of options to help you achieve your goal or solve a problem, you need to look at each of the options in front of you and evaluate each of them from a risk perspective. In doing so, you need to look at two factors: the amount of risk and the probability that negative consequences will occur.
Step 8: Select a Solution
Your goal is to select the option that will help you achieve your goal or solve your problem while minimizing your risk. You are, in essence, selecting the best option or, depending upon the situation, the option that is least bad. In the case of the restaurant manager, he will minimize his risk by closing his restaurant on the day of the week that generates the least revenues.
This eight step process may appear to be a very involved task but once internalized, it will become second nature.
Step 5: Recognize Patterns
After finding the root cause of your problem or the shortest distance to your goal, you should begin to work backwards towards your current state. In doing this, you will notice factors that contribute to the root cause of the problem. In planning, you will find steps that will contribute to overall goal achievement. You should look for patterns in these contributing factors. As patterns emerge, you must begin to look for ways to enable desired behavior and permanently discontinue undesirable behavior.
Attorneys Need Goals Too
If you are marketing for lawyers, how will you know if you’ve reached your destination if you don’t know where you are going?
Goals are an essential part of the success of any attorney or law firm.
And you can’t just set goals on New Year’s Day and the come back and look at them a year later.
Well, that’s not exactly true.
You can do it that way—set your goals once and then check back a year later—but you may not achieve the results you’d like.
Here is the three step goal setting process I take my clients through when we first begin working together. This process has been the foundation upon which million-dollar firms are built.
Ignore it and you ignore your full potential.
Step One: List five things will accomplish in the next twelve months
Writing down your goals for the upcoming year is critical.
Something amazing happens when you commit your goals to paper…They become embedded in your subconscious mind.
This imprint will help keep you on course during your daily activities.
When you commit your goals to paper you should state them in the present tense (as if they are happening right now).
For example: “My client billings exceed $100,000 per month.”
Goals should also be stated in a positive tone of voice.
If your goal was to stop smoking, for example, you would write: “I will breathe clean fresh air every second of every day”.
Step two: Review these goals and REWRITE them every day.
You must review and rewrite your goals every single day.
Write them by hand on a sheet of paper.
This is an incredibly powerful commitment technique that will accelerate your progress toward achieving your goals. Writing forces concentration and you become what you think about most often.
Step three: Focus on one goal exclusively for maximum impact.
If you have one particular goal that will help enable you to achieve some of the other goals you can boost your progress by focusing on that goal almost exclusively. This is like becoming obsessed with success.
The key here is to take massive action toward the achievement of your goal. Do everything and anything you can think of to make it a reality.
This simple three step process has more people rich than you can possibly imagine.
What is preventing you from setting your goals today?
Five Factors that Influence the Development of Strategic Thinking at a Law Firm
Strategic thinking involves both the rational and the emotional functions of the brain. When an attorney makes plans, solves problems, or makes decisions in either his personal or professional life, he relies on both aspects of thought. Most often, we do not realize we are thinking emotionally or rationally; we just know that we make good decisions, that we plan well, or that we are great problem solvers.
There are five factors that influence the thinking of strategic attorneys: time, control, experience, the unknown, and outcome finality. None of these factors specifically address the personal stake the individual has in the outcome. This is because every plan, every decision or every problem you work on is personal. You are emotionally invested in the outcome of the situation. There are different degrees of emotional investment, which may make some decisions appear more personal than other. It is impossible to remove emotion from your life. So you must move forward with the knowledge that everything is personal to some degree – that all situations have an emotional aspect to them. Any belief to the contrary is simply denial.
When making a decision, a top performing lawyer’s first step is to acknowledge the factor that most influences the process. When telling a story about a critical decision or a well-developed plan, he will say something like, “We knew we had limited time,” or “We knew we could not control the competitor’s response” or “We had little experience in this area so we felt like were flying blind” or “There was so much at stake that I was careful in how I made my decision.”
Failing to acknowledge that an external factor may have an influence on a situation will almost always result in an unwelcome surprise.
Below are the five factors that influence the development of strategic thinking at your law firm:
Time
The first question asked by a strategic thinker is, “How much time do I have to develop this plan, make this decision, or solve this problem?” This is the factor that will have the most influence on how you will proceed. Almost every other aspect of solution generation is dependent upon time constraints.
