Archives for July 2012

Which of these companies do you think we hired?

July 31, 2012 by
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Our air conditioning is having some challenges. My wife called a few service companies. It’s been hot lately so they were all busy.

As she told me the story, I couldn’t help thinking about the parallel to calling lawyers. Clients, like air conditioning customers, often choose a lawyer based primarily on how they are treated on the phone.

So, which of these companies do you think we hired?

COMPANY #1:

  • Abrupt, unfriendly, not compassionate
  • Can’t come out for a week.
  • Laughed and said,”good luck” when my wife said she’d have to call around

COMPANY #2

  • Pleasant
  • Can’t come today
  • “We should be able to come tomorrow; call in the morning and we’ll give you a time”

COMPANY #3

  • Can come today; gave us a 3 hour window and will call 30 minutes before to make sure we’re home (in case we need to run an errand)
  • Friendly, patient, re-assuring, confident
  • Gave us a price range: “Most repairs run between $x and $y
  • Described the technician’s licenses and (extensive) experience
  • Gave her name; “call me personally if you have any questions”
  • Asked, “Where did you find us?”
  • Mostly “5-star” reviews on Yelp

So, which company do you think we hired? And which one do you think we’ll recommend?

Plaintiff rests.

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Filed Under: Client relations, Closing the sale, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Salesmanship

Using LinkedIn to get more traffic to your blog or web site

July 30, 2012 by
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Are we connected on LinkedIn? We should be. Send me a request to connect and mention this blog as our connection.

I like LinkedIn. It’s an excellent social media platform for professionals. No LOL cats, vacation photos, or game requests.

Our LinkedIn profiles lets others learn about what we do, and if that’s all it did, that would be great. But LinkedIn is a giant directory of professionals and business owners we can reach out to and network with, and with a little effort, it’s also a mechanism for actively generating more traffic to our sites.

Here is a very basic example to illustrate:

Let’s say you represent small businesses and you connect with commercial real estate attorneys, brokers, bankers, et. al. One of them posts a link to an article on new government programs for small businesses. You like the article and

  • Comment on their LinkedIn post, which exposes your brilliance to others and brings traffic to your profile, and then to your blog.
  • Comment on their blog, which can also bring traffic.
  • Reach out to the author and tell him you like the article, which may lead to future networking opportunities, guest posts, etc. You can do the same with the person who posted the article if they aren’t the author.
  • Share the article with your clients and prospects, which earns their appreciation.
  • Learn something you can use in your practice and in your marketing.

There are lots of ways to network and share content on LinkedIn. This excellent article on how to use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your blog shows you seven ways to do precisely that. Some of these I’m doing; others are now on my “Next Action” list.

There’s a link in the article to LinkedIn applications you can install to help automate some of these tasks. I use the WordPress app to sync this blog and recommend it. A few applications are designated for legal professionals and I’m going to check them out.

Are you using LinkedIn to get traffic and make new connections?

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Networking, Social media, Social media marketing, Web traffic Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Three questions lawyers should ask prospective clients

July 27, 2012 by
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When you have a prospective client in the office or on the phone, chances are you assume they will hire you. At least you should. Assuming the sale is a smart strategy in any sales situation.

But what you think and what you say aren’t necessarily the same thing. Sometimes, it’s too early in the process to talk to the prospect about taking the next step. They’re not ready.

This article presents three questions you should ask to qualify the prospect and better prepare them for taking the next step. They allow you to gain valuable information about where the prospect is mentally, and help them to commit to moving forward because that’s what they want to do.

These aren’t the only questions you can ask, and they might not be appropriate to every situation. But they show the client you aren’t pushing them and help you to find out if there are any potential problems (with the client or their attitude) before you move forward.

Here are the three questions:

1. Was there a compelling event that caused you to request information from us?

Do they have a problem you can solve? Do they have a lawyer they aren’t happy with?

The problem they’re having may be obvious (e.g., divorce, accident, foreclosure). A similar question, i.e., “What brought you to see me today?” will get them to focus on “what happened” and get them telling their story.

2. What is the most important thing you hope to accomplish by solving this problem?

This helps you understand what they want and what they expect. If what they expect is unreasonable, you need to address this before you present your solution.

