3 ways to tame your marketing beasts

May 5, 2016 by
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There are two powerful marketing methods available to you that you’re probably not using. You’re not alone. Most lawyers don’t use them, either because there are rules that preclude them from doing so or because they aren’t comfortable doing them even when the rules permit it.

What if I could eliminate these two obstacles for you? What if I could show you how you could safely and comfortably use one or both of these marketing methods to bring in a steady stream of new clients?

Would you hear me out?

Great. I’m going to pull back the curtain and show you the faces of these beasts.

The first beast goes by the name “unsolicited email”. You may recoil in horror, but I urge you to gaze at the face of this beast. Examine him, though your stomach may churn, for he can make you rich.

Take a breath as I reveal the second beast, who many say is more hideous than the first.

In polite company, we refer to the second beast as “cold calling”. You may know him as the Devil himself.

I know, you thought I was going to show you things you could do and here I’m talking about things you would never consider.

Never say never.

You can use cold calling and unsolicited email to build your practice, without violating any rules or doing anything unprofessional or uncomfortable.

You can let your marketing beasts out of their cage and tame them. Here are three ways to do that.

Strategy number one: Contact someone other than a prospective client

As far as I know, there are no rules against contacting another professional, a business owner, or other center of influence in your community or market via cold call or cold email. As long as you’re not contacting a prospective client, you can contact anyone, unsolicited though that first contact might be.

With email, you have to follow CAN-SPAM rules, and there may be rules against calling too early or too late in the day, but these rules are easy to follow.

And, with the right approach, you should be completely comfortable doing it.

What’s the right approach? See below.

Strategy number two: Call or write about something other than you and your services

Don’t promote your services. Don’t ask for referrals. In fact, on the first contact, you should say very little about yourself.

What do you say? There are lots of options. Here are a few:

You can introduce yourself as a fellow professional in the community, say something nice you heard about them or saw on their website, and offer to buy them coffee. You could ask to interview them for your blog or for an article. You could ask them to recommend a vendor or expert or if they know anything about an arbitrator you are considering. You could offer to send them information on a subject that would benefit them or their clients.

Strategy number three: have someone else make the first contact for you

If you’re still gun-shy, have someone in your office or a VA make the call or send the email on your behalf. You don’t have to talk to anyone until someone says they’d like to talk to you.

And that’s how you can tame these powerful marketing beasts.

For more approaches, scripts, and additional strategies, get this

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Filed Under: Referrals Tagged With: ,

Where to find inspiration when you need it

May 4, 2016 by
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In Evernote, I have a tag for “quotes”. As I browse websites, read books, and hear presentations, I look for statements or quotations that resonate with me and record them, and then use them in my writing and presentations. They give color and contour to my words and help readers or listeners understand and remember my message.

I also use quotations as an idea starter for creating new content.

When I’m scheduled to write something but I don’t have a subject, or I know what I want to say but I need an inspiring way to say it, I skim through my collection of quotes or visit websites that curate quotes, and find something that grabs my attention.

Sometimes, I use a quote as the basis for an entire post. Let me give you an example.

Yesterday I read an ebook that contained a quote from Erma Bombeck. She was best known for her humor but she was also an incisive observer of the world condition. The author of the book sought to inspire readers to go “all in” in our chosen work and he used Bombeck’s words to make his point. She said:

“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me’.”

That spoke to me, as I hope it speaks to you. It prompted me to remind you, and myself, that we owe it to ourselves, our family, our employees, and our clients, to use our God-given talents to their fullest. To do less than we are capable dishonors our maker.

Whatever you do, do it with gusto. Don’t hold back, don’t phone it in. Give it everything you’ve got.

If you can’t do that, or you can no longer do that, go do something else.

Many successful people in the world once practiced law. When they lost their passion for the job, or they discovered a different calling, they pivoted and began a new chapter in their life.

If being a lawyer makes you happy, use every ounce of talent God gave you to be the best lawyer you can be. If you’re not happy, if you find the job enervating instead of energizing, the best thing you can do for yourself and those who depend on you is to begin a new chapter in your life.

How I use tags and notebooks in Evernote

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Filed Under: Inspiration, Writing Tagged With:

Faster. Better. Cheaper. Pick Two.