When time is limited, the strategic thinker is often forced to compromise his investigation into the underlying causes of an issue. Understanding the root cause of a problem is critical to offering effective solutions. In time sensitive situations, you may be forced to rely on experience to determine the ultimate cause for the current dilemma. The value of the solution becomes dependent upon your ability to diagnose the problem quickly. Time pressure makes this process very subjective.
Time pressure also limits your ability to try out your hypothesis or theory. A top performer almost always employs an iterative decision making process. He tests out a solution and makes adjustments and improvements to ascertain that the final answer is the most effective alternative. Severely limiting the amount of time he has to work on a problem will stifle this iterative process and will result in the need for making more changes “on the fly” once the solution is deployed.
This process plays out in real time whenever products are sold to consumers, such as in the case of a farmer’s market. A vendor selling fruit must continuously evaluate the demand for the fruit based upon the time left before it spoils. As the window of time decreases, the vendor reduces the price to stimulate demand. However, if the flow of traffic through his stand is strong, the vendor may decide to hold firm on his price, only reducing it if the buyers show resistance.
Having too much time can also be an issue. In situations where time is unlimited people often try to capture too much information. Because it is almost impossible to complete truly exhaustive research on any topic, these attempts at boiling the ocean result in analysis paralysis.
Control
As a successful strategic thinker you must immediately assesses how much of the situation is within your control and how much is not. Once you break the problem down along those lines, you can immediately formulate your plan of attack.
It’s important to note that, when a critical element of a situation is out of his control, a strategic thinker always looks for ways to influence that aspect of the decision. Often, he may be able to affect it in an indirect way. It is this creativity that is the hallmark of strategic thinking.
In a perfect scenario, a strategic thinker will have control over all aspects of a situation or problem. When this happens, he often produces amazingly creative results that no one ever dreamed were possible. This is particularly true when a strategic thinker is involved in formulating plans for a future endeavor.
Unfortunately, even perfect scenarios sometimes produce fiascos. I often hear publishers lament the poor sales of a well-written book. They go on and on about how it just did not sell up to expectations in the first 90 days.
Strategic thinking is often underutilized in the book publishing industry, even though virtually every aspect of the decision-making process related to a book is within the publisher’s control. The publisher controls the price at which the book sells, the dollars attached to its marketing campaign, the release date, the content of the book, and the packaging. Further, the publisher controls the time period used to evaluate the success of the book’s sales.
If a book were marketed like a consumer product – given a sales evaluation period of one year, given a marketing budget that represented a percentage of the per unit retail price, and packaged and released in conjunction with timely events (cookbooks during the holidays) – the results might be quite different.
Experience
Experience is a true double-edged sword for the strategic thinker. Having too much experience can limit creativity in generating alternatives. Having little or no experience will increase the time needed to solve the problem or create a plan.
Most strategic thinkers prefer to have the experience available and use it as a resource, but make a concerted effort to keep an open mind when it comes to the status quo. They realize that many problems are created due to the hidebound thought, “That’s the way we’ve always done it.”
Experience can be a great teacher. It can also be a conniving and deceitful mistress and lure you down the path of ill repute. Strategic thinkers are very careful in their use of experience. Their goal is to understand history and learn from it, not necessarily to repeat it.
Retail stores always look at past history when evaluating holiday sales. They base inventory decisions at least partially upon how certain products have historically sold. Their goal is to understand what did not sell well and why so that they do not place large orders for similar items in the future.
The Unknown
At every step in the strategic thinking process, you must ask yourself the question, “What don’t I know?” In the early stages of problem solving, this question is critical to formulating a research plan. In the later stages, you must reconcile which unknowns you can live with against those you can’t and make a decision. In most cases, it will be impossible to explore all of the unknown factors that go into a plan or a decision. You must be comfortable with the ambiguity that remains. The best decision-makers set up contingency plans for the results of ambiguous situations.
Every plan that a strategic thinker devises has a list of unknowns. In a workgroup situation, these items are often listed along with the factors that will resolve the ambiguity. Not surprisingly, other strategic thinking factors play a large part in resolving the unknown. Having more time, more experience (or historical information), or more control often help clear the fog of the unknown. Although there will always be a set of facts that are unknown, the decision-maker must make his decision and be confident that he is prepared for all the contingencies.
For example, the chef in a restaurant is never certain exactly how many people will eat dinner in your establishment each evening. Yet, he needs to be prepared for the possibility that, if no one comes, he will need to store your perishable products for another day, and that if the number of diners is double that which he expected, he will need to send someone to the store for more supplies.
