Archives for March 2013

Attorneys want to know: How often should I email my list?

March 15, 2013 by
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After yesterday’s post about email, I heard from a lawyer who wanted my take on his email signature. Ah, but it wasn’t a signature, it was an attachment (pdf). I pointed out that

  • Some email servers treat emails with attachments as spam so his emails might not get through,
  • Some people refuse to open attachments because they’re afraid it might contain a virus, and
  • Many people simply won’t take the time to open an attachment.

So, while his attachment has some good information in it, a lot of people will never see it. I recommended a simple text or rich text signature, so people can see some basic info, and a link to a web page for those who want more.

Now, pdf’s are one thing. When I get an email with an MS Office document attached that I am charged with reviewing, unless there is a reason I need to see the original formatting, I often reply and ask the sender to cut and paste the text into the body of the email. It’s not so much fear of a virus as convenience. It’s easier for me to respond to a text email with my responses or corrections, especially if where there will be a series of back and forth corrections.

Okay, maybe that’s just me. But just in case it’s not just me, my advice is to not send attachments unless you have no other choice.

Onward.

How often should should you email your list?

Often.

If you’re providing valuable information (newsletter, blog posts, resources), information people want and have signed up for, don’t hold back. Write as often as you can.

I email every day, five days a week. I hope you find value in what I write. If you don’t, or you don’t have time to read every email, you can save my emails for later, delete them, or un-subscribe.

There, I said it.

Hey, it’s not a bad word. I get a lot of people un-subscribing from my list. And that’s good.

How can that be good? Well, if they don’t value what I’m sending them for free, they’re not going to hire me or buy something from me, so why clutter up my list or their email inbox?

That’s reality. Some love ya, some don’t. Some listen to your advice, some don’t. Some only want free stuff and will never buy anything, some will.

The same goes for your list. Think about it: Would you rather have a list of 10,000 people who don’t read your emails and won’t hire you or a list of 400 people who read every email, share your content, promote your web site, hire you, and send referrals?

Exactly.

And guess what? The more often you mail, the more of your services you’ll sell. That’s a fact, Jack.

So don’t worry when someone un-subscribes from you list. It’s a good thing. And don’t worry about writing too often. As long as you are sending valuable information that (the right) people want to consume, you almost can’t mail too often.

I’m on several email lists that don’t send valuable information. Every email is either an ad or an invitation to a webinar where products will be pitched. No tips, resources, or advice. And many of these email me daily. Sometimes twice a day. Why on earth do I stay on these lists? The value to me is that it lets me see what other marketers are doing. I skim and delete. But I stay subscribed.

Value is in the eye of the beholder.

Now I don’t recommend emailing nothing but ads for your legal services. It’s true, these marketers wouldn’t continue sending nothing but ads and webinar invites if it wasn’t working for them, but they’re not selling legal services. Make your email (and website content) 90-95% valuable content, only 5-10% promotion.

And every practice is different. I doubt many people want to get daily emails from their criminal defense attorney no matter how good the information is. But every client is also a consumer so if you are sending consumer tips and advice, daily might be just fine.

There is a risk in not emailing often enough. If you email quarterly, for example, you risk people forgetting who you are and sending your email to spam. Not only do they ignore your message, you get penalized.

You need to write often enough to keep your name in front of your list. Once a month is probably the minimum, and that’s cutting it close. Once a week is much better. If you don’t think you have enough for a weekly email, write shorter emails. One or two tips is all you need.

Stay in touch with your list. You can build a very large law practice with email.

Create value. Build a list. Mail often.

Marketing made simple: The Attorney Marketing Formula

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Filed Under: Communication, Email, Marketing legal services, Technology, Writing

Clients don’t hire anonymous lawyers

March 14, 2013 by
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I get a fair amount of email from lawyers. At least I think they are lawyers. Unfortunately, many of them don’t tell me who they are or what they do for a living. All I know about them is their email address.

No name. No phone number. No web site.

They would never send a letter via regular mail that was devoid of contact information. Why do they do that in an email?

If they are using the same email account to communicate with clients and prospects and professional contacts, they’re not helping themselves. Nobody wants to hire, refer to, or network with an anonymous lawyer.