May 3, 2016 by
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You’ve probably heard the expression, “Faster, better, cheaper–pick two”. No, it’s not advice for choosing a girlfriend, it comes from project management circles and is sometimes referred to as the “Iron Triangle”.

You can’t have all three benefits, the theory says, so pick the two you want most. You can have something done faster and better but it’s going to cost more. If you want it better and cheaper, it will take more time. You can get it done quickly and inexpensively but it won’t be as good.

This may be true in the engineering and project management world but is it true everywhere? Is it true with respect to legal services?

I say it’s not. I say a lawyer can deliver all three.

You can create good work product quickly. Actually, in my experience, doing the work quickly often produces a better work product. When I write or prepare for a talk, for example, working quickly usually leads to a better first draft.

In fact, lawyers should make “speed” a cornerstone of their proposition. Let your clients know that they can not only count on you to deliver high-quality work, you’ll deliver it expeditiously.

Isn’t that what clients want? Good results delivered quickly?

Quality and speed. That’s two of the three. What about cheap?

Don’t let that word throw you. The more accurate word is “value”. They get more value from you than from other lawyers.

Your services aren’t cheap. You don’t have the lowest fees. You don’t compete on “price”. You’re not a “discount lawyer”. Just the opposite. You are “a bit more expensive, but worth it”.

And that’s where the value comes in.

You deliver high-quality services quickly and your clients get more value from you than from other lawyers.

That’s your promise. That’s your challenge.

Faster. Better. Cheaper (more value). That’s the lawyers’ “Golden Triangle”.

Crafting your marketing plan and message: go here

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services

You stink and nobody should hire you!

May 2, 2016 by
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A recent article highlighted an increase in lawyer advertising among personal injury firms in major markets in response to “a slowdown in legal services and increasing competition”. The latest trend among some advertisers are ads where lawyers attack their rivals.

The thrust of these ads is to point out the shortcomings of other firms in an attempt to scare prospective clients away from them and into the loving arms of the advertiser.

A marketing consultant noted the reason for the growth of this type of ad: “The law-firm category here is just so cluttered,” she says. “They’re all saying the same thing.”

But that’s always been true. Whether it’s a big firm advertising on TV or a solo lawyer with a simple website, lawyers have always had messages that “said the same thing”. But is “going negative” a viable option for differentiating yourself?

I don’t know but since most lawyers probably won’t do it, I’d rather talk about something every lawyer can do.

In The Attorney Marketing Formula, I showed you many ways to differentiate yourself from other lawyers. It’s actually not that difficult to stand out from the crowd and show prospective clients why they should choose you instead of any other lawyer. With a little bit of thought, you can show them why you’re different or better, without saying a word about any other lawyer, negative or otherwise.

One of the simplest ways to do this is to make yourself a part of the marketing message.

You are unique. You have a personality, a background, a story that is uniquely you. When you are the face of your firm, you will get noticed. Clients will choose you because they “know” you, even if what you do is essentially the same as other lawyers.

Put your face and your voice in your TV and radio ads. Put your photo and your words in your print ads. Talk about yourself on your website, on your “About” page and throughout your content. Write in the first person. Make yourself a part of the story.

Let prospective clients see you and get to know you, because it is you that they hire.

If you have partners or work for a firm, it’s no different. Market yourself, not your firm. Remember, nobody hands out your business card to a referral and says, “Call my law firm”. They say, “Call my lawyer,” and then talk about you.

Don’t ignore the firm. The firm’s capabilities, reputation, and resources all help. But at the end of the day, it’s you the client will speak to and hire. So show them who you are before you show them what you do.

More ways to differentiate yourself here

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Filed Under: Advertising, Marketing legal services Tagged With:

We are all self-employed

April 29, 2016 by
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I heard from the lawyer who prompted my first post about the costs of opening your own law office. He said he realizes he will likely always be low man on the totem pole at the firm that employs him and says “we all need to own our own shop”.

He offers this advice to the lawyer I wrote about yesterday who also wants to go out on his own: “View the job as a temporary gig–a placeholder until he gets some of his own clients. [C]lient development comes first. The job–the boss–comes second. That mentality and your advice have made a tremendous difference in my life.”

“Marketing is everything” has always been a plank in my law-practice-building platform and it is as true for employees as it is for the self-employed.

