Email marketing for lawyers

July 25, 2013 by
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I talked to a lawyer yesterday who told me looks forward to reading my emails every day. I hear that a lot.

There’s a lesson in this.

When you deliver value–information, ideas, stories, tips–you can email your list often. Even daily.

Your readers will look forward to getting your emails and they will read them.

The ones who don’t, the ones who either don’t read your email or unsubscribe from you list, would probably never hire you anyway and you can safely let them go.

The ones who like your emails:

  • Know you. They know your name and what you do.
  • Like you. They like hearing your “voice” and reading your advice and stories.
  • Trust you. They see that you are consistent, dependable. They see that you are continually solving legal problems for other clients and believe you could do the same for them.

So. . .

  • When they need your services, they’ll almost always call you instead of any other lawyer
  • When they know someone who needs your services, they’ll refer them to you instead of any other lawyer
  • When you ask them to “Like” your page, share your article, or invite their friends and contacts to register for your seminar, there’s a good chance they will

Compare this to lawyers who don’t have a list. They have no way to stay in touch with prospective clients so none of the above can occur.

And compare this to lawyers who do have a list but either don’t send value or don’t email often enough:

  • When they do email, it goes into spam or is not recognized, so it is not opened and read
  • Or, it’s been so long since they have heard from the lawyer, they don’t really know, like, and trust him, and thus, won’t hire him (or refer)
  • Or, the email is opened and read but it’s been so long since they heard from the lawyer, they’ve already hired someone

You don’t have to mail every day. Once a week is fine. But do mail often and do deliver value.

Your emails can be short and sweet. A tip, a quick story, a reminder. If you write an article or blog post, send that. If you find an interesting article or video on someone else’s site, send them a link. If you have an interesting case or client, tell them about it.

Email marketing for lawyers is simple. Build a list and build a relationship with the people on that list.

You know you’re doing it right when your subscribers tell you they look forward to getting your emails.

Want to know how to build a list and what to send them? This shows you what to do.

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Filed Under: Communication, Email, List building, Marketing legal services, Newsletters, Online Marketing, Relationship marketing Tagged With: ,

IMPORTANT: If you use gmail (and if you don’t, your clients DO)

July 24, 2013 by
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Gmail is rolling out a new feature that may make it less likely that you will see my emails. If you have an email list for your clients and prospects, they will be less likely to see YOUR emails.

The new feature categorizes incoming emails into “Primary,” “Social,” or “Promotions” tabs. Because I use a commercial autoresponder to deliver my emails, they will automatically be categorized as “Promotions” and lumped together with other “commercial” emails, including advertising.

You know, the stuff you don’t read.

That means my emails won’t go into your inbox and you may never see them. Your clients won’t be see YOUR emails.

This can be avoided by adjusting your settings, once the new feature is active.

Simply find one of my emails in “Promotions” and drag it into “Primary”.

A pop-up will appear and ask you if you want to do this for all future messages. Click “Yes”.

That’s it. Now, my emails will appear in your inbox.

If you want to completely remove these new tabs, go to the Settings box in the upper right hand corner of your inbox and select “Settings.” Click on the “Inbox” tab and unselect all categories but “Primary” (remember to save your changes).

That’s what I’ve done for my account. Don’t like all those tabs crowding my space. Seems like more work for me, not less.

Anyway, once you’ve done this, make sure you notify your lists to do the same. Many people use Gmail. As much as 50% of your list, by some estimates. If they don’t make this change, they won’t see your emails, and that’s not good for them or you.

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Filed Under: Email, Law office management, List building, News, Newsletters Tagged With:

How to stop procrastinating

July 23, 2013 by
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I wonder how many people each day search on the term, “how to stop procrastinating”.

Eh, I’ll look it up later.

If you’re like me, and most of humanity, you have experienced and perhaps struggled with procrastination. You know there are things you need to do but you don’t want to do them. (If you wanted to do them, you would do them.)

You are feeling resistance because the task is too big, too unpleasant, or too difficult. You may not know what to do or where to begin. The task may be too risky and you are afraid of making a mistake.

So, you tell yourself you don’t really need to do it now, it can wait. Or you elevate the importance or urgency of other tasks and do them instead.

