Archives for May 2012

How to get more clients to schedule an appointment

May 31, 2012 by
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There’s a precept in marketing, and especially copy writing, that says you will get a higher response to your offer when you, “tell people what to do”.

Don’t leave it up to them to figure out. Tell them what to do, even if it’s obvious.

If you want people to call to schedule an appointment, tell them WHAT to do (call 888-555-4321), WHY (to get a free consultation and find out if you have case), and WHEN (now, between 8-5pm weekdays, any time 24/7).

If you leave something out, fewer people will call.

And whatever it is you’re telling them to do, make it easy for them to do it. Filling out a simple form on your web site with spaces for the information they’ll need to submit will get a higher response than an application they’ll need to print, fill out, and fax.

Making it easy also means being clear about what to do. Tell them what form to fill out and what button to push. Tell them what will happen after they do it.

Make it so clear that it is almost impossible to misunderstand.

And don’t change something that’s working. Once people get used to doing things a certain way, changes risk confusion and a lower response.

My wife went to pay our electric bill online. Last month, all she had to do was click the button that said “Submit.” This month, without telling anyone about it, the “Submit” button was now labeled “Save.”

She didn’t want to save, she wanted to pay. Where was the submit button?

She wound up calling the company to make sure she was doing it right. The person she spoke with admitted they were getting hundreds of emails from customers who were confused by the change. How many customers will be late paying their bills this month because they are confused?

Side note: Someone should fire the genius who thought “Save” was better than “Submit” or “Pay Now”. Yikes.

Another side note: If they’re getting hundreds of emails from confused customers, uh, here’s a thought: change the button back to “Submit”.

If you want to get more people calling, clicking, or pulling out their credit card, tell them precisely what to do and make it as easy as pie for them to do it.

If you’re not sure, show your page or email to a ten year old kid and ask them to follow the instructions. If they’re not completely clear on what to do, if they hesitate in any way, you’ve got work to do.

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Filed Under: Communication, Copywriting, Marketing legal services, Presentations, Salesmanship, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I wish I knew this before I opened my law practice

May 30, 2012 by
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In high school and college I did some entry level work during the summers. I was a stock clerk at a department store, delivered flowers, that sort of thing. In law school, I worked as a law clerk.

By the time I graduated law school, the sum total of my work experience was. . . nothing to write home about.

I opened my own law office about a year after graduating and passing the bar exam. I had very little experience as a lawyer, no clients, and no money. Most importantly, my network of contacts was almost non-existent.

As you can imagine, my first few years of practice were very difficult. If I had known what it would take to start a practice and make a go of it, I might have done things differently.

Yes, I knew it would be rough. But I naively thought I would make up for what I lacked with hard work and determination. Like Mary Richards, Mary Tyler Moore’s character on the 1970’s TV show, I had spunk.

Unfortunately, spunk doesn’t buy groceries.

Anyway, things would undoubtedly have been different if I’d had a network of contacts before I opened my office. When you have relationships with the right people, you can leverage those relationships to get clients, leads, introductions, and advice. You can hit the ground running in a new practice. You’re not starting completely from scratch when you can tap into other people’s established networks.

The lesson is this: build your network before you need it. Or as Harvey MacKay puts it, “Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty.”

It’s more difficult to build a network when you need it. “Hello, I’d like to introduce myself and ask you if you can send me some business.” And yet, it can be done. If you approach them the right way, and you approach enough of them, strangers will help you. But it’s much easier to get that help from people who already know, like, and trust you.

If you’re thinking about opening your own practice, build your network before you make the move. You don’t need a huge network–a few well-connected individuals is all you need to start. They can lead you to others.

First, identify by category the types of people you would like to know. Then, look for ways to find and meet people in those categories.

If you have already opened your own practice, it’s never too late to start building your network.