Outcome Finality
Is this situation life and death? Does it matter which decision you make? Outcome finality plays a huge role in the strategic mindset. If there is no possibility of recovery from a poor decision, the potential for emotional investment in that decision is far greater than a situation that easily lends itself to trial and error. In most cases, for example, quitting a job is a decision that has enormous finality. While you may be able to return to work for your former employer, you may not be able to return to that exact position.
Those top performers in any field – particularly the law –often make decisions that weigh heavily on their minds. It is almost always the finality of the outcome that creates this weight. Even if the other decision-making factors are favorable, outcome finality (or perceived outcome finality) can create enormous emotional consequences for the decision-maker.
Strategic planning and decision-making is not only an advantage for a sharp attorney, it is a necessity. Emotional detachment and an objective approach will always help smart lawyers face the future.
Even Small Law Firms Should Have a Web Marketing Strategy
It used to be that a detailed multimedia advertising campaign was something that only the big law firms could pull off. Essentially, if a law firm’s building took up an entire city block, then they were usually able to pour more money into their advertising than the average solo practice would make in even five years time. This made a level playing field nearly impossible.
Small law firms and solo practices have always had to accept that they simply couldn’t compete with the big guys in terms of marketing. Hiring a professional marketing agency to develop a brand, advertise, and maintain public relations used to be completely out of the scope of what small and solo law practices could afford.
Luckily, times have changed.
The Internet has completely revolutionized how companies market themselves. It is true that a small law firm or a solo practice would still not be able to compete with a larger law firm in terms of dollars spent on television, radio, or print advertisements. It is also true, however, that smaller law firms can get just as much exposure at a greatly reduced price.
Traditional Advertising Agencies vs. Web Marketing Agencies
Internet or web marketing has leveled the advertising playing field in two critical ways. First, there are now a myriad of ways to advertise your law firm, maintain contact with clients, and build your brand without spending a ton of cash. Second, there are now more than just a few marketing agencies that specialize in web marketing, which costs a fraction of what traditional marketing costs.
Many traditional marketing agencies are adding in web marketing departments, but these departments are often not as effective at web marketing as companies that were built on technology in the first place. In addition, when you go to a traditional marketing agency for web marketing you are still paying for their expensive overhead. Save your money and go to a web marketing firm that will charge you less for better work.
Web Marketing firms often have a significantly lower overhead because they’ve spent their time and money building a strong online presence. Many web marketing agencies deal with clients completely online. Web marketing agencies often have a small, functional office space that serves the needs of their staff. Some don’t have an office space at all. They staff advertising and Internet technology experts who want the flexibility of working from home. Some even build their companies with a handful of dedicated staff, and then they hire freelancers to handle special projects.
Web marketing agencies specialize in Internet marketing which includes developing a multi-faceted web site that allows your firm to bring in potential clients and then to build an online relationship with them before they even come into your office.
Another thing that web marketing agencies do is they focus on search engine marketing or SEM. Search engine marketing is a set of tools that web experts use to ensure that your firm is one of the first listed when someone uses the Internet to search for a law firm using keywords.
In addition, you can hire a web marketing firm to do just your public relations, like blogging or newsletters. Or you can hire a marketing firm that will simply focus on increasing the ranking of your website. Of course, you can always hire a web marketing firm to handle all of your online marketing needs.
What to Look for When Hiring a Web Marketing Firm
One of the great things about web marketing firms is that they are very easy to find online. A quick online search will pull up several. Like any other advertising or marketing agency, you need to look closely at their client list. The best case scenario is to choose a firm that has other law firms as clients. Law firms have unique advertising needs. They have a different set of priorities than a traditional company.
Look closely at their web marketing agency’s portfolio. First, examine the websites that the web marketing agency has developed in the past. If they don’t look interesting and well organized, move on. One of the most important things you can do is to test the quality of the search engine marketing that each firm has worked on. For example, if one of their current SEM clients is a plumber in New Haven, Connecticut, then you should be able to type in “New Haven CT plumber” in any major search engine and see their client listed on the first page. If this is not the case, then this company is not the one for you.
Think about whether or not you want to utilize television and radio advertisements in the future. If so, then choose a company that brings together traditional and web marketing models. These companies will be slightly more expensive, but if you’re looking for a combination of traditional and web marketing, then select a company that can meet your goals. When web marketing companies utilize traditional marketing outlets, you still can expect to pay less than a large advertising agency because you’re still not paying for that high overhead.