You may have become very clever at finding excuses for not doing the things you need to do. And you may feel guilty about that and look for ways to overcome your affliction.

But you shouldn’t. Your subconscious mind has created this resistance and you shouldn’t fight it, you should give in to it.

Your subconscious self wants you to be safe and happy so it makes you feel negative emotions when you think about tasks you don’t want to do.

Don’t ignore those feelings. Don’t try to overcome them. Let them stop you.

I’m not saying you can shirk your responsibilities. You can’t simply blow off anything you don’t want to do. What I am saying is that instead of bulldozing through the wall of resistance in front of you, find a way around it.

One way to do that is the “salami technique”. Take a big project and cut it into thin, manageable slices.

If you are procrastinating about starting or revising your website, for example, find some aspect of that project where there is little or no resistance. Something small and easy.

You might bookmark some sites you like, or collect articles to read later. You might open a new file and make a few notes or a list of questions.

Easy to do. And if you do any of them, you will have begun the project. Now, look for something else that’s easy to do and do that.

Yes, there are times when you have to suck it up and do things you simply don’t want to do. You have to “feel the fear and do it anyway.” But if you continually break things down into smaller and easier tasks, you can almost always find a way to get started, and that is always better than doing nothing.

Want to know how to stop procrastinating? Stop trying to stop. When you come up to a wall, turn left or turn right and keep walking.

If you need to start or revise your website, this is all you need.

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

Hold the pickles, your clients want to have it their way

July 22, 2013 by
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McDonalds shares fell today as their latest financial report disappointed investors. One reason for their lackluster sales is that their new healthier menu items aren’t catching on with customers.

Customers may need healthier food but if they don’t want it, they won’t buy it. (Someone please remind Mayor Bloomberg).

Are you giving your clients what they want or insisting they buy what they need? Yes, you owe them a duty to present and recommend what they need, but you’ll have a much easier time (and earn more) offering them services they want.

But I don’t want to dive into that topic right now. Instead, I want to remind you that you also prefer to buy what you want, not necessarily what you need. But are you?

I’m talking about your law practice and career. Are you doing what you want or have you bought into doing what you need?

Many lawyers go to law school for the wrong reasons. Did you?

Maybe you really wanted to do something else but convinced yourself that a legal career was a better choice.

You may have chosen your practice area for similar reasons. It was what you knew or what seemed like the most lucrative field. It’s what you thought you needed to do, not what you really wanted to do.

How about the way(s) you market your practice. Are you doing things you really don’t enjoy but feel you need to do?

Stop for a minute and think about your practice or career. Are you doing what you need to do or what you want to do? More importantly, are you happy?

You may successful. Don’t let that cloud your thinking. You can be successful and unhappy. You may have been even more successful doing something else that made you happy.

You still can. You have a choice. You can change what you’re doing. You can do what you want and you can find a way to make it deliver what you need.

Burger King, one of McDonald’s biggest competitors, used to advertise that “you can have it your way”. I still recall the jingle: “Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us, have it your way, at Burger King.”

I hope McDonalds (and you) are listening.

Do you want to Make the Phone Ring? Here’s how I do it.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, success Tagged With: ,

Do you have complaining clients? That’s good!

July 19, 2013 by
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The other night my wife and I went to a well-known Mexican restaurant. We ordered the fajitas “combo” which was billed as having chicken, steak, jumbo shrimp, and scallops.

Yummy.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t yummy, it was just okay.

I could accept that. What I couldn’t accept is that there were only two pieces of steak, two pieces of chicken, two (small) shrimp, and no scallops. None.

I told the waiter I was not happy and he went to summon the manager. He came back and said the manager couldn’t come over, he was busy talking to some customers.

I’m a customer! An unhappy one! He should be talking to me!

The waiter said he’d had other complaints about the size of the portions and offered me a free dessert. I declined and asked for the check. I told him I wouldn’t be back and I would tell everyone I knew not to come.

And I will.

Because I can.

What kind of manager won’t come to talk to a customer with a complaint? An idiot, that’s what kind.

