Archives for February 2014

Do you love your clients?

February 14, 2014 by
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Do you love your clients? You do? Wow, that’s a bit creepy. Don’t they have rules against that in your state?

Like your clients, sure. Care about, appreciate them, respect them, yes, yes, and yes. But not so quick with the love glue-gunnin.

Let’s reserve the Valentine’s for loved ones, okay? And your dog, if you must. But not the clients.

But, here’s the thing. When was the last time you told a client you cared about them?

You don’t have to get all weepy or anything. You’ll just embarrass them, and yourself. In fact, you really don’t have to say anything at all. You can let them know in little ways. Like calling them, off the clock, just to say hello. Like remembering the names of their kids. Like sending them a hand written thank you note when they send you a referral.

I’ve hired attorneys. Doctors, dentists, too. Most of them get it wrong. Oh, they go through the motions of being friendly and treating me like a person, instead of an account. But you can tell, they’ve got other things on their mind.

Look me in the eyes, please. Take an extra few seconds to listen. Laugh at my dumb jokes, and maybe tell me one of your own.

Yes, I know you’ve got other clients in the waiting room, but I’m here in the office, right now. Me. Make me feel like I’m your only client, just for a few seconds.

I came to you because I heard you’re good at your job. That’s important to me. If you do good work, I’ll probably come back.

But what if you went a wee bit further and made me feel special? Like you truly enjoyed meeting me. And you appreciate having me as a client and you know that without me and others like me, your kids wouldn’t go to a nice school.

Then, I might do more than come back. I might become a big fan and go out of my way to tell others about how great you are, not just as a clinician, but as a person. Someone special. Someone I care about. Someone the world needs to know about.

I won’t send you flowers or candy, but I might help you fill your waiting room with clients.

Your bill is one of your most valuable marketing tools. Click here to learn why.

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Filed Under: Client loyalty, Client relations, Law office management

Social media marketing for lawyers: the truth shall set you free

February 13, 2014 by
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Uh oh, Facebook changed security settings again. Twitter has a new design. LinkedIn has a group you haven’t joined.

Does all the fuss and bother about social media drive you nuts? Me too.

You’ve got to update your page (again), you’ve got to hire a team, you’ve got to buy this tool and that course and have a master plan.

No, you don’t. You don’t have to do anything on social media if you don’t want to. So relax. Don’t buy all the hype. Or any software, courses, or services.

Let’s think this through.

There are three things you can do with social media: Network with prospective (existing, former) clients, Network with prospective (existing, former) referral sources, and advertising.

ADVERTISING

Let’s start with the easiest one: advertising. Either you do it or you don’t. If you don’t do it, move on. Nothing to see here. If you do advertise, or want to, hire a firm to design ads, make media buys, and manage your campaigns. Educate yourself, as time permits, so you know how to work with the pros. Nuff said.

NETWORKING WITH CLIENTS

If you have a consumer oriented practice, the odds are you’re not inclined to network with prospective clients. And let’s face it, most clients don’t want to network with you. Attorneys are, in their minds, a necessary evil, not bff’s. When and if they need us, they will either go to a search engine or ask their contacts for recommendations or referrals.

If you have a business oriented practice, networking with prospective clients is more likely to bear fruit. In this case, you would add prospective clients in your target market, promote their business interests, and share your content with them. This may or may not be worth the effort on your part. Your call.

If it’s all too much for you, if you’re worried about the implications of networking with your best client’s competition, or you simply don’t want to spend your valuable time online, don’t. The marketing gods absolve you. There are lots of other ways to bring in business.

NETWORKING WITH REFERRAL SOURCES

If you’re going to do anything with social media, this is your best bet. You can use social media to find professionals and other centers of influence (e.g., bloggers, etc.), and approach them, the same way you would offline.

But you don’t need much on your end to do this. A simple profile, so they can check you out. Go find their profile and start a conversation.

No matter what you decide to do with social media, make sure you have accounts with the major platforms so you can push out links to your content and so visitors to your website can share that content with their connections. But that’s a one time thing. Set it and forget it.

