In my humble (but accurate) opinion, marketing is foundational to the growth of every professional practice. You have to do it. You may not like it. You may even hate it. But if you don’t do it, you’re not going to be around very long.
You could get a job. One that doesn’t require you to bring in business. If that works for you, great. Problem solved. You’re welcome.
On the other hand, if you don’t want to work for someone else, you’re going to have to do something to bring in new clients.
You could find a partner who likes marketing and let them do it. Or hire people (employees, consultants, advertising agencies, etc.) and pay them to do most of the marketing for you. You write checks, they make your phone ring.
But that’s not the entire answer. Clients may call but if you have zero people skills, they’re not going to sign up or stick around.
Where does that leave us? Here’s what I suggest.
Find something—one strategy, one idea, one way to identify and communicate with prospective clients and the people who can refer them, something that doesn’t make you want to slit your wrists, and do that. Just that one thing.
Start small. Get some results. Build from there.
You can do this. Actually, you might find, as many lawyers do, that you actually enjoy doing it. You’ll certainly enjoy the results it brings.
To get started, you might have to trick yourself. Pretend that what you’re doing isn’t “marketing,” it’s just doing some writing or speaking or meeting some people and being nice to them.
Yes, that’s marketing. Marketing is everything we do to get and keep good clients. But if you hate marketing that much and don’t want to admit to yourself that you’re doing it, I won’t tell anyone what you’re doing.
How to make marketing less painful. See this