Even if the recipient knows who you are, emails like this tell them that (a) you are clueless about the simplest of technology, suggesting that you might be lacking in other areas of your knowledge or abilities, or (b) you don’t care.

Either way, you’re not communicating the right message.

The solution is simple. Put your full name in the “From” section of your email. Every time you send an email, the recipient will see your name, making it more likely that they will open and read your message and remember who you are.

Put an email signature at the bottom of your emails. At a minimum, it should have your full name and a link to your web site. If you want, you can also add additional contact information, your practice areas and links to social media accounts.

You can do both of the above on any web based email or email client software.

Also, don’t use your personal email address for business. You wouldn’t invite clients to meet you at your kitchen table, would you? You wouldn’t send them a business letter on your Doctor Who stationery, would you? (Okay, that would be cool.)

Word to the wise: don’t send business emails from flopsie12@aol.com or headbanger42@hotmail.com. Cough up $10 and get your own domain name so you can send a business email from you@yourname.com.

One more thing: Go easy on the disclaimers and CYA language. All that boilerplate lawyer language may protect you (may), but it does nothing to reach out to your reader and connect with him. It does just the opposite.

It says, “I don’t trust you and you shouldn’t trust me. I’m just like all the other lawyers out there, hiding behind this wall of fine print.”

Do what you have to do, but no more than you have to do.

Do you want to earn more and work less? Get The Formula and find out how.

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Filed Under: Communication, Email, Image, Technology

When lawyers say, “I don’t have time for marketing,” they really mean, “I don’t want to”

March 13, 2013 by
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Admit it. When it comes to marketing, if you’ve ever said, “I don’t have time,” what you really meant was, “I don’t want to.” Not having time is simply the excuse.

How do I know? Because you do have time for marketing.

I’ll prove it.

How long does it take to call a former client and say, “Hello, I hope you’re doing okay”? Three minutes if they answer the phone? Sixty seconds if you leave a message?

Too long? Okay, how about sending an email? It might take five seconds to insert their email into a template and click the send button.

Five seconds. Could you do that once a day?

Of course you could. If you wanted to.

So the real issue is why you don’t want to.

Fear? (“I don’t want to sound like I’m fishing for work.”)

Ego? (“I shouldn’t have to do this.”)

Well, while you figure that out, I’m going to give you a suggestion that may help:

Do it anyway.

You don’t have to want to do it. Do it because you want the results.

You don’t exercise because you want the pain. You want a lean, strong, and healthy body. You want to look good in your clothes. You want to feel good about yourself. So you put up with the pain and inconvenience and hit the gym three or four days a week, whether you feel like it or not.

Marketing works the same way. You do it because you want the results.

Fall in love with the results. Get excited about the idea that a few minutes a day could result in thousands of dollars per month in additional income.

In the time it took you to read this post, you could have found your next client. And you wouldn’t even break a sweat.

Marketing is simple. Start here.

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Marketing legal services, Productivity, Time Management

Improve law firm marketing with daily and weekly routines

March 12, 2013 by
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My wife and I know a family who eats roast chicken for dinner every Monday night. Tuesdays, it’s meatloaf. On Wednesdays, you’ll find them chowing down on pasta.

Every day of the week has a specific dinner meal and they have been eating that way for years.

I always thought this would be boring. I like not knowing what’s for dinner. Variety is the spice of life.

And yet, I can see the logic behind it. Shopping is easier. You don’t have to learn any new recipes. Besides, don’t most people regularly eat the same five or ten basic meals for dinner? We just don’t eat them on the same day every week.

Anyway, while routine dinner planning may not be your cup of tea, when it comes to marketing legal services or managing your law office, a routine could be just what the doctor ordered.

“Did he just put three cliches in one post? He’s weird.”

Homage to one of my favorite comedians, Jim Gaffigan.

Hot Pockets.

Back to work.

What if you established a routine in your office where every Monday was “communication day”. That’s the day you send out emails to former clients, make calls to check in with your professional contacts, and write an article for your newsletter or blog.

Tuesdays might be networking day. You have lunch with a professional or a prospective client, and schedule lunch for the following Tuesday.

Wednesdays could be “clean up and organize day”. You clean out your email inbox, tidy up your desk, consolidate notes, and plan the rest of your week.