The best day to plant a tree is 100 years ago. The second best day is today.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Networking, Referral sources, Relationship marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How to make your marketing irresistible

May 29, 2012 by
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Darren Hardy, publisher of Success Magazine, writes about an interview he did with marketing legend Dan Kennedy for a recent issue. I’m a big fan of Dan, who is well known for using bold, some would say outrageous concepts to gain attention and win the sale. He’s one of the best marketing minds in a crowded field and if you have not read his books, I suggest you do so as soon as possible.

One of the subjects discussed during the interview was “shock and awe marketing.” This is where the marketer (that’s you) delivers to the prospective client an experience that is so compelling, they are almost powerless to say no.

Hardy was familiar with the concept. He said that as a young man selling real estate, he used this strategy to get more than his fair share of coveted expired listings to re-list with him.

He describes his “Shock and Awe Blitz Campaign,” as follows:

I made up in hustle and aggressiveness what I lacked in age and experience. I developed what I called my Shock and Awe Blitz Campaign. Once I set my sights on you, you were either going to love me or hate me, but you would not be able to ignore nor forget me.

Between 6 and 7 a.m. the morning your listing expired, I’d be standing on your doorstep asking to relist your home with me (immediately separating myself from everyone else and delivering a little shock). Sometimes this is all it took, but if not…

Later that day you would get a package hand-delivered by an assistant, that we affectionately called “Da-Bomb,” because it was big and stuffed full of combustible materials explaining why I was “Da-Bomb.”

Then in the early evening an assistant would show up and hand them a SOLD sign and say, “This is a gift from Darren Hardy; you will need this soon after you hire him to sell your house.”

Later that evening I would stop by in person and ask for the listing again.
(Key point: More than 50% of the time the listing was won or lost within the first 24 hours. This is why I blitzed all-out during that time.)

If the listing still hadn’t been secured I would then have something hand-delivered or mailed to them every day for at least two weeks along with a daily call from me personally.

It wasn’t long before they would call exasperated, exclaiming that if I would market their house like I market myself, I had the job. Shock and awe baby!

Now I know there are lawyers reading this and thinking, “I could never do anything like that.” But they’re thinking inside a box that’s labeled, “lawyers can’t approach prospective clients,” or another box labeled, “that’s undignified.”

They need a new box.

You may not be able to approach prospective clients this way, or any way, but couldn’t you go back to a former client with a compelling campaign to win their business?

I’ll answer for you: yes.

What about a shock and awe campaign targeted not at prospective clients but at prospective referral sources?

Sounds like a plan.

Could you do something like this with a publisher, meeting planner, or the media?

Yes, yes, and yes.

Hardy challenges his readers to create a shock and awe package and campaign and I second the motion. Put together a collection of compelling evidence as to why you are the best lawyer for the job, and a process for delivering it. This could be as simple as a timed series of letters or emails that successively build upon each other, making the case for why someone should choose you.

At the very least, you should have a “shock and awe” package you can deliver to prospects who ask about your services.

In a world filled with lawyers who (appear to) do the same things you do, you cannot rely on charm and good looks to get clients to choose you. Unless, of course, your charm and good looks are irresistible.

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Filed Under: Image, Marketing legal services Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Organization 101: File it, don’t pile it

May 25, 2012 by
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I’m looking at the table I use for a desk in my home office. There is an in basket, a vertical file holder, and one stack of files and papers. At first glance, it is the desk of an organized person. It’s tidy and there is only one (short) stack of files and papers.

At second glance, it is a mess. It’s a mess because the files and papers in that one stack belong in a file drawer, not piled on the desk.

But on third glance, it is the desk of a genius: someone smart enough to know that filing (or scanning) the papers in that stack can wait until other, more important tasks are done.

At least that’s the way I choose to look at it. And being organized is subjective, isn’t it?

But only to a point.

We’ve all seen (and maybe been guilty of having) desks that look like the aftermath of a tornado. I don’t care what the owner of that desk might say or think, they don’t know where everything is. The owner of a desk like that is not organized.