It is also a corollary of my position that we are all self-employed.

You may currently work for a firm but if you have the ability to attract clients, you have the power. You can take your marketing skills and those clients with you to another firm or open your own.

If you work for a firm, think about things from their perspective. They can always hire attorneys to do the legal work and if that’s all you do, no matter how well you do it, they can always replace you. What they can’t replace is your ability to bring in lots of clients and keep them happy.

You either do this or you do not. If you don’t, you shouldn’t expect your employer to pay you more than is required to keep you from quitting.

They’re not going to pay you more because they like you or you’ve been with them a long time. We still live in a capitalist society. There are no unions for lawyers. Your compensation is proportionate to the value you bring to the firm.

If you want to earn more and have other benefits afforded to the partners, you have to do more. If you do, and you still aren’t compensated at the level you deserve, pick up your marbles and go play somewhere else.

Because we are all self-employed.

Marketing is easier when you know The Formula

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services

You know the answer, you just need someone else to say it

April 28, 2016 by
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I heard from an attorney who has been practicing for 15 years and is thinking of leaving his job with a law firm where he feels like he’ll always be the low man on the totem pole.

“I want to start out on my own. My wife [an attorney] is against this; we have 4 kids and a mortgage and she makes considerably less than I do.” He’d read my blog post about the costs of opening your own office but wanted to know more about actual costs. “I need a business license, insurance, an office, and a decent computer system. What’s your estimate for starting up?”

Here’s what I said:

“Okay, setting up the office is the easy part and it’s not expensive. You can get a furnished executive suite or take a spare office from another attorney in return for appearances or overflow. If you have a laptop computer that does what you need, you’re in business. If you don’t, you can finance one for next to nothing from Dell.

Insurance can wait. (That’s not legal advice). So can a lot of other things. One nice thing about low overhead is that it doesn’t take much to stay afloat.

The hard part is the family. You have to work that out. Your wife is scared and perhaps she has a right to be, but most people don’t understand “the itch” and aren’t willing to scratch it. So you have to have a long talk. Or a series of talks. And if you can’t get her on board and you still want to do this, you may have to do it without her permission. And then work your butt off to bring in lots of business.

Sometimes, when I’ve taken big scary leaps in my career, I first asked myself, “What’s the worst that can happen?” Will I die? End up in prison? Lose my house? Lose my wife? End up homeless, penniless, on drugs and wanting to die?

When you think about the worst case scenario in all it’s overly dramatic splendor, you realize that most of this is highly unlikely, and whatever does happen is probably something you can survive. Bad things may happen, but you probably won’t die, and as they say, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.

Whatever you decide, don’t second guess yourself. Stay or go, but don’t look back.”

He wrote back and said he’s going to talk to his wife and will keep me posted.

But here’s the thing. He’s a smart guy and surely knew I couldn’t give him an estimate of how much he would need to open his own office. But that’s not the real reason he contacted me. He was reaching out because he’s nervous about the whole idea and wanted to hear a friendly voice who had been there and done that.

Here’s the other thing. I’m sure he also knew the part about making the leap with or without his wife on board. He knew it but needed me to say it.

We all know more than we realize we know, don’t we? But we don’t always trust what we know.

Sometimes we use logic to guide us to the right decision. Sometimes we throw logic out the window and let our gut get us past the fear so we can do what we want to do.

When you face big a decision like this, it’s good to talk to someone who’s been down that path. They can provide information and encouragement and ask you questions that allow you to sort things out. You could also pray on it, write in a journal, talk to experts, and do a lot of research.

But while these might be the mature way of handling things, sometimes you just have to jump and see what happens. As Helen Keller said, “Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing.”

I’ve made many leaps in my legal career and with businesses I’ve started. Things didn’t always work out but I never wound up homeless and I always learned something about myself and about the world I was able to use down the road.

So am I saying you should do what you want to do even when there are lots of reasons why you shouldn’t?

No. I’m not saying that. You are.

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Filed Under: Personal development, success Tagged With: ,

Suggested marketing budget for lawyers?