Thursdays, might be seminar day. You work on planning, writing, and promoting your latest seminar, teleconference, or video.

Fridays? Pizza day, of course. You bring in pizza for lunch, meet with your staff, and brainstorm marketing and management ideas.

You could set aside two hours every Thursday and make that “writing time”. Or 30 minutes every morning at 10 am as “calling time.” You call people you met at networking functions or you call former clients to say hello and update their contact information.

You get the idea.

With daily or weekly routines, you don’t have to think about what to do. You already know.

And because you know that next Wednesday is writing day, throughout the week, your subconscious mind will come up with ideas. On Wednesday, you’ll be ready.

Do you use routines in your practice? Please share in the comments.

Marketing is simple. Click here to find out what you’re missing.

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

Lawyers, do you need clients? That’s why you don’t get them.

March 11, 2013 by
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Nobody wants to hire an attorney who needs clients. They want an attorney who is extremely busy but willing to make room for one more deserving client.

Busy attorneys are successful. Validated by their busy-ness. They must be good. Look at all the other people who say so.

Attorneys who need clients are not successful. They may be competent, they may deliver great service, they may be everything a client could want in an attorney, but if they need clients, well, they can’t really be good, can they?

To attract good clients you need to be attractive. That’s not something you can fake. This is not about pretending to be busy or letting people think you are important because you had lunch with someone important. Being attractive is not on the outside.

Being attractive means knowing your value. It means loving yourself and your gifts and wanting to share those gifts through your work. It means walking with confidence and an inner peace, trusting completely in the inevitability of your success.

Being attractive means knowing that no matter what your financial situation is right now, you don’t need clients, they need you. You don’t look for clients, you let them find you.

Wanting clients is fine. Needing clients is why you don’t get them.

Marketing means showing people the value you offer. Here’s how.

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Filed Under: Image, Marketing legal services, Personal development, success Tagged With: ,

You want to be more productive? Ask yourself this question every day.

March 8, 2013 by
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I get it. You’re incredibly busy. You have way too much to do and not enough time to do it. You’re getting things done but wonder if you’re doing enough.

Take a breath. Stop worrying about how much you’re not getting done.

The truth is you’ll never get it all done and it doesn’t matter. Being productive isn’t about how much you do, it’s about doing what’s important.

Take a look at your to-do list for today. All the calls and emails, the errands, the work that is on deadline. Lots of things you have to do and you will get most of them done.

Because you have to.

You’ll file that motion because it’s due. You’ll make that call because the other guy is waiting. You’ll write that letter because you want to settle the case.

But what about the important things you don’t have to do? Things that will advance your career or improve your life but don’t have a deadline or someone else waiting or watching?

This is the sweet spot in your growth. This is where you advance towards your long term goals. This is where you find your purpose instead of just taking care of your obligations.

Every day, when you write down your to-do list, I suggest you ask yourself this question:

“What is the most important thing I can do today that I don’t have to do?”

Your answer may be “to start exercising” because you want to get in shape. It’s important but you don’t have to do it. Now, at least you are aware of what’s important.

If you ask yourself that question again tomorrow and you get the same answer, you might pick up that exercise book you bought three years ago and put it on your desk. The next day you might actually read the first chapter.

It might be six months before you do your first push up or register for that hot yoga class, and that’s okay. You may never have done it if you had not asked yourself, “What is the most important thing I can do today that I don’t have to do?”

If marketing is important to you, download this today. You can read it tomorrow.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Personal development, Productivity Tagged With: , , , ,

Build your law practice more quickly by compressing time and leveraging effort

March 7, 2013 by
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You’ve heard me say it many times before:

Do something marketing-related every day. Make a few calls. Send a few emails. Write a blog post. Jot down some ideas. You can make significant progress with just 15 minutes a day of effort because of the compound effect of doing something every day.

To build your practice more quickly, you should compress time and leverage your effort. You compress time by

  1. Doing things faster,
  2. Doing things more often, and
  3. Doing things in bigger chunks.

You do things faster by getting better at them. That comes from experience and from learning (new techniques, shortcuts, different methods).

Doing things more often means doing something three times a day instead of once. Or every day instead of every other day.