One last critical thing to look for is a web marketing company that values measurement. More and more web marketing agencies are focusing on measuring their client’s return on investment (ROI) for their marketing dollars. Your marketing ROI can and should be measured on a regular basis.
There was a time when hiring a professional, resourceful marketing agency was completely out of reach for small law firms or solo practices. Those days are gone. Get online and at least get a few quotes from web marketing agencies. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at just affordable they can be.
Build Your Solo Law Firm as a Consumer Advocate
Alex Barnes is a great attorney. He’s built his practice on being a champion of the underdog. Though the thriving legal practice he ended up with was not what he expected when he got started. Alex had a personal mission in mind when starting out. His older sister Laura had been a victim of identity theft and lost everything to thieves who had stolen her personal information online then gutted two of her retirement accounts and ran up all of her credit cards to the maximum.
It was literally too late to do anything about it once it started as the thieves had done their damage and were finished in the course of 10 days. At first Barbara was only aware that there were ‘issues’ with her credit cards. It wasn’t until she’d received her quarterly statements from her retirement accounts that she learned they’d been cleaned out. Not knowing what to do, Barbara contacted Alex to see if there was anything that could be done from a legal standpoint. And after all was said and done, there was little.
In time, the path that Alex took trying to help his sister became a trail, then a road and finally a highway of hope in combating identity theft and fraud. Without realizing what was before him Alex became a regional, and then national advocate for victims of identity theft. Here’s how it happened.
As soon as Alex learned of his sister’s problem he got busy calling so-called responsible parties. The problems was, no one wanted any responsibility. Both custodians for the compromised retirement accounts claimed that all forms were submitted legitimately and all met with the security measures in place. They stated that if, in fact, fraud had been used to transfer the accounts they’d need to see criminal complaints, and convicted perpetrators, neither of which were available. In essence, they said, “Come back when you’ve caught the bad guys.”
The credit card companies weren’t much better. Because the crimes weren’t reported sooner, the card company’s liability was limited to a few hundred dollars. Had the theft been reported sooner, they (the credit card companies) would have been liable for the full amounts. Essentially, Barbara was out of luck.
Alex immediately got a hold of both congressional reps for his district and lodge formal complaints. He then contacted the US Attorney General as well as the AG from his state and made official complaints to both offices. He realized that our justice system wasn’t yet set up to combat this kind of crime and almost just stopped there thinking there isn’t much else that can be done. But he knew that wasn’t true. He thought about his options for the next few days and decided to go all out against identity fraud.
He decided he’d attack the problem on two fronts. First he’d lobby to get legislation passed making it easier for victims to be reimbursed. This would be a challenge but Alex felt it would be absolutely necessary in moving toward any real solution to the problem. The next thing he’d do is make information about identity theft and fraud more available. To do this he’d have to become an expert in the field himself. So he began studying. In time he became an expert. And he began to make headway with his state representative in introducing legislation to help reimburse fraud victims.
Starting with almost nothing and working from his home office, Alex’s small law firm was born. The first thing he did was write several special reports designed to make consumers aware of the methods criminals use to steal personal information. Alex was aware that his own research was enlightening to both himself and potential clients. Alex didn’t realize it but he was becoming an expert on identity fraud. In the first three months of his mission Alex produced the following special reports:
- All About Identity Fraud and Theft
- Credit Reporting Agencies and Your Rights
- Debt Collection and Your Rights
Within six months Alex had nearly 20 paying clients. Of course he moved from his home office to a small suite in town. As for his sister’s case, he filed suit with every entity that had a part in the problem. Guilty or not, he wanted both retirement custodians and credit card companies officially on record as to their policies. Two of the credit card companies simply settled the case by forgiving the debt incurred by the thieves. The retirement fund managers weren’t nearly as accommodating but did suggest that there were probably options other than courtroom litigation. Rather than receive a lot of bad press, they too eventually reimbursed Alex’s sister fully.
So can we say that Alex has created a happy ending to this story? Not really. Righting the mess made by identity theft criminals is always a challenge. But people like Alex who are willing to rise to that challenge are making things more difficult for the bad guys, and easier for the actual victims. Laws and punishment are becoming tougher. Consumer awareness is becoming greater. And Alex has made a name for himself as the go-to guy in a blossoming legal cottage industry helping those who couldn’t do it without him. That’s always a great position to be in. The good news is, a consumer advocate is almost always in a great position.