When a customer (client) has a complaint, you must talk to him, validate him, and offer to fix the problem. You do not want a customer going away angry, ready to tell dozens of other customers about his bad experience.

You must do this, because it’s the right thing to do.

You must do this because it can stop a dissatisfied customer from spreading negative messages to other prospective customers, which will lose business and generate ill will.

You must do this because when you turn complaining clients into satisfied clients (through validation, apologizing, and various make-goods), that client often turns into one of your biggest advocates, spreading the word about how you took care of him properly when something wasn’t right.

Customers (clients) don’t expect perfection. They expect to be treated right. When there’s a problem, they don’t want it to be ignored.

And so if you own a restaurant (law firm), you definitely want to know when a customer has a problem because it is an opportunity for you. You should welcome complaints, and embrace clients who have them. They are doing you a favor by telling you how to improve.

Unfortunately most clients who are unhappy don’t complain. They just stop calling. You don’t want that to happen. You want to know if they are unhappy with your services, your staff, or you. You want to know so you can make things right for them and so you can fix the problem that is probably causing other clients to be unhappy.

At the very least, give your clients an “exit survey,” asking them to rate and review your performance. Ask them what you did well and what you could improve.

In addition, put a form on your website with language that encourages visitors to share feedback anonymously.

And, if you forget the scallops, make sure you don’t ignore the client. There are too many other lawyers who offer a good fajitas combo.

Marketing is everything you do to get and keep good clients. Here’s The Formula.

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

3 simple questions for managing your law practice

July 17, 2013 by
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Managing your law practice is anything but simple. There are a lot of moving parts. People, problems, deadlines. It’s easy to get lost.

If you find yourself busy but not achieving your goals, if you find yourself doing but not getting things done, I want to offer you a way to gain clarity and get back on track.

All you have to do is ask yourself 3 simple questions.

The first question is. . .

1. What do I want?

More clients? Better clients? Bigger cases?

Lower overhead? Less stress? Shorter hours?

Do you want to build a big practice or do you want to work towards retirement? Do you want to eliminate a problem or achieve a milestone?

Whatever it is, write it down, and be specific. You need to know what you want before you can work on getting it.

Let’s say the answer is “I want to get an average of two referrals every week.”

Nice. Now you know what you want. Now, answer the next question.

2. Why don’t I have it?

Why aren’t you getting an average of two referrals every week right now?

Are there any obstacles? Problems? Defects? Something you should do but aren’t? Something you are doing but aren’t doing enough? Something you are doing but aren’t doing well enough?

Be honest. There could be many reasons for not getting the referrals:

  • You don’t have enough referral sources
  • You don’t have enough former clients to provide enough referrals
  • Your existing and former clients don’t know enough people who need your services
  • Your clients don’t know you want their referrals; (you’re not asking for referrals or asking often enough)
  • Your fees are higher than other attorneys and you haven’t made it clear why you are worth more
  • Your fees are lower than other attorneys and people think there is a reason (i.e., you don’t have the experience, don’t get the results) and get scared off
  • You’re intimidating or have a reputation for being unapproachable
  • You haven’t made it easy for people to refer (i.e., told them what to do, what to say, etc.)
  • There aren’t enough cases or clients in your market
  • You don’t have a website (so referrals can’t “check you out”)
  • Your website isn’t good enough so when referrals check you out, they get scared off
  • Your competition gets the lion’s share of referrals because they [know someone, spend big money on advertising, etc. . .]

There are lots of reasons why you might not be getting the referrals you want. Write down everything you can think of. Ask your staff. Ask your colleagues.

You may not like some of the reasons, especially the ones that reveal your personal shortcomings. Those are probably the ones you need to pay the most attention to.

Okay, one more question to answer.

3. What can I do about it?

Once you know why you don’t have what you want, it’s time to focus on solutions.

What can you do to remove obstacles? Fix problems? Make improvements?

Write a “can do” list–a list of what you can do.

If you’re not getting enough referrals because you don’t have enough referral sources, that’s something you can work on. Write it down. You can get more referral sources.

On the other hand, if you’re not getting enough referrals because you don’t have enough former clients to make those referrals, you can’t do anything about that right now. That’s not something you “can do”.