Doing things in bigger chunks means instead of doing something for 15 minutes, you do it for two hours or an entire day. You will get further ahead by compressing several weeks of activities into a single day because the bigger chunk of time allows you to create momentum.

You will also grow more quickly by leveraging your effort. That means getting more results out of the same activities.

An example of leverage would be networking with potential referral sources instead of prospective clients. By attending the Kiwanis Club dinner, you may make friends with someone who needs your services, and that’s good. A more leveraged result would be making friends with the president of the Kiwanis Club, who knows everyone in that chapter and five others.

Another example would be doing things that have a “long tail,” i.e., writing an article that will reside on your web site indefinitely, continually pulling in leads and new business. If you’re going to spend an hour writing something, write something that will produce a residual “income”.

A third example of leverage is re-purposing your content. You do a presentation. Now, take that presentation and turn it into five blog posts, three videos, and an ebook. Don’t settle for a one time presentation to 50 people when you can re-purpose your content and get it in front of 5,000.

A fourth example of leverage is re-distributing your content. You take your report and send it to everyone on your list. You put it in your new client kit. You put it on a download page and link to it on your web site. You give print copies to your referral sources and ask them to put them in their waiting rooms. You email a pdf to your clients and ask them to forward your email to their friends and family.

You’ve heard the expression, “working smarter”? Now you know what it means.

For more ways to compress time and leverage effort, get this.

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Marketing legal services, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , ,

Public speaking tips for lawyers

March 6, 2013 by
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Public speaking is a great way for lawyers to build their reputation and meet new contacts. But great material isn’t enough to make a great presentation. You have to deliver that material with a great performance.

The first rule of public speaking is displaying good energy. You may be passionate about your subject matter but unless you transfer that emotion to the audience, through your words, tone of voice, and body language, your message won’t get through.

I’ve had to work on this myself. I recall a time about ten years ago I gave a presentation and when I got off stage I asked my co-presenter what he thought about my talk. He said, “Do you drink coffee?” When I said I did, he told me I should drink more.

If you do any live presentations (or want to), here are a few tips for doing a better presentation:

  • Don’t attempt to teach your audience everything. A few key points is all you need and all anyone can handle.
  • Never tell “the history of” anything. Get to the point: what do I need to know right now?
  • If you use slides, don’t cram them with text. A few lines with a few words each.
  • Speak into the microphone and project your voice to the back of the room. Nobody will hear you or understand you if you sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher.
  • Modulate your voice. Use a mixture of highs and lows, fast and slow pace.
  • Talk to the audience, not at them. Ask questions, tell stories, say something unusual or funny.
  • Make eye contact with as many people as you can. Use their names if you know them or you can read their name tags.
  • Don’t just stand there, move. Walk around, gesture, throw something (just kidding).
  • Keep it short. Twenty minutes is about all anyone can handle before their mind wanders.
  • Tell them what to do next. Give them a web site and tell them what to do when they get there. Offer something in return for their business card. Or give them a homework assignment.
  • Thank your hosts, thank the audience, and thank God nobody fell asleep.

I’m certainly not the best speaker in the world. But I’m better today than I was last year and I’ll be better next year than I am this year. Speaking is a skill and it can be learned. Practice, get feedback, and practice some more.

Being an attorney will get you asked to speak. Being a good speaker will get you asked back.

Want more ways to build your reputation? Here’s The Formula.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Personal development, Presentations, Public Speaking Tagged With: ,

What to do when you forget someone’s name

March 5, 2013 by
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I once had a friend who had an almost uncanny ability to remember people’s names. It allowed him to build a large network of contacts and a very successful business.

We did a lot of networking together so I got to watch him in action. Like the rest of us, he would often forget the name of someone he had just been introduced to, but soon thereafter, he was introducing his new contact, by name, to others in the room. How did he do it? He did it by getting his ego out of the way and simply asking his new contact to “tell me your name again,” sometimes two or three times before he had it.

Most of us are too embarrassed to admit we forgot a person’s name so we skirt around it. Not my friend. He felt it was vital to know and use people’s names and he was willing to do whatever it took to accomplish that.

Time and time again I’d watch him ask people to repeat their name. Even with people he supposedly knew for a long time. Sometimes he’d tell them he had a poor memory and if they say their name again it will help him remember. He was genuine and easy going about it. I think most of them appreciated that he cared enough to ask.