Social media marketing for lawyers can either be a big pain in the briefcase or something you never think about. If it’s the latter, if it’s not part of your marketing in a major way, just think about all the time you’ll save skipping over the countless daily articles and blog posts reminding you about the latest and greatest “must do’s” you’re not doing.

Internet marketing for attorneys that won’t drive you nuts: click here.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Social media, Social media marketing

Marketing is boring. Let’s take the day off.

February 12, 2014 by
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There are days when I don’t feel like reading or writing about marketing, let alone doing it. I get bored. I’m sure you do, too. So, I’m not going to think about marketing today, and you shouldn’t either.

Let’s play hooky.

So today, when you speak to a client, do not, under any circumstances, ask them anything personal. Don’t ask about their health or their son’s soccer game or anything like that. That would be marketing and you’re not doing that today.

If the phone rings and another lawyer wants to know if you handle a certain type of matter, answer his question, but make sure you don’t ask him anything about his practice or what kinds of clients he’s looking for. C’mon now, that would be marketing and today, that’s a no no.

If you’re sending out bills today, just send them “as is”. Don’t thank the client for their last payment or for keeping their account current. Marketing, remember?

And, if you have any new clients today, do not, under any circumstances, make an effort to see them on time, offer them coffee or water, or tell your secretary or assistant not to interrupt you during the meeting. Not on your day off, yo.

Now, don’t you feel better, knowing you don’t have to do any marketing today and you can concentrate on nothing but legal work?

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

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Filed Under: Client relations, Marketing legal services

How to get maximum bang for your marketing buck

February 11, 2014 by
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I talk a lot about the value of doing a few minutes of marketing activity every day rather than several hours once in awhile. I do that because if you’re like me (and I know you are), if you don’t do something every day you probably won’t do it at all.

(I find it easier to write a daily blog post than the monthly print newsletter I used to write because my daily scribblings are now part of my regular routine.)

But if you want to get maximum returns for your marketing efforts, think in terms of marketing campaigns.

Here’s what I mean.

Instead of writing a blog post this week, doing a speaking engagement next week, and a video the week after that, do it all in the same week. Don’t run one ad per month over the next year, run 12 spots this week. Instead of setting up a table at a networking event (if that’s something you are inclined to do), do the table, run an ad in the newsletter, get yourself booked to speak, and invite three centers of influence who belong to that group to lunch–in the same week.

Pile up the activity in a short period of time. And use one thing (e.g., your ad) to promote another (e.g., your talk).

In this way, prospective clients and referral sources will see and hear you “everywhere”. You will appear to be more prominent and in demand. More people will notice you, remember you, and want to associate with you.

If I told you that this week I’ll be the guest on three different podcasts and have two articles and a new book coming out, even if you don’t hear the podcasts or see the articles or book, I will have made an impression on you. You’re thinking, “he’s busy, he’s in demand, I should probably listen to him.” I would not have made that impression if that activity were spaced out over the next year.

But here’s the thing. With a whirlwind week like that, I might not do much else for several months and you won’t notice. The impression that I’m busy will remain.

Do something every day that could be called marketing. Release it to the world in waves.

Have you done a 30 Day Referral Blitz? 

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

Rainmaking 101: The two things you need to be successful

February 10, 2014 by
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Last week, I got an email from an attorney who gets it. I wanted to share it with you to illustrate the two things you need to be successful in marketing. See if you can read between the lines and deduce the “two things”:

Dear David:

I have written you before thanking for the daily dose of encouragement, tips, etc. Thank you again!

I think I have purchased every one of your materials and have implemented your strategies. I am in my 7th month as a “solo.” Through networking, utilizing your suggestions, I was able to land a huge client last week. Prior to that, I brought in several smaller clients that amounted to the same net income as that one client. Also, my website is generating traffic and things are looking up on that end, as well. Your tips/hints/etc. work.

With your help, I am transforming myself into a rainmaker. I have been approached by a seasoned practitioner to move forward with him in his practice. Together we would be able to hunt down bigger animals. We are currently revamping his website and billing system. Hopefully in the next 6-8 months we will be in an even better financial position.