There may be items on your “can do” list that you choose not to do. That’s okay. Write them down anyway because you may decide to do them later or they might give you ideas for other solutions.

For example, if your market isn’t big enough to supply you with the referrals you want, you can move, open a second office in another town, or take on another practice area. All things you can do, but you might choose not to do any.

However, although you might not want to open a second office right now, or ever, writing it down as a “can do” might prompt you to find an attorney in another town and establish mutual “of counsel” arrangements. Now you can promote your “other office” to your clients and contacts and start getting referrals in that other town.

A “can do” list shows you what’s possible. Instead of dwelling on problems, you will focus on solutions and be on your way to getting what you want.

Does your website need work? I can help. Let me show you how to Make the Phone Ring.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Personal development, Referrals Tagged With: , , , ,

Social media marketing for attorneys is not that important

July 16, 2013 by
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If you don’t have a robust social media marketing strategy in place you could soon find yourself left behind. At least that’s what everyone is saying.

This recent article in Entrepreneur is typical. It says that more and more people, especially younger ones, increasingly discover websites through social networks, less so through search.

I say it doesn’t matter. Social media marketing for attorneys isn’t that important.

Let’s think this through.

Joey Prospect has a legal problem and needs a lawyer. He goes to his favorite social network and asks for a recommendation. If his contacts have said recommendation, they provide it and a link to the lawyer’s website. If they don’t have the link, they tell Joey to do a search on the lawyer’s name.

What does this tell us? It tells us that nothing has changed. When someone needs a recommendation, they ask people they know. Yesterday, they may have phoned. Today, they go online.

If someone knows you and thinks you’re a good egg, they will refer people to you (your site) when asked. The people asking for the referral and the people giving the referral may be connected through a social network, but in the scenario above, the lawyer doesn’t have to be connected to either one.

Besides, most lawyers don’t actively engage with prospective clients through social media, nor do they need to. Most prospects don’t think about legal issues unless and until they have one and probably don’t have anything to say to a lawyer or want to hear anything a lawyer says until that occurs.

So, it’s a good thing that your clients and contacts are networking through social media. It’s good that social media is growing as a means for finding recommendations.

But, let’s keep things in perspective. If you handle legal issues that most people don’t want their friends to know about, you’re not going to get a lot of referrals that way. “Does anyone know a good criminal defense lawyer? Yeah, just got arrested for narcotics trafficking, a-gain!”

Search isn’t going to go away. So, lawyers need a website and some basic SEO in place because Joey Prospect is going to want to visit that site to see what the lawyer can do, and if the link is not provided, he is going to “google” the lawyer’s name.

Focus on building a great website with lots of quality content (i.e., solutions). This will (a) let people find you through search engines, (b) show prospects what you can do to help them, build trust, and convince them to choose you, and (c) allow people who know you or find your website to share your content with their networks.

You should provide an easy way for visitors to your site to connect with you via social media, i.e., you should have accounts with the major social media platforms and icons that allow visitors to connect with or follow you. And you should provide share buttons which make it easy for visitors to share your content with their networks.

Let everyone else worry about the networking.

However, social media is a great place for lawyers to network with other professionals. Use it to find and engage lawyers and other potential referral sources and joint venture partners.

And, if you advertise, you should probably allocate more dollars to ad buys on social media.

But don’t get hung up on the idea that you need to have a big list of social media contacts and you need to be conversing with them every day. You don’t. Social media marketing for attorneys, at least the way most people talk about it, just isn’t that important.

Learn more about social media and marketing online for attorneys in my course, Make the Phone Ring.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, SEO, Social media, Social media marketing Tagged With: , ,

3 ways to leverage every case or client to get your next case or client

July 15, 2013 by
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Get a client. Do the work. Look for the next client.

That’s what you do, isn’t it? It’s always been that way. It always will be that way. It’s the circle of life.

Hakuna matata.

You can’t change the process. But you might make it more fruitful. Before you move from one case or client to the next, take a few minutes to reflect on how you can leverage that case or client to expand, enhance, or streamline your practice.