But look, if you can find the file or paper you need (rule of thumb: thirty seconds or less) and you feel in control of your work place, who am I to suggest you need to get more organized. If, on the other hand, you are often unable to find what you need and you’re not happy about it, it’s time to do something about it.

Un-piling your desk isn’t difficult. I think the hard part for some people is the notion that if they file something away, they won’t remember a task they need to do or they won’t remember where they filed something they need. Ironically, that’s exactly what their mess of a desk does.

The solution is to have a system that (a) allows you to remember what you need to do, and (b) lets you quickly find what you have filed when you need it. That’s what Getting Things Done is all about. That’s what a program like Evernote allows you to do.

Getting things out of your head and onto paper or its digital equivalent is the first plank in the Getting Things Done platform. The second is having a system that allows you to regularly review your lists of tasks so that you will be reminded of them and can choose what to do next. The third plank is having a reference system that allows you to put things away, out of sight, but easily retrievable.

For me, filing reference material was the hardest part of the system, at least in a paper based world. For one thing, much of the reference material I collect has more than one purpose and could be filed in more than one place. Indecision often led me to defer filing and I wound up with boxes filled with paper.

Today, I file most things digitally. The pile on my desk will be scanned into Evernote. With Evernote’s  keyword searching capability, and other tools like tagging and “note links,” I can quickly find what I’m looking for, as I detail in Evernote for Lawyers: A Guide to Getting Organized & Increasing Productivity.

If your desk is a mess, it’s time to un-pile and smile.

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Filed Under: Productivity Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Could you charge more for your legal services? Here’s how to find out

May 24, 2012 by
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Could you charge higher fees for your legal services than you charge right now?

What if you could get paid one-third more than you now get without losing any business. Wouldn’t that be cool? Or, maybe you might lose some business but increase your net income because of the higher fees you are paid from everyone else. Also cool.

Most attorneys set their fees by looking at what other attorneys in their market charge. They don’t want to charge a lot more or a lot less so they play it safe. But some attorneys do ask for more and they get it.

True, these higher paid attorneys may have more experience or a higher-profile reputation. They might offer more value to their clients. Perhaps they are better “sales people” or have more chutzpah. Maybe they took a chance when quoting fees and got lucky.

The point is that some attorneys get paid more than other attorneys for doing essentially the same work. What if you could, too?

There is a way to find out if you could charge more. No, not by asking your clients or prospects if they would be willing to pay more. They have a certain, um, bias, don’t you think? No, if you want to find out if people are willing to pay more you have to charge more, and see if they pay it.

But hold on. Don’t raise your fees across the board just yet. That’s too risky. You don’t know if this will be successful. What if you ask for too much and lose too many clients? Not good. Conversely, what if you don’t ask for enough? Your clients may pay ten percent more without flinching, but how do you know they wouldn’t have paid twenty percent more?

The answer is to test higher fees with small groups of clients and/or prospects and measure the results.

Pay-per-click advertising is a great way to do “split testing”. Basically, you quote one fee to the first inquiry and a higher fee to the second. You alternate quotes until you have a meaningful sample of responses and clients. With enough responses, you’ll be able to see which fee is producing (a) the most clients, and (b) the highest income.

Pay-per-click advertising has become extremely expensive and you might not want to use it as an ongoing marketing tool. But for short term testing purposes, wouldn’t it be worth it to find out conclusively that you could safely charge a lot more than you do now?

If your practice isn’t amenable to advertising, there are other ways to test fees with smaller groups of prospects. If you do seminars, for example, you could quote every other attendee a different fee. Or quote different fees at every other seminar.

The results of price testing are often surprising. You would think that charging higher fees would decrease the number of sales (clients) but that is not always the case. Sometimes you sell just as many at the higher price. And sometimes, believe it or not, you sell more at the higher price.