I can’t say it has been all rainbows and sunshine – you know that as well as any other who has gone through the gauntlet.

Please excuse my short rant. I just got excited about rainmaking and wanted to share with you.

Yours,
Vasko Alexander

So, what do you think? It should be pretty obvious that the first of the two things is “action”. Mr. Alexander didn’t just think about it or talk about it, he did it.

For starters, he actually read my stuff. I have people on my list who get my emails but never (or rarely) read them. Or, they buy my courses but never “crack” them open. I’m sorry, you can’t bring in business through osmosis. You can’t “grok” the information, you actually have to read and internalize it.

Then, he actually tried things. Lots of them. Some worked, some didn’t. Some worked well, some not as much. But he is taking action and getting results. One day at a time.

What made him take action where many others don’t? And, what made him keep going when he hit a bump in the road?

Attitude. He has a positive attitude about the process. He believes in what he’s doing and knows that if he takes action and keeps an open mind, he will eventually get where he wants to go.

Some people have a positive mental attitude. Some have a positively mental attitude.

Attitude is the second of the two things and it precedes action. If you have a positive attitude, you’ll take action and figure out a way to make it work. If you don’t, you won’t.

NEGATIVE ATTITUDE

  • It won’t work
  • It won’t work for me
  • It will take too up too much time
  • It’s too hard
  • It’s taking too long
  • I shouldn’t have to do that
  • I don’t want to do any marketing
  • I already knew that (but you aren’t doing it)

POSITIVE ATTITUDE

  • I’ll start and learn as I go along
  • I’ll do my best
  • It’s worth it
  • I’ll try lots of ideas and see what works best for me
  • I’ll find something I like and I’m good at
  • If it’s worked for others, it can work for me
  • I know I have to put in time and effort to get results, and I will
  • I’m not expecting big things to happen overnight
  • I’ll make the time

Napoleon Hill said, “Remember, the thoughts you think and the statements you make regarding yourself determine your mental attitude. If you have a worthwhile objective, find the one reason why you can achieve it rather than hundreds of reasons why you can’t.”

Some say, “What if it doesn’t work?” Mr. Alexander said, “What if does?”

Rainmaking is easier when you know The Formula

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Filed Under: Inspiration, Marketing legal services, Personal development Tagged With: , , ,

Miscellany Friday (no, it doesn’t rhyme)

February 7, 2014 by
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Today, I thought I’d share a few miscellaneous items with you and let you choose what interests you. If you like “round-up” posts like this one, let me know.

1. Find Out How Much You Are Overbilling Your Clients

A discussion about how lawyers who delay recording of their billable hours, usually until the last two days of the month, routinely overbill clients by an average of 23%.

Don’t forget to check out my ebook on the subject: Get the Check: Stress-Free Legal Billing and Collection

2. Longer is Better for Blog Content: Truth or Myth?

Do longer blog posts draw more search engine traffic? Apparently so. But do most people read 2000 word posts, and do you have time to write them?

I’ve written before about this subject and have concluded that you need a mix of longer, authoritative posts, to draw traffic, and shorter posts to engage browsing visitors.

3. Legal ethics: Are blogs governed by advertising rules?

Is writing a blog advertising? I don’t think so, and neither does Kevin O’Keefe, the author of this post. And yet various jurisdictions seek to regulate blogs as advertising. Frankly, I don’t think we need specific rules for lawyer advertising at all. General rules (don’t misrepresent, full disclosure, et. al.) do quite nicely.

4. OneTab extension for Chrome saves up to 95% of memory

I always thought I was pretty good about staying focused on whatever I was doing. Throughout my day, I’ll keep a couple of browser windows open, each with six or seven tabs. No problem for a stud like me, right? Boy was I wrong.

I just installed OneTab, an extension for Chrome. It’s a simple thing that collapses all of your open tabs (or whichever ones you designate) into a single tab with links you can click to re-open those tabs. I’ve found that not only does this reduce the drain on memory, up to 95% we are told, so everything works faster, videos don’t stall, and so on, it’s also making me way more productive.