April 27, 2016 by
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Yesterday, I talked about the need to establish a marketing budget for your practice. A reader emailed me a link to an article with a similar theme. The author was speaking about technology companies, not law firms, but makes a good point about the vital need to invest in marketing:

“You need to be the best marketer in your marketplace to succeed in today’s Internet world. You need to spend at least 15% of your revenues on marketing and sales, and preferably over 20% of revenues to really grow.

If you do not spend at least 15% of revenues on sales, and more on marketing, then your company will have a very difficult time not just growing, but even surviving.”

This doesn’t mean lawyers must follow the same guidelines. Tech companies and law firms are as different as night and day. While I can’t tell you what percentage of your revenue you should invest in marketing, at least not without knowing your current situation and goals, I can tell you some of the factors I would consider:

  • Your current gross and net income. How much do you have available for marketing after overhead, debt service, and other fixed costs of doing business?
  • Your practice areas, current marketing methods, and budget. What results are you getting? (i.e., traffic, leads, percentage of sign-ups, etc.)
  • Your average fee per case or client. Are they typically one-time clients or clients with ongoing legal needs?
  • The lifetime value of a client. How many times will he return, how much will he spend, how often will he refer?
  • Your target markets. (Niche markets are usually easier and less expensive to reach.)
  • Your ideal client and the costs to attract and court them. (Big companies, for example, might involve more expensive presentations, wining and dining, and a longer time frame. If you advertise, your cost per client is likely to be higher than other marketing methods.)
  • Your competition. How many other lawyers or firms do what you do? What marketing methods do they use? How much do they spend?
  • Your experience, reputation, and USP? How are you different or better? How easy is it to market you?
  • Current marketing resources: in-house talent, size of your email list, websites/blogs, social media following, etc.
  • Your credit worthiness. Can you finance your marketing with a line of credit at favorable rates? If you advertise, note that many publications offer generous credit terms.
  • Your attitude towards marketing. Do you like it? Are you good at it? How aggressive are you?
  • Other offices, practice areas, lawyers in your firm? Can you amortize or share marketing expenses?
  • Your goals. How many? How fast? Do you want high volume or high quality? Where do you want to be in 5 or 10 years?

Lawyers tend to have big margins (i.e., the size of the average fee vs. the cost to deliver the service), which means you can probably justify a bigger investment in marketing than you currently spend. Don’t forget to include the lifetime value of a client in making that calculation.

Depending on your practice areas and primary marketing methods, you might find that you can do just fine with a modest marketing budget. If you get most of your business through referrals, for example, you don’t need to spend 15 or 20% of your gross on marketing. If you want to grow bigger and faster, however, or you’re in an especially competitive market, you just might.

Whatever other marketing you do, you should focus on referrals

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

How much is your marketing budget?

April 26, 2016 by
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How much do you budget each month for marketing? If the answer is “zero” you might want to re-think that because it means you’re doing all of your marketing yourself or you’re not doing it at all.

While marketing professional services cannot be completely outsourced or delegated, there are many tasks that can.

And if something can be delegated, it should be.

So you need a marketing budget to hire talent, buy tools, and generate traffic to your websites. You should also have funds available to take advantage of opportunities when they arise.

Just as a separate bank account for savings makes sense, it’s good to have a separate bank account for marketing. It’s also wise to fund your account with automatic deposits from your general business account.

You should set up this account even if you’re not yet sure how you will spend the money. Putting $100 or $200 a month into your marketing account (to start) will not only allow you to have the funds available when you decide what to do, watching your fund grow every month may “force” you to find ways to spend it.

My daughter gave me a gift card for my birthday and I immediately deposited it with Amazon. I haven’t spent it, but it’s burning a hole in my digital pocket. Knowing the money is there means that every time I log into Amazon I go looking for something to buy.

The same thing will happen as you accumulate funds in your marketing account.

Knowing you have the money available, you’ll think about marketing more often. You’ll consider doing things you may have previously rejected or put off. When you’re busy doing legal work, your subconscious mind will be working on marketing ideas, and prompting you to take action.

What about budgeting time for marketing? After all, so much of marketing professional services–networking, speaking, relationship building, (some) writing, and other things you can’t delegate–require your time.

Yep, you can budget for this, too. Just as you can set aside regular time for personal development (e.g., 15 minutes a day, an hour a week), you can (and should) do the same for marketing.