This also helps you find out if they are serious about solving their problem. If they are, it gets them to focus on results rather than how much you charge.

3. It sounds like you could benefit from our solution. What would you like to see happen as a next step?

I like this question because it invites the prospect to be a part of the process. There’s an old saying in sales: “If you say it, they can doubt it; if they say it, it must be true.” If the prospect tells you what they want you to do for them, they are effectively giving you the go ahead.

These questions will help you gain valuable information and position yourself as someone who cares about what the client wants, not just what you have to offer. The bottom line is a more relaxed and open prospect who sells themselves on hiring you, instead of you having to sell yourself.

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Filed Under: Closing the sale, Communication, Salesmanship Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Do you ever completely unplug? Me neither.

July 26, 2012 by
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I confess, I’m one of those people who is never completely unplugged.

When I’m not in front of my computer, I have my iPhone with me and it is never off.

I check email every hour, often several times an hour. In fact, in the middle of writing this paragraph, I clicked over to my always open gmail tab to have a quick look.

I can be reached by email or phone or text or instant message at any time of day (or night, if I’m up).

You may think I’m weird. Or you may say, “Me too,” or “That’s nothing. . .”.

In the Woody Allen movie, “Play it Again, Sam,” Tony Roberts plays a character who is obsessed with work and always being connected. Each time we see him he calls into his office to give a phone number of how to contact him and for how long, and then the next contact number.

That’s not me.

I am not a social media junkie. I get on when I can (perhaps once or twice a day), and get off.

I don’t get nearly the number of calls I used to get.

And even though I can receive information at any time, that doesn’t mean I respond to it. Sometimes I do, often I don’t, at least until I’m ready.

I like being connected. If I didn’t, if I was feeling overwhelmed by incoming communications or the need to respond, I would change something.

How about you? Are you always connected? Is it a problem for you? How about for your family?

How about vacations? Do you completely unplug?

I admit I don’t. I’ll shut things off for several hours, but I’m never completely “offline”. When we were in Europe years ago, before I had a smart phone, I made sure there was an Internet cafe within walking distance so I could log on at least once a day.

Michael Hyatt is a very busy and very accomplished individual who recently returned from a 100% unplugged vacation. I don’t think he needed to do it. He seems to lead a very orderly life. He wanted to unplug, and he did.

He wrote about everything he did to prepare for that trip, and it was extensive. He says it was worth it. He came home truly rested, and more in touch with the important things in his life. And because of his preparations, everything at work was just fine without him.

Reading his posts on the subject made me think he is onto something. Taking a vacation without my phone or the Internet, completely unplugged, intrigues me.

If I can just get used to the idea that everything at work will be fine without me.

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Filed Under: Inspiration, Law office management, Personal development, Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Why attorneys need to brag (and how to do it without opening your mouth)

July 25, 2012 by
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One of the primary objectives for any attorney interested in attracting clients is to show the world why they are a better choice. One way to do that is by bragging about your achievements.

Unfortunately, nobody likes a braggart.

The obvious alternative is to let others brag about you. That’s what word of mouth is all about. Happy clients telling others. Your task, then, is to make sure your clients and contacts know about your achievements and have an easy way to share them with others.

You need a “brag book”.

What is a brag book?

A brag book is a place to collect laudatory information about you. It’s a physical notebook, or the digital equivalent, with pages of clips and stories and information about you and your accomplishments.

Those clips and stories show people what you have done for others and suggest that you can do the same for them. The book is filled with third party validation, proving that you are experienced and knowledgeable and trustworthy.

What’s in a brag book?

Your brag book can have a variety of content:

  • Testimonials
  • Endorsements
  • Awards
  • Thank you letters
  • Articles about you, your cases
  • Articles by you, especially if they appear in an important publication
  • Photos of you with happy clients
  • Photos of you with important people
  • Photos of you helping a charity or important cause
  • Photos of you speaking from stage
  • A photo tour of your office
  • Success stories about your clients/cases
  • Stories about big/important verdicts
  • Press releases
  • Your CV or bio
  • Client survey results
  • FAQ’s that show how and why you are different/better

How do I use my brag book?