For example, instead of checking email every 15 minutes, I check it when I’m done with whatever I’m working on. Stupidly simple, but it works.

I’m sure there are equivalent extensions for different browsers and platforms.

So, there you go.

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Filed Under: Attorneys fees, Blogging, Fees and Billing, Legal industry, Productivity, Technology

How to get more search engine traffic

February 6, 2014 by
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Would you like to get more search engine traffic from prospective clients who are looking for a lawyer who does what you do? I thought you might. Okay, let’s write a blog post together and make that happen.

The title of your post is, “What to ask a _______ lawyer”. (Fill in the blank with words that describe one of your practice areas.)

Why this title? Because every day, prospective clients type the following words into a search engine: “What to ask a ________ lawyer?”

Are you with me? You’re going to write a post that uses the exact keywords that your prospective clients are searching for. Put those keywords in your title and again in the body of your post.

Later, you can write variations on this original post with similar keywords they may use in their query, i.e., “What questions to ask. . .,” “What do I need to know about. . .,” “What information should I find out about. . .”, and so on.

Now, write five to ten questions prospective clients should ask a lawyer in your field. Start by jotting down the questions prospective clients typically ask you. Add some questions they don’t ask, but should.

Here are some ideas to help you get started:

Background/experience: Years in practice, practice areas, certification/specialty, awards, jury verdicts, etc.

Doing business: Fees/payment plans, free consultation, satisfaction guarantee, etc.

Procedural: How long, what happens first, what happens after that, what if X happens?

Law/advice: Why do I need to do X? or  When would you recommend x instead of y?

Why you: Why should I hire you instead of any other lawyer in your field? or What do you do/offer that other attorneys don’t do/offer?

Personal/philosophy: What do you like best about your practice?or Why do you do what you do?

Once you have the questions, answer them. Obviously, you should have a good answer to these questions yourself.

Many, if not all of these questions, should already be answered on your website, on a FAQ page, your “About” page, and in articles or posts. Then, in this new post, link to those other pages or posts so the reader can get more information.

And, that’s all there is to it.

Now, when someone searches for “What to ask a _______ lawyer?” in your market, there’s a good chance your post will come up at or near the top of the search results. When the reader clicks through and reads your post, they’re going to find exactly what they have been searching for and see that you have some really good answers to those questions.

Targeted traffic made simple.

Want more ways to get more search engine traffic? Click here.

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

Being good isn’t good enough. Or is it?

February 5, 2014 by
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Being good isn’t good enough is a stunningly beautiful song about determination and greatness, a personal anthem for anyone who has ever wanted to be the best at something, like the athletes in the forthcoming Olympic games.

For most of us, however, the lyric, “I’ll be the best or nothing at all,” is inspiring, but hardly practical. Who is the best singer, football player, or lawyer?

Besides, we don’t have to be “the best” at what we do to be happy or successful. In fact, we don’t even have to be good.

We can hire people (or take on partners) who are good at things we don’t do well or don’t enjoy. You don’t like research? You’re not good at networking? It doesn’t matter. You’re good at something and that’s what you should focus on.

Speaking of focus, I was reading a review of Daniel Goleman’s book, Focus, about what it takes to achieve excellence. It’s not as simple as “10,000 hours of practice” or intelligence. There are a lot of factors, one of the most important of which is determination or grit.

Think about the successful people you know, especially the ones who aren’t particularly gifted, disciplined, or hard working. How did they make it big when so many others in their field did not? Often, the answer is simply that they wanted it more, and believed they could have it. Their desire, and refusal to settle for anything less, made the difference.

You don’t have to be the best at what you do. You just need to know what you want and keep going until you get it.

Need more referrals? Here’s a great way to get them.

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Filed Under: Inspiration, Personal development, success Tagged With: , , ,

Quick and painless blogging for lawyers

February 4, 2014 by
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One of the reasons lawyers often cite for not writing a blog is that it takes too much time. But it doesn’t have to.