Here are three ways to do that:

TALK ABOUT IT

No matter how routine or boring, there’s always something you can talk about. It could be as simple as saying, “I have a new client who. . .” or, “I just finished a case where. . .” and then sharing a detail or two about your client’s background, industry, occupation, demographic, or niche, as well as their issue and what you did for them.

Talk about your cases and clients in conversations with clients, prospects, and professional contacts. It gives you ways to start a conversation or validate a point being made by someone else. It gives you ways to illustrate points in your presentations. And it allows you to remind people about what you do and for whom you do it without talking about yourself.

WRITE ABOUT IT

Every case and client is a story. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. You should be telling those stories in your blog, newsletter, and articles.

If it’s a great story, feature it. If it’s routine, mention it in connection with other mentions about other cases or clients, e.g., “my last three clients.”

Use these stories to illustrate points in your reports or marketing documents. Or use them as prompts when you don’t know what to write about.

At the end of every case, make a few notes and put them in an idea file. You won’t write about every one but you never know which one might provide you with exactly the idea you need.

THINK ABOUT IT

At the conclusion of every matter, take five minutes and ask yourself two questions:

  1. What did I do well?
  2. What can I do better?

By answering these questions, you will almost always find ways to improve your work, your client relations, or your marketing.

There’s one more thing you can do at the end of every case.

Send thank you notes.

To your clients, to expert witnesses, to opposing counsel. Thank them for putting their faith in you, for their help, for their professionalism.

Every case or client presents an opportunity to connect further with someone and set the stage for a deeper relationship. Thank you notes will bring you repeat business, referrals, and a reputation for being someone worth knowing.

Marketing is everything we do to get and keep good clients. Here’s The Formula.

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Filed Under: Client relations, Communication, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Networking, Presentations, Thank you letters, Writing Tagged With:

Thinking like a lawyer may be harmful to your law practice

July 12, 2013 by
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My wife gets frustrated when I answer her questions with questions. Or when she asks for my opinion about something and I am non-committal.

Why am I like that?

Because I’m a lawyer. Lawyers are trained (and pre-disposed) to question things. To look at both sides. Weigh the consequences.

We can’t help it. “On the other hand. . .” is hard wired into brains.

Thinking like a lawyer protects us and our clients. It avoids harm. If something bad happens, it minimizes damages.

But while thinking like a lawyer may be a necessary competent of being a lawyer, it can hinder the growth and profitability of our practice.

Lawyers usually have a difficult time making decisions. All that weighing and “on-the-other-hand”-ing keeps us in a form of stasis. When it comes to making decisions about hiring, delegating, marketing, and managing our practice, we often make no decision.

But making no decision is a decision–a decision to maintain status quo.

A law practice, like a living creature, is either growing or dying. If you are not growing, if your practice is the same today as it was a year ago and you do nothing to change that, eventually your practice will die.

Change is an essential component of life, and change occurs because of your decisions. Stephen Covey said, “I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.”

If you have difficulty making decisions and you want to change this, the first thing you should do is to decide to change this.

Paradoxical, I know.

Start by lying to yourself. Tell yourself that you have decided to get better (and faster) at making decisions, even if this is not true. You don’t have to tell yourself that you are a good decision maker, just that you have decided to get better.

Get comfortable with the idea. Let it rumble around inside your brain. Write it down if you are brave.

Your subconscious mind won’t know it’s not true–it believes what you tell it. And your Reticular Activating System (RAS), the part of your brain that filters stimuli based on your beliefs and desires, will get to work on your behalf.

First, your RAS will filter out stimuli that contradicts the notion of you being better (and faster) at making decisions. It will hide or downplay memories of situations where you have had trouble making decisions.

Second, your RAS will allow in more stimuli that is consistent with the new you. It will call your attention to situations where you have made good decisions or fast decisions, and it will infuse those thoughts with positive emotions.

Your RAS will also help you find ways to get better at decision making. It might make you notice an article or book that can help. It might make you recall someone you met who is good at making decisions quickly, prompting you to speak to them.

If you have been having trouble making decisions about a specific topic, creating or improving your website and online marketing for example, your RAS will help you get additional information about that subject so that making decisions gets easier.

If you want to get better at making decisions, you can. But only if you decide you can.

Here it is: more information about marketing online for attorneys.

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