My ego is too fragile, I’m afraid. I’d rather rely on tricks. I’ll give you my favorite: only network where everyone wears a name tag.

How about you? What do you do to remember names? What do you do when you forget?

Marketing is everything we do to get and keep good clients. Start with this.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Networking, Personal development, Relationship marketing Tagged With: ,

Google Adwords for attorneys? Read this first.

March 4, 2013 by
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An attorney who reads this blog asked me what I thought about attorneys using Google Adwords to get clients for a law practice.

I’ve done a lot of advertising over the years, including Adwords, both as an attorney and in my attorney marketing business, and overall, I’ve had positive results. But I don’t recommend Google Adwords for most lawyers, at least not until they have many other ducks in a row.

Here’s what I mean.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, advertising of any kind can be a huge financial sinkhole. There are lots of things you have to get right and if you don’t, you’ll get poor results or spend way too much money for the results you do get. True, with Adwords you can get started with a small investment (e.g., $50 or $100) and you aren’t locked into a long term contract. But it’s far too easy to get caught up in the game of trying to make make your ads work, and that can be a very expensive game to play, especially for attorneys who might pay up to $50 per click.

If you don’t have the budget and the stomach to play that game, you should probably stay on the sidelines, at least for now.

In other words, don’t start with Adwords (or any advertising), to get traffic to your law firm’s web site. Start by building organic traffic by posting high quality content. Use referral marketing, social media, speaking, writing, networking, and other means to build your practice, before you even think about advertising. Once you have a sold base of clients and lots of disposable income to invest in further expansion, then you can consider advertising to provide an incremental increase in that income.

You might use Adwords short term, to test headlines and offers, however. Invest a couple hundred dollars to test several different report titles, for example, and see which one gets the highest response. When you know which one pulled best, you’ll know which one to use for your report.

Advertising is only part of the challenge. You may have great ads that pull lots of traffic, but is it targeted traffic, appropriate for your practice? Are they looking for a lawyer or just free information? At $50 a click, you need to make sure.

In addition, you must have effective landing pages. You may be getting lots of the right traffic but if they don’t opt-in or call you when they get to your site, it is all for naught.

You also need to be able to handle those leads and convert them into appointments. Someone needs to be available when they call and that could be long after business hours. And whoever takes the calls must be good at closing the appointment. The goal isn’t traffic and clicks, it’s appointments and clients.

If you do want to try Google Adwords (or Facebook ads or any other kind of Pay-Per-Click or Pay-Per-Action advertising), here’s what I recommend:

  • Make sure Adwords is right for a practice like yours. Do your ideal clients use search engines to find lawyers? Do they click on paid ads? Do you have high enough margins to justify the per client acquisition cost of advertising and associated overhead?
  • Learn all you can about Adwords. Start with the Google Adwords help center. Read books and blogs and take courses.
  • Start small. Open an account with no more a few hundred dollars and be prepared to lose it all. Take a break and evaluate your results.
  • Start with bids on low volume key words: “brain trauma law south bay” should cost a fraction of what you’ll pay for “Los Angeles personal injury attorney”.
  • Be prepared to roll out your winners and pull the plug on your losers. You must spend enough on your ads, however, to get enough clicks so you can quantify the difference.
  • Be prepared for constant monitoring, testing, and tweaking. You will need to know which headline, displayed in response to which key words, and sent to which landing page, is producing traffic that opts-in or calls. Then, you have to compare those results to other combinations, so you can maximize results and minimize costs.
  • Don’t expect that what works today will work tomorrow. Or vice versa. Advertising is never “set it and forget it”. You can never stop testing and making changes.
  • Get help. Hire consultants to design and track your campaign, and write your ads and landing pages. Let them do what they do best so you can do what you do best.

I’ve spent millions of dollars in advertising over the years and I love what it can do. If you get the pieces right, there is no faster way to bring traffic to a web site (aside from having something go viral, and that’s something you can’t control.) And yet. . . I’m not doing any advertising right now. I don’t want to work that hard.

What are your experiences with Google Adwords? Please share in the comments.

If you want to get more clients without advertising, you need The Attorney Marketing Formula.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Technology, Web traffic Tagged With: , , , ,
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