This morning, I was reading, 12 Most Tedious Blogging Tasks You Can Outsource, and thought, “great topic for lawyers.” But as I went through the list of tasks, I thought, “I don’t do that”. In fact, I don’t do many of the things on the list, and the ones I do take me very little time.

Here’s the list of tasks, and what I do:

  1. Editing. I do my own. If I’m unsure about something, I run it by my wife.
  2. Finding photos. I used to add photos but I rarely do now, primarily because it takes too much time to find the right one and make sure I have the right to use it.
  3. Resizing and retitling photos. See above.
  4. Formatting. This takes seconds. I paste my text into the WordPress composition window, add bold or bullets or numbering, and done.
  5. Writing social media updates to promote the post. I paste the url of the post into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. If my title is well written, that’s usually enough. I could do more here, I admit, but social media isn’t a major focus for me, so I don’t.
  6. Posting multiple updates once the post is live. I don’t do this either, but if I did, I’d automate it, as the author suggests.
  7. Social media mentions for anyone referenced in the post. If I want to reach out to someone I’ve written about, I’ll send them an email, and this doesn’t happen too often.
  8. Monitoring blog comments. I don’t get a lot of comments (lawyers are busy, yo), so not a problem. If I did, and it took too much time, I would consider outsourcing this. Or, just turn off comments.
  9. Monitoring social media activity. Again, I don’t do much with social media, so I don’t have much to monitor.
  10. Handling guest contributions. To date, I have one guest post on my blog. If I was doing this regularly, I would turn this over to an assistant.
  11. Managing audio and video files and slideshows. Nope.
  12. Writing. I like to write and make time for it. If I was still practicing, I would probably post once or twice a week, instead of daily as I do now. If I still didn’t have enough time, I’d have an assistant help with ideas, research, rough drafts, editing, polishing, and so on.

Blogging for lawyers doesn’t have to be tedious, time consuming, or painful. For one thing, as I wrote in a previous post, having a blog doesn’t make you a blogger.

I see writing a blog as, (a) a strategy for generating traffic, mostly from search engines, and build my list, and (b) a way to show website visitors what I know and what I can do to help them. This doesn’t (have to) take a lot of time. You could write a weekly blog post in an hour or less.

I don’t do much with social media. Many experts say that blogging and social media are inexorably intertwined. That may be true for (some? most?) bloggers but not for me. If you’re not writing a blog because you don’t have time for social media, or don’t like social media, you could do what I do. Or you could get some help.

I wrote a course on getting traffic (and clients) online. Click here.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Social media, Social media marketing, Writing

What’s your addiction?

February 3, 2014 by
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So another actor dies of a drug overdose. Those who knew Phillip Seymour Hoffman are saddened by his loss, but not surprised. He’d been a heavy drug user for many years.

According to one of the CLE courses I took recently, 50% of lawyers have a drug or alcohol problem. I’m having trouble believing that number, but even if it’s 25%, it’s too much.

But I don’t want to talk about drug or alcohol problems. I want to talk about other kinds of problems. We all have them. Not addictions necessarily, but bad habits. Things we do that are bad for us. We know we shouldn’t do them, but we do.

Like eating poorly and not exercising. Like smoking. Like texting while driving.

Many people are habitual procrastinators. Or leave too many loose ends. Or associate with the wrong people. One day, those habits may bite them.

Many lawyers resist change. Okay, most lawyers. That can actually be a good habit, however, because change involves risk and lawyers need to manage risk for their clients and for themselves. In the context of marketing, however, stubbornly avoiding change can hurt you. Not having an effective website, for example, is marketing malpractice.

I’m certainly not equating a drug addiction with everyday bad habits. We don’t have to go to rehab to give up our addiction to watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island. But bad habits of any kind can be deleterious to our physical or fiscal health.

What are your bad habits? What’s holding you back from achieving your goals? What should you eliminate or cut down on?

Take inventory of your weaknesses, bad habits, and addictions. The first step towards change is recognizing what needs to be changed.

Does your website need a makeover? This will help.

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Filed Under: Personal development Tagged With: , , ,
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