Use the contents of your brag book whenever you create a new marketing document. Having this information and these documents and photos in one place will make it easier for you or your copywriter to put together new brochures, seminar slides, web pages, or other documents.

You can also put together an entire book that can be shown to clients and prospects, meeting planners, publishers, and others you want to impress.

Use your brag book, or mini-versions thereof:

  • On the table in your waiting room
  • Framed on the wall in your office
  • As a page your web site; link to it from your “About” page
  • As a handout at seminars, networking events
  • As your “firm brochure”
  • In your “new client kit”
  • Send it to prospects who inquire about your services

How do I start a brag book?

Start by collecting these documents and putting them in one location. If you have paper documents, scan them. You could set up a separate notebook in Evernote for this purpose, or simply add a tag (i.e., “bragbook”) to any note that contains brag-worthy information or documents.

As your collection of items grows, you’ll be prompted to seek out additional documents to add to your book. You might ask more clients to provide a testimonial, for example, or make a point of saving copies of photos you have been tagged in on Facebook.

Once you have started your book, it will remind you to fill it, and use it.

Do you have a brag book? Are you going to start one? How will you use it?

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Filed Under: Communication, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Presentations, Productivity, Referrals Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Using teleconferences and audio messages to market your law practice

July 24, 2012 by
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I just hosted a conference call for my business partners. It was a twenty minute call with a guest speaker. We could have invited our partners to dial into the call live but in this case, we simply recorded it. We will give the playback number to our partners, but I could also download the recording and either email it or post it on a web page.

Teleconferences allow you to create the excitement of a “live event” for your clients or prospects, and recording allows you to make that event available 24/7.

Here are some uses for teleconferences:

  • Live seminars for prospective clients
  • Informational programs for clients
  • Training employees; instructing new clients
  • Creating audio brochures or reports
  • To capture testimonials
  • Creating information products you can sell or offer as bonuses

You can do one-one-interviews, group presentations with multiple speakers, or simple broadcasts, with or without caller participation.

Speakers use a different code to dial in so they can be heard. Participants can be muted, or they can be allowed to ask questions.

There are many free and paid teleconference services available. The paid services usually offer additional line capacity and features, but for most purposes, the free services work just fine. For today’s call, I used FreeConferenceCall.com, which allows up to 96 callers.

FreeConferenceCall.com has another free service for recording audio messages directly for playback. It works like voice mail, but there is no limit to the length of your recording.

I’ve used this to record introductory messages, aka “sizzle calls,” to generate interest in a product or service I was promoting, for training messages, to record live conference calls for permanent playback, and for FAQ-type messages.

You can get a single audio playback number, or one with “extensions” so the caller can press “option one for information, etc. . .”.) The free version requires callers to dial an extension to listen. There is a paid version ($5/mo.) if you want a direct dial number without an extension or pin number.

The audio recording service can be set for “playback only,” so callers can access information, or you can allow callers to leave a message. This can be used as a lead capture tool for advertised promotions.

I’ve used teleconferences and audio recordings extensively in my businesses, both the paid and free versions, and they are an excellent, low-tech way to communicate with a large number of people. If you have not used these services in your marketing, I encourage you to do so.

A good place to start: set up a free account and record a message, “Three Reasons For Hiring [Your Firm Name] for Your [Legal Issue/Engagement]”.

How have you used teleconferences and audio messages in your practice?

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Filed Under: Communication, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Presentations, Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Why you need to get rid of all of your clients and start over

July 23, 2012 by
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You need to get rid of all of your clients. No, not literally. Emotionally.

What I mean is that you need to detach from the need for your clients to be something they aren’t.

You can’t make your clients appreciate you if they don’t. Let them go. Mentally release them and your need to change them.

You can’t change the complainers, the price shoppers, and the trouble makers into model clients. Let them go.

You can’t change your clients. All you can do is. . . change your clients.

Let go of the wrong ones to make room for the right ones. The clients who value what you do for them, and tell you so. The clients who follow your advice, pay your bill, and re-tweet your brilliance. The clients who come back to you again and again and refer others, again and again.

You know the kinds of clients I’m talking about. The ones you’d like to clone.

Let go of all of your clients to make room for the right clients, the best clients, the clients that make everything you do worth doing.