But you’ll never know unless you test.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Attorneys fees, Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing legal services Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Prioritize your to-do list by asking why

May 23, 2012 by
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When you tell a young child to do something–pick up their clothes, finish their veggies, do their chores–you invariably hear them ask “why?”

They don’t ask this because they want to drive us crazy, although I know you might disagree. “You don’t know my kid!” Mostly, they really do want to know why they should do what you’ve asked them to do.

In other words, why is it important?

They are learning about the world, trying to make sense of everything and how it all fits together. In that context,”Why do I have to finish my veggies–I don’t like them,” is not an unfair question. Why indeed should they finish them?

By the way, if my father is reading this, “Because I said so,” is not a good answer.

When you tell your children why something is important, why they should do it, even though they still may not like it, they will be more likely to do it. It’s not just something on a never-ending list of things children have to do, there’s actually a reason for it.

And yet as adults, we make lists of things we have to do without always understanding why. It shouldn’t surprise us then that our lists contain tasks that never seem to get done simply because we are not motivated to do them.

When you make a “to do” list, the parent in you is telling the child in you to do these things but not telling you why. Why not ask your inner parent why?

According to an article in Psychology Today, knowing “why” will help you accomplish more of the things on your task list, especially things you “have to” do but might not feel like doing.

The author recommends making a “why do” list rather than simply a “to do” list. Write down why a task is important, the benefits to be had for doing it. If those benefits are important to you, you’ll be more motivated to complete the task.

I love this idea. Not just because it helps us get things done we otherwise might not do but because it lets us compare the tasks on our list and see their relative value. This lets us prioritize our list so that we get the most valuable tasks done first.

In other words, knowing why helps us become more effective.

Right now, I’ve got hundreds of tasks on my master task list. I prioritize my list based more on gut feeling than anything else. Sure, there are tasks with deadlines and there are things I do every day because they are part of my long term business model. But most of the tasks on my list are discretionary and for those, I’m going to start writing down why.

Right now, I’m off to get another cup of coffee. Why? Because I said so.

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Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Is marketing legal services hard work?

May 22, 2012 by
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It’s just work. Marketing, that is. And it’s not hard, really. Compared to the rest of what you do, how hard is it to make a few calls or write a few emails?

It’s not hard to write an article or outline a talk. It’s not hard to invite someone for coffee. It’s not hard to hand write a thank you note to your new clients.

It’s not hard to do these things. It’s just work. But you have to do it.

I heard from an attorney yesterday who has a friend who always seems to have plenty of new clients, yet he doesn’t “do” any marketing. Trust me, he does. If he has a big enough base of clients, which he does after twenty years of practice, marketing for him means little more than saying please and thank you and staying in touch with his former clients. He did the “hard work” years ago when he had no clients. Now, marketing is so easy for him it appears like he isn’t doing any.

The hard part for many attorneys isn’t the work, it’s the ego. If you believe you “shouldn’t have to do this,” you’re going to resent doing it and it will be unpleasant for you. If instead, you believe that marketing is part of the job, not beneath you and really not that difficult, you might actually enjoy it.

You’ve got to get your ego out of the way and just do the work. Schedule time on your calendar every day for marketing and keep the appointment with yourself. Even 15 minutes a day will help you make progress, if you do it every day.

It’s just work.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Client relations, Marketing legal services, Personal development, Thank you letters Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Networking 101: Two simple ways to start a conversation

May 21, 2012 by
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So there you are at your bar association or chamber of commerce mixer. Lots of people you don’t know but would like to meet. “I should talk to them. . .”. but you don’t because you don’t know what to say. So you find a familiar face and talk to them instead. Sadly, another networking opportunity has passed you by. Oh well, maybe next time. . .

If this sounds familiar, I’m here to rescue you. I’ll share two very simple ways to initiate a conversation with someone you don’t know.