Don’t dabble with marketing or try to do everything yourself. If you want to build a successful practice, you have to invest in it. I can’t tell you how much to budget for marketing but anything more than zero is a good start.

Get a marketing plan with this

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Filed Under: Marketing Plan

If I could save time in a bottle

April 25, 2016 by
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You know the wisdom of putting money into a saving account or retirement account each month, and not touching it. In five or ten years, or twenty, you’ll have a sizable nest egg.

If you’re not doing this already, the easiest way to start is to have your bank automatically deduct a certain amount each month and move it to a savings account. When it’s done automatically, you don’t think about it.

It’s a simple way to “pay yourself first”.

Start small if you must, with an amount you won’t miss. Even $25 or $50. You can increase the amount down the road.

Saving money isn’t difficult when you pay yourself first. You just have to start.

Now if it were only possible to do the same thing with time.

What if you could put away an hour or two each month, to be used at a later date? You wouldn’t miss those hours, and in five or ten years, you’d have enough time saved up to be able to take major vacations, retire early or spend time with someone you love.

Okay, that’s not possible. But you could do the next best thing.

What if every month you invested a few hours in yourself? It’s called personal development. The more you do, the more valuable you become. If you do it regularly, in a few years you may be good enough to earn fifty times what you earn now. A few years more and you may have enough money and passive income to be able to do whatever you want with your time.

If you do it regularly, in a few years you may be good enough to earn twenty times what you earn now. A few years more and you may have enough money and passive income to be able to do whatever you want with your time.

But first, you need to invest time to work on yourself. The easiest way to do that? Automatically.

Use your calendar to schedule time for personal development. You can schedule 15 minutes a day, or an hour a week, but whatever you do, you should do it regularly and automatically.

Without thinking about it.

If you calendar an hour every Friday at 4pm for personal development, you must keep that appointment with yourself.

Read, watch training videos, learn something new. Spend time with people who can teach you things about business and life. Learn from them and observe them so you can model their attitudes and behaviors.

If you do this regularly, the time you invest in personal development will have a tremendous payoff down the road. Five years from now, you’ll look back at the person you were when you began your journey and you’ll be glad you decided to pay yourself first.

Get good at getting referrals

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Filed Under: Personal development

Thinking is hard but it pays well

April 22, 2016 by
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If you have multiple practice areas or offer a variety of different services, which one or ones do you promote?

Your best sellers? Your weakest? Your most profitable?

Do you lead with a low priced “entry level” service, seeking to create a new client, and then offer additional services through upsells and on the back end? Or do you lay out all of your wares up front and let the client choose?

If you advertise, which service(s) do you feature? Or do you offer information to build your list and talk about specific services only after they subscribe or inquire?

What do you highlight on your website? When you speak or write, what examples do you use? When someone asks you about your work, what do you say?

If you are a family law attorney, handling divorce and adoptions, but you’re not getting much adoption work, do you double your efforts and promote that or do you continue to advertise and promote divorce? Or do you do both?

Even if you have one practice area and offer one service such as plaintiff’s personal injury, you still need to decide where you will focus. Do you list a variety of different injuries, types of torts, or causes of action, or just one?

These are things you need to think about because they are fundamental to your “brand” and to how you conduct your marketing activities and spend your marketing dollars.

They are, of course, also an argument in favor of specializing. It’s a lot easier to make decisions about where to advertise or network or speak when you offer fewer services to a smaller segment of the market.

But I’m not going to bust your chops about that today. I’m just going to remind you to spend some time pondering these things and making some decisions.

You thought I was going to give you the answers? Sorry. No can do. It’s too complicated. There are too many variables. You have to answer these questions yourself.

All I can do is ask the questions and encourage you to explore your options.

I can also point out that the ultimate way to answer these questions is to test and measure your results.

Run ads for two different practice areas or services and see which one brings in the most inquiries or leads, which one converts to the most dollars on the front end, and which one results in more profits long term.

So you advertise your divorce services and your adoption services and see.

Testing allows you to make a decision based on hard evidence. That’s the “science” of marketing.

Of course marketing is also an art. Don’t ignore your instincts or your heart. If you think your market is ready to learn more about adoption, or you’re passionate about the subject, go for it. Even if the numbers don’t add up.

For help sorting things out, get this

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Filed Under: Advertising, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Specializing
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