They are out there and they will find you. But only if you make room.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Client relations, Increase your income, Personal development Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How to sell your legal services in 15 seconds or less

July 20, 2012 by
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You’re at a networking function and someone asks you what you do. “If you can’t tell me what you do in 15 seconds, I’m not buying.” So says Carmine Gallo, a communications consultant to some of the world’s biggest companies.

Gallo suggests that whether you’re pitching a product, service, investment, or idea, you should use a “message map” to create a visual display of your idea on a single page.

There are three steps:

Step One. Create a Twitter-friendly headline
Step Two. Support the headline with three key benefits.
Step three. Reinforce the three benefits with stories, statistics, and examples.

You can see this process in more detail, including a short video demonstration, in this post on Forbes.com.

I tried this for The Attorney Marketing Center:

Step One: Headline

The Attorney Marketing Center helps attorneys earn more and work less.

This is the single most important thing I want people to know about my company and blog. In fact, I use “Earn more. Work Less.” as a tag line on the blog.

Step Two: Three benefits

We do this by showing attorneys how to

  • Get more clients,
  • Increase their income, and
  • Get more done in less time

These are three benefits attorneys get when they read the blog, buy my products, or hire me to help them.

Step Three: Supporting points

If I want to elaborate in a presentation or in sales copy, these are some bullet points I would use to prompt me:

  • Get more clients (Referrals, online marketing, niche marketing)
  • Increase income (Better clients, higher fees, repeat business)
  • Get more done (Get organized, effectiveness (doing the right things), efficiency (doing things right)

Now you try it. Create a message map that can be used to tell people what you do in 15 seconds or less. Feel free to post it in the comments.

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

Free PR for attorneys and their clients

July 19, 2012 by
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Tim Ferriss has a great guest post by PR expert Ryan Holiday, author of the new book, Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator.

At first glance, you may wonder if Holiday has anything to say that applies to attorneys. The slightly outrageous photos from his clothing company campaigns had me wondering the same thing, even though one of the stories features a (fully clothed) attorney.

The process of getting PR is the same in any field, however, and Holiday’s tips are solid.

First, he recommends starting small by becoming a resource for reporters who are researching stories. Help them do their job and get your foot in the door. (Great resource: HelpAReporter.com — a service that matches reporters researching stories with sources).

Next, Holiday says to “always appeal to self-interest”. Give the writer what they want (an exclusive on a good story) rather than what you want (exposure for your firm). Make their job easy by providing the background evidence to support the story.

The final tip is to “feed the monster,” meaning give the media what it wants. It wants what readers want: controversial, sexy, topical. These are what people want to read, and what they will share.

I’ll add my tip: the story you pitch doesn’t have to be about you. Use your clients, their businesses, or their causes. Surely there will be a legal angle and your client’s lawyer will need to be quoted. Just make sure you have something to say that people want to hear.

Holiday knows what makes a story go viral and he knows how to get the attention of reporters and bloggers. He got Tim Ferriss’ attention, and he got mine.

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Filed Under: Publicity, Social media Tagged With: , , ,

Marketing legal services: Do one thing and do it well

July 18, 2012 by
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Unix is a forty year old computer operating system that owes its longevity, in part, to its simplicity.

Simple and powerful. Or perhaps, simple IS powerful.

Unix programmers speak of the Unix philosophy approach to writing software. They say, “Write programs that do one thing and do it well.”

I immediately saw the parallel to success in the practice of law.

If you’re trying to do too many things in your practice, you’re certainly finding it harder to do everything well. Success is more likely when you keep things simple. One practice area. One niche market.

Do one thing and do it well.

The same is true of marketing legal services. If you’re trying to do too many things at the same time, or what you are doing is anything but simple, you’re much less likely to do it well enough, or long enough, to get good results.

I’ve seen great practices built with one or two marketing techniques. The key is to have a simple strategy (program) so that you can execute it well.

Simplicity is also key to success in the area of productivity. I get more done, and more important things done, when I keep things simple. I don’t use two apps when one will do. I look for ways to eliminate options because too much of a good thing usually isn’t a good thing.

Forget complicated. Keep it simple. Do one thing and do it well.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services, Personal development, Productivity Tagged With: , , , ,
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