Before I do, I should point out that if you are at a function where the attendees are expected to mix and meet, like a bar association or chamber of commerce meeting, talking to people you don’t know is expected and not at all hard to do. Just introduce yourself: “My name is David, what’s your’s?”

Easy.

After that, ask them what they do. Let them do the talking. Ask more questions. Ask for their card.

Of course they’ll ask what you do and ask for your card. Presto-chango, new contact.

What about when you’re not at a mixer or other organized function where meeting new people is part of the agenda? How do you start a conversation when conversation isn’t expected?

This is also easy. You can either,

  1. Ask a question, or
  2. Pay a compliment.

“Do you know where the rest rooms are?” “Hey, I like your tie?” “Is that a Coach bag? It’s gorgeous.” “What time does the program start?” “Do you work near here?”

Either way, you will get a response and a conversation will have ensued. What to do next depends on the circumstances. When in doubt, another question usually keeps the conversation going.

What do you do to break the ice with people you don’t know? Please share your experiences in the comments.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Networking Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

How to use CLE to get new clients and new referral sources

May 18, 2012 by
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When it comes to continuing legal education (the mandatory kind), there are two types of attorneys:

  1. Those who take the classes only because they need the credits (98%), and
  2. Everyone else.

C’mon, be honest. If you weren’t required to do so, would you have signed up for most of the CLE classes you’ve taken over the years? How about if they were free?

Me neither.

But this is not a post about how ridiculous it is to compel professionals to do what the realities of a competitive marketplace already do. No, this is a post about how to make money with CLE.

Want to know how?

Okay, there’s a very simple way to leverage the time you spend taking CLE to grow your law practice. That’s the good news. The bad news is that you have to listen to the presenters and you have to take notes. No playing games while the audio is playing. And no multi-tasking, either. You actually have to pay attention.

Yeah, I know, I’m not doing a very good job of convincing you that this is a good thing, but it is.

So you take notes of the CLE programs you take and when you’re done, you write a one page summary of each class or each segment. Kinda like a brief. Actually, you can put it into any format you want: a summary, FAQ’s, case studies–whatever floats your boat. You can even record an audio if you want.

You with me?

The next thing you do is distribute your summaries to people who might like to see them. You can send them to people you know or you can contact people you don’t know and offer to send them. Or any combination thereof.

To whom do you send them (or offer to send them)?

  • Your competition. You lose nothing by giving this information to other lawyers in your practice area(s). They still have to take the class if they want the credit but your gesture of good will is certain to be appreciated and remembered. They next time you need a favor, some information or advice, you’ll have a ready made list of people willing to help you out. And the next time they have a conflict of interest on a case or otherwise have to refer out a matter, you might just be on their short list.
  • Other non-competitive attorneys. This is where you can really score some points. Take that tax class you just completed and slant your summary for attorneys who don’t practice tax law but need to know something about it. Summarize the changes in SSD for PI lawyers. You get the idea. By delivering value to attorneys in other practice areas, you position yourself as an expert in your area and someone worth knowing. If nothing else, your summaries give you a great excuse to contact potential referral sources and initiate a relationship.
  • Other professionals/referral sources. Financial planners, real estate, insurance, CPA’s–other professionals need to stay informed about the legal issues that affect what they do. Your summaries can spare them the time and trouble of wading through a mountain of information they don’t need and will undoubtedly earn their appreciation.
  • Prospects/clients. Obviously, you need to make the information suitable for lay people and you’ll probably want to avoid mentioning where you got it, but educating your clients and prospects about the legal issues they face and the available solutions (that you can provide, of course) is always a good strategy.

There are other ways to use your CLE notes. You can turn them into articles and blog posts, reports and ebooks, talking points for a speech or seminar, and hey, you can even use it in your actual, honest-to-goodness legal work. Imagine that.

As you can see, with a little creativity you can leverage the time you spend taking CLE classes (and writing summaries thereof) to create some simple tools you can use to grow your practice.

Now, for extra credit, here’s something else you can do: send your summaries to the author or presenter of the CLE class. They may not have any use for it but they will be pleased that someone actually paid attention and took notes. You now have a new contact, a well-regarded attorney who might just know some people you would like to meet and who might be willing to make those introductions.

And hey, they might even give you the hook up so you can submit your own CLE program. If you do, let me know how many credits I can get. I need 36 units and I’m way behind.

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Filed Under: Continuing Legal Education, Marketing legal services, Referral sources, Referrals Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

3 Essential Marketing and Communication Skills for Every Attorney

May 17, 2012 by
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When I opened my first office fresh out of law school I knew nothing about marketing and it showed. For several years, I struggled to bring in clients and pay my bills. Fast forward five years and I had built a very successful practice and was on my way to teaching other lawyers how to get more clients and increase their income.

What changed? I did. I had learned a lot about marketing and I acquired some new skills. Those skills allowed me to apply that knowledge in the real world, transforming the abstract into dollars and cents.

If you want to develop your practice, I consider these 3 skills to be essential:

I LEARNED HOW TO SELL

Many attorneys I speak to tell me, “I didn’t go to law school to become a sales person.” “Actually, you did,” I reply. “They just didn’t teach you very well.”

Okay, I get snarky sometimes. But the truth is, while attorneys may not be sales people in the literal sense of the word, attorneys do sell.

The best attorneys are very good at persuading people to do something they otherwise might not do (or do as much). Sometimes we use intimidation and thinly disguised threats to accomplish these outcomes. Sometimes we appeal to logic and reason. Sometimes, we appeal to emotion.

Some people see selling as manipulative but couldn’t the same be said for what attorneys do?

Actually, selling is not manipulative, at least not done correctly. If you’re among those who believe that selling is less than honorable, an article in INC. Magazine, How to Sell if you Hate Selling, might help you to see that selling is a natural extension of being an advisor and advocate, and a benevolent one at that. It is benevolent because it allows you to do a better job of helping people to get what they want and isn’t that what we are paid to do? Of course sales skills will also help you get what you want but isn’t that at least part of the reason you went to law school?

Learning how to sell was the most valuable of the 3 key skills I acquired in my transformation from struggling neophyte to successful professional. But 2 other skills were also essential.

I LEARNED HOW TO WRITE

It started with demand letters. I let go of the legalese and formality that I had been hiding behind and started writing letters that communicated and persuaded. I stopped writing in the “third person”. I began using active verbs and specific nouns. I used personal references and I told stories. I can’t say it always brought in higher settlements. Most of the time it probably made little difference. But it opened my eyes to what is possible with a good command of the written word.

I read many books about writing and I began journaling. I wrote as much as possible and continually improved my abilities. I also studied copy writing and with a lot of practice, got good at that, too. Eventually, I wrote all of the ads, sales letters, and collateral material that sold millions of dollars of my Referral Magic marketing course.

Yes, you can hire people to write brochures and sales copy for you. But just as learning how to sell makes you better at every aspect of marketing, so too does learning how to write.

I LEARNED HOW TO SPEAK

Seminars or luncheon presentations may not be a primary marketing tool for your practice, but becoming a good public speaker is an invaluable skill for every attorney.

Speaking is very different from writing. You may present the same information and you may achieve the same result, but speaking and writing are two completely different sets of skills.

I’ve spoken to small groups and to groups of thousands. I’ve been on many webinars and conference calls and done hundreds of live presentations. I’ve trained lawyers and business owners and influenced the buying decisions of thousands of prospects. In addition to bringing in a lot of business, my speaking skills have made me a better writer, a better sales person, and a better lawyer.

Selling, writing, and speaking are 3 marketing and communication skills that are essential for every attorney. I hope I’ve sold you on making them an important focus of your personal development.

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Filed Under: Communication, Copywriting, Marketing legal services, Personal development, Public Speaking, Salesmanship, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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